226 Dershowitz likens Goldstone Report to Protocols of Zion

(1) Jerusalem mayor to raze 200 Palestinian homes & one Jewish building
(2) Freemasons, MI5, CAZAB and Israel - Roy Tov
(3) Defamation - documentary on meaning of "anti-Semitism", by Yoav Shamir
(4) Lord Phillips: No relief for the Palestinians while Israel enjoys impunity
(5) Tony Blair, Lord Levy and Labour Friends of Israel
(6) Dershowitz likens Goldstone Report to Protocols of Zion
(7) Dutch filmmaker who subdued the "underpants bomber"
(8) Wiesenthal slams Ukraine award to anti-Soviet WW2 insurgent
(9) George Mitchell wasting his time, should resign - Walt
(10) U.S. indicts four Israelis for bribery in military contract
(11) Members of Congress ask Obama to end Gaza Blockade
(12) German firm cancels deal with Iran port due to Israeli pressure

(1) Jerusalem mayor to raze 200 Palestinian homes & one Jewish building

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 05.02.2010 07:11 PM
Subject: [altahrir] Mayor will evacuate eastern Jerusalem Jewish building - and 200 Palestinian

http://jta.org/news/article/2010/02/04/1010470/mayor-will-evacuate-eastern-jerusalem-jewish-buidling

Mayor will evacuate eastern Jerusalem Jewish building

February 4, 2010

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Jerusalem's mayor said he would evacuate a Jewish building in eastern Jerusalem and also raze 200 Palestinian homes.

Nir Barkat said in a letter sent late Wednesday to state Prosecutor Moshe Lador that he would execute the sealing and demolition orders pending against Beit Yonatan in the Arab village of Silwan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silwan>. The seven-story building, which is home to eight Jewish families, was built without the proper permits, a Jerusalem court found.

Barkat said he would fulfill the court orders "under most vigorous protest and harsh criticism of the plan," according to the Mayor's Office.

Lador had sent a letter last week to Barkat reprimanding him for refusing to evacuate Beit Yonatan, which is named in honor of convicted American spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard. The building was built five years ago by the rightist organization Ateret Cohanim.

The Barkat letter also said that the municipality would destroy 70 illegally built Palestinian structures in Silwan in the interest of enforcing the rule of law uniformly, even though the municipality was in the process of creating a plan to deal with illegal construction in Silwan that included grandfathering in Beit Yonatan and the Palestinian homes.

The plan also was to allow for adding stories to built structures, which would add about 1,000 housing units for Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem.

Barkat also said in his letter, according to his office, that "the municipality will start to enforce the principle of the rule of law in the spirit of a uniform enforcement policy and without prejudice."

(2) Freemasons, MI5, CAZAB and Israel - Roy Tov

From: Roy Tov <roytov@live.com> Date: 04.02.2010 11:15 PM

On MI5, CAZAB and Israel

http://roytov.com/articles/cazab.htm

Roy Tov

Some topics are difficult to write about; simply there is so much intentional disinformation on them that even if you have good information from inner sources you won’t be believed. People will confront you citing wrong data; many would defend their bogus data furiously. You'll antagonize instead of placing the basements for a real and much needed change.

Beyond hinting at your sources and providing enough insights to convince of your sincerity, there is little to be done. I apologize to my readers if some parts of the following article are less than explicit and if in other parts, facts are only hinted. Unluckily, I do have legal restraints derived from my condition as refugee. Yet, the last is a proof that Israel fears me, thus my sources may be worth something.

Many years ago, Peter Wright published Spycatcher. He was a high officer within the British counterintelligence organization, usually known as MI5. He describes there systematic crimes performed by the British government against its people.

He describes how the MI5 ruined the life of an innocent man. MI5 agents spread rumors about that man until he was forced to leave town. Afterwards they discovered he was innocent but just round-filed his case. MI5 didn’t apologize nor indemnify the victim. Years later, the BBC published an article about Zimbabwe’s Dirty Tricks Brigade, but failed mentioning the fact that the British are a world leader on such units since the days of Queen Elizabeth I.

