British Prime Minister condemns Israel's attack on UN

From Mail Online:

Israel shelled the UN headquarters in Gaza yesterday - a move condemned as 'indefensible' by Gordon Brown.

As the bombardment intensified, two hospitals were also hit.

And using unusually strong language, the Prime Minister said: 'UN staff are working on behalf of the international community.


Chaos: An injured boy is taken to hospital in Gaza after the bombardment on Thursday


'Indefensible': A woman flees the UN building in Gaza as fire-fighters battle to put out the flames after an Israeli attack

'Any attack on them is unacceptable, as Israel has acknowledged.'

Hours before, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had said: 'I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the defence minister and foreign minister.'

The shelling engulfed in fire the UN compound and a warehouse, destroying thousands of pounds of food and humanitarian supplies intended for Palestinian refugees.

About 700 Palestinians had been sheltering in the building.


Sorry: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, left, has apologised to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, right, over the shelling of the UN compound

Israel's attack was another blow to efforts to ease the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The compound houses the UN Works and Relief Agency, which distributes food aid to hundreds of thousands of destitute Gazans in the tiny seaside territory of 1.4million.

John Ging, director of the Agency's operations in Gaza, said the attack caused a 'massive explosion' which wounded three.

Shells first hit the courtyard filled with refugees, then struck garages and the UN's main warehouse.

Later, fuel supplies went up in flames, sending up a thick black plume of smoke.


UN workers fight to put out the flames inside their headquarters. The UN claimed Israel had used white phosphorous in the attack


Outside the compound Palestinian fire-fighters joined in the battle to save the UN building

'It's a total disaster for us,' Mr Ging said. The Israeli military knows the precise location of the compound.

But although prime minister Ehud Olmert apologised, he said the bombardment had been in response to fire from Palestinian gunmen at the compound.

The Al-Quds and Red Crescent hospitals, and a tower block housing journalists, were also hit, as the death toll rose to at least 1,073 with more than 5,000 wounded.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza city, unleashing their heaviest shelling yet.


Ablaze: Palestinians gather as firefighters try to control the fire after an Israeli airstrike in the Rafah refugee camp

Hamas's interior minister, Saeed Seyyam, was killed in an air strike.

Analysts believe that Israel is stepping up military operations to complete its action before Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Obama as U.S. president.

It began the offensive on December 27, saying it aimed to end Hamas rocket


Deadly: Flares light up the sky during shelling over Gaza City

Rockets have killed 13 Israelis since then. Police said 20 rockets hit southern Israel yesterday, injuring ten.

Israel and Hamas have met with Egyptian mediators who are proposing a truce.
But diplomats said the two sides remained at odds over the fine print.


Dazed: Palestinian families flee their homes as the war continued to ravage Gaza


'The gates of Hell': An explosion tears through the sky after an Israeli air strike in Rafah

Palestine vs Israel: Can You Guess Which One Is Which?

British MP George Galloway speech on Israel's atrocities and the West's double standards

George Galloway's powerful speech in the House of Commons debate on Gaza, Thu 15 Jan 2009 (5.30pm), highlighting the hypocrisy and brazen double-standards of Western foreign policy towards Israel policies, including assassinations and other war crimes.



You will not hear memebers of our congress standing up so bravely and speaking truth to power against Israel.

Thousands of Afghans enlist to fight US after Israels attack on Gaza

Excerpts from Daily Kos:

As you may have heard, the US Senate and House yesterday voted nearly unanimously in support of Israels attacks on Gaza, which are responsible for killing of 800 Palestinians and destroying large amounts civilian infrastructure. Israel is using American planes, helicopters and bombs, payed for with American money. As a result, the Muslim world sees the US and Israel as being one and the same and equally responsible for that is happening.

In addition to giving blood and donating money, 10,000 Afghans have signed up in the past several days (1000 on Thursday alone) in order to fight against the United States.

My question is, what kind of control do Israel have on the U.S. Government in which members of congress unanimously vote to support Israel criminal regime's slaughter of the the helpless people in Gaza? This unwavering support of Israel's action not only further hurts our reputation around the world but it also puts our troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq in more jeopardy. Are there any adults with morals left in the US Government?

