Joint Declaration on World Democracy

A call for visionary leadership to abolish war and create enforceable global law

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, are leaders with a long-term vision for the planet.

We believe in global democracy as a goal;

we envision a world beyond the absolute sovereignty theory of the nation-state, in which the sovereignty of the world's people is primary.

We expect that the people of the world will someday, perhaps in our lifetimes, demand and achieve a well-governed world democracy.

We further declare that it is time to envision such a goal for humankind; in fact, we see no other long-term means for the survival of our species and of the planet itself.

We therefore call for the careful evolution of our institutions of global governance toward genuine planetary democracy and enforceable global law.

Enduring world peace, economic justice, and environmental protection are not utopian ideals; we declare these to be real and achievable goals.

Humankind can best realize these goals, we believe, by setting an intention for creating a world legislature along with individual accountability before world law.

Above all, we hold the vision of an epochal change in human affairs that will put an end to the war system. Just as slavery has been declared illegal, we call for the complete abolition of war.

TOWARD THESE ENDS, we call on leaders in all walks of life to educate all people everywhere about their innate sovereignty and their right to self-government.

Let us seize the opportunity to reinvent our world by working for the great goal of one world democracy and the rule of global law, by supporting immediate efforts to:

Educate everyone, and especially today's young activists, about the need for global law.We believe that generations to come will realize the imperative of enforceable global law through world democracy.

Support efforts to build awareness of world citizenship and to protect human rights.We envision the day when there will be a universal bill of rights that will protect the rights of all people.
Foster grassroots movements for world democracy, including global political parties.

We encourage the world's people to express their innate sovereignty at the individual and global levels.

Start now to create an advisory world legislature or United Nations Peoples' Assembly.Let's begin to take steps on the way to the long-term goal of a truly representative government for all humanity.

Expand the work of ICC and the International Court of Justice at the Hague.Let's move more deliberately toward a genuine world judiciary that can apply global law to individuals and states.
Learn from regional federations of states such as the United States, Europe, and Africa.We encourage the study of these precedents so that we can build toward the coming federation of all nations.

We know that achieving a world democracy under enforceable law could take much time--and to get there, we must take intermediate evolutionary steps. But we believe that leadership in these times means affirming that our goal represents the best hope of humankind.

THE SIGNATORIES BELOW hereby represent that they wholeheartedly support this declaration, and will work in their spheres of influence to achieve the goals stated herein:

Global Government Organizations

SIGN THE PLEDGE FOR WORLD DEMOCRACY!

Israel lifts blockade of fuel deliveries to Gaza

Israel on Wednesday resumed fuel shipments to the sole power plant in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said a day after officials said supplies would last for only 30 hours before it shut down.

"A million liters of fuel for the central power plant are being transferred today through Nahal Oz, which opened this morning," said an army spokeswoman, referring to the fuel terminal on the Israeli border with northern Gaza.Israel cut fuel supplies for Gaza's power plant by half and halted the supply of petrol and diesel after Palestinian militants attacked the terminal two weeks ago, killing two Israeli civilian employees.

It resumed shipments of fuel for the plant several days later, but stopped deliveries again last week after another attack killed three Israeli soldiers near Nahal Oz.On Tuesday Kanaan Obeid, vice president of Gaza's power authority, warned that the plant's fuel supply would last only another 30 hours, which would mean it would have to shut down on Wednesday night.

The Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement sent a request to Israel's attorney general warning that the cuts "violate the state's commitment to the Israeli supreme court to permit a minimum amount of fuel to enter Gaza."The plant provides around 30 percent of the territory's electricity, with most of the rest supplied from Israel and a small amount from Egypt.Israel slapped a punishing blockade on Gaza after the Islamist Hamas movement seized control of the territory in June

Iraq lawmakers move to ban toy guns

Children imitating sectarian divides in war games

Iraqi lawmakers, alarmed at the exceptional levels of violence children are exposed to daily, are about to pass a bill to ban the import of toy guns, an MP said on Wednesday.

"Our children see too much violence on TV, they have it on their video games, they hear their parents talk about violence every day. It is rampant in the streets," parliamentary committee on women and children chairwoman Samira al-Mussawi told AFP.Saying the bill has already been approved by the cabinet, Mussawi expects it to come before parliament before the end of the week.

According to Mussawi, children do not distinguish between toy guns and the real thing.

"They use them without knowing the reality of violence or killing," she said.

"We have to stop importing these kinds of toys and give our children others that will help them develop their brains.

"The lawmaker called on the education ministry to introduce subjects in schools dealing with matters such as non-violent conflict resolution and reconciliation.

Members of her committee, she added, backed efforts by the Iraqi army to curb the number of toy guns on the streets by going to schools and asking children to hand in plastic weaponry in return for other, creative toys.

Plastic toy guns, many imported from China, flood the shelves of toy stores, with shopkeepers saying the weaponry is the top seller, both for boys and for girls. Prices range from 5,000 to 40,000 dinars (four to 32 dollars), with the MP7AI rifle the favorite, as it resembles the type of weapons children see in American movies, shopkeepers told AFP.

Teachers say Iraqi kids play cops and robbers as do children in most countries, but that they also play war games, based on what is happening in the streets of their towns and cities. In some neighborhoods, it's police versus "terrorists", or army versus al-Qaeda. In other areas war games reflect the bitter sectarian divides

-- one side gets to be Shiite militiamen, the other Sunni insurgents.The only psychological study carried out in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 was on children by the Association of Psychologists of Iraq (API) in 2006.

It found that the violence was profoundly affecting them."The only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the U.S. occupation," said API spokesman Marwan Abdullah when he released the report.

Egypt jails 25 Islamists for up to 10 years

An Egyptian military court on Tuesday jailed 25 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood for up to 10 years for financing a banned organization and acquitted 15 others, a court official said.

The Brotherhoood's number three Khayrat al-Shater and fellow leader Hassan Malek were jailed for seven years while seven other Islamists were jailed in absentia for 10 years.Sixteen others were jailed for between 18 months and five years, the source said.

The Islamists were sentenced following a repeatedly delayed verdict that has no right of appeal because it is issued by a military tribunal.

Jordan prison unrest continues after 3 dead

Inmates at a prison north of the Jordanian capital of Amman set fire to their cells on Tuesday a day after three rioting prisoners died in clashes with security forces at another jail, police said. "A number of prisoners convicted of murder and robbery inflicted injuries on themselves and set fire to their cells this morning at Swaka prison" north of Amman, police spokesman Mohammed Khatib said in a statement.

"They were showing solidarity with inmates who rioted on Monday at Muaqqar prison (in southeast Amman), but police tackled the situation and evacuated the inmates from the cells for their own safety."
Khatib did not elaborate, but a security source told AFP that the prisoners were protesting at being segregated from other convicts.

On Monday, three Muaqqar inmates were killed and dozens were injured in clashes with police after prison authorities decided to segregate them from others.They also cut themselves with sharp tools and set fire to their cells.

In March 2006, inmates at Juweideh prison south of the capital rioting for the same reason briefly held prison officials hostage

Iraqi blogger: Baghdad after Saddam

Iraq's first blogger, Salam Pax, was in Baghdad on April 9, 2003. He watched cautiously as the US military entered the capital and took down Saddam Hussein's government.

But hopes for a better future were soon replaced with fears of looters taking the city apart brick by brick.

Five years later, he recounts the trials and tribulations experienced by Iraqis who woke up for the first time in 24 years without a government led by Saddam Hussein.

The collected weblog has been published by Guardian Books under the title The Baghdad Blog. He also made 19 short documentaries about life in Iraq after the war and was awarded Royal Television Society's award for innovation in 2003.

The events in Baghdad in early April five years ago were so overwhelming that it took three days and a succession of four-hour TV news snippets for the predicament to sink in.

Electricity had been cut off for a couple of days and we had been using a small power generator for four hours during the day and night mainly to check the news.

