Obama's Perilous Compromise with Wall Street Looters

Go to Original
By Jeffrey Klein

Looters have taken over America’s Treasury. The executives who successfully ransacked their own banks, investment funds and insurance companies have set their eyes on Obama’s stimulus. Tragically, the architects of the current economic fiasco have been placed in charge of America’s recovery.

President Obama has made an enormous mistake. Instead of cracking down on serial looters and complicit regulators, he wants to guarantee the financial sector’s obligations, which are several times larger than America’s economy. This is a Ponzi scheme far beyond Bernie Madoff’s imagination. Simply put: The government is breaking the rules of capitalism to reward the most reckless capitalists.

Is it unfair to criticize President Obama before he and his experienced team have a chance to enact new laws and regulations? For guidance on this question, let’s turn to the father of capitalism, Adam Smith. Here’s how Smith concludes Wealth of Nations, Book I:

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [the capitalists], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."

Consider Obama’s Economic Czar, Larry Summers, who comes fresh from heading a highly secretive hedge fund. As Clinton’s Secretary of the Treasury, Summers championed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which led directly to the excessive risk-taking by newly enlarged financial entities deemed too big to fail when they failed. Additionally Summers and Robert Rubin lobbied intensely for legislation signed by Bill Clinton that forbid government oversight of derivatives, the toxic instruments that have poisoned balance sheets around the world. Summers’ former deputy Tim Geithner, the new Secretary of the Treasury, has supervised more recent rip-offs. He bears significant responsibility for the Lehman Brothers’ catastrophe and for the flawed Fannie Mae, Bear Stearns and AIG bailouts. At Geithner’s confirmation hearing, he must be asked repeatedly why the looters were rewarded and why plans giving taxpayers more equity were rejected.

Sherlock Holmes was once famously asked by a Scotland Yard detective: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Detective: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

Why haven’t America’s economists barked timely alarms? Are they blinded by their faith in markets? Perhaps the old saying should be reworked: In America, those who can, loot. Those who can’t, teach wealth-friendly philosophies masquerading as hard science. In their mind-set, fraud is the province of Bernie Madoff, not Robert Rubin.

But what could be more criminal than Rubin’s former employees, Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, awarding the sweetest of all bailout deals to Citi, where Rubin sits as a highly-paid senior counselor and director. Throughout his career Rubin has pushed for more complex risk instruments and less government regulation. How stupid does the quintessential Wall Street/Washington wise man think people are when he claims never to have heard of Citi’s most toxic assets? And to brag that he’s been "very involved" at Citi, but blames the company’s excessive risk-taking on a presentation made one day by an outside consultant? After confessing such failures of oversight, an honest man would have resigned his posts.

Yet it’s not only Rubin’s acolytes who are pushing Obama’s recovery plan. Experts from both parties have also endorsed it. The only catch? These are the same experts who were blind-sided by the mortgage security frauds that led to the credit freeze that triggered the de-leveraging that’s plunged the world close to a Depression.

Does all this sound like a simple-minded diatribe? Perhaps it is. But when analyzing America’s financiers, a simple-minded (as opposed to a naïve) approach may be best. For example, Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner thought that the banks they generously recapitalized with the taxpayers’ money would begin lending again. Instead the banks used the bailout cash to buy other banks, issue dividends or simply profit on Treasury spreads - i.e., to make what bookies call their juice.

It’s altogether possible that Barack Obama’s recovery plan will bless sweetheart deals and generate enough public debt to destroy global confidence in our government’s bonds. Foreigners, who own about half of all Treasuries, could stop funding America’s deficit-driven recovery plan. During Obama’s administration, the dollar might lose its reserve-currency premium.

Would all Americans then suffer equally? No. Those likely to profit most from Obama’s stimulus before we go bust are his political allies, and especially his big donors. That’s the nature of the doling-out beast. To minimize corruption, Obama must pro-actively prevent Chicago-style swindles. E.g., who owns the real estate adjacent to the infrastructure the government will build? What specific penalties will be incorporated into Obama’s recovery plan to punish politically-connected profiteers?

If a spiraling out-of-control stimulus seems as if it’s undermining the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, Obama’s biggest donors will hedge their personal risk by parking some of their capital abroad. Have they’ve done so already? A senator should ask prospective nominees this question at their confirmation hearings.

Obama could be a different kind of president. His broad base of financial support ensures he won’t lack funds for a reelection run. The dark side of Obama’s presidency, however, is likely to come less from ethical failings than from his fondness for compromise.

You can’t compromise with America’s looters. They’re too opportunistic. The economics team Obama assembled betrays his respect for elites and a caution that may doom his presidency. A bolder politician would stimulate the economy and simultaneously expose the moral violations at the core of our economic predicament. Leaders who sent the cops home need to be shamed, not promoted. Financiers who misled investors should be prosecuted, not bailed out. Attorney General nominee Eric Holder, the man who pardoned Marc Rich, doesn’t seem likely to take up these tasks.

On Inauguration Day, President Obama will surely deliver an inspirational address. But the confidence he inspires will be worthless until he calls out and cuts off the thieves.

Most job losses in US last year since 1945, with more to come

Go to Original
By David Walsh

Economists are estimating that the US lost 2.4 million jobs in 2008, which would be the most lost in any year since the end of World War II, according to a survey conducted by Bloomberg.com. Other analysts are predicting the elimination of as many or more jobs in 2009.

The Bloomberg survey came in advance of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on unemployment for December due out January 9. The economists polled estimate that US payrolls fell by 500,000 last month and that the official jobless rate will reach its highest level since 1993.

Manufacturing is expected to have lost another 100,000 or more jobs as factory production declined in December at the fastest rate in 28 years.

Bloomberg cites the comments of Michael Feroli, economist at JPMorgan Chase: "We're continuing to lose massive amounts of jobs. The negative momentum carrying over into the first half of 2009 will hold down the economy regardless of policy."

Indeed, in the opinion of many observers, the worst is yet to come. Douglas McIntyre, an editor at 247wallst.com, commented January 4: "Many large industries may only be at the beginning of their layoff cycles. That is certainly true of retail. Some estimates are that another 70,000 stores will close in the U.S. this year. The auto industry will cut more jobs either to please Congress or due to outright bankruptcies. Small business has almost no access to capital, so that part of the economy is likely to eat through jobs as well.

"Unemployment almost certainly went above 7 percent in December. Retail layoffs could push that toward 8 percent all by themselves. The idea that the entire economy could drop another three million jobs this year is entirely possible."

In a report issued in late December, the executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas predicted that more than 1 million jobs would be cut in 2009. CNNMoney.com added, "Last week, consulting firm Watson Wyatt (WW) said that 23 percent of companies surveyed in early December plan layoffs in the next year. The report also said that 39 percent had already cut their work force—up from 19 percent in October."

December 28, in an article headlined "Outlook for 2009 is grim," the Boston Globe commented: "Employers, who have slashed nearly 2 million jobs in the last year, are projected to cut at least that many more jobs in the next year, according to several economic forecasts.

"The US unemployment rate, now at 6.7 percent, is forecast by many economists to rise above 8 percent—or even higher. IHS Global Insight, a Waltham [Massachusetts] forecasting firm, projects the jobless rate will hit 9.4 percent by the end of 2009, a level not seen since 1982, when unemployment hit a post-World War II high of nearly 11 percent."

The Globe continues: "Some analysts expect the economy to shrink at an annual rate of as much as 6 percent in the last quarter of this year, then at about a 4 percent pace in the first three months of 2009 before the decline flattens. Even in the worst quarters of the last two recessions—1990-91 and 2001—the economy contracted at no more than a 3 percent annual rate."

