Islamophobia: Between Propaganda and Facts

I am not a hater or a defender of Islam, I am not a spokesperson of Europe or Austria, of leftist or rightist parties, and religion is far away from my interests. I sent this article, “Islamophobia between propaganda and facts” in response to Professor F.H. from the University of Vienna, who wrote to tell me about his speech in acceptance of a prestigious award for his book about islamophobia in Austria. Dr. F.H sent me an e-mail saying: “I have just visited your homepage and thought that you may find this interesting: http://www …”. I read the speech of the doctor and I sent him as answer what I wrote below. I asked him to permit me to publish his speech. I have not yet received an answer from him. Even the issue of “islamophobia” is not something that I see touches me directly, and until Professor F.H. wrote me, was not something I would have given too much thought. I think that labeling this complex political issue as “phobia” on part of the Europeans rests from its urgency and also belittles the real worries of many people.

Dear F.H.,

Thank you for your interest in my writing, and for sharing with me the very interesting text of your speech. I think that it accurately reflects a part of the problem. I normally do not talk about this subject, and religion is also far away from my interests. Your speech about islamophobia brought this issue to my attention again. I think that islamophobia is actually hatred and violence directed against women under the guise of religion and religious differences. Hopefully, on a day not too distant, a cleansing process similar to what has been forced upon the Catholic Church will take place within Muslim communities too. On that day, I will be the first one to open my mouth to relate what I have heard from other women and seen myself.

In my view, and from my experience, we are individually and as communities of immigrants responsible for how the peoples of the countries perceive and receive us. While many people like to think that we come here with rights, it is too often forgotten that we also come here with duties, like respecting the peoples, cultures and customs, the laws and the religion of these countries. We do not need to forget our culture, which is part of us, and we also have no right to impose our culture and values on the Austrians and the other European peoples. As foreigners, regardless of out legal status in these countries which have received us very well on average, we must know how to be foreigners and always remember that each one of us is an ambassador for all of us.

The Austrians, and other European peoples, correctly view us as “other” and “foreigners”, whom they must get to know better before extending us their personal approval or rejection. This has nothing to do with “racism” or “islamophobia” but is normal to thinking, adult persons. Racism, religious discrimination, misogyny and other forms of hatred of the “other” are almost always instigated by groups acting for their own political and/or economic interest, building on this perception of “other” which is natural to us all. “Islamophobia”, the rejection and hatred of all people and things identified as “Muslim” and “Islamic”, is exactly one such phenomenon: hatred of the other because of who and what they are not, instigated by interests which try to remain in the shadows.

But also, “islamophobia” as you call it, does not happen in a vacuum, it happens in the context of many anecdotal events which are perceived and remembered by the silent majority of Europeans who have seen Muslims living here during the last several decades. In my experience, Islam is perceived as misogynist by westerners, and the most often discussed trait of Islam among westerners is treatment of women. Europeans see, and correctly reject in disgust, the miserable conditions in which many Muslim women live and how they are treated. What are most visible to Europeans in public are Muslim women walking around covered to various degrees, in shabby attire which reflects miserable living conditions. Covered Muslim women have become the symbol for everything about Islam that is objectionable. These women at once are the victims of a system of brutal suppression exerted on them by misguided men under the influence of interpretations of Islamic religious literature which are simply wrong, and at the same time they carry the full weight of the rejection of these host societies while being the weakest and most vulnerable members of these Muslim immigrant communities.

While the religion of Islam offers ample material which recommends treating women in the most respectful way, it is true that a morass of customs and a whole culture of hatred based on misinterpretations of the religious texts in ways which are against women exists in most Islamic countries, and that these customs are for the most part followed in Muslim communities throughout the western countries. The religious literature says that “the wives of the believers” should cover (dress) themselves in a way which makes them appear as respectable and respected members of society and which will not specifically identify them as “wives of believers. In cases where a woman of exceptional beauty fears that she will be harmed because of this, she may cover herself.

These orders were given by God to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and to his followers during a time when Islam existed surrounded by pagans not always well-disposed towards Muslims. In my knowledge, there are no Prophets and Khalifas in our day, but merely men imposing their power upon women by use of raw force and under the pretext of wrong interpretations of Islam, and worse, by disregarding all respect for them.

The introduction of covers like Niqab under the guise of religious duty could be seen as blasphemous. For Muslim women living in western societies to cover themselves using Niqab, Burqa or even less restrictive attires, has the net effect of bringing social disadvantages upon themselves and their families, so alone on this account the practice should be viewed as being against the Islamic religion. Cover of any kind should also be seen as unnecessary because all women are protected in their persons and rights by law which are generally respected, and customs respectful towards women which are the cause of pride to many Europeans.

What is much less visible in public, and is never spoken about, is the comportment of Muslim men towards their female relatives and other women. Two cases in point are a recent case which happened in Vienna about which I wrote (see here and see here), and the case of the woman who was recently fined for driving with a veil in France. I saw her husband flippantly claiming on TV that there is nothing in law forbidding one to have a mistress or four. How can these women allow themselves being denigrated in public in such a way, characterized as doxies by the man who is their husband under Islamic religious law? Why did the woman seen with him on TV not spit on him?

Fact is, laws forbidding polygamy in European jurisdictions are routinely circumvented in this way, by declaring the “other” wives as mistresses or not at all. Many Muslim men living here often enough marry several women under Islamic law and not declare these (illegal) marriages before the government. These undeclared wives will then be sent to ask for money from the government, often expressly forbidden by the husband to work even if she would like to. If the woman objects, she will be subject to violence, threatened with divorce or sent back to her parents, what will render her unmarriable and dishonorable, sealing her fate. If there are children, the man often keeps them, as they also mean “income” from social services. This process can be repeated. This practice also bases on a “convenient” interpretation of Islamic literature. Fact is, the Quran allows a man to marry up to 4 women IF he is wealthy and has the means to sustain them. Also, it must be noted that this practice was originally intended to protect widows and destitute women from social decline or poverty, and not so that lazy men could send women to beg money for them.

Today it is still normal to find Muslim women living in Europe submitted to genital mutilation, for them to be locked in by their fathers, husbands or sons, to be brought up to be servants of their male relatives, to be coerced into polygamous relations, to be engaged by their fathers, as children, to boys in far-away lands and to be shipped off as soon as they arrive at puberty. Boys on their part are taught to expect that their sisters, mothers and daughters must obey their whims at once. Woe to the woman of Muslim background who does not submit to this system of suppression and repression, as we must fear being murdered by the family for “honor”, and if this is not possible here, to be shipped back to where the family originated and have the deed done by a cousin or uncle, or be forced to marry somebody there. A personal acquaintance, somebody who has lived for 40 years and prospered here, told me that “to receive a girl in this society is a catastrophe” (because women could learn to think by themselves), from another I know that he shipped a daughter aged 14 off to be married to somebody in a catastrophe area.

