Ashton and Blair proposed to Israel, the release of Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat

وكالة فلسطين اليوم - أشتون وبلير اقترحا على "إسرائيل" إطلاق سراح البرغوثي و سعدات(paltoday.ps) Ashton and Blair proposed to Israel, the release of Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat bit.ly/xiIO5Q #Israel — @ChallahHuAkbar February 1, 2012 via twitter.com

European diplomatic sources revealed to the newspaper "Life" of London, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the European Union, Catherine Ashton and Special Envoy for the «Quartet» Tony Blair proposed to the "Israel" to «incentives» for the Palestinians to return to negotiations for a period of two months. وذكرت المصادر ان آشتون بحثت الموضوع مع الرئيس محمود عباس في لقائهما الأخير في عمان، كما بحث بلير، الذي يزور القدس حالياً، الأمر مع رئيس الوزراء الصهيوني بنيامين نتانياهو وعدد من المسؤولين في حكومته. The sources said that Ashton discussed the issue with President Mahmoud Abbas at their recent meeting in Amman, also discussed Blair, who is visiting Jerusalem, currently, is with the Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials in his government. وتضمنت الاقتراحات اطلاق سراح معتقلين وتحويل مناطق جديدة في الضفة الغربية من الادارة الاسرائيلية الى إدارة السلطة الفلسطينية. Suggestions included the release of detainees and the transfer of new areas in the West Bank from Israeli administration to the Palestinian Authority administration. وتضمنت الاقتراحات «معايير الاسرى» الذين سيطلق سراحهم، منها «الاسرى القادة» مثل عضو اللجنة المركزية لحركة «فتح» مروان البرغوثي والأمين العام لـ»الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين» أحمد سعدات. Suggestions included «standards prisoners» who would be released, including the «prisoner leaders», such as a member of the Central Committee of the movement «open» Marwan Barghouthi, the Secretary-General »Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine» Ahmed Saadat. ومنها أيضا إطلاق سراح الاسرى المعتقلين منذ ما قبل «اتفاق اوسلو» وعددهم 123، أو الاسرى الذين تبقى على نهاية فترات حكمهم سبع سنوات فما دون وعددهم 700 أسير. And also of the release of prisoners detained since before the «Oslo» and the number 123, or prisoners who remain at the end of their sentences of seven years or less and the 700 prisoners. وشملت الإقتراحات أيضاً السماح للسلطة الفلسطينية بحفر آبار مياه في المنطقة «ج» الخاضعة للسيطرة الامنية والمدنية الاسرائيلية، والتي تشكل 60 في المئة من مساحة الضفة. Suggestions also included to allow the Palestinian Authority, digging water wells in the region «c» under the control of Israeli security and civil, which constitute 60 percent of the West. وتضمنت كذلك نقل أجزاء من المنطقة «ج» الى السيطرة الفلسطينية، وأجزاء أخرى من المنطقة «ب» الى المنطقة «أ» الخاضعة للسلطة من الناحيتين الامنية والمدنية. And also included the transfer of parts of the region «c» to Palestinian control, and other parts of the region «B» to the region «a» under the authority of both security and civil rights. وتخضع المنطقة «ب» للسيطرة الامنية الاسرائيلية والسيطرة المدنية الفلسطينية وتشكل 17 في المئة من مساحة الضفة. Subject area and «b» Israeli security control and Palestinian civilian control and constitute 17 percent of the West. اما المنطقة «أ» فتشكل 13 في المئة. The region «a» constitute 13 percent. بينما تشكل المنطقة «ج» الغالبية العظمى من أراضي الضفة (حوالى 60 في المئة) While the region is «c» the vast majority of the West (about 60 percent) لكن المصادر ذكرت ان إحتمال موافقة "اسرائيل" على هذه الاقتراحات ما زال ضعيفاً بسبب إقتصارها على المطالبة بتمديد المفاوضات لمدة شهرين. But the sources said that the probability of approval of "Israel" on these proposals is still weak because of the claim limited to the extension of the negotiations for two months. ولفتت الى إن فرصة موافقة "إسرائيل" مرتبطة بفترة المفاوضات، معتبرة أن فترة شهرين إضافيين من المفاوضات لا تشكل حافزاً قوياً لـ "إسرائيل" للموافقة عليها They noted that the opportunity to consent "Israel" related to the period of negotiations, arguing that the period of two months of negotiations does not constitute a strong incentive for "Israel" for approval (paltoday.ps)

no... don't touch it.... it's evil!