Excerpt from Reuters UK:

"The acts of Israel against the innocent Muslims of Gaza are barbaric and inhumane and widely helped by the Americans," Assam said, adding that nearly 10,000 people across Afghanistan had so far volunteered to fight in Gaza.

...

While reaching Gaza from Afghanistan is all-but impossible, many of the volunteers said they would take revenge on U.S. troops inside Afghanistan instead.

"Infidels are killing Muslims everyday and the United States is saying Israel's offensive is just," said Mohammad Akram, a shopkeeper. "If we can't reach Gaza, we should seek revenge on Israel's allies in our own country like the Taliban do."

Our complicity with what is going on in Gaza, when the entire rest of the world is trying to stop it, undermines our standing in the world, and makes us far, far less safe as a nation.

The only excuse for not being closer to the European position on this issue, which is to try to STOP the massacre immediately, is the gutlessness of most American politicians to stand up to rank racism, and the American Israeli Lobby.

Israel Is A Rogue Nation That's Committing War Crimes

By George Bisharat from The Wallstreet Journal:

Israel's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes. Senior Israeli political and military leaders may bear personal liability for their offenses, and they could be prosecuted by an international tribunal, or by nations practicing universal jurisdiction over grave international crimes. Hamas fighters have also violated the laws of warfare, but their misdeeds do not justify Israel's acts.

You know it makes me sick to my stomach the way the American Media and the American Politician takes Israel side no matter what they do. You have politicians from both sides of the isle from the so called liberals to moderates and conservatives lining up to express their support for Israel's actions in Gaza. WTF do the Zionist control the American government?

Israel had not suffered an "armed attack" immediately prior to its bombardment of the Gaza Strip. Since firing the first Kassam rocket into Israel in 2002, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have loosed thousands of rockets and mortar shells into Israel, causing about two dozen Israeli deaths and widespread fear. As indiscriminate attacks on civilians, these were war crimes. During roughly the same period, Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

But on June 19, 2008, Hamas and Israel commenced a six-month truce. Neither side complied perfectly. Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007. Hamas permitted sporadic rocket fire -- typically after Israel killed or seized Hamas members in the West Bank, where the truce did not apply. Either one or no Israelis were killed (reports differ) by rockets in the half year leading up to the current attack.

Israel then broke the truce on Nov. 4, raiding the Gaza Strip and killing a Palestinian. Hamas retaliated with rocket fire; Israel then killed five more Palestinians. In the following days, Hamas continued rocket fire -- yet still no Israelis died. Israel cannot claim self-defense against this escalation, because it was provoked by Israel's own violation.

An armed attack that is not justified by self-defense is a war of aggression. Under the Nuremberg Principles affirmed by U.N. Resolution 95, aggression is a crime against peace.

Israel has also failed to adequately discriminate between military and nonmilitary targets. Israel's American-made F-16s and Apache helicopters have destroyed mosques, the education and justice ministries, a university, prisons, courts and police stations. These institutions were part of Gaza's civilian infrastructure. And when nonmilitary institutions are targeted, civilians die. Many killed in the last week were young police recruits with no military roles. Civilian employees in the Hamas-led government deserve the protections of international law like all others. Hamas's ideology -- which employees may or may not share -- is abhorrent, but civilized nations do not kill people merely for what they think.

Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel's current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes -- because they are not Jews.

Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza's coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza's civilian population. But Israel's 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.

Israel should be held accountable for its crimes, and the U.S. should stop abetting it with unconditional military and diplomatic support.

It would be nice to see some members of the US government get tried for aiding and abetting the criminal regime in Israel. When is the fucking International Community going to stand up and enforce international law on all leaders that violate the law?

Israel To Boycott UN Forum On Racism

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Wednesday that Israel had made a final decision not to participate in a U.N. forum on racism and urged other countries to boycott what she termed an "anti-Israel tribunal."

The United Nations said it regretted the decision.

The World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held in Geneva in April, is a follow-up to a 2001 summit in Durban, South Africa on the same issues.

Israel and the United States walked out of the first conference in protest over draft texts branding Israel as a racist and apartheid state -- language that was later dropped.