In the current misguided discussion about Burka, Niqab and other forms of cover, the losers are women in all cases. The net result of the law proposed in France by that simpleton Sarközy, and similar laws and edicts which will probably follow throughout Europe, will be that most of these women, who must cover themselves in public in order to not fall afoul of their male relatives, will not be able to participate in life beyond the walls of their homes, they will effectively be put under house arrest.

If we wish to eliminate the visible signs of mistreatment and dejection of women within Muslim communities, laws can only be the last step of the process. The change should come from within the communities, and it should involve not only an abstract change in thinking, but the active disenfranchisement of religious and political figures which in any way or form tolerate, condone or even look the other way when it comes to the dehumanization, mistreatment or suppression of women for any reasons whatsoever. This should not be limited to the figures within the Muslim communities, but should extend to judges who excuse violence against women because “such are the customs of the perpetrator”, as was recently the case in a verdict in Korneuburg if I remember correctly.

I think that visibly taking responsibility for the lacking treatment of women from within Muslim communities will go a long way in conferring these communities, and Muslims in general, more acceptance and respectability from outside and ultimately give us influence in the political process of the country.

Beyond the women issue, what the Austrians (and other Europeans) see of us Muslims, and this determines their perception of us, are community markets which are increasingly dominated by Muslim immigrants and which do not meet their expectations of hygiene, a proliferation of Kebab-stands which sell inedible wares and blight the city, favoritism from of the authorities, which are seen as lowering their standards when conceding business permits to immigrants, courts of justice which condone violence against women on part of Muslim men, cover-up on side of the commercial media of crimes perpetrated by Muslim immigrants, vast abuse of the social system on side of mostly Muslim immigrants, gangs of Muslim immigrant youths on the streets who do not care about the customs of the country, who are often involved in violence, harassment of women and petty crime against others.

We must also take responsibility for this, as we can not expect from the common European, Austrian man or woman to understand what causes all these issues, which in sum threaten, to them, to overwhelm the character of this country as a place worthy living in. To them we are people who have brought problems here which did not exist before. I think that these issues should be taken care of, in the best interest of everybody.

The FPÖ and their objectionable anti-foreigner stance, the Swiss minaret referendum and other related issues are perfectly valid and legitimate expressions of the worries of an increasing part of the people of Austria and other European countries. It is wrong to dismiss them as “racist” without a second thought, and we do so at our own peril. The FPÖ, the minaret referendum, and related political issues are at once made possible by decades of constant propaganda demonizing and dehumanizing Muslims, Arabs and anything and anybody related to us, by behavior of immigrant Muslim communities which is objectively and visibly inappropriate when taking in consideration the laws, expectations and values of the Austrians, and by (perceived) attitudes and activities of the academic and political agencies of public life which are appropriate towards exacerbating existing conflicts, not to solve them in the best interest of us all.

What the Europeans and Austrians seldom see, are the many immigrants from Muslim countries who have become doctors, engineers, academics, traders, workers and employees, who together with their families have done their best to integrate into and contribute their part to the society of this country, people who often do not rest on religion as the main trait defining their identity. These people, who do not correspond to the image of retrograde, extremist religious zealots, are seldom shown in the media and are at best given lip service by established political forces. This shows, in my opinion, that the religious groups which are traded as our representatives on the political scene in this country do not represent our interests well, and that they probably do not understand which are the interests of this community outside their own shortsighted views. I hold that our common interests should not be represented against Austrian customs as seems to be the case, but within what is considered acceptable by the Austrians who are not of immigrant background.

While the clienteles of FPÖ and similar forces on the “right” of the political spectrum complain about what are the most visible activities and attitudes of immigrant Muslim communities, my impression is that the “left” of the established political spectrum, out of opportunism, courts out of political opportunism (securing votes) groups constituted around a reactionary religious establishment which at once promotes a role of women which is undesirable by Austrian (actually, any) standards, which promotes exactly the attitudes criticized by the “right”, and which stands in the way of a constructive and lasting integration into a common Austrian culture of Muslim immigrants.

The main outside factor in the generation of “islamophobia” is in my opinion a decades old, pervasive, subtle and brutal propaganda campaign which is being waged through all western media with a very definite and clear intention. The visible political movements of the right, such as FPÖ in Austria, have nothing to do with this campaign; they are only opportunists picking the ripe fruit falling from this tree of evil. Without exception, western media portrays Muslims as a mixture of dangerous wild beasts, crazy religious zealots, woman beaters, terrorists, violence-prone idiots, thieves, rabble, backward, uneducated, dishonest desert-dwellers, and with other even less appealing and even more dehumanizing epithets which hugely overstate and exaggerate social problems which we have.

In sum, this relentless campaign of propaganda against Muslims can be characterized as being the second or third stage of genocide if we restrict our view to Europe – see

I include a quote from that Wikipedia article, which I think mentions clearly what this campaign of vilification of Muslims is about:

… members of the dominant society must perceive their potential victims as less than fully human: as “pagans,” “savages,” “uncouth barbarians,” “unbelievers,” “effete degenerates,” “ritual outlaws,” “racial inferiors,” “class antagonists,” “counterrevolutionaries,” and so on. In themselves, these conditions are not enough for the perpetrators to commit genocide. To do that—that is, to commit genocide—the perpetrators need a strong, centralized authority and bureaucratic organization as well as pathological individuals and criminals. Also required is a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators, who are usually new states or new regimes attempting to impose conformity to a new ideology and its model of society.

The results of this unrelenting propaganda campaign are impressive, and in sum they have shown themselves as extremely useful for the ruling elites of the western nations, to which Austria ultimately belongs. Countries which are dominantly Muslim or where sizable Muslim minorities live either are ruled by ruthless and murderous dictatorships which are invariably backed by US or European secret services, or they are the victims of interminable strings of wars, overt and covert genocide, or various stages of civil war. In these countries, the suppression of women from the social process is part of the warfare of these western-backed criminal regimes against the peoples which they rule by terror.

This is the picture between Morocco in the West and Philippines in the East. A prime example of such a regime is the wretchedly criminal PA which has been imposed upon Palestine by the zionists. As a result of this propaganda campaign, the genocide against Palestinians being perpetrated by zionist jews is regularly portrayed as something honorable in character, two wars between Iran and Iraq instigated by the CIA and MI6 were somehow dismissed in the media as “business as usual between brutes”, the wholesale destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan and the ensuing genocides perpetrated by the USA against these peoples are portrayed in the media as “the right thing to do”, “our only alternative”, “war against terror”, and other wholesome falsities.

