"Even if the Supreme Court overturns the unfortunate decision by the Central Elections Committee to disqualify United Arab List-Ta'al and Balad, enabling them to compete in next month's general election, the damage has already been done and Israeli democracy has been exposed in all its fear and panic. That panic, which leads to a constant erosion of the concept of democracy and freedom of expression and completely negates the ability to include a minority with a propensity for going against the consensus, is rooted in two weak institutions: the Central Elections Committee and the Basic Law on the Knesset, Article 7A, Amendments 9 and 35, 1984-85, which specify the conditions under which a party or individual is banned from participating in Knesset elections....Those who fear the abuse of democracy would do well to make do with the 1984 Supreme Court decision ruling that the restrictions over the right to be elected should be imposed 'only as an extreme last means of dealing with a clear and present danger.' Any other means, including the slap in the face the Arabs received on Monday, destroys democracy rather than protecting it."
Democracy in a panic
Haaretz, 15 January 2009

"Today on page 17 of the NY Times, a group of prominent liberal rabbis and other religious and cultural leaders called for a cease-fire in Gaza. They were backed by over 2,800 American citizens. Because they could not get their opinion presented in the major media they had to buy this full page ad. Haaretz considered it news. So far no U.S. media have considered it news. Why not?....This is a story about Gaza but also about the way that liberal Jewish voices (shared by many other interfaith and secular people) are being shut out of the US media. No American rabbi has a longer or more substantial track record as a liberal on Israel/Palestine than Rabbi Michael Lerner, who convened the group and raised the money for the ad from 1200 people, mostly in small donations (he started Tikkun magazine 23 years ago as a counter to Commentary and the Jewish right), but he could not get his views into any oped pages of major newspapers despite valiant efforts since the Gaza invasion."
Why Isn't This News? U.S. Rabbis Call for Gaza Cease-Fire
Huffington Post, 14 January 2009

"A veteran British Jewish lawmaker compared the Israeli offensive in Gaza Thursday to the Nazis who forced his family to flee from Poland. Gerald Kaufman, a member of the Jewish Labour movement linked to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ruling party, also called for an arms embargo against Israel. 'My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town . . . a German soldier shot her dead in her bed,' Kaufman said during a parliamentary debate on the 20-day-old war which has left over 1,000 dead. 'My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. 'The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.' Israel’s claim that many of the Palestinian victims were militants 'was the reply of the Nazi,' he said, adding: 'I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.' Kaufman, a well-known critic of Israel, said Hamas was a "deeply nasty" organization, but said it was democratically elected. He urged Britain to impose an arms embargo on the Jewish state. 'It is time for our government to make clear to the Israeli government that its conduct and policies are unacceptable and to impose a total arms ban on Israel,' he said. 'It is time for peace - but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is Israel’s real goal but which is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals, they are fools,' he added."
Jewish British lawmaker likens Israel to Nazis
Agence France Presse, 15 January 2009

"Different groups representing Iran's Jewish community on Tuesday gathered in front of the United Nations office in Teheran in order to protest 'Israeli war crimes and the slaughter of the innocent people in Gaza Strip,' the Iranian IRNA news agency reported. The protesters, led by the Jewish representative in Parliament, Siamak Mara-Sedq, carried placards with anti-Israel slogans in both Farsi and Hebrew, the report said. 'We are here to express our support and sympathy with the Palestinian nation,' Rahmatollah Rafi, the chairman of Iran's Jewish community was quoted as saying at the rally. Hinting mainly at Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the report said that Rafi went on to criticize 'certain Arab governments for their inaction and silence towards Israeli inhuman acts and war crimes in Gaza and the entire Palestinian territories.'"
'Iranian Jews protest Gaza slaughter'
Jerusalem Post, 31 December 2008

Desperately Trying To Stop Netanyahu?
Either Olmert Or The State Department Is Lying

"The U.S. State Department fiercely denied claims made by Ehud Olmert about his influence over President George W. Bush, in an incident that has stirred up old debates about the role of the Israeli government and the so-called 'Israel lobby' in formulating Middle East policy in Washington. On Monday, Olmert claimed that he demanded and received an immediate conversation with President Bush, during which he convinced the president to overrule the wishes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and abstain from a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In response, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday called Olmert's claims 'wholly inaccurate as to describing the situation, just 100-percent, totally, completely not true'. The State Department did not respond to an IPS request for further elaboration. Olmert's comments were made in Ashkelon, a southern Israeli city that has been the target of rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. According to Olmert, he called the White House upon hearing of the upcoming U.N. Security Council resolution. 'I said, 'Get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me,' Olmert said, according to multiple media reports. As a result of his conversation with President Bush, Olmert claimed, the president called Rice and forced her to abstain from voting on the measure, which she herself had helped author. 'He gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it -- a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and maneuvered for. She was left pretty shamed and abstained on a resolution she arranged,' Olmert said.  The Security Council resolution passed by a vote of 14 to 0, with the U.S. the only abstention. The U.S. government was quick to counter Olmert's remarks. In addition to the State Department's rebuttal, a White House spokesman also denounced 'inaccuracies' in the story. Regardless of the truth of Olmert's claims, the story comes as an embarrassment to the Bush administration, which has faced criticism for its alleged unquestioning support for Israeli positions."
Olmert's Claims Revive Spectre of 'Israel Lobby'
Inter Press Service, 13 January 2009

"U.S. officials are denying Ehud Olmert's claim that he persuaded President Bush to abstain from a U.N. Security Council call for a cease-fire, leaving Condoleezza Rice 'shamed.' 'She was left shamed,' the Israeli prime minister told an audience in Ashkelon on Monday, referring to the U.S. secretary of state. 'A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favor.'...Olmert said he learned on the day of the vote that the United States would line up behind the resolution. 'I said 'get me President Bush on the phone,' ' Olmert said. 'They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care, I need to talk to him now. He got off the podium and spoke to me. I told him the United States could not vote in favor. It cannot vote in favor of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favor.' There is an inconsistency in the Olmert story. According to the Los Angeles Times, Bush returned to the White House from Philadelphia hours before the U.N. vote, according to the president's schedule. A report last week in the conservative Weekly Standard said Rice favored the resolution but was overruled by Bush. Several Jewish organizations criticized the U.S. failure to veto the resolution."
U.S. denies Olmert’s claim of shaming Rice
Jewish Telegraph Agency, 13 January 2009

The US/Iranian Dimension - Time To Bury The Hatchet
How George Bush And Dick Cheney Won The Iranian 2004 Election For Armadinejad

"Iran's spy chief used just two words to respond to White House ridicule of last week's presidential election: 'Thank you.' His sarcasm was barely hidden. The backfire on Washington was more evident. The sharp barbs from President Bush were widely seen in Iran as damaging to pro-reform groups because the comments appeared to have boosted turnout among hard-liners in Friday's election — with the result being that an ultraconservative now is in a two-way showdown for the presidency..... even many opponents of the Islamic establishment objected to Bush's tone and timing. The president's words sounded too much like the prewar rhetoric against Saddam, and many on-the-fence voters were shocked into action, said Abdollah Momeni, a political affairs expert at Tehran University.'People faced a dilemma,' Momeni said. 'In people's minds it became a choice between voting or giving Bush an excuse to attack.'"
Bush criticism of Iran vote backfires
Associated Press, 19 June 2005

"The unfamiliar hardline outsider who stormed to second place in Iran’s presidential election, forcing a run-off this Friday, was .... Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...... the shock result seems more the product of Iran’s opaque politics than widespread fraud ..... President Bush contributed to his ascent with an eve-of-election statement in which he said that the Iranian constitution was undemocratic. The regime spun the message brilliantly, telling Iranians that Mr Bush was ordering a boycott: the public voted in droves as a reaction, giving a 63 per cent turnout that exceeded the most optimistic expectations. Ghasim, a 42-year-old Ahmadinejad supporter in south Tehran, said: 'I wasn’t thinking of voting until Bush encouraged us not to. It was like an interfering neighbour affecting family decisions. When I heard he wanted a boycott, I went out and voted immediately.'”
Regime rallies behind hardliner
London Times, 20 June 2005

The Bush-Cheney Legacy

"Over 20,000 Iranian university students have pledged to fully support the Palestinian people, who are currently facing merciless Israeli attacks. The students have registered their names on a website to announce they are ready to be sent to the Gaza Strip and are prepared to be martyred there, the Fars news agency reported. The huge number of university students registered their names on the website on its first day online and the figure is expected to rise. The students plan to hold gatherings in Tehran and other Iranian cities next week. Meanwhile, Iranian university students stormed a British embassy compound in Tehran on Tuesday to protest against the British support for the Israeli attacks on Gaza. "
'We're ready to die for Palestine'
Press TV (Iran), 31 December 2008

"Saeed Jalily, Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, met here [in Damascus] Saturday with exiled Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshaal and Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad Ramadan Abdullah Shallah over the situation in the Gaza Strip. They discussed 'the serious situations in Gaza Strip due to the continuing Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people, and the Arab and Islamic movements needed to stop this aggression and lift the siege,' said Syria's official SANA news agency. According to SANA, Jalily told reporters after the meeting that his visit to Syria is for discussing the serious situations in Gaza and ways to reach an effective Arab and Islamic stance to support the Palestinian people."
Iran's security chief meets Hamas, Jihad leaders in Damascus over Gaza
Xinhua, 4 January 2009

"Iran's open support for Hamas, coupled with US and Israeli accusations that Tehran has supplied it with weapons, could harden Israeli public opinion in favour of military strikes against Iran whose nuclear programme is seen as an 'existential' threat to the Jewish state. The Gaza assault has provided a reminder that behind the Middle East conflict lies Barack Obama's biggest international challenge in 2009: curbing Iranian nuclear ambitions which, if left unchecked, could change the global strategic balance within months. With Israeli elections looming, and leading contenders for prime minister refusing to rule out force to stop Iran gaining a bomb, international attention will soon return to Tehran's defiance of the UN by continuing to enrich uranium."
Turmoil could spark air strike against Iran
Independent (Ireland), 3 January 2009

Obama Needs To Avoid Messing Up The June Iranian Elections Bush-Cheney-Style

"Iran may not be a proper democracy but no one can predict whether Ahmadinejad will get a second term in June or be ousted by a moderate opponent. If he goes, much of his rhetoric on liquidating Israel will go with him. A peaceful resolution of Iran's nuclear aspirations would also be more likely, especially as Obama has promised a serious dialogue with Iran to try to meet its security concerns. If the United States, under Bush, has been able to do a deal with Gadaffi's Libya then a new relationship with Iran, brokered by Obama, is not inconceivable."
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, British Foreign Secretary, 1995-7 - Hamas rockets block the birth of a Palestinian state
Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2009

"President Shimon Peres warned US President-elect Barack Obama against opening direct negotiations with the current Iranian government when he takes his seat at the White House. Speaking with Japanese news agency Kyodo on Friday, Peres rejected the notion that Israel would go to war with the Islamic Republic. Peres said he hoped the Obama administration would hold off on talks with senior Teheran officials at least until after 'the [Iranian] elections, because it may affect the results of the elections.'"
'No talks with Iran before elections'
Jerusalem Post, 28 December 2008

