UN halts all aid deliveries to Gaza

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By IBRAHIM BARZAK AND STEVE WEIZMAN

The United Nations halted aid deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday, citing Israeli attacks on its staff and installations hours after it said tank fire killed one of its drivers as he went to pick up a shipment.

The world body has already demanded an investigation into Israel's shelling of a UN school in Gaza that killed nearly 40 people earlier this week. Israel said Hamas fighters were operating in the area at the time.

For a second straight day, Israel suspended its Gaza military operation for three hours to allow in humanitarian supplies. Shortly before the pause took effect, however, the UN said one of its aid trucks came under Israeli fire, killing the driver.

The UN said it co-ordinated the delivery with Israel, and the vehicle was marked with a UN flag and insignia when it was shot in northern Gaza. The Israeli army said it was investigating.

“The UN is suspending its aid operations in Gaza until we can get safety and security guarantees for our staff,” spokesman Chris Gunness said. “We've been co-ordinating with them (Israeli forces) and yet our staff continue to be hit and killed.”

The UN provides food aid to around 750,000 Gaza residents, and runs dozens of schools and clinics throughout the territory. They have some 9,000 locally-employed staffers inside Gaza, and a small team of international staffers who work there.

As Israel pushed forward with the bloody offensive in the Gaza Strip, fighters in Lebanon fired at least three rockets into Israel early Thursday, threatening to open a new front for the Jewish state. Israel responded with mortar shells.

The rockets from Lebanon raised the spectre of renewed hostilities on Israel's northern frontier, just 2 1/2 years after Israel battled the Hezbollah guerrilla group to a 34-day stalemate. War broke out between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006 as Israel battled Palestinians in Gaza, on Israel's southern borders.

No group claimed responsibility. Lebanon's government condemned the attack, and Hezbollah — which now plays an integral role in Lebanon's government — denied any responsibility for the rocket fire, which lightly injured two Israelis.

In other Gaza violence, Israel killed at least 11 people, including three who were fleeing their homes, raising the death toll from its 13-day offensive to 699 Palestinians, according to Palestinian medical officials. Eleven Israelis have died since the offensive began Dec. 27.

The offensive is meant to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel, but with roughly half the dead believed to be civilians, international efforts to broker a ceasefire have been gaining steam.

Despite the heavy fighting, strides appeared to be made on the diplomatic front with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying Washington supported a deal being brokered by France and Egypt.

While the UN Security Council failed to reach agreement on a ceasefire resolution, Egyptian Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said representatives of Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority agreed to meet separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo.

Israeli envoys travelled to Egypt on Thursday to discuss the proposal.

For Israel to accept a proposed ceasefire deal, “there has to be a total and complete cessation of all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, and ... we have to see an arms embargo on Hamas that will receive international support,” said government spokesman Mark Regev.

For its part, Hamas said it would not accept a truce unless it includes an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza — something Israel says it is not willing to do. Israel has maintained a stiff economic embargo on Gaza since the Hamas takeover, sparking the rocket attacks.

The Palestinian Authority controls the West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza — two territories on opposite sides of Israel that are supposed to make up a future Palestinian state. Hamas took control of Gaza from forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007.

An Unnecessary War

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By Jimmy Carter

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.

After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.

Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel's withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel's unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

On another visit to Syria in mid-December, I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.

After 12 days of "combat," the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.

The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace.

Budget deficit to hit $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2009

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By Richard Cowan and Jeremy Pelofsky

The U.S. budget deficit will swell to a record $1.186 trillion in fiscal 2009, congressional forecasters said on Wednesday, the result of an economic recession that has cut tax receipts and caused massive government bailouts of banks and automakers.

The out-of-control deficit picture by the Congressional Budget Office illustrates the daunting economic challenges President-elect Barack Obama faces when he takes office on January 20.

But on Thursday, Obama will deliver a speech on the economy in which he will lay out his case for even more short-term deficit spending, possibly $775 billion or more over two years, to help heal the sick economy.

CBO also said the budget deficit could fall to $703 billion in the 2010 fiscal year which begins October 1, 2009, as the U.S. recession begins easing.

The actual budget gaps for both years may be significantly greater as Washington prepares to pass the gigantic economic stimulus bill by mid-February.

The CBO report shattered President George W. Bush's pledge that the government would balance its budget by 2012. Instead, CBO sees significant deficits at least through 2019.

The recession, which began in December 2007, has brought major job losses and slashed consumer spending and tax revenues. Unhappy and anxious voters elected Obama to the White House and gave Democrats larger majorities in Congress.

"This isn't your run-of-the-mill recession," CBO Acting Director Robert Sunshine told reporters. He said it might be the longest downturn since World War II.

CBO projected the U.S. economy will shrink 2.2 percent in 2009, the deepest for any calendar year since an 11 percent decline in 1946, before growing a modest 1.5 percent in 2010.

Unemployment was forecast to rise to an average of 8.3 percent this year and 9 percent in 2010. But Sunshine said there was unusual uncertainty with the forecasts.

Obama has said he expects deficits around $1 trillion for years, forcing tough budget choices. But on Wednesday he said his stimulus plan would not be as big as some have projected.

"GRIM EPITAPH"

While trying to revive the economy, Obama also faces a longer-term problem of trying to control the rapid growth in the cost of federal retiree and health benefits for an aging population. Politicians have been putting off these tough decisions for years.

Obama said he was mindful that the stimulus package would add to the near-term deficits but said it was needed because of the "dire" condition of the economy.

Signaling that he intends to stress fiscal responsibility, Obama on Wednesday named former Treasury official Nancy Killefer to scour the budget for wasteful spending items.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee, warned that if the stimulus measure establishes permanent new spending programs, trillion dollar deficits would never go away.

The projected deficits dwarf last year's $455 billion -- the current record.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat, said the new CBO deficit forecast represented "a grim epitaph for the Bush administration," which inherited a surplus in 2001.

In coming months, Congress will be asked to approve tens of billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have so far cost $857 billion, further adding to the deficit.

This year's deficit also swelled in part because of a $240 billion rescue of mortgaging financing companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a tax rebate, part of a 2008 stimulus package which will cost $168 billion over two years.

The Bush administration has loaned hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue financial institutions from risky real estate investments that went sour. Domestic automakers also are getting assistance from Washington.

The bailouts could cost the government $184 billion this year and $5 billion next year, the CBO projected. So far, the Treasury Department has spent about half of the $700 billion authorized by Congress.

CBO also estimated deficits over the next five years will total $1.972 trillion.

When Bush took office, total U.S. debt was $5.7 trillion. It now stands at more than $10.6 trillion because of increased government spending, tax cuts and the recession.

Free Market Myth

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By Dean Baker

Regulation is everywhere. Let’s choose who benefits.

The extraordinary financial collapse of recent months has been commonly described as a testament to the failure of deregulation. The events are indeed testament to a failure—a failure of public policy. Blaming deregulation is misleading.

In general, political debates over regulation have been wrongly cast as disputes over the extent of regulation, with conservatives assumed to prefer less regulation, while liberals prefer more. In fact conservatives do not necessarily desire less regulation, nor do liberals necessarily desire more. Conservatives support regulatory structures that cause income to flow upward, while liberals support regulatory structures that promote equality. “Less” regulation does not imply greater inequality, nor is the reverse true.

Framing regulation debates in terms of more and less is not only inaccurate; it hugely biases the argument toward conservative positions by characterizing an extremely intrusive structure of, for example, patent and copyright rules, as the free market. In the realm of insurance and finance over the last two decades, calls for deregulation have been cover for rules tilted starkly toward corporate interests. And the recent change in bankruptcy law, hailed by conservatives, requires much greater government involvement in the economy.

False ideological claims have circumscribed the public debate over regulation and blinded us to the wide range of choices we can make. Without these claims, what would guide regulatory policy? What kinds of choices would we have?

* * *

Patent and copyright protection are good examples of government policies obscured in the debate. They are forms of regulation, not elements of a “free market.”

It does not matter that we call patents and copyrights “property” or even that we have a clause in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to grant patents and copyrights. Suppose autoworkers were given a property right to a job in the automobile industry, a right they could even sell. Would anyone say that this right to a job is part of the free market?

Patents and copyrights are government-granted protections designed for a specific public purpose, as stated in the Constitution: “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” But granting intellectual property rights is one of many possible mechanisms for accomplishing this important public goal. Whether patents and copyrights are the most effective mechanisms for the promotion of the arts and sciences is an empirical question. And the answer could be different depending on the specific social and economic circumstances. However, we cannot have a serious discussion of the relative merits of patents and copyrights until we recognize that these are public policies and not intrinsic features of the free market. Debates about both patent and copyright have been hugely distorted by the failure to recognize this obvious fact.

