1 Biden's statement, that Israel has right to strike Iran, not a "green light" - State Dept

(1) Biden's statement, that Israel has right to strike Iran, not a "green light" - State Dept
(2) Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff: Strike on Iran an option - but a last resort
(3) Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman welcomes Biden endorsement of Israeli right to attack Iran
(4) Israel jails Nobel laureate - practically no media coverage in the US
(5) McKinney released, returning to US. Not reported in NYT
(6) Israel anger over EU saying European taxpayers pay for settlement impact on Palestinians
(7) Gaddafi on the one-state solution
(8) George Galloway & American relief convoy arrive at Gaza border

(1) Biden's statement, that Israel has right to strike Iran, not a "green light" - State Dept

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1098211.html

Last update - 23:56 06/07/2009

U.S. denies giving Israel 'green light' to strike Iran

By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz Correspondent, and The Associated Press

Vice President Joe Biden's statement that Israel can decide on its own whether to strike Iran's nuclear sites should not be construed as an American "green light" for such an action, the State Department said on Monday.

"We are certainly not going to give a green light to any kind of military strike, but Israel is a sovereign country and we're not going to dictate its actions," State Department spokesperson Ian Kelly said on Monday.

"We share the Israelis' deep concerns about Iran's nuclear program," Kelly said. "But you have to ask Israel if they are going to make a strike."

(2) Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff: Strike on Iran an option - but a last resort

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIkovnx-jRgQFbcBWLKC8pSZZkPwD999S3L03

Mullen: Strike on Iran an option, but a bad one

By ANNE GEARAN – July 7, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — A military strike to thwart Iran's nuclear weapons capability remains on the table but could have grave and unpredictable consequences, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday.

"I worry a great deal about the response of a country that gets struck," said Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "It is a really important place to not go, if we can not go there in any way, shape or form."

Iran is perhaps one to three years away from getting the bomb, leaving a small and shrinking opening for diplomacy to avert what he said could be a dangerous nuclear arms race in the Middle East, Mullen said.

"I think the time window is closing."

Mullen said President Barack Obama's diplomatic outreach to Iran holds promise, despite political upheaval and deadly protests following Iran's disputed presidential election.

Obama told The Associated Press last week that persuading Iran to forgo nuclear weapons has been made more difficult by the Iranian government's handling of claims that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole re-election.

Mullen pointedly said "the strike option" — is one possible outcome. He suggested that a strike, meaning missile or other attacks to blow up Iran's known nuclear facilities, is a last resort. It would be "very destabilizing," Mullen said.

Mullen was referring to Iran's response should it be attacked by either the United States or Israel, although he was careful to say that Israel can speak and choose for itself. His remarks made clear that the Obama administration wants to avoid a strike by either country.

Mullen, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it is critical to find a solution "before Iran gets a nuclear capability, or that anyone ... would take action to strike."

On Sunday, Vice President Joe Biden had suggested that the new U.S. administration would not stand in the way of an Israeli strike. That is not the message U.S. officials have been trying to deliver in public and private, but spokesmen insisted Biden was not speaking out of turn.

The United States would join European nations, Russia and China in negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear program, if Iran agreed to terms for beginning the talks. Obama has also said he would hold direct talks with Iran's leadership if it would help. leaders of Group of Eight countries have yet to forge a common position on Iran's violent crackdown on post-electoral protests, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday on the eve of the summit.

Berlusconi, who chairs the gathering of world leaders opening Wednesday, noted that some countries, such as France, were calling for tougher action against Tehran, while others, such as Russia, favored a softer stance to keep dialogue open.

Iran claims its fast-track nuclear development project is intended only for the peaceful production of electricity. Mullen, like other U.S. officials, said he is sure Iran intends to develop weapons and is working hard and fast to do so.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

(3) Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman welcomes Biden endorsement of Israeli right to attack Iran

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hWftF_qCfLVg-UT5wSkN8t-7RjiwD9993DAO0

Israeli FM praises Biden on Iran stand

By MARK LAVIE – July 6, 2009

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's hard-line foreign minister on Monday welcomed Vice President Joe Biden's statement that Israel can make its own decision about whether to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, calling it "logical."

