Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

There are growing signs that Israel is traveling on a losing track. Indeed, with the prospects of finding a dignified, just and mutually-accepted settlement for the enduring Palestinian question nearly nonexistent, Israel is making sure that its future will be problematic, uncertain and even precarious.

True, Israel is militarily powerful and somewhat tightly controls the politics and policies of the United States, its guardian ally. However, the strategic value of the "American variable" or "American connection" is steadily becoming less certain and less than absolute in light of the progressive deterioration in America's global standing

Until a few years ago, the U.S. was thought of as a potentially positive force, a source of an absolute and matchless asset, facilitating rather than impeding the achievement of a prospective peace deal in the Middle East.

However, with the phenomenal domination of Zionist Jews of the American government, especially Congress, the U.S. seems to have become a handy tool in the hands of Zionist extremists pursuing maximalist goals in occupied Palestine, including the contemplated liquidation of the Palestine cause.

Hence, one would exaggerate little by saying that the U.S. has now a very limited ability to effect real change in the Middle East. One could even say that the U.S. is now a liability rather than an asset for efforts to effect real peace in the region.

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Marco Villa

Since 1967, Israel has demolished the homes of over 16,000 Palestinian families. Last year alone, it demolished over 4,000 Palestinian homes in occupied East Jerusalem in an effort to drive out the Arabs and “Judaize’ the Holy City.

Israel claims that the homes are illegally built, but at the same time the Jewish authorities refuse to issue permits for Arabs in order to compel them to find residency elsewhere. The Palestinians see no reason to accept such racist policy from an occupation authority, no less. Why should they seek permission to build on their own land? So they built anyway. And then Israel demolishes the homes.

In recent years, Israel has found a new premise. It claims that many of the Palestinian homes were previously Jewish homes. And that the Jews lost them after the 1948 war. There is truth in this. Some of the Palestinian homes were owned by Jews who were forced out of the city after the 1948 war in retaliation for Israeli ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Palestinians from their homes. The Jews who lost homes in East Jerusalem is in the dozens as opposed to the thousands, literally thousands, of Palestinians who were forced to flee their homes from West Jerusalem. As the New York Times recently wrote:

But in typical fashion Israel only enforces the deeds of a handful of Jews while dismissing the equally valid Palestinian deeds numbering in the thousands. It is obvious way Israel treats equal claims with discrimination since in that racist state everything comes down to Jewishness. This isn’t apartheid?

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Marco Villa

While the U.S. media, for the most part, does not notice most of the international community does. Now a documentary has been produced on the people of Bil’in, who remain steadfast like all Palestinians. The docu is titled Bil’in Habibti {Bil’in My love).

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Marco Villa

Alexis de Tocqueville observed that the American people never tire of self-praise and exaggeration when it comes to glorifying their democracy.

The American people have change plenty since then but that obnoxious habit remains. American political culture is incredibly delusional in its praise of the U.S. political system being somehow greater than everyone’s else democracy. The Senate is the self-described ‘most distinguished body’ and when Barack Obama was sworn in a tearful Dan Rather (disgraced newsman) remarked that only in America is the transition of power so dignified. Dignified? France’s transition is dignified as the old man waves au revoir and the new guy is ushered in a violin melody. America’s transition of power is a two-month-$3billion-slugfest of-negative campaigns-photo-ops-distortions- and illiberal efforts to sabotage an opponents voters by, say, misinforming them that election is really on Wednesday. There is nothing dignified about contemporary American elections.

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Marco Villa

I have written about this, and this debate has taken on strong passions not only in the blogosphere but also in the so-called ‘paper-of-record’ the New York Times. The debate merits a collection here on IB so you can decide for yourself if I am right or wrong. First my writings:

Israel and its Zionist supporters should not bother to spend hundreds of millions in propaganda in the U.S. - which they do - since the U.S. media is happy to offer Israel billions in dollars of worth in free promotion.

ABC News, which under Peter Jennings used to be the only reliable nightly newscast on the Middle East; is now under the auspicious of fluff-news journalist Diane Sawyer. And Sawyer is all about the human interest angle devoid of any real information or context.

Last night, she had a story about an Israeli operated tent-hospital in Haiti. She gushed with praise about how Israelis were the first on the scene in contrast to the United States which has yet to set up an equal organization. About how skilled Israelis are, they even have specified tents!, and the Haitian people are so grateful one baby girl was named “Israel”.