In the case of patent protection, policy disputes arise most frequently with regard to prescription drugs. If drugs were sold in a competitive market (i.e., without patent protection), the overwhelming majority of drugs would sell for just a few dollars per prescription. Wal-Mart and other major drug store chains now sell most generic drugs for less than $10 per prescription—we know these drugs can be manufactured safely and sold profitably at low prices.

The drugs available as generics are not chemically distinct from their brand-name counterparts that often sell for hundreds of dollars per prescription. The only difference is that the latter, as a group, enjoys a government-guaranteed monopoly. Patents constitute a government policy that effectively raises drug prices by several thousand percent above the free market price.

Recognizing this should be the starting point in any policy debate. The next question is whether this policy for supporting innovation is the best mechanism for financing the research and development of new drugs. It clearly is not the only one.

The government could, for example, support drug research through a prize system in which it buys drug patents and then places them in the public domain so that newly developed drugs could be manufactured and sold as generics.

When we sweep away ideology, we see that it is a debate between two regulatory strategies for keeping drug prices down.

Alternatively, the government could pay for the research upfront and make all research findings and patents fully public. It already spends $30 billion a year financing biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health, an amount almost as high as the pharmaceutical industry claims to spend on its research. NIH research is highly respected, with almost all observers agreeing that the money is, on the whole, extremely well spent. While the NIH focuses on basic research (it also does some later-stage drug research, including clinical testing), there is no obvious reason why the government could not simply double its commitment to biomedical research in order to replace the research and development currently supported by grants of patent monopolies.

But the government may wish to use a different mechanism to encourage drug development. It may choose to establish a small number of master contractors, who would then contract out the awarding of research funds so as to minimize the potential for political interference. Regardless of the structure a particular program would take, expansion of direct funding is clearly feasible.

There would also be large public benefits in addition to lowering the price of drugs to their marginal cost. Eliminating huge monopoly rents associated with drug patents would take away the incentive for drug companies to push drugs in cases where they may not be especially beneficial, or even potentially harmful. Nor would there be incentive to conceal research findings that indicate a drug’s weak performance. Furthermore, by placing all research findings in the public domain, so that scientists can quickly benefit from the research done by others, the process of drug innovation would likely accelerate.

Whether a patent-buyout system or direct public funding would be preferable to the current patent system is obviously debatable; the point is that patent is just one mechanism among many that could facilitate prescription-drug research. And it is one that involves granting monopoly rents to large drug companies.

It is important to establish that patents are a form of regulation because there are many venues in which the regulation of prescription drugs has been a major issue, with those who would see prices fall cast as opponents of the free market. For example, the ongoing push to have Medicare bargain for lower prices for drugs bought as part of its prescription drug benefit is widely viewed as interference in the free market. Even The New York Times and other highly respected media outlets often present the argument about Medicare-negotiated drug prices as a debate between proponents of free markets and of government intervention. When we sweep away ideology, we see that it is a debate between two regulatory strategies for keeping drug prices down.

* * *

There is a similar story with copyrights, although the economic waste is even larger and the enforcement measures even more perverse. In the Internet age, almost any printed or recorded material—music, movies, books, video games—can be instantly transferred anywhere in the world at almost no cost. However, rather than allowing the public to enjoy the full benefit of this technology, the government has created a dizzying array of new laws and restrictions designed to make it more difficult, and legally more risky, to pass along material that is subject to copyright protection.

As with drug patents, copyrights serve an important public purpose. They provide an incentive to produce creative and artistic work. But to protect copyright, the government has imposed an aggressive sanction regime even for seemingly minor offenses. In one case, a woman in Minnesota faced a fine of more than $200,000 for allowing people to download music from her computer. Universities have been told to police dorm rooms to ensure that students are not downloading material in violation of copyright, and they have been encouraged to conduct classes teaching that it is wrong to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material.

The government has repeatedly prohibited the production of various types of hardware until protections could be installed to prevent the duplication of copyrighted material. It has banned the development of software that can break through copyright protections. In one case a Russian computer scientist was arrested by the FBI after a conference presentation in which he described a way to get around a form of copyright protection.

The list of extraordinary government measures that have been developed to enhance copyright protection is lengthy. Remarkably, these measures are never described as forms of government regulation. They are treated as enforcement measures necessary to protect copyright. However, just as patents are not the only way to encourage innovation, a government-granted monopoly with extensive rules and heavy-handed enforcement is not the only way to promote creativity.

A vast amount of creative and artistic work is already supported through mechanisms that do not depend on copyright protection. Private foundations are a major alternative source of support, as are the limited funds available through public programs such as the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Colleges and universities are probably the largest source of funding not dependent on copyright. Professors are expected to do research and writing in addition to their teaching responsibilities.

It is easy to envision mechanisms to expand support for creative and artistic work outside the copyright regime. For example, it would be possible to design a modest tax credit for individuals who either support creative work directly or contribute to organizations that support such work. The credit could be modeled after the tax deduction for nonprofits or charities. Even a modest tax credit (e.g., $100 per person)—which taxpayers could allocate to an artist, writer, musician, or film producer of their choice—would likely be sufficient to fund almost all of the work currently supported by the copyright system.

To be fair, rarely does either side argue against regulation as such. The real issue is the structure of regulation and its impact on economic outcomes, especially income distribution.

Alternatives to copyright are feasible and probably far more efficient than the copyright system. And they would replace a gigantic array of enforcement measures that can themselves be seen as unnecessary forms of government intervention into the economy.

* * *

A final example of excessive government regulation, never discussed as such, is the bankruptcy-reform bill that passed Congress in 2005. This bill substantially strengthened the conditions imposed on people seeking bankruptcy protection, making such protection a much less attractive option.

The public debate over the bill dealt in liberal/conservative caricatures that completely misrepresented what was at stake. The liberal argument relied on sympathy for the people seeking bankruptcy; it drew on studies showing that the great majority of people seeking bankruptcy had not been spendthrifts who deliberately ran up huge credit card debts, but rather had fallen on hard times as result of job loss, medical emergencies, or family breakup. The opponents of stricter conditions argued that these people needed and deserved the break that bankruptcy allows.

The conservative argument centered on individual responsibility. No one forced anyone to take on debt; these people voluntarily chose to do so. Everyone knows that bad things can happen. Those seeking bankruptcy protection should have taken precautions.

This version of bankruptcy reform undoubtedly resonated with those inclined to accept that people succeed or fail largely as a result of their own actions, but, most importantly, it obscured the real issue that the bill addressed: to what lengths should the government go to collect unpaid bills? The party seeking the aid of the government in this story is the creditor, not the debtor.

Under the preexisting bankruptcy law, creditors could lay claim to most of the debtors’ assets and in some cases place liens on future earnings. The new law hugely expanded the creditors’ claims on future earnings. This means that the government will be far more involved in bill collection in the future than it has been in the past, possibly monitoring the wages of millions of individuals in bankruptcy who still have debts to creditors. (For those who worry about the negative incentives caused by taxation, it is worth noting that having money deducted from paychecks to pay creditors provides the same disincentive to work.)

The individual-responsibility line could have been applied just as validly to the creditors in this story as it was the debtors. Part of being a successful business involves knowing under what circumstances to extend credit. No one forced businesses to extend credit to the people who subsequently declared bankruptcy. They exercised bad judgment in extending credit to people who were not good credit risks. Why should the government step in to help businesses that fail to assess credit risk? The ideological battle around the bill was a distraction. It was an effort to get the government more actively involved in helping the banks. It’s that simple.

Other cases in which the conservative position arguably requires more government involvement in the economy than the liberal position abound. For years Ben and Jerry’s Homemade has fought attempts by state governments to ban labeling dairy products as free of recombinant bovine growth hormone. Some pressure groups associated with the dairy indutry argue that the rBGH-free label implies that bovine growth hormones are harmful, which has not been established by the Food and Drug Administration. Of course, Ben and Jerry’s Homemade is not trying to prevent its competitors from assuring the public that their ice cream is safe. It is trying to make a truthful claim about its own ice cream.

In the same vein, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently prohibited a meatpacker from testing its cattle for mad cow disease. The meatpacker had intended to privately test all of its cattle, whereas the USDA tests only 1 percent of cattle. But the USDA, arguing that full testing would cause the public to question the safety of other meat, moved to prevent it.

