Mystery of the Missing Meters: Accounting for Iraq's Oil Revenue

by Pratap Chatterjee, Special to CorpWatch March 22nd, 2007

The line of ships at the Al Basra Oil Terminal (ABOT) stretches south to the horizon, patiently waiting in the searing heat of the Northern Arabian Gulf as four giant supertankers load up. Close by, two more tankers fill up at the smaller Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal (KAAOT). Guarding both terminals are dozens of heavily-armed U.S. Navy troops and Iraqi Marines who live on the platforms. These two offshore terminals, a maze of pipes and precarious metal walkways, deliver some 1.6 million barrels of crude oil, at least 85 percent of Iraq's output, to buyers from all over the world. If the southern oil fields are the heart of Iraq's economy, its main arteries are three 40-plus inch pipelines that stretch some 52 miles from Iraq's wells to the ports. Heavily armed soldiers spend their days at the oil terminals scanning the horizon looking for suicide bombers and stray fishing dhows (boats). Meanwhile, right under their noses, smugglers are suspected to be diverting an estimated billions of dollars worth of crude onto tankers because the oil metering system that is supposed monitor how much crude flows into and out of ABOT and KAAOT - has not worked since the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Officials blame the four-year delay in repairing the relatively simple system on "security problems." Others point to the failed efforts of the two U.S. companies hired to repair the southern oil fields, fix the two terminals, and the meters: Halliburton of Houston, Texas, and Parsons of Pasadena, California. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) is scheduled to publish a report this spring that is expected criticize the companies' failure to complete the work. Smuggled Three Ways Oil smuggling is believed to be occurring in three different ways in Iraq: 1. Iraqi crude. At ABOT, officials at Iraq's state-owned South Oil Company (SOC) that extracts the crude, and at the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) that pipes the crude to the terminals, would have to know about smuggling, even if they were not benefiting from the scheme. Buyers from Brazil to India, from Thailand to the United States, purchase crude from Iraq at ABOT. The tanker operators would also have to be part of smuggling schemes. They would sign receipts for a lower quantity than they actually receive, and pay the extra directly to the smugglers. The most likely collaborators are either Iraqi or U.S. officials who supervise the production and delivery. Or both. 2. Imported fuel. Iraq spends a small fortune to buy fuel from neighboring countries including Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Much of this fuel goes to local drivers at a subsidized rate, and constitutes possibly the single most expensive item in the national budget after government salaries. In 2005 Iraq spent $4.2 billion of its $24.2 billion gross domestic product (GDP) on imported oil; the bill for 2006 is expected to exceed $5 billion. Smugglers siphon off a significant amount of the government subsidized fuel to sell back overseas at full price: The Ministry of Oil estimates the value at $800 million. 3. Theft of locally-produced gasoline. Iraqi gasoline is stolen from refineries or illegal taps on pipelines and resold within the country or smuggled abroad. Another $800 million worth of black market fuels is sold within Iraq, in places from Penjwin in the far north, to Abu al-Khasib in the south. (see next box) The U.S. military believes that the money from these operations funds insurgent operations, although evidence suggests that some also goes to straightforward petty corruption. In mid-March 2007, the U.S. military launched "Operation Honest Hands" which brought the Beiji refinery under control of the 82nd Airborne Division. The U.S. government paid to install video cameras, digital weighing machines for the trucks, and "sophisticated data-sifting methods" to identify senior Iraqi officials with ties to black-market oil rings, according to the Wall Street Journal. Two senior officials have been arrested so far: Ibrahim Muslit, who ran the Beiji refinery's oil-distribution operation and allegedly allowed 33 tankers in a single day to receive fuel without any paperwork. Ahmed Ibrahim Hamad, a senior transportation official at the refinery who allegedly tried to help smuggle out seven tankers of heavy fuel oil. Soldiers are also checking up on trucks and gasoline stations in the neighborhood around the refinery to try and catch smugglers in the act. Rumors are rife among suspicious Iraqis about the failure to measure the oil flow. "Iraq is the victim of the biggest robbery of its oil production in modern history," blazed a March 2006 headline in Azzaman, Iraq's most widely read newspaper. A May 2006 study of oil production and export figures by Platt's Oilgram News, an industry magazine, showed that up to $3 billion a year is unaccounted for. "Iraqi oil is regularly smuggled out of the country in many different ways," an oil merchant in Amman told the Nation (U.S.) magazine last month. "Emir al-Hakim [the head of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq] is spending all his time in Basra selling oil as if it were his own. People there call him Uday al-Hakim, meaning he is behaving the same way Uday Saddam Hussein was acting. Other merchants like myself have to work through him with the big deals or smuggle small quantities on our own. The petroleum is now divided among political parties in power." The Resource Curse The smuggling and black market operations bear striking parallels to Saddam Hussein's tactics for circumventing the UN embargo. Saddam was accused of selling some $5.7 billion worth of petroleum products on the black market over the six years of the Oil-for-Food program while United Nations inspectors turned a blind eye. Today, his successors stand accused of similar abuses. Iraq sits on 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the third largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia and Canada). From a society that once used its oil revenue to create a social welfare state that provided education, health care and social services, the country has plummeted into the ranks of the poorest countries of the world. Economists call this the "resource curse." Those blessed with non-renewable resources often benefit the least, because a few wealthy people control the resources, or war prevents almost anyone from the benefiting. Iraq's main revenue source – earnings from the export sales of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas – is currently managed by the Development Fund for Iraq. DFI's May 21, 2003 document, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483, assigns this money to benefit the Iraqi people. The resolution replaces the previous United Nations-run Oil-for-Food scheme that lasted from 1997 until the March 2003 invasion. Almost four years after the DFI was created, officially logged crude sales have generated more than $80 billion. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) managed the DFI from the immediate aftermath of Saddam's removal until June 28, 2004, when the CPA was disbanded. During those 14 months, the CPA spent $19.6 billion of Iraq's DFI funds. The three succeeding governments have been officially in charge of the DFI revenues, although the influence of the U.S. military and political advisors has remained significant throughout. In the 32 months after the CPA left, the three governments spent $47 billion more. Three Kinds of Gasoline A ten-foot-high hill of empty jerry cans is all that remains of a recent unauthorized gasoline delivery. The green plastic containers sit by the side of a road leading out of the town of Penjwin, high up in the Kurdish mountains, a stone's throw from the border of Iran. A little further down the road that winds through some of the most heavily mined countryside in Iraq, boys and men openly hawk smuggled gasoline. A smiling boy runs up to drivers who slow and stop. He quickly produces a funnel and up-ends full jerry cans into their gas tanks. This is Iraqi's unofficial version of a gas station or petrol pump. Authorities are well aware of the smuggling, but there is nothing they can do. "They bring it over the border from Iran," says a police officer pointing east to the mountain pass just a couple of miles away. He continues to direct traffic nearby and asks not to be named, The official price of gasoline in Iraq today is about 300 dinar a liter for regular and 350 dinar for diesel (about $1 a gallon). Official gasoline supplies are in short supply and heavily rationed. Drivers often queue for more than a day for a meager allotment. This situation is in stark contrast to Saddam Hussein's Iraq where new cars were rationed to wealthy or well- connected individuals, and subsidized gasoline sold for five cents a gallon. Today at many busy street corners in Iraq, black market fuel is readily available. In northern Iraq, for example, three kinds of gasoline are available to buyers: a plastic 20 liter jerry can of the cheapest transparent Iraqi gasoline retails for 12,000 dinar. It comes from the northern Iraqi refinery of Beiji. Better quality yellowish Iraqi gasoline retails for 15,000 dinar and comes from the Baghdad refinery of Daura. The best stuff, pale red Iranian gasoline, has been trucked over the mountain and sells for 17,000 dinar for a smaller 16 liter jerry can. This is two to three times the official price, and five times more expensive than in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Paradoxically, while Iraqis have to buy smuggled gasoline from Iran, some of their own reserves are being trafficked in the opposite direction, from Iraq to Iran. Some 600 miles to the south of Penjwin, in the riverside town of Abu al-Khasib, near Basra, a small flotilla of fishing boats sets sail every morning. The boats, filled with fuel supplied by the Iraqi government at the specially subsidized price of just 10,000 dinar a ton (about $7.50), return every night, empty of fish, but stocked with cash. The source of their wealth is Iranian vessels that deliver freight to the harbor of Abu Floos, where prices are almost 100 times higher. Ironically, Colonel Najim Abdulla, the commander of coast guard patrols in Basra, told a reporter that his force is denied enough fuel to pursue the scofflaws. "I can't chase smugglers who are well aware of our shortages," he said. Halliburton & Parsons U.S. contractors have played a key role in the repair and upgrading of Iraq's oil infrastructure and expected the industry to pay for reconstruction. In January 2004, under project Restore Iraqi Oil II (RIO II), the Bush administration contracted with Halliburton to fix southern Iraq's oil fields and with Parsons to handle the northern fields. The two companies were supposed to be supervised by yet another contractor, New Jersey-based Foster Wheeler. (The first RIO contract was the infamous, secret no-bid contract issued to Halliburton before the invasion of Iraq. Although RIO II was competitively bid, Sheryl Tappan, a former Bechtel employee wrote