Stephen Lendman

Societies are perhaps best judged by how they treat prisoners, the elderly, their most disadvantaged and children. Israel fails on all counts.

On July 9, perhaps it reached a new low. Seven IDF soldiers and an officer terrorized a 5-year old boy. They threatened him and his parents. They handcuffed and blindfolded his father. They handed the boy over to police. They wrongfully accused him of stone-throwing. Many other children face similar charges.

Guilt by accusation is policy. Justice is a four-letter word. Fines, detention or longer-term imprisonment follow. More on the latest incident below. Defence for Children International (DCI)/Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement." It "promot(es) and protect(s) the rights of Palestinian children." It does so according to international law principles. Each year, about 700 West Bank children are arrested, detained, interrogated, terrorized, and prosecuted in Israeli military courts. DCI lawyers represent 30 - 40% of them. They're treated like adults. According to DCI, Israel operates "almost completely devoid of international scrutiny." It systematically spurns human rights and humanitarian law. It does so with impunity. Due process and judicial fairness don't matter. Israel does what it pleases. It remains unaccountable.

Palestinian children are routinely terrorized. It's done for any reason or none at all. They're arrested at checkpoints, on streets, heading to school, coming home, helping parents plant and harvest crops, at play, and while sleeping pre-dawn. Family members are threatened not to intervene. They're beaten if attempt to. Regardless of weather, they're forced onto streets in their nightclothes. Their homes are disruptively ransacked.

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Pepe Escobar

Amidst the incessant rumble in the (Washington) jungle about a possible Obama administration military adventure in Syria, new information has come to light. And what a piece of Pipelineistan information that is.

Picture Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw, and the current Iranian caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi getting together in the port of Assalouyeh, southern Iran, to sign a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, no less.

At Asia Times Online and also elsewhere I have been arguing that this prospective Pipelinestan node is one of the fundamental reasons for the proxy war in Syria. Against the interests of Washington, for whom integrating Iran is anathema, the pipeline bypasses two crucial foreign actors in Syria - prime "rebel" weaponizer Qatar (as a gas producer) and logistical "rebel" supporter Turkey (as the self-described privileged energy crossroads between East and West).

The US$10 billion, 6,000 kilometer pipeline is set to start in Iran's South Pars gas field (the largest in the world, shared with Qatar), and run via Iraq, Syria and ultimately to Lebanon. Then it could go under the Mediterranean to Greece and beyond; be linked to the Arab gas pipeline; or both.

Before the end of August, three working groups will be discussing the complex technical, financial and legal aspects involved. Once finance is secured - and that's far from certain, considering the proxy war in Syria - the pipeline could be online by 2018. Tehran hopes that the final agreement will be signed before the end of the year.

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Gilad Atzmon

(L-R) Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mah-
moud Ahmadinejad in Damascus (25 February 2010).

The interventionist EU, that together with the USA inflicts terror on every piece of land rich with oil and other minerals, decided yesterday that a Lebanese resistance to occupation is terror. It designated the Shia movement as a terror organisation.

- How pathetic!

The Guardian, once a respected paper, was brave enough to tackle the issue; but rather than presenting a so-called humanist or intellectual and critical approach, it pretended to present an ‘impartial position’. Yesterday it published a debate between war criminal Tzipi Livni and Sami Ramadani.

One may wonder, why is Tzipi Livni, an Israeli politician, a side in this debate? Israel is not part of the EU. Israel is clearly the element that pushes for the EU to brand the Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Yet, it is far from being clear why The Guardian asked Livini for her opinion in that particular debate? Maybe time is ripe for The Guardian to decide whether it is the guardian of the truth or the guardian of Israel.

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