To be fair, rarely does either side argue against regulation as such. The real issue is the structure of regulation and its impact on economic outcomes, especially income distribution.

Let’s return to the financial crisis with this in mind. In the decades preceding the financial collapse, regulations designed to protect the public and to ensure the stability of the financial system were considerably weakened, but the system was (and is) quite far from being deregulated.

The key regulation that remained in place was the “too-big-to-fail” doctrine. Essentially, the banks and other financial institutions took enormous risks with an implicit guarantee that their creditors could count on the protection of the U.S. government if things went badly. For everyone except the creditors of Lehman Brothers and the preferred shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this gamble proved correct.

This one-sided giveaway was not deregulation. Had those setting financial policy over the last three decades been committed to deregulation, they would have assured financial markets that financial institutions making bad investments would go out of business and that their creditors would be out of luck. The Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury would have warned that investors were acting at their own risk when they put money in Bear Stearns, AIG, and the rest.

In the context of a too-big-to-fail principle, the removal of restrictions on leverage (investment banks were allowed to leverage their capital at a ratio of forty-to-one compared to just ten-to-one for commercial banks) and the relaxation of other prudential regulation (the nominal value of credit default swaps, a new class of derivative instruments, grew to more than $70 trillion in a nearly unregulated market) essentially gave the banks a license to wager with taxpayers’ money.

Banks did exactly what economic theory predicts. They took huge risks, leveraging themselves to the hilt with questionable assets, knowing that they would gain as long as the housing bubble held up. And the banks did so with willing accomplices among pension funds, hedge funds, and other investors because these investors knew that the government would rescue them if things went badly.

Deregulation can be a principled position held by true believers in a free market. But Wall Streeters all wanted one-sided regulation that provided them with an enormous government security blanket without any costs or conditions. None of the Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan crew ever went to lobby Congress for an explicit repeal of the too-big-to-fail doctrine. And while many on Wall Street lost their jobs when the bubble burst, the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that banking executives earned during the good times are theirs to keep. Even with the market collapse, the vast majority of them are almost certainly better off than they would have been had they done honest work over the last decade.

* * *

If the real debate is over the type rather than extent of regulation, then why is it always framed as the latter? For conservatives, the answer is obvious. Many Americans embrace the idea of free markets and hold a deep aversion to government. Faith in government ebbs and flows, even in the most liberal times. It will almost always be advantageous, then, to associate a political position with support of the free market.

It is less apparent why liberals would be so eager to accept such a disadvantageous caricature of their position. The answer requires digging a bit deeper into what their position implies about the nature of the economy and economic outcomes.

Like conservatives, liberals generally acknowledge that people get ahead as a result of their skills and hard work, with some luck thrown in. The main difference in the liberal and conservative views of the economy is that liberals are more likely to believe that many people face serious impediments to their success and do not get the same chance as people from wealthier backgrounds. Liberals are also likely to feel guilty about the difference in opportunities and therefore support political measures that will reduce the gap and help those at the bottom. However, most liberals still accept the proposition that the distribution of income is fundamentally determined by the market rather than political decisions embodied in regulations such as patents, copyrights, and bankruptcy law.

But what if we accept a view that virtually every facet of the economy is shaped by policies that could easily be altered? Investment bankers get incredibly rich because the government gives them the shelter of too-big-to-fail but doesn’t impose any serious prudential regulation in return. Bill Gates gets incredibly rich because, through copyright and patents, the government gives him a monopoly on the operating system that is (or was) used by 90 percent of the computers in the world.

Doctors are well-paid because, unlike less politically connected workers, they enjoy protection from international competition. The same is true for lawyers and other highly paid professionals. The six-figure salaries depend less on skill and hard work than on being able to structure labor markets in ways that autoworkers, textile workers, and cab drivers cannot.

Deregulation can be a principled position held by true believers in a free market. But Wall Streeters all wanted one-sided regulation that provided them with an enormous government security blanket.

There is a long list of professional licensing requirements (many of which have nothing to do with maintaining quality standards) that make it difficult for foreign professionals to work in the United States. While trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement have been designed explicitly to eliminate institutional barriers that obstruct investment in developing countries and the free flow of manufactured goods back into the United States, there has been no comparable effort to reduce or eliminate the barriers that obstruct highly educated professionals in the developing world from practicing their professions in the United States. Many ambitious professionals from the developing world do manage to overcome these barriers, but professionals in the United States still enjoy a far greater level of protection from international competition than less highly-educated workers.

* * *

The less-versus-more framing of regulation supports the premise that there is in principle an unregulated market out there and that some of us wish to rein in this unregulated market while others would leave it alone. This is consistent with the idea that large inequalities in income distribution just happen as a result of market forces. But as the above examples illustrate, no one is really talking about an unregulated market—rather we are all just talking about whom the regulation is designed to benefit. Distribution of income has never preceded the intervention of government.

The government is always present, steering the benefits in different directions depending on who is in charge. Accepting this view provides a political vantage point much better suited to the case for progressive regulation. After all, conservatives want the big hand of government in the market as well. They just want the handouts all to go to those at the top.

This expansive view of regulation puts everything up for grabs, including the six-figure salaries of many of those arguing the liberal position. Do liberals really want everyone asking if we can have the same economic benefits by removing trade barriers in physicians’ and lawyers’ services that we gain by removing barriers to clothes and cars? Liberals, too, are invested in the obfuscation that less-versus-more provides.

Even so, the catastrophe produced by the one-sided deregulation of the financial industry, coupled with a long list of regulatory failures in other areas, will almost certainly lead to a serious rethinking of regulatory policy in the years ahead. It remains to be seen whether this rethinking will go beyond the familiar debate. We know that when we emerge from the current crisis the economy will be extensively regulated. The questions is, to whose benefit?

New Book Reveals How Faith is Like a Covert Operation for the Bush Family

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By Frederick Clarkson

A brand new investigation of the Bush family reveals a religious narrative that strays from the official story circulated to supporters and the press. How many conversions did George W. actually have and why? How did a blue-blooded Episcopalian family come to represent the evangelicals of America?

Faith has always been a special commodity for politicians. It is not only essential to have or appear to have it, but that it be of the right variety—especially if you’re thinking of running for president. For nearly two centuries, you could be pretty much any religion you wanted, as long as it was mainline Protestant. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who identified respectively as Roman Catholic and Quaker, stretched the definition of acceptable presidential faith, followed soon after by Jimmy Carter, the first evangelical Christian president, whose political rise prefigured and catalyzed the wider engagement of conservative evangelicals in politics and, as it happened, the rise of the religious right.

These social and political changes have posed distinct challenges for pols seeking to navigate the changes in American religious life and the successes of a culture of religious pluralism. This was particularly so for the patrician Bush family, whose challenges in this arena are a familiar part of their political tale. In addition, however, there remain astounding hidden dimensions involving the skills of “spy craft” acquired in a lifetime of covert intelligence activities by George H.W. (“Poppy”) Bush and many of his closest associates.

This, according to a just-published investigative history of the Bush political dynasty, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces that Put it in the White House, and what Their Influence Means for America (Bloomsbury Press, 2008). Author Russ Baker shows, among other things, that Poppy Bush’s well-known service as a Navy pilot in World War II was also part of his work for Naval Intelligence. This set the stage for an astonishing double life participating in covert operations of the Central Intelligence Agency throughout his career.

The story of the reinvention of the religious identities of two presidents and their faith-based political strategy could be easily obscured amidst Family of Secrets’ revelations of the Bush family ties to such murky matters as Watergate and the Kennedy assassination (see sidebar). But Baker’s discussion of how a prominent political family applied the tools of the spy trade to their religious transformation and political strategy is a story that merits attention as religious faith becomes an increasingly popular political commodity.

This dimension of the story of the Bush family dynasty emerges in the wake of the growth of the religious right political movement within the GOP in the early ’80s. In this context, what was a starchy, Episcopalian heir to a blue-blooded Yankee political pedigree to do? And what of his reckless, apparently non-religious, playboy son? These were the intertwined questions faced by Vice President Bush and George W. in the 1980s as they planned Poppy Bush’s run for president in 1988—and W.’s political future.

Baker’s chapter titled “The Conversion” features startling revelations that challenge the well-known narratives of the Bush family’s religious history— including the way they crafted a strategy for winning over the religious right, and the creation of a conversion legend for George W. Bush. The purpose of the latter was not only to position him as a religious and political man of his time, but to neutralize the many issues from his past that threatened to undermine his future in politics (and possibly that of his father as well). The plan probably worked far better than anyone could have hoped. “I’m still amazed,” Doug Wead, a key architect of the Bush family’s evangelical outreach strategy told Baker, “how naïve so many journalists are who have covered politics all of their life.”

