159 Is Israel too strong for Obama? (The Economist) Where is Chomsky's "all-powerful Empire"?

(1) New Age religion to usher in a world government
(2) Is Israel too strong for Obama? (The Economist) Where is Chomsky's "all-powerful Empire"?
(3) Israel Lobby routs Obama as dollar dies - Paul Craig Roberts
(4) Abbas throws in the towel, betrayed by Obama - Uri Avnery
(5) David Irving to Speak in New York, Secretly
(6) Hackers break into Irving's website and AOL e-mail account, disrupt Speaking plans
(7) Two more German submarines for Israel - Germany paying one-third of the cost
(8) Declassified FBI File Alleges an Israeli Intelligence Agent Worked at AIPAC
(9) Settlers cut down more Palestinian Olive trees

(1) New Age religion to usher in a world government

From: Mark MacCuish <markmaccuish@hotmail.com> Date: 14.11.2009 01:30 PM

> Jews "died in the holocaust for your sins" - Henry Makow

It was quite ironic to read Makow's article, and all the talk about the "Blue Beam project", the "anti-christ" and the coming "new age" religion that must be created in order to usher in some sort of world government (After all -- you need unity among nations/peoples in order to achieve this)

I read this information with a bit of curiosity wondering if any of it had any merit to it.

Then I went home and watched TV.  This year, a new show just developed (only the second episode has aired).  It is called "V" which is short form for "Visitors"

I have only seen the first two episodes, but basically it is about an alien invasion to Earth, and while they appear to be nice, they are more sinister and are actually going to wipe out all humans.  They play it off as a "new age" religion and entice humans and all of humanity to unite and join them.

I just found it ironic that you wrote about this then the very same night I watched a Western TV show similar to the concepts you discussed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_%282009_TV_series%29

It is about an extra-terristrial threat that invokes a charge of uniting humanity --- interesting to note that it is produced by a Jew Scott Rosenbaum.

Mark from Canada

(2) Is Israel too strong for Obama? (The Economist) Where is Chomsky's "all-powerful Empire"?

From: Josef Schwanzer <donauschwob@optusnet.com.au>  Date:  13.11.2009 02:34 AM
Subject: [WW2-TRUTH] Even the Economist notices.

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14816791&fsrc=nwl

The flagging peace process

Is Israel too strong for Barack Obama?

The Economist print edition Nov 5th 2009 | CAIRO AND JERUSALEM

As America drops its demand for a total freeze on the building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, angry Palestinians say there is no scope for resuming talks

FIVE months after Barack Obama went to Cairo and persuaded most of the Arab world, in a ringing declaration of even-handedness, that he would face down Israel in his quest for a Palestinian state, American policy seems to have run into the sand. The American president’s mediating hand is weaker, his charisma damagingly faded. From the Palestinian and Arab point of view, his administration—after grandly setting out to force the Jewish state to stop the building of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land as an early token of good faith, intended to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiation—has meekly capitulated to Israel.

The upshot is that hopes for an early resumption of talks between the main protagonists seem to have been dashed. Indeed, no one seems to know how they can be restarted. The mood among moderates on both sides is as glum as ever.

Mr Obama’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, made matters worse by actually praising Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, for promising merely to “restrain” Israel’s building rather than stop it altogether, as he was first asked to do. Previously Mrs Clinton had insisted that stop meant stop. There should be no “organic growth” of existing settlements and no exceptions for projects under way. Nor did she specifically exempt East Jerusalem, which Palestinians view as their future capital but which many Israelis see as theirs alone. And she had earlier castigated Israel for demolishing Palestinian houses in the city’s eastern part. Now, in Israel on October 31st, she changed her tune, seeming to acquiesce in Mr Netanyahu’s refusal to meet those earlier American demands and congratulating the prime minister on his “unprecedented” offer to build at a slower rate than before.

Mr Netanyahu’s case is that being “prepared to adopt a policy of restraint on the existing settlements” is indeed a concession. No new settlements would be started, no extra Palestinian land appropriated for expansion. But some 3,000 housing units already commissioned must, he said, be completed. Building must go on in East Jerusalem, he has repeatedly said, as it cannot be part of a Palestinian state.