By the time all the calculations are done, the 2008 holiday shopping season is expected to have been the worst in four decades. In an expression of the sharp contraction in consumer spending, Electronic Arts, a video-game publisher, recently announced plans to lay off 1,000 workers, or 10 percent of its workforce, and close or consolidate nine studio and publishing locations.

In relation to retail, Burt Flickinger III, managing director of New York consulting firm Strategic Resource Group, predicts the closure of at least 200,000 stores and 2,000 to 3,000 malls in the US this year, most of them in the next few months.

"In the more marginal malls, a quarter to a half of the space will have the lights turned off, and then you'll see whole abandoned shopping centers," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

According to Forbes magazine, nearly 200,000 workers have been laid off from Fortune 500 companies since November. More than 1.2 million Americans were hit by temporary layoffs in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Considered an indicator of economic development, the US steel industry is undergoing a deep crisis. The New York Times commented January 1 "As steel production goes—and it is now in collapse—so will go the national economy." American steel production, decimated in the 1980s and reduced to a fraction of its former dimensions, has plunged 50 percent since September. Output in December was down to 1.02 million tons a week from 2.1 million tons in August. The price of a ton of steel has also been halved.

Ten thousand steelworkers have already been temporarily laid off, and the United Steelworkers anticipates another 20,000 workers to be on furlough early in 2009.

The Times comments: "The sharp slide in steel production has several causes. Construction and auto production have fallen sharply; between them, they account for 57 percent of the steel bought each year in the United States, according to the Iron and Steel Institute. Appliances, machinery and other electrical equipment account for an additional 13 percent, and the fall-off in production of these goods has also reduced steel orders."

Dozens of firms and government departments or agencies are announcing layoffs on nearly a daily basis. The Wall Street Journal reported December 30 that many firms priding themselves on never laying off workers are changing their policies, in the face of an economic slump unprecedented in the modern era.

The Journal cites the case of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which has weathered past recessions over the past half-century and even the September 11 crisis without laying off employees. This autumn Enterprise laid off 1,000 workers, as the number of Americans driving and flying has fallen. The company's vice president explained, "These types of declines are unprecedented."

The newspaper continued, "The deepening recession is prompting layoffs at long-established employers that avoided job cuts in previous downturns. These layoffs demonstrate both the severity of the current recession and the continued erosion of workplace norms that once shielded many US workers from permanent job loss."

For example, Gentex Corp, a Zeeland, Michigan auto parts suppliers, carried out its first layoffs in 34 years in December. The company, "which makes rear-view cameras and other gear for cars and airplanes, earlier this month dismissed about 370 employees, or roughly 15 percent of its staff, in its first layoffs.

"A world-wide decline in car sales finally forced the company's hand. In the third quarter, sales fell 6 percent and profit dropped 49 percent.... Other parts makers have cut back, too. Employment at part makers fell 12 percent in October, compared with a year earlier."

Duke University and CFO Magazine reported in December that "Chief financial officers in the United States and around the world are more pessimistic than at any time" in the history of their Global Business Outlook Survey. "The majority of chief financial officers in the U.S. and Europe say their firms will slash spending and employment in 2009, and their firms will post losses."

A record 81 percent of US CFOs are more pessimistic about the economy this quarter (twice as many as last quarter), and 85 percent of European and Asian CFOs are more pessimistic.

Civilian casualties mount as Israeli army slices through Gaza

Go to Original
By Chris Marsden

Ground assault sparks worldwide protests

Israel is engaged in direct conflict with Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, after its long-expected ground invasion began Saturday. Verifiable accounts of the fighting are scarce, because Israel continues to refuse access to foreign journalists even after its Supreme Court issued a ruling that allowed a "limited number" into Gaza.

The attack began on Saturday night when Israeli military convoys supported by attack helicopters crossed into northern Gaza at four points. Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations then pushed into Gaza. Since then, Israeli tanks have been reported around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and the Jabaliya refugee camp.

The territory has been cut in three, with the northern town of Beit Hanoun surrounded and clashes also reported in Rafah, on the southern border with Egypt. Gaza city, with a population of 400,000, is surrounded after an armoured force took over the abandoned Jewish settlement of Netzarim. This gives Israel control of the main north-south road.

At least 63 Palestinians have been reported killed by Israeli tank shells or missiles since the start of the ground offensive Saturday. The real death toll, however, may be far higher, as emergency medical personnel are not able to reach the areas where fighting is taking place.

The total official death toll since Israeli began bombarding Gaza and its 1.5 million people has risen to at least 512, with 87 of those killed children.

An Israeli bombardment of Gaza overnight targeted 40 sites and resulted in more than 20 deaths and many more injuries. Palestinian medics reported that just 3 of the 23 Palestinians killed were Hamas fighters and the rest civilians. Earlier on Saturday, at least 13 people were killed when a missile struck a crowded mosque in Beit Lahiya. Israeli forces also attacked the American school in Gaza, killing a guard. An Israeli spokeswoman declared blithely, "The school...was a site for launching rockets."

A tank shell fired in northern Gaza Sunday reportedly killed 12 people, mostly civilians. And a school in Beit Lahiya and a shopping centre in Gaza City were shelled, killing 5 people and seriously injuring dozens more.

Among those killed in the Israeli ground assault Sunday was a mother and her four children, whose home in the At-Toufah neighborhood of Gaza City was targeted by tank fire, Palestinian medical personnel in Gaza reported. One of the children was only a year old, while another was two.

Also killed in the Israeli attack were three ambulance workers who were struck by a missile as they were aiding wounded civilians.

The ground assault has dramatically intensified the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, cutting off electricity, while food stocks are dwindling fast. Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has closed off its Rafah border crossing to Gaza, preventing aid columns from getting in and the wounded from getting out. The crossing was a lifeline for those seeking medical treatment for wounds suffered in the attacks, as Gaza’s own hospitals have become so overwhelmed that they are near breakdown. Medical personnel report running short of critical medicine, while power is maintained only by means of aging generators.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Sunday rebutted the cynical claims by Israeli officials that they are determined to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

"Bread and wheat are going to run out extremely rapidly, and people are going to start getting extremely hungry," said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness. "Medical supplies are in critically short supply. When you have a situation where houses are being blown up and women and children are being maimed, I would say that’s a humanitarian crisis."

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has given its forces carte-blanche for killing civilians, declaring Saturday, "Anyone who hides a terrorist or weapons in his house is considered a terrorist."

This is only the beginning. There are still around 10,000 Israeli troops and hundreds of tanks massed on the Gaza border, and the government made an urgent call-up of "tens of thousands" more military reservists. Defence officials said this could enable a broader ground offensive in the operation’s third phase.

This is likely to target Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Israeli warplanes have engaged in continuous incursions into Lebanese airspace over the past week. Two weeks after the last major Israeli offensive against Gaza, in June 2006, a cross border raid by Hezbollah became a casus belli for a brutal month-long assault that killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians. Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Saturday, "While we are fighting in Gaza, we will keep an open eye on the sensitive situation on our northern border...we are ready and alert to face any unwarranted development in that area."

In contrast to the Palestinian death toll, the Israeli army said one of its soldiers had been killed by a mortar shell and 30 soldiers have been wounded in the ground offensive, two of them seriously. Rockets fired at southern Israel have left four dead in total.

The ground invasion was green-lighted by US President Bush, who on Friday took the extraordinary decision to release the transcript of his Saturday radio broadcast in which he declared that a ceasefire was only possible if it prevented Hamas from re-arming. "Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable," he said.

The US blocked a cease-fire motion at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council Saturday night.

Global wave of protest

Demonstration in London against the Israeli assault on Gaza.

Israel’s bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza have unleashed a global wave of protest.