"One of the tallest telecommunications towers in the world looms above this sprawling city, a symbol of Iran's desire for global respect. City officials leave no question about who should get credit for completing it: A pie chart in an official brochure shows that Tehran's mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, made far more progress on the Milad Tower than his predecessor, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It's a sign that the battle for Iran's presidency has already begun, with Ghalibaf - who has advocated better ties with the West - hoping to be Ahmadinejad's main rival in the June 12 elections. During his 3 1/2-year tenure, Ahmadinejad's bombastic style has made him the face of Iranian intransigence in the West - refusing to suspend Iran's nuclear program and calling for Israel's demise. His defeat, even by a onetime hard-liner like Ghalibaf, would be welcomed by many in the West. 'Whoever wins the Iranian presidency is hugely consequential,' said Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. 'This is a chance to either perpetuate very negative trends or potentially for Iranians to crack open their own politics and create some new environment for change.' Iran has more political freedom than many countries in the region. Although Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wields great influence and appoints a 12-member council that must approve all candidates, Iranian presidents are elected by popular vote to a four-year term, during which they set the tone for policies at home and abroad. For many Iranians, the question is not whether to change, but how quickly. Although Ahmadinejad is still popular with the rural poor, his reputation has soured among some conservatives because of the country's ailing economy. He has long been despised by Iranian liberals for rolling back social freedoms and cultivating a confrontational image in the West. This has prompted an unusual effort to unite both conservatives and liberals behind a compromise candidate to try to unseat him. 'For the first time, the far-leftists and the far-rightists are gathering together in party offices,' said a politician with direct knowledge of the meetings who asked not to be identified. 'They figure, if they want to make a change, they have to communicate.'"
Iran election raises hope for change
Boston Globe, 22 December 2008

Why Interfering In Iran's Internal Affairs Is A Mistake

Time To Bury The Hatchet With Iran

"Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the state of Israel's basic security?.... I am not trying to justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth.... Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself."
Edud Olmert - Outgoing Prime Minister Of Israel
International Herald Tribune, 29 September 2008

"Barack Obama's campaign promise to consider talks to end 30 years of hostility [with Iran] is astute... Mr Obama should simultaneously entertain overtures to Syria with the aim of breaking the Iranian axis. There will be no swift breakthrough. But just as Richard Nixon's secret diplomacy paved the way for his coup in China, so Mr Obama now has a chance to end one of the region's longest and most destructive quarrels."
Thirty years on
London Times, 3 January 2009

'Say No To Nuclear Power And Weapons'
From Tehran To Tel Aviv It's Time For A Nuclear-Free Middle East

Iran Should Consider That It May Soon Not Have The Means To Run The Nuclear Power Plant It Is Building
So Why Not Abandon It?

"An impending shortfall in the supply of uranium will become apparent in the next two years, within which time production of the mineral from African resources will rise to significant levels, predicts resource consultant and contractor MSA Geoservices associate Richard Wadley. 'The forecasted uranium consumption up to 2015 exceeds the forecasted uranium production up to the same period. In the short term, by 2015 or 2020, there will not be enough uranium production from primary sources to meet the committed expansion in nuclear generating capacity,' he explains....in Australia, which contains about a quarter of the world’s known resources, prohibitive environmental and political legislation towards uranium-mining inhibits the mining of the resource. An example is that existing mines, like resources giant BHP Billiton’s Oympic Dam mine, are allowed to expand, but not permitted to open new mines. Africa, however, with its large resources of uranium is more likely to be allowed to develop these resources, and is already becoming an increasingly signifi- cant uranium producer. Currently, South Africa, Namibia and Niger are the only three uranium producing countries in Africa. By the end of this year, new uranium producer Paladin Energy’s Kayelekera mine, in Malawi, will be coming on line, making Malawi the next uranium producer to come on line in Africa.... Currently, there are about 440 operating nuclear plants around the world, with another 130 plants under construction. These are expected to be completed and to come on line over the next five years. World uranium production has to supply these operating plants, as well as the new ones that will be coming on line. Current global consumption of uranium from the 440 operating plants is about 170-million pounds of triuranium octoxide (U3O8) a year, with production at about 110-million pounds of U3O8 a year. The deficit of 60-million pounds of U3O8 is being made up from the reprocessing of US and Soviet nuclear warheads. U3O8 is the most stable form of uranium oxide and is the form most commonly found in nature. Wadley says that consumption will definitely increase to over the 200-million pounds of U3O8 a year required, by as soon as 2015. The nuclear warheads are being reprocessed under a 20-year agreement between the countries, which will come to an end in 2013. Currently, about 60%, or about 400-million pounds of uranium, has been reprocessed. 'Although both countries still possess nuclear warheads, there is no indication of a new agreement to continue this repro-cessing. Each of these countries wants to keep a small nuclear arsenal. Each country will, however, continue to reprocess from its own stockpile, but not under any agreement, and not in the same amounts currently being reprocessed. The current shortfall in primary production that is being met by the reprocessing of the warheads will, therefore, most likely not happen after 2013,' says Wadley. In 2015, when demand will most likely increase to 200-million pounds a year of U3O8, primary production would have increased to only 160-million pounds a year of U3O8. This increase in production will come from a number of the world’s uranium mines increasing their production. Increased production will come from projects such as uranium producers Cameco, Areva, Idemitsu Canada Resources and the Tepco Resources joint venture at Cigar Lake mine, in Canada. The mine had flooded and has been restored, with com- missioning to start in 2009. This project should bring about 10-million pounds a year of U3O8 into production. In Australia, resource giant BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine is looking at a huge expansion of its current operations. In Niger, Areva will be opening a new mine within the next two years. These and other projects will bring in a likely 50-million pounds of U3O8 a year of new production, that will take primary production to 160-million pounds a year, which is still short of the projected required consumption for 2015. An additional challenge for uranium production is that several current operations in places such as Canada, Niger and Kazakhstan, as well as diversi- fied miner Rio Tinto’s Rössing mine, in Namibia, will be reaching end-of-mine-life between now and 2015. New greenfield uranium mines take at least eight to ten years to come into production. 'New explorers have been searching for uranium deposits and collecting funds from investors, and by the time these speculative explorations are proven, the shortfall gap would have passed. The most likely candidates to fill in some of the production shortfall will be the uranium-miners who are currently developing known deposits,' says Wadley....Wadley says that the spot price of uranium has very little relevance to the real uranium market. 'About 85% of uranium is not sold on the spot market – it is sold under contract,' he says. The spot price is based on the few transparent public sales of uranium that are surplus to contractual requirement sales....Wadley says that the uranium spot price will probably turn and rise again within the next year, because there is a genuine shortage looming, which cannot be easily resolved. Contract prices will remain steady at current levels, which will continue to be profitable for producers. In the long run, however, there will be a shortfall in uranium production, which will lead to investments in the development of new deposits."
Impending shortfall leads to rising African uranium production
Mining Weekly, 7 November 2008

Nuclear Facilities In The Middle East Are A Hazard To All

"There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona. Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal....Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored."
Gaza rockets put Israel’s nuclear plant in battle zone
London Times, 2 January 2009

BBC Documentary - Israel's Secret Nuclear Weapons Pragramme - Click Here

And So Is Dependence On Middle East Oil

"Israel's finance minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, predicted yesterday that the British-era oil pipeline from Iraq's northern oilfields through Jordan to the Israeli port city of Haifa would be reopened. 'It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa,' Mr Netanyahu told a group of British investors in London. 'It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean.'"
Iraq-Israel oil pipeline 'to reopen'
Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2003

Israel And Oil - Click Here

It's Time For Both Israel And Iran To Focus On More Creative Solutions
To National Security

"As a strong supporter of broadening and deepening the U.S.-Israel relationship, Barack Obama cosponsored the U.S.-Israel Energy Cooperation Act. This bill would establish a grant program to support joint U.S.-Israeli research and development efforts in the areas of alternative and renewable energy sources – a key step toward energy independence, which is very much in the national security interests of the U.S. and Israel. Looking for innovative ways to enhance U.S. and Israeli security through energy independence, Obama has pushed a number of initiatives – from E-85 to CAFE reform to biofuels. The purpose of these initiatives is to reduce U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East, limiting the influence of oil-producing nations and strengthening U.S. and Israeli national security."
BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN’S PLAN TO STRENGTHEN THE U.S.-ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP
Obama-Biden Election Campaign Fact Sheet 2008

Don't Waste Taxpayers Money On Nuclear

"...some little-noticed rain has fallen on the nuclear parade. It turns out that new plants would be not just extremely expensive but spectacularly expensive. The first detailed cost estimate, filed by Florida Power & Light (FPL) for a large plant off the Keys, came in at a shocking $12 billion to $18 billion. Progress Energy announced a $17 billion plan for a similar Florida plant, tripling its estimate in just a year. 'Completely mind-boggling,' says Charlie Beck, who represents ratepayers for Florida's Office of Public Counsel. 'A real wake-up call,' says Dale Klein, President Bush's chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 'I'll admit, the costs are daunting,' says Richard Myers, NEI's vice president for policy development. The math gets ugly in a hurry. McCain called for 45 new plants by 2030; given the nuclear industry's history of 250% cost overruns, that could rise to well over $1 trillion. Ratepayers would take the main hit, but taxpayers could be on the hook for billions in loan guarantees, tax breaks, insurance benefits and direct subsidies--not to mention the problem of storing radioactive waste, if Congress can ever figure out where to put it. And those 45 new plants would barely replace the existing plants scheduled for decommissioning before 2030. This sticker shock has unnerved Wall Street. A Warren Buffett--owned company has scrapped plans for an Idaho nuclear plant; banks and bond-rating agencies are skeptical as well. In fact, renewables attracted $71 billion globally in private capital during 2007 while nukes got zero. The reactors under construction around the world are all government-financed. 'I have to keep explaining: France and China are not capitalist countries!' says Congressman Ed Markey, an antinuclear Massachusetts Democrat. 'Nobody wants to put their own money into this so-called renaissance--just ours.'...Industry officials argue that if you disregard capital costs, nuclear plants are the cheapest source of power. But you can't disregard capital costs--they're out of control. The world's only steelworks capable of forging containment vessels is in Japan, and it has a three-year waiting list. The specialized workforce required for manufacturing reactors has atrophied in the U.S., along with the industrial base. Steel, cement and other commodity prices have stabilized, but the credit crunch has jacked up the cost of borrowing. FPL's application concedes that new reactors present 'unique risks and uncertainties,' with every six-month delay adding as much as $500 million in interest costs. Meanwhile, radioactive waste languishes in temporary storage pools and casks at plants around the country. Energy maven Amory Lovins has calculated that, overall, new nuclear wattage would cost more than twice as much as coal or gas and nearly three times as much as wind--and that calculation was made before nuclear-construction costs exploded. So how should we produce our juice? The answer may sound a bit unsatisfying: more wind, less coal but mostly the same electricity sources we're using, until something better comes along. The key will be reducing demand through energy efficiency and conservation. Most efficiency improvements have been priced at 1¢ to 3¢ per kilowatt-hour, while new nuclear energy is on track to cost 15¢ to 20¢ per kilowatt-hour. And no nuclear plant has ever been completed on budget."
Going Nuclear
TIME, 31 December 2008