Mrs Clinton later awkwardly backpedalled, assuring the Palestinians that she still considered all settlements “illegitimate”, while pleading with them to resume talks. That seems unlikely. A storm of abuse raged in the Palestinian and Arab press. Mr Obama, it was widely deduced, had caved in after his own ratings in Israel had slumped, according to some Israeli polls, to as low as 4%. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Fatah party who presides over the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, expressed extreme disappointment—and continued to insist that talks could not resume until there was a full building freeze.

Among Palestinians at large, Mr Abbas has been derided for putting his faith in the new American administration. Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, the smaller of the two main parts of a future Palestinian state, mocked him for ever thinking that Mr Obama could change American policy towards the Middle East.

Last month he called a general and presidential election for January 24th. But with opinion polls showing his popularity diving, on November 5th he said he would not stand for re-election. Hamas, in any event, said it would refuse to take part in the polls. Mr Abbas, it seems, has been forced to acknowledge that his authority—and his ability to grapple with the Israelis in negotiations if they had resumed—has been eviscerated.

Besides, even if talks did start again, no agreement would stick without the acquiescence of Hamas, which won the last Palestinian election, in 2006, and is still strong enough to kibosh any deal done without it. Yet discussions between the two rival groups, under the aegis of the Egyptians, have been stuttering along for more than a year without getting anywhere.

Mr Netanyahu, on the other hand, was cock-a-hoop. The right-wing and religious ministers who make up the bulk of his coalition government can scarcely believe his luck. The prime minister is riding high in the Israeli people’s esteem. Building work is proceeding apace in many of the settlements. He looks as if he has emerged unscathed from a brush with a hostile American president.

Mr Obama is being criticised, even by Israelis and Americans on the left, for making demands of Mr Netanyahu that he should have known would never be met. Some say the president should himself fly to Israel to address the Israeli people directly with a game-changing plan of his own. But no one, least of all in Washington, seems to know what that might be.

(3) Israel Lobby routs Obama as dollar dies - Paul Craig Roberts

From: Paul de Burgh-Day <pdeburgh@harboursat.com.au> Date: 14.11.2009 12:57 AM

Israel Lobby routs Obama as dollar dies

By Paul Craig Roberts

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Nov 13, 2009, 00:20

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5261.shtml

It did not take the Israel Lobby long to make mincemeat out of the Obama administration’s “no new settlements“ position. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is bragging about Israel’s latest victory over the US government as Israel continues to build illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

In May, President Obama read the Israelis the riot act, telling the Israeli government that he was serious about ending the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians and that a lasting peace agreement required the Israeli government to abandon all construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

On November 10, Obama’s White House chief of staff, Rahm Israel Emanuel, surrendered for his boss at the annual conference of the United Jewish Communities.

The ongoing Israeli settlements, he said, should not be a “distraction” to a peace agreement.

Allegedly, the US is a superpower and Israel is a client state whose very existence depends entirely on US military and economic aid and diplomatic protection. Yet, in the real world, it works the other way. Israel is the superpower and the US is its client state.

This true fact is proved to us at least once every week and sometimes two or three times in one week. A few days ago, the US House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 in favor of disavowing the UN report by the distinguished Jewish judge Richard Goldstone that found that Israel had committed war crimes in its attack on the civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto. The Israel Lobby demanded that the House repudiate the fact-filled report, and the servile House did as its master ordered.

US Rep. Dennis Kucinich spoke to his colleagues for two minutes in an effort to make them see that their vote against the Goldstone report would be a great embarrassment to the US government and demean the House in the eyes of the world.

But none of that matters when Israel gives its servants an order. The US House of Representatives preferred to demean itself and to embarrass the US government rather than to cross the Israel Lobby.

Retribution quickly fell upon Kucinich for his two-minute speech. On November 9, Kucinich was forced to withdraw as the keynote speaker for the Palm Beach County (Florida) Democratic Party’s annual fundraising dinner. The Israel Lobby gave the order -- dump Kucinich or there’s no money and no one is coming to the dinner. County Commissioner Burt Aaronson called Kucinich “an absolute horror.”

Kucinich is the rare Democrat who stands up for his party’s principles, the working class, and tried to get health care for those Americans the corporations have thrown out on the street. But helping Americans doesn’t count. Israel über alles.

Meanwhile, the US dollar continues to decline relative to other traded currencies. Since spring, anyone could have made a double-digit rate of return betting on most any currency against the US dollar.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently expressed concern that despite the dollar’s continuing slide, it might still be overvalued. The Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policy encourages speculators to use the dollar for the “carry trade.” Speculators, whether individuals or financial institutions borrow dollars at rock bottom interest rates and use the almost free capital to purchase higher yielding instruments in other countries. The demand for dollars to finance the “carry trade” keeps the dollar higher than it would otherwise be.