In a speech to visiting U.S. Jewish leaders, Livni said she announced last February that Israel would not participate in the 2009 meeting unless it was clear it would not be used "as a platform for further anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic" activity

.

Read More

What's that old saying? If you throw a rock in a yard full of dogs,the dog that screams out is the dog that got hit. So here you have the UN having a world conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia and the first country to scream out is Israel. My suggestion is, if you don't want to be labeled as a Racist and Apartheid Nation then you should stop acting like one.

Jesse Jackson: 'Zionists Control US, to Lose Clout Under Obama'

As U.S. President, Democratic candidate Barack Obama would fundamentally change American policy in the Middle East and keep "Zionists" from controlling it, civil rights activist and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson was quoted as saying Tuesday.

The quote appears in an article written in the New York Post by Amir Taheri, who spoke with Jackson in Evian, France, where Jackson participated in the World Policy Forum.

Jackson said that the most important change in the U.S. administration's policy under Barack Obama would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" – as Jackson is quoted – would end.

"Jackson believes that, although 'Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades' remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House," the Post article continued. It is not clear from the report what part of Jackson's comments was made before the World Policy Forum and what part was made in a conversation with Taheri.

****

Obama's campaign responded to Jackson's statements Tuesday by stressing that "Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama's views on Israel and foreign policy."

Read the entire article here

Israel Trying to Start World War 3

During the last couple of days, news reports have come out regarding Israel's recent military exercises preparing for an eventual attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Suddenly, Ari Fleischer's name comes to mind recalling a conversation I had with a friend over a year ago regarding some secret Jewish coalition raising funds in excess of $200 million to wage a propaganda war in America in an attempt to gain American support for another war against Iran. Now that story didn't seem to hang around for long until recent. Ari Fleichser aka "Joseph Goebbels" and his Israeli warmongers are testing the waters for a possible attack on Iran
in an attempt to drag America in to the fold. Do we just stand by and allow Israel to further incite tensions bringing the world to the brink of WWIII?

We've seen what complacency gets us with regard to Israel's foreign policy. It got us attacked on 911. We have stood by and watched Israel steal land and occupy it and build illegal settlements on it. The U.N. has consistently condemend Israel for it's illegal occupation, and the U.S. has failed to act. America's inaction with regard to Apartheid Israel's human rights abuses is proof of condonation. But wait a minute,
as an American I don't condone these human rights abuses or this apartheid system that exists in Israel where people live separate and unequal lives. Russia has made comments in the past several days warning of the impact an attack could have. Complacency got us attacked because of Israel. Complaceny has made us one of the most hated nations in the world because of Israel. In fact, I can't think of one positive thing Israel has done for America in the past 3 decades. We must inform Israel that any military strikes will not be tolerated by the U.S. and will only lead to isolation. We must demand that Israel end it's apartheid system of government! We must also demand that Israel discontinue building illegal settlements and return the stolen lands in the West Bank, The Golan Heights and Gaza without the constant military occupation. Otherwise, we will boycott Israel, much like we did South Africa, Israeli products and any American company that does business with Israel. It must be an American led boycott. In fact the boycott should have been initiated long ago because of the repressive an apartheid system alone that exists in Israel. Israel is not and never has been a true democratic nation. Boycott Israel Now!

Source

The power of AIPAC

Why aren't we allowed to criticize Israel?

There seems to be such a taboo in the media about anyone or any story that is critical of Israel. Witness the recent attacks on the Obama campaign via activities by his ex-pastor that was considered "Anti-Israel". Remember the vicious treatment that Jimmy Carter got for mentioning the words "Apartheid" and Israel in his book title? Candidate after candidate has to pay lip service and claim his blind allegiance to that state... and why? why is it the "kiss of death" to be critical of Israel.

Israel is by far the largest recipient of our tax dollar funded foreign aid, shouldn't we able to question the actions of that state? A lot of damage has been done in our name (and at our expense), yet we can't seem to questions anything in public without being castrated as social pariahs... Why is it much easier to criticize Israel in Tel Aviv then it is in Washington DC?