Peter Wright specifically explains that many of those within MI5 are Freemasons, apparently since through this occupation they can gain valuable information for the International Freemasonry. I won't comment on Freemasonry too much. Simply this organization is plagued with disinformation. I just want to state many of its known symbols appear to have deep connections to the Jewish culture and to the Hebrew language. They are present also in Israel; in fact there a lodge a few blocks from the Tel Aviv's residence of the Mossad agent appearing in this website as “Arik.”

A secondary topic in Spycatcher is what is known as ECHELON, the codename for the pooling sigint arrangement between the intelligence agencies of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. In other words, the world-wide phones-listening network operated by these countries in clear violation of the Human Rights recognized by the UN and undersigned by those very countries.

Peter Wright used the name CAZAB for referring to the organization coordinating ECHELON. This is the acronym for the conferences of senior counter-intelligence officers from Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia and Britain, which began in 1967 and continued at roughly 18-month intervals throughout the Cold War.

English speakers won't see here any problem, except for the very strange order of the countries used for the CAZAB acronym. Probably, most people would list them as in the first instance appearing in this article, creating UUACN or something similar. Few would use “America” for the US, or Britain for the UK. Certainly no Scotch would do that. Welsh people would probably take offence. What about Northern Ireland denizens? Why CAZAB?

Hebrew makes extensive use of acronyms, especially in an attempt to make them fit regular words. I already mentioned how Jesus is daily insulted in Hebrew by calling Him with an acronym that means “Be His Name and Memories Forgotten (or erased)” that sounds similar to His real name. Freemasons occupy main posts within the British intelligence and their organization is rich in Hebrew symbolism. Considering this, it is not surprise that the unusual acronym CAZAB means “deception” or “lie” in Hebrew. Was the acronym designed by a freemason?

“Well, coincidences happen,” some incredulous readers may state by now. In despair, they may quote as supporting evidence that Israel is not part of ECHELON and that the CAZAB team doesn't include Hebrew speaking officers. Oops! Many Israeli citizens know the 8200 base (Israel's sigint unit) next to Tzeelim – the antennas can be seen from the main road. Probably its code name was changed since I left, thus I won't mention it. The point is that – as it is well known in Israel, this station is Israel's plug point into ECHELON. The circle is complete.

The point to keep in mind is that there are no good human rights violations. No CAZAB officer can claim their violations are good intentioned. Violations are violations and create evil in unexpected directions. Nobody can predict what would be done by the data illegally collected by ECHELON. Justice Goldstone briefly touched in his recent report – which defines the State of Israel as a terrorist organization – that Israel keeps harassing citizens criticizing it. I can give a personal testimony that this is done even if you are thousands of kilometers away. Wrong is wrong, evil is evil. And the ECHELON and CAZAB teams are their allies.

(3) Defamation - documentary on meaning of "anti-Semitism", by Yoav Shamir

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 03.02.2010 05:53 AM

Defamation

by Yoav Shamir, 2009

http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=7208

"It's always been - throughout the course of history - Jews are soft targets. We've been the victims of so many major incidents - genocides and catastrophes and holocausts and everything - it's just the way we are: we've always been victimized."

- Benjamin Litschitz, Crown Height, Brooklin (in Defamation)

(4) Lord Phillips: No relief for the Palestinians while Israel enjoys impunity

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date: 04.02.2010 01:32 PM

Andrew Phillips: No relief for the Palestinians while Israel enjoys impunity

The Independent

The West should now look to the imposition of escalating cultural and economic sanctions on Israel

Monday, 1 February 2010

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-phillips-no-relief-for-the-palestinians-while-israel-enjoys-impunity-1885188.html

To visit Gaza for a third time in five years still induces a gut reaction of pity, depression and anger – pity at the hopeless, helpless plight of the Palestinians; depression about their future and, ironically, that of Israel too; and anger at the latter's cynical policies – and impunity.