But other Israeli leaders avoided comment, a low-key reaction that suggested Israel did not see Biden's comments as a green light to strike against its biggest Mideast rival. President Barack Obama underlined that diplomacy with Iran remains an option.

Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of its nuclear program and long-range missile development, dismissing Iranian denials that it intends to build nuclear weapons. Israel has been nervous over the Obama administration's attempts to engage Iran, and Israel has pointedly sent clear signals of its military capabilities while urging world action to rein in Tehran.

Meanwhile, the U.S. goal of dialogue with Tehran has been rattled by Iran's heavy crackdown on protesters in the country's disputed presidential election, though Washington says it still hopes the policy will bear fruit.

Interviewed by ABC-TV on Sunday, Biden appeared to depart from his previous comment that an Israeli attack on Iran would be "ill-advised."

Asked about the possibility of an Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear facilities, Biden replied Sunday, "Israel can determine for itself — it's a sovereign nation — what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else."

The White House said Biden's remarks did not signal a shift in U.S. policy. In an interview published by the New York Times on Monday, President Barak Obama indicated the diplomatic option was still viable. "We have offered a pathway for Iran to rejoining the international community," he was quoted as saying.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's response to Biden's comments was relatively measured. "I think he said things that are very logical," he said. "Israel is a sovereign state and at the end of the day, the government of Israel has sole responsibility for its security and future, not anybody else."

"Sometimes there are disputes between friends, but at the end of the day the decision is ours," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has refused to comment, underlining Israel's sensitive position on Iran and on U.S. policy toward Tehran.

Israel, which is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal of its own, says it would likely be targeted by Iran, based on repeated statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad referring to Israel's destruction.

But even Israeli hawks like Lieberman recognize the limitations of an Israeli strike. Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in a 1981 airstrike, but experts do not believe Israel can do the same with Iran's nuclear operations, which are spread around the country, some of them hidden and heavily fortified.

Israel would also have to take into account the desires of the U.S., Israel's most important political and military ally.

The top U.S. military officer, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Sunday of the danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon — and of the fallout from an attack against Iran.

"I worry about it being very destabilizing not just in and of itself but the unintended consequences of a strike like that," he told CBS TV.

Netanyahu has been warning about the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program for years, calling for intensive world action to stop it. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, leader of the dovish Labor Party, speaks frequently of leaving all of Israel's options open.

Israel has sent several military signals to Iran.

This week an Israeli submarine said by foreign experts to have the capability of carrying nuclear-tipped missiles returned to the Mediterranean after crossing to the Red Sea in the direction of Iran, a mission seen as a warning. Also, Israel has held air force maneuvers that were described unofficially as practicing an attack on Iranian targets.

Lieberman, who has advocated radical military responses to a range of challenges over the years, could be expected to beat the drum for an Israeli attack on Iran.

Instead, he has voiced a contrasting concern — that Israel might be expected to do the world's dirty work by hitting Iran, leaving the world community free to criticize Israel afterward, as happened after the attack on Iraq in 1981.

During a visit to Russia, Lieberman said, "We do not intend to bomb Iran, and nobody will solve their problems with our hands."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

(4) Israel jails Nobel laureate - practically no media coverage in the US

Israel Jails Nobel Peace Laureate

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow (July 7, 2009)

http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1520

For the past week, 21 peace activists from a number of countries -- including Mairead Maguire, a Nobel Peace laureate from Ireland -- have been sitting in an Israeli jail.

They were arrested and held because they were crewing a ship carrying humanitarian supplies from Europe to Gaza, "breaking" the blockade of Gaza that the Israeli government has imposed. Their vessel was boarded and captured by the Israeli navy – according to the crew, in international waters.