Poppy and W. Learn Evangelical Lessons

In the early 1980s, Vice President George H.W. Bush faced a political problem of historic proportions. The religious right, driven by politically energized evangelical Christians had altered the political landscape, helping deliver both the 1980 GOP nomination and the presidency to Ronald Reagan. How could the tragically preppy Poppy—a product of Andover and Yale, and secretive former director of the CIA—adjust to the new political reality in order to run for president in 1988? The answer to this question is part of the Bush family’s slow motion transition from old line Yankee blue bloods to good ol’ Red State politicians.

The story begins with Doug Wead, a former Assemblies of God minister turned what Baker terms a “hybrid marketer-author-speaker-historian-religious-political consultant,” who by 1985 had apparently been vetted and groomed to shape the Bush approach to the religious right. “Instinctively,” Baker writes, “he [Poppy Bush] was uncomfortable with pandering to the masses, and uncomfortable too with ascribing deep personal values to himself. For that matter, he didn’t like to reveal much of anything about himself, which was partly patrician reserve and partly perhaps an instinct reinforced by his covert endeavors over the years.”

If Poppy was going to be president, Wead advised, he needed to learn about “these people.” Eventually, Wead drafted a lengthy memo outlining a way for Bush to surf the rising wave of the religious right to the presidency. “This was the beginning,” according to Wead. But not only for their political strategy. Wead felt that Poppy himself had embarked on a spiritual journey, reworking his own spiritual identity even as he studied the evangelical world and developed a political approach for his 1988 presidential campaign.

All of this would be crucial since Representative Jack Kemp (R-NY), a well-known conservative evangelical, and televangelist Pat Robertson also planned to run for the GOP nomination, forcing Bush to compete for the evangelical vote. The three first clashed in the Michigan GOP caucuses, which preceded the usually first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. (Bush ultimately won after a critical court ruling.) But Wead revealed to Baker how the ‘covert operator’ orientation of the Bush camp played out on the ground. “I ran spies in our opponents political camps,” Wead said, including elected Robertson precinct delegates in Michigan. These Bush agents made headlines when they abandoned Robertson and publicly threw their support to Bush. “We helped them win… and totally infiltrate the Robertson campaign,” Wead declared. “I ran them essentially for [Lee] Atwater, but W. knew about them.”

“The spy argot here is suggestive,” Baker writes. “In the Bush milieu, an intelligence mentality spills over not just into politics but even into dealings with the church-based right. Domestic political constituencies,” he warns, “have replaced the citizens of Communist countries as a key target of American elites. They seek to win hearts and minds of devout Christians through quasi-intelligence techniques.”

The layers of secrecy were peeled back on a need-to-know basis over time. Unbeknownst to Wead, for example, the younger Bush had been a voracious consumer of Wead’s memos to Poppy and his top aides years before they met in 1987. W. had also quietly served as Poppy’s key adviser as they absorbed the lessons and formulated their strategic approach to religious identity and outreach.

Under Wead’s tutelage, Poppy would learn the ins and outs of the evangelical world. But Poppy and W. had a problem in common. Baker writes that they knew that W.’s “behavior before becoming governor [of Texas in 1994] his partying, his womanizing, and in particular his military service problems—posed a serious threat to his presidential ambitions. Their solution was to wipe the slate clean—through religious transformation.”

A Tale of Two Conversions

For this to work they needed “a credible conversion experience and a presentable spiritual guide.” And so the legend goes that none other than Billy Graham paid a visit to his longtime friends at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. This led to the famous walk on the beach that George W. Bush says “planted a mustard seed in my soul,” and to his supposed rebirth as an evangelical Christian. That was the accepted narrative in the media and throughout the evangelical world for years. But Graham later told a journalist that he does not remember the encounter; and to another said he does remember a walk on the beach—but not, apparently, any kind of spiritually meaningful conversation. Whatever the facts of the Graham episode, there are actually two conversion stories. The second was deep-sixed in favor of the Graham story, and only emerged after George W. was elected president.

The itinerant evangelist Arthur Blessitt, famous for dragging (mostly on wheels) a 12-foot cross around the world, posted the story on his Web site in October 2001, noting that he met with George W. Bush a full year earlier than Graham. “Mr. George W. Bush,” wrote Blessitt, “a Midland oilman, listened to the radio broadcast and asked one of his friends ‘Can you arrange for me to meet Arthur Blessitt and talk to him about Jesus?’ And so it came to pass.”

Wead, Baker reports, “had warned the Bushes that they had to be careful how they couched their conversion story. It couldn’t be seen as something too radical or too tacky. Preachers who performed stunts with giant crosses would not do. Billy Graham, ‘spiritual counselor to presidents,’ would do perfectly.” And that was the story that speechwriter Karen Hughes wove into Bush’s 1999 campaign book, A Charge to Keep. There was no mention of Blessitt.

Baker writes from the standpoint of a journalist, looking into the murky career and political and financial empire of one of America’s leading political dynasties. George H.W. Bush’s career in the CIA, capped by his brief tenure as director under Ford, reveals a politician comfortable with the workings of covert operations and their political applications sufficient to attain the highest office for himself. That the spiritual rebirth and transformation of his son was so well scripted and staged (even if the facts are in doubt) is unsurprising for a family and network of associates steeped in the geo-political theater of CIA covert operations. Furthermore, as damaging as the tales of W.’s reckless youth were to his campaigns and presidency, the personal redemption story worked at least as powerfully as Bush’s handlers had hoped—for the father as well as the son.

Oil 2009

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By Michael T. Klare

Be Careful What You Wish For

Only yesterday, it seems, we were bemoaning the high price of oil. Under the headline "Oil’s Rapid Rise Stirs Talk of $200 a Barrel This Year," the July 7 issue of the Wall Street Journal warned that prices that high would put "extreme strains on large sectors of the U.S. economy." Today, oil, at over $40 a barrel, costs less than one-third what it did in July, and some economists have predicted that it could fall as low as $25 a barrel in 2009.

Prices that low -- and their equivalents at the gas pump -- will no doubt be viewed as a godsend by many hard-hit American consumers, even if they ensure severe economic hardship in oil-producing countries like Nigeria, Russia, Iran, Kuwait, and Venezuela that depend on energy exports for a large share of their national income. Here, however, is a simple but crucial reality to keep in mind: No matter how much it costs, whether it’s rising or falling, oil has a profound impact on the world we inhabit -- and this will be no less true in 2009 than in 2008.

The main reason? In good times and bad, oil will continue to supply the largest share of the world’s energy supply. For all the talk of alternatives, petroleum will remain the number one source of energy for at least the next several decades. According to December 2008 projections from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), petroleum products will still make up 38% of America’s total energy supply in 2015; natural gas and coal only 23% each. Oil’s overall share is expected to decline slightly as biofuels (and other alternatives) take on a larger percentage of the total, but even in 2030 -- the furthest the DoE is currently willing to project -- it will still remain the dominant fuel.

A similar pattern holds for the planet as a whole: Although biofuels and other renewable sources of energy are expected to play a growing role in the global energy equation, don’t expect oil to be anything but the world’s leading source of fuel for decades to come.

Keep your eye on the politics of oil and you’ll always know a lot about what’s actually happening on this planet. Low prices, as at present, are bad for producers, and so will hurt a number of countries that the U.S. government considers hostile, including Venezuela, Iran, and even that natural-gas-and-oil giant Russia. All of them have, in recent years, used their soaring oil income to finance political endeavors considered inimical to U.S. interests. However, dwindling prices could also shake the very foundations of oil allies like Mexico, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, which could experience internal unrest as oil revenues, and so state expenditures, decline.

No less important, diminished oil prices discourage investment in complex oil ventures like deep-offshore drilling, as well as investment in the development of alternatives to oil like advanced (non-food) biofuels. Perhaps most disastrously, in a cheap oil moment, investment in non-polluting, non-climate-altering alternatives like solar, wind, and tidal energy is also likely to dwindle. In the longer term, what this means is that, once a global economic recovery begins, we can expect a fresh oil price shock as future energy options prove painfully limited.

Clearly, there is no escaping oil’s influence. Yet it’s hard to know just what forms this influence will take in the year. Nevertheless, here are three provisional observations on oil’s fate -- and so ours -- in the year ahead.