The most important and sizeable protest took place in Sakhnin, a Palestinian town within Israeli boundaries. The 1.4-million-strong Arab community makes up about 20 percent of Israel’s population and has organised several protests in recent days. But the protest organised by the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee was one of the largest held by Israeli Arabs since October 2000. Organisers estimated that at least 100,000 people took part in protest, which stretched throughout the Sakhnin.

Crowds waving Palestinian flags and brandishing pro-Palestinian placards chanted, "Gaza will not surrender to the tanks and bulldozers!" and "Don’t fear, Gaza, we are with you!" Some protesters called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a "coward" and accused him of "collaborating with the Americans."

Thousands of police were deployed on the outskirts of the town and across northern Israel.

Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset were present from several parties. Hadash Chairman Mohammad Barakeh MK said, "There are three clear objectives: the first is solidarity with the people in the Strip who are suffering from seven days of major Israeli attacks.

"The second objective is to the Israeli government urging it to stop the unjust aggression.... We are also saying to the Palestinian people, to all of us, it is time for reconciliation. There is no place for division when facing this level of attack."

Following a minute’s silence, Sakhnin Mayor Mazem Ghanaim called for an immediate halt to the Gaza offensive. "The Israeli occupation force is conducting crimes in Gaza before the eyes of the international community," he said. "This is the biggest procession in the history of the Palestinian people in Israel. The level of crowdedness in Gaza is one of the highest in the world, and yet the Israel Air Force jets are bombing and murdering innocent people. I call on Israel to end the war immediately and lift the siege."

Wassil Taha MK (Balad) said, "This is one of the greatest demonstrations we have seen because it affects each and every family. People seek to express their pain by showing solidarity with the members of our nation."

Ibrahim Zabidat, who led the rally, said, "The Israeli killing machine must stop. I call from here to the people in Gaza and say: Don’t be afraid, don’t give up, block them with your blood in order to build the state of Palestine, whose capital is Jerusalem."

The chairman of the Balad Party, MK Jamal Zahalka, said there is a need to "try Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi in an international war crimes tribunal for their role in the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip."

There was also a large protest by Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Thousands demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday, with police forces struggling to separate anti-war protesters from right-wing counter demonstrations.

Peace protesters in Rabin Square waved Palestinian flags and shouted, "Barak, Barak, Defence Minister, how many children have you murdered today?" "Stop the bombing, stop the killing."

Hundreds of thousands also protested across Europe.

In Paris, police admit to 21,000 demonstrators marching through the city’s luxury shopping district shouting, "We are all Palestinians" and "Israel assassin." The protest was prevented from reaching the Israeli embassy.

CRS riot police clashed with 400-500 youths wearing Palestinian flags and kaffiyehs in the evening. Protesters reportedly set cars on fire, and several luxury store windows, such as the Louis Pion watch store, were smashed and looted.

A section of the London protest

Massive pro-Palestinian protests took place simultaneously in other major French cities.

In London, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched. (See "Video: London demonstrators protest Israeli assault on Gaza") Many of them threw shoes in front of the Downing Street residence of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as they made their way along Whitehall in homage to the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe at President George W. Bush during a press conference last month.

Several people were injured when riot police began hitting and kicking protesters in an underpass in Piccadilly. In the evening, police officers penned in several thousand demonstrators who were protesting outside the Israeli embassy and began hitting them with shields and batons, leaving even more wounded. (YouTube video)

Protesters on the London demonstration

Organisers made an official complaint to the Metropolitan Police, saying officers provoked the crowd by charging at them.

In the afternoon, speakers at Trafalgar Square drew attention to the terrible plight of the Palestinian people, but the perspective promoted by the march organisers—the Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Muslim organisations—was largely one of putting pressure on governments or the United Nations to intervene.

Former Labour MP Tony Benn condemned the Bush government for its full support of Israeli aggression and the way the US uses Israel to control the Middle East. He said it was necessary to "mobilise world opinion" for a free Palestine and an end to Western domination.

Respect MP George Galloway likened the Palestinian people to those in the Nazi ghettos saying, "those who are murdering them are the equivalent of those who murdered the Jews in Warsaw in 1942." He singled out the Egyptian regime for special mention as jointly responsible for the situation in Gaza and declared its President Hosni Mubarak an international criminal. He called on the "great people of Egypt, the heroic armed forces of Egypt...to rise up and sweep away this tyrant."

Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone criticised the Israeli government for using the invasion as a means of gaining votes in the upcoming elections. He appealed to the British government to intervene, saying, "I heard Gordon Brown denounce apartheid [in South Africa] year after year, I want him to denounce the attacks on the Palestinian people."

The singer Annie Lennox, warned of an Israeli ground invasion within hours, adding, "We call on ministers of all nations to take responsibility, speak out and demand an immediate ceasefire now"

Comedian Alexei Sayle said that "Israel purports to speak in our name, purports to somehow give us a home or provide protection" but said that the Israeli government "does not act in my name." He criticised the way the way the government condemns any criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. "I want to be proud of my people. If only Jewish people could turn away from violence, what an amazing thing that would be."

Human rights activist Bianca Jagger called on Barack Obama to "express an opinion on what is happening and demand an immediate halt to the shelling against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip." She called on the international community to "ensure the immediate cessation by Israel of the use of excessive and unlawful and disproportionate force."

Smaller rallies were held in other British cities, including Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow

In Germany, 7,000 people gathered in freezing temperatures in Berlin for a march along Unter den Linden boulevard. More than 4,000 people demonstrated in Duesseldorf, and some 5,000 in Frankfurt. Protesters carried banners declaring, "Germany, look! Where is your sense of justice?"

In Austria, 2,500 people demonstrated in Salzburg. In Spain, there was a protest outside the Foreign Ministry in Madrid.

In the Turkish capital of Ankara, 5,000 demonstrators shouted "Killer Israel!" at a rally in the city centre. Demonstrations were also held Sunday.

In Athens, Greece, 5,000 protested, and there were clashes with police outside the Israeli embassy. In Cyprus, about 2,000 people demonstrated, and some pelted riot police with rocks, sticks, shoes and oranges near the Israeli embassy in Nicosia.

In the Netherlands, thousands marched through Amsterdam. One banner read, "Anne Frank is turning in her grave."

Hundreds more marched in the Swedish cities of Malmo and Uppsala, while in Oslo, Norway, demonstrators marched from the parliament to the Israeli Embassy.

Hands off Gaza!

Go to Original
By Barry Grey and David North

The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site denounce the Israeli military's murderous assault on the Palestinian population of Gaza. The combined air and ground attack on the densely populated and virtually defenseless enclave is a war crime.

The incursion of Israeli troops, tanks and artillery, on top of the ongoing bombardment from air and sea of civilian targets, sets the stage for a sharp increase in the bloodletting, which in the first eight days of the aggression has already claimed the lives of over 500 Palestinians and wounded more than 2,400, including scores of women and children.

As always, the Israeli regime's use of military violence is accompanied by a staggering level of cynicism, hypocrisy and deceit. A state that possesses one of the most modern and sophisticated military machines in the world is once again casting itself as the victim.

The claim that this latest aggression is a legitimate reaction to Hamas rockets falsifies the events that preceded the assault on Gaza. Prior to Israel's launching of its air war on December 27, not a single Israeli was killed by the recent spate of home-made and largely ineffectual Qassam rockets fired from Gaza. The increase of such rocket firings was provoked by Israel's shattering of a cease-fire with a cross-border raid in November that killed six members of the Hamas security force. Israel defied the terms of the cease-fire, refusing to lift its deadly blockade of Gaza, which for 18 months has deprived the impoverished population of food, medicine, potable water and electricity. It agreed to the cease-fire in the first place in order, by its own admission, to undertake intense preparations for the present war.