Reports indicate that today the activist sailors will be deported to their home countries. At least one American – former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney –- was aboard.

Before looking at the possible importance of this movement in bringing peace and justice to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I want to note that there has been practically no media coverage in the US of these events. Not a peep in the NY Times, for example. A Nobel laureate jailed by the Israeli government – not news? I suggest that members and readers of The Shalom Center contact their local newspapers to ask why -- and to call for an end to the blockade.

This is the eighth vessel sponsored by the Free Gaza Movement to attempt to break through the blockade. Free Gaza is committed to nonviolence, and each of the vessels has been certified by Cypriot authorities as carrying no weapons, only medical supplies and other civilian goods to meet then needs of desperately poverty-stricken Gaza. In the wake of the Gaza War last December, which devastated many homes, neighborhoods, and public buildings, no reconstruction materials have been allowed in.

So The Shalom Center is helping provide medical supplies and similar civilian humanitarian goods to Gaza through trustworthy Israeli organizations like Physicians for Human Rights.  ...

Forty-three years ago, in a book about the civil rights movement (From Race Riot to Sit-in -- Doubleday Anchor) I wrote that one of the most powerful forms of social action for change is embodying in the present the future that the activists are imagining. The sit-in movement worked exactly this way: the sit-inners imagined racially integrated public places where segregation was the law. They did not petition Congress or sue in court for changes in the law; they did not attack the drug stores, restaurants, and bus lines that imposed racial segregation; they simply desegregated those places themselves. They forced the owners and the state and federal governments to decide what to do with them: arrest them, kill them, or allow racial integration to happen and be accepted. Their actions created first the ripples, then the waves and ultimately the great tides of change that transformed America.

Along the way, some reviled them as troublemakers and criminals. But their principled nonviolence and the simple justice of their actions won broad and deep support.

The blockade of Gaza is cruel, unjust, and self-defeating. If it was intended to terrorize Gazans into turning away from Hamas as their political leadership, it has utterly failed. There is plenty wrong with Hamas – ranging from its organizational call for the dissolution of Israel to its willingness to use violence against Israeli civilian neighborhoods. But it has also offered cease-fires and truces, and abided by a cease-fire from June to mid-November 2008. It is not even clear whether Hamas or the Israeli government was the first to break that cease-fire. See http://www.shalomctr.org/node/1519 for a report drawing on public Israeli intelligence sources.

But Hamas' actions – allegedly in response to the blockade -- do not justify the behavior of the Israeli government -- allegedly in response to rocket attacks. The same ethical reasons for condemning Hamas' attacks on Israeli civilians are ethical reasons to condemn Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza. On both sides, other responses were and are possible.

Just as in the case of the sit-in movement in the US a generation ago, what we might call the "ship-in" movement to restore human cintact with and concern for the imprisoned people of Gaza is a valuable and ethical contribution to Middle East peace efforts. If Hamas were wise, it would explicitly and publicly abandon the use of violence against Israel and put all its energy into support for the nonviolent ship-ins.

Peace between Israel and Palestine almost certainly will come only in response to US action. The Free Gaza movement is one possible pressure point for change in US policy. If the movement were to grow as the sit-ins did, perhaps drawing support groups from far away as the Southern sit-ins did in Northern cities, and especially if Palestinians who live in Israel and in the allegedly "annexed" East Jerusalem, joined by some Israeli Jews, were to start blockading Israeli roads in a strictly nonviolent way -- not even stone-throwing -- this form of nonviolent direct action could make a great difference to US as well as European policy.

(5) McKinney released, returning to US. Not reported in NYT

{Not in NYT: http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=mckinney&more=past_7}

From: World View <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>  Date: 07.07.2009 06:49 PM

McKinney released, returning to United States

By RHONDA COOK, LARRY HARTSTEIN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, July 05, 2009

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2009/07/05/mckinney_israel.html?cxtype=ynews_rss

By RHONDA COOK, LARRY HARTSTEIN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Cynthia McKinney’s mom said she’s learned that her daughter is on the way home.

