Rich people still have jobs, poor people don't

by Barbara Kiviat

Bob Herbert's column in yesterday's New York Times pointed out that the unemployment crisis is not hitting all parts of the income spectrum equally. I was pretty stunned by the numbers, which go like this:

Range of incomes (by decile)	Unemployment rate
$12,160 or less	30.8%
$12,160-$20,725	19.1%
$20,725-$29,680	19.7% 15.3%
$29,680-$39,000	12.2%
$39,000-$50,000	9.0%
$50,000-$63,000	7.8%
$63,000-$79,100	6.4%
$79,100-$100,500	5.0%
$100,150-$138,700	8.0% 4.0%
$138,700+	3.2%

The data, which are for the fourth quarter, come from a new study (PDF) by Andrew Sum, Ishwar Khatiwada and Sheila Palma at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies. The researchers conclude that "what has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets."

Furthermore:

At the end of calendar year 2009... workers in different segments of the income distribution clearly found themselves in radically different labor market conditions. A true labor market depression faced those in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution, a deep labor market recession prevailed among those in the middle of the distribution, and close to a full employment environment prevailed at the top. There was no labor market recession for America's affluent.

I didn't post about this yesterday because I had a question about the extent to which people fall into lower income brackets precisely because they are unemployed. Lose your job for a year, and there's probably a decent chance you've gone from living in a household that makes $60,000 a year household to one that makes $30,000, right? Then that's where you get counted as unemployed.

I emailed Andrew Sum and he wrote back:

The paper is based on family income including all other members of family and includes theoretically all cash transfers including unemployment insurance. It is true that a person who had a job a year ago and lost it and has no [unemployment insurance] coverage or other income can get pushed down to a much lower income but they are an overwhelming exception.

Then he said something else interesting:

We ran this model before the recession started and results show overwhelmingly that low income workers were far more adversely affected. There are few job losses at top.

In other words, even in good times unemployment hits people in lower income brackets harder. I imagine that might have to do with the prevalence of temporary and seasonal work.

UPDATE: Here is how the numbers compare between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2009.

The current economic climate has certainly exacerbated the effect. And that is true not just for unemployment, but also for underemployment (people working part-time even though
they'd rather be working full).

More from the report:

Workers in the lowest income households faced an underemployment rate of nearly 21%... The incidence of these underemployment problems also fell steadily and considerably as we move up the income distribution, dropping to 6.1% for workers in the fifth decile to 3.6% in the eighth decile and to a low of only 1.6% for those workers in the top decile of the income distribution. Employed workers in the lowest income decile were 13 times as likely to be underemployed as workers in the top decile of the nation's income distribution in the fourth quarter of 2009. Again, workers at the bottom and top of the income ladder were encountering dramatically different labor market problems. Source

The Geography of a Recession



Gaza unemployment is highest
in the world

Rigi planned to meet Holbrooke in Kyrgyzstan

The captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, was scheduled to meet US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke at the Manas Air Base for talks on waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a journalist says.

Rigi had planned to meet a high-profile US official at the Manas Air Base near Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek.

This senior US official must have been Holbrooke, who was in Kyrgyzstan to visit the only US air base in Central Asia, the IRNA news agency quoted journalist Wayne Madsen as saying on Saturday.

In a televised confession on Press TV on Thursday, Abdolmalek Rigi said that in a Dubai meeting with CIA agents, he was promised unlimited support that included a military base near the Iranian border equipped with weaponry and training facilities.

The Jundallah leader added that he was to meet a top US intelligence official at the US military base in Kyrgyzstan to work out the details of the support the US would provide for his group.

During their meetings with him, the US operatives insisted that Iran is their primary focus in the region, even more important than al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the terrorist leader stated.

Rigi added that the CIA agents also explained to him that since a US military attack on Iran would be very difficult, they planned to support all anti-Iran groups that have the capability of waging war inside Iran and destabilizing the country.

Source

USrael offered Rigi 'extensive aid' for Iran attacks

Tormenting the dead

by Naji Al Ali

In a typical move, Israel is building a "museum of tolerance" right
on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery, writes Khaled Amayreh

February 25, 2010

As if all the persecution and brutalisation meted out to the Palestinians were not enough, Israeli authorities are finalising preparations for the construction of a museum on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery in West Jerusalem.

The cemetery, known as Maamanullah (Sanctuary of God), contains the remains of over 70,000 Muslims. Some say many more are buried there. Some of the remains go back to the time of the great Muslim general Saladin. Some archaeologists believe the cemetery may even date to the time of the Prophet Mohamed.

In the early 1960s, the Israeli government -- which then, as now, was trying incessantly to obliterate the historical Arab identity of the land -- built a parking lot on a part of the cemetery, in disregard of Arab and international protests.

Now, on 10 February, the Israeli Court of Justice gave final clearance to the city of Jerusalem and the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre to build a complex with the name of the Centre for Human Dignity-Museum of Tolerance. Palestinians and Muslims in general are not impressed.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, a fanatical Chabadi leader and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, is claiming that the ancient cemetery is no longer a cemetery since people have been parking their cars there for over half a century. Seemingly proceeding from supremacist view that non-Jews, whether living or dead, have no sanctity, Hier sees no difference between parking cars on top of a graveyard and digging it out for the new construction site. What is important for Hier is that none of the dead are Jewish.

Hier, along with other Israeli apologists, has been searching for a Muslim religious edict that would allow authorities to obliterate Muslim graveyards after 40-50 years. However, while some edicts allow the relocation of the remains of the dead for necessity sake, no edict has ever been made allowing the construction of buildings on top of cemeteries. One Muslim scholar scoffed at Hier's quest, arguing: "If we are to take Hier seriously, then according to him, it is permissible to destroy the graves of prophets and saints who have been dead for thousands of years. What he is saying is nonsense and reflects ignorance and arrogance."

Rashid Khalidi, a prominent Palestinian scholar based in the United States, describes Hier's allegations as "misleading and mendacious". "This is a cemetery where people have been buried since the 12th century. People who fought with Saladin in the Crusades are buried there. The Israeli authorities are basically pushing ahead with the desecration of a cemetery that they have been, unfortunately, slowly nibbling away at for over three decades. We and other families are taking action as a group to try to stop this after other families failed in the Israeli Supreme Court."

Khalidi dismissed Hier's claims that no protests were made in the early 1960s when the parking lot was built on top of the cemetery. "This is not true. Many protests were made. There were protests from the early 1960s, when the first of these desecrations started. What Rabbi Hier said is false. And the fact that it was desecrated in the 1960s doesn't mean that it is right to desecrate it further."

In Jerusalem itself, the demolition of the Maamanullah cemetery is generating fury and indignation among Muslims. The Palestinian League of Muslim Scholars strongly condemned the "brutal ugliness" of the Israeli move. "This is an act of blasphemy. How would Jews react if they saw heavy machinery crush the bones of their dead?" asked Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, an imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque. "Besides, what kind of tolerance are the Israelis talking about when they build a museum on top of the remains of dead people?"

Another scholar remarked: "What can we say when you call cruelty 'tolerance'? This is like building a museum at Auschwitz and calling it a museum of self-abnegation."