My uncles and aunts were all staying at our house … we thought that if we were going to be shocked and awed into democracy, we really ought to go through the experience together.

On April 7, my father woke up everyone because he had heard on the radio that the US army had entered Baghdad.

The 15 members of my extended family sat silently in front of the television set and watched a live feed from a US network showing American tanks rolling towards a presidential palace in central Baghdad.

It almost felt like watching an implausible scene in a science fiction film. This was followed two days later by footage of the Saddam statue in Firdous square being pulled down.

No more Saddam

We watched with disbelief.

Could Saddam really be gone now? We stayed home with our doors locked and waited for the retaliation of the Iraqi army, but there was nothing.

Days later we would see Iraqi military uniforms tossed in ditches as if the army just disappeared into thin air.

Then the images of the looting started appearing on all the news channels. This time we watched with anger and my uncles returned to their own homes to make sure their belongings did not get 'liberated' as well.

In rapid succession, we moved within three days from fear of being bombed to hope for a better future and back to fear of the chaos on the street.

We could tell from the events unfolding in the street three days after the coalition forces moved into Baghdad how this invasion would likely conclude.

Iraqis have never really recovered from the chaos of those early days.

But the truth is I chose not to dwell on what was happening in the streets and held on instead to a hope for a better future.

And with every little step forward we would look at each other and say 'it's happening'. But these forward steps were usually just blips of good news in what felt like an endless stream of bad news.

Corpses

But it has become increasingly difficult today to remember what good I had once been hoping would come out of the war and regime change.

I am left with a lot of bad memories.

There were days when the Red Crescent was begging for volunteers to assist in retrieving the corpses from the streets and giving them proper burial.

The local hospital's garden had to be converted into a makeshift cemetery after the electricity went out; there was no way the bodies could be stored in refrigerated morgues until they were identified by next of kin.

My mother, after going out only once after Baghdad was taken by coalition forces, decided she we would never venture outside her front yard again.

Not until I promised her that stability had returned to the streets.

That never really happened.

Painful memories

Going out in the city became an exercise in blocking out painful images and scenes; in some cases there were areas of the city you plainly avoided.

Have you seen what has happened to Baghdad's book market? I would rather have the image of that street as I remember it in my mind than the reality of what is left of it today.

Eventually, we had to leave our home when my neighbourhood was taken over by Sunni militias - all my Shia uncles and aunts also left their homes with all their belongings. Then came the walls which transformed an ethnically mixed and vibrant city into a series of sectarian ghettos.

And can one ever forget the neverending Iraqi civilian casualties.
To be honest, I still have no idea how to refer to April 9, 2003. For a while, one of our shortlived early governments called it "Baghdad Liberation Day" but that feels like a contradiction in terms as foreign forces stormed the city and that usually is described as an invasion.

On the other hand, I never really could bring myself to describing it as the "Fall of Baghdad".

I thought we were never going to let that happen although after five years of mostly death and bloodshed my beloved city is certainly not what it used to be.

I don't want to say fallen. But Baghdad is unquestionably and deeply hurt.

Salam Pax is and Iraqi documentary film-maker and the author of The Baghdad Blog. He graduated as an architect from Baghdad university but turned to blogging in 2002.

Saudi blogger makes Bible version of 'Fitna'

and ghrorg human rights movies re-presenting the film

A Saudi blogger has made the Christian equivalent of the anti-Quran film "Fitna" in an attempt to discredit the recently released video by Dutch MP Geert Wilders.

The six-minute video called "Schism" by 33-year-old Saudi blogger Raid Al-Saeed takes violent Biblical texts out of context and intersperses them with fiery rants by a Christian fundamentalist youth leader in Texas.

"I made it in less than 24 hours," Saeed told Saudi daily Arab News, adding that he was not promoting hatred against Christianity, but trying to prove that it is wrong to judge Islam by watching Fitna

It is easy to take part of any holy book out of context and make it sound like an inhumane book," he writes at the end of the short video.

"This is what Geert Wilders did to gather supporters for his hateful ideology

."Saeed said YouTube initially removed his video with a message that the clip violated its terms. But he wrote back, asking why his movie was removed while "Fitna" remained online and re-posted the film on March 2.

Jordan was CIA's top rendition location: HRW

The CIA secretly transported at least 14 war on terror detainees to Jordan between 2001 and 2004, making it the top "rendition" destination at that time, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.

"While a handful of countries received persons rendered by the United States during this period, no other country is believed to have held as many as Jordan," the rights group said in a statement.

The prisoners were interrogated and tortured by Jordan's General Intelligence Department, according to a new Human Rights Watch report that documents eight previously unknown cases of rendition.

GID officials who met with Human Rights Watch in Amman in 2007 denied receiving CIA prisoners and denied using torture.

But the rights group said the denials were unconvincing "given the weight of credible evidence showing otherwise.

"The report is "based largely on firsthand information from Jordanian former prisoners who were detained with the non-Jordanian terrorism suspects," it said."We've documented more than a dozen cases in which prisoners were sent to Jordan for torture," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch.Prisoners rendered to Jordan included at least five Yemenis, three Algerians, two Saudis, a Mauritanian, a Syrian, a Tunisian, and one or more Chechens from Russia, the group said.

They may also have included a Libyan, an Iraqi Kurd, a Kuwaiti, one or more Egyptians, and a national of the United Arab Emirates.

The report includes an excerpt of a note handwritten by a rendered prisoner while in Jordanian custody in late 2002.

The prisoner is now at the U.S. war on terror prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Ali al-Hajj al-Sharqawi wrote that GID interrogators beat him "in a way that does not know any limits.""They threatened me with electricity, with snakes and dogs .... [They said] we'll make you see death .... They threatened to rape me," the note said.A common torture method was falaqa, by which prisoners are given extended beatings on the bottoms of their feet.

"Just about everyone at GID was beaten with sticks," a Jordanian former prisoner told Human Rights Watch.

"People were beaten on their feet. They did it in the basement.""Outsourcing torture is not only wrong, it's illegal," Mariner said. "And the U.S. can't say it doesn't torture if it sends people to countries that do."

Palestinian tale of kindness plays in West Bank

For the first time, a documentary about a Palestinian boy whose tragic death saved the lives of five Israeli children

– thanks to his father – has been screened in the West Bank.

The documentary -- "The Heart of Jenin"

– tells the story of 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Ahmad al-Khatib, who was shot dead by Israeli troops when they mistook his toy gun for a real weapon.The shooting happened in the West Bank town of Jenin on Nov. 2, 2005.

At the time, Israeli soldiers had orders to "shoot anything that moved," one soldier said in the documentary.

The shot to Ahmad's head proved fatal, killing the boy from Jenin refugee camp. Ahmad's father Ismael al-Khatib later decided to donate his boy's organs to patients at the Haifa hospital where his son was pronounced dead."If I can't help my son to recover, then may be I can help other kids," he says in the documentary.

Five Israeli children received Ahmad's life-saving organs. The feature length documentary – directed by Marcus Vetter and Lior Geller –was screened at the German-French Cultural Center in Ramallah on March 27, the first time the film was shown in the Palestinian territories for a general audience.Palestinian cinemas refused the film because Geller is Israeli, said Farid Maajari, director of the cultural center.

Storyline

The Heart of Jenin follows Ahmad's father Ismael on his journey through Israel, visiting the children who found life through his son's death.Ahmad's kidneys went to the daughter of a Jewish settler in Occupied Jerusalem and a Bedouin boy from the Negev Desert region. His heart went to a Druze family in northern Israel. Two other beneficiaries chose not to participate in the documentary.

The extraordinary donation was approved not only by the boy's grief-stricken mother and father, but religious and political scholars too.

In the movie, Jenin's mufti approves organ donations. The opinion is backed by the Jenin commander of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

"We have no problem with Jews as Jews.