Leola McKinney said a friend who contacted the U.S. Embassy in Israel reported that the former congresswoman was released from Israeli custody and taken to Ben Gurion International Airport.

“We finally got word that she was released,” Leola McKinney said late Sunday afternoon. “We don’t know what time she is supposed to fly out. All we know is that they took her to the airport.

“I would be more relieved when I know she’s on the flight,” Leola McKinney added. “But I am relieved that she’s away from there.”

McKinney had been in custody since Tuesday, when she and 20 others were swept up by the Israeli Navy while allegedly trying to sail through a navy blockade. The group says it was attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

McKinney and the rest of her group could have been released soon after they were taken into custody but they refused to sign a document admitting they violated Israel’s blockade, according to McKinney’s parents. The group was due to appear in an Israeli court Sunday.

Leola McKinney said she had no information about the court hearing.

Leola McKinney said she had not spoken with her daughter since shortly after she was taken into custody.

Cynthia McKinney and other members of the “Free Gaza Movement ” left Cyprus Tuesday on the Greek-registered ship Arion.

Their ship was stopped when they tried to pass through the Israeli Navy’s security blockade at Ashdod. The group was taken into custody and their ship was seized. Israel officials promised to deliver by ground all of the humanitarian supplies that were on the boat.

Family, friends and supporters say Cynthia McKinney believed she was in international waters and was free to pass.

“The Israelis hijacked us because we wanted to give crayons to the children of Gaza,” Cynthia McKinney said in a recorded statement delivered via telephone and posted on the internet site YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkPvzSZRuDo].

The office of the Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta said in a statement released Friday, “According to Israeli law Ms. McKinney and her fellow crew members were suggested to sign a form acknowledging their deportation… Since Ms. McKinney has refused to do so, she is expected to appear before an Israeli judge on Sunday, July 5, and afterwards be returned home as soon as possible.”

Civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, head of the Atlanta-based Coalition for the People’s Agenda, said he and others have spoken by phone with the Consulate General of Israel.

“Whatever happened, there was no harm done,” Lowery said. “She was not carrying munitions, but medicine. We hope Israel will show compassion and release her and let her go on to deliver the much-needed medicine to the Gaza Strip. … If she were carrying guns, that would be a different thing. [But] she was carrying humanitarian aid.”

Israeli officials blame McKinney and her group for the controversy, saying they were looking for confrontation to attract publicity. The officials note that Palestinian Authority and the rest of the international community had agreed to the off-shore blockade to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is classified by the U.S. and European Union as a terrorist organization.

Leola McKinney said the trip would have received no “publicity if they had been allowed to deliver supplies to Gaza. They [Israel] made an issue out of it by taking the boat and escorting them into Israel.”

Billy McKinney, Cynthia McKinney’s father and a former state legislator, said his daughter was only trying to show “the devastation in Gaza… Anybody who has a humanitarian spirit would not want to see those people live in those conditions.”

(6) Israel anger over EU saying European taxpayers pay for settlement impact on Palestinians

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1098299.html

Last update - 00:15 07/07/2009 

Israel summons EU envoy over settlements criticism

By The Associated Press

The Foreign Ministry on Monday said the EU ambassador to Israel was called in for explanations after the European Commission said Israel's settlement policy helps strangle the Palestinian economy and makes the Palestinian government more dependent on foreign aid.

In an unusually harsh statement Monday, the commission said that "it is the European taxpayers who pay most of the price of this dependence."

The commission says expropriation of fertile land for Israeli settlements, roads that serve settlers only and West Bank checkpoints help constrain Palestinian economic growth and make the Palestinian government more dependent on aid.

The European Union is one of the largest donors to the Palestinian Authority.