"Former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev called for a renewed commitment to eliminate the world’s nuclear weapons Tuesday (Dec. 4), saying the current generation of world leaders cannot coast on disarmament treaties of the past. 'There’s a law of politics that if you don’t move forward, you begin to move backward,' Gorbachev said. 'We cannot live on old capital for an indefinite period of time.' Gorbachev said the world missed an opportunity for greater global cooperation in the Cold War’s wake, describing the past 18 years as ones of 'stagnation and regression,' where even avoiding a war in the middle of Europe was beyond the world’s leaders. 'After the Cold War, we lost our way, the world lost its way,' Gorbachev said. 'We should be moving toward the goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.' Gorbachev spoke to a packed John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He delivered the Albert H. Gordon Lecture as the kickoff to a conference Wednesday, sponsored by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, that drew 45 arms control experts to Harvard to discuss the future of nuclear disarmament....The arms race was in full swing when Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan met in Geneva for a series of one-on-one talks. The talks subsequently led to the signing of the INF treaty and the destruction of thousands of nuclear warheads. But Gorbachev said he and Reagan viewed that treaty as just a start toward the ultimate goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Further progress stalled over the United States’ insistence on pursuing its 'star wars' missile defense system, and Gorbachev said the slow, difficult work of eliminating nuclear weapons still remains. Gorbachev acknowledged that the world has changed significantly since the Cold War’s end, but said the recent re-militarization — particularly that of the United States — is puzzling. 'I really don’t know who the U.S. wants to go to war with, nobody wants to go to war with the U.S.,' Gorbachev said....Gorbachev called on the leaders of the United States and Russia, together with the leaders of other nations, to begin talks about how to solve some of these problems. Russia, he said, is eager to be a partner with the United States, but will never accept the role of 'kid brother,' merely doing the bidding of the United States. 'I think the United States of America has the potential to be a world leader, but it should be a leadership based on cooperation rather than force and imposition,' Gorbachev said. 'The world will not be a follower to the United States, but just about every country wants to be a partner with the United States,' Gorbachev said."
Gorbachev calls for new move to eliminate nukes
Harvard University Gazette, 5 December 2007

Jews, Christians, And Muslims
Three Abrahamic Faiths Living Under A Single Shared Sun

"Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday urged the world's biggest industrialised nations to set up a 50-billion-dollar (44-billion-euro) fund to support solar power, warning that oil or nuclear energy were not viable energy sources for the future. Gorbachev -- who chairs an environmental thinktank, Green Cross International -- called on leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations to invest in renewable energy sources, in a statement marking the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.....Rising oil prices and supply concerns, as well as the growing need to combat global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, have raised the profile and economic viability of some renewable energy sources."
Gorbachev urges G8 to back solar power
Agence France Presse, 26 April 2006

"Abu Dhabi's Masdar said on Thursday it is building the Middle East's largest solar power plant for the carbon-neutral Masdar City. Half of the 10 megawatt photovoltaic plant's solar panels will be supplied by First Solar Inc (FSLR.O), the U.S.-based company said in a statement. Its shares rose 6.5 percent following the announcement. The $22 billion Masdar City -- the green city in the desert -- will be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. No cars will be allowed...The $50 million solar plant will begin producing power in 2009 and will supply any excess energy to the Abu Dhabi power grid, Masdar said....Masdar was set up by the Abu Dhabi government to develop sustainable and clean energy. "
First Solar to help power Masdar, UAE's green city
Reuters, 15 January 2009

"Vast greenhouses that use sea water for crop cultivation could be combined with solar power plants to provide food, fresh water and clean energy in deserts, under an ambitious proposal from a team of architects and engineers. The Sahara Forest Project, which is already running demonstration plants in Tenerife, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, envisages huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), a technology that uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays, creating steam to drive turbines to generate electricity....The solar farm planned by the project runs seawater evaporators, pumping damp, cool air through the greenhouses. This reduces the warmth inside by about 15C, compared with the temperature outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, water vapour is condensed. Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, some for cleaning the solar mirrors. 'So we've got conditions in the greenhouse of high humidity and lower temperature,' said Paton. 'The crops sitting in this slightly steamy, humid condition can grow fantastically well.'....Paton said the greenhouse produced more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside, so some of the water could be released to the outside, creating a microclimate for hardier plants such as jatropha, a crop that can be turned into biofuel. The cost of the Sahara Forest Project could be relatively low as both CSP and Seawater Greenhouses are proven technologies. The designers estimate that building 20 hectares (nearly 50 acres) of greenhouses combined with a 10MW CSP scheme would cost about €80m (£65m).... Neil Crumpton, an energy specialist at Friends of the Earth, said the potential of these desert technologies was huge. 'Concentrated solar power mirror arrays covering just 1% of the Earth's deserts could supply a fifth of all current global energy consumption. And 1 million tonnes of sea water could be evaporated every day from just 20,000ha of greenhouses.' Governments should invest in the technologies and 'not be distracted by lobbyists promoting dangerous nuclear power or nuclear-powered desalination schemes', Crumpton added."
Solar plant yields water and crops from the desert
Guardian, 3 September 2008

"Iran has announced the opening of its first ever solar power plant in the town of Shiraz in the Southwest of the country. Energy Minister Parviz Fattah told reporters that the facility was constructed using Iranian materials and expertise. Speaking to the Iranian News Agency he said, 'The country backs the use of alternative and renewable energy sources. In future alternative energy sources will be greatly developed in the country. The growth of investments in this sphere is expected.' According to Fattah, the Shiraz solar plant employs parabolic mirrors to direct energy from the sun’s rays into its solar receivers. At this stage, it appears that the plant is a pilot project intended to test the viability of future larger-scale projects. Any movement towards the development of domestic renewable energy supply is likely to be welcomed by many of the countries suspicious of Iran’s ambitions to develop nuclear power."
Iran Opens its First Solar Power Plant
CleanTechnica, 29 December 2008

"An electric transport company is to install thousands of recharging points for electric cars across Israel ready for commercial use by 2011 in the first such nationwide network. The firm, Better Place, showed off its first charging spot yesterday at a car park above a shopping centre in Ramat Hasharon, near Tel Aviv. In a pilot project, it will install 500 of the charging points by the end of this year in cities, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. It expects to have 500,000 charging points by the time the first cars are marketed. Moshe Kaplinsky, head of Better Place Israel, said the firm believed it presented a fundamental challenge to petrol-driven cars. 'This vision is to stop this addiction to oil,' he said....It expects a lithium-ion car battery to last for 106 miles. Given Israel's small size, the company expects relatively little need for changing batteries. A return trip from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, for example, covers 75 miles. For longer journeys, battery changing stations will be set up across the country and would replace a car battery within minutes. Payment for the service would be through a monthly account, similar to a mobile phone bill. No prices have been announced, but Kaplinsky said the cost of buying the car and paying for recharging would be less than the costs incurred with petrol-driven cars. 'We intend that by 2020 almost all the cars in Israel will be electric vehicles,' he said."
Israel pilots electric car network
Guardian, 9 December 2008

"A team of Americans and Israelis launched an experimental solar technology plant Thursday in Israel's Negev Desert, a prototype designed to drastically cut the cost of energy produced from the sun. Israeli company Luz II, Ltd. and its American parent, Brightsource Energy, Inc., plan to use the Israeli solar array to test new technology for the three new solar plants they are building for California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Arnold Goldman, founder of the Oakland, California-based company, called the array 'the highest performance, lowest cost thermal solar system in the world.' His previous company built the first commercial solar plants in the 1980s. The new technology uses fields of computer-guided flat mirrors called heliostats to track the sun and focus its rays on a boiler at the top of a 200-foot tower. Water inside the boiler turns to steam, which powers a turbine and produces electricity. The steam is then captured and cooled naturally so the water, scarce in the desert, can be reused."
'Israeli technology may offer cheap solar power'
Associated Press, 12 June 2008

"A researcher at Israel's Bar-Ilan University has created a solar cell 100 times bigger than previous designs using nano-based methods. Professor Arie Zaban, head of the university's Nanotechnology Institute, had already developed a method of using metallic wires mounted on conductive glass to form the basis of solar cells. This method produces electricity with an efficiency similar to that of conventional silicon-based cells, but which are much cheaper to produce."
Boffin boosts solar cell size 100-fold
Vnunet, 8 January 2008

"The latest project comes from an Israeli who wants to use Israel's 'gift of enterprising' to help humanity wean off of oil. Shai Agassi, former executive at German software enterprise company SAP AG, is leading a new team of minds into not-so-charted territory. Agassi completed military service in Israel as a programmer for the IDF, and then earned his bachelors degree in computer science from The Technion in Haifa. Venturing into the business world, he later sold the most successful of his software startups for over $400 million to SAP, where he continued working until March 2007. What he was up to next was first reported in August by Reuters - holding company Israel Corporation agreed to invest $100 million in Agassi's new electric vehicle venture, pending due diligence, with several other investors; the first round funding is $200 million, bringing the total value of the venture to $300 million. The company is stealthily named BetterPLC, a reference to an automated method of manufacturing. The electric car is a major component of the energy paradigm shift: one where the world relies mainly on renewable sources of energy, thereby reducing the human effect of global warming, shifting the currency balance away from Muslim terrorists, and declawing the menace of peak oil.  'Our goal is to get to 100,000 cars on the road in 2010,' said Agassi. He believes that since Israel has an 89% tax on vehicles, and a 100% tax on fuel, if there were zero emissions and zero fuel, there would be zero taxes on cars. 'You tell an Israeli that Israel will be the first country to eliminate the use of oil, and they sign up,' Shai said in a speech given at Stanford University. But he realizes that the electric car won't stop in Israel, 'If we can do it Israel, and it works, we can create a repeatable model that maybe then works in London... and then we can hopefully do it 50 times in China."
Riding an Israeli electric car to peace
Israel21C, 30 September 2007

"Israeli company Solel, which develops and implements solar thermal technology, has signed a contract with Pacific Gas and Electric Company to build the world's largest solar plant in California's Mojave Desert. The project will deliver 553 megawatts of solar power, the equivalent of powering 400,000 homes, to PG&E’s customers in northern and central California. When fully operational in 2011, the Mojave Solar Park plant will cover up to 6,000 acres in the Mojave Desert. Solel is working closely with URS Corporation in the development of the Mojave Solar Park, which when commercial will rely on 1.2 million mirrors and 317 miles of vacuum tubing to capture the desert sun’s heat."
Israeli company to build largest solar park in world in US
Ynetnews, 26 July 2008