1. The Price of Oil Will Remain Low Until It Begins to Rise Again: I know, I know: this sounds totally inane. It’s just that there’s no other way to put it. The price of oil has essentially dropped through the floor because, in the past four months, demand collapsed due to the onset of a staggering global recession. It is not likely to approach the record levels of spring and summer 2008 again until demand picks up and/or the global oil supply is curbed dramatically. At this point, unfortunately, no crystal ball can predict just when either of those events will occur.

The contraction in international demand has indeed been stunning. After rising for much of last summer, demand plunged in the early fall by several hundred thousand barrels per day, producing a net decline for 2008 of 50,000 barrels per day. This year, the Department of Energy projects global demand to fall by a far more impressive 450,000 barrels per day -- "the first time in three decades that world consumption would decline in two consecutive years."

Needless to say, these declines were unexpected. Believing that international demand would continue to grow -- as had been the case in almost every year since the last big recession of 1980 -- the global oil industry steadily added to production capacity and was gearing up for more of the same in 2009 and beyond. Indeed, under intense pressure from the Bush administration, the Saudis had indicated last June that they would gradually add to their capacity until they reached an extra 2.5 million barrels per day.

Today, the industry is burdened with excess output and insufficient demand -- a surefire recipe for plunging oil prices. Even the December 17 decision by members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reduce their collective output by 2.2 million barrels per day has failed to lead to a significant increase in prices. (Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah said recently that he considers $75 a barrel a "fair price" for oil.)

How long will the imbalance between demand and supply last? Until the middle of 2009, if not the end of the year, most analysts believe. Others suspect that a true global recovery will not even get under way until 2010, or later. It all depends on how deep and prolonged you expect the recession – or any coming depression -- to be.

A critical factor will be China’s ability to absorb oil. After all, between 2002 and 2007, that country accounted for 35% of the total increase in world oil consumption -- and, according to the DoE, it is expected to claim at least another 24% of any global increase in the coming decade. The upsurge in Chinese consumption, combined with unremitting demand from older industrialized nations and significant price speculation on oil futures, largely explained the astronomical way prices were driven up until last summer. But with the Chinese economy visibly faltering, such projections no longer seem valid. Many analysts now predict that a sharp drop-off in Chinese demand will only accelerate the downward journey of global energy prices. Under these conditions, an early price turnaround appears increasingly unlikely.

2. When Prices Do Rise Again, They Will Rise Sharply: At present, the world enjoys the (relatively) unfamiliar prospect of a global oil-production surplus, but there’s a problematic aspect to this. As long as prices remain low, oil companies have no incentive to invest in costly new production ventures, which means no new capacity is being added to global inventories, while available capacity continues to be drained. Simply put, what this means is that, when demand begins to surge again, global output is likely to prove inadequate. As Ed Crooks of the Financial Times has suggested, "The plunging oil price is like a dangerously addictive painkiller: short-term relief is being provided at a cost of serious long-term harm."

Signs of a slowdown in oil-output investment are already multiplying fast. Saudi Arabia, for example, has announced delays in four major energy projects in what appears to be a broad retreat from its promise to increase future output. Among the projects being delayed are a $1.2 billion venture to restart the historic Damman oil field, development of the 900,000 barrel per day Manifa oil field, and construction of new refineries at Yanbu and Jubail. In each case, the delays are being attributed to reduced international demand. "We are going back to our partners and discussing with them the new economic circumstances," explained Kaled al-Buraik, an official of Saudi Aramco.

In addition, most "easy oil" reservoirs have now been exhausted, which means that virtually all remaining global reserves are going to be of the "tough oil" variety. These require extraction technology far too costly to be profitable at a moment when the per barrel price remains under $50. Principal among these are exploitation of the tar sands of Canada and of deep offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Guinea, and waters off Brazil. While such potential reserves undoubtedly harbor significant supplies of petroleum, they won’t return a profit until the price of oil reaches $80 or more per barrel -- nearly twice what it is fetching today. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the oil majors are canceling or postponing plans for new projects in Canada and these offshore locations.

"Low oil prices are very dangerous for the world economy," commented Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al Hamli, the United Arab Emirates’ energy minister, at a London oil-industry conference in October. With prices dropping, he noted, "a lot of projects that are in the pipeline are going to be reassessed."

With industry cutting back on investment, there will be less capacity to meet rising demand when the world economy does rebound. At that time, expect the present situation to change with predictably startling rapidity, as rising demand suddenly finds itself chasing inadequate supply in an energy-deficit world.

When this will occur and how high oil prices will then climb cannot, of course, be known, but expect gas-pump shock. It’s possible that the energy shock to come will be no less fierce than the present global recession and energy price collapse. The Department of Energy, in its most recent projections, predicts that oil will reach an average of $78 per barrel in 2010, $110 in 2015, and $116 in 2020. Other analysts suggest that prices could go much higher much faster, especially if demand picks up quickly and the oil companies are slow to restart projects now being put on hold.

3. Low Oil Prices Like High Ones Will Have Significant Worldwide Political Implications: The steady run up in oil prices between 2003 and 2008 was the result of a sharp increase in global demand as well as a perception that the international energy industry was having difficulty bringing sufficient new sources of supply on line. Many analysts spoke of the imminent arrival of "peak oil," the moment at which global output would commence an irreversible decline. All this fueled fierce efforts by major consuming nations to secure control over as many foreign sources of petroleum as they could, including frenzied attempts by U.S., European, and Chinese firms to gobble up oil concessions in Africa and the Caspian Sea basin -- the theme of my latest book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.

With the plunge in oil prices and a growing sense (however temporary) of oil plenty, this dog-eat-dog competition is likely to abate. The current absence of intense competition does not, however, mean that oil prices will cease to have an impact on global politics. Far from it. In fact, low prices are just as likely to roil the international landscape, only in new ways. While competition among consuming states may lessen, negative political conditions within producing nations are sure to be magnified.

Many of these nations, including Angola, Iran, Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, among others, rely on income from oil exports for a large part of their government expenditures, using this money to finance health and education, infrastructure improvements, food and energy subsidies, and social welfare programs. Soaring energy prices, for instance, allowed many producer countries to reduce high youth unemployment -- and so potential unrest. As prices come crashing down, governments are already being forced to cut back on programs that aid the poor, the middle class, and the unemployed, which is already producing waves of instability in many parts of the world.

Russia’s state budget, for example, remains balanced only when oil prices stay at or above $70 per barrel. With government income dwindling, the Kremlin has been forced to dig into accumulated reserves in order to meet its obligations and prop up sinking companies as well as the sinking ruble. The nation hailed as an energy giant is running out of money quickly. Unemployment is on the rise, and many firms are reducing work hours to save cash. Although Prime Minister Vladimir Putin remains popular, the first signs of public discontent have begun to appear, including scattered protests against increased tariffs on imported goods, rising public transit fees, and other such measures.

The decline in oil prices has been particularly damaging to natural gas behemoth Gazprom, Russia’s biggest company and the source (in good times) of approximately one quarter of government tax income. Because the price of natural gas is usually pegged to that of oil, declining oil prices have hit the company hard: last summer, CEO Alexei Miller estimated its market value at $360 billion; today, it’s $85 billion.

In the past, the Russians have used gas shut-offs to neighboring states to extend their political clout. Given the steep drop in gas prices, however, Gazprom’s January 1st decision to sever gas supplies to Ukraine (for failure to pay for $1.5 billion in past deliveries) is, at least in part, finance-based. Though the decision has triggered energy shortages in Europe -- 25% of its natural gas arrives via Gazprom-fueled pipelines that traverse Ukraine -- Moscow shows no sign of backing down in the price dispute. "They do need the money," observed Chris Weafer of UralSib Bank in Moscow. "That is the bottom line."

Plunging oil prices are also expected to place severe strains on the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, all of which benefited from the record prices of the past few years to finance public works, subsidize basic necessities, and generate employment. Like Russia, these countries adopted expansive budgets on the assumption that a world of $70 or more per barrel gas prices would continue indefinitely. Now, like other affected producers, they must dip into accumulated reserves, borrow at a premium, and cut back on social spending -- all of which risk a rise in political opposition and unrest at home.

The government of Iran, for example, has announced plans to eliminate subsidies on energy (gasoline now costs 36 cents per gallon) -- a move expected to spark widespread protests in a country where unemployment rates and living costs are rising precipitously. The Saudi government has promised to avoid budget cuts for the time being by drawing on accumulated reserves, but unemployment is growing there as well.