The commission says this year alone it has paid more than 200 million euros ($280 million) to help cover the Palestinian budget deficit.

(7) Gaddafi on the one-state solution

From: Ken Freeland <diogenesquest@gmail.com> Date: 08.07.2009 03:30 PM

The One-State Solution

By MUAMMAR QADDAFI, Tripoli, Libya

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html

THE shocking level of the last wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, which ended with this weekend's cease-fire, reminds us why a final resolution to the so-called Middle East crisis is so important. It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes.

But everywhere one looks, among the speeches and the desperate diplomacy, there is no real way forward. A just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, but it lies in the history of the people of this conflicted land, and not in the tired rhetoric of partition and two-state solutions.

Although it's hard to realize after the horrors we've just witnessed, the state of war between the Jews and Palestinians has not always existed. In fact, many of the divisions between Jews and Palestinians are recent ones. The very name "Palestine" was commonly used to describe the whole area, even by the Jews who lived there, until 1948, when the name "Israel" came into use.

Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. Throughout the centuries both faced cruel persecution and often found refuge with one another. Arabs sheltered Jews and protected them after maltreatment at the hands of the Romans and their expulsion from Spain in the Middle Ages.

The history of Israel/Palestine is not remarkable by regional standards — a country inhabited by different peoples, with rule passing among many tribes, nations and ethnic groups; a country that has withstood many wars and waves of peoples from all directions. This is why it gets so complicated when members of either party claims the right to assert that it is their land.

The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.

But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.

Thus the Palestinians believe that what is now called Israel forms part of their nation, even were they to secure the West Bank and Gaza. And the Jews believe that the West Bank is Samaria and Judea, part of their homeland, even if a Palestinian state were established there. Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.

A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.

For the same reasons, the older idea of partition of the West Bank into Jewish and Arab areas, with buffer zones between them, won't work. The Palestinian-held areas could not accommodate all of the refugees, and buffer zones symbolize exclusion and breed tension. Israelis and Palestinians have also become increasingly intertwined, economically and politically.

In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an "Isratine" that would allow the people in each party to feel that they live in all of the disputed land and they are not deprived of any one part of it.

A key prerequisite for peace is the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the homes their families left behind in 1948. It is an injustice that Jews who were not originally inhabitants of Palestine, nor were their ancestors, can move in from abroad while Palestinians who were displaced only a relatively short time ago should not be so permitted.

It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never "un-welcomed." Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace.

Assimilation is already a fact of life in Israel. There are more than one million Muslim Arabs in Israel; they possess Israeli nationality and take part in political life with the Jews, forming political parties. On the other side, there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli factories depend on Palestinian labor, and goods and services are exchanged. This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine.

If the present interdependence and the historical fact of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence guide their leaders, and if they can see beyond the horizon of the recent violence and thirst for revenge toward a long-term solution, then these two peoples will come to realize, I hope sooner rather than later, that living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace.

Muammar Qaddafi is the leader of Libya.

(8) George Galloway & American relief convoy arrive at Gaza border

From: World View <ummyakoub@yahoo.com>  Date: 08.07.2009 04:47 PM

US activists at Rafah, request to cross into Gaza with

1 million in supplies

07 / 07 / 2009

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=39066

Bethlehem - Ma'an - At least 100 Americans arrived in Egypt Sunday and made their way up to the Egypt-Gaza border at Rafah with a rumored 1 million US dollars in medical supplies for the besieged Strip.

Less than a week after Israeli naval boats seized and boarded the Free Gaza ship, the Spirit of Humanity, and as activists from half a dozen countries remain in Israeli prison from the first group of activists, the Americans, with the Viva Palestina movement, will try to enter the Strip via Rafah.

Following the first British Viva Palestina convoy which was allowed into the Strip in early October 2008, the American group - also lead by British MP George Galloway - will attempt to deliver supplies and show solidarity with the closed-off coastal area.



Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7 41262296
http://mailstar.net/index.html

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