Israel Halts Payments to Palestinians, Adding to Fiscal Woes

All the countries that encouraged Palestine to break their promises can pay the Palestine Authorities bill now if they really care, but I doubt they do. Lip service doesn't pay the bills. If the world cares so much for the Palestinians then put up or shut up. oh... but they don't love the Arabs, they merely hate Jews.

(NYTIMES) RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian Authority, in over its head financially as foreign donors renege on pledges and local banks have reached their limits, has an even more serious money problem: Israel is refusing to transfer tax and customs payments that account for two-thirds of its revenue. For three weeks, the Israeli government has pointedly withheld the transfer of these payments, amounting to more than $100 million, to express opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s recent policy of pursuing United Nations membership and renewing power-sharing talks with Hamas.
The impact of Israel’s decision not to make its deposit could be devastating, according to Palestinian and international officials.
“With each passing day, the Palestinian Authority becomes weaker, and is fast approaching the day when it becomes completely incapacitated,” Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said in an interview this week.
Oussama Kanaan, the International Monetary Fund’s mission chief for the West Bank and Gaza, said that unless Israel changed its approach, salaries due on Dec. 1 that support one million Palestinians would go unpaid.
“Part of the reason why people have not revolted is that there has been some progress and security, and the living standard has been going up,” he said. “But if they cannot get their wages paid and they have high expectations about independence, they will see this as a sign of weakness and incompetence by the Palestinian Authority.”
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations and senior American officials have contacted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in recent days, urging him to release the money. Tony Blair, the representative of the so-called quartet — the Middle East peacemaking group composed of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — added his voice to the criticism on Wednesday, saying, “Only those who oppose peace and Israeli-Palestinian cooperation benefit from the withholding of P.A. funds.”
An aide to Mr. Netanyahu said the point was to “incentivize bad things not happening.” By that, he meant the Palestinian Authority’s pursuit of full membership in the United Nations and its planned talks with Hamas, expected to start on Thursday in Cairo.
But the aide said that if the Palestinians did not move to join other United Nations agencies — he said they had indicated a willingness to back off for now — and the Cairo meeting produced nothing more than promises of more meetings, the likelihood was that the money would be released by next week.
“We are trying to send a clear message,” he said.
Another Israeli official said that when the decision was made to withhold payment around Nov. 1, there had been several troubling developments from Israel’s point of view. First, he said, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said nothing after a rocket from Gaza killed someone in southern Israel. Then Mr. Abbas seemed to praise the abduction of an Israeli soldier five years ago and said he would never recognize a Jewish state. Finally, the Palestinians joined Unesco — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — a move that Israel rejected as another unilateral step toward statehood.
“We wanted to make clear this could not be business as usual,” the official said. “The idea is to influence Palestinian decision-making.”
The transfer of the more than $100 million a month is not, in theory, optional. It is mandated by the 1994 portion of the Oslo agreement. The money is made up of customs duties that Israel collects for Palestinian orders arriving here through Israeli ports, value-added taxes on major Palestinian purchases of Israeli goods and excise taxes on Israeli fuel bought by the Palestinians.
But the Israelis argue that by approaching the United Nations and engaging with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is breaking its end of the Oslo accords, freeing Israel to do the same.
The United States has suspended tens of millions of dollars it has pledged to the Palestinian Authority because of Congressional objections that mirror those of Israel.
Israel has withheld payments before, notably during the 2001-2 uprising and again in 2006, when the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas briefly formed a unity government. Foreign donors, mostly from the Arab world and the European Union, made up the difference.
That pattern has eased concerns here.
“The Authority has never collapsed, and it will not do so now,” , the chief executive of the Palestinian Stock Exchange, said in an interview. “The Arab Spring obliges the Arab countries to act in ways they are not used to. And the Israelis can rant and rave all they want. In the end, it is in their interest to help us.”
Indeed, it is widely agreed in the Israeli military establishment that a functioning Palestinian Authority is in Israel’s interest because, without it, Israel would have to police and provide civilian services to millions of Palestinians. But as the aide to Mr. Netanyahu said when asked about that, “True, but that is not our only interest.”
Relations between the two sides have deteriorated, and senior Israeli leaders, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, have publicly argued for withholding the Palestinian transfers. Mr. Netanyahu has not gone that far.
At the same time, the Israeli and Palestinian Finance Ministry panels working on the tax and customs transfers have recently made important strides together, reducing leakage and increasing revenues, both sides said.