Last year it was the Japanese yen that was used for the “carry trade” due to the practically zero Japanese interest rates. The next scare that unwinds the “carry trade” will cause another big drop in financial asset values. This means that the stock market is very volatile. It is based on speculation, not on fundamentals.

When the “carry trade” next unwinds, the demand for US dollars to pay off the loans will temporarily boost the dollar. But don’t be fooled. The large US trade and budget deficits are the dollar’s death warrant.

When the dollar finally goes, so will the government’s ability to conduct wars of aggression, underwrite Israel, finance its red ink and pay for imports. That’s when the printing press will really get going.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

(4) Abbas throws in the towel, betrayed by Obama - Uri Avnery

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>  Date:  10.11.2009 01:17 PM

A Line in the Sand

by Uri Avnery,  Gush Shalom. 7 Nov 09

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1257655700/

MAHMOUD ABBAS is fed up. The day before yesterday he withdrew his candidacy for the coming presidential election in the Palestinian Authority.

I understand him.

He feels betrayed. And the traitor is Barack Obama.

A YEAR ago, when Obama was elected, he aroused high hopes in the Muslim world, among the Palestinian people as well as in the Israeli peace camp.

At long last an American president who understood that he had to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not only for the sake of the two peoples, but mainly for the US national interests. This conflict is largely responsible for the tidal waves of anti-American hatred that sweep the Muslim masses from ocean to ocean.

Everybody believed that a new era had begun. Instead of the Clash of Civilizations, the Axis of Evil and all the other idiotic but fateful slogans of the Bush era, a new approach of understanding and reconciliation, mutual respect and practical solutions.

Nobody expected Obama to exchange the unconditional pro-Israeli line for a one-sided pro-Palestinian attitude. But everybody thought that the US would henceforth adopt a more even-handed approach and push the two sides towards the Two-State Solution. And, no less important, that the continuous stream of hypocritical and sanctimonious blabbering would be displaced by a determined, vigorous, non-provocative but purposeful policy.

As high as the hopes were then, so deep is the disappointment now. Nothing of all these has come about. Worse: the Obama administration has shown by its actions and omissions that it is not really different from the administration of George W. Bush.

FROM THE first moment it was clear that the decisive test would come in the battle of the settlements.

It may seem that this is a marginal matter. If peace is to be achieved within two years, as Obama's people assure us, why worry about another few houses in the settlements that will be dismantled anyway? So there will be a few thousand settlers more to resettle. Big deal.

But the freezing of the settlements has an importance far beyond its practical effect. To return to the metaphor of the Palestinian lawyer: "We are negotiating the division of a pizza, and in the meantime, Israel is eating the pizza."

The American insistence on freezing the settlements in the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem was the flag of Obama's new policy. As in a Western movie, Obama drew a line in the sand and declared: up to here and no further! A real cowboy cannot withdraw from such a line without being seen as yellow.

That is precisely what has now happened. Obama has erased the line he himself drew in the sand. He has given up the clear demand for a total freeze. Binyamin Netanyahu and his people announced proudly - and loudly - that a compromise had been reached, not, God forbid, with the Palestinians (who are they?) but with the Americans. They have allowed Netanyahu to build here and build there, for the sake of "Normal Life", "Natural Increase", "Completing Unfinished Projects" and other transparent pretexts of this kind. There will not be, of course, any restrictions in Jerusalem, the Undivided Eternal Capital of Israel. In short, the settlement activity will continue in full swing.

To add insult to injury, Hillary Clinton troubled herself to come to Jerusalem in person in order to shower Netanyahu with unctuous flattery. There is no precedent to the sacrifices he is making for peace, she fawned.

That was too much even for Abbas, whose patience and self-restraint are legendary. He has drawn the consequences. ...

(5) David Irving to Speak in New York, Secretly

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com>  Date: 13.11.2009 10:54 PM
Subject: New Group: "New Yorkers" Against David Irving for his Visit Saturday Nov. 13...

David Irving to Speak in New York, Secretly
But protesters try to infilitrate Holocaust revisionist's plan

BY MARISSA BROSTOFF | 3:00 PM NOV 12, 2009 | Print

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/20426/david-irving-to-speak-in-new-york-secretly/

Irving leaving a debate at the Oxford Union in 2007.