Diana Butto, a lawyer representing several families and relatives of people buried in the cemetery, lamented the brazen disregard of Israel for the "very essence of human dignity". "We have exhausted all our other legal means. Even what the UN can do is limited, but they can investigate and raise awareness." Butto revealed that Palestinian families didn't know what was being done with the human remains uncovered by heavy machinery.

Dalia Husseini Dajani, a middle-aged East Jerusalem woman, says many of her relatives were buried in the cemetery. "This is my history, my family, everything. One day, I want to be buried there, and I want my grandchildren to come and pray for me there."

Michael Ratner, president of the US- based Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is assisting the legal case of families against Israel's actions and plans, relayed the following after visiting the site: "I was really shocked by what I saw. I went into West Jerusalem, and I see a wall that's probably 25 feet high, surrounded by surveillance cameras, which is where they're building this so-called 'Museum of Tolerance'. Right up to the edge of it, you see Muslim graves, Palestinian graves, all around it.

"And within even the part of the cemetery that still exists, which is only a few acres, because the Israelis have paved over other parts or built a park, it has been desecrated... [O]ne archaeologist called this an archaeological crime. This is an Israeli archaeologist. And you see they took out bones in cardboards boxes, relatives of the descendants of the people on this [legal] petition. The archaeologist said there's at least 2,000 graves under this site. So to hear the rabbi from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre talk about 'there's no bones, there's no bodies under here' is just -- it is just a lie. That is all I can say. That is what it is."

Both Simon Wiesenthal and the centre named after him have been accused of flagrant lying, exaggeration and half-truths. One researcher contended that Wiesenthal's confabulations were never discussed among scholars, but "he would rarely let the facts get in the way of a good story. In fact, many of the things he claimed to have done were fabrications."

In June 2009, British author Guy Walters published a book entitled Hunting Evil in which he characterised Wiesenthal as "a liar -- and a bad one at that". "He would concoct outrageous stories about his war years and make false claims about his academic careers." Walters found that there were "so many inconsistencies between his three main memoirs and between those memoirs and contemporaneous documents it is impossible to establish a reliable narrative from them. Wiesenthal's scant regard for truth makes it possible to doubt everything he ever wrote or said." Source

Deconstructing Simon Weaselthal

A picture, more expressive than words...

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Syrian President Bachar Assad, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

At a time when 6srael violates all the rules, and doesn't stop it's daily threats against Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Palestine, one mere picture says a lot...

6sraeli occupation seeks to include 150 Palestinian sites as it's alleged heritage

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Christian-Muslim Committee for the support of Jerusalem and holy sites said that Israeli occupation authorities are preparing to submit a list of 150 Palestinian sites claiming they are traditional Jewish religious sites, including the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of Holy Sepulchre.

The committee said in a press statement that: "The list is secret and is directly linked to the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, making it a serious political statement and a declaration of war on holy sites, heritage and history, in order to Judaize shrines after the land, and to obliterate the Arab Islamic identity."

The committee pointed out that the Israeli occupation "wants to submit the list at the meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee which is scheduled for next October ," stressing that there are "no sacred Jewish religious sites in Palestine with the exception of some old synagogues, while the oldest of their claims refers to al-Buraq Wall which they call the Wailing wall despite the fact that no relationship between the wall and the Jews was recorded the sixteenth century AD, and Jewish worship took place at the wall before the seventeenth century, according to reliable information. "

The Jerusalem committee warned that the danger lies "in the Israeli endeavour to include Islamic and Christian holy sites in Palestine in the list, and the fact that the list is determined by the government at the highest level instead of the department of antiquities for example which makes this list a purely political one based on falsification of facts to mislead the international community," the committee said noting that "the occupation today controls 75% of the Ibrahimi Mosque. "

Zionists plan to desecrate the Aqsa Mosque on Sunday

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Tens of Israeli settlers are planning to desecrate the Aqsa Mosque on Sunday, at a time the Israeli occupation stepped up acts of Judaization against Islamic holy places.

The Aqsa Foundation for Endowments and Heritage (AFEH) said that Zionist organisations were calling for the storming of the Aqsa Mosque on Sunday and Monday to celebrate the Jewish festival of Purim.

AFEH said that a Hebrew website run by extremist Jewish groups made a brief advertisement in Hebrew under the slogan "On Purim this year we will not lose, but we will ascend the temple mount," which is a clear call for the storming of the Aqsa Mosque.

AFEH added that a number of Jewish organisations that advocate the rebuilding of the alleged temple including the Temple Institute, The Movement to Rebuild the Holy Temple, The Jewish leadership Movement, The Sanhedrin, The Temple Heritage Fund and The Organization for Human Rights on the Temple Mount started making advertisements calling for the 16 March 2010 to be the "International Day for the Third Temple"

The organisation noted that the date coincided with the day announced for the completion of the building of the biggest synagogue in occupied east Jerusalem, the Hurva synagogue in the Sharaf quarter of the old city only meters away from the Aqsa Mosque.

Hebrew sources indicate that the Israeli president Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be attending the opening ceremony of the Hurva synagogue, adding that according to Jewish prophecies the building of the alleged third temple will start the day following the opening of the Hurva synagogue.

Shiekh Kamal al-Khatib, deputy leader of the Islamic Movement in 1948 occupied Palestine said that the Israeli announcement of including the Ibrahimi Mosque on the list of Jewish heritage sites is a test balloon to what will happen when they do the same to the Aqsa Mosque next month.

AFEH called on the Aqsa guards to be vigilant and on the Palestinians in Jerusalem and lands occupied in 1948 to ensure a continuous presence in the Aqsa Mosque.

The Weaselthal Center

K***set criminalises the
commemoration of the Nakba

USrael offered Rigi 'extensive aid' for Iran attacks

The captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, has confessed that the US administration had assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The following is the detailed transcript of Rigi's confession, stated in Farsi, as broadcasted on Press TV.

"After Obama was elected, the Americans contacted us and they met me in Pakistan.They met us after clashes with my group around March 17 in (the southeastern city of) Zahedan, and he (the US operative) said that Americans had requested a meeting."

"I said we didn't have any time for a meeting and if we do help them they should promise to give us aid. They said they would cooperate with us and will give me military equipment, arms and machine guns. They also promised to give us a base along the border with Afghanistan next to Iran."

"They asked to meet me and we said where should we meet you and he said in Dubai. We sent someone to Dubai and we told a person to ask a place for myself in Afghanistan from the area near the operations and they complied that they would sort out the problem for us and they will find Mr. Rigi a base and guarantee his own security in Afghanistan or in any of the countries adjacent to Iran so that he can carry on his operations.

"They told me that in Kyrgyzstan they have a base called Manas near Bishkek, and that a high-ranking person was coming to meet me and that if such high-ranking people come to the United Arab Emirates, they may be observed by intelligence people but in a place like Bishkek this high-ranking American person could come and we could reach an agreement on making personal contacts. But after the last major operation we took part in, they said that they wanted to meet with us.

"The Americans said Iran was going its own way and they said our problem at the present is Iran… not al-Qaeda and not the Taliban, but the main problem is Iran. We don't have a military plan against Iran. Attacking Iran is very difficult for us (the US). The CIA is very particular about you and is prepared to do anything for you because our government has reached the conclusion that there was nothing Americans could do about Iran and only I could take care of the operations for them.