...NO MORE MONEY FOR OUR MURDER...

Mr. Fayyad noted that since the Europeans were facing their own fiscal crises and the Arabs had not come forward with pledged donations, it made little sense to assume either would come to the rescue now. In the past two years, the authority has set up institutions as part of its ambition to be ready for statehood, and that has made fiscal reliability all the more important.
“If we can’t meet our contractual obligations, that has a chilling effect on the private sector,” Mr. Fayyad said. “This undermines confidence in the Palestinian Authority’s capacity to function, which has a debilitating effect on investor confidence. Like a family, a government can make do with less — but not a drop of two-thirds.”

Actually it is more simple then this. when Palestine unilaterally went to the U.N. to ask for statehood it broke the Oslo agreement. It isn't the Israeli opinion. It is a legal fact. The NYTimes is lying. They have no right to ask for funding if they broke their promises.

Secret files: Labour lied over Gaddafi... who warned of a holy war if Megrahi died in Scotland

Blair links: Saif Gaddafi

The startling extent to which Labour misled the world over the controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber is exposed today in top-secret documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday.

In public, senior Ministers from the last Labour Government and the Scottish First Minister have repeatedly insisted that terminally ill Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds in a decision taken by Scottish Ministers alone.
But the confidential papers show that Westminster buckled under pressure from Colonel Gaddafi, who threatened to ignite a 'holy war' if Megrahi died in his Scottish cell.

Friendship: Letters from Gordon Brown to Gaddafi sent in July 2007 (left) and September 2007 (right)

And despite repeated denials, the Labour Government worked frantically behind the scenes to appease Gaddafi's 'unpredictable nature'.
As recently as last month, a spokesman for Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond was insisting: 'The decision was taken on the basis of Scots law and was not influenced by economic, political or diplomatic factors.' via dailymail.co.uk
Equally damaging, the documents also suggest that as well as sharing intelligence-gathering techniques, Britain gave Libya hundreds of suggested questions for Islamic militants detained in Libya in 2004.
This will inevitably cause widespread dismay because of the regime’s systematic use of torture during interrogation. Friends: Former Prime MinisterTony Blair greets Muammar Gaddafi at his desert base outside Tripoli in 2007

Education: A letter from Downing Street reveals how Tony Blair was 'stimulated' by Said Gaddafi's PHD (left), while a second document reveals Tony Blair's New Year wishes to Gaddafi and his family (right)

The revelations come in documents – some marked ‘UK secret: UK/Libya Eyes Only’ – found strewn on the floor of the British Ambassador’s abandoned residence in Tripoli.
Many of the papers demonstrate the warmth of the relationship between Britain and Libya and, in particular, the extraordinarily close links between the Blair Government and the Gaddafi regime.


The notes show how:

• Tony Blair helped Colonel Gaddafi’s playboy son Saif with his ‘dodgy’ PhD thesis while he was Prime Minister.
• British Special Forces were offered to train the Khamis Brigade, Gaddafi’s most vicious military unit.
• MI6 was apparently willing to trace phone numbers for Libyan intelligence.
• Gordon Brown wrote warmly to Gaddafi in 2007 expressing the hope that the dictator would be able to meet Prince Andrew when he visited Tripoli.
• MI6’s budget (£150 million in 2002) was readily disclosed to Libyan officials, along with details of how Britain’s Downing Street emergency committee Cobra operates.
• Britain’s intelligence services forged close links with Gaddafi’s brutal security units.

Megrahi was released two years ago and transferred back to Libya, where he received a hero’s welcome from Gaddafi. Last week, it emerged he is still alive – although very ill – after he was tracked down to his home in Tripoli.
A series of documents marked ‘confidential’ and ‘restricted’ reveal that Gaddafi threatened Britain with ‘dire consequences’ if Megrahi died in Scotland.
Diplomats feared the harassment – ‘or worse’ – of British nationals; the cancellation of lucrative contracts with firms such as BP, Shell and BG; and the end of defence deals and counter-terrorism co-operation.