As a result of this campaign, it is possible for Germany to give for free to the criminal operation called Israel six or seven submarines able to launch nuclear weapons; it is possible for president Sarközy to say that he wants to “Karcherize” the banlieus and be applauded as funny instead of being dismissed as the bigoted racist which he is; it is possible for Austria to support with troops for about 40 years the occupation of the Golan heights, in direct contravention to international law, and defend this as “peace keeping”; it is possible for the USA to account for the disappearance of 5 million Afghanis since the invasion in 2001 with a simple “accounting error” claim instead of seeing this as an instance of genocide; it is possible for the zionists to get away with over 60 years of dedicated genocide against us Palestinians and explain it away as “nation building”; it is possible for the city of Vienna to finance at enormous cost a PR campaign of the city of Tel Aviv which is designed to justify and normalize genocide and cleanse the stench of murder from Israel; it is possible for Ehud Barak, a criminal accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, to visit Austria and be called a “friend”. Many other similar instances of insane behavior and shows of moral depravity are all made possible by this campaign, and we see them everyday on TV mostly without noticing them.

This campaign of propaganda and perception management works through all media and many institutions of public life: it consists of computer games such as “Call of Duty 4” or “ Amer icas Army” where Muslim enemies, always portrayed as terrorists brandishing RPGs and AK47 guns can be shot at will; it consists of out-of-place skits by american actor Eddy Murphy which force the line that Muslims are terrorists; it consists of the misrepresentation of legitimate political groups in Muslim countries as terrorists; it happens each time when an Arab or Muslim from far-away lands is called “radical muslim” in news programs such as ZIB; of articles published in zionist newspapers which misrepresent, obfuscate and justify the zionist crimes against Palestinians; it consists of the vile bigot Sascha Baron Cohen and his “Borat” character, and of the director of the University of Vienna who disallowed a speech by Dr. Norman Finkelstein about the zionist crimes in Palestine on his premises of the university.

The most potent weapon of this propaganda campaign is the abstract slander of “anti-semitism”, which, while nobody knows exactly what it means, makes everybody shudders at being the target of this accusation, and it effectively silences any criticism of the many crimes of the zionist interests in its tracks.

This unrelenting campaign of vilification and active suppression of Muslims in western media should concern everybody, Muslims, Christians and also the followers of other religions. To ignore it for much longer will ultimately allow for “justified” outright mass murder against Muslims in many western nations, as has been the case in isolated incidents in Thailand, India, and the Philippines. When that happens, it will be too late, perhaps for decades, to look for a common ground with other population groups.

The campaign is waged by zionist interests, it is designed to vilify, belittle, dehumanize Muslims everywhere in ways not easily identifiable to the casual consumer of media, because they, zionists, perceive Arabs and Muslims (right or wrong) in general as a primary “support group” of the Palestinian cause, which they must discredit and weaken in order to attain legitimacy for their colonization of Palestine. In western countries, among them Austria, the campaign also has the purpose of hindering solidarity between Christians and Muslims, as it denigrates the “other” side and so prevents us to see that we actually have many common interests when we see beyond outwardly apparent differences.

As interested Muslims, we should concern us with solving to the best of our capacity the existing and most visible problems in our communities, starting with the suppression of women. Of equal urgency is that we concern us actively with the propaganda campaign waged by zionist interests against us. We will survive neither as communities nor as individual persons if we do not interest us in these problems affecting us. In order to be able to counter the vilification directed against us, Muslims must first solve the internal problems which affect these communities. We should equally take account of the worries of the host societies into which we have come, not by silencing them and denigrating their worries as racism or worse, but by respecting their laws and traditions, by listening to them attentively and doing our best to find the common ground which we have.

Lastly, it is of primary importance for a peaceful and constructive coexistence to unmask zionism as a poisonous, criminal ideology which parasitizes upon judaism just as the Nazi ideology parasitized upon the idea of being German, because no sensible discussion of politics in any context is possible without extensively analyzing the mostly undue influence exerted by zionists in political and social processes.

by Kawther Salam

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Palestine is Not a Humanitarian Issue

Vienna – 24 March 2010 – Kawther Salam –

See more pictures.

“The Palestinian issue is not a humanitarian or relief issue. It is highly political. Thank you all for the financial support which you presented us. The Ministry of Planning has 84 finance files, but we can not plan, implement or develop these projects because of the occupation. Therefore, we must put before your eyes that helping the Palestinian people needs to end the Israeli occupation and to establish the Palestinian independent state. Without achieving these goals, everything stays in the same place under the occupation”. This was the brief statement by Dr. Ali Al-JArbawi, Minister of Planning and Administrative Development at the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah during the opening session of seminar on assistance to the Palestinian People held at the UN Vienna.

The seminar is held under the auspices of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian, under the theme “Building institutions and moving forward with the establishment of a State of Palestine”. The opening session was headed by Zahir Tanin, ambassador and permanent representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York, head of the delegation of the committee on the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. He underlined that the Seminar would focus on the Program of the Palestinian Authority, entitled “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State,” also known as the Fayyad Plan. The Plan’s success would be determined by the measure of progress in the political area. At the international level, support needed to be built for the broad recognition of an independent Palestinian State. After the projected two years, that recognition could be enshrined in a Security Council resolution that would clearly determine the borders of the Palestinian State based on the pre-1967 lines.

Tanin said that the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories must be ended without conditions, what would allow the Palestinian people to establish an independent State on all territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and to exercise their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination. The two-State solution should be based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003) and 1850 (2008). Only serious and sustained international engagement would bring about a negotiated settlement of all outstanding issues and reverse the growing support for radical forces. Click on Pictures to make them bigger.

“Settlements are illegal under international law and the Roadmap calls for a full settlement freeze, including in East Jerusalem. I conveyed the position of the United Nations on these issues to Israel’s leaders” said Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General in a Statement which was read by Maxwell Gaylard, the deputy UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace process and United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory. Ki-moon said that the closure of access into Gaza is not acceptable, unsustainable and counter-productive. More than a year has passed since the end of the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel. While there has been a substantial decrease in violence, widespread civilian recovery has not yet begun in Gaza. Reconstruction of destroyed and damaged buildings and infrastructure remains nearly impossible due to the continuing Israeli closure and the resulting lack of materials.

Ki-moon talked about his personal visit of the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, He said: “I just returned from a tour of the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, I saw for myself the situation on the ground and the work that is being done to build the institutions of a future Palestinian state. I met with both Palestinian and Israeli leaders and discussed the political process and the path ahead.

[use Open Image in New Window to see pictures enlarged in full]

Speakers at the opening session.

During the Seminar opening session, Johannes Kyrle, Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs of Austria, said in his brief that “No peace, no security, no prosperity would ever be sustainable without democratic public institutions, based on the rule of law and complemented by civil society participation”. He added: “Austria and the donor community would assist the Palestinian people in realizing their aspirations and offer full political support to all efforts towards a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something which would benefit Palestinians and Israelis alike and which would be the basis for a stable and prosperous Middle East”.