A Deadly Cocktail Of Religion And Oil
How The British Empire's Double-Dealing Set The Stage For The Arab-Israeli Conflict

"This coming 2 November marks the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which promised the Jews a 'national home' in Palestine. As a result, the state of Israel was formed in 1947. This article, written by the Middle East expert Peter Mansfield half a century after the Balfour Declaration, provides an insightful analysis of a fateful document that provoked the most insoluble problem in contemporary international politics....An important influence on the minds of the government was the Bible-reading Protestant belief in the return of the Jews to Zion on which men like Lloyd George (and the agnostic Churchill — another enthusiastic Zionist) had been nourished. Imperialist motives also played their part, but it was less the specific aims of balancing French influence in Syria with a pro-British community in Palestine which would also help to protect the Suez Canal (although this was in the back of their minds) than the general idea that the Jews, as civilised Europeans, would carry the white man’s burden in an area where Britons were unlikely to do so themselves. Did they understand the implications of their action?...being a philosopher more than a politician, Balfour could be unusually candid. In August 1919 he wrote a memorandum on Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia [now Iraq] in which he said: 'The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American Commission [the 1919 King-Crane Commission] has been through the form of asking what they are. The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices [sic] of 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.... In fact, so far as Palestine is concerned, the powers have made no statement of fact that is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate.’ A rare and remarkable confession. Apart from the Allies’ general pledges to set up national governments in the Middle East which would derive their authority ‘from the free exercise and choice of the indigenous population’, the British government had committed itself in two other ways. One was in the correspondence in 1915 between Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, and the Sherif Hussain of Mecca, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, and the other was the so-called Sykes-Picot agreement, an Anglo-French understanding on the partition of the Middle East into great-power spheres of influence, which was published by the Russians, to the acute embarrassment of the Allies, after October 1917. Fountains of ink have flowed in the discussion of how far the British government was to blame for making these pledges which, though couched in ambiguous and evasive language, were undeniably incompatible with each other. Evidence which has recently come to light proves fairly condo. sively that at least the Foreign Office believed that the Sherif Hussain had been promised that Palestine should be an independent Arab state....What the Arabs remember is that out of this small beginning - a brief letter from the British Foreign Secretary to a prominent English Jew — a 9-percent minority in Palestine grew in 30 years to establish its own exclusive and powerful nation-state on land which had been theirs for 1,500 years."
Did we double-cross the Arabs?
New Statesman, 27 November 2007

Oil And Religion - The Middle East's Deadly Cocktail

"In April 1932, a British-dominated international consortium, British Oil Development Company (BODC), obtained a 75-year oil concession for territory lying west of Tigris and north of 33rd parallel. The consortium was intended to be a competitor to IPC in Iraq. Ten years later, before it would start production, BODC was bought out by Mosul Petroleum Company (MPC), a fully owned subsidiary of IPC. Likewise, in December 1938, Basra Petroleum Company (BPC), another subsidiary of IPC, obtained a 75-year concession for the rest of Iraq. Thus all of Iraq, with the exception of the 'transferred territory,' came under IPC’s control. Competition was entirely eliminated. IPC was not meant to be a profit-making enterprise. It operated as a production and transport company that delivered oil to its shareholders at export terminals (initially Haifa in Palestine and Tripoli in Lebanon) in proportion to participation interest. The partners were charged a nominal fee for the oil. Real profits were made by the partners which shipped, refined and sold the oil in foreign markets. (Until 1948 some of the crude was refined in Haifa). Until 1940 or so, IPC maintained a strategy to delay production in Iraq. The strategy was aimed at protecting the interests of the British, American and Dutch partners, who had crude production of their own in areas outside Iraq and wanted to shield such production from competition. CFP and Gulbenkian, who had production interests only in Iraq, opposed the delay strategy; but with their minority shareholding, they had limited success. For good reason, the policy of retarding production irritated the Iraqi government as well. During its operation IPC was frequently at loggerheads with the Iraqi government on a number of issues. The oil revenue structure, the pace of oil development, building refineries, participation in shareholding, and representation at company’s board, were the chief areas of dispute. The disputes led to nationalization of Iraq’s oil industry in 1972.... As destiny would have it, Iraq’s oil development was affected not so much by internal conflicts but by external factors. Iraq significantly benefited from the Iran oil crisis in the early 1950’s, but suffered during the Suez crisis. The biggest setbacks were during the Iraq-Iran war and the Gulf War. And now, the American-led Iraq War has brought a new era of destruction and uncertainty. The players in the big Mesopotamian oil game included an assortment of foreign countries and nationalistic oil companies that had a symbiotic and at times incestuous relationship with each other. What lip service was paid to free trade and competition, both in word and on paper, was soon discarded and forgotten when rhetoric clashed with self-interest. In many ways, these were not glorious days for the oil companies. Nor were the governments that knowingly supported the monopolistic designs and sometimes clandestine undertakings of these companies without blame..... Judging the players, the British played big poker and won. For Britain, oil was an instrument of imperial ambitions, and at times blood was the sacrifice that had to be accepted – e.g., 2500 British lives lost during the internal uprising in Iraq in 1920. The British camouflaged their true intentions on oil through pretexts, e.g., their righteous claim of being the trustees of Iraqi people’s rights on oil. The Americans were more open in their intentions, although their tacit acceptance of the self-denial clause left them cold and dry on charges of hypocrisy. Lacking the colonial over-drive of the British, and having relinquished Mosul to British control in San Remo in return for the German share in TPC, the French were relegated to play second fiddle in the big Anglo-American grab for oil in the Middle East. The French never trusted the British, and later the Americans, but were reconciled to their dominance on matters of oil. As for the Dutch, they were the easiest winners. Thanks to 40 percent British share in RD Shell, the Dutch virtually got a free ride on the back of the British. At the beginning of WWI, RD Shell acquiesced to British control in order to operate freely on the high seas.....The Turks were the big losers in the oil game. The major reason for that, of course, was defeat during WWI and the headaches that the defeat brought. But Turks, the Ottoman Turks in particular, trailed the West in science and technology, which put them behind in appreciating the strategic value of oil. It is a poignant historical irony that at the time Admiral Slade expedition was surveying the Persian Gulf region for oil on instructions from Winston Churchill in 1913, Grand Vizier (Chief Minister) Mahmut Sevket Pasha, in blissful ignorance, was telling his cabinet in Istanbul that Qatar and Kuwait were 'unimportant desert' sheikdoms that were not worth creating conflict with Britain."
Oil in Iraq: The Byzantine Beginnings
Global Policy Forum, 26 April 2003

"The U.S. is playing today roughly the same role with respect to Iraq’s oil riches that Britain did early last century. History has a habit of repeating itself, albeit with different nuances and different actors. In this two-part series, we shall review the intricacies of oil-related events in Iraq .... Discovery of oil in 1908 at Masjid-i Suleiman in Iran – an event that changed the fate of the Middle East – gave impetus to quest for oil in Mesopotamia. Oil pursuits in Mesopotamia were concentrated in Mosul, one of three provinces or 'vilayets' constituting Iraq under the Ottoman rule. Mosul was the northern province, the other two being Baghdad (in the middle) and Basra (in the south) provinces. Foreign geologists visited the area under the disguise of archeologists. For a good part of the last century, interests of national governments were closely linked with the interests of oil companies, so much so that oil companies were de facto extensions of foreign-office establishments of the governments. The latter actively lobbied on behalf of the oil companies owned by their respective nationals. The oil companies, in return, would guarantee oil supply to respective governments – preferably at a substantial discount..... Among the foreign powers the British, seeing Iraq as a gateway to their Indian colony and oil as lifeblood for their Imperial Navy, were most aggressive in their pursuits in Mesopotamia, aspiring to gain physical control of the oil region. Winston Churchill, soon after he became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, declared oil to be of paramount importance for the supremacy of the Imperial Navy. Churchill was educated about the virtues of oil by none other than Marcus Samuel, the founder of Shell. During the war, Sir Maurice Hankey, secretary of the War Cabinet, advised Foreign Secretary Arthur Belfour in writing that control of the Persian and Mesopotamian oil was a 'first-class British war aim.' Britain captured the towns of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, capitals of the provinces bearing the same names, in November 1914, March 1917 and November 1918, respectively. Mosul was captured 15 days after Britain and Turkey signed the Mudros Armistice ending hostilities at the end of the war, an event that drew protests from the Turkish delegation at the Lausanne Peace Conference four years later. In 1913 Churchill sent an expeditionary team to the Persian Gulf headed by Admiral Slade to investigate oil possibilities in the region. More or less coincident with Admiral Slade expedition, Britain signed a secret agreement with the sheikh of Kuwait who, while ostensibly pledging allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul, promised exclusive oil rights to the British. Kuwait became a British protectorate in November 1914. The British were so concerned about the security of their oil supply prior to the war that they wanted to have guaranteed British dominance in any oil company exploiting Mesopotamian oil. The government favored Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC, predecessor of BP) over Royal Dutch/Shell (RDS) in TPC. APOC, already holding oil concession in Iran but not one of the original participants in TPC, was 100 percent British while RDS, an original participant, was 40 percent British....World War I augured another fundamental change in the oil scene in Mesopotamia: assertiveness on the part of the American government for an 'open-door policy' on oil concessions. Forcefully advanced by President Wilson, the policy meant equal access for American capital and interests. The policy was in response to reluctance of European oil companies to welcome American companies to the Mesopotamian oil scene....A rising demand for oil, fuel shortages and price increases during the war, and rumors of depleting domestic resources soon after the war rallied the American administration to give active support to American oil companies in search of foreign oil. Mesopotamia would not be a preserve for the European oil interests, Washington decided. The British initially tried to foil the American efforts by stonewalling American requests and by refusing access to American geologists who wanted to survey oil potential in the region. Britain’s tactics drew strong protest from Washington. The American government withheld its recognition of the Draft Mandate for Iraq on the grounds that it sanctioned discrimination against nationals of other countries. The San Remo agreement, in particular, caused consternation in Washington and catapulted the State Department and American oil companies into action. Walter Teagle, the head of Jersey (later Exxon), became the spokesperson for American corporate oil interests.....The Lausanne Peace Conference held in November 1922-February 1923 (1st session) in Switzerland marked the height of political brinkmanship and skullduggery in oil politics. The 'Mosul question,' i.e. whether Mosul belonged to Turkey or whether it would be included within the borders of a newly created Iraq, was taken up by a special Council dealing with territorial issues. The Turkish delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Ismet Pasha, came to the Conference with explicit instructions from Ankara to keep Mosul within Turkey, in accord with the National Pact ('Misak-i Milli') adopted by the last Ottoman parliament in January 1920. The British had a totally different agenda..... Lord Curzon argued that the policy of His Majesty’s Government on Mosul was not in any way related to oil, that instead it was guided by the desire to protect interests of Iraqi people consistent with its mandatory obligations, that he had never spoken to an oil magnate or an oil concessionaire regarding Mosul oil, but that a company called TPC had obtained a concession from the Ottoman government [in June 1914] before the war that his government had concluded was valid, that his government and TPC had no monopolistic designs on Iraqi oil, and that the Iraqis would be the chief beneficiaries of oil exploitation in Iraq.   He added that Turkey would benefit as well. Considering British governments past knee-deep involvement in Mesopotamian oil, and TPC’s monopolistic charter (see below) and exclusionary tactics, it was almost surreal that Lord Curzon would make such statements, including the intimation that he was unaware of oil-related developments surrounding Mosul. At the time of the Lausanne Conference the British, Dutch, French and American oil companies were negotiating the future of TPC in London, and Lord Curzon was kept fully informed on the progress of these negotiations. The American observer at the Conference was bemused at Lord Curzon’s high-principled claims. In a vague, convoluted language, he remarked that the character of TPC concession should be evaluated by an impartial tribunal and that his government had not given up on the 'open-door' policy. In a subsequent diplomatic note to Britain, the State Department expressed its discomfort on some of the claims made by Lord Curzon at the Conference. Lord Curzon also misled and appeased a war-weary British public by making similar statements in British press. The British public was longing for peace and did not want a new military conflict for the sake of oil. Similar attempts by the government at the Parliament were less successful. Some members of the Parliament expressed deep skepticism on Britain’s motivations on Mosul, including one MP who complained about the 'vein of hypocrisy' running through Britain’s policy on Mosul. The government repeatedly ignored requests from MPs to produce the so-called oil concession agreement, or state clearly its terms.... in 1921, when Lord Curzon was already the Foreign Minister, Whitehall was forced to admit that the TPC concession was on shaky legal grounds. That did not deter Lord Curzon from making his preposterous claims a year later at Lausanne. With no solution in sight, and after receiving veiled threats from Lord Curzon on renewed hostilities in Iraq (which prompted a worried France to urge Turkey not to turn down the British proposal), Ankara reluctantly agreed in March 1923 to British proposal to refer the Mosul question to the League Nations for arbitration if direct negotiations with Britain failed. These talks, indeed, bore no fruit, and Britain took the Mosul question to the League of Nations. When the Lausanne Conference (2nd session) ended in July 24, 1923, the communiqué issued officially recognized these developments. The British, however, failed in their efforts to have inserted into the treaty a clause indicating Ankara’s acceptance of the so-called TPC concession. In January 1923, Britain, as the mandatory power, pressured Iraq to forego its right to 20 percent participation in TPC, voiding the provision that was included in the 1920 San Remo Agreement signed with France....In March 1925, TPC concluded an oil concession agreement with Iraq. The agreement, to be in effect for 75 years, stipulated that TPC would be and remain a British company registered in Great Britain....Discovery of the Kirkuk field was the second major oil-related event in the Middle East history after Masjid-i Suleiman in Iran. The event marked the fulfillment of a long-hoped dream for the TPC partners and shaped the destiny of Iraq, in fact the Middle East, until our times. The field, with reserves of 16 billion barrels, or 2150 million tons, lived up to expectations as to its immense size. In June 1929 TPC changed its name to Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC)."
Oil in Iraq: The Byzantine Beginnings
Global Policy Forum April 25, 2003