Diminished spending in oil-producing states like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates will also affect non-producing countries like Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen because young men from these countries migrate to the oil kingdoms when times are flush in search of higher-paying jobs. When times are rough, however, they are the first to be laid off and are often sent back to their homelands where few jobs await them.

All this is occurring against the backdrop of an upsurge in the popularity of Islam, including its more militant forms that reject the "collaborationist" politics of pro-U.S. regimes like those of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan. Combine this with the recent devastating Israeli air attacks on, and ground invasion of, Gaza as well as the seemingly lukewarm response of moderate Arab regimes to the plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians trapped in that tiny strip of land, and the stage may be set for a major upsurge in anti-government unrest and violence. If so, no one will see this as oil-related, and yet that, in part, is what it will be.

In the context of a planet caught in the grip of a fierce economic downturn, other stormy energy scenarios involving key oil-producing countries are easy enough to imagine. When and where they will arise cannot be foreseen, but such eruptions are only likely to make any future era of rising energy prices all that much more difficult. And, indeed, prices will eventually rise again, perhaps some year soon, swiftly and to new record heights. At that point, we will be confronted with the sort of problems we faced in the spring and summer of 2008, when raging demand and inadequate supply drove petroleum costs ever skyward. In the meantime, it’s important to remember that, even with prices as low as they are, we cannot escape the consequences of our addiction to oil.

Hackers take down ring of key progressive blogs

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By Nick Cargo and Mike Sheehan

Several major blogs were in jeopardy after a Tuesday hack of their software provider had its owner ready to throw in the towel.

According to SoapBlox owner Paul Preston, the attack on its servers--which prompted SoapBlox’s Internet service provider to shut it down--was connected to a shadowy group called Astalavista, which claimed credit for the attack in the site’s altered source code.

"Consider this the ’We’re Out of Business’ post," Preston wrote on Wednesday morning. "Most of the servers have been taken off line because they were being used to hack and exploit other websites. The hackers install this crap on servers after they get in. SoapBlox’s ISP then takes the servers off line... It was a good ride, but it’s over."

The affected blogs include American Liberalism Project, BeThink, Blue Hampshire, Blue Jersey, Blue Mass. Group, Minnesota Progressive Project, My Left Wing, Never In Our Names, Pam’s House Blend, RadicalRuss, Swing State Project and West Michigan Rising and other mostly state-focused political blogs of note.

"I wish I could see a bright side to this," blogger Pam Spaulding, founder, editor and publisher of Pam’s House Blend, told PageOneQ. "It’s incredible that years of hard work can be destroyed in a flash, but we’re in the digital age and there are people motivated to silence voices through malicious acts. I’m hopeful that data will be recovered..."

The blogs are back online for the time being, but discussion has continued about whether to continue using SoapBlox as a blog framework. The platform, singlehandedly written and maintained by Paul Preston, hosts the content of 90% of the progressive 50-State Blog Network, allowing for a large number of such blogs to be taken down with one server exploit.

"These are all community sites, and the progressive blogosphere is a community," said Minnesota Progressive Project’s Joe Bodell in a Wednesday DailyKos diary. "If we cannot come together to keep these communities alive, the larger community won’t be worth much, and I say that as more than just a blogger whose site got hosed."

"I don’t know if anyone has yet had time to call the FBI. If not, it needs to happen soon," commented Sam Smith of the progressive group blog Scholars and Rogues. "Never mind the nature of the views being expressed on these sites - this attack was a naked broadside aimed at the very infrastructure of public speech and discourse in America, just as surely as if vandals had destroyed the presses used by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine back in the 1700s. As long as the United States professes to be in the free speech business, actions like these cannot be allowed to stand."

Top Democrat introduces bill to investigate Bush war powers

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By John Byrne

In a little-noticed move Tuesday, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. introduced legislation aimed at creating a commission to investigate the "broad range" of "unreviewable war powers" enacted under the presidency of George W. Bush.

While providing few details in his press release, Conyers said the bill would "establish a Blue Ribbon Commission comprised of experts outside government service to investigate the broad range of policies of the Bush administration that were undertaken by the Bush administration under claims of unreviewable war powers."

The 79-year-old Michigan Democrat has been a staunch critic of Bush Administration policies. The bill to consider Bush’s war powers was among five others he announced earlier this week, and was first reported on The Public Record.

Conyers filed a measure to investigate Bush’s impeachment in 2005 and issued a report entitled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Coverups in the Iraq War." At times, his comments appear to have suggested impeachment as a viable course of action, though he tempered his stance after Democrats took control of Congress in 2006.

The report found that "there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice-President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration," Conyers wrote in December 2005.

"The Report concludes that a number of these actions amount to prima facie evidence (evidence sufficiently strong to presume the allegations are true) that federal criminal laws have been violated," he added. "Legal violations span from false statements to Congress to whistleblower laws."

"The Report also concludes that these charges clearly rise to the level of impeachable conduct," Conyers continued. "However, because the Administration has failed to respond to requests for information about these charges, it is not yet possible to conclude that an impeachment inquiry or articles of impeachment are warranted."

Last year, after liberal Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced resolutions to consider impeachment, Conyers said, "We’re not doing impeachment, but he can talk about it."

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza's Offshore Gas Fields

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By Michel Chossudovsky

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

Map 1

Map 2

Who Owns the Gas Fields

The issue of sovereignty over Gaza’s gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine.

The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza’s offshore gas reserves.

British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

The election of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001 was a major turning point. Palestine’s sovereignty over the offshore gas fields was challenged in the Israeli Supreme Court. Sharon stated unequivocally that "Israel would never buy gas from Palestine" intimating that Gaza’s offshore gas reserves belong to Israel.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon, vetoed an initial deal, which would allow British Gas to supply Israel with natural gas from Gaza’s offshore wells. (The Independent, August 19, 2003)

The election victory of Hamas in 2006 was conducive to the demise of the Palestinian Authority, which became confined to the West Bank, under the proxy regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

In 2006, British Gas "was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt." (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

The following year, in May 2007, the Israeli Cabinet approved a proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "to buy gas from the Palestinian Authority." The proposed contract was for $4 billion, with profits of the order of $2 billion of which one billion was to go the Palestinians.

Tel Aviv, however, had no intention on sharing the revenues with Palestine. An Israeli team of negotiators was set up by the Israeli Cabinet to thrash out a deal with the BG Group, bypassing both the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority:

"Israeli defence authorities want the Palestinians to be paid in goods and services and insist that no money go to the Hamas-controlled Government." (Ibid, emphasis added)

The objective was essentially to nullify the contract signed in 1999 between the BG Group and the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat.

Under the proposed 2007 agreement with BG, Palestinian gas from Gaza’s offshore wells was to be channeled by an undersea pipeline to the Israeli seaport of Ashkelon, thereby transferring control over the sale of the natural gas to Israel.

The deal fell through. The negotiations were suspended:

"Mossad Chief Meir Dagan opposed the transaction on security grounds, that the proceeds would fund terror". (Member of Knesset Gilad Erdan, Address to the Knesset on "The Intention of Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Purchase Gas from the Palestinians When Payment Will Serve Hamas," March 1, 2006, quoted in Lt. Gen. (ret.) Moshe Yaalon, Does the Prospective Purchase of British Gas from Gaza’s Coastal Waters Threaten Israel’s National Security? Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, October 2007)

Israel’s intent was to foreclose the possibility that royalties be paid to the Palestinians. In December 2007, The BG Group withdrew from the negotiations with Israel and in January 2008 they closed their office in Israel.(BG website).

Invasion Plan on The Drawing Board

The invasion plan of the Gaza Strip under "Operation Cast Lead" was set in motion in June 2008, according to Israeli military sources:

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago [June or before June] , even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

That very same month, the Israeli authorities contacted British Gas, with a view to resuming crucial negotiations pertaining to the purchase of Gaza’s natural gas:

"Both Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler agreed to inform BG of Israel’s wish to renew the talks.

The sources added that BG has not yet officially responded to Israel’s request, but that company executives would probably come to Israel in a few weeks to hold talks with government officials." (Globes online- Israel’s Business Arena, June 23, 2008)

The decision to speed up negotiations with British Gas (BG Group) coincided, chronologically, with the planning of the invasion of Gaza initiated in June. It would appear that Israel was anxious to reach an agreement with the BG Group prior to the invasion, which was already in an advanced planning stage.

Moreover, these negotiations with British Gas were conducted by the Ehud Olmert government with the knowledge that a military invasion was on the drawing board and that a new political-territorial arrangement for Gaza strip was being contemplated by Israel.

