JTA) — British Prime Minister David Cameron called on Israel to end its blockade of Gaza, calling it a “prison camp.”

“The situation in Gaza has to change,” Cameron said Tuesday during a speech to a Turkish business association in Ankara. “Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.”

Cameron also criticized Israel’s interception of a Turkish Gaza-bound flotilla that led to the death of nine Turkish passengers, including one dual Turkish-American citizen.

“The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable,” he said. “I have told Prime Minister Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous.”

During a news conference later with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cameron continued to criticize Israel’s blockade of Gaza. He also called on “Turkey and Israel not to give up on their friendship.”

The American Council for World Jewry expressed concern over Cameron’s criticisms of Israel.

In a statement released Tuesday, council Chairman Jack Rosen said the British leader never mentioned that “Gaza’s million-and-a-half Palestinians live under the control of Hamas, a terrorist organization, or that the activists aboard the Mavo Marmara vessel were committed in word and deed to lynching the Israeli officers who boarded their ship.”

“Feeding the myth that Israel is entirely to blame for the current situation is a risky and unfair strategy. Israel has never acted in the kind of vacuum implied by the Prime Minister,” the statement continued. “We urge him to recommit to a consistent and balanced approach that holds all sides accountable, regardless of which audience is being addressed.”

Middle East Peace = Peaceful independent Palestinian Nation

Peaceful settlement to the Middle East Israel/Palestine Issue is the ultimate solution which can bring the Middle East to the Peaceful era. Currently millions of Palestinians are refugees living in horrible and dangerous conditions within Palestine/Israel and around the neighbouring countries as well as around the world.

In reality, this issue is not about religion or faith, its about the nation/land and geopolitics. If we see closely, Jews and Muslims who are the major component of this issue are very close to each other in faith and from the books of the same god.

Every religion have some elements which can be extreme and distort the religion for their personal or sect benefits. We need to look at the broad arena and see that they are so many things which are common then different.

So, the dispute/war is about about land and nation. By refusing to give back the occupied land to the palestine will not bring peace to Israel nor to palestine and middle east in general. Ultimately, this bring the major issue for the world peace as we see it today.

Let’s ask the following from the parties to bring the ultimate/major solution to this problem:

1. Since Israel is the Occupying force, they have the duty to bring peaceful end to the occupation not drag the ultimate solution for next 10-20 years. Its not in their best interest as they know it (hopefully).

2. For Palestinian, to bring about the end to the hostility and accept the 1967 borders as the final boundaries of the palestine and settle all the issues once with this state. No more this or that issue, just a state(independent) in 1967 borders for all palestinians including refugees period. Let Israel have the Israel for current citizans of that state, no refugees please.

At the end, Jews as your brothers and are from the books you beleive in, they should be able to prosper and florish in the land of Ibrahim/Mosus. At the same time, Jews need to remember that the Palestinians per history gave refuge to Mosus when he needed and made him part of their people. Married within their people. So, let’s not kill those people who gave refuge and provided help to your prophet and the same prophet is the prophet of Muslims as well. Let’s get together and solve this problem and bring peace to the lands of prophets. Otherwise, god will bring his punishment for all the people of books on the lands of middle east.

~Peace Out

Budrus Trailer – Excellent example of Gandhian Non-Voilent Movement

 “It takes a village to unite the most divided people on earth.” Nonviolent resistance to Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories.

 It is a story of “Palestinian victory by unarmed popular resistance.” “The framing of the film is about the route of the barrier, but the movie is about community organization, how the villagers connect with Israeli activists, and the role of women. It is about capturing the imagination of what’s possible”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that the United States must make its position on Israel’s nuclear strategy clear before talks on Tehran’s atomic program could resume.

Sanctions imposed by “arrogant” Western powers would not slow Iran’s nuclear progress, he said.

	Technicians measuring parts of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo.
	Photo by: AP

The United States, Europe and the United Nations have imposed sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program. Iran says its aim is to generate electricity and rejects Western suspicions it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator suggested in a letter to the European Union’s foreign affairs chief this week that talks could be held as soon as September on issues including Tehran’s atomic program.

Speaking in Nigeria after a summit of the D8 group of developing nations, Ahmadinejad said Iran supported dialogue but blamed the United States for the failure of previous talks.

Asked what conditions must be met for talks to resume, Ahmadinejad said Washington must make its position on Israel’s nuclear strategy clear.

“The first condition is they should express their views about the nuclear weapons of the Zionist regime. Do they agree with that or not. If they agree that these bombs should be available to them, the course of the dialogue would be different,” he said.