Oil, Brtiain, And The Middle East

"In 1913, with war clouds gathering in Europe, the British admiralty - under Winston Churchill - discarded coal in favour of oil to power its battleships. To safeguard the decision, the government bought a 51% stake in APOC. The importance of oil - and Iran - in British imperial expansion was now explicit. It was a priority of which Churchill, for one, would never lose sight."
A bitter legacy
Guardian, 30 March 2007

"[Gertrude Bell] was one of the world's most powerful women at the beginning of the 20th century, a key shaper of the version of the Middle East over which our soldiers are killing and dying, for us, right now.....In 1914, the British indeed brought war to Mesopotamia. From their long-held (since the 17th century) base in Basra, they sent an army north along the Euphrates River toward Baghdad. But here's where things stop looking like an old Imperial expedition and more like the nightmare battlefield of the 20th century. Over three months, the British lost 25,000 men during a siege at Kut. It was, at the height of British power, the nation's biggest military disaster to that time. Iraq was a battleground in the First World War for one reason. As Wallach describes the British position at the beginning of the war, their 'unrivaled navy delivered goods around the world and brought home three-quarters of (the country's) food supply. To maintain its superiority, in 1911 the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had ordered a major change, switching the nation's battleships from coal-burning engines to oil. Far superior to the traditional ships, these new oil-burning vessels could travel faster, cover a greater range, and be refueled at sea; what's more, their crews would not be exhausted by having to refuel, and would require less manpower.' Wallach continues, 'Britain had been the world's leading provider of coal, but she had no oil of her own. In 1912, Churchill signed an agreement for a major share in the Anglo-Persian oil company, with its oil wells in southern Persia and refineries at Abadan, close to Basra. It was essential for Britain to protect that vital area...the British either wouldn't or couldn't put together an Iraqi government. In truth, they weren't totally convinced they wanted to sponsor an Iraqi state at all. Churchill favored letting most of Iraq go, fortifying only the oil fields near Basra.... Many officials wanted to pull out of Mesopotamia altogether, except for the Persian Gulf. Bell and a few others, like T.E. Lawrence, argued for making and backing an Arab kingdom in Iraq. Bell's party eventually persuaded Churchill that Arab monarchies with British power behind them would make for a more stable region, cheaper in the long run as a provider of oil.... Carefully drawing a red line across the face of it, [Sir Percy Cox] assigned a chunk of the Nejd to Iraq; then to placate Ibn Saud, he took almost two thirds of the territory of Kuwait and gave it to Arabia. Last, drawing two zones, and declaring that they should be neutral, he called one the Kuwait neutral zone and the other the Iraq neutral zone. When a representative of Ibn Saud pressed Cox not to make a Kuwait neutral zone, Sir Percy asked him why. 'Quite candidly,' the man answered, 'because we think oil exists there.' 'That,' replied the High Commissioner, 'is exactly why I have made it a neutral zone. Each side shall have a half-share.' The agreement, signed by all three sides at the beginning of December 1922, confirmed the boundary lines drawn so carefully by Gertrude Bell. But for seventy years, up until and including the 1990 Gulf War involving Iraq and Kuwait, the dispute over the borders would continue.' With the creation of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq, the map of the modern Middle East was complete. The British managed to keep their royal surrogates in Iraq until 1958, when military officers shot the young king (Faisal's grandson), his regent and prime minister."
Gertrude Bell and the Birth of Iraq
Anderson Valley Advertiser, 26 May 2004

"Fuel is our economic lifeblood. The price of oil can be the difference between recession and recovery. The western world is import dependent. ....So: who develops oil and gas, what the new potential sources of supply are, is a vital strategic question...The Middle East, we focus on naturally."
Prime Minister's speech at the George Bush Senior Presidential Library, Texas
10 Downing St, Press Release, 7 April 2002

Oil, Israel, And The 2003 Iraq War

"Israel stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the Israelis have other things in mind. An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy.... All of this lends weight to the theory that Bush's war is part of a masterplan to reshape the Middle East to serve Israel's interests. Haaretz quoted Paritzky as saying that the pipeline project is economically justifiable because it would dramatically reduce Israel's energy bill. US efforts to get Iraqi oil to Israel are not surprising. Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the US guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. The MoU, which has been quietly renewed every five years, also committed the USA to construct and stock a supplementary strategic reserve for Israel, equivalent to some US$3bn in 2002. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the USA agreed to divert oil from its home market, even if that entailed domestic shortages, and guaranteed delivery of the promised oil in its own tankers if commercial shippers were unwilling or not available to carry the crude to Israel. All of this adds up to a potentially massive financial commitment. The USA has another reason for supporting Paritzky's project: a land route for Iraqi oil direct to the Mediterranean would lessen US dependence on Gulf oil supplies. Direct access to the world's second-largest oil reserves (with the possibility of expansion through so-far untapped deposits) is an important strategic objective."
Oil from Iraq : An Israeli pipedream?
Jane's Foreign Report, 16 April 2003

"The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister's Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a 'bonus' the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram. The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years. The National Infrastructure Ministry has recently conducted research indicating that construction of a 42-inch diameter pipeline between Kirkuk and Haifa would cost about $400,000 per kilometer. The old Mosul-Haifa pipeline was only 8 inches in diameter. National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month. Paritzky added that the plan depends on Jordan's consent and that Jordan would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to piped through its territory. The minister noted, however, that 'due to pan-Arab concerns, it will be hard for the Jordanians to agree to the flow of Iraqi oil via Jordan and Israel.' Sources in Jerusalem confirmed yesterday that the Americans are looking into the possibility of laying a new pipeline via Jordan and Israel. (There is also a pipeline running via Syria that has not been used in some three decades.) Iraqi oil is now being transported via Turkey to a small Mediterranean port near the Syrian border."
U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan
Haaretz, 1 August 2007

The Importance Of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, And Israel As Potential Transit Routes For Iraqi Oil

"If Iraqi production does not rise exponentially by 2015, we have a very big problem, even if Saudi Arabia fulfills all its promises. The numbers are very simple, there's no need to be an expert.... Within 5 to 10 years, non-OPEP production will reach a peak and begin to decline, as reserves run out. There are new proofs of that fact every day. At the same we'll see the peak of China's economic growth. The two events will coincide: the explosion of Chinese growth, and the fall in non-OPEP oil production. Will the oil world manage to face that twin shock is an open question.... I really hope that consuming nations will understand the gravity of the situation and put in place radical and extremely tough policies to curb oil demand growth."
Fatir Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency
Le Monde, 27 June 2007

<<<---- To USA and Europe

Blue = Pre-War Iraqi Oil Transit Route To Meditteranian Via Arabian Peninsula And Suez Canal (Suez Cannot Take Largest Tankers) Red = Post-War Potential Alternative Route Via Lebanon/Israel

Avoiding Abrahamic Mayhem In The Middle East
A Time For Cool Heads

"A British intellectual told me that the issue today is not about reaching an agreement with the Hamas movement which does not recognize the rights of Jews and Christians to exist in Palestine; the issue is that there are Palestinians being killed daily, and the Israelis are living in fear of rocket attacks, and the Christians are migrating."
Huda Al Husseini - They’re All With Gaza…Who is With Hamas?
Asharq Alawsat, 17 January 2009

"The Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem has called for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, warning that health services there are failing to cope with the injuries sustained in the Israeli attacks. The Rt Rev Suheil Dawani, said that the three Abrahamic Faiths have observed their Holy Seasons with a sense of peace and goodwill, 'therefore, we are greatly grieved by the severity of the ongoing military operations in Gaza that are occurring in heavily populated areas and impacting the civilian population.' The Diocese of Jerusalem runs the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which he said was struggling to cope. 'The immensity of providing care for the injured and wounded is overwhelming a healthcare system struggling to provide essential healthcare services for 1.5 million Palestinians, most of who live in refugee camps.' The Bishop added: 'The gravity of the situation threatens to engulf this entire region and we ask the Palestinians and Israelis to return to active negotiations for the well being and safety of both communities.'”
Jerusalem bishop warns Gaza health services 'overwhelmed'
Religious Intelligence, 30 December 2008

How Likely Is It That A Change Of US President
Will Produce A Change In Approach To The Middle East?

