In 1937 Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. [...] I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in an taken their place.”

In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.”

Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts.”

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers” who could be crushed.

This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people.

– Quoted from “Come September” by Arundhati Roy in The Algebra of Infinite Justice, pp. 284-285

Britain, E.U. Plan Iran Sanctions

16 June 2008

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday announced plans for new sanctions against Iran and a small increase in troops for Afghanistan, handing President Bush a symbolic boost on the last day of his weeklong farewell trip to Europe.

Brown, appearing with Bush at a 10 Downing Street news conference, said Britain and the European Union are expected to act to freeze the assets of Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli, in response to Tehran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

[...]

European action against Bank Melli comes on top of restrictions imposed in October 2007 when the U.S. Treasury Department froze bank assets and halted transactions as part of a broader package of sanctions against state-owned Iranian financial institutions. Bank Melli allegedly sent $100 million to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups from 2002 to 2006, according to Treasury officials.

Treasury has also cut off another major Iranian bank, Bank Saderat, from the U.S. financial system.

“This has been a good trip,” President Bush said at the news conference.

Meanwhile, Israeli sabre-rattling ratchets up another notch, as Der Spiegel reports:

‘MISSION DOABLE’: Israeli Ministers Mull Plans for Military Strike against Iran

The Israeli government no longer believes that sanctions can prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons. A broad consensus in favor of a military strike against Tehran’s nuclear facilities — without the Americans, if necessary — is beginning to take shape.

UPDATE from Reuters via Cryptogon:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from Europe to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear ambitions, an Iranian weekly said.

Press TV, 10 June 2008: Israel launches ‘Iran Command’ for war

BBC, 10 June 2008: US and EU issue new Iran warning (more sanctions threatened)

McClatchy, 11 June 2008: Strike on Iran nuclear sites under discussion again

AP, via Newsday, 12 June 2008: Bush, in Germany, hints at military option on Iran

Jim Lobe speculates a bit, asking: “War?”

Chris Hedges points out that Saint Obama won’t end to US designs on Iran in The Iran Trap

From The Jerusalem Post:

‘Strike against Iran still an option’

The threat of military action against Iran in order to stop Teheran’s nuclear ambitions has not been taken off the table, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned on Tuesday, adding that a decision on how to end the Iranian nuclear crisis should be made now.

“Iran needs to understand that the threat of military action exists and has not been taken off the table,” Livni told Mks during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “As long as that’s made clear, the need to use [military force] will be reduced.”

“The time for a decision is now,” she continued. “Weakness can be interpreted as a form acquiescence.”

“We are clarifying to every official that we meet, that in this region, either you beat up the neighborhood thug, or you join him, and the world needs to be measured by its action,” the foreign minister said.

“The day of decision is not the day of the bomb, and when they have the technology, but rather now,” Livni asserted. “Every hesitation on action against Iran creates an impression of [Israeli and international] weakness within Iran.”

As things look, Israel may well attack Iran soon

By Joschka Fischer

As a result of misguided American policy, the threat of another military confrontation hangs like a dark cloud over the Middle East. The United States’ enemies have been strengthened, and Iran – despite being branded as a member of the so-called “axis of evil” – has been catapulted into regional hegemony. Iran could never have achieved this on its own, certainly not in such a short time.

A hitherto latent rivalry between Iran and Israel thus has been transformed into an open struggle for dominance in the Middle East. The result has been the emergence of some surprising, if not bizarre, alliances: Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas and the American-backed, Shiite-dominated Iraq are facing Israel, Saudi Arabia, and most of the other Sunni Arab states, all of which feel existentially threatened by Iran’s ascendance.

The danger of a major confrontation has been heightened further by a series of factors: persistently high oil prices, which have created new financial and political opportunities for Iran; the possible defeat of the West and its regional allies in proxy wars in Gaza and Lebanon; and the United Nations Security Council’s failure to induce Iran to accept even a temporary freeze of its nuclear program.

Iran’s nuclear program is the decisive factor in this equation, for it threatens irreversibly the region’s strategic balance. That Iran – a country whose president never tires of calling for Israel’s annihilation and that threatens Israel’s northern and southern borders through its massive support of proxy wars waged by Hizbullah and Hamas – might one day have missiles with nuclear warheads is Israel’s worst security nightmare. Politics is not just about facts, but also about perceptions. Whether or not a perception is accurate is beside the point, because it nonetheless leads to decisions.

This applies in particular when the perception concerns what the parties consider to be threats to their very existence. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats of annihilation are taken seriously in Israel because of the trauma of the Holocaust. And most Arab governments share the fear of a nuclear Iran. Earlier this month, Israel celebrated its 60th birthday, and US President George W. Bush went to Jerusalem to play a leading part in the commemoration. But those who had expected that his visit would mainly be about the stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians were bitterly disappointed. Bush’s central topic, including his speech to Israel’s Knesset, was Iran. Bush had promised to bring the Middle East conflict closer to a resolution before the end of his term this year. But his final visit to Israel seemed to indicate that his objective was different: he seemed to be planning, together with Israel, to end the Iranian nuclear program – and to do so by military, rather than by diplomatic, means.

Anyone following the press in Israel during the anniversary celebrations and listening closely to what was said in Jerusalem did not have to be a prophet to understand that matters are coming to a head. Consider the following:

First, “stop the appeasement!” is a demand raised across the political spectrum in Israel – and what is meant is the nuclear threat emanating from Iran.

Second, while Israel celebrated, Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying that a life-and-death military confrontation was a distinct possibility.

Third, the outgoing commander of the Israeli Air Force declared that the air force was capable of any mission, no matter how difficult, to protect the country’s security. The destruction of a Syrian nuclear facility last year, and the lack of any international reaction to it, were viewed as an example for the coming action against Iran.