There's no problem as long as this will save lives," says Zakaria Zubeidi.In the movie, the father of the Jewish girl said he did not want to meet the donor family and would have preferred if they were Jewish.

He said Arabs only want to kill Israelis, apparently oblivious to the actions of Ahmad's father who donated his son's kidney to save the settler girl.After the screening in Ramallah, German director Vetter told the audience the film was banned from the Tel Aviv film festival allegedly for technical reasons.

"Some people said the film is biased towards the Palestinians because it tackles the death of the child and focuses on checkpoints, collective punishment, and the destruction of Jenin refugee camp," Vetter said.

Ismail al-Khatib now runs a music school for children in Jenin.

"Without peace, only killing will remain. Children from Palestine and Israel and all the world will die," Khatib said.

Jordan slams HRW report on 'rendition' prisoners

Jordan has blasted as "erroneous" a Human Rights Watch report that the U.S.
spy agency secretly transported at least 14 prisoners to the kingdom between 2001 and 2004.
"The report is erroneous and inaccurate.
It is based on individual allegations, unobjective foundation and wrong conclusions," State Minister for Information Nasser Judeh said on Tuesday.

The U.S.-based rights watchdog said the Central Intelligence Agency secretly transported at least 14 "war on terror" detainees to Jordan between 2001 and 2004, making it the top "rendition" destination at that time.
The prisoners, it said, were sent for interrogation and torture by Jordan's General Intelligence Department.
"While a handful of countries received persons rendered by the United States during this period, no other country is believed to have held as many as Jordan," HRW said.
Judeh said Jordan hopes that "such reports in the future would be based on accurate and objective information, instead of relaying on individual information and take them for granted as facts.
"Judeh said Jordan is a party to the U.N.
Convention against Torture, and that the country's laws criminalize torture."Members of terrorist organization target the kingdom by giving false information to human rights groups, hindering efforts to fight terror," he said.

killing the civilian people by the israeli's forces

this documentarian movies shows the largest masscare and most dirty by the israeli's forces against the civilian people in palestine ( in jinin and nablus) in the year 2001

Egypt police and protesters clash, strike foiled

Egyptian police clashed with protesters in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla on Sunday, firing tear gas and arresting at least 150 after plans for a strike at the city's textile factory were scrapped under pressure from security forces. Angry residents demanding an end to price hikes and soaring inflation set two schools ablaze and burnt tires along the city's railway.

Workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla had planned a strike on Sunday to demand higher pay, but security pressure and internal divisions prevented it from taking place.Around the country, plans for a general strike -- inspired by the Mahalla action -- fizzled out after the government made good on its warning to take firm action against protesters by arresting dozens of people.

Among those detained were opposition leaders including Islamist journalist Mohammed Abdel Qudoos and Magdi Hussein who heads the suspended Labour party.

Bloggers and members of other opposition parties, including the Nasserist and the liberal Ghad parties as well as from the protest movement Kefaya, were also arrested.

Analysts said that even though a massive strike did not take place nationally, the call to strike was significant in itself.

"We must not underestimate the call. Even if it did not have a large effect, it's the first time such a call has been made," Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, a politics professor at the American University in Cairo, told AFP.

He said the move "reflects a general feeling of discontent in the country." It is unclear who initiated the call which snowballed after some 25,000 employees at the textile plant in Mahalla announced plans to strike from Sunday over low salaries and price hikes.

In Mahalla, the strike was called off after pressure from security forces and internal divisions, employees said.

A strike would have been considered illegal without the backing of unions which are linked mainly to the ruling National Democratic Party.

Sky-rocketing food prices in Egypt this year have been met in recent weeks by a rumbling wave of popular discontent and unprecedented strikes and demonstrations.

On Saturday the interior ministry threatened "immediate and firm measures against any attempt to demonstrate, disrupt road traffic or the running of public establishments and against all attempts to incite such acts.

" The interior ministry insisted that all public institutions, including schools and state-run factories, should open for business as usual.

And it accused "provocateurs and illegal movements" of having "spread false rumours and called for protests, demonstrations and a strike on Sunday.

" The state-owned daily Al-Ahram warned that those inciting or participating in the strike could go to jail. The UN's World Food Program said this month that the average household expenditure in Egypt had risen by 50 percent since January 1

Aid groups deem Somalia too risky

A number of leading international aid agencies have announced that they consider it too dangerous for their staff to work in Somalia.

The statement was made on Wednesday by 39 organisations, including Oxfam, World Vision and Save the Children.

It came as seven people were killed in a battle on in Jowhar between fighters associated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and Ethiopian troops supporting the interim Somali government.

Mukhtar Robbow, a spokesman for the fighters, said his group had briefly seized the town.
Over the past year, Mogadishu, the capital, and other key cities have been hit by almost daily violence. Hundreds of civilians have died and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes.

The aid agency statement said: "The crisis engulfing Somalia has deteriorated dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease; 360,000 people have been newly displaced and an additional half a million people are reliant on humanitarian assistance."

The statement is based on a report released last October.

"There are now more than one million internally displaced people in Somalia. Intense conflict in Mogadishu continues to force an average of 20,000 people from their homes each month."

Last week, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, presented the Security Council with a report proposing the deployment of 27,000 peacekeepers to replace the stretched African Union force.

The Security Council has reviewed options for increased UN involvement in Somalia, but certain members have ruled out an early deployment of a full peacekeeping force.

The aid agencies said families left in the capital are among "the poorest of the poor who did not have the means to flee".

"Record high food prices, hyper-inflation and drought in large parts of the country is leaving communities struggling to survive," they said.

Dutch Islam film posted on website

Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician, has posted a film on the internet that accuses the Quran of inciting violence, despite government fears that it will offend Muslims and cause protests.

It was posted on his Freedom Party's website but could be watched only briefly before the site said it was not available for technical reasons.
The 15-minute film called Fitna, a Quranic term sometimes translated as "strife", started with a warning that it contains "very shocking images".

It is interspersed with images of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre and other bombings with quotes from the Quran.

The Dutch government has distanced itself from Wilders' views and fears the film will cause protests by Muslims similar to those sparked by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers in 2006.
Before seeing the film, demonstrators have already taken to the streets from Afghanistan to Indonesia to express their anger at the Netherlands, while the governments of Pakistan and Iran have sharply criticised the project.
The film shows a young girl in a headscarf being asked about Jews and Dutch broadcasters have refused to screen the film and a US-based web service on which Wilders had planned to show his film, deactivated the site at the weekend after receiving complaints.

Dutch exporters have expressed fears of a possible boycott in the Muslim world, though trade with such countries makes up only a small percentage of total exports.
There is also concern for 25,000 Dutch citizens living in Muslim countries.
Wilders has been under heavy guard because of death threats since the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch director who made a film critical of Islam's treatment of women.
His killing by a Muslim extremist triggered a wave of unrest in the Netherlands, home to almost one million Muslims out of a total population of 16 million.

Earlier this month, Dutch officials raised the national risk level to "substantial" partly because of the Wilders film and perceptions of an increased al-Qaeda threat.

Iraq's corporate genocide

Five years ago, I understood very little about the Iraq war. When asked to write an anti-war speech, I didn't even know where to begin. Today, I know why it happened, and I cannot say this is a war like any other, or even that it is a just war.
This war has been too long, too painful, too costly, too evil, too inhumane and too unjust to simply be deemed an invasion, or even worse, a liberation. Today, right here, right now, I want this war to be recognised for what it truly is - a genocide against the Iraqi people.
It is a corporate hate crime. It is not a "just" war.

It does not have a "just" cause. It lacks legitimate authority, it was executed with all the wrong intentions, it was certainly not a last resort, the probability of success was slim and most of all the weaponry has gone beyond "smart bombs".
If the international community recognises the conflicts in Bosnia, Armenia and Rwanda as genocides where human rights are replaced with the extermination of ethnic groups, then Iraq deserves the same recognition - and more.