"One of the CIA officers said that it was too difficult for us to attack Iran militarily, but we plan to give aid and support to all anti-Iran groups that have the capability to wage war and create difficulty for the Iranian (Islamic) system. They reached the conclusion that your organization has the power to create difficulties for the Islamic Republic and they are prepared to give you training and/or any assistance that you would require, in terms of telecommunications security and procedures as well as other support, the Americans said they would be willing to provide it at an extensive level."

Iran's security forces arrested Rigi on Tuesday by bringing down his plane over the Iranian airspace, as he was onboard a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Kyrgyzstan.

Source

6sraeli politician Livni hails Dubai Hamas killing

6srael to erect red army memorial

BY HERB KEINON
16/02/2010 19:26

Netanyahu tells Putin gesture to commemorate crucial role in victory over Nazis.
Israel will erect a memorial commemorating the Red Army’s crucial role in the victory over the Nazis, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Russian Prime Minster Vladimir Putin at a photo opportunity before their meeting Tuesday.

Netanyahu said the gesture, which he intends to move forward, is in honor of the 65th anniversary of the victory over the Nazis later this year. This move comes amid growing concern in Russia that their role and sacrifice in the victory over Nazism is increasingly being underplayed.

Putin, saying that it was forbidden to forget the Nazi victims and that the Jews and the people of the former Soviet Union suffered more than anyone else at the hands of the Nazis, said he was currently in discussion with Moscow’s chief rabbi about the possibility of establishing a Holocaust museum in Moscow.

Netanyahu said he hoped the memorial would be erected before Putin’s next visit to Israel, expected with the year, and that at the same time the Russian prime minister could also take part in the ceremony in which Russia would formally take over control of the Sergei courtyard in central Jerusalem.

After saying that Israel and Russia would increase cooperation in a number of spheres, including technology, security and agriculture, Putin joked that he hoped the agricultural cooperation would add funds to Israel’s Agriculture Ministry so that it could quickly move out of its offices in the Sergei courtyard.

jpost

David Duke

Holodomor. Ukraine, XX century. Genocide Technology



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6srael accused of dooming Ethiopian baby boom

A feminist movement has accused the Israeli government of adopting a racist policy towards the country's Ethiopian Jews.

Activists believe black women are deliberately being given a controversial contraceptive drug to bring about a drop in the population – a claim the government denies.

Thousands of Ethiopians have immigrated to Israel since the 1980s, but their Jewish heritage has been questioned, while their social status continues to suffer.

For nearly four years, Racheli Mangoli has been running a youth center in one of Israel's poorer communities. Forty-five Ethiopian families live here, but throughout that entire time, only one Ethiopian baby has been born in this neighborhood, and that has alarmed Racheli.

She says: “I smelt something not good. I know about the discrimination here – when I am going with the children, I feel this even when I am going to the supermarket. One women said to me ‘I don¹t know how you can stand next to people like this. When they give me money – I am going and washing my hands.’”

After some investigation, Racheli discovered that many Ethiopian women, keen to avoid getting pregnant while setting up life in a new country, had been placed on a controversial contraceptive, Depo-Provera, a drug few Israeli women have heard of, let alone use.

One woman was first put on it four years ago, and underwent repeated injections every three months. She says it has left her with such terrible pains in her hands and back that she can no longer work. She insists she was never told about its side effects or offered an alternative. Like many Ethiopians in Israel, she's afraid she will be deported if she questions the authorities.

Dr Factor is reluctant to give the contraceptive to his patients. He says it is known to delay fertility for months after women come off it. In some cases it can cause permanent infertility.

[it also causes cancer]

“At least 10 per cent develop substantial side-effects – side-effects like irregular bleeding, the period may disappear, they may have heavy periods. And it is impossible to reverse these side-effects, and until it has worked itself out of the system you can’t reverse these. So it’s possible although the contraception works for 3 months at a time, the side-effects may last for two years – three years – four years – five years,” he says.

In 2004, the American Food and Drug Administration warned against the dangers of the drug, but the World Health Organization refused to restrict its use.

Hedva Eyal has tried unsuccessfully to draw attention to the fact that Ethiopian Israelis are given the drug without being warned of the risks. She claims it is her government’s policy and is nothing short of racism.

She told RT: “They don't want poor or black children and Depo-Provera gave them the opportunity to have control. If she [a patient] keeps taking an injection every three months, she is not going to have children – you know it is a 100 per cent secure from children I think.”

Hedva says the policy is working – the number of black babies in Israel is decreasing, but there are no official statistics to back up her claim. For community workers and Ethiopian women here, statistics are unnecessary – they feel their reality speaks for itself.

The Health Ministry admits it issues the drug, but says it was never its policy only to administer it to Ethiopian women and reduce the number of black babies in the country.

In their defense, Jewish agencies involved in immigration say they offered several types of contraceptives to the Ethiopian women, and that all of them participated voluntarily in family planning.

Dr. Yee-fat Bitton from the Israeli Anti-Discrimination Legal Center “Tmura”, says it’s not a matter point of view, but of the statistics.

“The statistics are, that 60 percent of the women receiving this contraceptive, this controversial one, are Ethiopian Jews,” Bitton told RT. “And you have to understand that Ethiopians in Israel... consist of up to only 1 per cent of the population, so the gap here is just impossible to reconcile in any logical manner that would somehow resist the claims of racism.”

Professor Zvi Bentwich, an immunologist and human rights activist from Tel-Aviv, doesn’t think there is any ground to suspect a certain negative official policy towards Ethiopian Jews.

“I’m not against looking and inquiring into the claim. If there is a claim, one should investigate,” Bentwich told RT. “But when asked about official attitudes, official policy, official medical policy, I am very reluctant that that is indeed a policy of racism on that part.”

rt.com

The Ringworm Children .torrent

Feeling the Hate and Bigotry in 6srael

6srael fluoridates Palestinian water, but not it's own

Holodomor. Ukraine, XX century. Genocide Technology

Doc Jazz: "Independence cannot be given to you"

An interview with a Palestinian songwriter of political music

Doc Jazz

In December 2000, Doc Jazz released his first political song 'Intifada', which was listened to widely on the world wide web, and started his internet project 'The Musical Intifada'. Since that time, the collection of his self-written and -produced songs has grown to over 90 funky pop-songs, the majority of which have a political topic. In 2007, the Musical Intifada, which promoted all kinds of Palestinian music, ended its updates. Now, 9 years since the first beginnings, Doc Jazz has started a revival of his musical resistance, which was kicked off by a recent concert in Palestine in October 2009. May Ghoul and Rana Kareem recently interviewed the doctor, who in fact is a practicing surgeon, about his renewed musical endeavors.

Rana: Can you tell me about your profession and how you can manage it with your talent of singing and songwriting ?

Doc Jazz: Well, my profession is that I'm a general surgeon, and I guess my other hobby has nothing to do with that, nor does it have anything obvious in common with it. So maybe that's the reason why I find it to be quite manageable. In my free time, I sometimes get inspiration for songs, and then I sit down and write them and record them in my home studio. So there is no extra time involved in going somewhere or waiting for others, I do it all alone, and that’s how I have been managing to do it for years next to my full-time work at the hospital.