a book criticizing the award as unfair.) Halliburton and Parsons have long histories in Iraq, going back more than 40 years. Brown & Root, which is now part of Halliburton , began work in Iraq in 1961, while Parsons dipped into Iraq's oil sector in the 1950s. Foster Wheeler dates its work in Iraq to the 1930s. These companies have a lot of experience at the terminals where the black market now thrives. Indeed, Halliburton built the ABOT terminal, then known as Mina al-Bakr, in the early1970s. After it was damaged during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Halliburton repaired the terminal, before it was bombed yet again during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Khor al-Amaya oil terminal also saw a similar cycle of destruction and rebuilding. Built with Halliburton 's help in 1973, it was heavily damaged by Iranian commandos during the Iran-Iraq war, then again during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and most recently in May 2006 by a major fire that destroyed 70 percent of its facilities. During the sanctions, Ingersoll Dresser Pump Company, a Halliburton subsidiary, had a secret contract to sell Iraq spare parts, compressors, and firefighting equipment for the refurbishment. ( Halliburton also a long history near the Turkish port of Ceyhan, from where Iraq sells oil produced at Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Halliburton runs the nearby U.S. military base at Incirlik, which was the staging ground for Operation Northern Watch that provided air protection for the Kurds during the 1990s.) Measuring the Oil With billions of dollars to spend and extensive experience with oil infrastructure and Iraqi ports, Haliburton and Parsons seem unable to deal with the routine problem of broken meters at the Southern Iraq terminals. The kinds of meters they were supposed to repair or replace at ABOT are commonly found at hundreds of similar sites around the world. Because they are custom-built, shipped, then assembled and calibrated on site, the process can take up to a year. But the probelm has persisted for four years. After the 2003 invasion, the meters appear to have been turned off and there have since been no reliable estimates of how much crude has been shipped from the southern oil fields. (The northern oil fields in Kirkuk, which supply the Beiji refinery in Iraq and export crude to the Turkish port of Adana, has reliable metering but little oil to measure since insurgent attacks largely shut down the facility.) Oil Meters Three kinds of meters are used around the world today: positive displacement meters, turbine meters and ultrasonic meters. A displacement meter measures the rate at which compartments of known volume are filled with the liquid or gas; a turbine meter is simply a pipe with a spinner that measures the volume that passes through it; while an ultrasonic meter uses sound frequencies to measure flow rates. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Before the 1991 Gulf War, ten turbine meters were installed on ABOT's platform A, while ABOT's platform B got 16 positive displacement meters. In January 2007, the U.S. government installed ultrasonic meters to verify the older meters. In the late 1990s, the United Nations hired Saybolt International, a Dutch company, to make sure that Saddam Hussein was only selling crude under the Oil-for-Food program. However CorpWatch interviews indicate that the inspectors could not rely on the meters at the time because they were not calibrated. Instead Saybolt relied on a simple and effective way of determining how much was being shipped: It measured the amount of crude loaded into the tankers. Lieutenant Aaron Bergman, the U.S. Navy officer in charge of Mobile Security Squadron 7 at ABOT, says export authorities have "guesstimated" how much is being sold, with a back-of-the-envelope formula: Every centimeter a tanker lowers into the water equals 6,000 barrels of oil cargo. "So you can imagine," he said earlier this month to Stars & Stripes, a newspaper serving the U.S. military, the numbers could be off, "A couple of inches could equal 180,000 barrels of fuel." "I would say probably between 200,000 and 500,000 barrels a day is probably unaccounted for in Iraq," Mikel Morris, who worked for the Iraq Reconstruction Management Organization (IRMO) at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, told KTVT, a Texas television station. Neither US officials nor contractors have provided good reasons why, four years into the US occupation, the meters have not been calibrated, repaired, or replaced. One excuse is that the job of calibration requires special devices to assess the current meters and security issues make importing these devises problematic. Yet that and other security-related explanations fall apart given that the oil terminals are under 24 hour high security guard, lie more than 50 miles off-shore, and are accessible only by helicopter or ship. There are two possible explanations: that the project has been delayed by bureaucracy or that vested interests benefiting from the lack of oil metering (such as smugglers or corrupt officials) have prevented the project from moving forward. Skyrocketing Costs The RIO II project, which includes the meter repair work, has come under much criticism, although specific details are scarce. For example, the Bush administration issued Halliburton the RIO II order in January 2004 and gave detailed task orders in June. But despite not starting work until November 2004, the company charged the government millions of dollars for engineers who sat idle. Halliburton 's $296 million bill included at least 55 percent overhead. (In an estimate due later this month, SIGIR may predicts even higher overhead costs.) A Parsons joint venture (with Worley of Australia), was also issued a contract in January 2004, given detailed task orders in June, and started work in July 2004. It has also been accused of charging high overhead costs while idle, although not as much as Halliburton . SIGIR estimate pegs its overhead at 43 percent. In addition, in a series of scathing internal reports uncovered by Congressman Henry Waxman, supervisors Foster Wheeler criticized Halliburton 's cost. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a "cure" notice on January 29, 2005, ordering Halliburton to do a better job or else. After Halliburton did improve its cost controls, the military turned over the southern oil work to Parsons in mid 2005. When Parsons took over the contracts, two years after the invasion, it hired a Saudi Arabian sub-contractor, Alaa for Industry, to help repair or replace the meters. The turbine meters were shipped to Kuwait for repairs but do not appear to have been fixed in a timely manner, although some have been fixed and re-installed earlier this year. Unofficial sources suggest that the Kuwaiti bureaucracy delayed the repair work: "The real reason for the hindrance to work at the ABOT is because Kuwait has a vested interest in minimizing Iraqi oil exports," an anonymous source who worked on the project told CorpWatch. His claim could not be verified. In mid-September 2006, the Iraqi oil ministry abruptly announced that it would pull the plug on the oil metering project, making future monitoring even less certain. Asim Jihad, the oil ministry spokesman, told Al Hayat: "The American company had failed in keeping its promise to finish installing these meters; also, refusing to reveal the exact cost, except for saying that it is executing it within the American grant to Iraq and the sum of that grant is unknown to us too. This relieves the ministry from its obligation to it. Besides, many international companies presented good offers to implement the project in a record time due to its importance." The oil ministry then invited British Petroleum and Shell to plan a comprehensive national metering project that would cover not only the oil terminals, but also the productions wells and the even the refineries. A SIGIR team traveled to ABOT in November 2006 to check on progress. Its unpublished report suggests that the work was less than half complete. Suddenly, in December 2006, a high-level U.S. team traveled out to ABOT to inspect the meters. In a little-noticed announcement issued on a Saturday just before Christmas, John Sickman, the resident oil expert at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said the meters had been fixed and were working fine. "The measurement using the existing turbine meters and displacement meters at the offshore terminal at ABOT is transparent and the measurement devices are more than adequate," Sickman was quoted in the press release. "Furthermore, the crude oil vessels have measurement and quality samplers." Indeed this is how the Dutch company Saybolt measured oil export under the United Nations Oil for Food program. The problem even today, according to experts consulted by CorpWatch, is that the meters have yet to be calibrated, so the data are basically useless. Even if the meters are working properly, smuggling could still occur. "It's easy to steal crude if you knew what you were doing," Don Deaver, a petroleum metering expert who worked for Exxon for 33 years, told CorpWatch. "If you meaure too low or too high, someone will lose and some will one gain. It's why you need professionals who understand how the meters work to make sure that nothing is being lost or stolen." U.S. government officials claim that little is being stolen. SGS (a British consultancy) "is providing independent third party loading certifications onsite for the customers. This, coupled with the recent installation of ultrasonic meter provides more than redundant measurement capability," said Sickman in December. Days after the press release, in early January 2007, Parsons began work on the meters under a $57.8 million U.S. government-funded contract supervised by Major Dale Winger of the Joint Contracting Command in Basra. Almost as soon as work started, Winger was replaced by Lieutenant Commander Brian Schorn. When CorpWatch reached Schorn, he said he was not up to speed on what work had been done, and referred questions to his "front-office" in Baghdad at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Parsons Iraq Joint Venture spokesman Don Lassus also refused to comment to CorpWatch. The contract with the military does not permit the release of "any unclassified information," he said, without prior approval of the military. Today no government officials have been able to establish conclusively whether oil is being smuggled or not. Even the future of the oil metering remains unclear. The latest report issued by SIGIR in January 2007 notes that repair and rehabilitation work at ABOT is scheduled to be finished by May 2007, but "it is unclear whether this project will be completed because of de-obligation requirements" that is to say that the funding could be cut. This is the second in a series on the failure of reconstruction in Iraq. The first article, on healthcare in Iraq, may be read here: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14290 To contact the author, e-mail pratap@corpwatch.org

Mismanaging Iraq: Stealing From the Poor and Giving to the Rich

Ramzy Baroud, Aljazeera.net English.