I was part of a pan-European Parliamentary delegation which also enjoyed complete political access in Egypt, including meetings with its Foreign Minister and Speaker, plus the head of the Arab League. In Gaza we met the Prime Minister and cabinet colleagues, NGOs and the head of the indispensable UN mission (UNRWA).

Relations between Israel, Palestine and Egypt are grotesquely complicated and intractable. There are rights and wrongs on all sides and, indeed, mutual fears. The Mubarak establishment harbours deep anxieties about infection of the Egyptian street by the populist, faith-based Hamas. The legacy of Jewish history fosters an almost genetic insecurity, and the Gazan Palestinians live in traumatised dread of another pulverisation.

The last one, a year ago, left around 1,400 Palestinian dead (against 13 Israeli fatalities) and many thousands wounded. As we saw, their already poor infrastructure, most factories, many schools and public buildings and thousands of houses were obliterated or severely damaged. One meal was hosted for us by Palestinian MPs in their wrecked debating chamber.

Following the Gaza blitz the UN raised a $4.5bn restoration fund. Not one dollar has been spent, so vindictive is Israel's siege by land, sea and air. Bare survival is thanks to the tunnels under the Egyptian border, but they are now being blocked off. If and when that is complete further radicalisation of the Palestinians and working class Muslims elsewhere is inevitable, and with it more terrorism in the West, of which the abuse of Palestine is the greatest engine.

Gaza, then, is a ghetto of 1.5 million abandoned people – half under 18 and 80 per cent unemployed – with plenty of time to feed on their resentments. Unsurprisingly, 30 per cent want to leave their prison.

But what for me and many explodes the Israeli apologia for their conduct in Palestine, and particularly its security claims, is its relentless colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, settlers now totalling around half a million. Nothing could be as provocative, except perhaps the assault on, and siege of, Gaza conducted with the same controlled violence as characterises the occupation of the West Bank with its hundreds of humiliating and disruptive checkpoints and a pass system which outdoes that of old South Africa.

And what about the law? Israel – cradle of lawyers – is in cavalier breach of International Law, the United Nations Charter, its Conventions and Resolutions, and yet is protected from the consequences which should follow (harken to Tony Blair on defiance of UN resolutions last Friday!). Israel is now more "rogue state" than the "strategic partner" David Miliband recently labelled it.

All this is replete with tragedy and paradox. The psychic wounds of the unspeakable Holocaust are still raw and unmanageable and also sustain the collective guilt of the West, warping political judgments and norms in the process. Israel does what it wants, the latest example being their humiliating rebuff of President Obama's insistence that they stop their colonisation. The Palestinian voice is puny by comparison.

This history, which constrains so many liberal Jews in the West from speaking out on Palestine, as they otherwise surely would, is matched by the public silence of many non-Jewish critics for fear of being branded anti-Semitic – as unpleasant a tag as exists. All this has profoundly dangerous potential.

So Israel, effectively unhindered by the US or ourselves, is deluded by the "triumph" of its machiavellian diplomacy into believing that the tactics of divide and rule, obfuscation and procrastination, will forever enable it to frustrate justice for the Palestinians. Yet for Israel to defy the UN steadily undermines its own legitimacy, given the UN was its only begetter and may yet be needed as its main guarantor.

As for token Palestinian resistance, I sense they at least agree with the Jews in the lesson hard learnt by the latter, never to acquiesce in one's own oppression, whatever the odds. So Israel least of all should be surprised at the defiant trickle of Hamas rockets, against which their criminally disproportionate retribution in Gaza looked like nothing so much as the abused becoming the abuser. I returned, as usual, miserable and ever more convinced that tough love is overdue to help save the remarkable nation that is Israel from itself. The West should now look to the imposition of escalating cultural and economic sanctions. Nothing else has worked and time may be short. There will be a hullabaloo, but carrying on as heretofore would be the sin.