CREDIT: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images

Notorious British Holocaust revisionist David Irving will be speaking in New York City on Saturday, but don’t ask him where. Because he tends to draw protesters, Irving has implemented an elaborate procedure on his current United States tour in which would-be attendees must register on his website, at which point, Irving said in an interview with Tablet Magazine, he uses screening software to weed out likely protesters. Those who pass the screening are then notified by email a few hours before the event about where it will take place. “We have to do that because various Jewish groups will go out of their way to smash me up,” Irving said.

Elan Steinberg, vice-president of a national organization called the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, told Tablet Magazine that Irving is scheduling his engagements this way for another reason. It’s “a way of disguising who he is to hotel managers and others who rent out public venues,” Steinberg said. “Time and time again, hotel managers, bookshops, etc, have allowed him to speak there not realizing who he is.” The American Gathering is therefore alerting the press that Irving will be in town, in the hope that venue managers will inquire into the identity of any mysterious guests who might be renting space on Saturday, Steinberg said. That strategy worked in Jackson, Mississippi, he said, when his group notified the city’s mayor that Irving planned to speak at City Hall, prompting Irving to move his talk to a different location.

In the case of his upcoming New York engagement, a spy-versus-spy situation has emerged: a group called New Yorkers Against David Irving is attempting to infiltrate the lecture; Irving, in turn, said that two of his followers were present at the protest organization’s planning meeting last night. Steinberg said that the American Gathering is not attempting to get on Irving’s email list, but that if he gets a tip on Irving’s whereabouts ahead of time, he’ll send his own email inviting members to go protest.

A talk Irving gave in Palm Beach, Fla., late last month, ended in violence, not between followers and protesters, but between two followers, one of whom police identified as a white supremacist, according to the Jackson Free Press. They got into a knife fight outside the meeting room.

Knife Fight at Holocaust Denier Book-Signing [Jackson Free Press]

(6) Hackers break into Irving's website and AOL e-mail account, disrupt Speaking plans

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com>  Date: 14.11.2009 02:09 AM
Subject: Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian David Irving

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/

Hackers Post Private E-mails of Historian and Accused Holocaust Denier

By Kim Zetter 
November 14, 2009

A group identifying themselves as “anti-fascist hackers” broke into the web site and AOL e-mail account of controversial British historian and accused Holocaust-denier David Irving and obtained his private communications as well as attendee lists for his current U.S. speaking tour.

The hackers posted Irving’s e-mail correspondence online, as well as the user name and password for his web site account and AOL e-mail account, which shared the same password. The hackers also posted the e-mail addresses and other personal information — such as names and shipping addresses — of people who made donations through his web sites, purchased his books or bought tickets for his appearances.

Irving’s username and password for his Authorize.net account, which handles the credit card transactions on his web sit, were also exposed.

The data was posted on the WikiLeaks site Friday evening in advance of Irving’s Saturday speaking engagement at the Catholic Kolping Society of America in New York City. The organization reportedly canceled the event on Friday after someone contacted it.

The organization said its facility had been booked a few days ago by someone using the name “Michael Singer,” who said he wanted to hold a book reading. The organization canceled the engagement after learning that the event was scheduled for Irving.

The location of Irving’s engagements are generally kept secret and announced to attendees only at the last minute to prevent protesters from appearing at the venues or pressuring facilities to cancel Irving’s reservations.

Irving was once a popular historian specializing in World War II but has been a lightning rod for controversy over opinions he’s expressed in the past about the Holocaust and the Nazi regime. Although he asserts he’s not a Holocaust denier, he was convicted in Austria in 2006 of denying the Holocaust andsentenced to three years in prison, and was called a racist and anti-semite by a British judge in a libel case that Irving lost. He has underplayed the extent of the extermination of Jews, saying the number killed was much fewer than 6 million. He also claimed in 1989 that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp — though he has since recanted.

“History is a constantly growing tree - the more you know, the more documents become available, the more you learn, and I have learned a lot since 1989,” the BBC reported him saying.

The Anti-Defamation League considers him one of the world’s most effective purveyors of Holocaust denial and has carefully monitored his activities.

The e-mails published on Friday exposed discussions that occurred between Irving and others about booking his speaking engagements under pseudonyms to thwart protestors.