Locating Dartmouth House, where Hans von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq was scheduled to speak in London on April 18, was a challenge. Yet the moment I slipped quietly into the lecture hall, getting lost for an hour in the ever confusing and yet expanding city of London was the least of my concerns. His statements were shocking as were his many statistics: Iraq was simply and shamelessly robbed blind during the US-led UN sanctions. Sadly, the robbery and mismanagement continue until this day, but this time the figures are much more staggering.

As von Sponeck spoke, I reflected on my lengthy interview with Iraq’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Dr. Mohammed Al-Duri. Al Duri, being interviewed for the first time by English speaking media since claiming his post at the UN, revealed to me in early 2001, in equally shocking details, what sanctions had done to his country and people. He claimed that the UN was part of the problem. Led by two countries, the US and Britain, the UN Oil for Food Program and the “humanitarian” mission it established in Iraq was, he said, robbing the country blind and mismanaging funds, with needy Iraqi families receiving next to nothing. He spoke of the manipulation of Iraq’s wealth for political purposes and alleged that the UN was a tool in the hands of the United States government aimed at encouraging widespread popular disatisfaction with Saddam’s government before the country was dragged off to war.

In hindsight, Al-Duri’s assessment was very accurate. Promoting his new book: “A Different Kind of War,” von Sponeck reiterated in essence and substance Al-Duri’s claims; the only difference is that von Sponeck was an insider; his numbers and stories were impeccable and could hardly be contested. It’s no wonder that one and a half years after assuming his post in Baghdad in 1998, he resigned. Even at such uncongenial bureaucracy like the UN, some people still possess a living conscience; von Sponeck was and remains a man of great qualities.

By March 2003, when Iraq was invaded by American forces, the UN was generating $64 billion in sales of Iraqi oil, according to von Sponeck. But, scandalously, only $28 billion reached the Iraqi people. Around 70 percent of the Iraqi people benefited from the program. If distributed evenly, each Iraqi received half a US dollar per day. According to UN figures, an individual living under one dollar per day is classified as living in “abject poverty”. Even during the most destructive phases of war with Iran, Iraq has managed to provide relatively high living standards. Its hospitals were neither dilapidated, nor did its oil industry lie in ruins. Only after the UN sanctions in 1991 did the Iraqis suffer at such an appalling magnitude. Alas, the tyranny of Saddam expanded to become the tyranny of the international community as well.

“Neither the welfare of the Iraqi people nor the sovereignty of the Iraqis was respected,” by the UN and its two main benefactors, asserted von Sponeck. The UN Security Council’s “elected 10 or veto-wielding five” had nothing for Iraq but “empty words,” but there were “deliberate efforts to make life uncomfortable (for the Iraqis) through the Oil for Food program.” All efforts to modernize Iraq’s oil industry were blocked, said von Sponeck, all at the behest of “two governments that blocked all sorts of items,” which could’ve made that possible: Again, the United States and Britain, coincidently the same two countries that invaded and currently occupy Iraq. The logic in all of this is clear; the “preemptive” war on Iraq was factored into the sanctions from its early days.

The assessments of Al-Duri and von Sponeck converge, revealing the disagreeable intents of the US government and its followers many years before the horror of 9/11 polarized public opinion and allowed Washington’s political elites, the neoconservatives and contractors to make their case for war.

But where did the money go, during the sanctions and now, four years after the invasion?

Von Sponeck reported that a large chunk of the money generated from Iraq’s oil, 55 percent, went to fund the UN’s own inadequate “humanitarian” programs. Much of the rest was taken by the UN compensation commission, entrusted in handling claims of damages made by those allegedly harmed by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. According to von Sponeck, the Iraqi oil pie was so large, there was plenty for everyone: Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, and all the rest. But most ironically, the commission awarded a large sum of money to two Israeli kibbutzim in the Occupied Syrian Golan Heights, for allegedly losing some of their income due to the fact that the war damaged the tourism industry in Israel.

The robbery in Iraq hardly discontinued after the “liberation.” To the contrary, it intensified beyond belief. The US Government Accountability Office uncovered awesome discrepancies in the US military administration’s handling of the money: Billions went missing, hundreds of contractors fully compensated but whose work was never accounted for, layers upon layers of shady companies, contractors and sub-contractors (of which Halliburton and its subsidiary firm Kellogg, Brown & Root are just a mere illustration), in partnership with the new rulers of Iraq, are stealing the wealth of the once prosperous nation, leaving it in shambles.

And now, the Iraqis are facing enormous pressure to approve the new Iraqi oil and gas law. The draft bill, according to Iraqi MP Nur Al-Din Al-Hayyali, would give “50 percent of the Iraqi people’s oil wealth to foreign investing oil firms.” The nationalization of the country’s oil industry in 1972 is being reversed. The robbery that began in the early 1990s continues unabated. Shameful as it is, Iraq’s new rulers are stealing from the poor and giving the spoils to the rich.

Israeli state ordered to stop spraying Palestinian land with poison

With Chemical Weapons...
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Last update - 08:13 16/04/2007

State ordered to stop spraying Bedouin land with chemicals

By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent

The High Court of Justice on Sunday ruled that the Israel Lands Administration is not allowed to spray chemicals on land farmed by Bedouin, a practice carried out in a bid to prevent the Bedouin from controlling those areas.

Justices Salim Joubran, Edna Arbel and Miriam Naor ruled that the spraying is not a proportionate means of achieving the stated goal because the chemicals endanger the lives and health of people and animals.

The court also required the state to pay NIS 20,000 in legal expenses to the Adala legal center for Arab rights in Israel, which filed the petition three years ago on behalf of the residents of the Negev villages of Al-Arakib and Wadi al-Bakar.

"Incursion into state land is indeed an illegal act," wrote Joubran. "And at the same time, coping with the phenomenon by aerial spraying is illegal."

Joubran said Israel's flora protection law was aimed at protecting health, sanitation and the environment, saying: "It is inconceivable that an authority would spray crops with a chemical substance to enforce the rights it claims to the land."

Although Arbel and Naor agreed with Joubran's conclusion that the ILA must stop spraying the land, they disagreed with his contention that the land administration did not have the right to do so in the first place.

As the landowner, wrote Arbel, the state is allowed to take steps to cope with a takeover of that land.

However, she said, the court is unable to accept that the spraying does not pose a health risk.

She said the chemicals' ability to cause breathing difficulties, nausea and vertigo are sufficient "to determine that the spray substance is liable, at the very least, to lead to damage to human health."

Arbel and Naor ruled that even though the spraying was carried out for the appropriate purpose of safeguarding state land, the method used was disproportionate and therefore unacceptable.

Top Rabbi resigns for stealing ties

Brazzil Magazine Top Brazilian rabbi resigns over allegations he stole ties Monsters and Critics.com, UK - 10 hours ago Sobel was arrested for a day in the United States, allegedly for stealing ties in Palm Beach, Florida on March 23, reports said. ... Brazil Rabbi Accused of Tie Theft Hospitalized Javno.hr Rabbi charged in thefts resigns from congregation Sun-Sentinel.com Top Rabbi suspended for stealing ties Tarankai Daily News all 65 news articles »

This Land is Theirs

03/29/07

eileen fleming

Photo, weekly.ahram.org

This March 30th marks the 31st year Palestinians throughout the world remember Land Day or 'Youm al-Ard' in Arabic. On March 30, 1976, in the Galilee, during a peaceful protest, six unarmed Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army and police, who also injured 96 others and arrested over 300.

[More:]

The demonstration was prompted after Israeli authorities announced the confiscation of a total of 5,500 acres of land from Palestinian villages in the Galilee , and classified them as "closed military zones."

On March 25, 2006 , while in Jerusalem, this reporter connected just after dawn with a wide awake group of Israeli Jews to travel north to the lower Galilee municipality of Sakhnin, an Arab village whose land continues to be grabbed and colonized by Israel .

Ronnie, a Canadian moved to Israel with the desire to help build a civil society. She is a co-founder of Women in Black and active with Machsom Watch/women at the checkpoints who watch for and report on human rights abuse.

We both laughed when she told me, "A friend told me that I am so Left that if I ever gets to heaven I will probably argue with God that those in hell just didn't get a fair deal…Religion is used as a cover, but it's all about the land! It's convenient to claim one is doing something for God but the laws are made to take the land. We don't have settlers in Israel -the common name for illegal colonists in the West Bank-we just take it! First it is claimed to be for military reasons then it'll become a park or agricultural land that the state has confiscated.