Lord Phillips of Sudbury is a Liberal Democrat peer

(5) Tony Blair, Lord Levy and Labour Friends of Israel

From: Olga Scully <muffyandbrian@westnet.com.au>  Date: 02.02.2010 06:06 PM

Tony Blair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair

According to comments in the book, Blair, written by Anthony Seldon, Blair had a deep feeling for Israel, born in part from his faith.[99] Blair has been a long time member of the Pro-Israel lobby group Labour Friends of Israel[100][101]

In 1994, Blair met Michael Levy, later Lord Levy, a pop music mogul and fundraiser.[102]  Blair and Levy soon became close friends and tennis partners.  Levy ran the Labour Leader's Office Fund to finance Blair's campaign before the 1997 General  Election and raised £12m towards Labour’s landslide victory, Levy was rewarded by Blair with  a peerage, and in 2002, just prior to the Iraq War, Blair appointed Levy as his personal envoy  to the Middle East.
Levy praised Blair for his 'solid and committed support of the State of Israel'.[103][104]

(6) Dershowitz likens Goldstone Report to Protocols of Zion

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 01.02.2010 09:17 AM

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/135780

Dershowitz Slams Goldstone: "He's An Evil Man"

by Hillel Fendel

Jan. 31, 2010

(IsraelNN.com) Following his scathing critique of the Goldstone Report, for which Israel is preparing a response, Harvard Law School’s Professor Alan Dershowitz calls Goldstone an “evil man.”

Speaking with Army Radio on Sunday morning, Dershowitz said that Goldstone – whose report to the United Nations on Israel’s anti-terrorism Operation Cast Lead accused Israel of war crimes – “is a traitor using his Jewishness to malign Israel… He is an evil man, one who allowed himself to be used against the Jewish people, an absolute traitor.”

In his internet-publicized analysis of the Goldstone report, Dershowitz wrote that it is “much worse than most of its detractors (and supporters) believe. It is far more accusatory of Israel, far less balanced in its criticism of Hamas, far less honest in its evaluation of the evidence, far less responsible in drawing its conclusion, far more biased against Israeli than Palestinian witnesses, and far more willing to draw adverse inferences of intentionality from Israeli conduct and statements than from comparable Palestinian conduct and statements.”

Goldstone’s report, Dershowitz wrote, “is worse than any report previously prepared by any other United Nations agency or human rights group. As Maj.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, the advocate general of the Israeli Defense Forces, aptly put it: ‘I have read every report, from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Arab League. We ourselves set up investigations into 140 complaints. It is when you read these other reports and complaints that you realize how truly vicious the Goldstone report is. He made it look like we set out to go after the economic infrastructure and civilians, that it was intentional: It’s a vicious lie.’”

Methodology Worse than Conclusions

Dershowitz said that though the conclusions are harmful and unfavorable to Israel, it is Goldstone’s “methodology, analysis and substantive findings” that should be criticized. Dershowitz wrote that he has offered to debate Goldstone about his findings, but that Goldstone “has refused, as he has generally refused to respond substantively to credible critics of the report.”

Different Standards for Israel, Hamas

Prof. Dershowitz chiefly targets two aspects of the report. One is the fact that it uses different criteria for judging Hamas actions and Israeli actions: “Its writers applied totally different standards, rules and criteria in evaluating the intent of the parties to the conflict.” For instance, when faced with doubts about various incidents, in Israel’s case they were resolved against Israel, “concluding that its leaders intended to kill civilians,” while doubts regarding Hamas activities were resolved in favor of Hamas, “concluding that it did not intend to use Palestinian civilians as human shields.”

“Moreover, when it had precisely the same sort of evidence in relation to both sides - for example, statements by leaders prior to the commencement of the operation - it attributed significant weight to the Israeli statements, while entirely discounting comparable Hamas statements. This sort of evidentiary bias, though subtle, and perhaps not readily apparent to the non-legal reader, permeates the entire report.”

