Friday, June 04, 2010
Comrades! Peace Lovers! Come join the "Horst Wessel" Peace Flotilla!!
Comrades! Peace Lovers! Come join the "Horst Wessel" Peace Flotilla!!
1. An Open letter to the UN and the World from the Israeli Professors for Peace and Progress
Dear World:
We wish to bring to your attention some horrific war crimes, which require total world condemnation. They involve the illegal and inhumane blockade of innocent people, a blockade that caused indescribable suffering to civilians.
We of course are referring to the evil campaign by the British warmongers to blockade Nazi Germany and prevent foodstuffs and other consumer goods from reaching Germany, first introduced in 1939 by the British and French. We all need to unite and condemn those countries for that! The passing of time does not lessen the severity of their crimes!
Indeed the British were not the only criminals causing this suffering to the innocent victims of imperialism. Germany was also victimized by the Americans, who joined the British imperialist anti-human blockade of Germany after 1941. And even though the Soviets at first exhibited a truly progressive and peaceful moral outlook and broke the blockade of the Reich, supplying suffering German children with food and toys in violation of the British blockade following the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, they later betrayed the peaceful German people. Those same Soviets must have been bribed by the imperialists and joined the criminal blockade after the series of German protests now known as Operation Barbarossa.
Instead of negotiating with the Germans, the British and American warmongers decided to deal with them in a campaign of repression and suppression. For the British, this was not even their first aggression. They had similarly imposed an inhumane blockade of German children and civilians throughout World War I.
After the British and French declared war on German civilians following the liberation of Danzig from its Polish oppressors, the British imposed a blockade of the North Sea, laying mine fields and patrolling the sea lanes between Great Britain and Norway. The British maritime blockade was effective because of technological advances: radar and aerial patrol vessels made it impossible for the Germans to carry out maritime trade. Then the Soviets took the criminal decision to join the blockade on supplies to Germany, just because some German forces lost their way and mistakenly entered Belarus.
The belligerent blockade of Germany by the warmongers caused serious food shortages there. The main victims of the British and American aggression were the children of Germany. German families also suffered from other shortages due to the aggression, and many German families were unable to feed their pets.
While all this is of course history, nevertheless we believe that a serious lesson in moral education is needed. We will be organizing a symbolic blockade-breaking flotilla of trucks that will be organized to leave from the French town of Vichy and will make its way to the Normandy coast. There our symbolic blockade breakers will board ships, led by the HMS Horst Wessel, and will attempt to deliver supplies to Nazi Germany by breaking into the ports of Antwerpen and Rotterdam. We will pretend that these are still the ports of supply to the suffering and desperate people of Germany, closed down by the Anglo-Saxon war machine. On our ships we will be transporting cement, ammunition, and Zyklon B gas.
In so doing we will prove our devotion to peace and what should have been a 1939 two-empire solution for Europe (the German and British). It should be clear that the main obstacle towards creating a peaceful Europe in 1939 was the refusal of the British and French to agree to self-determination for the German populations of the Sudetenland, Danzig, and Memel. We will protest the warmongering activities of those powers by organizing our blockade-running ships.
Oh, and stories that we will be transporting large consignments of cocaine inside our ships under the pretense of being a peace protest are nothing more than rumors. Ditto those news service photos of our loading up the ships with nerve gas containers. This is nothing but reactionary disinformation.
So lovers of peace and justice! Come join us on the Horst Wessel!!! We will be joined there by Hamas sheikhs, Pakistani members of al-Qaeda, noted intellectuals and writers (including David Irving and Noam Chomsky), and some decorated still-living members of the Waffen SS.
· 2. MIDDLE EAST NEWS
· JUNE 4, 2010
Reclusive Turkish Imam Criticizes Gaza Flotilla
By JOE LAURIA
SAYLORSBURG, Pa.—Imam Fethullah Gülen, a controversial and reclusive U.S. resident who is considered Turkey's most influential religious leader, criticized a Turkish-led flotilla for trying to deliver aid without Israel's consent.