“The venue is reserved under my name . . . , my phone number and wonderfully
disguised . . . as a book signing, not yours or some group so just in case some nasty is poking around they will come up with nothing,” wrote one supporter in the U.S. who had booked an engagement for Irving in Richmond, Virginia.

The e-mails include other personal correspondence about the East Coast speaking tour Irving is currently conducting in the U.S., security issues — such as an incident involving weapons that someone brought to one of his recent speaking engagements in Florida — and a tense exchange between Irving and his assistant about his poor treatment of her and her threats to quit.

The data also includes the bank account number of Irving’s landlord in the United Kingdom and instructions to Irving’s bank in Florida to wire money to the account, as well as personal exchanges with supporters.

One supporter writes to Irving: “You should continually blame the Jews who controlled Churchill with causing their own disaster. Also blame the Jews for the loss of your empire and the immigration invasion caused by it. As Reichminister Goebbles, of Blessed Memory, loved to say, ‘The Jews are to blame’.”

Irving’s web site was inaccessible Friday evening and calls to cell phones belonging to Irving and his assistant went unanswered. But Michael Santomauro, whose correspondence with Irving was among those posted online, confirmed that the e-mails were authentic and that Irving had been hacked.

Santomauro identified himself as the “Michael Singer” who had booked Irving’s New York speaking engagement. He told Threat Level that around 7pm Friday evening an e-mail was sent out by the hackers from Irving’s AOL account shortly before Irving was scheduled to give a talk in New Jersey. The e-mail was sent to a list of Irving supporters with the subject line reading: “ADVISORY: Anti-Fascist Hackers Destroy Holocaust Denier David Irving’s Website and Release Private Emails, Attendee Lists.”

The e-mail contained all of the information that was posted on the WikiLeaks web site and indicated that the hackers destroyed all the files, including backup files and databases, on Irving’s web sites irvingbooks.com and fpp.co.uk.

In the e-mail, the hackers wrote: “We did this to expose this Nazi-sympathizer for who he is and to shut down/disrupt any possibility of Irving rearing his fascist head in public during his tour. To David Irving and all aspiring white-power, anti-immigrant, queer-bashing, racist pigs - give it up! We will fight you on the streets and on the internet until you are swept into the dustbin of history.”

Santomauro said there was an inkling that something was wrong about half an hour before the hacker’s email arrived when Irving contacted him to tell him the New York event had been canceled and asked how his detractors could have learned the location. The two had only discussed it among themselves by email and by phone.

“Apparently [the hackers] have been monitoring his AOL for a certain amount of time,” Santomauro said.

He told Threat Level he suspected the Jewish Defense Organization was behind the hack. He says he’s been targeted himself by protestors from this group and others who have harrassed him outside his apartment building and hacked the account for a Yahoo study group he runs.

But, he says, the harassment against Irving is much worse.

“I don’t agree with everything Irving has to say, but he should have the freedom to express whatever views he has,” Santomauro said. “I can agree that he’s not a very pleasant person. But he’s not a Holocaust denier. He could care less about it and is not very knowledgeable about it. . . . He doesn’t talk about it in his speaking tours.”

No one was available to respond to questions left at a phone number posted at the Jewish Defense Organization’s web site.

UPDATE: Irving’s assistant, Jaenelle Antas, forwarded a statement from Irving saying that it would be several days before he could assess the damage, since his web provider had apparently scheduled repairs to begin today and last for seven days, making it difficult for him to access his account.

“We have a complete back-up, in any case,” he wrote. “Half the files [the hackers] posted were already publicly available on the website, like the Radical’s Diary. Other items they appear to have invented. We shall be apologising to the many people who may find themselves inconvenienced by these juvenile cyber-nasties. We are puzzled that they are so frightened by historical debate.”