Fourth, the Israeli wish list for US arms deliveries, discussed with the American president, focused mainly on the improvement of the attack capabilities and precision of the Israeli Air Force.

Fifth, diplomatic initiatives and UN sanctions when it comes to Iran are seen as hopelessly ineffective.

And sixth, with the approaching end of the Bush presidency and uncertainty about his successor’s policy, the window of opportunity for Israeli action is seen as potentially closing.

The last two factors carry special weight. While Israeli military intelligence is on record as saying that Iran is expected to cross the red line on the path to nuclear power between 2010 and 2015 at the earliest, the feeling in Israel is that the political window of opportunity to attack is now, during the last months of Bush’s presidency.

Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won’t stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

The Middle East is drifting toward a new great confrontation in 2008. Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin.

The most recent offer by the six powers – the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany – is on the table, and it goes very far in accommodating Iran’s interests. The decisive question, however, will be whether it will be possible to freeze the Iranian nuclear program for the duration of the negotiations to avoid a military confrontation before these negotiations are completed. Should this newest attempt fail, things will soon get serious. Deadly serious.

From Asia Times Online:

Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’

NEW YORK – The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear.

The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force. With an estimated strength of up to 90,000 fighters, the Quds’ stated mission is to spread Iran’s revolution of 1979 throughout the region.

Targets could include IRGC garrisons in southern and southwestern Iran, near the border with Iraq. US officials have repeatedly claimed Iran is aiding Iraqi insurgents. In January 2007, US forces raided the Iranian consulate general in Erbil, Iraq, arresting five staff members, including two Iranian diplomats it held until November. Last September, the US Senate approved a resolution by a vote of 76-22 urging President George W Bush to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization. Following this non-binding “sense of the senate” resolution, the White House declared sanctions against the Quds Force as a terrorist group in October. The Bush administration has also accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program, though most intelligence analysts say the program has been abandoned.

An attack on Iraq would fit the Bush administration’s declared policy on Iraq. Administration officials questioned directly about military action against Iran routinely assert that “all options remain on the table”.

Related:

• CASMII summary of recent anti-Iran sabre-rattling
• Israeli PM Olmert requests US act of war against Iran
• Arch-criminal Kissinger’s “other measures” for Iran
• Hypocritical toward Iran nuclear issue: how shocking!
• Bush’s Iran diplomacy is a sham; admits US Defence Secretary
• US, Israel signal war on Iran
• War with Iran might be closer than you think
• Report: US convenes on Iran war scenario

Shiraz bombers admit US, Zionist links

24 May 2008

Iran’s Prosecutor General has said perpetrators of the deadly blast in the Iranian city of Shiraz have confessed to links to the US and Israel.

“The secular agents behind the brutal and terrorist bombing of a religious and cultural center in Shiraz have confessed to having links to the world arrogance, in particular the United States and the Zionist regime,” IRNA quoted Qorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi as saying.

He added that countries which claim to be defending human rights have no qualms about threatening the Iranian nation with bombs and violence.

“Apparently, the group has also carried out one or two minor operations in other parts of the country. The Islamic world is currently aware of the US plots against Muslims,” he said.

The US and other elements of the world arrogance are enemies of the Holy Qur’an and independence of Islamic countries, he noted, stressing that Muslims should remain vigilant against the deceitful acts of the US and its Zionist ally.

Najafabadi noted that 10 bombers involved in the event and other agents cooperating with the group outside Fars Province have been arrested so far and investigations are underway to identify and arrest other members of the group.

The explosion on April 12 killed 13 people and injured more than 200 in a religious and cultural center in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz.

From Haaretz:

Olmert to U.S.: Impose naval blockade on Iran

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has proposed in discussions with the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, that a naval blockade be imposed on Iran as one of several ways to pressure Iran into stopping its uranium enrichment program.

From The Jerusalem Post:

US denies report on plan to attack Iran

The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term. It said that while the military option had not been taken off the table, the Administration preferred to resolve concerns about Iran’s push for a nuclear weapon “through peaceful diplomatic means.”

Army Radio had quoted a top official in Jerusalem claiming that a senior member in the entourage of President Bush, who concluded a trip to Israel last week, had said in a closed meeting here that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action against Iran was called for.

The official reportedly went on to say that “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic for the time being.

From the Atlantic Free Press.

Nakba March

Sunday, 18 May 2008
by Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties. Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed off to the country’s forests to enjoy the national pastime: a barbecue.

But this year’s Independence Day festivities have concealed as much as they have revealed. The images of joy and celebration seen by the world have failed to acknowledge the reality of a deeply divided Israel, shared by two peoples with conflicting memories and claims to the land.

They have also served to shield from view the fact that the Palestinians’ dispossession is continuing in both the occupied territories and inside Israel itself. Far from being a historical event, Israel’s “independence” — and the ever greater toll it is inflicting on the Palestinian people — is very much a live issue.

Away from the cameras, a fifth of the Israeli population — more than one million Palestinian citizens — remembered al-Nakba, the Catastrophe of 1948 that befell the Palestinian people as the Jewish state was built on the ruins of their society.

As it has been doing for the past decade, Israel’s Palestinian minority staged an alternative act of commemoration: a procession of families, many of them refugees from the 1948 war, to one of more than 400 Palestinian villages erased by Israel in a monumental act of state vandalism after the fighting. The villages were destroyed to ensure that the 750,000 Palestinians expelled from the state under the cover of war never return.

But in a sign of how far Israel still is from coming to terms with the circumstances of its birth, this year’s march was forcibly broken up by the Israeli police. They clubbed unarmed demonstrators with batons and fired tear gas and stun grenades into crowds of families that included young children.

Read the rest at Atlantic Free Press.