Speaking in his first interview with a U.S. news organization, Mr. Gülen spoke of watching news coverage of Monday's deadly confrontation between Israeli commandos and Turkish aid group members as its flotilla approached Israel's sea blockade of Gaza. "What I saw was not pretty," he said. "It was ugly."
Julie Platner for the Wall Street Journal
Imam Fethullah Gülen at his estate in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
Mr. Gülen said organizers' failure to seek accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid "is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters."
Mr. Gülen's views and influence within Turkey are under growing scrutiny now, as factions within the country battle to remold a democracy that is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The struggle, as many observers characterize it, pits the country's old-guard secularist and military establishment against Islamist-leaning government workers and ruling politicians who say they seek a more democratic and religiously tolerant Turkey. Mr. Gülen inspires a swath of the latter camp, though the extent of his reach remains hotly disputed.
His words of restraint come as many in Turkey gave flotilla members a hero's welcome after two days of detention in Israel. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the ruling Justice and Development Party condemned Israel's moves as "bullying" and a "historic mistake."
Mr. Gülen said he had only recently heard of IHH, the Istanbul-based Islamic charity active in more than 100 countries that was a lead flotilla organizer. "It is not easy to say if they are politicized or not," he said. He said that when a charity organization linked with his movement wanted to help Gazans, he insisted they get Israel's permission. He added that assigning blame in the matter is best left to the United Nations.
Mr. Gülen has long cut a baffling figure, as critics and adherents have sparred over the nature of his influence in Turkey and the extent of his reach. Leading a visitor on Wednesday past his front corridor—adorned with a map of Turkey, a verse from the Quran and a photograph of a Turkish F-16 jet over the Bosphorus—he portrayed himself an apolitical teacher. "I do not consider myself someone who has followers," he said.
Born in eastern Turkey in 1941, Mr. Gülen became a state-licensed imam at 17, after three years of formal education and studies with Sufi masters. In a Turkey largely under the sway of a military-secularist establishment, he built a national organization of Islamic study and boarding halls, gaining support of many wealthy Muslims but at times running afoul of the law.
While in the U.S. in 1999 for medical treatment, he was charged in Turkey with attempting to create an Islamic state— anathema under Turkey's secularist constitution. He stayed in Pennsylvania, where he now lives on a 25-acre estate in the Pocono Mountains. Over the years, he said, he has left the estate twice.
Mr. Gülen preaches nonviolence, dialogue between Western and Muslim worlds, and an educational tradition that combines study of science and Islam. His newspaper columns, weekly Internet sermons and other messages have been collected into more than 60 books. His adherents number, by various estimates, three million to eight million.
Followers have established hundreds of schools in more than 100 countries and run an insurance company and an Islamic bank, Asya, that its 2008 annual report said had $5.2 billion in assets. They own Turkey's largest daily newspaper, Zaman; the magazine Aktion; a wire service; publishing companies; a radio station and the television network STV, according to Helen Rose Ebaugh, a University of Houston sociologist and author of "The Gülen Movement." She says followers donate up to one-third of their income to independent Gülen-linked foundations.
Ms. Ebaugh said Mr. Gülen doesn't sit on the boards of Asha bank nor any foundation or editorial boards of Gülen-sympathetic magazines, newspapers or television stations. In the interview, the imam said he had no financial interest in any holdings.
Mr. Gülen's detractors see him as a cult-like leader whose empire aims to train an Islamic elite who will one day rebuild the Turkish state. Soner Cagaptay, a Gülen critic who is a Turkey analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, estimates that 70% of the country's police force are Gülenists—a counterbalance to Turkey's powerful military, a secularist bastion.
"Such a claim can only be substantiated by mind-reading," Mr. Gülen said in the interview. "Furthermore, I am not a leader of a faction or someone who would cause some state officials to follow me despite their official duties."
The U.S. has "immense ambivalence" about Mr. Gülen, said Graham Fuller, an ex-Central Intelligence Agency officer who is a resident consultant at the Rand Corp. in British Columbia.