Since Israel launched this latest round of aggression, four people in southern Israel have been killed by Palestinian rockets. The loss of all life is regrettable, but it is an ugly fact that the media applies very different standards in its valorization of Israeli and Palestinian lives. The latter, judging from the coverage of events by CNN and other western media outlets, count for very little. The ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths in the current war is more than 100 to one. Over the past eight years, approximately 20 Israelis have died in rocket attacks from Gaza, while Israeli forces have killed nearly 5,000 Palestinians.

The rocket attacks from Gaza reflect the desperation of Hamas and the Palestinian population. Israel deliberately provokes such actions in order to create a pretext for pursuing its aggressive and expansionist aims.

What is the situation in Gaza, created by Israel and backed by the United States, the European powers and their allied Arab bourgeois regimes, including the US-Israeli Quisling, Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas? A million-and-a-half people are imprisoned in an area the size of metropolitan Detroit—a sliver of land wedged between the desert and the Mediterranean Sea. They are prevented from leaving by Israeli troops to the north and east and troops of Egyptian dictator Mubarak to the south.

As unpleasant to the Israeli regime as the comparison may be, the plight of Gaza resembles nothing so much as the tragic fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland.

There are, without question, Israeli intellectuals, youth and class-conscious workers who are opposed to the invasion of Gaza and deeply ashamed of the crimes being committed by the regime in their name. They are, we are sure, horrified by the implication of the Jewish people in crimes that recall the atrocities of the Nazis. But if, as is claimed by opinion polls, some 80 percent of Israelis support the military onslaught on this tortured territory, this can only attest to the deep level of disorientation and demoralization among broad sections of the population. Not the least of Israel's crimes is its cynical exploitation of the horrors of the Holocaust to justify its own criminal actions.

It is not possible to discuss the assault on Gaza without placing central emphasis on the role of the United States. The American ruling elite has served as Israel's chief enabler and co-conspirator for the past four decades—ever since Israel seized Gaza and the West Bank in the 1967 war.

The Bush administration is reprising the criminal role it played in the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon—running interference for Israel to block all diplomatic initiatives for a cease-fire so as to give the Israelis maximum time and scope to murder Palestinians and smash a hostile Arab movement. The time-line of the past few days indicates that the Bush administration urged the Israelis to launch their ground invasion now in part to scuttle efforts by the European Union to broker a truce.

On Friday, after the EU and French President Sarkozy had announced a mission to Israel slated for Monday to pressure the Israelis to agree to a cease-fire, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice addressed the press outside the White House to once again place the blame for the fighting on Hamas and back Israeli opposition to a cease-fire. On Saturday, President Bush devoted his weekly radio address to restating Washington's carte blanche to Israel, setting the stage for the invasion that began later that day.

In the course of his brief remarks, Bush managed to cram in one lie after another—charging Hamas, which won a popular election in 2006 and put down an attempted coup by the Fatah-led and US-Israeli-backed Palestinian Authority in June of 2007—with "taking over the Gaza Strip in a coup," and going so far as to blame Hamas for the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Israeli blockade imposed eighteen months ago. Bush essentially demanded that Hamas agree to its removal at the hands of the US-Israeli puppet Abbas as a condition for an end to the Israeli aggression.

Late on Saturday, after the Israelis had launched their ground attack, the US intervened in the United Nations Security Council to block a statement urging an immediate truce.

Predictably, President-elect Barak Obama is playing an equally despicable role, maintaining a public silence on the grounds that the US has "only one president at a time." Here the legal principle—silence denotes consent—applies in full. It should be noted that Obama had no similar compunctions only a few months ago when it came to promoting the handout of hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds to his supporters and friends on Wall Street.

While Obama maintains a damning silence, top congressional Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, have gone out of their way to declare their support for Israel's actions.

No less revealing is the response of the United Nations. Its combination of impotence and duplicity recalls the response of the League of Nations in the 1930s to Fascist Italy's rape of Ethiopia. We are once again living through a period when supposed "peace" organizations established by the international bourgeoisie reveal themselves to be instruments of imperialist power politics. The hypocrisy of the UN and the imperialist governments that dominate it is exposed most graphically by their entirely opportunist use of the term "war crime." What is defined as a war crime and who is sent to the Hague tribunal depends entirely on the geo-political and economic interests of the various imperialist powers.

Finally, there is the perfidious role of the bourgeois regimes in the Middle East. This includes not only the outright accomplices of the US and Israel—especially Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia—but also the supposed opponents of Zionism and imperialism, Iran and Syria. While one of the objectives of Israeli and American policy is no doubt to weaken Tehran and Damascus, and prepare the way for military action to effect "regime change" in those countries, it can be reasonably assumed that elements in the US State Department and the Israeli Foreign Ministry are maintaining back-channel communications with these regimes. It would not be the first time that bourgeois governments shed crocodile tears over the fate of a lesser client in the hope that they could be parlayed into an agreement with the major powers.

The Israelis say more than they intend when they declare that their mass killing in Gaza is necessary to create the conditions for a so-called "two state" solution to the Palestinian question. This only reveals the reactionary character of this policy, which envisions the creation of an Israeli-dominated mini-state, divided by security roads, Israeli settlements and barriers, which will serve as a prison for the Palestinian people, guarded and policed by a puppet Palestinian bourgeois regime. Such an outcome will do nothing to address the conditions of poverty and repression that dominate daily life for the Palestinian workers and youth, while offering the Zionist state an opportunity to ethnically cleanse Israel by expelling its Arab population to the Palestinian Bantustan.

The only real ally of the Palestinian masses is the international working class. The wave of international protests against the Israeli aggression, in Europe, Asia and North America as well as the Middle East, is a clear sign of a shift in mass sentiment. The outrage and revulsion at Israel's war crimes are indicative of a growing response of the working class not only to imperialist militarism but also to the deepest economic crisis of the world capitalist system since the Great Depression.

It is the united mobilization of the working class of all countries, including Arab and Jewish workers, that holds the key to a genuinely democratic and progressive solution to the crisis in the Middle East. This must take the conscious form of a struggle against Zionism, imperialism and the Middle Eastern bourgeoisie for a socialist federation of the Middle East, as part of the world socialist revolution.

This is the international socialist perspective fought for by the Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International. We demand the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza, the lifting of the blockade and full restoration of normal trade and economic conditions, and the provision of massive aid to the Palestinian people.

Living on Borrowed Time in a Stolen Land

Go to Original
By Gilad Atzmon

Communicating with Israelis may leave one bewildered. Even now when the Israeli Air Force is practicing murder in broad daylight of hundreds of civilians, elderly persons, women and children, the Israeli people manage to convince themselves that they are the real victims in this violent saga.

Those who are familiar intimately with Israeli people realise that they are completely uninformed about the roots of the conflict that dominates their lives. Rather often Israelis manage to come up with some bizarre arguments that may make a lot of sense within the Israeli discourse, yet make no sense whatsoever outside of the Jewish street. Such an argument goes as follows: ‘those Palestinians, why do they insist upon living on our land (Israel), why can’t they just settle in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon or any other Arab country?’ Another Hebraic pearl of wisdom sounds like this: ‘what is wrong with these Palestinians? We gave them water, electricity, education and all they do is try to throw us to the sea’.

Astonishingly enough, the Israelis even within the so-called ‘left’ and even the educated ‘left’ fail to understand who the Palestinians are, where they come from and what they stand for. They fail to grasp that for the Palestinians, Palestine is home. Miraculously, the Israelis manage to fail to grasp that Israel had been erected at the expense of the Palestinian people, on Palestinian land, on Palestinian villages, towns, fields and orchards. The Israelis do not realise that Palestinians in Gaza and in refugee camps in the region are actually dispossessed people from Ber Shive, Yafo, Tel Kabir, Shekh Munis, Lod, Haifa, Jerusalem and many more towns and villages. If you wonder how come the Israelis don’t know their history, the answer is pretty simple, they have never been told. The circumstances that led to the Israeli Palestinian conflict are well hidden within their culture. Traces of pre-1948 Palestinian civilisation on the land had been wiped out. Not only the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians, is not part of the Israeli curriculum, it is not even mentioned or discussed in any Israeli official or academic forum.