Rape, indiscriminate killings and torture are all elements of genocide, but the situation in Iraq goes beyond that, fitting the description of something that is more 21st-century - a corporate genocide.
In stating that Iraq's genocide is distinct, the point is not to reduce the relevance of previous genocides or leave similar slaughters in other regions unacknowledged.
Rather, it is to recognise that while the perception of genocide in Iraq is not new, the extent to which it is now a valid belief is.
Corporate genocide is the mass cooperation of a business-led military invasion, where a population is sacrificed for the economic profit of the invader. A corporate genocide goes beyond blind hate and killing innocent civilians to gain power and territory.
In pursuing its economic strategies, the US has caused the death and injury, deliberate or not, of millions of Iraqis.

Foreign businesses that profit and thrive on war have gained new power in Iraq, but lack accountability. Private security firms have little motivation to promote peace - though it is their job - and to end this genocide.
Terrorising my people puts bread in their mouths and takes it away from the mouths of starving Iraqi children. Our war is their income.
To keep the money flowing, private security firms dehumanise Iraqi resistance and rebel groups by labelling them as terrorists. The international propagation of this portrayal is one element in the structuring of a corporate genocide.
Another is the inability of neither international law nor the international community to hold these firms accountable for their actions, including their killings of innocent people.
Individuals perceived to be a threat to the firm are treated as such and can be disposed of under the false guise of an attack, leaving the firms unaccountable. And because these firms have power, they can easily deny misusing it and be believed, if they admit to using it at all.
Not taking responsibility for destroying the lives of men, women and children marks a new chapter in the book of corporate genocide.

It is clear that five years later, the US has achieved little in terms of its humanitarian agenda but much of the goals listed in its hidden corporate agenda.
Iraqi natural resources are being distributed and scattered among the most powerful corporations, with very little profit earmarked towards the rebuilding of Iraq.
This is what the corporate genocide is about.
There is much debate about whether Iraq can stand on its own after the departure of the US Army. But it is crucial to keep in mind that the US never held Iraq up as a country and it never helped Iraqis come together as a nation.
I said it five years ago and repeat it now: a Western-style democracy cannot be forced on a nation that does not welcome it.
To not believe that we, the Iraqi people, will establish a form of government that we see fit for our needs, by ourselves, is an insult to the Iraqi solidarity and historical heritage that has always, continues to, and will never cease to exist.
Nofa Khadduri is a student at the University of Toronto in Canada and has been campaigning against the Iraq war since the age of 15.

Egypt university lecturers stage one-day strike

Thousands of Egyptian university lecturers held a nationwide strike on Sunday demanding salary increases and better pensions, the latest in a barrage of social unrest against the government.

"We didn't give any classes today and now we're staging a two-hour demonstration," said Hani al-Husseini, who heads the strike's coordination committee.

Fellow academic Mohamed Fouad Ali told AFP outside Cairo University, that lecturers currently get around 2,000 Egyptian pounds (365 dollars) a month, a figure they want to see doubled.
"If our demands are not met we will be forced to continue strike days, even if that's not what we want, especially during the exam period," said geology lecturer Ezzedine Abdel Hakim, alongside around 60 colleagues.

Hakim said that more than 100,000 lecturers were taking part in the strike at 25 universities around the country. Cairo University alone employs 12,000 lecturers, he said.Despite the strike, official media reported university life as unaffected by the industrial action.

The MENA news agency said that classes at Ain Shams and Helwan universities were continuing as usual, quoting staff as saying that they were happy with an unspecified salary increase promised by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif.

Students did not express much solidarity for the lecturers."Some of us have traveled very far to be here and they're making us lose a day of classes, it's too much," said Cairo University student Basma Amin.

The country has been hit by a wave of strikes and demonstrations in recent months in the face of rampant inflation and sky-rocketing prices.

US death toll in Iraq hits 4,000

The death toll of US military in Iraq has passed 4,000 after the US Central Command announced that four more troops had died in an attack.

The soldiers were killed on Sunday by a roadside bomb during a patrol in southern Baghdad, the military said on Monday.
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At least 50 Iraqis, most of them civilians, also died on Sunday in violence including bomb blasts and shootings.

In the most deadly attack, 13 Iraqi soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a security checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul.
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On Monday Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said that George Bush, the US president, was "grieved" by the losses.

"He mourns the loss of every single life from the very first that was lost in this conflict to the ones that are lost today," she said.

"He bears the responsibility for the decisions that he made and he also bears the responsibility to continue to focus on succeeding."

More than 29,000 American soldiers have been wounded after years of conflict in Iraq, according to the icasualties.org website, which also carried the 4,000-strong US death toll.

The death toll is still considerably smaller than the number of Iraqis who have died in the conflict.

"It has been left to journalists and academics to try and estimate the number that have died. Estimates vary from 89,000 on the lowest side to the highest figure that I have heard - which is one million," James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Baghdad, said.

"When you speak to an Iraqi who has stayed here in this country throughout the last five years, everyone knows someone who has died, and most families have lost a family member."

At least 97 per cent of the US military deaths came after George Bush, the US president, announced the end of "major combat" in Iraq on May 1, 2003

Since the US military toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, it has faced a violent anti-occupation campaign and witnessed violence between the country's sectarian communities

No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic," Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, US military spokesman in Baghdad, said of the losses.
"Being in the military means we are willingly in harm's way to protect others in order to bring hope and a sustainable security to the Iraqi people."
The milestone death toll comes day after Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, saying the US would remain in Iraq and promising American soldiers that they would emerge victorious

Hoda Abdel Hamid, Al Jazeera's Iraq correspondent, said the high death toll showed that the conflict had not been fully contained by the US.
"The Bush administration keeps saying that things are getting better and better. Reaching such a milestone is a reminder that the war is far from over in Iraq," she said.
"We are at a transition period. Despite the fact that the surge is working, despite the fact that the violence has dropped ... things could get much worse underground."
Abdel Hamid said that the "surge" could not work effectively unless it was accompanied by national reconciliation of Iraq's sectarian communities.

More than 80 per cent of soldiers killed have died in attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni and Shia fighters, icasualties.org said.
The remainder died in non-combat related incidents

Around 40 per cent of those killed were struck by roadside bombs, according to the website, making these weapons the main cause of fatalities.Small-arms fire was the second biggest killer, the website said, with helicopter crashes, ambushes, rocket attacks and suicide bombings also the cause of many deaths.
The deadliest year for the military in Iraq was 2007 when it lost 901 troops, the icasualties.org website figures said.

This figure compares with 486 deaths in 2003, the first year of the conflict, 849 in 2004, 846 in 2005 and 822 in 2006. Since the start of 2008, 96 soldiers have died.
Vietnam has been the deadliest war for the US military, apart from the two world wars, with 58,000 soldiers killed between 1964 and 1973, an average of 26 a day.
On average, just over two US soldiers die each day in Iraq.

American soldiers in Iraq interviewed by news agencies said that while they were sad about the losses, the conflict was justified.

"It's sad that the number is that high. It makes you wonder if there is a different way of approaching things. Nobody likes to hear that number," said senior Airman Preston Reeves, 26, from Birmingham, Alabama

"Every one of those people signed up voluntarily and it's a shame that that happens, but tragedies do happen in war.

"It's a shame you don't get support from your own country, when all they want you to do is leave Iraq and all these people will have died in vain."Against the backdrop of the rising US military death toll, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination, are calling for the withdrawal of troops.

Clinton has said that she may consider pulling troops out of the country after 60 days, she should win the nomination and the presidency.

But John McCain, who is set to become the Republican candidate in the presidential race, has advocated US soldiers remaining in Iraq.

McCain remains a strong supporter of Bush's controversial "surge", which saw 30,000 extra soldiers deployed in an attempt to improve security in Iraq.