"On the one hand they do perceive him as very moderate and doing many positive things," Mr. Fuller said. But Washington has long thrown its lot behind the secularist followers of Kamal Ataturk, he says, viewing them "as the only narrative to what Turkish politics is all about."
The U.S. State Department declined to comment about Mr. Gülen for this article.
In 2007, U.S. Homeland Security moved to deny Mr. Gülen permanent-resident status in the U.S., rejecting his claim of exceptional ability as an educator. "The record contains overwhelming evidence that plaintiff is primarily the leader of a large and influential religious and political movement with immense commercial holdings," the government wrote.
Mr. Gülen won on appeal after getting 29 letters of support, including one from Mr. Fuller.
The imam disputed Homeland Security's characterization. He goes only so far as to provide guidance to those who ask, he said.
The 2002 election of the Justice Development Party, or AKP, opened a new era for Mr. Gülen and those he inspires, given their common foe in the military-secularist establishment.
The AKP says it has no political ties to Mr. Gülen. The imam says critics have linked him, falsely, to Turkey's current and previous leaders. "I do not have and have never had any relationship with a movement that has political aspirations," he said. "I am just a Turkish citizen."
Last month, Mr. Gülen last month opened the Assembly of Turkic American Federations in Washington, a lobbying and umbrella organization for some 180 local non-profit foundations around the U.S. involved in education and culture.
An English-language Turkish newspaper reported that Mr. Gülen has told his followers they couldn't visit him on his Poconos estate if they didn't first donate to their local congressman. Mr. Gulen denies making the remark.
Mr. Gülen said supporting local politicians is rooted in Islamic tradition, calling it "both an Islamic and humanitarian duty."
"I hear that some people in the United States consider Turkey as sitting at the epicenter of radicalism," Mr. Gülen said. The new federation's lobbying would aim "to reflect through sincere, pro-dialog and open-minded people the true nature of Turkey's realities."
3. If you are one of the few who have not seen this, it is a must: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KUcv452KbU&feature=channel
4. What do Israelis really think?
Maagar Mochot Poll of Israeli Jews Inside Green Line: Palestinians don't
want peace 74%:7%
Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 3 June 2010
Telephone poll of a representative sample of 513 adult Israeli Jews living
within the Green Line, by Maagar Mohot Survey Institute (headed
by Professor Yitzchak Katz) carried out 23-28 May 2010 for the Ariel
University Center of Samaria. Survey error +/- 4.5 percentage points
Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is:
The source of the conflict with the Palestinians
Yes 23% So-so 18% No 58% Other 1%
A real Zionist activity
Yes 61% So-so 15% No 22% Other 2%
Waste of state funds
Yes 27% So-so 14% No 59%
The state's security belt
Yes 52% So-so 15% No 31% Other 2%
Illegal settlement
Yes 19% So-so 18% No 61% Other 2%
The Jewish residents settling in Judea and Samaria are:
Real Zionists
Yes 46% So-so 19% No 34% Other 1%
Money grubbers
Yes 13% So-so 15% No 70% Other 2%
Wall of defense for state
Yes 45% So-so 19% No 34% Other 2%
Law breakers
Yes 18% So-so 20% No 58% Other 4%
Like every other Israeli citizen
Yes 64% So-so 18% No 17% Other 1%
Source of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Yes 20% So-so 18% No 61% Other 1%
Obstacle to peace
Yes 24% So-so 22% No 54%
Who of the following is the real representative of the settlers in Judea
and
Samaria?
27% Religious Zionists serving in combat units in the IDF
02% The hilltop youth
08% Heads of YESHA Council
04% Right wing parties
06% Heads of communities in Judea and Samaria
07% The rabbis in Judea and Samaria
33% All the above
13% Other
What do you think is the desirable solution for the areas of Judea and
Samaria
04% Partial unilateral withdrawal (without agreement)
01% Full unilateral withdraw (without agreement)
37% Partial withdrawal in framework of agreement with PA
07% Full withdrawal within framework of agreement with PA
16% Continue as is
08% Partial annexation
14% Complete annexation.