Devastating: The stash of documents were left in the British Ambassador's residence

As a result, the British Government ignored the anger of both America and the families of victims of Britain’s biggest terrorist outrage to push for the fastest release through the signing of a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya.
Set against Britain’s role in the military intervention in Libya, and David Cameron’s description of Gaddafi last week as a ‘monster’, the revelations in the papers are bitterly ironic.
Yet during the concerted appeasement campaign, Britain was under no illusion about the nature of Gaddafi’s security forces or of what they were capable.
Another thick briefing paper points out that their primary objective was the protection of the Libyan leader, his family and their friends and to ‘defend the regime’s repressive politics inside and outside the country’.
Despite this, Simon McDonald, Gordon Brown’s foreign policy adviser, told the dictator’s son Saif in June 2008 how glad he was to hear of the first meeting between MI6’s head of station and the feared Libyan Internal Security Organisation.
‘I understand that this preliminary meeting focused on training,’ he wrote. ‘I look forward to hearing of progress.’
From the police to prisons, from the health service to the high court, the documents detail links and co-operation between the two countries at every level.
What appears to underpin them all is Tony Blair’s plan to bring Gaddafi in from the cold while winning rich contracts for British businesses.
Even the Department for International Development got in on the act, drawing up plans to work with Libya in Africa.
Among the most enthusiastic participants were the police, despite the shadow cast by the shooting in London of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in 1984.
In November 2005 the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke met the Libyan security minister in London to agree a series of ‘security and co-operation talks’.

Six months later, at a meeting in Tripoli, Libyan officials asked for assistance on riot control, which they stressed was one of their ‘priorities’.
Despite the horrific reputation of Gaddafi’s jails, there was also collaboration with Libya’s prison services.
This included a trip to Libya by the former chief inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham, another in July 2009 by a team of British prison officials and the funding of visits to Libya by academics from King’s College, London, who were each paid £630 a day to run a two-week course in Tripoli.
Libya was notorious for corruption under the Gaddafi regime, with the dictator’s family dominating commerce and demanding a cut of most big deals.
Rivals who crossed them could have their businesses – or lives – destroyed.
But the Law Society spent 18 months working with Libyan officials to review laws on banking and the creation of a more ‘enabling’ business environment.
There were also exchange visits between British and Libyan health ministers and proposals for joint work from the Health Protection Agency.
Even former Labour leader Neil Kinnock became involved, holding discussions on education with Saif Gaddafi.
‘I am pleased that you had a successful meeting with Lord Kinnock,’ Tony Blair’s then foreign policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, told the dictator’s son in an April 2007 letter.
The letter, updating Gaddafi on progress on several fronts, ran to four pages.
It concluded with the Prime Minister sending ‘his warm wishes to the Leader and to yourself’.
A separate cache of secret files found in Tripoli show that MI6 gave the Gaddafi regime information on Libyan dissidents living in the UK.
The documents, discovered in the Tripoli offices of former Libyan intelligence chief Musa Kusa, include a personal Christmas greeting signed by a senior spy as ‘your friend’.
They also reveal that MI6 and the CIA had a regular contact with their counterparts in Libya, in particular Mr Kusa, who became foreign minister and earlier this year defected to the UK.

HEADER HERE

British Special Forces have warned Libyan commanders hunting Colonel Gaddafi that he could be wearing a suicide vest – choosing to kill himself rather than be captured.

A senior security source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The intelligence suggests it will be packed with enough explosives to take out anyone around him.’
The incriminating documents were found in the wreckage of the British ambassador’s home in Tripoli, a three-storey house vandalised in April by Gaddafi loyalists.
There were several booklets filled with the faces of suspected terrorists, scores of personally signed letters sent from Downing Street and detailed intelligence data on the Gaddafi regime.
Incredibly, all this had lain amid the debris for four months, with no attempt made to secure the papers even in
the week after the rebels ousted the dictator from the city.
Mountains of shredded paper showed British diplomats tried to destroy many documents before fleeing.

One of the more intriguing proposals in the papers is the idea of founding a Centre for the Study of Meteors and Shooting Stars in the middle of the Saharan desert.