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Marco Villa

President Barack Obama’s President Envoy to the Middle East (and former Senator Majority Leader) George Mitchell has for months been attempting to restart peace negotiations between the occupying Israelis and the occupied Palestinians. His efforts have been blocked by an intransigent and far-right Israeli government that only recently (and belatedly and with extreme caveats) accepted that idea of a two-state solution and which has successfully resisted months of U.S. pressure to unequivocally cease all illegal settlements projects on occupied Palestinian land. With nearly a year on the job, Mitchell can claim no breakthrough, and the only thing close to a accomplishment is an Israeli commitment to “freeze” settlement construction for 10-months. But this is an empty pledge. The so-called “freeze” will not apply to occupied Arab East Jerusalem which Palestinians aspire as their future capital, and on the occupied West Bank the “freeze” will include any infrastructure Israel deems vital (schools, post offices, synagogues, ect...), a term that is so ambiguous that it can include anything construction; over 3,000 housing units in the WestBank will be allowed to continue, and at the end of the 10-month hollow grace period according to the Israeli minister minister Benny Begin colonization will resume at a rate “faster and more than before”.

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Marco Villa

A new joint report by the United Nations Development Programme and the Arab League - issued ahead of the September 2010 international gathering to mark the tenth anniversary of the Millennium [poverty-reduction] Goals - does not reflect well on the Arab world.

The region is singled out for the incredibly high degree of poverty between the 25 Arab countries and Palestinian occupied territories. In an Arab world of 358million, 140million live in poverty. That’s 40% of Arabs.

Poverty levels vary from one nation to the next, but even oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia have high percentages of their population living below the poverty line. Egypt, the most Arab populous country with 80million people, records a poverty level of 40% - defined as living on less than $2 a day.

More depressingly, the report noted that “there has been no decrease in the rates of poverty in the Arab region over the past 20 years.” Caveat: the face of poverty has changed in the region. Extreme forms of poverty has been greatly reduced in many nations. Nonetheless, the percentage has not changed, but this is in larger measure due to the high level of population growth. Many people move out of poverty, but many are also born into poverty as birth rates remain high in the region. Either way, the statics are unfortunate.

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Marco Villa

All you wanted to know about the racist land distribution and housing police in Israel, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Jerusalem has been eloquently put together in this Israeli documentary. It is a very small minority, but there is still an honest and noble core in Israel. Every minute of this is worth watching.

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Marco Villa

[Please click on image to enlarge.] So it has come to this: lying. Climate change fanatics have revealed themselves to be not honest scientists actuated only by the facts, but only by a desire to control humans and remake the world in their image. These Marxists Utopians want to regulate our energy use and to do so they have propagated the non-sense of dangerous global warming. It is all bullshit:

■ Al Gore and his ilk like to arrogantly state that “the science is beyond dispute” and the threat “urgant” - to quote President Obama - but is false. Not everyone was jumped on the “global warming” bandwagon, and those who disagree are not employees of the oil industry. Respected scientists, hundreds of them; including MIT’s Richard Lindzen have stated that “the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated.” This is not to say that these individuals claim that “global warming” doesn’t exist, but that hysteria has taken over and not for the first time amongst scientists [back in the 1970s many where talking about a new Ice Age]. We need a rational and reasonable discussion about what climate change actually entails, not scare tactics in order to frighten people in to giving politicians more power.

■ Even if global warming exist, so what? Environmentalists adhere to the doctrine of “No Change.” But just because there is an ice sheet over a plain does not mean that it is bad if it melts. In fact, many would argue it is good by allowing for more arable land and extending the harvest season. It is arrogant to state that the current condition of the world is the most ideal. Global warmed has warmed the coldest parts, and has not made the warmer past any more so. The melting of ice sheets opens up more land for people and animals and that should be welcomed. The world has always been changing, and there was no Copenhagen summit to stop it before and humanity is still doing well.

■ Global warming, if it exists, does not threaten life on Earth. Scientist Freeman Dyson has previously written that “most of the evolution of life occurred on a plant substantially warmer than it is now, and substantially richer in carbon dioxide.” Do not buy the alarmist hype that global warming will mean an awful world to live. Humans and animals have evolved through a warmer plant, and a rise in 2-6C is not going to alter much our existence.

■ But the most important point is that: Global warming does not exist. And the scaremongers know this. Recently disclosed documents show the shame that global warming is.

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Marco Villa

President Obama and the Democrat’s cap-and-trade plan would tax anyone who uses energy. Everytime you turn on your lights, you’ll be taxed.

The Eurocrats have themselves a new summit where world leaders will meet once again and engage in alarmist rhetoric about “global warming” and Big Governments will then purpose new tax and regulatory burdens on their citizens.

The Copenhagen Summit to take place in December will be Kyoto Redux - the failed European scheme to undermine American competitiveness under the rubric of environmental conscienceness.

Barack Obama had intended to have Congress pass his cap-and-trade tax bureaucracy before heading to Denmark so he could pander to European socialists. But, alas, only the House of Representatives has passed this new massive tax bureaucracy and the Senate will not even start debating it until next year.

You’ll hear a lot of Al Goresque fear mongering in the days leading to and during Copenhagen, but here’s what you should know before you make up your mind about “global warming” and whether we need Big Government to tax and regulate our lives even more:

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