The exception to this was in 2007, on my album Front Door Key, which was produced by Forrest Thomas, and which featured a selection of highly skilled professional musicians. I learned so much from working with Forrest and the others, and it has greatly affected the quality of my home recordings.

Rana: What are you trying to achieve with your music?

Doc Jazz: I consider my music to be a form of resistance against injustice. But not all of my music has a political content, I would say that about 70 % of it does … I write about things that I feel. And since I am Palestinian and I feel very involved with the fate of my people, many of my songs deal with this issue. Often my music is about a news event that has really impressed or moved me, like the more recent rock-song "My Shoe (is 2 good 4 u)" which was about Muntather Al Zaidi who threw the shoe at Bush, or the ballad "Children of Gaza", about the Gaza massacre of 2008.

"Music can transcend divisions"

I believe that music can be a way to convey a message, that can be difficult to communicate through other means. So what I hope, is that people who hear my music get a feeling of why there is a Palestinian struggle for freedom, and why this struggle will not end except with their liberation. Music can transcend divisions based on social class, education, race and gender, so it can be a way to bring all people closer to the Palestinian cause. This is why I write most of my musical lyrics in English, to keep it accessible to people of all nations.

Rana: Why do you think music can be useful in that?

Doc Jazz : Many people don't have enough background information to have real access to political discussions and to political background analyses. For them it often means nothing, or they feel alienated by that kind of discourse. Music however is a language of feelings and emotions, so even though my lyrics sometimes can contain actual political content, there is also a chance that through the melody or the emotion in the song, they will feel with their hearts what I mean to say, instead of with their minds. So it's a way to broaden the audience for our cause, and let them know about the injustices being perpetrated against our people.

Rana: Do you feel this is successful, or not?

Doc Jazz: The feeling of being successful with that varies a lot. Whenever you feel that even one person has responded to the music and felt either its message or its melody, or its beat, you feel successful. On the other hand, we live in times when people have such incredibly easy access to music, that it can be very hard to get your music heard. In the Netherlands I did not feel very successful with the music, although it has more than once reached media such as radio, newspapers and television … but there is a strong reluctance among the audience in the Netherlands to listen to music that has a message that people don’t really want to hear. It collides with the brainwashing they undergo from their childhood onwards, to support Israel through thick and thin. I have always felt I had more fans outside of the Netherlands than in the country itself, despite the attention of national media.

"My music covers almost all modern styles, from rock to rap"

And among pro-Palestinian activists in the Netherlands, the general interest in political music is already at a low level, and the ones who are interested in music seem to be generally more interested in more exotic and oriental forms and genres – either that, or hard-core hip-hop. My music covers almost all modern styles, from rock to rap, but it's basically pop music.

This and other factors led to me closing up the studio before I emigrated from the Netherlands to the Gulf, and I wasn't really planning on picking it up again. But there seems to be a renewed interest in my music, especially from Palestine, which has encouraged me to reinstall my home studio, and produce new songs again.

Rana: Good to hear that ! Do you have any new songs out yet?

Doc Jazz: Yes, I recently released a few new songs: one is in Arabic, and is called "Undhor!", which means "Look!". That one is a mixture of funk and a more traditional Palestinian beat, and is about to the anti-Wall struggle that is going on in flashpoints like Bil'in and Ni'lin. I have dedicated the song to the memory of a young man, Basem Abu Rahma, who was killed by the Israelis while trying to help an injured victim. People there are suffering harshly from a violent crackdown by the Israeli army against their non-violent protests, and it is insufficiently highlighted by corporate media, who are obviously doing their best to help Israel in protecting its artificial image as a 'modern democracy'.

"The concert took place on October 4th, at Al Quds University"

Another one of my new songs is 'Song for Marwa' – this rock ballad is not about the Palestinian cause, but is dedicated to Marwa Al Sherbini, an Egyptian mother of a three-year old child and three months pregnant, who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom in Dresden by her neighbor, in front of her husband and child, in the beginning of July. She was suing him for harassment based on his hatred for Muslims. Her husband tried to help her, while she was being stabbed 18 times, and was shot down by the security guards in the courtroom! Anti-Muslim hatred is on a very high level in Western Europe, and since I was born there and have lived there all my life, I feel connected to the fate of the Muslims who live there, even though I myself have decided to leave the region. In my opinion, Marwa should never be forgotten. That's why I wrote the song.

Rana: What are you planning to do with the music now?

Doc Jazz: Well if time allows it, and if inspiration comes along, I will probably continue to put out new songs, and I recently performed in Palestine as you know, which has always been a dream of mine and now has come true. The concert took place on October 4th, at Al Quds University. It was truly an unforgettable experience; the response from the audience was absolutely amazing. This concert was organized thanks to the interest of fans that live in the Jerusalem region, and who wished to hear me playing my songs live. It was extremely motivating! It definitely helped compensate the generally negative memories of my Dutch experience.

Rana: It really was an awesome concert, such an amazing atmosphere!

Doc Jazz : That is so nice of you, thank you, and I hope it inspired and motivated you.

Rana: It definitely did! Wish you all the best of luck with your music, and I hope you will come again! Do you have a message to the people who listen to your music, or to the Palestinian people?

Doc Jazz: Yes, I want the people to believe in themselves again, in the same spirit as that of the first Intifada that started in 1987. They seem to be increasingly depending on others, and leaving their fate to be decided by others than themselves. But my message to them is: independence cannot be given to you, it can only start by acting independently. Otherwise you are only on the road to a new 'dependence'. This is the motto of my 'come-back'. And I hope that in some way or other, my music relays that message.

LINKS

Main website: http://www.docjazz.com

Music collection: http://www.soundclick.com/docjazz
Doc Jazz Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=37006821380
Doc Jazz Fan Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Doc-Jazz/24453805534

Links to songs mentioned in this article:
My Shoe (is 2 Good 4 u): http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7154112
Children of Gaza: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7315684
Undhor!: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7788173
Song for Marwa: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7848161

Get the CD 'Front Door Key' (prod. Forrest Thomas) from the Palestine Online Store:
http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/art/docjazz

All 90 songs of Doc Jazz can be found through his website, at http://www.docjazz.com . Keep visiting the website, for further information about the upcoming concert in Palestine, and about new song releases. Questions or requests for further information can be sent by email to Maico Music, which manages the work of Doc Jazz, through maicomusic@gmail.com .

May Ghoul has a BA in English literature, and works at Al Quds University in Abu Deis. Rana Kareem has a BSc in Medical Technology from Al Quds University, and works at a health center in Ezariyya.

Holodomor. Ukraine, XX century. Genocide Technology

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Harvard Fellow calls for genocidal measure to curb Palestinian births

6sraeli officials were part of decision to invade Iraq

By SAED BANNOURA - IMEMC

In his recent testimony to the UK Committee investigating the Iraq war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that Israeli officials influenced and participated in the decision by the US and UK governments to attack Iraq in 2003.

During testimony regarding his meetings in Texas with then-US President George W. Bush in 2002, Blair stated, "As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this."