"Robert Baer, a former CIA spy who presents a television documentary on the history of suicide bombing, says he knew the practice would come to the UK. And it’s not the West’s values, but its foreign policies, that are to blame.... 'The other one thing is, ‘they hate us’, which is just total bullsh**.' [he says] Is it? 'Yes,' he says, 'it is.' In a school run by Hezbollah, he asked a class dominated by the daughters of 'martyrs' if they watched US television. 'Everybody raised their hand. And what did they watch? Oprah. I said, ‘How can you watch this cr**?’ And they said, ‘No, she’s great. We love Oprah.’..... So, it wasn’t our values. It wasn’t Western values. It’s Western presence. They want us to get out.'.....  There is, however, a three-letter reason why the US will not impose a peace plan on Israel and leave the region.  Baer, the author of Sleeping With The Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, well knows what it is. 'I don’t think any American politician, however at fault we are in Iraq or anywhere else, can say, ‘All right, let the crazies have the oil fields’, because oil at $200 a barrel would put us into a depression.' So because the American economy is at stake, we can’t get out even to save our skins? 'That, I believe, is your classic paradox.' "
Suicide bombing is a virus that’s here to stay
London Times, 2 August 2005

"In the 21st century, we know that the future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked with one challenge: energy. In the next few years, the choices that we make will help determine the kind of country and world that we will leave to our children and our grandchildren. All of us know the problems that are rooted in our addiction to foreign oil. It constrains our economy, shifts wealth to hostile regimes, and leaves us dependent on unstable regions.... For over three decades, we've listened to a growing chorus of warnings about our energy dependence. We've heard president after president promise to chart a new course. We've heard Congress talk about energy independence, only to pull up short in the face of opposition from special interests. We've seen Washington launch policy after policy, yet our dependence on foreign oil has only grown, even as the world's resources are disappearing. This time has to be different. This time we cannot fail, nor can we be lulled into complacency simply because the price at the pump has for now gone down from $4 a gallon."
Transcript of Barack Obama’s Energy and Environment Team Announcement
New York Times, 15 December 2008

"Obama does not support the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, but believes that the need to solve the refugee problem must be recognized. He supports Israel as the state of the Jews, and does not accept the view, which has struck roots in the global left, that Israel should be a state of all its citizens, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea."
Obama and the Jewish question
Haaretz (Israel), 1 February 2008

"Barack Obama's campaign promise to consider talks to end 30 years of hostility [with Iran] is astute... Mr Obama should simultaneously entertain overtures to Syria with the aim of breaking the Iranian axis. There will be no swift breakthrough. But just as Richard Nixon's secret diplomacy paved the way for his coup in China, so Mr Obama now has a chance to end one of the region's longest and most destructive quarrels."
Thirty years on
London Times, 3 January 2009

And With Whom Would His Team Negotiate?
The Divided Holy Land - Divisions Within Divsions

"Hamas, the militant Islamic group that the U.S. State Department has designated a terrorist organization, won an overwhelming majority in Palestinian parliamentary elections. The election results announced Thursday put the future of the Middle East peace process in question. The election shocker ended a 40-year political reign by Fatah, the party of the late Yasser Arafat....Hamas' win comes amid political uncertainty in Israel. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had a stroke this month and is in a coma. Olmert has assumed Sharon's powers until elections March 28. Hamas has an extensive network of charities and social services. Its candidates swept to wins in West Bank municipal elections last month. Hamas' parliamentary campaign focused on ridding the Palestinian Authority of Fatah corruption and boosting living standards. Its platform made no mention of suicide bombers or the destruction of Israel, but the group's charter calls for Israel to be made an Islamic state for Palestinians. Thursday, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and his Cabinet resigned before final results were released. Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, based in Syria, asked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's successor, to join a Hamas-led government. Under Palestinian law, the biggest party in parliament can shape the Cabinet. Abbas, elected separately a year ago, remains president. He said Thursday that he is committed to peace talks but sidestepped questions about how closely he would work with Hamas."
Palestinians choose avowed enemy of Israel
USA Today, 26 January 2006

"U.S. Senator Barack Obama on Wednesday criticized former U.S. President Jimmy Carter for meeting with leaders of the Islamic terrorist group Hamas as he tried to reassure Jewish voters that his presidential candidacy is not a threat to them or U.S. support for Israel. The Democratic presidential candidate's comments, made to a group of Jewish leaders in Philadelphia, were his first on Carter's controversial meeting scheduled this week in Egypt. Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain called on Obama to repudiate Carter in a speech Monday....'We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel's destruction,' ' Obama said. 'We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements,' he added. Obama has been working to reassure Jewish voters nervous about his candidacy in the wake of publicity about anti-Israel sentiments expressed by his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright....Obama has stepped up his outreach to the Jewish community in recent weeks after videos of Wright's speeches surfaced where he criticized Israel and expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause.....Obama also said at the meeting that he is willing to make diplomatic overtures to Iran even thought it has funded Hamas and other militant groups."
Obama slams Carter for meeting Hamas, tries to reassure Jewish voters
Haaretz (Israel), 16 April 2008

"Largely ignored by the local antagonists, and by most international analysts, meanwhile, is the fact that if Olmert is a lame duck, his Palestinian interlocutor, Abbas, is a veritable political amputee. As of January 9, he will cease to be the democratically empowered president of the Palestinian Authority. His term in office will have expired. Hamas has long been indicating that it will not regard him as a credible authority after that date. Arab media sources are already starting to cast doubt on his post-January 9 legitimacy. Arab governments and the wider public will certainly do the same. 'Palestinians are asking by what virtue will Abbas claim to be leading the Palestinians,' reports a West Bank-based journalist. 'They scoff that 'he'll be Bush's president or Rice's president, but certainly not our president.' Indeed, this reporter pointed out to me, after January 9, there'll be only one elected Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza: Hamas. While Ariel Sharon and subsequently Ehud Olmert, firmly supported by the Bush administration, have consistently depicted Abbas as a well-intentioned moderate and as embodying the best hope of an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation, Abbas's standing among his own people has gradually ebbed away since he succeeded Yasser Arafat four years ago. Two months after Arafat's death in November 2004, Abbas was overwhelmingly elected to presidential office (with 62.5 percent of the vote) on a promise to clean up Fatah and the governance of the Palestinians, to root out corruption and institute reform. He failed so signally that Hamas, after winning a series of local council elections over Fatah as the perceived exemplar of honest authority, cemented its elected hold on the Palestinian polity by gaining a majority of seats in elections for the quasi-parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council, a year later, on January 25, 2006. Despite the violence it employed against its own people in seizing undisputed power in Gaza in June of 2007, and the dire reality of daily life in the Strip today, many Palestinian analysts believe that Abbas would lose to Hamas's Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh if he were to succumb to the legal timetable and submit himself to a presidential vote... So, today, Mahmoud Abbas shuttles rather pointlessly from Ramallah to Washington, Cairo and beyond in the dying days of his legitimate presidency, having lost Gaza utterly and barely retaining a hold on the West Bank."
Editor's Notes: The lame duck and the amputee
Jerusalem Post, 27 December 2008

"Once it was possible for Gazans to pass with relative ease in and out of the Strip to work in Israel. In recent years, the noose around the 1.5 million people living there has been tightening incrementally, until a whole population – in the most densely settled urban area upon the planet – has been locked in behind walls and fences....Ironically, one of Israel's experiments involved assisting in the creation of Hamas, which had its roots in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, to counter the power of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organisation. Israel has been determined to push Hamas ever closer to all-out war since insisting that even though it won free and fair Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, its right to govern could not be treated as legitimate.... the economic blockade began a year and a half ago....What Israel hopes to achieve with the present military offensive – beyond influencing the coming Israeli elections – is not clear. For if a long-anticipated ground operation, leading to a partial reoccupation on the ground, is to follow these air strikes – as it did in the war in Lebanon in 2006 – it will have to achieve what neither Hamas nor its rival Fatah can: unifying Palestinian society once more against a common enemy, as Gaza was once united against Israeli settlements inside its boundaries."
To be in Gaza is to be trapped
Guardian, 28 December 2008

"Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has blamed Hamas for triggering Israel's deadly raids on Gaza, by not extending a six-month truce with the Jewish state.....Hamas argues that Israel violated the truce by failing to ease its 18-month blockade on the Gaza Strip....Odeh said two lines were being taken on the Palestinian-Israeli issue with Arab states divided between those supporting the Hamas line of armed resistance and not recognising Israel, and those that preferred non-confrontational options."
Abbas blames Hamas for bloodshed
Al-Jazeera, 28 December 2008

"Hamas on Sunday threatened to respond to an ongoing Israel Defense Forces assault on the Gaza Strip by assassinating senior Israeli officials. Senior Hamas official Fatah Hamad specifically threatened Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He also threatened that Hamas would go after senior Palestinian Authority officials in the West Bank, as well as 'those in the Arab world who have conspired against us,' - an apparent reference to Egypt."
In response to Gaza raids, Hamas threatens to assassinate Livni, Barak
Haaretz (Israel), 29 December 2008

"In August 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the narrow coastal territory [Gaza], then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised it would make Israel safer. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed the move as 'historic.' Israel had left behind a political vacuum, however. That, along with decisions by Israel, the U.S. and Palestinian rivals inadvertently boosted the militant Islamic group Hamas into power. Hamas is stronger than ever, and Israel's air strikes risk bolstering it further, according to current and former U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts.... Sharon, who suffered a stroke in January 2006 that left him in a coma, had argued that disengagement from Gaza would improve Israel's strategic position and bolster 'moderate forces' among the Palestinians 'who want to make the right choice.' Palestinian leaders, however, were never able, or willing, to begin building their state in Gaza. Even without its troops or the 9,000 Jewish settlers in place, Israel retained a chokehold over the strip, controlling major land crossings into Israel, Gaza's airspace and the waters off its Mediterranean seacoast. Then, in January 2006, the Palestinians, with strong backing from the Bush administration, held legislative elections. Over Israeli misgivings, Hamas — which has questioned Israel's right to exist and which the U.S. and Israel consider terrorist group — was allowed to participate. Hamas won a majority of seats, benefiting from the perceived corruption and incompetence of Abbas's Fatah faction....In June 2007, after months of factional fighting, Hamas forces overran Gaza, ousting Fatah's foreign-armed and trained security forces. The U.S. rounded up diplomatic and financial support for Abbas, and Israel responded by clamping down harder on Gaza. An uneasy, Egyptian-mediated truce expired this month and Hamas began intensifying its rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel... The violence appears all but certain to complicate President-elect Barack Obama's hopes of vigorous mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after he takes office Jan. 20."
What helped the rise of Hamas? U.S., Israel policies, turns out
McClatchy Newspapers, 31 December 2008