"The Palestinians who did not leave in '48 but remained here still have lost their land. They can't get permits to build... I am opposed to the occupation and as an Israeli Jew I want to see justice for all...and I refuse to be enemies with anyone."

We traveled three hours from Jerusalem to be in solidarity with over 100 progressive Israeli's, Arab Christians, Muslims, atheists and communists who attended a tour of the area and conference coordinated by Batshalom's and The Women's Coalition for Peace and Justice.

This reporter was informed that not only had Israel confiscated acres of the most fertile of Palestinian land they had also placed land mines on the land. Many farmers and other innocent ones had lost their lives or legs, so people had quit caring for their groves and the Israeli government declared the village of Sakhnin a military zone.

A few years prior, the President of Israel had declared that the people of Sakhnin, a municipality deserved to have their land back. But the Israeli county of Misgav, abetted by the Israeli Land Authority continues to collect taxes from them but still have not returned any land nor have they issued any permits for Palestinians to build.

Israeli peace activist's commented, "In 2000 during Land Day, hundred's of nonviolent protesters were arrested and we were hit with tear gas and rubber bullets. Name it and we have had it!"

"I am an Israeli Jew and I am responsible to change something about this situation. We all need to do this together."

The speakers all spoke in Arabic or Hebrew, and my interpreter was Aliyah [Hebrew for "Go Up"], who was born in St. Louis, grew up in Cleveland and moved to Israel in 1948.

"My Father was born in Jerusalem and I was a Zionist, but now I am not so sure. I still want the Jewish people to have a state but it must be honest and moral, I don't want a piranha state! Before 1967 I was euphoric! My husband and I began to learn that there were Israelis who you could call prophets, who said we must return the land and make peace. Then a fundamentalist Jewish group, The Gush Emunim began erecting the settlements in the newly possessed land.

"When Israel went into Lebanon I was infuriated! I demonstrated against the massacres at Shatila and Shabra. Eighteen years of Israel in Lebanon is what built up the Hezbollah! The Israelis supported the group at first because they hoped the Hezbollah would be against the Palestinian refugees in South Lebanon."

I inquired, "Isn't that what Israel did with Hamas? Didn't they originally support Hamas to be a wedge against the PLO?"

Aliyah replied, "Yes, stupidity repeats itself!"

In the Northern part of Israel 53% of the population are Jews who control 80% of the land. Palestinians are 47% of the population with only 20% of the land.

Sakhnin has 25,000 people and less than 10,000 dunums of land but they only control half of that. In 1948 they owned and controlled 170,000 dunums.

A Defense Industry and Army base complex a few miles from where we stood has a most mysterious warehouse. Aliyah remarked, "No one knows what is going on inside, but it may be a nuclear reactor. The municipality asked the army to develop in another direction for there is a school over there too. The Israelis are allowed to expand anywhere, but the people of Sakhnin are not allowed permits to builds on their own land.

"I really became aware of what was going on in the '80's. I had been invited to a meeting of The Bridge for Peace and Coexistence, which is a group of Arab and Jewish activists. A man asked me where I was living and when I answered Bneitz-ion. He calmly and politely told me "That is my Uncle's land."

Since 1967 Israel has confiscated more than 750,000 acres of land from the 1.5 million acres comprising the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the land has been confiscated to make space for illegal settlement expansions, and bypass roads that are for the exclusive use of the Israeli colonists. Since 1948, Israel has confiscated nearly 85 percent of the territory within the Green Line from Palestinians. Most of this land was taken from the 800,000 Palestinian refugees, who were evicted or fled for fear of massacres during the 1948 war.

Israel's illegal settlement expansion and land confiscation has continued unabated and the ongoing construction of the Israeli separation wall, which has been described by a UN report as a "creeping annexation", involves the confiscation of the most fertile of Palestinian land and water sources.

The Israeli Knesset (Israeli parliament) has passed dozens of laws in defiance of U.N. Resolutions and International Law, such as the The Absentee Property law and the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law.

This law, which in Arabic is called 'Qanoon Elhader/Gayeb', was adopted in March 1950, and classified anyone who was a citizen or resident of one of the Arab states or a Palestinian citizen on November 29, 1947, but had left his place of residence, even to take refuge within Palestine , as an 'absentee'. Absentee property was vested in the Custodian of Absentee Property who then 'sold' it to the Development Authority. This effectively authorized the theft of the property of a million Arabs, seized by Israel in 1948.

Adopted in July 1950, this law was devised as a legal ploy to shield the Israeli government from the accusation that it had confiscated abandoned property. The Development Authority is an independent body empowered to sell, buy, lease, exchange, repair, build, develop and cultivate Palestinian property. None of these transactions could take place except with a Jew or a Jewish entity!

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 clearly asserts that the "occupying power cannot move segments of its own population to parts of the land it occupies," or make any demographic or territorial changes that are not in the interest of the occupied. Furthermore, provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention have unquestionably condemned Israel's settlement activities and demanded the ceasing of "all" settlement expansion by Israel.

UN Security Council Resolution 681 (1990) confirmed that the Forth Geneva Convention is applicable to the Occupied Territories and thus Israel's compliance is mandatory.

Yet, since 1992, settlement activity has increased 50% while the U.S.A. government has turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the cries for justice from the occupied and oppressed people of the Holy Land.

Hope lies in the international communities resolve to seek justice and compel Israel to abide by UN Security Council Resolutions and International Law, for the inalienable rights of a people have been denied for far too long, and:

"Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law... Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."- PREAMBLE to the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

On May 14, 1948 The Declaration of the establishment of Israel affirmed:

"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations."

Might Israel and America remember those words on Land Day 2007.

Source:

http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=3410&CategoryId=4

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March 29, 2007 © Copyright March 28, 2007 Eileen Fleming. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged. WAWA@WeAreWideAwake.org

Inflation Is Legalized Robbery, Part

by Gregory Bresiger, Posted March 26, 2007

Whether one believes in the “price stability” policies of our nation’s central bank, or believes such policies have caused countless economic problems, the onus is on the Federal Reserve. It is a strange, quasi-secret public/private agency with little or no accountability.

It is the Fed, which since 1913 has had an exclusive monopoly over the money-making power, that must be held accountable. Its overall record is a sorry one despite all the ballyhoo, whoop-it-up stories, and books about how Alan Greenspan supposedly performed miracles in the 1990s.

Acclaimed as the greatest central banker of our time by Bob Woodward, Greenspan actually practiced legerdemain. He began as a young economist defending the ideas of Ayn Rand and the gold standard, but one of his early political benefactors, President Richard Nixon, broke the federal government’s last link to gold in 1971. Thus, Greenspan ended up running a central bank divorced from the gold standard, which is a key reason that today’s economy may be heading for the double-digit inflation rates of the 1970s, or the recession of the early 1980s, or the bear market crash of 2000–2002.

In 1971, Nixon’s “closing of the gold window” effectively devalued the dollar, causing untold financial losses to foreign investors who had trusted the U.S. government by holding dollars in their reserves.

Even worse, breaking the link with gold was combined with other disastrous economic policies. These included wage and price controls and surcharges. The results brought shorter-term political gain: Nixon was reelected in 1972. But they also caused long-term economic damage, not to mention anger and resentment among foreign central banks that had lost untold amounts of money as a result of the dollar devaluation.

Until 1971, the quasi gold standard — one in which foreign central banks could still redeem dollars for gold — had been one of the few remaining brakes on the Fed’s almost unlimited ability to create more and more new money. Post–1971, nothing could stop the Fed. It could, and did, flood the markets with dollars, which meant less and less buying power for those holding this diluted currency. In the short term, cheap money tricked Americans into thinking that the economy was strong when it wasn’t.

Thirty-five years of failure

The Fed’s record since 1971 has been one of numerous recessions preceded by booms. We have had a stop-and-go economy, one that inevitably misleads investors and damages retirees. An example of the former were those investors during the stock market run-up in the 1990s who were led to believe that business cycles were history and that bull markets were now permanent. An example of the latter is the elderly person who, 10 years ago after the beginning of retirement with a seemingly adequate amount of fixed savings, now finds himself struggling to maintain a lifestyle that it took a lifetime to achieve.

“All such savings are prejudiced by inflation. Thus saving is discouraged and extravagance seems to be indicated,” wrote economist Ludwig von Mises more than half a century ago. Mises had personally witnessed the horrible damage wrought by inflation during the Weimar Republic.

Thus, the average American who saved for retirement now finds his well-earned lifestyle threatened by the unanticipated pace of price increases that come as a result of inflation. For example, suppose a person retired in 1996 with $1 million. Ten years later, figuring the damage of relatively “comfortable” inflation, that $1 million is worth just $803,748. And imagine how much worse it will be if we return to the high inflation numbers of the 1970s.