Professor Steven Walt, co-author of the book 'The Israel Lobby', wrote an op-ed following Blair's admission describing how he and co-author John Mearsheimer were attacked by the US media and by right-wing lobbyists for Israel when they made that claim in 2003. Now, Walt says, he feels vindicated because Tony Blair himself has had to admit publicly the extent to which the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and other armies, was influenced by Israel's strategic interests in the region, and Israeli officials themselves.

Walt stated, " Professor Mearsheimer and I made it clear in our article and especially in our book that the idea of invading Iraq originated in the United States with the neoconservatives, and not with the Israeli government....We also pointed out that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other Israeli officials were initially skeptical of this scheme, because they wanted the U.S. to focus on Iran, not Iraq. However, they became enthusiastic supporters of the idea of invading Iraq once the Bush administration made it clear to them that Iraq was just the first step in a broader campaign of 'regional transformation' that would eventually include Iran."

The two Harvard professors were vehemently attacked at the time by many prominent Jewish leaders in the US, who accused Mearsheimer and Walt of anti-Semitism for their 'preposterous' claim that Israeli officials had any impact at all on the US and UK governments' decision to attack Iraq.

In his recent op-ed, Professor Walt also noted that the attacks against him and Professor Mearsheimer were made despite many articles and statements by prominent Jewish organizations and writers in the US. In one example, he referred to an editorial in the Jewish newspaper Forward, published in 2004, which stated, "As President Bush attempted to sell the war .. in Iraq, America's most important Jewish organizations rallied as one to his defense. In statement after statement community leaders stressed the need to rid the world of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Some groups went even further, arguing that that the removal of the Iraqi leaders would represent a significant step toward bringing peace to the Middle East and winning America's war on terrorism".

The editorial also noted that "concern for Israel's safety rightfully factored into the deliberations of the main Jewish groups."

No apologies have been made to Professors Walt and Mearsheimer by any of the groups or individuals who attacked them, even after British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently admitted that Walt and Mearsheimer's claims were true.

PNKC

A Reading into the Conditions of Arab Women in 6srael

By Yoseph Ouda

Since the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, Israel has exercised racist policies against minorities living within its borders.

This naturally contravenes the democratic principles it claims to pursue and uphold as a way of life. Nevertheless, it continues to consider itself the only democratic state in the Middle East.

This self-portrait is wholly inaccurate, particularly given the detailed evidence of its somewhat characteristic discriminatory treatment of entire ethnic groups within its population. The Arab minority forms one such group in Israel.

Following the outbreak of war in 1948, countless Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands. Out of the almost a million Palestinians that had inhabited the land prior to its occupation that year, only 150,000 remained by the end. The extensive war time expulsion of the indigenous population severely limited Arab presence in the new state, particularly in cities. It can be deduced that the Arabs who did remain on their land were residents of villages in which life became characterized by weak social, educational, economic and even political ties.

This may be explained by the fact that from 1948 until 1966, the Arab minority lived under military rule which succeeded in isolating them from any economic, social or political activity. Yet despite the harshness of the period and the isolation they faced, the new state failed in its attempts to push these Arabs to leave their lands or to seek refuge in neighboring Arab states as others had done. To the contrary, it helped to strengthen their resolve and determination to hold fast to their land, and in 1967 they began working toward creating a separate, independent identity of their own.

The frightening prospect for the Israeli government of Arabs within the state developing an identity apart from Israeli interests forced them to pay attention. In this way, Arabs began to obtain some of their rights and in the mid-seventies, began demanding these rights through protests such as the demonstration that took place in March 1976 known as 'Land Day'. Nevertheless, to this day, they are yet to obtain all their rights or to achieve equality with Jewish citizens. Just as with Arab men, Arab women suffer greatly from these racist policies inaugurated at the birth of the state, and which persist into the present.

The extent of this discrimination is made clear through the reports published by non-governmental organizations in Israel as well as other research centers that focus on Israel's implementation of UN Charters on discrimination. Despite Israel having ratified the 1991 UN convention that calls for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women - that they be given their full rights and have absolute equality with men in accordance with the principles of equality and human dignity - the situation inside the state is very different from other countries. This is highlighted by the presence of a wide gap in the status of Jewish and Palestinian women in all fields within Israel

Perhaps the main reason for such a gap lies in the absence of any laws; a constitution that clearly stipulates the rights of Palestinian citizens in Israel. This of course stands in the way of giving Arabic women their rights like Jewish women.

Although Palestinian citizens in Israel make up 20% of the population, according to figures from 2003, they only make up 5.5% of the workforce in state service. In 2003, the proportion of Palestinian women working in state services fell from 2% to 1.7% and in 2004, only 1.3% were members of boards in government companies. As such, official figures prove how slight Arab women's participation in the Israeli workforce is compared to that of Jewish women and indicate deep differences between the two in various fields.

As an example, the percentages of Arab women working within education exceeds that of Jewish women [38% for Arab women compared to 19% for Jewish women]. However, these figures are contrary to those for the financial and business services where it is 7% for Arab women compared to 17% for Jewish women.

The reasons for this are twofold; Arab women in Israel face major challenges as members of a minority group on the one hand, and on the other hand, they face the challenge of being women in a traditional Arab society. These factors of course allow employers to discriminate in their selection procedures as well as to impose lower wages and poor working conditions on women - conditions lower than the standards set for the state in international human rights law.

Discrimination between Arab and Jewish women in the workplace is most clearly demonstrated in the area of government services where women make up 97.3% of the workforce, 82% of which work in the Ministry of Health. Yet no Arab women work in the following ministries: science, state, homeland security, transportation, infrastructure, construction and housing and tourism and media. Only one Arab woman works in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and one in the Ministry of the Environment, while two work in the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

With regards to women working within the judiciary, the 2003 statistics indicate that women constituted 40.9% of the workforce - 198 Jewish women [80.2%] and only 6 Arab women [2.4%]. Within the arena of education, there is a big difference between the education of Arab women and their Israeli counterparts. For example, according to figures from 2003, illiteracy among Arab women is at 14.7%, while that percentage does not exceed 4.5% among Jewish women. With regards to higher education, it is notable that percentages for Arab women are lower than for other population groups, for example, only 7.1% of Arab women received 16 years of education or more, while 19% of Jewish women received the same length of study.

Within the arena of health, the average life expectancy of an Arab woman is four years less than that of a Jewish woman due to a lack of the formers access to appropriate diagnostic tests related to women's health issues. According to a poll conducted by the European Union with the assistance of the Israeli Ministry of Health, 31% of Arab Palestinian women in Israel have undergone an examination to detect breast cancer at least once, compared to 49.5% of Jewish women. The failure of the government in terms of health provision is underscored by the situation that existed in Arab villages unrecognized by Israel before 2001. Only after a lawsuit was filed by those villages at the High Court of Justice were six clinics for mothers and children's health opened, with a doctor and a nurse in each.

Finally, it can be concluded on the basis of these statistics that Israel discriminates between its citizens based on their ethnicity, and thus discriminates between Arab and Jewish women. The Israeli government's relationship to its Arab citizens is that of an occupying power to the occupied, especially given that it considers their feelings and emotions to be different from those of its Jewish citizens.