In the very centre of almost every Israeli town one can a find a 1948 memorial statue displaying a very bizarre, almost abstract, pipe work. The plumbing feature is called Davidka and it is actually a 1948 Israeli mortar cannon. Interestingly enough, the Davidka was an extremely ineffective weapon. Its shells wouldn’t reach more than 300 meters and would cause very limited damage. Though the Davidika would cause just minimal harm, it produced a lot of noise. According to the Israeli official historical narrative, the Arabs i.e., Palestinians, simply ran away for their lives once they heard the Davidka from afar. According to the Israeli narrative, the Jews i.e., ‘new Israelis’ did a bit of fireworks and the ‘Arab cowards’ just ran off like idiots. In the Israeli official narrative there is no mention of the many orchestrated massacres conducted by the young IDF and the paramilitary units that preceded it. There is no mention also of the racist laws that stop Palestinians[1][1] from returning to their homes and lands.

The meaning of the above is pretty simple. Israelis are totally unfamiliar with the Palestinian cause. Hence, they can only interpret the Palestinian struggle as a murderous irrational lunacy. Within the Israeli Judeo- centric solipsistic universe, the Israeli is an innocent victim and the Palestinian is no less than a savage murderer.

This grave situation that leaves the Israeli in the dark regarding his past demolishes any possibility of future reconciliation. Since the Israeli lacks the minimal comprehension of the conflict, he cannot contemplate any possible resolution except extermination or cleansing of the ‘enemy’. All the Israeli is entitled to know are various phantasmic narratives of Jewish suffering. Palestinian pain is completely foreign to his ears. ‘Palestinian right of return’ sounds to him like an amusing idea. Even the most advanced ‘Israeli humanists’ are not ready to share the land with its indigenous inhabitants. This doesn’t leave the Palestinians with many options but to liberate themselves against all odds. Clearly, there is no partner for peace on the Israel side.

This week we all learned more about the ballistic capability of Hamas. Evidently, Hamas was rather restrained with Israel for more than a long while. It refrained from escalating the conflict to the whole of southern Israel. It occurred to me that the barrages of Qassams that have been landing sporadically on Sderot and Ashkelon were actually nothing but a message from the imprisoned Palestinians. First it was a message to the stolen land, homes fields and orchards: ‘Our beloved soil, we didn’t forget, we are still here fighting for you, sooner rather than later, we will come back, we will start again where we had stopped’. But it was also a clear message to the Israelis. ‘You out there, in Sderot, Beer Sheva, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Tel Aviv and Haifa, whether you realise it or not, you are actually living on our stolen land. You better start to pack because your time is running out, you have exhausted our patience. We, the Palestinian people, have nothing to lose anymore’.

Let’s face it, realistically the situation in Israel is rather grave. Two years ago it was Hezbollah rockets that pounded northern Israel. This week the Hamas proved beyond doubt that it is capable of serving the South of Israel with some cocktail of ballistic vengeance. Both in the case of the Hezbollah and the case of the Hamas, Israel was left with no military answer. It can no doubt kill civilians but it fails to stop the rocket barrage. The IDF lacks the means of protecting Israel unless covering Israel with a solid concrete roof is a viable solution. At the end of the day, they might be planning just that (link).

But this is far from the end of the story. In fact it is just the beginning. Every Middle East expert knows that Hamas can seize control of the West Bank within hours. In fact, PA and Fatah control in the West Bank is maintained by the IDF. Once Hamas takes the West Bank, the biggest Israeli population centre will be left to the mercy of Hamas. For those who fail to see, this would be the end of Jewish Israel. It may happen later today, it may happen in three months or in five years, it isn’t matter of ‘if’ but rather matter of ‘when’. By that time, the whole of Israel will be within firing range of Hamas and Hezbollah, Israeli society will collapse, its economy will be ruined. The price of a detached villa in Northern Tel Aviv would equal a shed in Kiryat Shmone or Sderot. By the time a single rocket hits Tel Aviv, the Zionist dream will be over.

The IDF generals know it, the Israeli leaders know it. This is why they stepped up the war against the Palestinian into extermination. The Israelis do not plan upon invading Gaza. They have lost nothing there. All they want is to finish the Nakba. They drop bombs on Palestinians in order to wipe them out. They want the Palestinians out of the region. It is obviously not going to work, Palestinians will stay. Not only they will they stay, their day of return to their land is coming closer as Israel has been exploiting its deadliest tactics.

This is exactly where Israeli escapism comes into play. Israel has passed the ‘point of no return’. Its doomed fate is deeply engraved in each bomb it drops on Palestinian civilians. There is nothing Israel can do to save itself. There is no exit strategy. It can’t negotiate its way out because neither the Israelis nor their leadership understand the elementary parameters involved in the conflict. Israel lacks the military power to conclude the battle. It may manage to kill Palestinian grassroots leaders, it has been doing it for years, yet Palestinian resistance and persistence is growing fierce rather than weakening. As an IDF intelligence general predicted already at the first Intifada. ‘In order to win, all Palestinians have to do is to survive’. They survive and they are indeed winning.

Israeli leaders understand it all. Israel has already tried everything, unilateral withdrawal, starvation and now extermination. It thought to evade the demographic danger by shrinking into an intimate cosy Jewish ghetto. Nothing worked. It is Palestinian persistence in the shape of Hamas politics that defines the future of the region.

All that is left to Israelis is to cling to their blindness and escapism to evade their devastating grave fate that has become immanent already. All along their way down, the Israelis will sing their familiar various victim anthems. Being imbued in a self-centred supremacist reality, they will be utterly involved in their own pain yet completely blind to the pain they inflict on others. Uniquely enough, the Israelis are operating as a unified collective when dropping bombs on others, yet, once being slightly hurt, they all manage to become monads of vulnerable innocence. It is this discrepancy between the self-image and the way they are seen by the rest of us which turns the Israeli into a monstrous exterminator. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from grasping their own history, it is that discrepancy that stops them from comprehending the repeated numerous attempts to destroy their State. It is that discrepancy that stops Israelis from understanding the meaning of the Shoah so can they prevent the next one. It is this discrepancy that stops Israelis from being part of humanity.

Once again Jews will have to wander into an unknown fate. To a certain extent, I myself have started my journey a while ago.

---

[1][1] Jews only law of return- http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/1950_1959/Law of Return 5710-1950

read more- http://www.australiansforpalestine.com/press_room/briefing/papers/BriefingPaperNo35_17Aug07_TheLawofReturncopy.pdf

U.S. blocks U.N. action on Gaza conflict

Go to Original

The United States late Saturday blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel and expressing concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas.

U.S. deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff said the United States saw no prospect of Hamas abiding by last week's council call for an immediate end to the violence. Therefore, he said, a new statement at this time "would not be adhered to and would have no underpinning for success, would not do credit to the council."

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, the current council president, announced that there was no agreement among members on a statement. But he said there were "strong convergences" among the 15 members to express serious concern about the deteriorating situation in Gaza and the need for "an immediate, permanent and fully respected cease-fire."

Arab nations demanded that the council adopt a statement calling for an immediate cease-fire following Israel's launch of a ground offensive in Gaza earlier Saturday, a view echoed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Libya's U.N. Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, the only Arab member of the council, said the United States objected to "any outcome" during the closed council discussions on the proposed statement.

He said efforts were made to compromise and agree on a weaker press statement but there was no consensus.