Inflation has also brought about adverse structural changes in our lives and in the economy. I speak of the permanent acceptance of inflation at “comfortable” rates by many economists, politicians, and even ordinary people who have lived with inflation all their lives and thus know nothing else. This inflation-can-be-good philosophy appeared at the same time as the post–Great Depression Keynesian encouragement of excessive consumption, especially among lower income groups, as a way of preventing depressions. This is a culture, backed by tax policy, that virtually destroyed thrift in our country and encouraged private debt at the same time that government red ink was hitting record levels.

In recent times, savings rates in America sometimes have been recorded at less than zero. Why save today when tomorrow your money will be worth much less, owing to the inexorable power of inflation? Worse than that is the psychology of never-ending inflation. Few in the financial or consumer markets expect that inflation will ever be stopped. So, again, why save? Saving is difficult. It is denying oneself a higher standard of living in the expectation of a future reward. The Austrian economists call this time preference.

And why save when you can borrow at artificially low interest rates? And why pay off debts when there is plenty of credit around and refinancing is always available? Why not consume now, since everyone “knows” that prices will always rise?

Here is the triumph of an inflationary policy pushed for generations. It is a policy that has become a virtual article of faith. It can no more be seriously questioned than the supposed benefits of fiat money, or mandatory social insurance programs, or an interventionist foreign policy.

The Fed’s easy-money policies also explain why both public and private debt levels have been rising for generations, with fewer and fewer protests. Indeed, spendthrift ways are embraced along with inflationary values. So the average American household today carries a credit card balance of $8,000.

Inflationary addiction

One of the biggest problems with inflation is its seductive power. In its beginning phases, or when one is in its “comfort” zone, it seems harmless. Like strong drink or other drugs, it produces a temporary euphoria. In fact, in some cases, as Austrian economist F.A. Hayek pointed out, inflation actually seems beneficial to business at the outset. That’s because sales in certain sectors rise at a faster rate than they would have if free-market forces were operating. Inflation, Hayek wrote, distorts how the businessman views the economy and his business.

“It is this which creates the general state of euphoria,” he warned, “a false sense of well-being, in which everyone seems to prosper. Those who without inflation would have made high profits make still higher ones. Those who have made normal profits make unusually high ones. And not only businesses which were near failure but even some which ought to fail are kept above water by the unexpected boom.”

Hayek, who was describing the stop-and-go monetary policies of Britain’s central bank of the 1970s, could be explaining any of the boom-bust policies employed by our own central bank. Inflation has a long lamentable history nearly everywhere.

For example, by 1973, after a period of money expansion that helped reelect Richard Nixon and most of a Democratic Congress, the United States went into a brutal period of stagflation. This lasted for about a decade and produced double-digit inflation along with slow growth rates. This included a period in which the Fed battled inflation by raising interest rates.

The Fed, which had ignored inflationary signs in 1971 and 1972, had overexpanded the money supply. By the mid 1970s and early 1980s, it paid for that policy with skyrocketing interest rates that topped 20 percent. These unprecedented rates threw parts of the nation into a virtual depression. Tens of millions of jobs were lost. Certain interest- rate-sensitive industries, such as the housing and automobile industry, went through terrible times. Mom-and-pop businesses felt the ripples. Hardship reached into millions of homes.

This vicious and destructive downward economic spiral ended in the early 1980s. Then, the Fed’s stop-and-go economy started all over again. The Fed began to inflate again in the early 1980s.

The Fed’s boom-bust cycle has continued over the last 20 years or so. But the cycle of boom and bust seems to be worse every time. The recessions are deeper. The inflation required to continue the boom requires more and more money creation accompanied by higher and higher levels of private and public debt.

Austrian economists describe how inflation pumps up markets, creating a bubble. “One of its consequences,” warned Mises, “is that it falsifies economic calculation and accounting.” Examples of the latter were the artificial, Fed-induced, bull markets of the late 1990s. While they lasted, they seemed great. But when the bubble burst, millions of dreams went with them.

When I was a student in college in the 1970s, I was told by a Keynesian economics professor not to worry about the U.S. government’s Treasury borrowings. “It’s only money that we owe to ourselves,” he assured me. My professor was ignoring a hard fact. He forgot that one group — the taxpayers — would be in debt to another group — the bondholders — for generations to come. Moreover, today large amounts of Treasury instruments are owned by foreigners, who might be inclined to be less willing to hold dollars than Americans are if the dollar starts rapidly losing value.

But they’re not the only ones worried about currency manipulation as well as huge federal and trade deficits that induce the Fed to print money at a faster and faster pace. The illusions created by inflation are not fooling the smart money. For example, in 2002, noted value investor Warren Buffett announced that, in order to hedge his bets, a significant amount of his assets would no longer be in dollars. “If we have the same policies, the value of the dollar will go down,” Buffett announced. Nothing has changed since then.

Another successful investor, money manager John Templeton, is also concerned. He has warned that the U.S dollar is overvalued by 40 percent. Templeton will no longer invest in U.S stocks. One of the great problems that will face investors in the future will be persistent inflation, Templeton predicted in 1980 in a book called The Money Masters.

Templeton, Hayek, Mises, and others who have documented the damage done by inflation and warned against its dangers are unrecognized sages in an inflationary age. Those who ignore such warnings do so at their financial and economic peril.

Part 1 | Part 2

Gregory Bresiger is a business writer living in Kew Gardens, New York. Send him email.

Palestinian loss of land 1946 to 2000

Palestinian loss of land 1946 to 2000.

LEST WE FORGET: ETHNIC CLEANSING AND LAND THEFT

PROLOGUE:

Creation of an exclusive Jewish State in Palestine meant importing of Jews from all corners of the globe to Palestine. Between 1882 and 1948, the number of Jews in Palestine increased from 7000 to about 700,000 forming no more than 35% of the total population of the country and owing no more than 7% of the total land.

This meant that creation of the state the Zionists had in mind required ethnic cleansing and land theft and this was the reason why they launched the war in 1948.

The British, who were still in Palestine and responsible for maintaining law and order, could have stepped in and avoided the catastrophe, they simply preferred to turn their backs to what was going on. The reason is that they were aware of the tacit agreement between King Abdullah, the appointed commander of all the Arab troops, and the Zionist leadership in Palestine and gave it their blessings. According to this agreement, Palestine would be divided between the Jews and Abdullah. Abdullah would take that part of Palestine allotted to the Arabs west of the Jordan Valley and the rest of Palestine would be left for the “Jewish State”. (For details, see: Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)

On 18 February 1947, the British submitted the Palestine problem to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Resolution #181 was adopted on 29 November 1947 allocating 56.5% of Palestine to a Jewish state and 43% to an Arab state with an international enclave around Jerusalem.

On 10 March 1948, the British House of Commons voted to end Mandate on 15 May. On 20 March 1948, the U.S. delegate to the UN requested a special session to suspend action on partition and work on a trusteeship plan. On 1 April 1948, a UN Security Council resolution called for special session of the UNGA and agreed to U.S. proposal for truce to be arranged through the Jewish Agency (JA) and the Arab Higher Committee (AHC).

THE 1948 WAR:

To avoid trusteeship, the Haganah launched Operation “Nachshon” of Plan Dalet on 3 April 1948, which marked the starting point of the 1948 war.

As a result of the war, about 10,000 Palestinian Arabs were killed, about 30,000 were wounded, over 750,000 were ethnically cleansed and became refugees, and more than 400 Arab villages were bulldozed and used to build settlements for the influx of Jewish immigrants.

While Operation Nachson was going on, a brutal massacre was committed in Deir Yassin killing over 250 men, women and children. This massacre spread panic and many Palestinian Arabs began leaving the country seeking a safe shelter.

On the night of 16-17 April 1948, units of the Haganah attacked the Old City of Tiberias. The Arab notables sued for a truce but the Haganah commanders refused; they wanted surrender. The Arabs then appealed to the British to lift the Haganah siege on the Old City and to extend their protection to the Arab areas. The British said they intended to evacuate the city within a few days and hence could offer no protection to the Arabs beyond 22 April. The Arab notables then decided to evacuate the city. A truce was instituted. The British brought buses and trucks and took the Arabs to Nazareth and Transjordan. (Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947 – 1949, Cambridge, 1987, P. 71)

On 18 April 1948, Major General Hugh C. Stockwell, British Commander in Haifa, summoned to his headquarters Harry Beilin, the JA liaison officer with the British army in the city. Stockwell informed Beilin that he intended to begin withdrawing his forces from the borders and no-man’s-land between the Arab and Jewish quarters in Haifa and that the withdrawal would be completed by 20 April.

Noninterference of the British Army in the fighting in Tiberias, on the one hand, and the green light given by Stockwell, on the other hand, encouraged the Haganah into action in Haifa.