Large sectors within Israel call on the government not to support Arab development. This view was notably propagated by Moshe Arens - a leader of the Likud party and a former Minister of War - who stressed that Arab integration into Israeli society, would mean them having to show a sense of affinity with the Jewish identity of the state as well as a sense of the importance of the Jewish experience under Nazi persecution.

SOURCE: Sawt Alhaq, 15/2/2010

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Russia's Last Tsar
6srael to erect red army memorial
Holodomor: Genocide Technology
The Bloody History Of Communism
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Das Massaker von Katyn
Psychotic Pharisees
Defamation Redux
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We must never forget Gaza
6sraeli officials were part of decision to invade Iraq

Al-Quds families come out against museum built on ancestors' graves

Marian Houk, The Electronic Intifada, 19 February 2010

The grave of Ahmad Agha Duzdar al-Asali, the mayor of Jerusalem in the 19th Century, in the Mamilla cemetery.

Members of prominent Palestinian families from Jerusalem came out last week in protest against plans by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of part of the ancient Mamilla Cemetery where their ancestors are buried.

The initiative includes filing a petition in Geneva to various United Nations human rights bodies and to UNESCO, the Paris-based UN agency responsible for protecting the world's cultural heritage. The petition was also addressed to the Swiss Government, which is the repository for the Geneva Conventions.

One family member behind the initiative said it is not just symbolic, but instead a full-blown campaign. He expects this issue to be included in a resolution being drafted for a March session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In the East Jerusalem press conference at which this initiative was announced last week, petitioner Asem Khalidi noted that a number of men from Salah al-Din's army, who liberated Jerusalem from the Crusaders, were buried in the Mamilla Cemetery.

Much of the momentum behind the initiative comes from Palestinians who grew up and who still live in the Diaspora, many of them in the United States. Press conferences were held in Jerusalem, Geneva and Los Angeles, home of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (and the first Museum of Tolerance, built in 1993), which says it is moving forward with its plans despite passionate legal and moral opposition.

Mamilla Cemetery

The corner of the Mamilla Cemetery slated for construction was paved over in the 1960s, and used as a car park. When excavations began on the site in 2005, human remains were found, and the chief archeologist stated that he believed there were many thousands of graves in many levels in that section of the cemetery.

The cemetery is situated in West Jerusalem, which fell under Israeli control during the fighting that surrounded the proclamation of the self-declared Jewish state in mid-May 1948. There have been no new burials since that time. From the May 1948 war, until the June 1967 war when Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, the cemetery was inaccessible to many if not most of the Palestinian families concerned, who were living under Jordanian administration.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center claims that it has spent a lot of money on reburying -- in "a nearby Muslim cemetery" -- the remains it has excavated there. However, a press release announcing the initiative of the Palestinian families said that "It was an active burial ground until 1948, when the new State of Israel seized the western part of Jerusalem and the cemetery fell under Israeli control ... The construction project has resulted in the disinterment and disposal of hundreds of graves and human remains, the whereabouts of which are currently unknown."

The Los Angeles-based center broke ground for the Jerusalem branch of the Museum of Tolerance in a corner of the Mamilla Cemetery in May 2004. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered the keynote address.

Families denied justice

There are 60 individual Palestinian petitioners from some 15 Jerusalem families including Adnan Husseini, the Palestinian Authority's appointed Governor of Jerusalem; AbdulQader Husseini, the son of the late Faisal Husseini, who was the Palestine Liberation Organization representative in Jerusalem; and Sari Nusseibeh, head of Al-Quds University in Abu Dis.

Rashid Khalidi, Professor of History at Columbia University in New York, who is also a petitioner, has been closely involved in organizing this effort. In an interview with Democracy Now! he explained that the petitioners are asking that the Mamilla Cemetery be treated as a heritage site. "This is a cemetery where people have been buried since the 12th century ... The fact that it is still being desecrated, not just by this Museum, but by vandalism of the remaining tombs, is a scandal". He said the families were also asking for "reinterment of the excavated remains under religious supervision", with information provided to the families about exactly where "within the cemetery."

Palestinian and Israeli co-petitioners include the organizations Al-Haq, Addameer, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Badil and the Zochrot Association.

Because it is in West Jerusalem, Palestinians have been hesitant to take any high-profile action asserting either physical or moral claims.

Until now, much of the opposition to the building plan has come from Israeli and Jewish rights activists who have argued, in part, that the construction on this site offended their Jewish beliefs and values. They have worked through the Israeli court system, and through appeals directed mainly to Israeli and international Jewish public opinion.

Gershon Baskin, co-director and founder of the Israeli Palestinian Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), told this reporter that the first he heard of the Museum of Tolerance project was in newspaper reports of the ground-breaking ceremony. "We came in only after the whole thing was licensed and all the legal proceedings were finished -- and this is one argument that the court used against our petitions."

The Israeli high court has recently dismissed another challenge and ruled that the Museum of Tolerance construction project is legal, and can proceed. Baskin believes that the legal avenues in Israel are now basically now closed.

Meanwhile, a private Palestinian offer to donate an alternative location for the Museum of Tolerance hasn't been taken up by the Wiesenthal center.

At a public discussion sponsored by IPCRI in East Jerusalem in March 2009, attended by lawyers representing the Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance project in West Jerusalem, Dr. Mohammad Dajani of Al-Quds University in Abu Dis offered to donate alternative land for construction of the museum in Anata near the concrete wall that Israel is currently building around the Jerusalem area. The offer was for 12 dunams (one dunam is approximately 1,000 square meters). At that alternative site, Dr. Dajani said to the public meeting, both Israelis and Palestinians could visit the future Museum of Tolerance -- which many Palestinians would not be able to do if it were built in the heart of West Jerusalem, as is currently planned.

The lawyers for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance merely smiled, without replying.

About six months ago, Dr. Dajani said, he was surprised by an Israeli military decision to confiscate, "for security reasons," about half of the parcel of land he had offered for the museum project. Just this past week, he said, he received a new notification that the military intends to take the remaining six or so dunams as well. He said he is challenging the order.

Marian Houk is a journalist currently working in Jerusalem with experience at the United Nations and in the region. Her blog is www.un-truth.com.

Deconstructing Simon Weaselthal

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Mamilla Campaign

UK’s Jewish Chronicle editor says extra-judicial murder is kosher

By Salaheddin Ahmad
Redress Information & Analysis

11 February 2010

Doubts have begun to resurface regarding the attitude of the Jewish Chronicle, Britain’s top Zionist newspaper and Israeli mouthpiece, towards justice and the rule of law after its editor, Stephen Pollard, publicly condoned extra-judicial murder.

In response to an email in which a reader of the Jewish Chronicle asked whether the newspaper considered "extra-judicial murder by Israel or any other state as acceptable in any way", Mr Pollard simply replied "yes".

The Jewish Chronicle is currently spearheading a campaign by Israel’s stooges and agents of influence to change UK law so that suspected Israeli war criminals can travel to Britain without fear of prosecution under universal jurisdiction.

Commenting on Mr Pollard’s support for extra-judicial murder, Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said:

Editors of newspapers have a major responsibility not to promote violations of law and in particular murder. Pollard's support for murder is a disgrace and calls into serious question his standing as a serious journalist and editor.