Kyrle said that “the seminar is dedicate to the crucial challenge of institution-building and establishing the Palestinian State, a task which also lays at the heart of the European Union, the Quartet, the international community had once again reconfirmed its unwavering assistance to the establishment of the State of Palestine. It has expressed its support to the plan of the Palestinian Authority, “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State”, which aims at finalizing the process in 24 months. That was also the time period which the Quartet deemed appropriate for coming to a negotiated settlement that would end the occupation which began more than 40 years ago.

The representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Il Chul Ri, pointed out during the seminar that “many countries were calling upon the United Nations and the international community to end at once the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip, take effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians and provide the necessary assistance to them. Israel, however, was expanding settlements and demanding a conditional peace treaty. The reason why the Palestinian problem continued to remain unresolved lay in the complicity with the Israeli occupation of the United States and a few other countries. Israel must immediately stop all its actions aimed at permanent occupation, including military operations, air strikes, settlement construction and the economic blockade.

Other statements were delivered during the first, second and noon sessions of the seminar, which can be read in the UNIS press releases posted below.

My Opinion
Listening to the statements delivered during the introductory session of the seminar, I was forced to ask myself if I lived on the same planet as these genteel people, able to splutter so many unctuous words, calling on Palestinians to “shoulder their share of the responsibility”, to “renounce violence”, speaking about the grandiose plan of the PA to construct a new city in the West bank or to create a new bank to “help business develop”, speaking of “bettering conditions” in Palestine. The completely lacking connection between these statements and the reality on the ground could not be greater.

There is no improvement anywhere in Palestine, the truth is that the PA can and will not even offer minimal protection to the Palestinian people, they even go so far as to protect the Israeli soldiers and the squatters. Collectively, the Palestinians have been pauperized by decades of thefts and crime on the side of the invaders, not only tolerated but often copied by the PA. It is ludicrous to plan to engage in the construction of a whole city when until now the squatters have destroyed every single project of the PA, when they even concede in personal conversations that there is “no security” “no guarantees”.

The plan to create a bank to “give credit” to Palestinian businesses is also crass to say the least. It borders on perversion to let the whole society become destroyed, and then to further the destruction of the people with the help of usury. If the PA really had the best interest of all Palestinians at heart, they would find ways and means to lay claim on the considerable estates of Israel and other Zionist organizations and individuals as reparations. This is politically feasible, and it could easily be done in a way that future allies would reap handsome reward for the simple act of standing for their own interests and adhering to standing laws, national and international.

My personal experience is all I need in order to know about the PA and how far from reality are the statements which I heard today, with few exceptions. I am a refugee living in exile and without the possibility of ever returning to Palestine because the PA, which represents itself as a government of Palestine and for Palestinians, failed me in their most basic duty, which would be to protect me from internal and external enemies (Israeli occupation), and of upholding the law of the land. My relatives and friends, who still lives in Palestine, are equally witness to their failure. The members of my extended friends are mostly impoverished because the PA is unable or unwilling to contain the occupation; they are victims of crime because the PA is unable to protect them.

In politics the question of legitimacy is posed in similar situations, but in the case of the PA it is not possible to ask about legitimacy without first asking if they comprehend the reality of the situation in Palestine.

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Here is the UNIS Press release

VIENNA, 24 March – The situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory remained of concern, particularly in Gaza and East Jerusalem, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People in as it opened in Vienna.

Reporting on his recent trip to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, he said in a message read by the Deputy United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Maxwell Gaylard, that “the closure [of crossings into Gaza] is unacceptable, unsustainable and counter-productive.” A durable solution required the opening of the crossings for both humanitarian and commercial goods to and from Gaza, with measures in place to end weapons smuggling. Palestinian actors must do their part by bringing an end to violence and rocket attacks and rising above partisan interests to pursue the reunification of Gaza and the West Bank.

The two-day Seminar under the theme “Building institutions and moving forward with establishing the State of Palestine” was organized by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and aimed at raising the profile of and garnering support for the Programme of the Palestinian Authority entitled “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State”. The Seminar would also assess the current socio-economic situation in the occupied Palestinian territory; discuss the urgency of bringing relief to the Gaza Strip; and look into ways of mobilizing broad international assistance in support of the Palestinian economy and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people.

In this morning’s keynote address, the Minister for Planning and Administrative Development of the Palestinian Authority, Ali Al-Jarbawi, said the Palestinian Government Programme reaffirmed Palestinians’ explicit commitment to the two-State solution and the Authority stood ready to engage in final status negotiations, which should not be open-ended. The Plan was aimed at bringing real progress towards peace, recognizing that open-ended negotiations have not, and never would, bear fruit. “Palestinians cannot be coerced into co-existence with a fragmented State of leftovers – a State isolated by cantons separated by walls and checkpoints, guarded by soldiers of another State,” he said.

The two-year Programme consisted of eleven national goals on the path to realizing the vision of a peaceful and prosperous Palestine, aiming to bring equality and social justice to all its citizens and guaranteeing equal rights, freedoms and opportunities for all, free from discrimination. Important progress had been made in implementing the Programme, he said, which clearly demonstrated the ability of the Palestinian Authority to govern and deliver services. “Just imagine for a moment what we Palestinians could achieve if freed from the shackles of occupation. And imagine the frustration that we Palestinians feel at being denied the freedom to control our own destiny for so many decades,” he said.

He hoped that the international community would step up its condemnation of Israeli actions that continued to take Palestinians backwards, saying, “Despite the apparent determination of Israel to continue to hold on to occupied Palestinian land and resources, my message to you today is that there is a willing and proactive Palestinian partner for peace.”

Opening statements were also made by Johannes Kyrle, Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs of Austria, the host country, and Zahir Tanin, Head of the Delegation of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York.

Statements were also made by representatives of the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, Lebanon, Iran, Morocco, Syria and Algeria. The Observers of the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union also spoke, as did a representative of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Opening Statements
In a message of welcome, JOHANNES KYRLE, Secretary-General for Foreign Affairs of Austria, said the Seminar was dedicated to the crucial challenge of institution-building and establishing the Palestinian State, a task which also lay at the heart of the European Union. No peace, no security, no prosperity would ever be sustainable without democratic public institutions, based on the rule of law and complemented by civil society participation.

He said that through the Quartet, the international community had once again reconfirmed its unwavering assistance to the establishment of the State of Palestine. It had expressed its support to the Palestinian Authority Plan “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State”, which aims at finalizing the process in 24 months. That was also the time period the Quartet deemed appropriate for coming to a negotiated settlement that would end the occupation which began more than 40 years ago.

He called on Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to re-engage in negotiations as soon as possible and in good faith. The Secretary-General of the United Nations had praised the quiet courage of the Palestinians and had called on them to choose the path of non-violence, unity and international legitimacy during his recent visit to the Gaza Strip, the one area with the most painful contradiction between the legitimate aspirations of a people and the failure of political efforts to improve their living conditions.