Thousands join march to protest against Israeli action

Go to Original
By Tracy McVeigh and Ben Quinn

Protests against the Israeli offensive in Gaza became heated last night when up to 5,000 people gathered outside the country's London embassy.

A crowd dominated by young British Muslims cheered as Israeli flags were burned and some protesters hurled missiles, including a firework, at police.

Officers sealed off roads around Kensington High Street and armed themselves with riot shields as a small number of angry protesters tried to break down barriers protecting the building.

Older members of the crowd were seen trying to calm the atmosphere, which became increasingly charged as darkness fell and news of the ground invasion began to spread.

The group had broken away from a much larger demonstration earlier in the day when thousands marched through the streets of central London and gathered at a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Police said that 12,000 people had taken part in the protest, but the Stop The War Coalition, organisers of the demonstration, said the real figure was six times that at more than 60,000.

Organisers were preparing to make an official complaint to Scotland Yard after claiming that riot police charged into protesters.

Eyewitnesses claimed a number of people, including children, were thrown to the ground during a clash in an underpass at Hyde Park at the end of the demonstration.

Chris Nineham, an official of STWC who has organised dozens of national demonstrations, said: "I have never seen policing as irresponsible as this. People were being crushed inside that tunnel and they were being batoned. It was absolute pandemonium and people were falling over from the force of the police attacks.

"There were people trying to pull their children back and prevent them from being crushed. If anyone had fallen over then it would have been a very, very different story."

Stephen Hodgkins, 38, a community worker from Battersea, said people were petrified inside the tunnel. "We tried sitting down but that didn't seem to work. It was complete panic."

The mood had been more optimistic earlier in the day when speakers addressed the crowds in Trafalgar Square.

"Look at them, it warms my heart," said Tony Benn, president of the STWC, indicating the mass of demonstrators.

Earlier, protesters had thrown more than 1,000 pairs of shoes at the heavily-policed entrance to Downing Street in a mark of solidarity with the Iraqi journalist jailed for making a similar demonstration against US President George W Bush at a press conference.

The London protest was one of 18 that took place across the UK yesterday. There were also rallies in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Athens and several Asian cities.

The protest march at the Israeli embassy in Athens turned violent as demonstrators threw stones and fire bombs at riot police, and officers retaliated with tear gas and stun grenades.

Hundreds of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, with up to 10,000, largely Israeli Arabs, taking to the streets in the northern town of Sakhnin.

In London too, the crowds kept pouring in, a mix of ages, colours, and creeds.

Even a group of Orthodox Jews had braved possible hostility and broken the Sabbath to join the protest alongside anti-war campaigners, Muslim groups and ordinary citizens.

Housing officer Derek Perry, 60, and his sculptor friend Maria Smith, 47, from West Norwood, were nursing cups of coffee in cold hands. "I just wanted to be here," said Perry. "You have to make a stand," said Smith.

A group of young men from Leicester were selling copies of Palestinian football strips. "We're nearly sold out and we brought a good 100 or more - it's all for charity," said a delighted Irshad Patel, 23, bartering furiously.

The podium around Nelson's Column had been barricaded off and speakers lined up to make an address. Peace campaigner Bianca Jagger looked down towards Parliament. "I made my speech too soon; I should have waited for them to arrive," she said.

Singer Annie Lennox was there too. Formerly married to an Israeli, she told the Observer: "This is not about political sides any more, this is a sincere and earnest yearning for peace. One and a half million people are trapped inside Gaza; what will the outcome be of a ground war? The world will never be safe again."

Others found the protest upsetting. Rabbi Dr Sidney Brichto, senior vice-president of Liberal Judaism, a federation of liberal synagogues, said: "The demonstration was easy to organise because most of the demonstrators want more than a ceasefire.

"Most of these people want the end of Israel. Hamas are able to plug into latent anti-semitism in the West. It breaks my heart."

Obama sketches out recovery plan

Go to Original
By Jeanne Sahadi

President-elect says he wants to double renewable energy production, rebuild roads and schools and cut taxes. Next step: Consulting with Congress.

President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday offered the most detailed statement yet of his economic recovery plan, sketching out broad-based spending proposals and tax incentives aimed at reviving an economy mired in recession.

In his weekly radio and video address describing what he called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, Obama spelled out five main goals. He said his plan proposes to:

• double renewable energy production and make public buildings more energy efficient;
  
• rebuild crumbling roads, bridges and schools;
  
• computerize the health care system
  
• modernize classrooms, labs and libraries;
  
• and provide tax breaks to American workers.

"Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don’t act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn," Obama said. "That’s why we need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term."

The main goal of his plan: to create 3 million new jobs. Most would come from the private sector, he said.

As Obama prepares to take office on Jan. 20, the country faces a series of severe economic and political challenges.

Nearly 2 million jobs were lost in the first 11 months of 2008 - the final government reading on the employment picture will be released on Friday - and the economy has stagnated. Investors suffered the worst year in stocks since the Great Depression, and foreclosures are rising while housing values are declining at record paces.

Virtually every state is facing a budget shortfall, forcing many to make plans to cut back on critical services and raise taxes.

To that end, Obama’s advisers and lawmakers have said they expect his legislation to provide increased aid to states to pay for Medicaid, as well as a boost to unemployment benefits and food stamps. However, he didn’t mention it in his address on Saturday.

Obama’s video address did not attach an estimated price tag to his proposal, but his advisers have said publicly they expect the size of the spending package to range between $675 billion and $775 billion.

Many economists have called for stimulus spending to approach or even exceed $1 trillion if the government expects to successfully beat back one of the deepest downturns in more than two generations.

Next step: Making the pitch to Congress

On Saturday, the president-elect confirmed that he will meet with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders next week to sell them on the plan.

While his aides have been in talks with Capitol Hill staffers, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been calling on him to present details for what could be the most expensive spending bill in U.S. history.

Some Democrats and Republicans have already raised red flags about the proposed plan’s potential scope and the prospect of a rushed attempt to pass the bill in time for Obama to take office on Jan. 20.

A sharp debate is likely over several crucial questions. Will the proposed measures in fact boost the economy? What’s the right balance between seeding short-term stimulus versus funding long-term projects? Will money intended to yield long-term dividends for the economy as a whole end up merely serving politically motivated agendas or pet projects?

Obama attempted to assuage some of those concerns on Saturday when he called for "vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results." He stressed that his plan is not an attempt to "throw money" at the economy’s problems.

"I am optimistic that if we come together to seek solutions that advance not the interests of any party, or the agenda of any one group, but the aspirations of all Americans, then we will meet the challenges of our time just as previous generations have met the challenges of theirs," Obama said.

Chrysler gets $4 billion U.S. government loan

Go to Original

Chrysler LLC on Friday received an initial $4 billion emergency loan from the U.S. government, two days after the government completed a parallel payout to its larger rival General Motors Corp.

"This initial loan will allow the company to continue an orderly restructuring," Chrysler Chief Executive Bob Nardelli said in a statement.

U.S. Treasury Department spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin confirmed that the government had sent the $4 billion in funds to Chrysler on Friday.

General Motors Corp received $4 billion in emergency loans on Wednesday. Both Chrysler and GM have said they need the infusion of government cash to meet payouts to suppliers at a time when a plunge in auto sales has drained their cash holdings.

Officials have not spelled out why the loan to GM and a separate $6 billion funding for its affiliated finance firm GMAC were completed ahead of the Chrysler transaction.

In an email to employees, Nardelli suggested that the complexity of the deals had delayed the first payout to Chrysler, which had been expected to be completed before the end of the year.

"The Treasury Department has been working to complete the multiple, complex financial arrangements quickly and sequentially. The magnitude of these discussions was significant," Nardelli said.

When major automakers release results on Monday, December auto sales are expected to show that industry-wide sales fell to the lowest full-year level since 1992.