Israel is widely assumed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the region but it refuses to confirm or deny having such weapons. It has usually been spared scrutiny by its guardian ally but the Obama administration alarmed Israel in May by backing an Egyptian initiative for talks in 2012 on a Middle East free of weapons of mass-destruction.

However, hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama echoed Israel’s veiled justifications for having the bomb and said Israel had “unique security requirements”.

The White House said Obama had further pledged to keep Israel, which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, from being “singled out” at a meeting of the U.N. nuclear watchdog in Vienna in September as well as at the Egyptian-proposed regional conference.

Ahmadinejad, speaking to reporters through an interpreter, said the United States must also clarify its own commitment to non-proliferation and its position on its readiness to “resort to force”.

Iran is seeking closer trade ties with Africa and Ahmadinejad laced a speech to Nigerian academic, civil society and religious groups with parallels between African relations with ex-colonial powers and Iran’s own standoff with the West.

“The wealth they stockpiled came from the pockets of others. They have plundered and looted all the mines in Africa. They have plundered the labor force for hundreds of years,” he said.

It was a message that resonated with some of the audience at the gathering in Africa’s most populous nation of 140 million people, roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims.

“They call the leaders of America leaders of the free world. We call you the leader of nations struggling for freedom,” said Shehu Sani, president of Nigeria’s Civil Rights Congress.

“Dr, Ahmadinejad is a role model, he is an inspiration.”

But Sani also tackled the Iranian leader about his public statements questioning whether the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed across Europe had indeed occurred, comments which stirred tensions with Israel.

Ahmadinejad replied: “Why should they occupy the land of the Palestinian people. The people of Palestine committed no crime during World War Two.”

a haaretz.com article

Senators in Jerusalem to discuss Middle East tensions.

There is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, “through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must,” visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Wednesday in Jerusalem.

Lieberman, flanked at a Jerusalem press conference by his senate colleagues John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), used very tough language, saying the words “military action” in regards to stopping Iran’s nuclear program. Most US officials opt to tiptoe around the subject, saying “no options are off the table.”

Lieberman said that “a certain trumpet needs to sounded here for the Iranian regime to hear.”

He said the sanctions Congress recently passed against Iran were meant to signal to Teheran to “negotiate the end of their nuclear program and re-entry into the civilized world, if that is possible. But if not, they should know that when Congress says it is unacceptable to get nuclear weapons, we mean it. We hope economic and diplomatic power will work, but if we must use force, that must remain a very active option.”

Regarding Tuesday’s friendly meeting in Washington between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama, Lieberman – based on reports he heard from people there – said “it was a positive meeting, and we can say with some encouragement that the relationship between the US and Israel is back on track.”

Lieberman, acknowledging that the past year was a “difficult one” in the US-Israel relationship, said that even during this period “the members of Congress across party lines continued to both feel and express strong support for the security of the State of Israel, and for the relationship.”

Graham was even blunter.

“The Congress has Israel’s back,” he said, “and never misunderstand that. Whatever relationship problems we have had in the past, it has never seeped over into Congress. The Congress has been united in protection of one of our best allies in the world, the State of Israel.”

Regarding another American ally, Turkey, McCain – referring to both Ankara’s vote against Iran sanctions at the UN and its hostile rhetoric toward Israel – said he has been “disappointed recently” by Turkey’s “actions and words.”

At the same time, he said, Turkey is an old and close ally with whom the US has common interests.

“I hope that at some point the Turkish leadership would lower the rhetoric, reduce it to the point where we can try to solve differences in a quiet and diplomatic way,” McCain said.

Asked what would happen to US-Turkish ties if Ankara severed, as it has threatened to do, its ties with Israel, McCain replied, “obviously it wouldn’t be helpful. I hope this won’t be the case. I hope that there will be conversations.” Saying that the Israeli-Turkish relationship has “contributed to stability in the Middle East,” McCain said he found the situation “disturbing,” and said he hoped the US could play an “interlocutor role to bridge some of these differences.”

Fundamentally, McCain said, Turkey remains a secular nation that has “contributed enormously to peace in the region and the world.”

All three senators, who met during their two-day stay with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, praised the US-trained PA security forces.

McCain, in an apparent reference to talk about putting PA security forces at border crossings from Israel into Gaza, said the willingness of Israel to discuss this issue showed the confidence Israel had in these forces as well.

 a jpost article

By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry

There is good news and bad news for Palestinians.

The good news is that history was, and still is, on the side of those who struggle against great odds to end occupations: Arabs against Crusaders, Irish against British, Algerians against French, French against Germans, and so on. Every occupation is destined to end, eventually.