Austria and the donor community would assist the Palestinian people in realizing their aspirations and offer full political support to all efforts towards a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something which would benefit Palestinians and Israelis alike and which would be the basis for a stable and prosperous Middle East, he said.

In a message delivered by MAXWELL GAYLARD, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process and Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, United Nations Secretary-General BAN KI-MOON reported on his recent tour of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel following a meeting of the Quartet Principals in Moscow, where the Quartet had reiterated its strong commitment to the two-State solution and the need for resumed negotiation to move quickly to achieve that goal.

He said the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory remained of concern, particularly in Gaza and East Jerusalem. In Gaza, reconstruction of destroyed and damaged buildings and infrastructure remained nearly impossible due to the Israeli closure. He had informed the people in Gaza that the Government of Israel had approved a number of United Nations civilian recovery projects involving water and sanitation, the repair of a flour mill, the provisions of containers to temporarily accommodate schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the completion of a United Nations housing project, among other things. That package of recovery projects, however, represented only a first step.

He said, “The closure is unacceptable, unsustainable and counter-productive.” A durable solution required the opening of the crossings for both humanitarian and commercial goods to and from Gaza, with measures in place to end weapons smuggling. Palestinian actors must do their part by bringing an end to violence and rocket attacks and rising above partisan interests to pursue the reunification of Gaza and the West Bank. In Gaza, he said he had called publicly for a prisoner exchange so that the missing Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and Palestinian prisoners could be released.

While Israel’s policy of settlement restraint was a step beyond previous Governments’ positions, he said he had conveyed to Israel’s leaders that settlements were illegal under international law and that the Roadmap called for a full settlement freeze, including in East Jerusalem. He had also expressed concern at such activities as an announcement concerning holy sites in the West Bank and provocative actions in East Jerusalem such as evictions and home demolitions as well as the advancement of plans for new settlement construction. “At this critical juncture, all sides need to observe calm, show restraint and refrain from inflammatory rhetoric,” he said.

He welcomed Palestinian efforts towards reform, institution-building and development under the leadership of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad aimed at establishing a Palestinian State. “It is vital that the Palestinian Authority continue to advance this State-building agenda while striving to meet its other Roadmap obligations in full, including an end to incitement against Israel,” he said. He encouraged key contributors to Palestinian State-building to channel their assistance through the Palestinian Authority’s single treasury account.

Palestinian reform efforts had contributed to an increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of 6.8 per cent in 2009, he said. Israel’s lifting of restrictions and easing of movement also represented a positive step in encouraging growth in the West Bank. A further easing of restrictions that increased the predictability of movement and facilitated trade would be central to ensuring future economic growth.

The Head of the Delegation of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, ZAHIR TANIN (Afghanistan), underlined that the Seminar would focus on the Programme of the Palestinian Authority, entitled “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the State,” also known as the Fayyad Plan.

That Programme called for Palestinians to unilaterally build – within 24 months – the administrative, economic and institutional foundation of an independent State in spite of the Israeli occupation and as a peaceful, constructive means to counter it. The Programme might be understood as the Palestinian answer to Israeli settlement-building by creating unilaterally positive facts on the ground that would restructure the strategic equation. The fundamental difference was that, unlike Israel’s settlement activity, the Palestinian Authority’s programme was consistent with international law. The Plan would promote, rather than hinder, prospects for a peace agreement.

Mr. Tanin said that the Plan’s success would be determined by the measure of progress in the political area. At the international level, support needed to be built for the broad recognition of an independent Palestinian State. After the projected two years, that recognition could be enshrined in a Security Council resolution that would clearly determine the borders of the Palestinian State based on the pre-1967 lines.

Noting that there was a nexus between the search for a political solution to the question of Palestine and its socio-economic underpinnings, he said that in the Gaza Strip, the humanitarian situation had been steadily worsening as a result of the Israeli military offensive and the continuing blockade which prevented reconstruction. In the West Bank, Palestinian access to land and resources continued to be severely impeded by a multi-layered system of restrictions. The situation in East Jerusalem also continued to deteriorate, with thousands at risk of eviction, house demolition and/or displacement.

In conclusion, Mr. Tanin reaffirmed the Committee’s position that the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territory must end without conditions, which should allow the Palestinian people to establish an independent State on all territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and to exercise their inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination. The two-State solution should be based on Security Council resolution 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003) and 1850 (2008). Only serious and sustained international engagement would bring about a negotiated settlement of all outstanding issues and reverse the growing support for radical forces.

ALI AL-JARBAWI, Minister for Planning and Administrative Development of the Palestinian Authority, stressed that the Palestinian cause was not a humanitarian or a development cause, but a political cause par excellence. Conveying his thanks for the sustained financial support from the international community, he said that, as Minister of Planning, he could not do much planning because of Israeli actions.

He said that, in cooperation with donors, he was working on some 48 projects, ranging from $1 million to $1 billion yearly¬. He was particularly grateful for that support, as it came within the framework of support for the Palestinian cause. It was essential that assistance to the Palestinians basically lay in a straightforward process consisting of ending the occupation and building a Palestinian State. If that goal was not reached quickly, the details would remain unimportant.

Statements by Representatives of Governments and Intergovernmental Organizations

IL CHUL RI (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) said that many countries were calling upon the United Nations and the international community to end at once the Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip, take effective measures to protect Palestinian civilians and provide the necessary assistance to them. Israel, however, was expanding settlements and demanding a conditional peace treaty. The reason why the Palestinian problem continued to remain unresolved lay in the complicity of the United States and a few other countries with the Israeli occupation. Israel must immediately stop all its actions aimed at permanent occupation, including military operations, air strikes, settlement construction and the economic blockade.

ISHAYA EL-KHOURY (Lebanon) said his country had left no stone unturned in promoting the Palestinian cause as it had suffered along with the Palestinian people because of Israeli actions and was still harbouring Palestinian refugees. All initiatives to alleviate the situation in the Gaza Strip could not be implemented as Israel blocked all moves. He invited donors to enhance their contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which had difficulties in providing assistance to refugees in camps in host countries and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

He said the Israelis had rejected the Arab Initiative and continued their policy of illegal settlements, isolating Arab villages and towns in order to void the Arab or any other initiative. The main challenge was to speak out about the thousands of Palestinians threatened by bombing. The United Nations should help Palestinians achieve a decent standard of living by stressing the need to implement international resolutions fully in order to establish a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital.

HARALD EGERER, Head of the Vienna Office of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said that the hostilities in the Gaza Strip had severely damaged the environment in Gaza. A UNEP expert team had been deployed to the Strip to draw up an assessment of the environmental impact of the conflict. The UNEP Governing Council had requested UNEP to help implement the recommendations of that assessment report and had invited Governments and international institutions to provide financial and other support.