Here is what I know:

- Israel has maintained one of the longest occupations in modern history controlling the fate of over 2 million palestinians

- Israel is the only nuclear country in the area with no open access to their inventory and no signatures on any non-proliferation agreements

- Israel maintains one of the largest concentration camp style prison in the world known as Gaza. And yes, that's exactly what it is if you look at the living conditions of people there.

- Israel maintains an apartheid style system in the West Bank with separate roads and services for different groups.

- Israel continues to deny the right of return to over 2 million refugees spread all over the world for more than 50 years... can you imagine living in shanty towns and tents for over 50 years??

- Israel maintains a racial based system of government based on the failed ideology of Zionism. An ideology that at heart is based on racist nationalism granting rights to one "ethnic" (or is it religious?) group only

- While Israel claims to be living in the constant fear of terrorism, the death ratio of Palestinians vs. Israeli is roughly 13 to 1. Yet, somehow, they are the victims, and our media pushes that notion on us (and we wonder why the world hates us).

- Israel has TWICE invaded its northern neighbor, Lebanon and continues daily violations of its air space. Complaints to the UN are constantly blocked by, guess who?, the USA.

This list can go on longer, but I think I made my point.

So why, knowing all that, it is still a major faux pas for anyone to question our relation with Israel. And please don't give me the "You're an anti-semite" line... Being critical of Israel does not make one an anti-semite or a self hating Jew. Why is it that at a time when the US is heavily involved in a huge mess in the middle east, that our politicians, thinkers, activists, do not dare discussing the issue that is at the heart of the conflict?

Source

ISRAEL CAN GET AWAY WITH MURDER ~~ THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS

Of course, Israel has the right to launch hundreds of missile strikes on the crowded Gaza Strip for days, for weeks, for months. It did not mean for its air strikes to massacre a Palestinian family of seven enjoying a picnic on a beach, or wipe out three Palestinian children playing in the street, or slam into a pregnant Palestinian woman and her brother having lunch together. That’s just the way it is.

Of course, Israel has the right to blockade the Palestinian territories and impose curfews for days, for weeks, for months, denying people the basic necessities of life—food, water, medicine, electricity, freedom of movement, their very livelihoods. It does not mean to visit oppressive collective punishment upon the Palestinian population. That’s just the way it is.

Of course, Israel has the right to hold over 10,000 Palestinians in its jails, to arrest or kidnap anyone suspected of knowing a terrorist, to assassinate anyone it wishes to target for assassination. It does not mean to imprison civilians—men, women, children—whose only crime is to say “No!” to a brutal Occupation. That’s just the way it is.

Of course, Israel has the right to lay waste to anything in its path, to bulldoze houses, to uproot ancient olive groves, to confiscate land, to obliterate basic infrastructure. It does not mean to vandalize radio and TV stations, destroy NGO offices and cultural centers, shell hospitals, mosques, and schools. That’s just the way it is.

Of course, Israel has the right to manipulate the narrative of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, hiding the full truth, playing the anti-Semitism card whenever anyone dares to question its perverse interpretation of events. It does not mean to cast itself as the most justified victim of all time. That’s just the way it is.

Of course, Israel has the right to behave any way it wants to, as if it really were not accountable to anyone. President Bush and the U.S. Congress aren’t going to tell Israel otherwise, or to stop funding Israeli military aggression with US taxpayer dollars to the tune of 3 to 4 billion a year. That’s just the way it is.

***
Source

NEWS BELOW THE RADAR: 3 US troops killed, Calls for impeachment grows, 9/11 Investigations obstructed, Israel and US Election, Christian Extremism.

Three US soldiers killed in Iraq
Three US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the US military announced on Thursday, making them the first American casualties of the new year. A military statement said two soldiers were killed in a small-arms fire attack while conducting operations in Diyala province on Thursday. Another soldier was wounded.

Move to Impeach Cheney Gains Support in Congress
A House Resolution to impeach U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, Dennis Kucinich's H.R. 333, is gathering more support. The national impeachment continues to grow and generate increasing interest since being referred to the House Judiciary Committee last month, a Kucinich spokesperson said.