British withdrawal was completed by sunset on Tuesday, 20 April. At 10:30 A.M. on Wednesday, 21 April, the Haganah launched its offensive. The Arab crowds broke into the port and pushing aside the police who guarded the gate it stormed the boats and began to flee the city.” The scene at the port was described as follows: “Men stepped on their friends and women on their own children. The boats in the port were soon filled with living cargo. The overcrowding in them was horrible. Many turned over and sank with all their passengers.” (Details on the fall of Haifa, the military situation in Palestine on the eve of Plan Dalet, the fall of Qastel and the death of Abd al-Qadir Husseini, and the fall of Jaffa were selected and annotated by Walid Khalidi, Selected Documents on the 1948 War, Journal of Palestine Studies, 107, Volume XXVII, No. 3, Spring 1998, pp. 60-105)

Jaffa was the largest Arab City in Palestine. It was close to Tel Aviv but did not pose any strategic threat. According to Benny Morris “The Haganah siege would eventually bring the town to its knees; it would fall like a ripe plum when the British withdrew”. This did not save the city from attack, which started by an offensive launched on 25 April 1948 by the IZL (Irgun Tzeva'i le'umi).

While Jaffa was being attacked by the IZL, Operation Hametz (Mivtza Hametz) was launched by the Haganah against the Arab villages east of Jaffa in order to cut the city from all centers of Arab population and its rural hinterland.

On 13 May, with the final British evacuation, the Jaffa Arab Emergency Committee, representing the 4,000-5,000 remaining inhabitants, signed a formal surrender agreement with the Haganah. (Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949. Cambridge, 1987 pp. 95-101)

Beisan as well as Safad and surrounding villages were captured by the Zionist forces on 12 May, Acre was captured on 17 May, Lydd and Ramla were captured on 14 July 1948.

The town of Nazareth was captured on 16 July 1948. Only one Israeli was killed and one wounded in the attack. A delegation of Christian clerics came out to meet the conquerors. Their request that the civilian population should not be forced to evacuate was granted. When Abraham Yaffe, an Israeli officer, entered Nazareth, he met a man whom he had driven out of another town in the Galilee. “Have you come to turn us away again?” the Arab inquired. “No, not in Nazareth,” Yaffe answered, “Nazareth is a holy place, a holy town. The world is watching us. You are not going to be a victim here.” The Israeli behavior in Nazareth was different from their behavior in the other Palestinian towns and villages. They realized that expulsion of Christian Arabs in one of the holiest Christian locations would produce unfavorable headlines all over the world. “Nazareth was the exception that proved the rule”. (Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland, London/Boston: 1987, pp. 123-125)

LAND THEFT:

On 28 May, Yosef Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund Lands Dept., met with Moshe Sharrett, the newly appointed Foreign Minister, and proposed that the Cabinet appoint himself, Elias Sasson, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Affairs Department, and Ezra Danin “to hammer out a plan of action designed [to achieve] the goal of transfer”.

On 5 June 1948, Weitz met with Ben-Gurion and submitted to him a memorandum entitled “Retroactive Transfer, A Scheme for the Solution of the Arab Question in the State of Israel”. Weitz, Danin, and Sasson signed the memorandum.

Ben-Gurion devoted two paragraphs in his diary to the meeting. He proposed that a committee of three – composed of representatives of the JNF (Weitz), the Jewish Agency settlement department, and the Agency’s treasury department – be set up. The job of this committee was to oversee “the cleaning up of the [Arab] settlements, cultivation of their [fields] and their settlement [by Jews], and the creation of a labour battalion to carry out this work”. Ben-Gurion, like Weitz, stressed that it would not be the government carrying out these activities, but they would be carried out “with its knowledge, by the National Institutions”.

The next day, 6 June, Weitz sent Ben-Gurion a detailed list of the abandoned villages and towns, with the appropriate population figures. In a covering note, he confirmed the meeting held in the previous day as well as Ben-Gurion’s approval that the destruction of Arab villages and prevention of cultivation of Arab fields will begin immediately. Weitz continued: “In line with this, I have given an order to begin [these operations] in different parts of the Galilee, in the Beit Shean Valley, in the Hills of Ephraim and in Samaria [meaning the Hefer Valley].” In this way, Weitz was trying to cover himself and not to leave himself open to charges that he had acted on his own.

Weitz spent the following day [7 June] talking with Danin about how to go about destroying the abandoned villages – where would the money come from, the tractors, the dynamite, the manpower? And where was it best to begin?

COUNT FOLKE BERNADOTTE:

The UN appointed Count Folke Bernadotte as mediator to resolve conflict in Palestine. He managed to bring about a first truce in the war from 11 June – 8 July 1948 and a second truce from 18 July – 15 October 1948.

In his report submitted to the UN on 16 September 1948, referring to the Arab refugees, Bernadotte stated, “It would be an offence against elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right of return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine and indeed, offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries.” The following day, Count Bernadotte was murdered in Jerusalem by the Stern Gang. (Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland. London/Boston: 1987, p. 159)

ARAB INTERVENTION:

Arab intervention in the war was bogus and shameful. The Zionist onslaught started in early April; Arab armies did not interfere until 15 May when it was too little and too late.

Jordanian King Abdullah, commander of the Arab troops, was in tacit agreement with the Zionists.

Iraqi general Sir Ismail Safwat, chairman of the Arab league’s military committee, who had been appointed to lead all Arab troops in Palestine, resigned on 13 May 1948 because he was “firmly convinced that the absence of agreement on a precise plan can only lead us to disaster”. (Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York: 1987, p. 197)

ILLUSIONS OF PEACE:

For over fifty years, all efforts to end the Zionist-Arab conflict and bring peace have failed. The reason is simple: the Zionist mission had not been completed. Not all the areas coveted by the Zionists were occupied 1948 and ethnic cleansing was incomplete.

More lands were occupied in 1967 and another 250,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. But all that was not good enough for the Zionist appetite.

Proposals for Arab population removal were outlined in an article entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, which appeared in the World Zionist Organization’s periodical Kivunim in February 1982. Oded Yinon, a journalist and analyst of Middle Eastern affairs and former senior Foreign Ministry official wrote the article.

Yinon called for Israel to bring about the dissolution and fragmentation of the Arab states into a mosaic of ethnic groupings. He believed that “Israel has made a strategic mistake in not taking measures [of mass expulsion] towards the Arab population in the new territories during and shortly after the [1967] war...”

Moreover, Yinon suggested to encompass the whole Arab world, including the imposition of a Pax Israela on, and the determination of the destiny of, Arab societies: re invading Sinai and “breaking Egypt territorially into separate geographical districts”. As for the Arab East: “...the total disintegration of Lebanon into five regional, localized governments as the precedent for the entire Arab world...the dissolution of Syria, and later Iraq, into districts of ethnic and religious minorities...” (Nur Masalha, A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians 1949 – 96, London: Faber and Faber ltd., 1997, pp. 196 - 198, citing Oded Yinon, A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s, [Hebrew], Kivunim, Jerusalem, No. 14, February 1982, pp. 53 - 58)

Benjamin Netanyahu told Bar-Ilan University students on 16 November 1989 that the government had failed to exploit internationally favorable situations to carry out “large-scale” expulsions at a time when “the damage [to Israel’s public relations] would have been relatively small”. He was referring to the Tianamen Square massacre in June 1989 when world attention and the media were focused on China. Netanyahu added, “I still believe that there are opportunities to expel many people”. He later denied making the remarks but the Jerusalem Post presented a tape recording of his speech. (Ibid, p. 190; Michael Palumbo, Imperial Israel: The History of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd., 1990, pp. 302 - 303)

Nizar Sakhnini, 18 March 2007

Don't you be my neighbor!

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ERICA CHERNOFSKY, THE JERUSALEM POST

Mar. 15, 2007

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The Jewish families in east Jerusalem hope their Arab neighbors will eventually leave and be replaced by Jews. The Arabs hope the Jews will realize they are unwelcome and move back out

A few hundred meters from the Museum on the Seam, a sociopolitical art museum dedicated to coexistence located on the former border between Israeli and Jordanian Jerusalem, lies the mixed neighborhood of Shimon Hatzadik. According to tradition, the high priest, who was among the last members of the Great Assembly, was buried in a cave built into these sloping Sheikh Jarrah hills, where dozens of hassidim can be found praying and learning throughout the day.

Just a few meters away, in a smaller cave, is the traditional burial site of 23 former heads of the Sanhedrin. Here, a lone hassid sways back and forth as he prays in the dark, damp underground tomb.

The land surrounding the burial caves had lain barren of inhabitants for almost two millennia. The graves, however, were continuously visited by Jewish pilgrims.

In modern times, Jews started this neighborhood in 1895 and lived there until they were evicted by the British army during the Arab riots in 1947, says a source in Lomdei Shalem, an organization responsible for the renewed Jewish presence in the area. In the interim, he explains, the Jordanian government took over the land and permitted Arab families to move into the Jewish homes, where many still remain.