He said that UNEP activities in the Gaza Strip included: providing safe water to all infants; compiling a report on key groundwater issues; and developing a hazardous waste management strategy for the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Projects for 2010-2011 included: development of a national water quality monitoring system; development of a national land management strategy; preparation of the State of the Environment Report; and identification, development and implementation of a renewable energy programme.

ALI ASGHAR SOLTANIEH (Iran) said that the continuous crisis in the Middle East came from the silence of the international community on the issue of occupation of the Palestinian Territory and the ignoring of its peoples human rights. The problem of the Middle East was a lack of awareness of the root causes, including the refusal of Israel to comply with any international obligations. Although Iran was demanding the end of the occupation, it believed that resolutions of international organizations could not fully restore the rights of the Palestinian people as long as the defiance of Israel continued, supported by its allies, in particular the United States.

He said that Israel, supported by the United States at any price, had no genuine political will to help the Palestinians achieve a dignified life. The commitment of the United States was “rock solid and enduring forever”, according to the United States Secretary of State. Iran had proposed a democratic plan to solve the issue of Palestine, which included the return of refugees and the holding of a referendum among the people of Palestine, including Muslims, Christians and Jews, on the future of the country.

The Minister for Planning and Administrative Development of the Palestinian Authority, ALI AL-JARBAWI, said the Palestinian Government Programme reaffirmed Palestinians’ explicit commitment to the two-State solution and the Authority stood ready to engage in final status negotiations, which should not be open-ended. The five-year interim period of the Oslo Accords had expired five years ago, but facts on the ground made a viable State impossible. If more time passed, the two-State solution would be impossible to achieve. The Palestinian Authority had given itself two years to establish the institutions for a Palestinian State where Palestinians could live and work without fear of violence and would be protected from violations of human rights.

He said the Plan was aimed at bringing real progress towards peace, recognizing that open-ended negotiation have not, and never would, bear fruit. “Palestinians cannot be coerced into co-existence with a fragmented State of leftovers – a State isolated by cantons separated by walls and checkpoints, guarded by soldiers of another State,” he said. The Palestinian Government Programme consisted of eleven national goals on the path to realizing the vision of a peaceful and prosperous Palestine. The aim was to bring equality and social justice to all Palestinian citizens and to guarantee equal rights, freedoms and opportunities for all, with freedom from discrimination.

In Gaza, he said, the Palestinians sought an immediate end to the siege so that essential work could begin to lift Gaza out of its current state of poverty and desperation. The Programme was also committed to closing the gap in development and human security that had opened up between the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza as well as to the restoration of Jerusalem as a city of peace, worship and tolerance. Israel continued to execute a systematic campaign to alter the geographic, demographic and cultural character of Jerusalem and to cut it off from the remainder of the West Bank. That campaign must be brought to a halt immediately and be reversed in order to make the two-State solution viable.

The programme attached great importance to building positive relations with the international community and building a State of Palestine that would be a cornerstone of stability in the Middle East. It wanted to build a self-sufficient Palestine which, rather than being dependent on external aid and support, was able to make a real and significant contribution to political, social and economic life in the region and around the world.

The Palestinian Authority had made important progress in implementing its Programme, he said. Progress was being made in modernizing the legal framework in order to create an enabling environment for sustainable economic growth. Efforts to join the World Trade Organization were just one example of the preparatory work. The Palestinian Authority was also building partnerships with the private sector. The provision of basic social services was performing well relative to other countries in the region and around the world. Efforts were also being made towards improving infrastructure to ensure that all citizens – irrespective whether they lived in the so-called Area A, B or C – had access to roads, electricity and water networks.

He said that great strides were being made in developing efficient, effective and accountable policing services, which had already brought a welcome sense of security and stability. Legal frameworks were being reformed to ensure that the security services protected and served the citizens, while respecting their democratic rights and freedoms. The results were remarkable given the context, in which the Israeli Army restricted the movement of police, judges and civil servants.

Those achievements had clearly demonstrated the ability of the Palestinian Authority to govern and deliver services, he said, continuing, “Just imagine for a moment what we Palestinians could achieve if freed from the shackles of occupation. And imagine the frustration that we Palestinians feel at being denied the freedom to control our own destiny for so many decades.” The illegal occupation must end. There was no real need to wait for two years as the Palestinian Authority was ready now, but during that period the Authority would continue to implement its programme in order to be ready to reverse the decades of “de-development” suffered under the occupation.

He hoped that the international community would step up its condemnation of Israeli actions that continued to take Palestinians backwards. The recent decision to construct 1,600 new houses for settlers in occupied East Jerusalem was just one recent example. Settler violence against Palestinian civilians continued unchecked and unpunished.

He said, “Despite the apparent determination of Israel to continue to hold on to occupied Palestinian land and resources, my message to you today is that there is a willing and proactive Palestinian partner for peace.” The Programme was born of hope, not frustration.

Continuation of Statements

MIKHAIL WEHBE, Observer of the League of Arab States, said the Palestinian people were still deprived of their legitimate national rights and there were daily aggressions against the Palestinian people through the cruel blockade and the continuation of settlement construction. Israel was still perpetrating war crimes against the Palestinian people. It was ironic that the international community merely made lukewarm declarations about Israeli settlement policies, even though they were a stumbling block to any Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Other stumbling blocks included Israeli action in East Jerusalem.

He underscored the Arab commitment to support the Palestinians in their efforts to establish a Palestinian State according to the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. Any further Israeli actions should be brought to a halt before any more negotiations could be undertaken. Should the Israeli practices continue, all initiatives were doomed to fail? The issue of East Jerusalem should be brought before the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and the International Court of Justice. He called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to address the conflict in all its aspects, hoping that the right of veto would not be exercised. It was high time for the international community to move forward and change its position with a view to taking practical international measures whereby Israel would be required to account for its crimes and perpetrators of war crimes would be brought before international courts.

SHAHER AWAWDEH, Observer of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said Israel was violating international law and had increased its aggression in East Jerusalem in order to alter the city’s Arab character. The complacency of the international community had caused Israel to act without any respect for international law, and the international community could no longer tolerate such arrogance.

He said the absence of a fair solution to the Palestinian question was a threat to international stability. The international community must do everything possible to stop Israeli violations and make it abide by all agreements and resolutions. The Organization of the Islamic Conference would welcome a compulsory mechanism to get Israel to conform to international will, by applying pressure including sanctions.

HASSAN LAOUAOUDA (Morocco) reaffirmed his country’s commitment to support the Palestinian people and called for an end to the blockade against them. Morocco would work towards a peaceful, sustainable and fair settlement so that there could be an independent Palestinian State with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. As negotiations had reached a deadlock because of illegal Israeli practices in East Jerusalem, it was necessary to support the Palestinian position on the freezing of settlements with a view to begin final negotiations on the future of Palestine.