"As the IDF offensive concluded its fourth day on Tuesday, Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority of planning to return to the Gaza Strip with the help of Israel. According to a report published by the Hamas-affiliated Palestine Information Center Web site, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered his officials in Ramallah to set up an 'emergency room' to prepare for reassuming control over the Gaza Strip after the Hamas government is toppled by Israel. It said the emergency room consisted of commanders of the PA security forces and the interior minister. The report claimed that Abbas was coordinating his moves with the Egyptians and the Saudis."
Hamas - PA conspiring with Israel
Jerusalem Post, 31 December 2008

"...in a bind is Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian President viewed by Israel and the U.S. as a credible partner in peace. Many Palestinians now regard him as an irrelevancy — or worse, a collaborator. Abbas 'has staked his political legacy and his vision of the Palestinians finally achieving their rights on negotiation with the Israelis,' says Steven Cook, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. 'And it's hard to negotiate with the Israelis as they are bombing the Gaza Strip.' The very basis of Abbas' negotiations with Israel may be moot. The Bush Administration's peace plan, based on a Palestinian state and Israel's living side by side, is moribund. For all practical purposes, there are two Palestinian states. Abbas, who rules the West Bank, has no leverage in Gaza, where Hamas reigns supreme. Neither Israel nor the U.S. has been prepared to deal directly with Hamas, which doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist. But without a seat at the negotiating table, the militants have little to lose by escalating violence. In Gaza, most Palestinians blame Israel and not Hamas — whom they view as legitimately elected representatives — for the current bloodshed. So even without the latest flare-up, Gaza was poised to be a confounding problem for Obama. But now, warns Aaron David Miller, a Middle East expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, the new President is 'going to inherit a crisis with horrible pictures, reduced and diminished American credibility, without the capacity and the means to actually influence the situation.'"
The Battle over Gaza
TIME, 31 December 2008

"Israeli officials said that they were not entirely closed to a truce but it had to be a lasting one to which Hamas was properly committed. Such a truce will be difficult for mediators, led by Egypt, to arrange as both sides attach peripheral conditions. Hamas wants the border crossings to be opened, which Israel will only agree to if they are manned on the Palestinian side by Fatah, Hamas’s bitter rival, with whom Israel is in slow-moving peace talks. Israel, on the other hand, considers Hamas’s weapons smuggling a breach of any truce. An emergency meeting of the Arab League in Cairo called on Hamas and Fatah to overcome their rift and form a unity government."
Israel rejects truce with Hamas as rockets rain deeper
London Times, 1 January 2009

Adding To The Abrahamic Mayhem
'Christians' Cheering For War In The Middle East

"It was only 25 years ago when there began to be a melding of the Republican Party with fundamentalist Christianity, particularly with the Southern Baptist Convention. This is a fairly new development, and I think it was brought about by the abandonment of some of the basic principles of Christianity. First of all, we worship the prince of peace, not war. And those of us who have advocated for the resolution of international conflict in a peaceful fashion are looked upon as being unpatriotic, branded that way by right-wing religious groups, the Bush administration, and other Republicans.... what do Christians stand for, based exclusively on the words and actions of Jesus Christ? We worship him as a prince of peace. And I think almost all Christians would conclude that whenever there is an inevitable altercation -- say, between a husband and a wife, or a father and a child, or within a given community, or between two nations (including our own) -- we should make every effort to resolve those differences which arise in life through peaceful means. Therein, we should not resort to war as a way to exalt the president as the commander in chief. A commitment to peace is certainly a Christian principle that even ultraconservatives would endorse, at least by worshipping the prince of peace... The alleviation of suffering was a philosophy that was enhanced and emphasized by the life of Christ. Today the ultra-right wing, in both religion and politics, has abandoned that principle of Jesus Christ’s ministry. Those are the two principal things in the practical sense that starkly separate the ultra-right Christian community from the rest of the Christian world: Do we endorse and support peace and support the alleviation of suffering among the poor and the outcast?"
Jimmy Carter [America's first evangelical Christian president and a southern Baptist]
explains how the Christian right isn't Christian at all
The American Prospect, 5 April 2004

"In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its 'biblical lands' (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth..... American pollsters believe that 15-18% of US voters belong to churches or movements which subscribe to these teachings. A survey in 1999 suggested that this figure included 33% of Republicans......  So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president's core vote - in the most powerful nation on Earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelation (9:14-15) maintains that four angels 'which are bound in the great river Euphrates' will be released 'to slay the third part of men'. They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again..... For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it's a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don't get to sit at the right hand of God."
Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
Guardian, 20 April 2007

"Romney's Mormon faith is raising questions with some. But what is Huckabee's relationship with 'Left Behind' author Timothy LaHaye? ...... Huckabee, whose advertisements proclaim that he is a 'Christian leader,' trails Romney by a mere 4 percentage points in the latest Iowa poll. His campaign received a boost from LaHaye, coauthor of best-selling novels, who sent a letter inviting selected pastors to all-expenses-paid conferences in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The only presidential candidate speaking at each event will be Huckabee. So it's perfectly fair to ask whether Huckabee sees eye to eye with LaHaye. If he does, Huckabee - an affable, guitar-playing ex-minister - is a whole lot scarier than many of us have suspected. LaHaye believes that Christians will rise into heaven in The Rapture. The rest of us will be Left Behind - get it? - to face nasty tribulations: plagues, earthquakes, hailstorms and more. During this time of torment, the Book of Revelations predicts, the Antichrist will reign. But in LaHaye's 16 novels, which have sold more than 65 million copies, the Anti-christ is . . . the secretary-general of the United Nations! That's right: The U.N. is itself a kind of deviltry, because it prefigures the rule of Satan....Therefore, the first question for Huckabee should be: What do you think of the United Nations? And if you're elected president, will you reduce or change America's commitment to the U.N. and to other international organizations? The next set of questions should surround Israel. According to LaHaye, the final return of Christ - and the defeat of Satan - will be preceded by the establishment of 'Greater Israel.' That's one big reason why many evangelical Christians are Israel hawks, rejecting a two-state solution and supporting the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Again, somebody should ask Huckabee: Do you favor two states, for the Israelis and Palestinians, or just one? And why? Then there's the war in Iraq. LaHaye has suggested that Saddam Hussein was a 'forerunner of the Antichrist' - and that the Iraq war might itself represent the final, epic battle between Satan and Jesus. "
Scrutinize candidates evenly
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 December 2007

"Huckabee is pro-Israel: He has visited the Jewish state nine times, and told the crowd at the Bedrick house party that he favored the establishment of a Palestinian state - in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Bedrick may see Huckabee as the perfect fit for the White House, but for many American Jews the thought of a staunchly pro-life, ordained Baptist minister as president is a major cause for alarm....Chafets, the American-born Israeli government spokesman turned journalist, told JTA that 'there's no doubt that Huckabee is a Christian conservative in the mold of Falwell or Pat Robertson, speaking politically.' 'He believes in the inerrancy of the Bible,' Chafetz said. 'In other words, he's a fundamentalist. He believes that the Bible could not be mistaken. He's a pre-millennialist Christian. He believes in Armageddon.'..."
Can Huckabee ever win over Jewish voters?
Jerusalem Post, 24 December 2007

"[There are] a range of factors that keep politicians on the straight and narrow with regard to the Middle East. Some of these reasons are to do with internal political developments long in the making. The rise of evangelical Christianity as a political force, especially within the Republican Party, has something to do with it. The belief that the Jews must be returned to the Biblical lands of Judaea and Samaria before the world can end has driven up support for an aggressive Israeli approach to its neighbours in the Holy Land. Those of us who are not evangelical Zionists will feel a little queasy about that idea."
‘Israel right or wrong’ is not a grown-up debate
London Times, 30 March 2007

"'The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. There are 50 million Christians standing up and applauding the State of Israel.' So began a speech by Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United For Israel, before an AIPAC Policy Conference plenary earlier this week. ..... The AIPAC audience granted Hagee multiple standing ovations. The Jewish people, some surely thought, has been waiting two millennia to hear such unalloyed words of contrition and support, and they could not have come at a more propitious time. Understandably, offers of Christian assistance will continue to be met with a considerable degree of wariness. History aside, Jews and evangelical Christians are perhaps the ultimate 'Odd Couple' -- culturally, religiously, politically and even geographically. If all these obstacles are not enough, there is also Jewish concern regarding Christian motives.....there is the suspicion that evangelicals, as their name implies, are out to convert Jews. Second, that their support is colored by doctrines of 'rapture' and the apocalypse, in which a catastrophic global war plays an important part. ' What is going to happen when Jesus comes back?' Hagee said, touching on the second sensitive point. 'I say to my rabbi friends: 'You don't believe it; I do believe it. When we're standing in Jerusalem, and the Messiah is coming down the street, one of us is going to have a major theological adjustment to make. But until that time, let's walk together in support of Israel and in defense of the Jewish people.' .... It is natural, given history, that Jews are wary even of a hand outstretched in friendship, and caution is justified."
Christians For Israel
Jerusalem Post, 14 March 2007

"The Rev. John Hagee, who founded Christians United for Israel....[said].... 'Christians United for Israel is opposed to America pressuring Israel to give up more land to anyone for any reason..... And to say that Palestinians have a right to that land historically is an historical fraud.' Christians United for Israel held a conference with 4,500 attendees in Washington this month......Hagee and others are dispensationalists, Weber said, who interpret the Bible as predicting that in order for Christ to return, the Jews must gather in Israel, the third temple must be built in Jerusalem and the Battle of Armageddon must be fought.Weber said, 'The dispensationalists have parlayed what is a distinctly minority position theologically within evangelicalism into a major political voice.'"
Coalition of American evangelicals issues a letter in support of a Palestinian state
International Herald Tribune, 28 July 2007

"Hagee is even opposed to the Road Map for Peace and a two-state concept, favors the continued colonization of the West Bank, and is against any concessions being given to the Palestinians."
Praying for Armageddon
Moscow News, 6 December 2007

"...John Hagee, [is] an Armageddon prophesier who insists that military confrontation with Iran is foretold in the Bible as a necessary precondition for the Second Coming. Using his best-selling book, 'Jerusalem Countdown,' his internationally broadcast television program, and the viral marketing offered by a network of mega-churches whose pastors have signed on to his new lobbying effort, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Hagee has spent the past six months mobilizing popular support for a war with Iran. Based on his end-times prophecy, a supposed love of the Jewish people and the state of Israel and false claims that Iran is just months away from a viable nuclear weapon, Hagee maintains that confrontation with Iran is necessary to fulfill God’s plan for the future of the world.....Preachers like Hagee seem easy to ignore because we think their audiences, while vast, consists of rank-and-file religious extremists who have no real sway over American policy-makers. But Benny Elon's statement shows that Hagee does have such influence. Gingrich and McCain may or may not believe the Second Coming is imminent, but they do know that a GOP primary presidential campaign is coming soon enough — and they know where the votes are."
Holy War, Unholy Alliance
CBS News, 20 July 2006