This is not the first time in which Stephen Pollard’s ethics have come under the spotlight. In December 2009, Redress Information & Analysis published an article in which a number of whistleblowers questioned the commitment of some of Britain’s top Jewish institutions, including the Jewish Chronicle, to basic universal principles of human rights and common decency.

The whistleblower from the Jewish Chronicle was especially scathing about Stephen Pollard, questioning his judgement and noting that the Jewish Chronicle editor’s choice of commentators and columnists put his sense of ethics in serious doubt. In an interview with Redress Information & Analysis Editor Nureddin Sabir, the whistleblower said:

Take a look at some of our commentators and columnists. The average British reader would take one glance and say “What a rogues gallery!” You have Tzipi Livni, that broken record Melanie Phillips and, worse of all, Geoffrey Alderman. For God’ sake, Geoffrey Alderman is one of our regular columnist, believe it or not! For a newspaper that’s struggling to keep its readers, the choice of Geoffrey Alderman is a damn strange one, but that’s Stephen Pollard for you.

In early 2009 Mr Alderman argued that according to Jewish religious law, it was "entirely legitimate to kill" every Palestinian in Gaza who voted for Hamas.

For our whistleblower, the fact that Mr Alderman was still a regular columnist for the newspaper after making these comments was “scandalous and outrageous, morally and politically”. The whistleblower said:

Geoffrey Alderman spits out stuff that not even the British National Party, Combat-18 and the Ku Klux Klan would dare say these days.

Just imagine what would have happened if a British Muslim columnist said that it was fine to kill Israelis who voted for a government that slaughters Palestinian civilians. The whole country, from Westminster to the media, from the tabloids to the so-called “quality papers” to the BBC and ITN, would be up in arms with condemnations day and night, day after day for weeks on end. Politicians and others would be calling for prosecutions, Stephen Pollard would be rushing from one TV studio to another bellowing “anti-Semitism”.

But here we go, Alderman in effect condoning the murder of innocent civilians and he still writes for the Jewish Chronicle. What a way to appeal to the broader public! What morality!

Given Stephen Pollard’s latest public support for extra-judicial murder, the choice of suspected war criminal Tzipi Livni and murder apologist Geoffrey Alderman as Jewish Chromicle columnists does not seem all that strange.

You can contact Stephen Pollard and share with him your thoughts at stephenpollard@thejc.com.

The Long Arm of 6srael better be amputated

Hamas Killing Adds Tension to Europe-6srael Ties; Dubai: 99% M6ssad behind It

18/02/2010 At a time Dubai insists that the European passports used by the killers of a top Hamas leader in a hotel room of the Gulf emirate were not fakes, Israeli-European ties seem to be in trouble as UK and Ireland summoned the Israeli envoys demanding clarification over this issue.

The National newspaper reported on Thursday that Dubai police chief Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan said he was 99 percent sure Israel's Mossad intelligence service was behind the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. "Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of Mabhuh. It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent that Mossad is standing behind the murder," the Abu Dhabi-based English-language daily quoted Khalfan as saying.

Al-Bayan newspaper also reported that Dubai police insist the European passports were not fakes. "Dubai police has more evidence, apart from the tapes and photos that were revealed earlier," Khalfan said, quoted in Al-Bayan. "The coming days will carry more surprises which will leave no room for doubt."

He insisted the European passports used by the team which allegedly killed Mahmud al-Mabhouh last month were not fakes and that Dubai immigration officers were "trained" by European security experts to spot such documents.

"This training qualifies immigration officers to spot fake passports. They applied these procedures at Dubai airport when the alleged (killers) entered the country," he said. "No forgery was found in those passports."

He described the alleged assassins of Mabhouh, a top commander of the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas, as "stupid" because their moves were "traced second-by-second" by security cameras.

With Dubai police's disclosure of the names and photos of the alleged hit team, fingers have been pointed at Israel's spy agency Mossad and its agents accused of using fake passports of European citizens.
Six British passport holders, three Irish, including a woman, a German and a man with a French passport made up the alleged hit team.

Britain summoned the Israeli ambassador on Thursday to discuss the use of identities apparently stolen from six British citizens living in the Zionist entity, the British government said.

A British diplomat told Haaretz that Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor is expected merely to listen to London's position, rather than offer an Israeli response in his late morning meeting with British Foreign Office Under Secretary Peter Ricketts.

The diplomat said the British Embassy in Tel Aviv would contact those whose names were used to provide them with information on receiving new passports.

Although Tel Aviv has not taken responsibility for the January 20 hit on Mabhouh, the incident seems to have spawned a serious diplomatic rift between Israel and the United Kingdom.

Israel's ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, Zion Evroni, said Wednesday that he too had received a summons from the country's Department of Foreign Affairs and would be meet Minister Michael Martin on Thursday.

In Tel Aviv, Israeli Foreign Ministry officials declined to comment on the matter, but an Israeli diplomat said on condition of anonymity that the government has decided to withhold a public statement until the British message is received, and would then choose how to respond.

Israeli officials expressed concern Wednesday that the affair could seriously harm ties between Tel Aviv and London. They said the British and Irish summonses could lead to similar steps on the part of France and Germany, other countries whose passports the assailants carried in Dubai.

One Israeli official said the Irish government had already contacted Britain, Germany and France to recommend they conduct a joint investigation into the incident.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised Wednesday that his government would launch an inquiry into the use of the British passports in the operation, but did not cast blame over the alleged forgeries. "The defrauding of British passports is a very serious issue," a statement from the Foreign Office released Wednesday read. "The government will continue to take all the action that is necessary to protect British nationals from identity fraud."

"The government is involved in a number of strands of ongoing activity in relation to this specific case," the statement said. It cited three specific areas of activity: offering bureaucratic assistance to the affected British citizens living in Israel, investigating the matter fully and summoning the Israeli ambassador for clarification. The Serious Organized Crime Agency will lead this investigation, in close cooperation with the Emirati authorities," the Foreign Office said.

British daily The Times quotes a former Mossad agent as saying that since Meir Dagan's appointment t as head of the spy agency in 2002, maintaining good relations with other nations was dropped to the bottom of the list. “Mossad is facing a lot of anger right now over the use of British and European passports. I don’t know if Mossad was actually involved or how they got those passports though I can say that Dagan isn’t the kind of man to care about angering a few people to get the job done,” the former agent told The Times.

An editorial published The Independent columnist Robert Fisk pointed an accusatory finger at Britain itself, claiming that Dubai suspects "Europe's 'security collaboration' with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies."

Fisk quoted an "impeccable" source in the Arab emirate as saying that "the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"

The Irish Foreign Ministry said it is attempting to locate the Irish citizens to whom these passports belong to or belonged to in the past. Minister Martin asked the media to respect their privacy.

The minister said he regarded any activity which would jeopardize the integrity of the Irish passport as extremely serious. "Our passport is widely regarded and respected throughout the world as being of the highest quality. We have invested very heavily in extra security features so that our citizens can travel in safety. Actions, which endanger our well earned reputation in this area, have the potential to affect the security of all our citizens travelling overseas. I am determined to maintain the good name of Irish passports. The Department is liaising closely with the UAE authorities on the matter.”

The Irish Foreign Ministry said it would be in contact, through its embassies in London, Paris and Berlin, with the authorities in these countries with a view to working with them in this investigation.