He condemned the decision of the Israeli Government to authorize construction of 1,600 settlement dwellings in East Jerusalem. That decision, he said, confirmed the strategy to isolate East Jerusalem from other Palestinian lands and separate it from any final solution.

BASSAM SABBAGH (Syria) said that, to assist the Palestinian people, there was a need to address the root causes of their suffering, namely the continuous occupation of Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan. Israel’s constant expansion, with its ulterior motive to build facts on the ground, had led to the bloodshed of innocent people. The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were living under a cruel blockade. The situation in East Jerusalem was worrisome. The continuation of illegal settlement construction and the immoral blockade in the Gaza Strip were destabilizing regional and international security. Not prosecuting the perpetrators of the crimes committed against the Palestinians allowed for the continuation of illegal Israeli policies.

KHADIJA MASRI, Observer of the African Union, said the Commission of the African Union was highly concerned by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a consequence of the siege of the Gaza Strip and restrictions on the freedom of movement of the Palestinians. She called upon the Israeli authorities to lift restrictions and open up all crossing points to begin the reconstruction process in Gaza. The human rights of the people of Gaza were being systematically trampled, but no investigations had been carried out to document the grave violations of human rights there. Despite all efforts of the international community to re-establish dialogue, the Israeli authorities were continuing their illegal activities regarding settlements, disregarding the peace process.

She said the African Union Executive Council had expressed its support for efforts to end the division among the Palestinian people. It had reasserted its belief that a lasting peace should involve the return of refugees and Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, including withdrawal from Syria and Lebanon.

TAOUS FEROUKHI (Algeria) said that the escalation of the illegal occupation by Israeli authorities, through the seizure of goods and houses, has destroyed any hope for a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel must end the destruction of Palestinian society and the denial of Palestinians’ basic rights, she said. Algeria supported the Plan put forward by the Palestinian Authority towards establishing the institutions necessary for a viable Palestinian State. She proposed that the Seminar send specific recommendations to the General Assembly and the Security Council.

by Kawther Salam

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Who Wants to Slap Me in Face With a Shoe?

Since I published my articles about the Jordanian CIA suicide-bomber at Chapman airfield in Afghanistan, which killed the Jordanian intelligence officer Captain Al-Sharif Ali bin Zaid, a member of the Jordanian royal family, and another seven elements of the US Central Intelligence Agency and wounded six others, I have received several “interesting” Emails from OBED SANTOS, full of insults, curses, not against me alone but also against all Muslims and the holy Koran. I have not mastered the language to respond to this kind of Emails, and the writer is hiding himself behind Google.

[click on picture to see enlarged]

I have decided to publish these Emails and to ask Google if they legitimize these insults by allowing to hide behind their service? If Google will be able to break the secrecy of this client before the laws, especially if I file a complaint against Google, who have the only identifiable IP number which appeared in the Emails which I have received from OBED SANTOS. I also sent google an official request.

I also wonder what is the relationship between OBED SANTOS, the American CIA, the Israeli and the Jordanian Intelligence. Actually I received several angry comments from Jordan with Jewish-sounding names. I have had personal experiences with both of the Israeli and the Jordanian intelligence. I find no different between all of them in cursing God, religions, and throwing obscene insults on their victims.

Below are Obed Santos E-mails,

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From OBED SANTOS Sun Jan 3 05:29:20 2010

X-Apparently-To: kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com via 67.195.13.219; Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:29:21 -0800

Return-Path:

X-Originating-IP: [209.85.219.220]

Received: from 127.0.0.1 (EHLO mail-ew0-f220.google.com) (209.85.219.220)

by mta101.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:29:21 -0800

From: OBED SANTOS
To: K Salam
Sent: Wed, January 6, 2010 7:42:16 AM
Subject: Re: Fwd: RE : Jordanian Among Dead in Attack on CIA Base

You are a whore and the daughter of mongrel dogs and I slap you in the mouth with my shoe and piss on the Koran. Stop freeloading off of the Austrian people!!!! Death to Arabs! Long Live Israel, God’s true chosen!

From: OBED SANTOS
To: kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com
Sent: Tue, January 5, 2010 7:43:57 AM
Subject: Fwd: RE : Jordanian Among Dead in Attack on CIA Base

I slap you in the face with my shoe and piss on the book written by the pedophile lunatic Mohammad while he was in the desert sexing little boys and sheep!

From: OBED SANTOS
To: kawther_salam [at] yahoo [dot] com
Sent: Sun, January 3, 2010 6:29:20 AM
Subject: RE : Jordanian Among Dead in Attack on CIA Base

The same can be said for the bastard children of al the dead Muslim terrorist scum and those le you who support them. You are the whore and the daughter of dogs.

by Kawther Salam

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Who Was the CIA Suicide Bomber in Afghanistan?

The report below was published in Al-Jazeera Arabic. It surprised me that Al-Jazeera English is not publishing the same information on their homepage, or at least translating this important report from Arabic. There is a deep gap between what the Arabic and English editions of Al-Jazeera are reporting. Nobody knows why Al-Jazeera in English seems to follow an editorial policy based on misleading their foreign (not Arabic speaking) readers, especially with their reports about the American and the Israeli occupations. Why is there a clear contradiction between the two editions of Al-Jazaeera? Anybody who reads the news from Al-Jazeera in Arabic and the news from Al-Jazeera in English can see these contradictions.

Jordanian Spy funeral (Pic Credit: Petra Agency / Jordan)

Mohammad Al-Najjar from Jordan reported in the Arabic edition of Al-Jazeera about the identity of the suicide-bomber in Afghanistan who killed himself and seven CIA elements, and wounded another six.

• Who was the CIA suicide-bomber in Afghanistan?
• Who sent him to work as CIA agent?
• When and Why?

The answers to these questions can be found in the report of Mr. Mohammad Al-Najjar from Jordan.

According to the report of Mr. Al-Najjar, the suicide bomber against the clandestine elements of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the Afghan province of Khost last Wednesday was a Jordanian doctor named Khalil Abu Hammam Mellal Al-Balawi, who studied medicine in Turkey at the expense of the Jordanian government after receiving a rate of 97% in high school General school certificate examinations.

Hammam has seven brothers and three sisters, all of them reportedly very intelligent students. Two of his brothers are said to be working outside of Jordan.

The family of Dr. Hammam belongs to the Beer Al-Saba’a family. He had been engaged by the United Nations international relief agency (UNRWA) before his departure from Jordan. He was married to a Turkish journalist who currently resides together with her children in Turkey. He was jailed several times by the Jordanian intelligence because of his participation via Internet with articles and poems inciting jihad at the websites which belong to Salafi jihadist groups.

