Stephen Lendman

Occupied Palestinians and Israeli Arabs never had rights in a state affording them solely to Jews. Now even they're at risk as democratic freedoms fast erode on their way to extinction; to wit, free expression, a right without which all others are endangered. It includes free speech, a free press, freedom of thought, culture, intellectual inquiry, and the right to challenge government authority peacefully, especially in times of war and cases of injustice, lawlessness, incompetence, and abuses of power.

Israel has no constitution or specific laws guaranteeing equality or free expression. Yet its Basic Laws protect human dignity and liberty as fundamental democratic values, more rhetoric than fact given its persecution of journalist Anat Kam and Haaretz's national security reporter Uri Blau.

Kam (held under house arrest since December) will be tried in mid-April for passing confidential documents she removed while stationed in IDF General Yair Naveh's office during her mandatory military service. Blau, fearing assassination or a judicial lynching, is now hiding in London.

Two (internal security) Shin Bet gag orders (code name "Double-Take") were judicially implemented to silence press discussion, on October 8, 2009 and on January 1, 2010 for 90 days, now partially lifted.

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Rachel Tabachnick

While the nation is fixated on the racist statements and misspelled signs at Tea Party events, there is a simultaneous movement working to bring together a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-national, and even multi-religious coalition, in an aggressive effort to "reform" America to conform with their biblical worldview.

On April 15-16 the Freedom Federation, a recent coalition of Religious Right organizations, will be holding a conference at Liberty University titled The Awakening 2010. The event could be described as Religious Right activists - White, Hispanic, Asian, and African American, coming together to embrace a John Birch Society worldview to the tunes of Hebrew melodies. It may sound unlikely, but the "pro-Israel" agenda is the camouflage that provides cover for this explicitly Christian nationalist movement.

This gathering of Religious Right leaders features familiar faces and familiar themes such as opposition to gay rights and reproductive rights. But the overall theme of the organization is reforming American government. The Freedom Federation includes established Religious Right organizations including the Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, Eagle Forum, Concerned Women of America, and Wallbuilders, but notable is the inclusion of many organizations from the independent charismatic wing of the Religious Right which has been organized and streamlined under the auspices of C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and its apostles and prophets. These include Lou Engle's "The Call," Rick Joyner's MorningStar Ministries and Oak Initiative, Strang Communications, Cindy Jacobs' Generals International, and Che Ahn's Harvest International.

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Robert Ringer

In my article ”Saying Yes to the Party of No,” I commented on how pleased I’ve been to see Glenn Beck talking about a subject I’ve been writing about since the late seventies: a government-declared state of emergency leading to a ”temporary” dictatorship.

I have long believed that the mathematics of an insatiable entitlement society in the U.S. guarantees a runaway inflation, which likely would be followed by anarchy and chaos – a perfect excuse for government to resort to strong-armed totalitarian measures to ”restore order.” My model has always been Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1920s, where runaway inflation brought Adolf Hitler to power.

I originally believed that the runaway-inflation scenario in the U.S. would play out in the early 1980s, but a combination of Ronald Reagan and an explosion in computers and electronic technology made possible by the remnants of our capitalist system headed it off.

Nevertheless, the threat of a runaway inflation has continued to increase over the years, even while our false-prosperity economy was booming. That’s because the underlying causes (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, insane union and government-employee wages and benefits, Social Security, Medicare, etc.) of our sick economy have never been addressed.

Unemployment is just a symptom; the disease is entitlements. Throughout the false-prosperity years, Social Security did not go away. It got bigger. Medicare did not go away. It got bigger. Virtually no other benefits went away. They only got bigger. So the underlying problem of entitlements not only has remained, but continued to grow.

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Jonathan Cook

Whistleblowing Israeli journalist treated as “fugitive felon”

An Israeli journalist who went into hiding after writing a series of reports showing lawbreaking approved by Israeli army commanders faces a lengthy jail term for espionage if caught, as Israeli security services warned at the weekend they would “remove the gloves” to track him down.

The Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, said it was treating Uri Blau, a reporter with the liberal Haaretz daily newspaper who has gone underground in London, as a “fugitive felon” and that a warrant for his arrest had been issued.

Options being considered are an extradition request to the British authorities or, if that fails, a secret operation by Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, to smuggle him back, according to Maariv, a right-wing newspaper.

It was revealed yesterday that Mr Blau’s informant, Anat Kam, 23, a former conscript soldier who copied hundreds of classified documents during her military service, had confessed shortly after her arrest in December to doing so to expose “war crimes”.

The Shin Bet claims that Mr Blau is holding hundreds of classified documents, including some reported to relate to Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s attack on Gaza in winter 2008 in which the army is widely believed to have violated the rules of war.

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