In 1998, a small group of men who went to pray at the ancient burial site reported that the synagogue there was being used as a goat shed and garbage dump by a local Arab family, which also was reportedly planning to build on top of the site, threatening to destroy the entire foundation.

After acquiring power of attorney from the Sephardi Community Council, the original owner of the property, MK Benny Elon shepherded a group of young yeshiva students to the old synagogue. They cleaned it up and began to study there regularly.

In the meantime, says the Lomdei Shalem source, apartments in the area "became available." Slowly, Jews began to move back in.

Today, seven Jewish families live in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, interspersed among dozens of Arab families. Though they're living together, the neighborhood is far from a model for coexistence.

The old synagogue has been restored and is now a kollel, where men study Torah on a daily basis. On the grassy yard outside, Lomdei Shalem and the organizations responsible for supporting the Jewish neighborhood have built a small playground, which is often the site of nasty arguments with the Arabs, whose children also want to play on the new equipment.

"We don't hate them," says Bryna Segal, a resident of Shimon Hatzadik. "But the neighborhood decided not to let them play here so they'll know who's in charge and won't give us trouble."

Segal, her husband and two young children moved to Shimon Hatzadik a little over six months ago from the northern Samaria settlement of Ma'aleh Levona because they wanted to live in Jerusalem and in an ideologically meaningful place. She says the adjustment was difficult and that when they first moved in, she was afraid to let her children go out alone.

"In the beginning, the Arabs would curse at us when we would walk by them," says Segal, who has had rocks thrown at her car, her antennas stolen and her tires slashed.

The Dagan family, which moved in a year ago, recalls an outdoor community meal the Jewish families made one Shabbat that led to a violent encounter with their Arab neighbors.

"They threw feces on the tables we had set up," says Iska Dagan, "and after we started arguing with them, they stabbed my husband Emanuel three times in the back with a screwdriver."

The perpetrators were arrested, held for two days and released, she says. Although the government pays for two 24-hour security guards, the Jewish families complain that they don't get involved.

"One time an Arab threw a cinder block at us as the guard watched, and instead of doing something he told me I should learn to get along with the Arabs," says Dagan.

Now, the families "coexist" in an almost quiet denial of the other's presence.

Segal's next-door neighbors, the Kurds, ignore her completely, she says, because she lives in the home they had built for their son. One of the Jewish associations took the Kurds to court, claiming they built the home illegally.

As protected tenants (residents who cannot be evicted from an apartment that was built under the British Mandate) in a home originally owned by Jews that was later taken over by the Jordanians, the Kurds could not be evicted.

But according to the court, they were prohibited from building an addition to the home that they didn't own in the first place, and Jews were permitted to take it over.

"It's my house," says Fawziya Kurd angrily. "I built it, but Jews are living there. How am I supposed to feel?"

Segal says Fawziya yelled at her when her family put up a mezuza and when they built a succa, but that in recent months her neighbors won't even make eye contact with her.

"We don't talk to them and we don't like them," says Fawziya, "but we don't give each other problems. We both want to live in peace."

The Jewish families in Shimon Hatzadik hope their Arab neighbors will eventually leave and be replaced by Jews, to accelerate the fulfillment of the Jewish dream of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. The Arabs hope the Jews will realize they are unwelcome and move back out, enabling Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

BUT SHIMON Hatzadik is not a singular phenomenon. Throughout east Jerusalem, similar Jewish enclaves are being zealously established with the goal of reigniting Jewish life in what is termed "the heart of Jerusalem" rather than "east Jerusalem," says Daniel Luria, spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, the organization championing the movement.

"Zionism didn't end in 1948 or 1967," he says. "The Jewish dream of having a safe, thriving Jewish community in the heart of Jerusalem hasn't been achieved yet."

Ateret Cohanim, not to be confused with the Old City yeshiva of the same name, was established in 1979, when it helped its first Jewish family move into the Muslim Quarter.

Now, says Luria, there are 800 Jews living in the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City, along with 50 families in Ma'aleh Hazetim - also known as Ras el-Amud - on the Mount of Olives. There are also plans for a new project on empty plots of Jewish-owned land on the Jerusalem side of Abu Dis, to be called Kidmat Zion.

Nine Jewish families are also living in the old Yemenite neighborhood of Shiloah, which the Arabs call Silwan, across from the City of David. Just a few weeks ago, however, they were ordered to evacuate by a Jerusalem court because the building they are residing in was built illegally.

The property on which the building sits was owned by Yemenite Jews who were expelled in Arab riots 70 years ago, explains Luria. Arabs built illegally on the property in the last few years, he says, and this specific building was purchased - and then populated - by Jews.

Though he admits there was a lack of adequate building permits for the project, Luria says they are fighting the eviction because of the fact that illegal building is rampant throughout east Jerusalem and the municipality does little to enforce the law on the Arabs living in hundreds of illegally built homes.

In fact, both Luria and Elon say that illegal building in Arab neighborhoods is one of the biggest problems facing the Jerusalem Municipality today.

"It's a very sensitive issue and the government is scared to put its foot down," says Luria. "It's scared CNN or BBC is going to show up and show an old woman crying and a little boy playing in the street outside an Arab home that was destroyed for being illegally built, so it only enforces the law with the Jews."

But Ateret Cohanim and Lomdei Shalem aren't acting alone in their fervent efforts to reestablish Jewish life in the disputed section of the city. Other organizations, the most popular of which are Elad, responsible for renewing Jewish life in the City of David, and Beit Orot, which operates a yeshiva of 10 families on the northern side of the Mount of Olives, are actively involved in bolstering the Jewish presence in these Arab-populated areas.

Supported by funds raised mostly from private donors here and abroad, these organizations work to acquire property from the Arab residents either by purchasing the title from the Arab owner or the protected tenancy right from the Arab resident.

"Contrary to what some may think, nobody is kicked off any land," Luria says. "There are Arabs ready to sell and we take the opportunity to buy. If they are protected tenants and they don't want to leave, we can't make them."

In many instances, he says, the land is in fact Jewish owned but has been occupied by Arabs for many years, rendering many of these residents protected tenants. As such, as Luria points out, they cannot be evicted - unless they sold the property without the permission of the original owner or built illegally on the premises, as occurred in the case of the Kurd family in Shimon Hatzadik. In such cases, or if the resident is not actually a protected tenant but an illegal squatter, the Arab family can be taken to court and evicted.

"Everything that's done is done legally," says Elon, who has pioneered this movement in order to "wipe out the Green Line in Jerusalem" by having a meaningful Jewish presence in the eastern part of the city.

"Everyone says don't worry about Jerusalem, it will be our capital forever and ever, but when [Ehud] Barak was prime minister, Jerusalem was on the table," he says. "We need to unite Jerusalem, not just on maps but on the ground, and the only way to do that is if Jews feel safe and secure there and know this is the only capital of the Jewish state."

While the stakes are high, Luria maintains that the process is simple - if an Arab wants to sell, a Jew should be able to buy. Indeed, 100 percent of Ateret Cohanim's activity is buying from the Arabs and does not involve the courts - unless the Arab himself requests a cover story.

"There have been many instances in which Arabs were killed for selling land to Jews," Luria says, clearly hinting at the highly-rumored notion that if an Arab wants to sell to Jews but is afraid for his life, he can be taken to court and go through the motions of being "evicted" so his Arab neighbors won't know he willingly sold to Jews. "We go to great lengths to protect the Arabs, even if it means looking bad in the eyes of the community."

For all the bad press it receives for its controversial activities, he says his organization shouldn't have to exist at all - it's really the responsibility of the government or the Jewish National Fund to act on behalf of Jewish landowners, research the old properties and synagogues and make sure the current Arab residents aren't destroying or defiling them.

"The whole world is talking about Jews as the occupiers of Arab land," he says. "But in Jerusalem, it's totally the opposite."

THE ARABS, of course, disagree.

Karim Arafat lives in Wadi Hilweh in Silwan, where he owns a tailor shop. When asked if there are Jews living in his neighborhood, he responds in the negative, saying that it's not Jews but "settlers" who have begun moving in.

"No one's happy they're here," he says. "We don't want them living in our neighborhood."

Arafat says his new neighbors aren't friendly and interfere with his lifestyle, explaining that on Jewish holidays, the streets are closed off and while he is trapped in his home, the "settlers are dancing in the streets."

He says he thinks it might be possible for Jews and Arabs to live together one day, but that "Jews and settlers are not the same thing. I can't live with settlers," he says. "And I don't think you could either."

Though he acknowledges their claim that the property in question was Jewish-owned, Arafat says that doesn't change the fact that they are kicking Arabs out of homes they've lived in for years.

"They say they owned it a hundred years ago," he says, "but if someone steals your house, or even your friend's house, how can you live with them?"