9/11 Investigation obstructed by the CIA and Bush Officials
The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.

Election power of the Israel lobby
pro-Israeli groups are set to play a major role in the forthcoming election battle, both in terms of funding candidates and by publicly criticising any candidate critical of Israel or the US's relationship with it.

Christian extremism raises alarm
A hate-crime trial reconvenes Friday in a case that's dividing Sacramento and drawing attention from organizations that monitor extremists. Alex Shevchenko has been arraigned for a hate crime tied to the assault and eventual death of Satender Singh in July. According to prosecutors, Mr. Shevchenko and Andrey Vusik taunted Mr. Singh in a park because they thought he was gay.

Haaretz: Israel ranks the presidential candidates

The candidates are ranked by Haaretz on a scale of 1-10 based on whether the candidate is good or bad for Israel. In other words the candidates that most likely will blindly support Israel at all cost is at the top of the list:

1. Rudy Giuliani 8.37
2. Hillary Clinton 7.62
3. Michael Bloomberg 7.25
4. John McCain 7.12
5. Bill Richardson 6.75
6. Fred Thompson 6.50
7. Mitt Romney 6.50
8. Mike Huckabee 6.00
9. John Edwards 5.87
10. Joe Biden 5.62
11. Chris Dodd 5.62
12. Barack Obama 5.00

Now if Giuliani and Clinton win their parties primaries we'll know who's really running politics in america.
Link

Israel says their use of cluster bombs was legal

Excerpt

Israeli military prosecutors have determined that Israel's use of cluster bombs during last year's war in Lebanon did not violate international humanitarian law, the army said Monday, closing an investigation into a practice that has drawn heavy criticism from the United Nations and international human rights groups.

The investigation determined that Israel's use of the weapons, which open in flight and scatter dozens of bomblets, was a "concrete military necessity." No legal action would be taken against anyone in connection with use of the weapons, it said.

The United Nations and human rights groups have accused Israel of dropping about 4 million cluster bomblets during its 33-day war against the Hezbollah guerrilla movement. As many as 1 million bomblets failed to explode, according to the United Nations and the rights groups, and now endanger civilians. More than 30 people have been killed by cluster-bomb and land-mine explosions in Lebanon since the 2006 summer war.

Amnesty International has harshly criticized Israel for bombing civilian areas and using cluster bombs during the fighting. It also has criticized Hezbollah for firing nearly 4,000 rockets at Israeli cities and towns....

***********************************************************************************

Cut Israel Off

by Charley Reese
It is long past time for American politicians to quit carrying water for the state of Israel and its powerful U.S. lobby. Congress' craven obedience to the lobby is a disgrace.

America's strategic interests in the Middle East lie with the Arab countries. Israel is a strategic and economic liability. The U.S. government's slavish support of Israel brands us as a hypocrite and is responsible for most of the hostility toward the U.S.

Americans have been brainwashed into believing that it's the Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, who don't want peace. That is a big lie. The Palestinians made an enormous concession when they agreed to settle for a state on 18 percent of Palestine. Saudi Arabia proposed several years ago a peace plan in which all of the Arab countries would recognize Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. The Israelis rejected it out of hand, just as they reject Arab efforts to have the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

Israel's goal is and always has been to take all of Palestine and to get rid of the Palestinians. The Israelis employed ethnic cleansing in 1948 and again in 1967 to make hundreds of thousands of Palestinians refugees. For 40 years, the Israelis have refused to give back the Palestinian and Syrian lands they seized in war. They have blatantly violated international law by building settlements on occupied land, and by violating the airspace of other sovereign countries.

Palestinians are the victims, not the villains, in this case. The Israelis make their lives miserable in the hope they will give up and leave. At the same time, the Israelis, in cahoots with the American government, maintain a charade of proposed peace talks. They of course never come to fruition. The Israeli government is not about to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state. If they give the Palestinians anything, it will be a patchwork of enclaves completely surrounded and controlled by Israel. Having created 700,000 Palestinian refugees, the Israelis have from the beginning refused to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses, all of which Israel confiscated on the specious grounds that they were "abandoned property."