The Goldstone report also “takes a completely different view regarding the inferring of intent from actions. When it comes to Israel, the report repeatedly looks to results and infers from the results that they must have been intended. But when it comes to Hamas, it refuses to draw inferences regarding intent from results. For example, it acknowledges that some [Hamas] combatants wore civilian clothes, and it offers no reasonable explanation for why this would be so other than to mingle indistinguishably from civilians. Yet it refuses to infer intent from these actions.”

Conclusions are Wrong

Secondly, Dershowitz writes that the two central conclusions reached in the report are “demonstrably wrong.” The report’s two conclusions are that 1) Israel used the 8,000 Hamas rocket attacks on its citizens as an [excuse] for the real purpose of the operation, which was to target innocent Palestinian civilians for death, and 2) Hamas was not guilty of deliberately and willfully using the civilian population as human shields. It found “no evidence” that Hamas fighters “engaged in combat in civilian dress,” “no evidence” that “Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack,” and no support for the claim that mosques were used to store weapons… As we will see, the report is demonstrably wrong about both of these critical conclusions.”

Dershowitz told Army Radio that he feels Israel should respond to the report by conducting its own inquiry, by a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge.

He said that he and Goldstone were friends and colleagues for a long time, “but now I see him as a traitor… It’s as if they would have taken a Jew to edit the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He uses his Jewish last name to kosher his slander of the Jewish People.”

(7) Dutch filmmaker who subdued the "underpants bomber"

From: Charles Krafft <whodareswings@yahoo.com> Date: 01.02.2010 12:07 PM

I find it odd that nobody in the alternative press (Al Jazeera, RT, American Free Press etc.), ever bothers to mention the Dutch filmmaker who actually subdued the "underpants bomber". He's simply disappeared off the radar while all sources who report that this was a false flag operation harp on and on about the passenger who watched the "underpants bomber" arrive at the checkout stand without a passport, a ticket and in the company of a mysterious well dressed Indian man. Whatever happened to the Dutch hero who jumped on the bomber and saved the day?!  

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/200106-The-Underwear-Bomber-Crushing-Freedom-With-Phony-Arab-Terrorism

Sun, 31 Jan 2010          

SOTT Focus

The Underwear Bomber - Crushing Freedom With Phony Arab Terrorism

Joe Quinn
SOTT.net
Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:30 EST

... The Christmas knicker bomber was not your usual disgruntled Arab or lowly Muslim acolyte. He was the son of Nigerian banking mogul and former Nigerian government minister Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, one of the richest men in Africa. We're talking one of the African colonial elite here, an African version of the British "old boy's network" While in London, his son, the knicker bomber lived in a ?4 million apartment in Mansfield Street, in the city's West End. He also enjoyed access to visas for several different countries, including the US. ...

According to the first passenger who attempted to subdue Mutallab on the plane, he offered no resistance and was docile. He was "staring into nothing" according to Dutch 'film maker' Jasper Schuringa. Schuringa also noted that Mutallab was actually on fire but showed no reaction whatsoever. ...

According to reports Schuringa was on his way to visit an 'Israeli friend', Shai Ben-Ami who owns a restaurant in Miami. The flight landed at around noon on Christmas day, and by that afternoon Ben-Ami had become Schuringa's impromptu PR manager, aggressively negotiating fees for interviews and the couple of cell phone pictures that Schuringa had taken of Mutallab as he was being taken off the plane.

Eyewitnesses on the flight also reported that after Mutallab was taken off the plane the FBI arrested another Indian-looking man in Detroit airport. The FBI has since denied that anyone else was involved.

Patricia Keepman was on the flight with her husband, daughter and two new adopted children from Ethiopia. She reported that they were sitting about 20 rows behind Mutallab. Her daughter said that ahead of them was a man who videotaped the entire flight, including the attempted detonation. "He sat up and videotaped the entire thing, very calmly," said Patricia. "We do know that the FBI is looking for him intensely. Since then, we've heard nothing about it." ...

http://www.mail-archive.com/apfn@googlegroups.com/msg01626.html

== Yemen seizes 'Israel-linked' cell

Tuesday, 7 October 2008
BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7656807.stm

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.

Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.

The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.

Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous". ...

(8) Wiesenthal slams Ukraine award to anti-Soviet WW2 insurgent

 From: Josef Schwanzer <donauschwob@optusnet.com.au> Date: 30.01.2010 06:00 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012901966.html

By YURAS KARMANAUThe Associated Press
Friday, January 29, 2010; 10:15 AM

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko once commanded such respect that hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Kiev when he lost a fraudulent election.

But the former hero of the Orange Revolution could hardly have sunk any lower. In his bid for re-election this month, he drew just 5 percent of the vote. And now his posthumous honor for a nationalist leader - who was also, according to some, a Nazi collaborator - has led many to say Yushchenko has disgraced himself in his last weeks in office.

On Friday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights group, denounced the Hero of Ukraine award Yushchenko bestowed on Stepan Bandera last week. Bandera was a leader of Ukraine's nationalist movement, which included an insurgent army that sided with Nazi Germany during part of World War II.

The Wiesenthal Center said Bandera's followers were linked to the deaths of thousands of Jews. It also noted that the award came shortly before International Holocaust Memorial Day, which was observed Wednesday.

"It is surely a travesty when such an honor is granted right at the period when the world pauses to remember the victims of the Holocaust on Jan. 27," Mark Weitzman, the Wiesenthal Center's director of government affairs, wrote in a letter to Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States.

The award drew sharp criticism from Russia, as well, where Bandera is viewed as a traitor for fighting against Soviet troops in World War II. Russia's Foreign Ministry called the decision "odious."  ...

(9) George Mitchell wasting his time, should resign - Walt

From: WVNS <ummyakoub@yahoo.com> Date: 25.01.2010 12:52 AM

Time for George Mitchell to resign
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Stephen M. Walt
http://www.rebelnews.org/opinion/middle-east/173809-time-for-george-mitchell-to-resign

If Mideast special envoy George Mitchell wants to end his career with his reputation intact, it is time for him to resign. He had a distinguished tenure in the U.S. Senate -- including a stint as majority leader -- and his post-Senate career has been equally accomplished. He was an effective mediator of the conflict in Northern Ireland, helped shepherd the Disney Corporation through a turbulent period, and led an effective investigation of the steroids scandal afflicting major league baseball. Nobody can expect to be universally admired in the United States, but Mitchell may have come as close as any politician in recent memory.

Why should Mitchell step down now? Because he is wasting his time. The administration's early commitment to an Israeli-Palestinian peace was either a naïve bit of bravado or a cynical charade, and if Mitchell continues to pile up frequent-flyer miles in a fruitless effort, he will be remembered as one of a long series of U.S. "mediators" who ended up complicit in Israel's self-destructive land grab on the West Bank. Mitchell will turn 77 in August, he has already undergone treatment for prostate cancer, and he's gotten exactly nowhere (or worse) since his mission began. However noble the goal of Israeli-Palestinian peace might be, surely he's got better things to do.

In an interview earlier this week with Time's Joe Klein, President Obama acknowledged that his early commitment to achieving "two states for two peoples" had failed. In his words, "this is as intractable a problem as you get ... Both sides-the Israelis and the Palestinians-have found that the political environments, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that" (my emphasis). ...

(10) U.S. indicts four Israelis for bribery in military contract

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date: 27.01.2010 06:35 PM

U.S. indicts four Israelis in international bribery case

By Yossi Melman and Natasha Mozgovaya,

Haaretz Correspondents, and The Associated Press  20/01/2010

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143884.html

The United States Justice Department indicted four Israeli businessmen Tuesday for allegedly attempting to bribe the defense minister of an African country in order to secure a multimillion-dollar contract to supply his country with military equipment. 18 other businessmen were indicted in the same case.