Correspondingly, dovish city councilman Pepe Allalo says every effort to bring Jewish families into east Jerusalem homes is a violent provocation against the Arabs and straddles the boundaries of what's legal and what's not.

"First of all, according to international law, nothing here is legal because the world considers east Jerusalem occupied land," he says. In Israel, he adds, it's also illegal because many of the homes being purchased by Jews are illegally built, and as an example he refers to the case of the Jewish families in Silwan recently given eviction notices.

But it's impossible to say whether all these transactions are legal or not, says attorney Daniel Seidman of Ir Amim, which describes itself as an organization that promotes Israeli-Palestinian coexistence in Jerusalem. Each house in east Jerusalem, he says, has its own, complicated story.

Seidman became involved in the issue in 1992, when he petitioned the High Court of Justice on behalf of former Meretz MK Haim Oron, arguing that Jews moving into east Jerusalem reflected a covert government policy to turn over Palestinian properties to extremist settlers. Seidman contends that "the settlers" have an "ambiguous relationship" with the rule of law and tons of political clout that they use to the utmost. The government, he says, has practiced a systematic policy of collusion with the settler organizations, with Ariel Sharon as their "patron saint."

There have been plenty of cases in east Jerusalem, he says, in which there are illegal allocations of government funds or in which "settlers" are given the inside track by government agencies. He says he has even witnessed situations in which land is declared "absentee property"(property in a captured territory that is managed by a government appointee), turned over to Jews and the Arabs living in the house find "their stuff being thrown out the window and themselves evicted."

Widespread illegality reigns, he alleges, but nevertheless admits that there are circumstances in which properties in east Jerusalem are turned over in a completely legal manner and by the consent of the Arab owner. He points out that Shimon Hatzadik is one distinct example.

"The property was owned by Jews prior to 1948 and the Jordanian custodian for enemy property built homes on this land to house refugees - so the title here clearly belongs to the Jews," he says. Confirming the Jewish claims, Seidman elaborates that Jews have been able to legally repopulate the area because Arabs sold to them or violated contract agreements and were evicted by a court.

But the bottom line is that both the Arabs and Jews, determined to force the other out of east Jerusalem, claim the other side is wrong, lying, cheating, stealing or forging documents. At the end of the day, says Seidman, "you'll never hear a settler say I've ripped off a Palestinian, and you'll never hear a Palestinian say anything but that he's been ripped off."

AT THE HEART of the issue is the controversial piece of land itself, over which Israelis and Palestinians have been competing for some 120 years, says Yisrael Kimche, a geographer at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and 70-year Jerusalem resident.

"Each side thinks that if it settles in this place, it will own it," he explains.

Documents clearly show that most of the land in question was owned by Jews many years ago, he says, similar to land in west Jerusalem that was once owned by Arabs but was turned over to the government after they left during the War of Independence.

It's difficult to examine whether all the transactions going on today are legal, he continues, because most of it is done in secret to protect the Arabs who are thought to be betraying their brethren by selling to Jews.

"The Jewish organizations try to do everything legally, but no one knows exactly what's happening there because everything is kept very quiet," he says.

But the phenomenon, he adds, is nothing new.

"Most of the Jewish neighborhoods in west Jerusalem were purchased from Arabs since the middle of the 19th century," he says. "It's just in the last couple of years that it's become a major political issue."

The issue itself has been greatly exaggerated, Kimche says, because the actual number of Jews moving into Arab areas of east Jerusalem is small and the number of Jews already living in what is considered east Jerusalem - in neighborhoods such as Pisgat Zeev built north, south and east of the Green Line - is more than 180,000, only slightly fewer than the number of Palestinians residing there.

The Arab population in east Jerusalem stands at about 240,000, 33% of the total population of Jerusalem, according to figures provided by Kimche.Of that, more than half are studying in the Israeli education system, and as such are considered by Kimche to be a population that Jews can enter and live with peacefully.

"I personally don't think it's a great idea for Jews to purchase land in the middle of Arab neighborhoods. I think it's better to live side by side but not to mingle." he says. "But there are hundreds of Arab families moving to Jewish neighborhoods because of housing shortages, so I don't think it's so problematic for a Jewish family to live in a Muslim area."

Kimche remains optimistic, pointing out that "there were times when Jews and Arabs lived together in peace."

"I think it's possible for us to live together," he continues. "So perhaps this [situation in east Jerusalem] could encourage peace because you already have Jews and Arabs living together."

From the hostility and tension tangible in the air around Shimon Hatzadik, it doesn't seem very likely.

"There is no chance for coexistence today," says Allalo. "They're living in a bad situation," he says of the Jews in Shimon Hatzadik. "There's violence, arguing, and two guards right next to them. If there was coexistence, we wouldn't need guards, but we do because each side doesn't want the other."

Today, Allalo determines that the only course of action is for Jews and Arabs to separate from each other completely and have two states. Only after friendly relations are established between the states can either side even consider living in the other's communities.

"We are at war now," he says. "Maybe one day when there's peace a Jew can buy a house in Silwan and an Arab can buy a house in Neveh Ya'acov. But it's not possible today."

Though they live mere meters apart and pass by each other morning and night, the two communities in Shimon Hatzadik continue to exist as if the other doesn't.

"We don't expect everyone to get along," says Luria, "just to be cordial and coexist."

Segal says she isn't scared anymore and now lets her children play freely in the plaza outside her home and feels comfortable walking around the area alone.

But perhaps it's just too soon to tell. In the home across the way from Segal's, an Arab woman smiles at Segal and her children as they walk by. They wave and smile back. Segal says the two women don't speak, but that she's always friendly.

"It would be interesting to speak to the Arabs, to find out about them, to learn who they are," says Segal, "but unfortunately, that's not the atmosphere here."

The Israeil government erases the Bedouin Village of Twail again

Yeela Raanan, the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Again, hundreds of police people congregated by the city of Rahat. Again, they accompanied the demolishing bulldozers. Again the drove by the train tracks on their way to the village of Twail Abu-Jarwal. And again – the destruction, the violence, and the pain they leave behind.

Is it not yet obvious that the villagers have no other options? Wouldn’t five waves of demolitions, two of the entire village, have convinced anyone who had options to leave? Evidently, the government is not yet sure that these people cannot still be convinced, so here is yet another lesson, maybe you will be convinced this time. Again the village was completely demolished: 15 structures, including the sheep dens, eleven tents. Everything was destroyed. The tents they took.

Aqil Talalqa, the village’s elected head, sat with governmental officials, in an attempt to find some kind of compromise for his tribe, about 500 people, who have no place to build a home. With lack of any other options they returned to their ancestral lands several years ago, and now are subject to the cruel repetitive demolitions. The compromise the government offered was a neighborhood in the Bedouin town of Laqia – on another family’s land. One wonders why would the government suggest such an impossible solution? Scores of years ago, the government confiscated land from Arabs in the Negev in order to sell it to other Arabs. For the scores of years that passed no Arab has been willing to build his house on another Arab’s confiscated land. And this is the land that is suggested to Talalqa. The Authority for the “Advancement” of the Bedouins knows well that building a home on another’s land brings about serious conflicts. Sadly, it seems Aqil’s answer makes sense: “They want to create conflict between families and tribes. All sorts of conflicts. For them this is fun.”

Tonight again over 100 people will be without a roof, in the cold desert night.

For more information: Yeela Raanan, RCUV. 054 7487005.

Olmert rejects Peretz plan to evacuate illegal outposts

Last update - 07:54 05/02/2007
PM rejects Peretz plan to evacuate illegal outposts

By Aluf Benn and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday rejected Defense Minister Amir
Peretz's proposal to evacuate several illegal West Bank outposts. In a routine work meeting between the two, Peretz suggested three or four possible outposts. Olmert replied that the timing is not right.

Sources in the Prime Minister's Office said Peretz proposed tiny outposts with just a few trailers. The sources say the premier is in favor of removing illegal outposts, but supports developing a comprehensive plan on the matter.

Olmert told Peretz they would determine the proper timing together.

Israel is committed to former prime minister Ariel Sharon's promise to the Washington administration to dismantle illegal outposts created since 2001. The cabinet has debated the matter several times, but not a single outpost has been dismantled in practice.

In December, Haaretz reported that civil administration figures showed 200 structures were erected in late 2006 at various outposts.

In the summer, Peretz promised U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he would be receiving the army's plan for dismantling outposts after the Jewish holidays in the fall. The Israel Defense Forces has rejected recent Peretz initiatives to evacuate outposts, at one point because of the second Lebanon war and at another due to escalating terror.

The defense minister's office has launched negotiations with settler leaders in efforts to reach understandings and common language on voluntary evacuation, but has made little headway. The Bush administration has meanwhile lessened pressure to evacuate the illegal outposts in the West Bank.