(7) Two more German submarines for Israel - Germany paying one-third of the cost

From: IHR News <news@ihr.org>  Date: 12.11.2009 09:45 AM

Two More German Warships for Israel
Focus (Germany)
http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/regierungskreise-israel-will-zwei-gratis-korvetten_aid_447305.html

Israel is ordering two more German war ships, paid for by Germany, reports the daily newspaper "Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung." The US is providing the ships' weapons systems. These are not the only military items for Israel that Germany has been financing. Between 1999 and 2000, Germany delivered three submarines to Israel. Two additional U-boots, now under construction, are scheduled for delivery in 2012. Germany is paying one-third of the cost of these new submarines. ==

More German Submarines For Israel
Defense Industry Daily
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/germany-may-sell-2-more-dolphin-subs-to-israel-for-117b-01528/

In November 2005, reports surfaced that Germany would sell Israel two AIP-equipped SSK Dolphin Class submarines. In 2006, the deal was finalized at a total of $1.27 billion, with the German government picking up one-third of the cost. The new boats were built at the Howaldtswerke-Deutche Werft AG (HDW) shipyard, in the Baltic Sea coastal city of Kiel. Now, reports indicate that both submarines have been delivered early .. .. Germany had already donated two Dolphin submarines to the Israeli navy after the Gulf War in the early 1990s. The first-of-class INS (Israeli Naval Ship) Dolphin was commissioned in 1999, while INS Leviathan was commissioned in 2000.

(8) Declassified FBI File Alleges an Israeli Intelligence Agent Worked at AIPAC

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 09.11.2009 02:21 PM
Subject: [altahrir] Declassified FBI File Alleges an Israeli Intelligence Agent Worked at AIPAC

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS153349+05-Nov-2009+PRN20091105

Declassified FBI File Alleges an Israeli Intelligence Agent Worked at AIPAC

Thu Nov 5, 2009 8:20am EST

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An agent of the Israeli intelligence service worked on the staff of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) according to a newly declassified FBI file.

An August 13, 1984 secret communication from the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) to the FBI director states, "WFO files disclose that AIPAC is a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group staffed by U.S. citizens. WFO files contain an unsubstantiated allegation that a member of the Israeli Intelligence Service was a staff member of AIPAC." The newly declassified document may be downloaded from the Israel Lobby Archive at: http://www.irmep.org/ILA/economy/08131984_WFO_DFBI_REPORT.pdf

The secret FBI file was declassified and released to the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. IRmep sought the FBI files to file a third amicus brief urging Judge T.S. Ellis not to dismiss charges against two AIPAC staffers under the 1917 Espionage Act. The DOJ dropped espionage charges against former AIPAC staffers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman on May 1, 2009.

According to the newly released IRmep book "Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy," the 1984 and 2005 espionage incidents were not isolated events. Using declassified documents, "Spy Trade" documents Israeli covert actions against US military and industrial targets from the 1940s through the present.

"Spy Trade" also presents a damage assessment for the 1984 AIPAC industrial espionage incident: US $71 billion in lost exports, equivalent to 100,000 jobs over the last decade. "Spy Trade" may be purchased at MiddleEastBooks.com, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other bookstores.

The Israel Lobby Archive, http://IRmep.org/ila, is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington. The Archive digitizes declassified documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act filings with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The Archive facilitates permanent direct citizen access to critical records that briefly enter the public domain but vanish for lack of warranted mainstream media coverage.

SOURCE  Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy

Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, +1-202-342-7325

(9) Settlers cut down more Palestinian Olive trees

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu>  Date: 13.11.2009 05:22 PM

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3804302,00.html

Palestinians say dozens of trees cut down by settlers

Ali Waked

Published: 11.12.09, 13:29 / Israel News

Palestinian farmers from the West Bank village of Burin, located near the settlement of Yitzhar, discovered Thursday morning that dozens of their olive trees were cut down.

Akram Amram of Burin told Ynet that at around 5:30 am he had discovered 97 uprooted olive trees on his land.

"I am not embarrassed to admit that when I discovered the massacre which took place on my land, I cried," he said. "These trees are more than 60 years old and I raised them just like I raised my kids."

According to Amram, the trees were very valuable. "I make a living off these trees and don't work in anything else. But my pain is not only over my livelihood which is gone, but also because the orchard I grew and nurtured was gone in seconds. It was a painful sight, a real massacre, and I'm not exaggerating."

The Palestinian farmer added that he had informed the Palestinian Coordination and Liaison Authority of the damages and that Israeli representatives arrived at the area. According to Amram, settlers were responsible for the damage.

"We didn’t see them because they must have infiltrated the area in the night, but no one else could have done this," he said.

In July, 22 olive trees were cut downin Burin as part of the settlers' "price tag" policy in response to the evacuation of illegal outposts. The orchard owner said at the time, "It was very difficult. I nearly collapsed. My family members have been raising these trees for almost 50 years, and seeing them disappear in one night is not easy."

Efrat Weiss contributed to this report