The U.S. Department of Justice identified the Israelis as Ofer Paz, 50 - the president and chief executive officer of an Israeli company, Paz Logistics, that acts as sales agent for companies in the law enforcement and military products industries; Haim Geri, 50 - the president of a North Miami Beach, Fla., company that serves as a sales agent for companies in the law enforcement and military products industries; Yochanan R. Cohen, aka Yochi Cohen, 47 - the chief executive officer of a San Francisco company that manufactures security equipment, including body armor and ballistic plates; and Israel Wissler, former CEO of the company Ayit which sold equipment to the Israeli Defense Forces.

Twenty-one of the businessmen, including the Israelis, were arrested in Las Vegas on the eve of a major annual military equipment sales show, following a two-and-a-half-year FBI undercover sting operation.
The defendants allegedly agreed to pay a 20 percent commission to an undercover FBI agent who posed as the African minister.

The indictments allege conspiracy and substantive violations of the corrupt practices act and conspiracy to engage in money laundering.

The charges relating to the corrupt practices act carry a maximum five-year prison sentence on conviction. The maximum sentence for money laundering conspiracy is 20 years.

The case is the largest single investigation and prosecution of individuals in the history of the 1977 U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars bribery of foreign government officials. It is also the first large-scale use of an undercover operation in enforcing the corrupt practices act.

(11) Members of Congress ask Obama to end Gaza Blockade
From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu> Date: 27.01.2010 06:47 PM

For the first time, Connecticut has a Member of Congress supporting Palestinian human rights. Write to Rep. Jim Himes and thank him for signing-on to end the Israeli siege of Gaza at: CT04JHima@mail.house.gov

Members of U.S. Congress Ask President Obama to End the Blockade in Gaza

Washington, D.C. | January 26, 2010 | www.adc.org | Last Thursday, 54 Members of the House of Representatives led by Congressman Ellison of Minnesota and Congressman McDermott from Washington State signed a letter to President Obama asking his Administration to lift the blockade on Gaza.  In the letter to President Obama, the 54 Members of Congress said "the unabated suffering of Gazan civilians highlights the urgency of reaching a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we ask you to press for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza as an urgent component of your broader Middle East Peace."  Click here to read the full letter.
http://adc.org/Gaza_letter_to_Obama.pdf

ADC President Mary Rose Oakar said "Now is the time to hold our elected Officials accountable to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. These 54 Members should be recognized for their courage in attempting to bring an end to the unfair treatment of the Palestinian people."

(12) German firm cancels deal with Iran port due to Israeli pressure

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 27.01.2010 02:50 PM

By Barak Ravid | Haaretz | January 25, 2010

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/german-firm-cancels-deal-with-iran-port-due-to-israeli-pressure/

After heavy diplomatic pressures from the Israeli government, a German construction company on Monday canceled its end of a contract to renovate the Bander Abbas Port in Iran.

Israel's ambassador to Berlin told Chancellor Angela Merkels' top aides, as well as foreign ministry officials, that Iran has been exporting weapons from that port bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Ambassador Yoram Ben Ze'ev stressed that the Gaza-bound weapons ship "Francop," which was recently apprehended by the Israel Defense Forces in the Mediterranean, had been dispatched from that Iranian port.

A political official said that the Israeli embassy received word just over a week ago of a deal in the works between the Hamburg Company, which is partly owned by the German government, and the Iranian agencies.

Ben Ze'ev stressed that Israel viewed the contract as German assistance to an Iranian arms deal with terror organizations, and a violation of United Nations resolutions.

At Israel's request, German officials contacted the company owners and hinted that ir preferred the deal be terminated. Several days later, the company announced that it would withdraw from the contract.

President Shimon Peres arrived in Berlin on Monday ahead of international Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday, during which he is scheduled to address the German parliament in Hebrew.

The president will also speak to Merkel regarding Germany's financial ties with the Islamic country.