Without U.S. aid, which now is conservatively estimated to total $108 billion (think of the infrastructure and schools that amount could build in the U.S.), and without the U.S. wielding its veto every time the United Nations tries to act, none of this would be possible.

It is not just the Muslim world that hates our pro-Israel foreign policy, for sound reasons that it is unjust and cruel. Europeans and others around the world are contemptuous of America's slavelike obedience to a small foreign power. It has gotten to the point that to be seen as an ally of the United States is viewed negatively.

The Arab and Muslim people, with the exception of al-Qaeda, don't hate America or Americans. It is the pro-Israel foreign policy and, of course, our invasions of two Muslim countries that they hate. Virtually all of the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda generated in this country has its source in the Israeli lobby and in Israel itself.

Thanks to the unconstitutional largess of the cowardly Congress, Israel is a rich country and one of the world's leading military powers. It doesn't need American aid. It is time to quit dancing to the tune of a lobby with dual loyalties and to pursue America's interests.

Americans are being betrayed by their own politicians, and it's time to treat those scoundrels with the contempt they deserve.

Hizbullah: If Israel attacks Syria, we'll respond

Senior members of Lebanese, Palestinian organizations vow to stand by Damascus if Jewish state launches war. 'Doors will be open which have not been open before. Israel will pay a heavy price,' they warn

"If Israel dares to make an adventurous move against Syria, it will pay a heavy price," a member of Hizbulla's political council warned Thursday.
In an interview with the Nazareth-based Kul al-Arab newspaper scheduled to be published on Friday, Dr Ahmad Malli warned Israel against considering an attack on Syria, saying that the Lebanese organization would respond to such an offensive with full force.

Tension
IAF sends fighter jets to Israeli-Syrian border / Hagai Einav
Syrian aircraft detected flying over Syrian part of border. After determining planes were not engaged in hostile activity, Israeli jets return to their base
Full story
"I believe that things have changed," Malli explained. "The times when everyone was afraid of the Israeli threats are over. The Zionist entity knows more than anyone that the price of such adventurousness would be heavy, and the Israelis know the price more than anyone.
"Since 2006 we have begun a new stage in the Arab-Israeli conflict and have demonstrated this during the Israeli aggression in July (the Second Lebanon War). If anyone wants to make an adventurous move, it will baer responsibility for this aggression."
Asked whether he was referring to aggression both against Lebanon and against Syria, Malli replied, "We are all in one Middle East."

Neo-cons have Syria in their sights

Excerpt


WASHINGTON - Nearly two weeks have passed since Israeli warplanes reportedly conducted a mysterious raid against an as yet unidentified target in northeastern Syria. There are no official details of the incident, as both countries have remained tight-lipped. In the absence of a clear picture of what happened in the early hours of September 6, speculation in the US mainstream media has grown as to what exactly the Israelis targeted, and why Syria

- assuming it was the target of an unprovoked attack - has been so muted in its response. Was Israel's attack aimed at testing Syria's radar defenses? Did the air strike seek to disrupt arms shipments to Lebanon's Hezbollah? Was it a dress rehearsal for a possible future strike on Iranian nuclear facilities?

Feeding the speculation, a familiar clutch of hawks in the administration of US President George W Bush appear to be suggesting that Israel's apparent air strike targeted a joint North Korea-Syria nuclear venture.

********

Israel think they can keep starting shit with their neighbors and we americans are suppose to support thier aggressive behavior. I wish the world snap out of this guilt trip and realize the Zionest state of Israel is the biggest obstacle to peace in the mideast.

Bolton: U.S. backs Israeli pre-emption

A former U.S. diplomat said America would back Israeli strikes against neighboring nuclear aspirants. The United States would stand behind any pre-emptive attack by Israel on neighboring countries believed to have nuclear weapons programs, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said in an interview published Tuesday in the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot. Bolton's remarks following Israel's alleged air raid Sept. 6 in Syria is consistent with longstanding U.S. suspicions that Damascus had received nuclear material from North Korea.

Excerpt

******

This Warmongering asshole don't speak for me, as far as I'm concerned if Israel start something with their neighbors their on their own and prey they get their ass handed to them.