In fact, negotiations between British Gas and Israeli officials were ongoing in October 2008, 2-3 months prior to the commencement of the bombings on December 27th.

In November 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) to enter into negotiations with British Gas, on the purchase of natural gas from the BG’s offshore concession in Gaza. (Globes, November 13, 2008)

"Ministry of Finance director general Yarom Ariav and Ministry of National Infrastructures director general Hezi Kugler wrote to IEC CEO Amos Lasker recently, informing him of the government’s decision to allow negotiations to go forward, in line with the framework proposal it approved earlier this year.

The IEC board, headed by chairman Moti Friedman, approved the principles of the framework proposal a few weeks ago. The talks with BG Group will begin once the board approves the exemption from a tender." (Globes Nov. 13, 2008)

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics

The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.

What can we expect in the wake of the invasion?

What is the intent of Israel with regard to Palestine’s Natural Gas reserves?

A new territorial arrangement, with the stationing of Israeli and/or "peacekeeping" troops?

The militarization of the entire Gaza coastline, which is strategic for Israel?

The outright confiscation of Palestinian gas fields and the unilateral declaration of Israeli sovereignty over Gaza’s maritime areas?

If this were to occur, the Gaza gas fields would be integrated into Israel’s offshore installations, which are contiguous to those of the Gaza Strip. (See Map 1 above).

These various offshore installations are also linked up to Israel’s energy transport corridor, extending from the port of Eilat, which is an oil pipeline terminal, on the Red Sea to the seaport - pipeline terminal at Ashkelon, and northwards to Haifa, and eventually linking up through a proposed Israeli-Turkish pipeline with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

Ceyhan is the terminal of the Baku, Tblisi Ceyhan Trans Caspian pipeline. "What is envisaged is to link the BTC pipeline to the Trans-Israel Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline, also known as Israel’s Tipline." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, July 23, 2006)

Map 3

Time To Tell The Truth About Israel …Without Fear Of The Mind Police

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By David Icke

So, yet again, the people of the virtual-concentration camp, known officially as ‘Gaza’, are being bombarded from the sky by the bully-boys of Tel Aviv.

State-of-the art Israeli jets, paid for by the United States, bomb civilian targets in this tragic, poverty-stricken wasteland which acts as a holding camp for the human beings the Israeli government would rather be dead. Waiting in the wings are Israeli tanks preparing for a possible ground invasion of Gaza, again paid for by the United States.

The world watches as a nation of people, the Palestinians, are systematically crushed and destroyed by the tyrants who call the shots in Israel on behalf of that country’s real power structure - the House of Rothschild.

And, taxpayers of America (and elsewhere), you are paying for this calculated slaughter.

The Palestinian ‘territories’ of Gaza and the West Bank

American aid to Israel accounts for something like a third of all US overseas aid when Israel is home to just .001 per cent of the global population and has one of the highest incomes per head in the world. This is even without all the ‘private’ donations from US corporations and individuals which are tax-deductible even when given to the Israeli military, unlike any other foreign power.

According to 2007 figures, the United States government gave more than $6.8 million to wealthy Israel every day while to the desperate and devastated Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they gave just $300,000.

US military ‘aid’ to Israel increased by more than a quarter to an average $3 billion a year in 2007 ­ a figure guaranteed for ten years. This and other support makes Israel the biggest recipient of United States foreign military funding since the Second World War.

The United States is also Israel’s biggest supplier of fighter planes, weapons and other military technology. As a result, Israel has the world’s largest F-16 fleet outside the “United States Air Force” US Air Force. In their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt write:

‘Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars.

Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America’s entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.’

Why do they do this? Because the House of Rothschild controls Israel and the House of Rothschild controls the political system of the United States. The network that links the two is called ‘Zionism’, a Rothschild creation ­ just like Israel itself.

The might of this Zionist cabal spanning Israel, the United States, Europe and beyond is yet again, like the playground bully that it is, attacking the little kid in the calipers ­ the people of Gaza.

At the time of writing the death toll is 430 Palestinian men, women and children with more than 2,000 injured. They are bombing the unarmed innocent knowing there will be no credible response ­ the way all bullies operate. Oh, brave men of Israel; oh how Yahweh would be so proud:

‘When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.’

Deuteronomy 7:1-4

What we are seeing in Gaza, and have seen so many times, both there and in the Lebanon, is merciless Old Testament slaughter: cold, calculated, heartless slaughter.

‘So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin”.’

Judges 21:10-24

‘Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all ­ old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple”.’

Ezekiel 9:5-7

‘So they began by killing the seventy leaders. “Defile the Temple!” the LORD commanded. “Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!” So they went throughout the city and did as they were told.’

Ezekiel 9:5-7

The parallels are endless between the bloodthirsty ‘God’ of the Old Testament and the actions of the heartless, soulless, Artificial Intelligence that controls Israel, most notably the biological robots of the House of Rothschild who thus have no soul, no empathy, no more mercy for the consequences of their actions than a desktop computer.

Imagine if Iran or anyone else outside Israel and the United States (both Rothschild assets) was doing what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza. There would be global condemnation, not least from Israel and the United States, resolutions passed in the UN Security Council and talk of the need for sanctions or military intervention to ’save the innocent’.

But when Israel does it we have vacuous calls for a truce, an end to the violence while ‘understanding Israel’s position’, and, in terms of soon-to-be President ‘Change’ Obama, silence. It’s all a fraction of what others would face because Israel is a wholly-owned asset of the Rothschilds and so is not subject to the same rules as anyone else. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said:

‘Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.’

And Prime Minister Golda Meir betrayed the same Zionist arrogance:

‘This country exists as the fulfilment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.’

Ah, it’s all in the Old Testament? Gotcha, right, well do as you like then.

The ‘Jewish homeland’ was from the start a Rothschild fiefdom orchestrated through the global secret society network of interbreeding families known as the Illuminati.

During the Israeli military attacks on the Lebanon in 2006, the Israeli writer, Barry Chamish, told of a meeting with Evelyn Rothschild’s grandson, who abandoned the family to be a Mormon (so actually he didn’t, even if he thought he did).

Chamish said he learned that just seven families were enjoying the ‘fruits of the war’ with the Lebanon. The grandson had said of the Rothschilds: ‘They created Israel as their personal toy. It makes them richer and gives them more control. It’s not going to be destroyed.’

The Rothschilds funded the early European settlers in Israel, manipulated events in Germany that led to the horrific treatment of Jewish people and others, and then used that as the excuse to reach their long-term goal - a Rothschild-Illuminati stronghold in Palestine using the Jewish population as fodder to be used and abused as necessary.

They called their plan ‘Zionism’. This term is often used as a synonym for Jewish people when it is actually a political movement devised and promoted through the House of Rothschild and opposed by many Jews.

Poster for the Irgun terrorist group

The Israeli bully-boys spend most of their time condemning the terrorism of others and yet their very State was created through terrorism of the most grotesque kind via groups like Irgun and the Stern Gang, which bombed and terrorised Israel into being.

Among the leading lights in these and other terrorist groups were Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, butchers who became Israeli Prime Ministers and had the nerve to condemn Arab terrorism. And to this day the butchery goes on with the goal of destroying the Palestinian people.

After the Rothschild-controlled Zionist terrorists had bombed the State of Israel into existence in 1948, an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees and fled what had been their own country. Their descendents are said to number some four million.

And the world simply looked on ­ just as it does to this day ­ because Israel is a law unto itself and so terms like justice, fairness, decency and mercy do not apply.

Palestinian families fleeing the newly-imposed Israel after their country was occupied by Zionist terrorism in 1948.

The idea was always to destroy the Palestinian people step-by-step long before Israel was even created. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the Rothschild-controlled British government supported the establishment of a ‘Jewish’ homeland in Palestine, said that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’.

But the Rothschild sidekick Chaim Weizmann would later say: ‘With regard to the Arab question - the British told us that there are several hundred thousand Negroes there but this is a matter of no consequence’. Nor have they been ever since and the goal of destroying them is closer today than ever before.

The first Prime Minister of Israel, yet another terrorist called David Ben-Gurion, made no secret of this fact within his inner circle. Former Israel Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said in an uncensored version of his memoirs, published in the New York Times on 23 October 23rd, 1979:

‘We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question - What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said “Drive them out!”‘

The current bombing campaign against the Gaza Palestinians is just the latest step to that end. They have forced Palestinians into a Gaza Strip that is little more than a massive concentration camp in which they control all that goes in and out, people or supplies of food, medicines and other essentials.