Israel appears to be in trouble in Austria as well. The Interior Ministry in Vienna said it had launched an investigation into the suspected use of at least seven mobile phones with pre-paid Austrian chips by Mabhouh's killers.

The Dubai police investigation revealed that the cell members did not contact each other directly during their stay in the country, and didn't do so before their arrival and after leaving as well. However, they spoke to each other by dialing to a communications center in Austria, which was referred to as "the assassins' headquarters" by the Dubai police.

The alleged killers arrived in Dubai on January 19, a day after Mabhouh, 50, who lives in Damascus, arrived in the emirate. They left the United Arab Emirates on January 20, the day the Hamas leading member was found dead.

Al-Manar

UK official: We knew about Mossad assassination plot

Interpol issues arrest warrants for 11 over Dubai hit

Interpol has issued arrest warrants for 11 suspects accused of killing a senior Hamas official in Dubai last month.

The warrants were issued after Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim called on Interpol to issue "a red notice against the head of Mossad… as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now."

According to Tamim, investigations have revealed that the Israeli spy agency Mossad was behind the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

“It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent certain that Mossad is behind the murder," he told the United Arab Emirates newspaper The National on Thursday.

On Monday, Dubai authorities launched an international manhunt for 11 suspects in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was killed in his hotel room on January 19, hours after he arrived in Dubai from Syria.

The Dubai police identified 11 people, 10 men and a woman, suspected of killing the top Hamas official who had survived at least three other assassination attempts. According to the police, the suspects arrived in Dubai the day before the killing. Five of them carried out the crime while the remaining six served as lookouts, the police said.

Dubai police said on Monday that the 11 suspects had European passports: one French, three Irish, six British, and one German. A French national, identified as Peter Elvinger allegedly acted as the logistical mastermind in the Dubai hit.

Meanwhile, there are reports that Austrian phone numbers were apparently used to plan al-Mabhouh's assassination.

The Austrian Interior Ministry says the country's investigators are in touch with the Dubai police to try to get to the bottom of things. Media reports speculate that the killers used up to seven Austrian SIM cards or phone numbers while preparing for the hit.

M6ssad is behind the assassination of Mabhouh

LONDON, (PIC)-- The British Independent newspaper said Wednesday that all information confirmed that the Mossad was behind the assassination of senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month.

The newspaper added that the assassination of Mabhouh bore the hallmarks of the Mossad since Israel has a strong motivation for killing him, pointing to the remarks of a Mossad agent in which he admired the professional way in which the assassination was carried out.

It also quoted the agent on condition of anonymity as saying that it would not be surprising if it was known that there were other countries with "positive" motives had helped Israel in liquidating Mabhouh.

In the same context, Israeli media outlets reported that many Israeli officials admitted that the operation of assassinating Mabhouh in Dubai was a failure by all standards after disclosing the identity of the perpetrators.

After they used to glorify the Mossad, the Israeli media embarked on sharply criticizing its performance in carrying out the assassination operation.

A Hebrew website called “central issues” said that the assassination of Mabhouh which was carried out by the Mossad appears to be one of the most abortive operations in Israel’s history and warned that the use of European passports would lead Israel to pay dearly and damage its relations with Europe.

The Israeli Haaretz newspapers for its part lashed out at the Mossad head Meir Dagan and Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and called for removing Dagan from office immediately.

For its part, the Lebanese center for media studies said in a report that security experts confirmed that the assassins of Mabhouh culminated their operation with an utter failure when Dubai authorities was able to reveal their identities and photographs during a short period of time.

The report said that the perpetrators made a big mistake when they chose Dubai to carry out their crime and ignored that Dubai uses the latest modern security techniques to maintain security and combat crime.

The report added that the criminals would not be able anymore to go through any airport in the world because their eye prints were recorded by Dubai international airport and would be sent soon to the Interpol.

In the same context, the British foreign office summoned the Israeli ambassador in London against the backdrop of the Mossad agents’ use of British passports to enter Dubai to assassinate a senior Hamas official.

British premier Gordon Brown told the BBC on Wednesday that his government would conduct a thorough investigation into the Mossad’s use of British passports in Dubai, affirming that the British passport is an important document and should be handled with care and attention.

Dubai police, for its part, on Thursday expected that the list of the international wanted criminals who killed Mabhouh may expand to 17 men and women, while foreign media outlets pointing out this list could amount to 20 persons.

• It's time to come clean
• Death in Dubai: the plot thickens
• Israel reels from backlash at killing of Hamas militant
• Leading article: A murky affair that calls for a tougher British response

6srael downplays fake passport row with Europe

6srael plays down the diplomatic row shrouding the terror of Hamas commander Mahmud al-Mabhouh in Dubai which is largely blamed on the 6sraeli intelligence service, Mossad.

"It is important to note that no one accuses 6srael, there is no proof linking 6srael to this affair," AFP quoted a senior Israeli official who was speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier this week Dubai police issued arrest warrants for 11 members of a suspected hit squad who carried British, Irish, French and German passports.

The identities of the terror team, including 10 men and a woman, was later scrapped as officials in all but one of the European states denied involvement of their citizens in the terror plot.

Britain and Ireland expressed concern over what they called an identity theft despite Dubai officials' insistence that they could prove the documents were not fake.

Britain's Foreign Office has called in 6srael's ambassador over the issue, but the 6sraeli official stressed that the British authorities "have not summoned the ambassador but invited him for a discussion," claiming that it was a further proof that Britain wanted to make it clear "there is no crisis."

But Ireland seemed to be more concerned over the use of fake Irish passports by alleged killers and summoned the Israeli ambassador to Dublin over what Foreign Minister Micheal Martin called "an extremely serious incident."

"We are putting pretty direct questions and seeking assistance and clarification. We want to get answers as quickly as we possibly can," he added, saying the incident jeopardized the security of Irish citizens.

The 11 terror suspects the Dubai police are seeking include six from Britain, three from Ireland, one from Germany and one from France.

Using fake foreign passports has been described as a signature of M6ssad terror operations overseas.

Britain summons 6srael envoy over Dubai assassination

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Britain will ask Israel to explain why six alleged members of a hit squad that killed a Hamas commander in Dubai last month entered the emirate with UK passports, The Guardian reported Wednesday.

The London-based newspaper said the Israeli ambassador will be called in to the Foreign Office on Thursday to "share information" about the use of identities stolen from six citizens living in Israel who deny involvement in the assassination of former Hamas commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh last month.

British Prime Minister Gordon Blown has also launched a "full investigation" into the use of British passports that will be led by the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), according to the report.

"The British passport is an important part of being British and we have to make sure everything is done to protect it," the prime minister reportedly said.

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians rallied in the northern Gaza Strip to mourn the death of Al-Mabhouh, a founder of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement.

Al-Qassam spokesman Abu Obaida said the "decision has been made" to respond to the assassination, for which Israel has largely been blamed.

He said Israel would soon "pay for their crime," and are awaiting a "harsh response," and warned Israel against invading Gaza again.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that there was no definitive proof Israel's intelligence agency carried out the assassination, although he stopped short of denying it.

"I don't know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports," he said.

Dubai police name eleven Europeans suspected of assassinating Mohammad al-Mabhouh