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

Part 1 – CrossTalk on Israel Raid on Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Part 2 – CrossTalk on Israel Raid on Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Part 3 – CrossTalk on Israel Raid on Gaza Freedom Flotilla

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/06/10/world/10prexyspan-cnd/10prexyspan-cnd-articleLarge.jpg

WASHINGTON — President Obama promised a $400 million aid package for the West Bank and Gaza on Wednesday, as the United States scrambled to come up with a way out of the stalemate in the Middle East exacerbated by the Gaza flotilla incident last week.

Mr. Obama, meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, said that the money would go to housing and schools. White House officials said that the money also would help increase access to drinking water and to help address health and infrastructure needs.

The exact details of how such aid would be used in Gaza remained unclear. Nor was it immediately clear how Mr. Abbas, who has authority in the West Bank but no authority in Gaza, would be able to administer it.

Gaza has been subjected to an Israeli blockade since 2007; an Israeli raid that thwarted a Turkish-led flotilla carrying aid supplies toward Gaza last week led to international protests over the blockade, which Mr. Obama has called “unsustainable.”

Israel contends the blockade is necessary to prevent arms smuggling to Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza and opposes Israel’s existence.

Administration officials and their European allies have been pressing the Israeli government to come up with some kind of agreement to partly lift the blockade.

“The president has described the situation in Gaza as unsustainable, and it demands a significant change in strategy,” the White House said in a statement.

“While we work with our partners in the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt, and the international community to put such a strategy in place, these projects represent a down payment on the United States’ commitment to Palestinians in Gaza, who deserve a better life and expanded opportunities, and the chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank.”
To read more click below…
Obama, Meeting Abbas, Pledges New Aid for Palestinians

Since then the vetren journalist has apologised and has announced her immediat retirement under lot of pressure and criticism. She has been outcasted by her pears and eveybody else.This is the reward for socalled freedom of the speech. Everything under the world and above the world God, prophets, are up for expression of freedom of speech, but nobody dare touch the Israel and Jews. I wonder why? This is sad day as this vetran Journalist had to retire under such circumstances.