Under terms of the government bailout, Chrysler and GM will have to submit restructuring plans by mid-February and demonstrate that they are viable by the end of March.

Chrysler is controlled by Cerberus Capital Management, and as the only privately held of the Detroit-based automakers it faced the most scrutiny in congressional hearings on the proposed bailout for the industry.

Cerberus also owns 51 percent of GMAC.

The Bush administration approved a $17.4 billion bailout for the auto operations of GM and Chrysler in December.

Of that total, GM has been promised another $9.4 billion in government loans under that program in addition to the $4 billion payment made on Wednesday. The final $4 billion of the bailout approved for GM will require Congress to approve the funding.

Chrysler was given $4 billion by the U.S. government after asking for $7 billon.

The bailout represents the second U.S. government rescue of Chrysler in 28 years.

Rival Ford Motor Co has not sought government loans but has asked for a $9 billion line of credit it could tap if business conditions worsen beyond its projections.

Israeli troops and tanks slice deep into Gaza

Go to Original
By IBRAHIM BARZAK and JASON KEYSER

Thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships surrounded Gaza's largest city and fought militants at close range on Sunday, in the first full day of an overwhelming ground offensive in the coastal territory.

Israel said it has inflicted a heavy blow against Hamas as it expands a weeklong offensive meant to stop rocket fire on southern Israel. But spiraling civilian casualties among Palestinians fueled an international outcry, even as the U.S. blocked approval of a U.N. Security Council statement Saturday night calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Israel's ground forces moved in after nightfall Saturday following hours of intense, fiery artillery shelling to clear the way, and Hamas warned that its fighters would turn Gaza into an Israeli "graveyard."

On Sunday, Israeli soldiers continued to fight primarily in open areas in the launching zones used by Gaza's militants to send rockets raining down on Israeli cities. As the troops in three brigade-size formations moved in, residents of those Israeli cities began emerging from bomb shelters in hopes that the rocket fire would taper off.

Backing up the troops, mobile artillery units fired shells that exploded in veils of white smoke over Gaza's urban skyline. Tanks pushed south of Gaza City as deep as the abandoned settlement of Netzarim, which Israel left along with other Israeli communities when it pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

That effectively cut off Gaza City, the territory's largest population center with some 400,000 residents, from the rest of Gaza to the south.

Israel's military chief said Hamas fighters were trying to draw soldiers deeper into Gaza's sprawling, densely packed urban areas, where the military said Hamas was shielding itself behind civilians.

"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV. "Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing," he said.

Israeli forces have not yet entered urban areas, said Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, the chief army spokesman. He warned, however, that the operation was not a "school trip" and would be long and demanding.

The ground invasion risks turning into intense urban combat, with house-to-house fighting, sniper fire and booby-traps. Hamas is believed to have some 20,000 gunmen and has had time to prepare.

To guard against hidden explosives, Israel's ground forces moved through fields and orchards with bomb-sniffing dogs.

Gaza officials said at least 31 civilians were killed in the onslaught, which also continued from the air.

At one hospital, in the northern village of Beit Lahiya, medics carrying three injured children in their arms rushed them to treatment. One of the children had a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his head and covering his eyes.

An Israeli airstrike close to Gaza City's main market showered the area with shrapnel, killing three children, all of them siblings, medics said. Militants were using empty land next to the Firas market to fire rockets.

Israeli forces killed dozens of armed Hamas gunmen, an army statement said, but Gaza officials could confirm only a handful of dead fighters — in part because rescue teams could not reach the battle zones.

The new deaths brought the death toll in the Gaza Strip to more than 512 since Dec. 27. The tally is based on figures from the U.N. and Palestinian health officials as well as a count by The Associated Press.

One Israeli soldier died — the first to be killed in the ground operation — and 30 others were wounded, some of them in heavy exchanges of fire near the militant stronghold of Jebaliya, a town on Gaza City's northern outskirts, the army said. Heavy Israeli casualties could undermine what has so far been overwhelming public support for the operation.

Condemnation of Israel's ground operation poured in from around the Middle East and Europe.

"It is absolutely necessary that the violence has to stop," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

Support for Israel remained firm from U.S. officials, who squarely blame Hamas.

Vice President Dick Cheney said Israel "didn't seek clearance or approval from us, certainly" before thousands of soldiers pushed into Gaza after nightfall on Saturday.

Sens. Harry Reid and Dick Durbin — the top two Democrats in the chamber — and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell all described Israel's actions as understandable. "I think what the Israelis are doing is very important," Reid said. "I think this terrorist organization, Hamas, has got to be put away. They've got to come to their senses."

Israeli President Shimon Peres said that Israel had to push forward despite the calls for a halt to the ground offensive and that a cease-fire was pointless without a stop to Hamas rocket fire.

"Well, clearly, if there is somebody (who) can stop terror with a different strategy, we shall accept it," he said on ABC's "This Week."

"We shall not accept the idea that Hamas will continue to fire and we shall declare a cease-fire. It does not make any sense."

Peres said Israel is not aiming to reoccupy Gaza or even to crush Hamas, but to "crush terror." Under Israel's blistering assault, he said, Hamas was "now beginning to feel the weight of their mistakes."

The ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that has reached deeper and deeper into Israel, threatening major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population of 7 million people.

More than 30 rockets and mortar shells fell in Israel on Sunday morning, sending Israelis scrambling for bomb shelters. Two Israelis were lightly wounded. Four Israelis have been killed in the attacks since the offensive began.

In Gaza City, civilians cowered inside as battles raged, while terrified residents in other areas fled in fear. In the southern town of Rafah, one man loaded a donkey cart with mattresses and blankets preparing to flee.

Lubna Karam, 28, said she and the other nine members of her family spent the night huddled in the hallway of their Gaza City home. The windows of the house were blown out days earlier in an Israeli airstrike, and the family has been without electricity for a week, surviving without heat and eating cold food.

"We keep hearing the sounds of airplanes and we don't know if we'll live until tomorrow or not," she said.

Severe damage to Gaza's phone network was pushing the strip closer to complete isolation. The Palestinian phone company Paltel Group said 90 percent of Gaza's cellular service was down, as well as many landlines, because of frequent power cuts and the inability of technicians to reach work sites.

In his first public comments on the operation, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet on Sunday that Israel could not allow its civilians to continue to be targeted by rockets from Gaza.

"This morning I can look every one you in the eyes and say the government did everything before deciding to go ahead with the operation. This operation was unavoidable," he said.

The Israeli chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, told a meeting of Cabinet ministers that most of Sunday's fighting was at close range, with Hamas preferring to fight in built-up areas rather than on open ground. Ashkenazi said the operation aimed to take over areas militants use to launch rockets.

Military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet that Hamas was using mosques, public institutions and private houses as ammunition stores.

Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, told the ministers there was a "weakening" in Hamas' desire to keep fighting. Still, he said, while the Hamas political leadership has been hit hard, its military organization has "yet to be dealt the harsh blow Israel expects it to be dealt." The security officials' comments were relayed to the press by the Cabinet secretary, Oved Yehezkel.

Israel on Sunday approved the mobilization of thousands of reservists, in addition to tens of thousands called up on Saturday. Defense officials said the extra forces could enable a far broader ground offensive.

The troops could also be used in the event Palestinian militants in the West Bank or Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon decide to launch attacks, as Hezbollah did in 2006 when Israel was in the midst of a large operation in Gaza.

The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling

Go to Original
By Johann Hari

The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.


To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.

There will now be a war over the story of this war. The Israeli government says, "We withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and in return we got Hamas and Qassam rockets being rained on our cities. Sixteen civilians have been murdered. How many more are we supposed to sacrifice?" It is a plausible narrative, and there are shards of truth in it, but it is also filled with holes. If we want to understand the reality and really stop the rockets, we need to rewind a few years and view the run-up to this war dispassionately.