The bad news is that the Zionist occupation of Palestine will likely not end any time soon.

The Palestinian struggle is being obstructed by Israel and the United States because neither is ready for it to end; however, each has demonstrated a willingness to end illegal occupations: Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon after some 20 years of occupation, and in 1956 America demanded that Israeli forces withdraw from the Sinai soon after Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt.

A common argument is that any end to the occupation must be based on Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem to its June 4, 1967, borders, but withdrawal is not enough.

Israel is a Zionist Jewish state steeped in the mindset of 19th-century European colonialism.

Any peace agreement must take place within the context of “neo-Zionism,” a new political ideology for the 21st century. This new ideology would replace “let us do what’s right for the Jews” with “let us do what’s right.”

It is essential to remember that Zionism was conceived during an age of imperialism, when all of Europe thought along these lines.

Zionist Jews are largely European and, like Europeans, made their colonial plans in complete disregard of the native population of Palestine.

The Zionist movement goes back to 1882, and developed out of anti-Jewish violence in Russia.

As a result, an organization in Odessa called “The Lovers of Zion” came into being.

At the time, Zionists made up just three percent of the Jewish population, so their cause raised little interest among European and British Jews, who were content and well-integrated into society.

Nevertheless, the First Zionist Congress was held at Basel, Switzerland, on Aug. 29, 1897, and led to the declaration of two key objectives: Zionists would promote Jewish colonization in Palestine, and work to unite Jews worldwide to foster Jewish national sentiment and consciousness.

This 19th-century colonial mentality which renders any talk of peace impossible because, as Europeans, the vast majority of Israelis do not place a high priority on living in peace with their non-European neighbours.

For example, a study by the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies found that some 46 percent of Israel’s Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the occupied territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs right out of the country.

Meanwhile, if most of the world’s Jews suddenly decided to move to Israel, as Zionists claim they have a right to do, they would overrun all of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Today, non-Zionist Jews are in the minority, and Zionism itself has become a religion for many Jews.

Israel must evolve into a modern, secular democratic state, and Zionism has to become a viable political movement, but for that to happen Zionists have to pull their head out of the ghetto.

To read more click below…
Zionism must evolve

AP – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, left,

talks as his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov looks …

JERUSALEM – Israel’s hard-line foreign minister said Tuesday that there was “no chance” a Palestinian state would be established by 2012 — a message that threatened to cloud the latest visit by President Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy.

The comments by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman drew swift Palestinian condemnations and could put Israel at odds with the international community, which has set a 2012 target for brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

“As an optimist, I see no chance that a Palestinian state will be established by 2012,” Lieberman said at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “We can express interest, we can dream, but in reality, we are still far from reaching understandings and agreements on establishing an independent state by 2012.”

Russia, along with the U.S., European Union and United Nations, make up the “Quartet” of Mideast negotiators — an international group that has spent nearly a decade trying to forge a peace agreement.

White House envoy George Mitchell was set to arrive in Israel later Tuesday to mediate a fifth round of indirect talks between the sides. Mitchell is trying to prod Israel and the Palestinians into direct negotiations.

It wasn’t clear whether Lieberman was expressing his own opinion or government policy. A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to comment.

Lieberman is a contentious figure because of his support for redrawing Israel’s borders to push areas with heavy concentrations of Arabs out of Israel and into Palestinian jurisdiction. He also launched a failed effort in parliament to force Israeli Arabs to take a loyalty oath or lose their citizenship.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ West Bank government accused Lieberman of defying international efforts to wrap up a deal.

“Lieberman is issuing a challenge to the international community, which is in agreement on the two-year ceiling,” Ghassan Khatib said.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called Lieberman’s comments “a severe slap to the Palestinians and the Arabs who believe in the mirage of a peace agreement.”

He said Hamas calls on Abbas to stop pursuing peace with Israel.

Talks between Palestinians and Israelis resumed in May after a 17-month breakdown. The Palestinians have insisted on U.S. mediation, saying they are frustrated by Israel’s refusal to declare a halt to all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands they claim for a future state along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The aim is to shift gears to direct talks in late September. But much will depend on whether Israel agrees to extend a construction slowdown it has declared in the West Bank and a de facto moratorium in effect in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for a future capital.

Abbas said Monday that Israel has not offered enough to make it worthwhile to move to direct talks.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said in response that direct talks are the only way to solve the conflict.

At their news conference, Lieberman and Lavrov expressed very different positions on Hamas, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. Israel and many Western countries boycott Hamas as a terror organization, while Russia has contacts with the group.

Source:Associated Press