After demonstrations of bread in Egypt

If the Egyptian president knows the meaning of hungry ... he will certainlly knows how much the egyptian people suffer .

No clear road , no agreement, no goodwill. No goals , no common interest ..etc
They are lost as sheep ...
I do not know why they want to hold their new summit in Damascus this month ? if you know please tell me ?!

Two Algerian churches shut for missionary work

Algerian authorities ordered the closure of two churches in the Algerian city of Tizi Ouzou last week for alleged missionary work, according to recent press reports.
The latest closures are a part of an intensive campaign to uncover conversion efforts in many Algerian provinces, especially tribal areas, resulting in 10 churches receiving orders to close since November.
Ministers of the two Protestant churches in Tizi Ouzou, 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Algiers, were summoned by the authorities and charged with engaging in illegal practices.
They will hold an emergency meeting to discuss ways of resolving the issue with the authorities, the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported on Monday.
Algerian Minister of Religious Affairs, Bouabdallah Ghulamallah, said the latest closure was ordered under the new 2006 law which limits non-Muslim worship to specific buildings approved by the state.
The law, which also forbids non-Muslims from seeking to convert Muslims, was prompted by what officials have described as an increase in the activities of Christian evangelical sects.
According to authorities, churches establish places of worship in remote areas, luring Muslims to convert to Christianity by offering them money and jobs in Europe.Ghulamallah said the churches would reopen as soon as they obtained the required permits.In an earlier statement, Ghulamallah called the Anglicans in Algeria "outlaws" and accused them of trying to establish a non-Muslim minority in the country to pave the way for foreign intervention under the pretext of religious persecution.
There have been conflicting reports about the number of Christians in Algeria, which is almost totally Muslim. According to officials, around 11,000 Christians, including expatriates, live in the country of 33 million.
But other sources say the number is much higher, attributing the increase to missionary activities.
The tension reached its peak a month ago when Algerian authorities asked the American bishop Hugh Johnson, 74, to leave the country after his residency expired.
Johnson, who has been living in Algeria for more 45 years, filed a lawsuit and demanded the revocation of his deportation decree.

Saddam watches remind Iraqis of happier time

Five years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his memory lives on through wrist watches as people in his home town and birth village seek reminders of a time of safety, jobs and cheap living.In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, watches featuring an image of the former Iraqi leader on the dial sell like hot cakes to a mostly older crowd, while younger shoppers like to try them on and pose, watch seller Hamad Younes said.

"People love these Saddam watches," said Younes of the timepieces, which have a starting price of 100 dollars. "They never stay in stock more than two or three days. The people of Tikrit love Saddam," he said.
Saddam drew many of his most trusted officials from the Sunni strongholds of Tikrit and the neighboring village of Awja, where he was born in 1937, relying on tribal loyalty to ensure his absolute grip on power.

Loyalty was rewarded with the finest imported goods and lavish state support.Nostalgia for Saddam's rule has driven the trade in the watches and other reminders of the Iraqi leader.

"People have started to ask for pictures of Saddam. Saddam mosque asked for a picture to hang above their door, that was the last one I did," said Shayban al-Aloosi, a painter and printer in Tikrit.

Another picture of the fallen leader hangs in the reception of a children's welfare centre. "Saddam died a martyr, and will remain a hero of Tikrit," the center's administrator Fatin Mohammed said.

Saddam was hanged in December 2006 for crimes against humanity.

"What did the Americans bring? Hunger, arrests and killing.

I wish Saddam was back. We cry for the time of Saddam," said Khodaeiyar Salah, an old man dressed in traditional Arab robes in Tikrit's central marketplace.

In Awja, the village where Saddam was born and laid to rest, a neglected appearance mirrors the mood of its people. Crude graffiti covers its walls, the roads are empty and dead trees are all that remain of its once-proud gardens."The worst day of my life was when Iraq fell.

Today Awja is empty, there are not many people left.

All my aunts and uncles have gone, or were arrested," said Suleiman al-Nasseri, 25.Many in Awja fled the violence that engulfed Iraq since Saddam's fall. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Bombings and shootings remain a part of daily life in Iraq despite an overall drop in violence since Sunni Arab tribes turned on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and 30,000 extra U.S. troops were fully deployed last June.

"Americans say Saddam was a killer and oppressor.

Now there's more killing and oppression than in Saddam's time. Every day there is killing, gunfire ...

only when the Americans came did we hear about racism and sectarianism," said Awja grocer Yassen al-Omar, who said he was related to Saddam's cousins.Shiites, Iraq's majority Muslim sect, and Kurds suffered terribly under Saddam, whose Sunni Arab-dominated government crushed dissent through brutal military campaigns, torture and executions.

At Saddam's marble tomb, covered in a riot of flowers and surrounded by pictures of the former leader, a group of men said prayers. The graves of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, who died fighting U.S. troops, are nearby.

"Saddam was a candle of the tribe and its light today and forever.

We miss him when we see him in pictures or on the news, and I swear we cry when we visit his grave and those of his sons, God rest them," Saddam relative Yaseen al-Majid said.

1,500 laborers stage violent wage protest in UAE

Around 1,500 workers in the United Arab Emirates staged a violent protest for higher wages on Tuesday, setting dozens of vehicles on fire and damaging property, police said.

Their nationalities were not disclosed, but similar actions in the past year have usually involved mostly low-paid Asian workers, who form the bulk of hundreds of thousands of foreign construction and unskilled workers in the booming oil-rich Gulf country.

One news report indicated at least some of the protesters were Indians.
The workers went on strike and rioted in their living quarters in the industrial area of Sagaa in Sharjah, which is adjacent to Dubai, Sharjah police chief Brigadier Humaid al-Hudaidi said, quoted by the state WAM news agency.

They set fire to a floor reserved for the management of the accommodation in a bid to "expose more than 20 employees to ... choking," he said.They also stoned and torched dozens of cars and buses in the parking lot, and tried to attack police and labor ministry officials who went to the site, the police chief said.

Hudaidi said the workers had recently put their demand for a wage hike to the labor ministry which negotiated with their employer, but a group of them incited others to strike before receiving a response.

The workers had also received pay rises two months ago, he said.Hudaidi said an investigation was under way to identify those responsible for the riot.

He did not say if any arrests had been made, nor identify the employers, saying only that they are based in a neighboring emirate, an apparent reference to Dubai.The online news service ArabianBusiness.com said the workers are employed by engineering contractor Drake and Scull.

It said workers attributed the action to unpaid wages.A company spokesperson denied this, saying some workers were unhappy about a minimum 10 percent pay rise announced for employees on Monday as they felt it did not make up for the falling value of the UAE dirham, which is pegged to the dollar, against the Indian rupee.Asian workers have demonstrated several times in the past year to demand higher wages and better living conditions despite a ban on public protests in the UAE.Many construction workers earn less than 200 dollars a month and have been further hit by mounting inflation, which reached 9.3 percent in 2006.

The press reported last month that a Dubai court had sentenced 45 Indian construction workers to six months in jail followed by deportation over a violent protest to demand wage increases

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Jordan: New restrictions on Internet cafés and violating privacy of users

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information denounced today decisions released by the Jordanian ministry of interior increasing restrictions on internet cafés in Jordan, on pretext of maintaining security, through installing cameras to monitor users of these cafés. The Network also emphasized that these procedures are considered as a real retreat from freedom of internet and the right to exchange information.

The Jordanian ministry of interior has recently issued new instructions for monitoring internet cafés widespread all over the Jordanian cities, as it enforced internet cafés owners to install cameras to the front of their cafés in order to identify the users of these cafés.

In addition to the cameras, we find that security decisions are also enforcing internet cafés owners to register the users' personal data such as their names, phone numbers and time of use, as well as the IP number of the café and data of websites explored by the users.