13% Other
What effects your position regarding the desirable solution in Judea and
Samaria
Iranian threat
Yes 26% So-so 7% No 62% Other 5%
Positions and declarations of PA
Yes 37% So-so 16% No 44% Other 3%
Hamas takeover of Gaza
Yes 46% So-so 13% No 36 Other 5%
Qassam attacks from Gaza on communities in the south
Yes 57% So-so 13% No 27% Other 3%
The position of the American government headed by President Obama
Yes 40% So-so 18% No 37% Other 5%
The many sons of settler serving in IDF combat units
Yes 40% So-so 17% No 40% Other 3%
Conditions of Gush Katif evacuees
Yes 46% So-so 16% No 33% Other 5%
Chances of making peace with the Palestinians
Yes 43% So-so 14% No 37% Other 6%
The chances of making peace with the Arab states
Yes 36% So-so 20% No 38% Other 6%
Illegal Arab takeover of land in Negev and Galilee
Yes 32% So-so 17% No 42% Other 9%
If it were up to you would be prepared to evacuate communities or
settlements in Judea and Samaria not including Jerusalem
in return for ending the conflict with the Palestinians and full peace?
34% Oppose any evacuation
21% Only isolated illegal settlement
15% A few legal settlements
14% A large bomber of settlements
12% All the Jews in Judea and Samaria
04% Other
If Israel accepted the two state solution what would it do to the Israeli
Palestinian conflict?
34% Nothing
31% Prevent conflict worsening for a short time
20% Prevent conflict worsening for long time
06% End conflict
09% Other
Do you identify with the following statements?
A government decision to continue the freeze serves Israeli interests
Yes 25% So-so 19% No 49% Other 8%
In the coming year a peace agreement with be signed between Israel and the
PA
Yes 8% So-so 14% No 72% Other 6%
The Palestinians are interested in peace with the State of Israel
Yes 7% So-so 14% No 74% Other 5%
A failure of the Israeli Palestinian talks will bring another intifada in
Judea and Samaria
Yes 38% So-so 24% No 28% Other 10%
The Government of Israel should continue the freeze that contributes to
the
negotiations with the Palestinians
Yes 28% So-so 22% No 43% Other 7%
The prime minister should withstand pressure to freeze construction in
Jerusalem
Yes 57% So-so 15% No 21% Other 7%
In your opinion, will the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria influence
the decisions of the Netanyahu government regarding the future of
settlements in Judea and Samaria?
13% Not at all
18% Little
41% Middle
15% Considerably
05% greatly
08% Other
How would you term the behavior of the Netanyahu Government today towards
the Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria?
17% Too soft
38% Correct
30% Too hard
15% Other
Are you confident that the Israeli Government will make the right
decisions
about the future of settlements in Judea and Samaria?
No 38% So-so 35%Yes 22% Other 5%
Do the Jewish residents - settlers in Judea and Samaria damage today
relation between Israel and the American Government?
25% Hurt
37% No effect
27% Contribute
11% Other
Will Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu act in the near future in
accordance
with the policies of President Obama with regard to the future of Jewish
settlements in Judea and Samaria?
24% No
37% More or less
27% Will act
12% Other
How often do you visit Judea and Samaria?
06% At least a few time a week
05% Once or twice a month
16% Few times a year
09% Once in year or two
33% More infrequently
29% Never visited
02% Other
Why do you generally visit Judea and Samaria
05% Army service (regualr and reserves)
27% Family/friends visit
06% Work/business
01% Studies
18% Hike/vacation
01% Participation in demonstrations
07% Other purposes
35% Never visit/others
What do you consider yourself
15%Very right
34% Moderate right
31% Center
13% Moderate left
01% Very Left
06 % Other
Religiosity
48% Secular
24% traditional
13% National religious
15% Ultra orthodox/National religious-ultra orthodox