When the Israelis close the border posts, that’s it, the Palestinians are trapped and at the mercy of the soulless and heartless that control the Tel Aviv government and military under Rothschild direction. And those border posts are closed now while Israel bombs the crap out of Gaza, despite calls for humanitarian aid to be allowed through.

My theory is that the Israeli government can’t hear those calls because their computer brains can’t compute the term ‘humanitarian’ or, for that matter, ‘aid’, unless it is followed by the words ‘for Israel from the United States’. Then it’s loud and clear.

One writer recently described conditions in Gaza:

‘ Israel nails shut the coffin that is Gaza under a siege that has lasted nearly three years, steadily intensifying so that malnutrition rates rival those of sub-Saharan Africa, sewage runs raw in the streets and pollutes the ocean, homes are still being bulldozed to super-add collective punishment upon collective punishment; men, women and children are still being sniped at and killed; children are deafened by continuing sonic booms, the vast majority of them suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and many of that majority have no ambition other than becoming “martyrs” ‘

How can anyone inflict such a lack of mercy on an entire people? The question can only be answered when we understand that Zionist extremists really do believe they are God’s Chosen People and that therefore the Palestinians are little more than cattle.

The Israel Prime Minister and terrorist, Menachem Begin, described the Palestinians in a speech to the Israeli parliament as ‘beasts walking on two legs’. Another Prime Minister and terrorist, Yitzhak Shamir, told Jewish settlers in 1988 that the Palestinians ‘would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.’

Prime Minister and terrorist, Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Foreign Minister, confirmed in 1998 what the plan really was for the Palestinians:

‘It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialisation, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.’

The plan is to kill or drive out the Palestinian people using poverty, hunger and war and so allow the Zionists to expand into ‘Greater Israel’. That plan is now well advanced.

In early 2008, the United Nations’ leading humanitarian affairs official said he was ’shocked’ by the ‘grim and miserable’ conditions in Gaza. Undersecretary General John Holmes blamed this on Israel closing the border crossings and so limiting the supply of food and other materials ­ just as they are doing today.

He said: ‘All this makes for a grim human and humanitarian situation here in Gaza, which means that people are not able to live with the basic dignity to which they are entitled’.

But they are just ‘beasts walking on two legs’, right?

Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the occupied territories, has also condemned Israel for its actions in Gaza. He is Jewish and therefore much more dangerous to the Israel government because he can’t be dismissed as the old favourite ‘anti-Semitic’. Or maybe he is a ’self-hater’, the tag given by these sick people to those Jews who speak out against Israel.

Falk’s punishment for daring to criticise the Promised Land as a UN official was to be held for 20 hours and then denied entry to the country and so he is prevented from doing his job of reporting on conditions for the Palestinian people during the current air attacks.

His entry was denied in mid-December ­ perfect timing not to be there for the latest bombing that they knew was coming. Click here for an interview with Richard Falk

The Bush administration for the last eight years has been dominated by the Neo-conservative, or ‘Neocon’, network which is, itself, dominated by US/Israeli duel citizens and/or Zionists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Dov Zackheim, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Robert B Zoellick, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others. The neo-con godfather is the late Leo Strauss, a German-born Jewish ‘philosopher’, who believed that people must be governed by a ‘pious elite’.

But surely those days of Zionist dominance are over because ‘Mr. Change’ is coming to ‘power’ now. Er, if only. Barack Obama has packed his ‘new’ administration with Zionists like Rahm Emanuel, his White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuels’ father, Benjamin, was a member of the Irgun terrorist group in Palestine that I mentioned earlier and we can clearly expect the Obama administration to be balanced and fair on its Israel/Palestinian policy. No wonder Obama has kept quiet on the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

Obama speaks out on Gaza crisis: ‘Hey, I got nothin’ to say, I got the chance of a par here ask my Chief of Staff, he’s a rabid Zionist and his dad helped bomb Israel into existence. He’ll know what’s goin’ on.’

The Obama government is going to be slavishly pro-Israel because he needed the sanction of the truly massive Zionist lobby in the United States to secure the presidency. His vice-president, Joe Biden, is a long-time bag-carrier for Israel. He said on Israeli television: ‘I am a Zionist - you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist’. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is another Israel puppetess who pledged to ‘obliterate’ Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on God’s chosen country.

Would she say she would obliterate Israel if it launched a nuclear attack on Iran? No way.

The Palestinians have never had a chance because the table is weighted, the game is rigged and it always has been. At the time of the First World War, the Rothschild-controlled British government told the Palestine Arabs that if they fought the Ottoman Turks and forced them to leave Palestine and other lands they would be rewarded with an independent Palestine.

The Palestinian Arabs agreed and with support from the British through HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant_Colonel” o “Lieutenant Colonel” Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence ­ ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ ­ the Ottoman Empire was defeated. But their reward was not independence. It was first rule by a British ‘Mandate’ and then occupation by Zionist Israel.

The Arabs were lied to, as Lawrence later admitted, and they have been lied to ever since. All these ‘road maps’ and ‘peace processes’ are always designed to lead nowhere. They are just holding positions to maintain the status quo until the Palestinians are basically no more.

The Israelis always say they are killing people in ‘retaliation’ for attacks by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which officially controls the Gaza ‘authority’, although control is hardly the word with Israel deciding what and who goes in and out.

Hamas operatives are firing low-tech rockets that have so far killed four people. Terrible, yes, and it should not be happening. I have no brief for Hamas, which is another tyranny in its own way, but ask yourself this: What would you do if you were faced with the situation the Palestinians are in after sixty years of oppression and persecution while the world does nothing?

If you remove the injustice, you remove the motivation for a violent response to that injustice. Put people in a position where they either accept their pathetic plight or open fire and some are bound to choose the latter.

But instead of tackling the root cause, injustice, Israel responds with a state-of-the-art bombardment that kills hundreds and injures thousands in a few days, at least 90% of which are men, women and children who have nothing whatsoever to do with the rocket attacks. In 2007, 25 Palestinians were killed for every Israeli. That’s more than just ‘protecting yourself’.

As Jewish UN representative, Richard Falk, said a few days ago:

‘The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war …

Those violations include:

· Collective punishment: The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.

· Targeting civilians: The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.

· Disproportionate military response: The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza’s elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from the university.’

This savagery towards Palestinians has been going on since the Zionist terror groups began their campaign of violence to secure the State of Israel and the scale of this ongoing evil has often been suppressed by the fear of being called ‘anti-Semitic’.

The Rothschild dynasty has created a vast network of ‘anti-hate’ groups, like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and so many others, to label as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘racist’ anyone who dares to expose or condemn Israel or its networks of manipulation within the United States and elsewhere.

Politicians (though all but are a few are terrified or rewarded into silence), university professors, people like me, and anyone with any kind of public stage, are immediately condemned by the ADL and smeared as ‘racist’ with support from the Robot Radicals of the Robot ‘Left’ if they expose Israel or anyone who happens to be Jewish.

The irony of those claiming to be the chosen people and above all others accusing anyone else of racism boggles the bloody mind.

Jewish people who challenge the tyranny, like the superb Norman Finkelstein, are dubbed ’self-haters’ and often lose their jobs and livelihoods as a result. The Rothschild ‘anti-hate’ groups put any Big Brother to shame.

But we can’t ­ and MUST NOT ­ stay silent on the plight of the Palestinians because we fear the consequences for ourselves. What are we, mice??

This is not about racism; it is about fascism and the daily onslaught against a helpless and tragic people. I don’t give a shit what the ADL thinks about what I say, nor those on the ‘Left’ who parrot its propaganda like the juveniles that they are.

It needs saying and therefore someone needs to say it.

And, by the way, those that are running the Zionist agenda, which is part of much bigger global agenda in league with the Illuminati families, don’t give a damn for Jewish people in general. They, too, are just an expendable irrelevance to the greater goal.

As the first Israeli Prime Minister, the terrorist, David Ben-Gurion, said:

‘If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.’

What kind of sick mind does it take to say that? The kind that has run Israel since 1948 would appear to be the answer.

We need to drop the ludicrous, childish, labels of Jew and Gentile and Muslim and all this illusory crap and come together in the name of peace and justice for all. There is not a Jewish injustice or a Palestinian injustice, there is simply injustice.

Justice for one and no justice for another is ‘justice’ for no-one. For justice has no meaning unless it applies to all, and it will never apply to the Palestinians while the world stays silent and looks the other way.