The newly-issued decisions of "organizing the work of internet cafés" also included enforcing internet cafés owners to install censorship programs to prevent access to websites containing pornographic material, or an affront to religious beliefs, or promoting the use of drugs, tobacco.

It is worthy to mention that Jordan is one of the most Arab countries that internet cafés are widespread on a large scale.

Even Shafiq Rashidat Street (Unversity Street) in Irbid City, has been registered in Guinness Book of Records in terms of the highest number of Internet cafés in one street.

This street contains more than 130 cafés although the street length is not exceeding 2000 meters.

An earlier report of the Arab network had expressed cautious optimism on Jordan, as the decisions of "organizing the work of internet cafés and centers" were more flexible in the past, regarding terms & conditions that have to be available in these centers and the effort exerted to expand the number of internet users.

The Arabic Network while denounces such decisions which violate right of exchanging information and privacy of internet users, is calling the Jordanian government to retreat from such arbitrary decisions which would precipitate involving Jordan among the countries which are hostile to freedom of internet.

For more information:the internet in Jordan (2004 report),visit http://www.hrinfo.org/en/reports/net2004/jordan.shtml

the internet in Jordan (2006 report),visit

http://www.openarab.net/en/reports/net2006/jordan.shtml

Court strips two weekly newspapers of their licences

Reporters Without Borders deplores a Kuwait City criminal court’s decision to withdraw the licences of two weekly newspapers, Al-Abraj and Al-Shaab, in separate cases on 8 March. The court fined Al-Abraj editor Mansur Ahmad Muhareb Al-Hayni and Al-Shaab editor Hamed Turki Abu Yabes 9,000 dinars (21,000 euros) each.
Hayni was convicted of besmirching the prime minister’s reputation while Yabes was convicted of publishing political articles in a newspaper whose licence limited it to covering arts and culture.
“The relative freedom enjoyed by the Kuwaiti press must not be undermined,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Since the start of the year, a website has been rendered inaccessible, a woman journalist has been threatened and two employees of the daily Al-Watan have been the targets of lawsuits. The withdrawal of these two weeklies’ licences can only aggravate the situation. We urge the authorities to reaffirm their commitment to freedom of expression and to find a way to allow these two newspapers to continue publishing.”
The case against Al-Abraj was brought by the information ministry over an article on 5 May 2007 headlined “More and more corruption” which blamed the prime minister for Kuwait’s poor ranking in Transparency International’s corruption index. Reached by Reporters Without Borders, Hayni condemned a deterioration in press freedom and accused the government of “politically eliminating journalists through the courts.”
Three separate cases were brought against Yabes over allegedly political articles published in Al-Shaab on 17 May 2007, for which he was fined 3,000 dinars in each case. He told Reporters Without Borders he disputed the charges, saying the articles were about economic and social issues such as corruption. He said he planned to appeal.
Click here to read the chapter on Kuwait in this year’s annual report on press freedom worldwide, which Reporters Without Borders issued on 13 February.

US adds Syria to list of top rights abusers

The U.S. dropped China from its list of the world's worst human rights violators, but added Syria, Uzbekistan and Sudan to the alleged offenders in an annual report released Tuesday.

The State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report showed China, which has raised hopes it will improve human rights by hosting the 2008 Olympics, had parted company with countries like North Korea, Myanmar and Iran.In its report, the State Department listed 10 "countries in which power was concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers remained the world's most systematic human rights violators."No reason was given for removing China -- which has been a key partner in talks with Washington to denuclearize North Korea -- from the list but the new report said China's "overall human rights record remained poor" in 2007.

The report still said that China tightened media and Internet curbs and increased controls on religious freedom in Buddhist Tibet and Muslim Xinjiang in 2007, the U.S. State Department report said.

The 2007 top 10 offenders included North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan.Beijing had figured in the top 10 in the 2006 and 2005 reports.Human rights had improved however in four countries since 2006: Mauritania, Ghana, Morocco and Haiti.Little or no progress had been made in Nepal, Georgia, Kyrghyzstan, Iraq, Afghanistan or Russia, while the situation had deteriorated in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the report added.Sudan's human rights record remained "horrific" last year, with humanitarian workers among targets of increased violence in the 5-year-old war in the country's Darfur region,

the report said."Sudan's human rights record remained horrific, with continued reports of extrajudicial killings, torture, beatings, and rape by government security forces and their proxy militia in Darfur," the document read

soon :New Affiliated Site . Arabic Human Tragedy Stories

New affiliated e-site to serve the Arabic human rights, it's work to make the arabic persons awareness of their rights .

we aim to presentation and publication the works of art such distinctive configuration and films and novels and tragic stories and satirical .

The new e- site aims to detect violations of the rights of persons and negative phenomena afflicting Arab societies

Saudi kids become world's youngest couple

A 12-year old boy married his 11-year old cousin in the southwestern Saudi province of Jizan, becoming the youngest married couple in the world.

The elementary school couple tied the knot in a big wedding, with hundreds of family members and friends blessing the union. Folklore dances were performed to highlight the joy, Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh reported.

In a related incident, an 82-year old Saudi man passed premarital medical tests, paving the way to marry a 25-year old girl to be his third wife.

The wedding party will be held next summer.

In other marriage news, two marriage registrars (mazioun) were suspended for not seeking the bride's approval before proceeding with the marriage contract, violating a major condition for marriage in Islam.

Over 40 other registrars were penalized - by suspension, warning, or license revocation - for the same reason as well as for advertising for themselves on billboards.

Intl Women's Day marked across the world

Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women's Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide.
The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia. Nearly 100 years old, the day marks the worldwide struggle for equal rights for half the globe's population.Scores of women rallied outside a Baghdad hotel demanding an end to violence and equal social status with men.

"Stop neglecting women. Stop killing women. Stop creating widows," read a large banner that the women, from various ethnic and religious backgrounds, held at the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad's central Karrada neighbourhood. In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai spoke out against forced marriages and said threats from a Taliban-led insurgency were keeping girls out of school.
"I call on religious leaders, tribal elders and particularly men: stop forcing your under-aged girls to marry, stop marrying them to old men," he said.
Up to 80 percent of Afghan women face forced marriage, and nearly two-thirds are married before the legal age of 16, according to the United Nations. Events were also planned in neighboring Pakistan, where "honor killings" of women and punishment gang-rapes have been widely reported.
Gatherings took place in India, Indonesia and China as activists pressed for an end to discrimination ranging from abortion of female foetuses to workplace bias.

soon : lost rights dialogues

a readable discussion about the lost and the violated human rights in the arabic world . These dialogues located in a variety of workshops, each addressing a specific topic suffered by the Arab community, and each contains a most important principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which addresses and refers to the violation

also : watch the most beautiful human tragedy by ghrorg movies channel on youtube . 35 tragedy movie

ghrorg's playlists to visit the humanity tragedies movies page

Tragedy of Israel and Palestine

Americans have grown so accustomed to the disastrous dynamics operating between Israelis and Palestinians today that the failure to reach a peace deal amid the soaring death tolls assumes an aura of normalcy in their minds.

This reflects a situation we imagine ourselves to be powerless to help change and only adds to the tragedy unfolding in the Occupied Territories and Israel as well.

Today the world's attention has turned to the aftermath of the murder of eight students of an ultra-Zionist Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, established by the founder of religious zionism, Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook in 1924.

Last week the focus was the ongoing war in Gaza, which will likely be the centre of attention next week as well.

The attacks on religious students in the midst of study and prayer - coupled with the ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza on the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon - are already being offered as the latest examples of continued Palestinian unwillingness to make peace with Israel more than two years after its unprecedented withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
World's largest prison

Shanbo Heinemann, a pro-Palestinian activist, is injured in a protest against the wall [GETTY] But there are many problems with this argument; firstly, most of the acts of Palestinian resistance to the occupation have always been non-violent.

