Gilad Atzmon

The Israelis are preparing themselves for another massacre on the high seas.

This should not take us by surprise: after all, people who are detached from a true notion of history, and driven by a continuous fantasy of destruction, would be the last to draw a lesson from their past.

Earlier today I learned that The Israeli Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry held a simulation practice, ahead of the Gaza flotilla: in the course of the exercise, Minister Yuly Edelstein formed a ‘special situation room’ that is designated to disseminate ‘public diplomacy’ on the internet ,via messages, photos, video clips and additional materials, with emphasis on Diaspora communities, Jewish organisations, and friends of Israel around the world.

Just in case you weren’t sure what the expected role of Diaspora Jews is, I guess that by now Minister Edelstein has provided the answer.

However, the most interesting part of the story is the detailed description of the flotilla simulation itself: the imaginary scenarios depicted by Minister Edelstein and the IDF provide a glimpse into Israeli collective psychosis.

“The exercise was based on a scenario in which approximately 500 activists on approximately ten ships reached Israel's territorial waters at 10:00,” (says the Israeli document.) ”Despite having been warned by the IDF, the ships continued on their way. At 10:30, the Israel Navy began approaching the ships. Stun grenades were thrown at the IDF soldiers, as well as one live grenade that caused a number of casualties to our forces.”

But what are we to make of such an absurd supposition in Edelstein's exercise, that the flotilla volunteers ( many of whom are women and elderly ) will be armed and dangerous, and intent of attacking the IDF? We have seen repeated statements from the Flotilla organisers reassuring the Israelis that the Flotilla is a peaceful humanitarian mission that has no combative intentions, and the media have been invited to visit the boats to verify the innocent nature of the Gaza bound cargo.

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Stephen Lendman

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Prime Minister of Turkey (left) and
the President of the so-called State of Israel Shimon Peres, war
criminal. (For the Erdoğan-Peres spat at Davos check here.)

In May 2010, Israel's Gaza Freedom Flotilla Mavi Marmara mother ship attack, killing nine Turkish citizens, stoked tensions between the two countries.

At the time, Turkey warned it might sever diplomatic relations unless Israel apologized, consented to an independent international investigation, and ended its Gaza siege.

Israel, however, refused and stonewalled. Frayed ties followed. In fact, they began deteriorating earlier in the new millennium despite years of closer military, economic, political, technological, cultural, academic, and practical relations.

The 1993 Oslo Accords, in fact, facilitated them based on (false) notions that Israel sought peace. Even so, relations were less than entirely cordial. Underlying tensions persisted that grew as peace proved illusive, Israel choosing confrontation that erupted during the September 2000 Al-Aqsa (second) Intifada.

At the time, then Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit criticized Israel harshly. The 2003 Iraq war also caused friction, positioning both countries on separate sides. Israel favored eliminating a regional rival. Turkey wanted the status quo, opposing Iraq's partitioning and establishment of a de facto Kurdistan on its border.

Israel's preemptive 2006 Lebanon war caused more tensions. So did Cast Lead from December 27, 2008 - January 18, 2009, inflicting mass casualties and destruction. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan, in fact, accused Israel of war crimes, including using illegal terror weapons like white phosphorous, saying:

"No one can claim that phosphorous shells are not weapons of mass destruction," exaggerating to make a point."

He also condemns Israel's lawless Lebanese overflights, sometimes at low altitudes, calling them "unacceptable action(s) threaten(ing) global peace." Moreover, he denounces regular Gazan air attacks and ground incursions, asking at one time:

"Is the Israeli government in favor of peace or not? Gaza was bombed again yesterday. Why? There were no rocket attacks. (Israel has) disproportional capabilities and power and (it) use(s) them. They do not abide by UN resolutions. They say they will do what they like. We can in no way approve of such an attitude."

Then at the 2009 World Economic Forum, Erdogan walked off the platform after a heated exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres that included condemning Cast Lead. The conflict disrupted Turkey's Israeli/Syrian mediation efforts at the time under its "zero problems" policy with neighboring states, hoping to further its assertive regional role, and position itself as a lead player to facilitate, among other goals, EU membership.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Be afraid; be very afraid; the “moneymen” are coming. Casino-type raw capitalism is bad for your health, bad for your old age, bad for the education of your children. The power of capital is global, financiers, bankers, private equity funds, the IMF, the World Bank, in short the “moneymen”, are not constrained by borders or the sovereignty of a state. They are traversing the globe dictating what governments must do to gain their approval. Ordinary people worldwide are at their mercy.

They demand policies and actions from governments that lead to millions of mainly young people joining the unemployed; the figures for youth unemployment (16 to 24-year-olds) currently are: US 20%, United Kingdom 20%, Greece 36%, Spain 44%, Ireland 29%, Portugal 28%, Italy 29%. They demand governments cut their spending. The hardships and the misery of such cuts are mainly visited upon the disabled, the vulnerable, the poor and the unemployed. Liberalize your economies; let us run everything, your care homes, your hospitals… everything. Cut the “red tape”, we must be allowed to run things our way. It is in your national interest, they cry, as if the national interest were some abstract concept. If the so-called national interest results in degrading the lives of millions, how can it be “national interest”? And, anyway, aren’t we in this mess because we allowed you to run things your way? Ah, they say, if you do not do what we say, we will show you what real austerity is.

The people of Europe and the US are just beginning to comprehend the enormity of the destruction and the sacrifices they are being asked to make for the greed and actions of the “moneymen”. To add insult to injury, the “moneymen” demand that their obscene salaries and bonuses be protected and continue to rise, or else!

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John Izzard
Quadrant Online

More inconvenient truths

Short snippets of news filtered through the media this week about the visit by the President of Mongolia to the United States and his meeting with Barack Obama. President Obama apparently received the Genghis Khan Medal from President Elbegdoji. The Mongolian President is of the view the United States, like Mongolia in it’s heyday (13th Century Genghis Khan era), “has a responsibility to help those who are trying to follow in it’s footsteps.” President Elbegdoji is also of the opinion that just a “few” people were killed to maintain peace, and hunt down terrorists, during the era of the Great Khan — about 40 million or so.

Also this week appeared a wee mention of the rare earth neodymium in an article by London based writer and climate rationalist, Matt Ridley. What, you may wonder, has Genghis Khan’s Mongolia to do with neodymium. Well in the Inconvenient Truth Stakes, actually, quite a bit. You see, neodymium is a key to the manufacture of wind turbines, and Mongolia (Inner and Outer) is the source of much on the world’s supply of neodymium. A large wind turbine can require about 2000kg of neodymium for the production of it’s alloy magnet, the vital component that powers the wind-turbine generator.

What is never mentioned by Bob Brown, Christine Milne and the proponents of so called clean, green energy, is the environmental degradation that is occurring in Mongolia and China as a result of the sudden demand for neodymium by the wind-turbine industry in the West. A demand to satisfy the quest for so called renewable energy. But the big question is — is it “green” and is it “clean”? And indeed, exactly what is the extent of the carbon and environmental footprint of wind turbines as they stomp their away across our landscape and coastlines.

An extraordinarily clear and frank investigation by Simon Parry and Ed Douglas of London’s Daily Mail revealed this year, the dirty, dark secret of the extraction of neodymium in Mongolia and it’s refinement in China. As these two countries hold about 90% of the worlds neodymium, the environmental devastation is confined to a small area that can be easily observed and studied. The Daily Mail’s reporter, Simon Parry went to the western Chinese city of Baotou to have a peek at the beginnings of a clean, green wind turbine magnet.

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