Middle East

NOVANEWS Nov 17, 2010i F.B.I. Seeks Wider Wiretap Law for Web (NYT) WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, traveled to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to meet with top executives of several technology firms about a proposal to make it easier to wiretap Internet users. Mr. Mueller and the F.B.I.’s general counsel, Valerie Caproni, were scheduled to meet with senior managers of several major companies, including Google and Facebook, according to several people familiar with the discussions. How Mr. Mueller’s proposal was received was not clear. “I can confirm that F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller is visiting Facebook during his trip to Silicon Valley,” said Andrew Noyes, Facebook’s public policy manager. Michael Kortan, an F.B.I. spokes...

NOVANEWS November 4, 2010by Dr. Ashraf Ezzat   “The history of Gaza is the history of empires come and empires go but the people of Gaza always remain in the land, They do not go” By: Dr. Ashraf Ezzat A bomb dropped by an Israeli air force F-16 jet exploding in Beit Hanoun, north of the Gaza Strip, on January 3, 2009. When was the last time you thought about death? Was there a time when you felt you were so close to losing your own life? Have you ever experienced that scary feeling-except maybe in the movie theatres? …have you ever felt like not actually living, you’re still breathing … but you’re living as dead? Most people live their lives never thinking about nor contemplating death. It is human nature. We were born to live and think about how to best enjoy our life while we are still...

NOVANEWS Black October of Ehud Barak: Decade to the Slaughter of Palestinians in Israel 04 October 2010  Michael Warschawski, Alternative Information Center (AIC) October 2010. Ten years have passed since the slaughter of the Palestinian population in Israel, a slaughter orchestrated by Ehud Barak and, let’s not ever forget, Professor Shlomo Ben Ami. Two days prior, in areas around mosques and throughout the West Bank, primarily near the checkpoints, the Israeli army slaughtered tens of young, unarmed  Palestinians, later resulting in the use of small arms by the Palestinian police in order to protect their children. The timeline here is extremely important as there are few events the Israeli government has so grossly distorted, and not by chance. In essence, everything began in August 2...

NOVANEWS 22 August 2010  Michael Warschawski, Alternative Information Center (AIC)  Under substantial American pressure, Mahmoud Abbas agreed to “direct negotiations” with Binyamin Netanyahu. The problem for the latter was never in ‘direct’ but in ‘negotiations.’ He knows, as we all do, that the Israeli government has no intention of discussing a solution that could be accepted even by a Palestinian more moderate than Abbas himself; there is also no sign that there will be talk of freezing the settlements, a move that even the Road Map notes as an essential and initial step for conducting negotiations. Netanyahu has already announced that he will demand an initial discussion about security. The fact that the situation is quiet, there are no attacks and hardly even the throwing of roc...

NOVANEWS 11/16/2010 Right-wing Israel advocacy group StandWithUs attacks Jewish Voice for Peace meeting with pepper spray $3 billion in fighter jets to Israel: reward or bribe? US government offers Israel $1-billion-a-month weapons deal for another temporary settlement freeze Two Jewish groups at Columbia U regret to inform you that they can’t hear John Ging’s news from Gaza Lesson from Japan: a review of John Dower’s Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq Young rabbi told Jewish Federations that young Jews are walking away from their community over Israel In any rational order, Lieberman would be a doorman Foxman: American Jews should shut up about Israeli policy and fall into line Fayyad plan: Eat, drink, go to the toilet and shut up ...

NOVANEWS Dear Friends, Tonight’s 6 items begin with a brief ‘don’t say we didn’t know.’  Amos sends these concise messages to remind us that we should know.  If you are not yet on his list, his email follows the episode that he reveals.  Easy to sign on.  And his messages are never more than a paragraph or two, and therefore facilitate your learning about what is happening in Israel and the OPT. The 2nd item is about settler violence towards a teen-aged Palestinian boy.  The episode itself is disgusting.  And that such things can be done to others by supposedly religious people confounds the doing even more.  But then fundamentalists, whatever religion they are, are extremists.  At least this one was not acquitted.  Not that that will help the youngster forget his miserable experience. Ite...

NOVANEWS     Danny Ayalon to Norway: Why can’t you keep your artists under control? Didi Remez | November 16, 2010 at 10:27 | Categories: Diplomacy, Freedom of the Press, Suppression of Dissent | URL: http://wp.me/pHlQV-Kk The Israeli government reaction to the homegrown cultural boycott of the West Bank settlement of Ariel was forceful and blunt: Threaten funding, establish a “Zionist Art Prize” and de-legitimize whoever takes part as fifth-columnists. This should not have been a surprise, coming from a government that has overseen an unprecedented assault on domestic freedom of expression and association. The campaign has been so successful locally that the Foreign Ministry is now trying it on the international stage. Here’s how the Israeli Embassy in Santiago dealt wit...

NOVANEWS Eric Cantor Flexes Muscles for Israel (Israel National News) Jewish Republican Representative Eric Cantor met last week with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and promised him that his party will act as a “check” on the Obama administration. The unusual meeting offers a strong hint that U.S. President Barack Obama will find Congress taking a more assertive role in foreign policy towards Israel. Cantor is set to become the majority leader in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. “Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” according to a statement from his office. “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel...

NOVANEWS Dear Friends, I’d promised myself to send not more than 4 items today, but ended up with 6.  Each time I went over the materials I’d gathered during the day, I ended up saying ‘I can’t not send this.” And though in the end I omitted far more than I included, have decided to let you choose what to read.  It’s after all my business to furnish information, not to tell you what to read.  I fully empathize with those of you who think it’s too much.  I never manage to read even a quarter of the 100-200 emails that I receive daily, however much I try. Now to the items.  I don’t know whether to classify item one as racist or as a picture of current Israeli ethics.  MK Hanin Zuabi was invited by student members of her party, Balad, to come and speak at a conference that they had planned to...

NOVANEWS Road to Hope Convoy to Gaza Members Kidnapped November 14, 2010 by Ken O'Keefe   Road to Hope (R2H) convoy members kidnapped from Libya to Greece Greek Commandos board Strofades IV in Greek Waters The Road to Hope humanitarian aid convoy left London on the 10th of October with £500,000 of medical aid for the besieged people of the Gaza Strip. After travelling 4,500 miles through the UK, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya the convoy stalled at the Egyptian border on October 26th due to an Egyptian refusal to allow land access to Gaza. As a result the convoy leaders had little choice but to secure a ship at significant extra expense and delay. Convoy members kidnapped on the Strofades IV On Wednesday November 10th $82,500 was transferred to the Egyptian Shipping Age...