Equally important is the fact that while Israeli civilians no longer live in Gaza, Israel's military presence has never ended.
Tel Aviv withdrew civilian settlers and then threw away the key to what has now become the world's largest prison.

Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and the architect of the settlement movement, was willing to sacrifice Gaza in order to ensure Israel held onto the major settlement blocs of the West Bank, which today house more than 250,000 settlers (almost double that number if one includes the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem).

The settler population of the West Bank also doubled during the years of the Oslo "peace" process - which began when Abu Dahim was about 12 and ended when he was 19 - without a whimper of complaint from the United States.

By the time Yitzhak Rabin, the former prime minister, was assassinated in 1995, Palestinian leaders were warning that the continued settlement expansion was "killing" the peace process and would sooner or later lead to a "revolution" from the street.

The presence of well over 100 settlements has necessitated a matrix of control in which 80 per cent of the West Bank be declared off limits to Palestinians.

It also meant the destruction of thousands of homes and olive and fruit trees (the backbone of an otherwise closed Palestinian economy), the confiscation of 35,000 acres of Palestinian land, and the creation of a network of bypass roads, military bases.

The 400-kilometre, 8-metre-high "separation wall" also pierces deep into Palestinian territory, cutting into at least three isolated cantons.

Together, the settlement system has made the idea of creating a territorially and economically viable Palestinian state impossible to implement.

With the eruption of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000 whatever infrastructure of peace had been created during Oslo was quickly dismantled by both sides.

By mid-2002 Israel began deploying a strategy of managed chaos, in which a near total closure of the Territories, coupled with a destruction of much of their economic and political infrastructure, turned the intifada into what Palestinians term an "intifawda," a neologism that brings the violence of the intifada together with the chaos, or "fawda" of a society living in a barely functioning state and economy.

Dividing Palestine

Israel's separation wall cuts a broad path through Palestinian olive groves [GALLO/GETTY]Israeli planners gambled that by splitting the West Bank from Gaza, deepening the occupation of the former while freeing itself of the settlements in the latter, and routinely deploying disproportionate violence (including tanks, helicopter gunships, F-16s, and heavily armed troops) against all signs of resistance, Palestinian society would begin turning on itself.

Indeed, Israel hoped for this when it clandestinely supported the emergence of Hamas two decades ago, with the goal of building up a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that would have them fighting each other rather than figuring out more successful strategies of fighting the occupation.

But, even as Palestinians fight each other, resistance to the occupation has continued. Most of it is comprised of various forms of non-violence (marches, sit-ins, and attempts to stop home demolitions or replant uprooted fields or groves).

These are rarely covered by the international media, and are usually met with violence by the Israeli military or settlers.

Fairly or not, however, it has been Palestinian violence, and especially suicide bombings and now rocket attacks on civilians, that have defined their resistance to the ongoing occupation.

Suicidal suicide attacks

And in this regard the actions have been nothing short of suicidal - Palestinian "resistance" to the occupation seems to have been scripted by Israel as it has suited the interests of the Israeli governments in power since 2000. As Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston recently put it:

"The Palestinians have kept their ultimate doomsday weapon under tight wraps for 40 years ... Israeli senior commanders could only pray that the Palestinians would never take it out and put it to actual use ... non-violence. This is one reason why, for decades, Israel did its best to head off, harass, and crack down on expressions of Palestinian non-violence."

If Palestinians ever decided to just "get up and walk" en masse to the Erez Crossing separating Gaza from Israel and the major West Bank check points like Qalandiya and used hammers and picks to tear them down, there would be almost nothing Israel could do, short of a massacre in full view of the world's cameras.

But Palestinians have become so stuck in the ideology of summud, (which naturally become a national imperative after a million Palestinians were uprooted in the 1948 and 1967 wars), or defiantly staying put, that they have rarely taken the strategic or moral offensive.

When they applied the moral approach during the first intifada, Israel's harsh crackdown coupled with PLO dominance of Palestianian politics, ensured the de-politicisation and disempowerment of the first "intifada generation".

Two weeks ago, when a few brave Palestinians tried to organise a peaceful march to the Erez border crossing to build on the momentum gained by breaching the border fence between Gaza and Egypt, they were stopped far from the border by a line of heavily armed Hamas policemen.

Soon after, the day's ration of rockets was fired into the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, wounding two Israeli children.

Israel responded with a new rounds of attacks by Israel, killing and wounding more Palestinians.

How to stop?

A few years ago, in a particularly violent moment of the intifada, I interviewed a senior Hamas leader at his office in Gaza. After the usual boiler plate questions and answers, I finally grew exasperated and said to him, "Look, let's put aside the question of whether you have the right to use violence, particularly against civilians, to pursue your ends. The simple fact is that the strategy has not worked."

His response stunned me with its honesty: "We know the violence doesn't work, but we don't know how to stop."

In a mirror image of Israeli strategic thinking, Hamas has remained unable to break free of the dangerously outdated paradigm that says violence, particularly against civilians, can only be met by even more violence until the other side yields.

Aside from the moral turpitude of such thinking by both sides - not to mention blatant illegality according to international law - the reality, at least in the near term, is that the human and political cost of such a policy for Israel is far lower than for Palestinians, who have very little time left before their dreams of independence are crushed for good.

Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, has himself admitted, the day Palestinians give up on the dream of an independent state will be the day Israel will "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."

Dysfunctional dynamics

In 1987, Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, concluded his well-known "West Bank Data Base Project" report by arguing that the West Bank settlements were too integrated into Israel to separate them as part of any future peace dealBut so dysfunctional are the current dynamics that neither side seems willing to take the first step away from the abyss.

In such a situation, only a strong outside party can force the warring sides to make the hard compromises necessary to achieve a just and lasting peace.

This was the job the US signed up for in 1993, when Bill Clinton, then president, witnessed the signing of the first Oslo agreement on the White House lawn. But we have failed miserably in our self-appointed role as "honest broker."

It's not just that US has unapologetically taken Israel's side on almost every major issue since then.

During the Oslo years the US worked hand in glove with the Israeli and Palestinian security services to stifle dissent within Palestinian civil society, or the Legislative Council, to a process that was moving away from rather than towards a just and lasting peace.

And with the militarisation of US foreign policy after September 11 and the sullied occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel has had even greater carte blanche to inflict precisely the kind of damage upon Palestinian society we are witnessing now in Gaza.

Blood of children

By refusing to press Israel - as many Israeli commentators, and an increasing number of US policy-makers as well, urge - to negotiate with Hamas we have not just enabled the current violence, but are directly responsible for it.

Hamas has declared its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution, albeit under conditions to which Israel has little incentive to accept.

The blood of Israeli and Palestinian children that appears on TV is on our hands too.

It would be nice if we could imagine that the next US president will have the courage to "change" this dynamic. But there is little chance of that.

The only hope is that Israeli and Palestinian societies come together to stop the violence their leaders keep inflicting on them before the delusions of victory on both sides cross the line into psychosis.

Mark LeVine is professor of history at UCI Irvine and author or editor of half a dozen books dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and globalisation in the Middle East, including Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel and Palestine, Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, and the forthcoming An Impossible Peace: Oslo and the Burdens of History.

the smallest mam in the world ? only in egypt !!!

There are in Egypt more than 3 million children Street? What is the solution

this vedio shows the novel tells how a child was raped and shows us a child whose existence

the torture in egypt

Police officer prevent the detainee from going to the bathroom and says to him.... urinate on yourself??

Can you believe that? The Government of Egyptian described as one of the most active countries that innovate methods of torture!!

Welcome to a very civilized Egypt

Negotiating peace

Dr. James J Zogby

This month the US Institute for Peace released Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East, the report of a study group which examined US peacemaking efforts over the past four decades.

Headed by Daniel Kurtzer (former US Ambassador to Egypt and Israel), the group met during 2006-2007 and interviewed over 100 officials and experts from seven countries and three international organisations.