The Israeli government did indeed withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – in order to be able to intensify control of the West Bank. Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was unequivocal about this, explaining: "The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians... this whole package that is called the Palestinian state has been removed from our agenda indefinitely."

Ordinary Palestinians were horrified by this, and by the fetid corruption of their own Fatah leaders, so they voted for Hamas. It certainly wouldn't have been my choice – an Islamist party is antithetical to all my convictions - but we have to be honest. It was a free and democratic election, and it was not a rejection of a two-state solution. The most detailed polling of Palestinians, by the University of Maryland, found that 72 per cent want a two-state solution on the 1967 borders, while fewer than 20 per cent want to reclaim the whole of historic Palestine. So, partly in response to this pressure, Hamas offered Israel a long, long ceasefire and a de facto acceptance of two states, if only Israel would return to its legal borders.

Rather than seize this opportunity and test Hamas's sincerity, the Israeli government reacted by punishing the entire civilian population. It announced that it was blockading the Gaza Strip in order to "pressure" its people to reverse the democratic process. The Israelis surrounded the Strip and refused to let anyone or anything out. They let in a small trickle of food, fuel and medicine – but not enough for survival. Weisglass quipped that the Gazans were being "put on a diet". According to Oxfam, only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza last month to feed 1.5 million people. The United Nations says poverty has reached an "unprecedented level." When I was last in besieged Gaza, I saw hospitals turning away the sick because their machinery and medicine was running out. I met hungry children stumbling around the streets, scavenging for food.

It was in this context – under a collective punishment designed to topple a democracy – that some forces within Gaza did something immoral: they fired Qassam rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities. These rockets have killed 16 Israeli citizens. This is abhorrent: targeting civilians is always murder. But it is hypocritical for the Israeli government to claim now to speak out for the safety of civilians when it has been terrorising civilians as a matter of state policy.

The American and European governments are responding with a lop-sidedness that ignores these realities. They say that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate while under rocket fire, but they demand that the Palestinians do so under siege in Gaza and violent military occupation in the West Bank.

Before it falls down the memory hole, we should remember that last week, Hamas offered a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises. Don't take my word for it. According to the Israeli press, Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, "told the Israeli cabinet [on 23 December] that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms." Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet – high with election fever and eager to appear tough – rejected these terms.

The core of the situation has been starkly laid out by Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad. He says that while Hamas militants – like much of the Israeli right-wing – dream of driving their opponents away, "they have recognised this ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future." Instead, "they are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967." They are aware that this means they "will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" – and towards a long-term peace based on compromise.

The rejectionists on both sides – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Bibi Netanyahu of Israel – would then be marginalised. It is the only path that could yet end in peace but it is the Israeli government that refuses to choose it. Halevy explains: "Israel, for reasons of its own, did not want to turn the ceasefire into the start of a diplomatic process with Hamas."

Why would Israel act this way? The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians. It means the Israelis can keep the slabs of the West Bank on "their" side of the wall. It means they keep the largest settlements and control the water supply. And it means a divided Palestine, with responsibility for Gaza hived off to Egypt, and the broken-up West Bank standing alone. Negotiations threaten this vision: they would require Israel to give up more than it wants to. But an imposed peace will be no peace at all: it will not stop the rockets or the rage. For real safety, Israel will have to talk to the people it is blockading and bombing today, and compromise with them.

The sound of Gaza burning should be drowned out by the words of the Israeli writer Larry Derfner. He says: "Israel's war with Gaza has to be the most one-sided on earth... If the point is to end it, or at least begin to end it, the ball is not in Hamas's court – it is in ours."

Why Obama Is Silent On Gaza?

Go to Original
By Gibbwake

If you look a few months back to when Obama was speaking at AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, you’ll find your reasons why he is silent on the current Gaza situation. As of right now, the Israeli government is invading and pillaging Gaza and not a word from Obama. His spokesman David Axelrod claims that he isn’t commenting because “..There is only one president at a time,” yet that didnt stop him with nearly every other issue such as the Mumbai attacks, and the Russia/Georgia conflict. Here is why:

At the AIPAC in mid 2008, Obama speaks of a “strong commitment to make sure that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever.” Implying that no matter what war crimes and atrocities the government of israel commits, the United States run by Obama will always lend support. “We must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs..”

Here are other quotes from Obamas AIPAC speech, illustrating exactly why he is not saying anything about the Gaza attack. Read the full speech by Obama at AIPAC here.

“..As president I will never compromise when it comes to Israel’s security.”

“I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security. That starts with ensuring Israel’s qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat — from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation.”

“I will strongly urge Arab governments to take steps to normalize relations with Israel, and to fulfill their responsibility to pressure extremists and provide real support for President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad. Egypt must cut off the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.”

“Let me be clear. Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper — but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

“We must never force Israel to the negotiating table, but neither should we ever block negotiations when Israel’s leaders decide that they may serve Israeli interests. As president, I will do whatever I can to help Israel succeed in these negotiations.”

“Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel.”

That change Obama said he was bringing? Here what he tells his AIPAC audience what it really means: “That is the change we need in our foreign policy. Change that restores American power and influence. Change accompanied by a pledge that I will make known to allies and adversaries alike: that America maintains an unwavering friendship with Israel, and an unshakeable commitment to its security.”

Then you look at Obamas first appointment: Rahm Emanuel, a dual Israeli citizen and son of a zionist terrorist. Rahm is known for sending rotten fish to his enemies. He is also well known for standing up during a party and shouting a list of his enemies and yelling “DEAD! .. DEAD! .. DEAD!” while stabbing a knife into the table after every name. Source: rollingstone.com

Rahms father was “a member of the Zionist terrorist group Irgun, which was responsible for bombing hotels, marketplaces as well as the infamous Deir Yassin massacre, in which hundreds of Palestinian villagers were slaughtered.” Rahms finger was also cut off like something you would see in a mobster movie for disappointing the mob boss.

Joe Biden, VP pick and admitted zionist is flagrantly pro Israel and was even jokingly accused of running for VP of Israel after a speech he gave in Florida. There he said he would help secure Israel, and that “I would not have given up that job to be Barack Obama’s vice president if I didn’t in my gut and in my heart and in my head know that Barack Obama is exactly where I am on Israel. And he is.”

The other members of Obamas cabinet are warhawks, globalists, and bilderbergers who support Israel unquestionably.

With the Gaza silence explained in Obama’s own words and with his staff picks, maybe it can begin to sink in to the people who once supported Obama: He is nothing but more of the same, especially on Israel. Lets hope the good people of Israel can rid themselves of the taint their corrupt government is giving them and the region, as it will undoubtably lead to the destruction of both sides.

Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims

Go to Original

Medics tell Press TV they have found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip.

Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on December 27 have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.

The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday that the wide-ranging ground offensive in the Gaza Strip would be "full of surprises."

A ground offensive in the densely-populated Gaza is expected to drastically increase the death toll of the civilian population.

The latest assaults bring the number of Palestinians killed to over 488 with 2790 others wounded. The UN says that about 25 percent of the casualties were civilian deaths - including at least 34 children.

According to Israeli army officials, at least 30 of its soldiers have been wounded since the start of the ground campaign.

Amid global condemnation of the ongoing violence in the region, the UN Security Council failed to agree on a united approach to resolve the crisis.

"Once again, the world is watching in dismay the dysfunctionality of the Security Council," UN General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto said Sunday.

According to diplomatic sources, the US blocked a Security Council resolution, with US Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff arguing that an official statement that criticizes both Israel and Hamas would not be helpful.

The White House has so far declined to comment on whether an Israeli ground incursion into Gaza is a justified measure.