Hammam Abu Mellal was known in these locations in the Internet as “Abu Dajana Al-Kharasani”. He was a supervisor in the Al-Hisba forums, which publishes news and the messages of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The family of Dr. Hammam, who still lives in the Jordanian city of Al-Zarqa 20 kilometers east of Amman, refused to give a commitment or a statement to the press after the Jordanian intelligence forbade them to speak out in public.

Sources close to the family of suicide bomber Dr. Hammam told Al-Jazeera net that the Jordanian intelligence had arrested the younger brother of Dr. Hammam, called his father and warned him not to open the house for the mourning for his son, which they fear would turn into a gathering place for elements of the Salafi jihadists.

The same sources which close to the family of doctor Dr. Hammam stated that he had left Jordan a year ago. Before that, he had been incarcerated for several months by the Jordanian intelligence, and then released and allowed traveling out of Jordan.

According to the Taliban movement in Pakistan in a statement of last Thursday, the suicide bomber was one of their elements, and that he had been the first Arab belonging to their ranks.

Haj Jacob, a Taliban official in Pakistan, stated that the Jordanian intelligence had recruited “Abu Dajana”, a cover name of Hammam, in order to arrange for him to meet and correspond with the second man in al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He added that Abu Dajana, who carried out the suicide bombing, was able to mislead the Jordanian and US intelligence operatives for a complete year.

The Jordanian government spokesman Nabil Al-Sharif denied that Jordan had sent the bomber to Afghanistan, and he characterized the Taliban announcement as not true (“out of the truth”). He said that Jordan does not have any information that would enable it to verify that the suicide bomber was a Jordanian national. Mr. Al-Najjar, the Al-Jazeera correspondent in Jordan, tried to obtain clarification from the Jordanian Minister Al-Sharif on this information, but the minister did not respond to the requests.

As I see it, this whole event confirms the involvement of Jordan in the wars against Muslims of the USA and Israel, which for many years had been a tightly guarded secret. The death of the prince, an operative for the CIA and very possibly a torturer, definitely shines a very bad light upon the Jordanian regime.

If conclusions can be drawn from this on the surface messy picture, the collaboration of the Jordanian regime, and possibly other Arab regimes, with the USA/Israel war against Muslim peoples, what they call “global war on terror”, goes far deeper than what was known until now. Not only do these regimes brutally suppress the own populations as a compensation for their lack of legitimacy, they also routinely take torture jobs from the USA/EU/Israel in order to justify military help received, reportedly over 500 million yearly, they send their militaries and covert intelligence operatives to do “humanitarian work” (murder and torture), and they appear to recruit radicalized people with legitimate grievances from among their respective populations in order to create synthetic terrorism (“Al-Qaeda”) by use of classic COINTELPRO methods, which in turn serve to “justify” in a gruesome way the invasion and destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and perhaps soon Iran, by the western regimes acting in subordination to Israel.

According to what has transcended until now, the Jordanian regime is collaborating with the CIA in murdering and torturing Afghani resistance (which they call “Al-Qaeda”). One aspect is that they sent in a royal or near the royalty to participate in the dirty work. Another aspect is that they apparently originally recruited the doctor Hammam while he was jailed for writing what I suppose were less than polite diatribes against the regime, and coerced him to go to Afghanistan to help hunt down wanted people, apparently Al-Zawahiri, incidentally also a doctor by profession and the offspring of a wealthy Egyptian family.

It is interesting to note here that another one of the people sought by the Americans and ultimately killed in Iraq last year, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, was also reported to be a native of Zarqa in Jordan, the same locality where the family of Dr. Hammam resides. A coincidence?

Another interesting piece of data regarding this incident were the several angry comments which I received in response to my article yesterday with information about the identity of the royal who died in that incident. Several very angry posts from Jordan landed in spam, they were written in perfect English and where the writers identified themselves with jewish-sounding names. Are these Jordanian intelligence people trying to hide their identities, does this mean that American jews, perhaps even Israelis, are sitting in offices in Amman working for the intelligence apparatus, or is this just another coincidence?

According to the reports, the suicide bombing occurred at Chapman airfield, in the Afghan province of Khost. See also map below.

Bigger View

by Kawther Salam

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Jordanian Among Dead in Attack on CIA Base

According to the CIA, a suicide attack last Wednesday at a base in eastern Afghanistan killed seven members of the US Central Intelligence Agency and wounded six others. CIA director Leon Panetta (a jew) stated that seven members of the CIA were killed last in an attack during last Wednesday 30 Dec. 2009 in Afghanistan. The American President, his family and their dog sent condolences to the families of the dead.

What Mr. Panetta did not mention was that among the dead was also a Jordanian CIA employee, Captain “Al-Sherif” Ali bin Zeid bin Shaker. In the same fashion, the Jordanian government also avoided to mention this in public, or even to confirm the presence of Jordanian troops in Afghanistan, because of the obvious embarrassment this would cause to the Jordanian regime. How shameful this incident is to the jordanian regime can be seen in the scant mention in the media of the death of this “holy” man (al-sherif means holy in Arabic).

Today Saturday, the Jordanian official news agency Petra stated that the body of Bin Zeid had arrived in Jordan and was received by King Abdullah II, Queen Rania, Prince Hassan and other royals. Petra did not say that Bin Zeid was among the CIA employees killed last Wednesday in Afghanistan, but they did not shrink from the shamelessness of calling the Bin Zeid a “martyr”, an apostrophe of respect usually given to those fallen in resistance to foreign occupiers such as Israel, as if this collaborator had been protecting anything of value.

CIA agent Ali bin Zeid carried the title of “Al-Sherif”, which is only bestowed on members of the Jordanian royal family and those near to it. His father was prime minister under the late King Hussein, and one of the closest people to the royal family. His family said that he was in Afghanistan for 20 days and had been due to return home on the day he was killed. The family added that the precise circumstances in which their son died “remain unclear”.

It should be noted that the CIA maintains a secret jail for torture in Jordan, and that Bin Zeid was not precisely in a holy peace mission in Afghanistan, as could be concluded from the statements of his family and the Jordanian government, but rather that he was working for the CIA, most likely involved in interrogation and torture of Afghani prisoners at the CIA base where the attack occurred.

According to the media, the head of the base, a woman mother of three was among the dead in the attack. While all deaths are a sad affair and no child should grow up without their parents, it can be assumed that it is in the best interest of these children to have a chance to grow up far away from the influence of an antisocial woman involved in a commanding position in torture and probably many cold blooded murders.

In Palestine, CIA members work among the Palestinian alternative security forces, the Intelligence forces, and they are issuing arrest warrants against leaders of Hamas and members of the resistance, and are widely known to be engaged in torturing them during interrogations. The Americans from the CIA in Palestine were also involved in the Israeli murder of three Palestinians in Nablus in the northern of the West Bank last Saturday 26 December 2009.

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