The main body of the report is a look at successes and failures, and strengths and weaknesses of the past three administrations' efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

It concludes by detailing 10 lessons learned, and then outlining recommendations based on those lessons to guide the next administration.

The examination of Washington's peace making efforts during the past three administrations begins with a largely positive assessment of "Bush 41", crediting President George H.W. Bush for "having the clearest sense of strategy", which he pursued "in a highly disciplined, effective and committed manner.

" On the other hand, the major weakness of "Bush 41," pointed to in the report, was his "failure to build a strong coalition at home to support [his] strategy.

" It was the combination of this failure, and the distraction of his reelection effort in 1992, that caused the Bush Administration to lose focus in its peacemaking efforts.In spite of this, the report notes that the Clinton administration "inherited an ideal strategic environment for peacemaking.

" Noting that Clinton more effectively built a domestic support base for his peacemaking efforts, he was, however, "less disciplined and less strategic than his predecessor".

Specifically, the report noted that the Clinton team "failed to understand and deal with key asymmetries in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

While the US paid attention to Israeli security requirements, less attention was devoted to Palestinian political requirements. The US did not find a way to compensate for Palestinian political weakness.

This was the first time in history a people under occupation was expected to negotiate its own way out of occupation while at the same time creating a viable, democratic and independent state".

The report notes that Clinton did not personally become directly involved in negotiations until late in his second term, and did not put forward his own peace plan until his last month in office. This was, of course, too late to make a difference.

It is George W. Bush's approach that receives the greatest criticism, the authors noting that "his approach to the conflict lacked both commitment and a sense of strategic purpose".

This, they suggest, was due to the fact that too many of the president's advisers dismissed the importance of Middle East peace, placing greater emphasis on their "regime change" and democratisation agendas.

No follow through
When Bush did become involved, however, it was mostly on the rhetorical level, with little or no follow through.

Plans were announced, and mediators were dispatched in succession, ignored and undercut, and then dropped.

To some degree, this contributed to a widespread belief that the Administration's efforts lacked seriousness.

The result of this mismanagement and/or neglect has negatively affected not only Israelis and Palestinians, but US diplomacy in the broader region, and public attitudes towards the US itself. The report goes on to list a number of important lessons that must be heeded by any future administration.

Here are three:"Arab-Israeli peacemaking is in our national interest: September 11, Iraq and increasing instability in the Middle East have made US leadership in the peace process more, not less, important.

The president needs to indicate that the peace process is a priority and ensure that the administration acts accordingly.

"US policy must never be defined anywhere but in Washington. Consultations with the parties must take place and policy revisions based on these consultations are inevitable, but our policy must be seen as our own.""The peace process has moved beyond incrementalism and must aim for endgame solutions. This not only requires US leadership to help the parties make the necessary trade-offs on core issues, but also a commitment to an expanded diplomatic approach that involves key international and regional actors."The report provides both a useful history and thoughtful analysis, with which one can find little disagreement.

My concern, however, is that it comes too late.

If Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East is to be followed, it must be followed by a very determined president willing to use pressure and politics not only to bring Israelis and Palestinians together, but also to work to transform US, Israeli and Palestinian attitudes.

Can the Mideast avoid war?

The assassination of Hezbollah's top commander Emad Mughnieh in a car bombing in Damascus on February 12, and its substantial repercussions, raise a big question: Are we on the verge of a new war?
With Mughnieh's murder, its timing, location and method, as well as with the subsequent threats by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah against Israel, it seems that our region is on the threshold of a possible war.

Nasrallah threatened Israel with an "open war" and vowed to avenge the death of Mughnieh, which he believes will bring about major changes in the Middle East and "mark the beginning of demise" of the Israeli state.
Addressing his supporters, Nasrallah said: "I swear to God that Mughnieh's blood will not go in vain," and predicted the disappearance of Israel. This is a clear sign that a war will break out in the region. The rising tensions and security concerns in the region will probably lead to more divisions between Arab countries.
Mughnieh's assassination drew different reactions from Arab governments, which are deeply divided between two camps - the American camp and the Iranian camp. Meanwhile, the Arab street appears to be even more deeply entrenched in its divisions.
For instance, Kuwait saw a sectarian divide over the assassination of Mughnieh after two Shiite parliament members held a ceremony to eulogise Hezbollah's slain commander.

Two dead
The ceremony drew condemnations from Kuwaiti's majority Sunnis, who accused Mughnieh of the 1988 hijacking of a Kuwait Airways flight that left two Kuwaiti passengers dead, and the assassination attempt on the Kuwaiti Emir in 1985.The Kuwaiti government criticised those who took part in the rally amid popular calls for stripping the membership - even citizenship - of the two Shiite MPs, especially given that the government had earlier stripped Sulaiman Bu Gaith, a top Al Qaida leader, of his citizenship.
The repercussions of Mughnieh's killing spread across Kuwait, Lebanon, Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Damascus, Washington and Tehran, which reacted differently to the fiery statements of Nasrallah who declared open war against Israel under new game rules.
Nasrallah made it clear when he spoke about a borderless war after Israel crossed the borders and killed Mughnieh in the Syrian capital, outside the natural battlefield.Speaking of a war that goes beyond geographic borders brings us closer to a war scenario being drawn up in the region.
In Lebanon, the political rift is deepening between the pro-government group and the Hezbollah-led opposition.
This is reflected by the exchange of accusations between the leaders of both sides.The pro-government group refers to the opposition as evil gangs and dark forces affiliated to the Syrian regime, while the opposition in turn brands their rivals as Washington's allies.
The conflict between the two sides was manifested clearly on February 14 when the Lebanese were divided into two rallies, one gathered in the Martyrs Square to commemorate the third anniversary of the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, while the Hezbollah supporters took part in Mughnieh's funeral.Even more, the failure of the Arab plan to resolve the presidential crisis is another source of concern.
Also, the calls by the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments on their citizens not to travel to Lebanon, as well as the threat to bomb the Kuwaiti embassy in Beirut and the closure of two French cultural centres, will contribute to the deteriorating situation in the already paralysed country.

Change in rules
Mughnieh's assassination would only accelerate the confrontation with Israel and the US, which changed the rules of the game. Backed by General Michael Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah believes that victims of aggression have the right to defend themselves, while Nasrallah insists that Mughnieh's assassination will mark the beginning of Israel's elimination.
This was reiterated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mohammad Ali Jafari, Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards, who sent to Nasrallah a cable of condolences describing Israel as a cancerous cell that will be removed by Hezbollah.
Moreover, US President George W. Bush has fanned the confrontation by imposing new punishments on Syrian officials, including Rami Makhlouf, cousin of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
Bush also doubled the US financial support to $14 million for the international tribunal into the Hariri killing, while Syria said it had many options to retaliate against the US penalties. Iran expressed its anger at Mughnieh's assassination by sending an official delegation, led by Iranian Foreign Minister Manocher Mottaki, to attend the funeral, and by sending cables of condolences to Nasrallah.
Meanwhile, Tehran announced that the Iranian president would visit Baghdad, which is under "the US protection", and cancelled a meeting of Iranian experts with their American counterparts.The situation escalated between the two countries after the US accused Iran of supporting armed groups in Iraq, which may lead to increasing violence that coincides with the withdrawal of some US troops from Iraq in the summer.

If the cycle of violence in Iraq captures the headlines in the US media again, the chances of Republican candidate John McCain winning the presidential race will weaken. So, the question arises: Will Mughnieh's assassination be a ticking time bomb that threatens the region with a devastating war to determine the results of the struggle between the US and Iranian projects?No matter what the outcome of this struggle will be, Arab territory will be the battlefield and the Arabs will be the victims.

* Published in the UAE's GULF NEWS on February 25, 2008. Dr Abdullah Al Shayji is a Professor of International Relations and Head of the American Studies Unit