"The final instalment of an evangelical Christian publishing phenomenon which has spawned 16 novels and sold 64 million copies arrived in shops across the United States yesterday..... The Left Behind series appeared to chime with the sense of the impending Apocalypse among many Americans, reinforced by the election of President Bush on a faith-based platform and global events which — in some eyes — confirm biblical prophecy. ....   The Left Behind series begins with all born-again Christians being summoned to heaven in the Rapture, as predicted by the Book of Revelation...... Jesus then returns for the Second Coming and slaughters nonbelievers including Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, as well as many Catholics and mainstream Protestants."
Revelations of the last battle as US Bible thriller series comes to end
London Times, 4 April 2007

"Pastor Hagee espouses an end of days theology in which our Jewish people don't fare well at the end of the story unless we convert to Christianity."
Rabbi Barry Block, head of the liberal Reform Jewish community in San Antonio
Pro-Israel Christians Lobby in Washington
National Public Radio (USA), 17 July 2006

"[Rod] Liddle, 48, has enraged sections of the liberal intelligentsia with his repeated and outspoken attacks on Islam, both in the Sunday Times and his weekly columns for The Spectator....The criticisms from the 'golden milieu of columnists' had begun a couple of years earlier after Liddle had attacked Islam in print. He also produced a speech under the heading 'Islamophobia: count me in.' His beef is with the ideology itself, which he sees as oppressive, rather than those who practise it and he was livid at suggestions that he had been controversial just for the sake of it. 'I've never had a go at Muslims, I've always had a go at Islam,' he says. 'I believe absolutely in the right of Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri and Hizb ut-Tahrir to believe what they believe and to proselytise without being persecuted by the state. I think there has been the most appalling persecution of individual Muslims because they subscribe to a particular form of Islam, as if the Government were Koranic experts.' His writing, he says, does not outrage Muslims like it does sections of the commentariat or indeed some Christians. 'When I write things about Islam I get letters and emails from Muslims, which with great politeness and erudition explain why they think I'm wrong and wish me the best. When I write about evangelical Christianity I get death threats, I get told that I'm going to burn in hell for all eternity and so are all my children.' Nonetheless, he is currently working on a documentary on the links between Zionism and evangelical Christianity, one of a series of projects with Juniper television that he is discussing with BBC Two and channel Five. It follows previous religious documentaries Liddle has made for Channel 4 on Christian fundamentalism, atheism, the Bible, and the Middle East."
Rod Liddle: 'I've never had a go at Muslims, only Islam'
Independent, 5 January 2009

'Nothing Is Sacred'

Wishful Thinking - Did Clinton Produce Peace?

"Former senior US diplomat and president of the Foundation of Middle East Peace, Philip Wilcox, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the outcome of the elections was too difficult to predict, due to volatile public opinion until there was a clear outcome to the military offensive..... Wilcox pointed out that if Netanyahu won the election, it could make it easier for the new Barack Obama administration to pressure Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. 'There is a theory at least, that if you have a radical, intransigent Israeli government that seems unwilling to compromise, (and) does not genuinely support a two-state solution, that is somehow easier for the US government to deal with,' Wilcox said. Wilcox also pointed out that Netanyahu had quickly developed an adversarial relation with the former Clinton administration during his tenure as prime minister in the 1990's.' 'In a way, that made it easier for (President) Bill Clinton to put pressure on the Israeli government and support Palestinian positions.'"
Israel: Gaza impact on elections unclear, analysts say
AKI, 16 January 2009

Israel's Last Chance?

"Whatever faint hope President-elect Barack Obama's national security team may have held of pushing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the back burner went up in smoke in recent days. As ever, 'the conflict,' now focused on Gaza, is squarely front and center on a new American president's plate....What better step for a president looking to define a new role for the United States in the 21st century than to lead Arabs and Israelis toward settling their long-running conflict peacefully and comprehensively....What would a bold move by the new president look like? With talk of a first 100-days presidential visit to a Muslim nation, why not use that forum to extend a welcoming American hand to the Arab League Peace Initiative, which offers Israel acceptance from 22 nations in the region in return for a land-for-peace resolution of its conflicts with its neighbors? Following that gesture, why not take Air Force One straight to Israel and use the full weight of the presidency to coax a new Israeli government to accept the invitation to explore the initiative, too. In twin speeches to Muslim and Jewish audiences, outline the clear concessions each side will need to make, and commit to do what it takes personally to make that agreement happen together with key international partners. Imagine the impact in the Middle East and throughout the world on the dismal public perception of the United States. Imagine the impact on Iran if a lower level of anti-American sentiment began to erode its position as leader of the opposition to the U.S. and Israel - or if Syria could be lured from its grasp. Imagine an Israel accepted, finally, by all its neighbors, freed by diplomacy from rockets and terror. Imagine extremist groups deprived of the conflicts that fuel the fires of terror. It's hard to argue how such a move would not serve U.S. interests. Washington hands and Jewish communal leaders may shake their heads - believing no president would ever risk the domestic political fallout they think such an effort might bring. But a transformational president - if that is indeed what Obama intends to be - will recognize not only that the world needs such an initiative but that the American Jewish community is ready for it as are the people of Israel and of Palestine - if not their leaders. A bold Obama-led initiative is perhaps Israel's last chance to find a peaceful way out of a downward spiral caused by a conflict that its own prime minister has now said publicly threatens Israel's viability as a Jewish, democratic state."
Obama Must Seize Opportunity From Crisis
The Jewish Week, 7 January 2008

With Obama Peace Ambitions Already Under Threat
If There's No Plan B, Then What About Plan C?

What Are Obama's Chances After The Israeli Elections
Is This All Leading Nowhere?

"David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, who, now that his boss is courting a new president, has discovered (according to yesterday's Times) that the War on Terror was always a category mistake. 'Terrorism is a deadly tactic,' he said this week, 'not an institution or an ideology.' But how much more useful it would have been for this intelligent and respected Labour MP (since 2001) to have added his support earlier to lonely critics of that view..... It sometimes seems that we all trudge down a long road we suspect is leading nowhere, nursing our private doubts and keeping our mouths tight shut. Who really believes that Barack Obama can turn America round? So why the elaborate ritual of affecting raised hopes and high excitement as his inauguration approaches?   Let those who think this brouhaha optimistic kindly raise their hands now. From the rest, would it be too much to ask for a vow of silence later? No 'I told you so' please. You didn't."
Matthew Paris - Speak out now, or forever hold your peace
London Times, 17 January 2009

The 'No Vision' Stalemate

"As Israel clamps down on the Gaza Strip and prepares for the possibility of sending thousands of soldiers into the Palestinian area controlled by the militant Islamic group Hamas, its leaders are facing a diplomatic conundrum: They have clear military goals but no political vision for how to end the confrontation. 'I don't see how this ends well, even if, in two weeks time, it looks like it ends well,' said Daniel Levy, a political analyst who once served as an adviser to Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister who's now leading the military campaign against Hamas as Israel's defense minister... 'What we want to do is significantly reduce the rocket fire,' said Miri Eisin, a reserve colonel in the Israeli Army and spokeswoman for the Israeli government. 'If Hamas says no more rocket fire, then we'll see where that goes.' Olmert and his government, however, refuse to negotiate directly with Hamas until the group, which is supported by Iran and Syria, renounces its goal of destroying Israel. The standoff worsened last year when, after winning 2006 democratic elections that were backed by the Bush administration, Hamas seized military control of Gaza in a humiliating rout of forces loyal to pragmatic Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas....Since then, Israel and the U.S. have been trying to provide political support to Abbas by trying to revive stagnant peace talks and helping to rebuild his security forces in the West Bank, between Israel and Jordan. The goal is to show the Palestinian voters who propelled Hamas to political power in 2006 that Abbas and his pro-Western government are a better alternative. 'We have a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority,' said Eisin. 'You don't have an alternative to that at the end of the day.' If anything, however, the U.S.-Israeli effort has pushed Abbas and Hamas farther apart and made re-uniting the rival Palestinian factions more difficult. That leaves Israel, the United States and Abbas with few diplomatic options: Hamas refuses to abandon its pledge to destroy Israel while Israel and the U.S. refuse to talk to Hamas until the group does. Abbas, meanwhile, refuses to reconcile with Hamas until the group surrenders control of Gaza."
Analysis: 'I Don't See How This Ends Well' in Gaza
McClatchy Newspapers, 28 December 2008

"Even if Israel wins on the battlefield or in the diplomatic corridors it is already paying the price of its Gaza onslaught in intensified hatred in the hearts of its Palestinian neighbours in the West Bank. The campaign also appears to be increasing public scepticism about the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's chosen path of negotiations as the way to establish an independent state alongside Israel. The diplomacy championed by Mr Abbas has for years been difficult to sell to Palestinians because it has brought little or no relief from occupation or improvement in their daily lives, only the expansion of Israeli settlements. This existing frustration –which helped Hamas defeat Mr Abbas's Fatah movement in the 2006 elections – is now combined with popular anger and dismay at the carnage among fellow Palestinians in Gaza."
The West Bank: We're all Hamas now - supporters of Fatah unite behind enemy
Independent, 9 January 2008

"Aaron David Miller explained the depth of the problem, that the Palestinians are divided; the peace process cannot move forward until there is only one Palestinian authority, and one negotiating delegation. Until Palestinian politics is united there can be no solution to the Palestinian-Israeli problem. 'I am not sure that anyone in London or Washington or Cairo or Tel Aviv or Gaza has an answer now,' he added."
Huda Al Husseini - They’re All With Gaza…Who is With Hamas?
Asharq Alawsat, 17 January 2009

No Plan B

"The [Middle East Peace] talks spawned by Annapolis will be flawed and difficult. But no-one has a plan B, except for more of the same misery they been inflicting on each other for more than 60 years."
Analysis: After Annapolis
BBC Online, 4 December 2007

"It was Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, who said that, far from there being no light at the end of the Middle East tunnel, there was indeed light. The trouble was that there was no tunnel."
That's enough pointless outrage about Gaza
London Times, 30 December 2008

The 'Plan C' Alternative Peace Process Proposal
For Those Interested In Cooling The Temperature In The Middle East And Abandoning The Repeatedly Failed Methods Of The Past 60 Years

"...[part of the problem is] the fearful consciousness of Israelis who still see the world more through the frame of the Holocaust and previous persecutions than through the frame of their actual present power in the world. It breaks my heart to see the terrible suffering in Gaza and in Israel. As a religious Jew I find it all the worse, because it confirms to me how easy it is to pervert the loving message of Judaism into a message of hatred and domination. I remain in mourning for the Jewish people, for Israel and for the world."
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine
It breaks my heart to see Israel's stupidity
London Times, 5 January 2009

How Israel Can Bypass Its Fear-Based Model Of National Defense
Consciousness Based Defense - Israel's Tikkun magazine, May/June 2000 - Click Here