Hundreds of meteorites have been found in the Libyan desert, including rocks from the Moon and Mars.

BLAIR HELPED PLAYBOY SAIF WITH HIS DODGY PhD THESIS:

Tony Blair helped Colonel Gaddafi’s playboy son Saif with his ‘dodgy’ philosophy PhD thesis while he was Prime Minister.


The extraordinary revelation, confirmed by a leaked letter sent by Mr Blair to the tyrant’s son, demonstrates just how close the links were between the Blair Government and the Gaddafi regime.
Saif, 39, has called Mr Blair ‘a close, personal friend’ of his family. Mr Blair also had a close personal relationship with dictator Muammar, exchanging friendly notes even after he left No 10.
Typical was one sent from Downing Street on December 28, 2006. ‘Eid Mubarak!’ it begins, acknowledging a Muslim festival. ‘At this sacred time of harmony and reconciliation, recalling how our passionate God has mercy on mankind, I would like to express my personal wishes to you, to your family and to the Libyan people.’
The documents show Mr Blair’s surprising level of involvement with Saif’s 2008 London School of Economics thesis. Mr Blair sent Saif a personally signed letter on No 10 paper, addressing him as ‘Engineer Saif’ and thanking him for sending the 429-page thesis for him to read.
The PM also offered three examples of co-operation between governments, people and business ‘that might help with your studies’, including Make Poverty History, which he said worked because ‘it bought together an unusual coalition of players from Bono to the Pope . with a simple but inspiring message of hope.’
Mr Blair then discusses how to prevent corruption in oil-rich nations – even though the Gaddafis were notorious for stealing billions – and his ‘personal interest and commitment’ to the topics Saif studied.
He signed off: ‘I wish you well for your PhD and send my warm good wishes.’ Saif – who donated £1.5 million to the LSE – is said to have plagiarised much of his thesis.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said: ‘Neither Tony Blair or Downing Street officials saw Saif Gaddafi’s thesis in advance. A letter was drafted by officials giving examples of good practice which was sent in the Prime Minister’s name. It was perfectly proper to do so.’

Incriminating: The documents reveal the close ties between Gordon Brown and Gaddafi (pictured toegether on the left in 2009), and how the Libyan leader warned of a holy war if Megrahi (right) was not released

WE HELPED TRAIN BRIGADE BEHIND REGIME'S WORST ATROCITIES

Who Dares Wins: The SAS spent six months training Libyan elite troops two years ago

Britain developed astonishingly close ties with the Libyan military following Tony Blair’s 2007 deal in the desert with Colonel Gaddafi, despite its history of brutal internal repression and bloody foreign adventurism.
Among the deals revealed this weekend are the use of UK Special Forces to train the feared Khamis Brigade, run by one of Gaddafi’s sons and thought to have been behind some of the worst atrocities in the recent conflict.
The SAS spent six months training Libyan elite troops two years ago as part of what was described by the Foreign Office as ‘ongoing co-operation in the field of defence’ between the two countries. A troop of four to 14 SAS men are understood to have trained the Libyans in counter-terrorism techniques, including covert surveillance.
The training was agreed under Tony Blair in 2004 but ‘signed off’ by Gordon Brown in 2009. British officials also proposed further military collaborations including:

• Training Libyan officers at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.
• Dispatching a Royal Navy vessel to visit Tripoli.
• Paying for high-ranking Libyans to visit the European Union and Nato headquarters in Brussels.
• Sending 100 officers a year on English language courses.
• The sale of naval ships to Libya.

It is now clear that British support for Gaddafi’s military machine went considerably further than training – and that much of it was based on ideas proposed by the deposed Libyan regime.
In April 2007, a month before the desert accord was signed, Mr Blair’s foreign policy adviser Sir Nigel Sheinwald told Saif Gaddafi that Britain was ready to develop a partnership with Libya ‘starting with some of the ideas you set out’.
Sir Nigel said he was ‘extremely pleased’ agreement had been reached on the sale of the Iskander missile system – although it was delayed by international pressure.
In February 2008, Gordon Brown wrote to the Libyan leader: ‘I am confident that our defence co-operation can grow, building on the accord signed in Sirte last May.’
Mr Brown hoped they could conclude negotiations on two arms deals: a £147 million anti-tank missile system and related £112 million communication system, plus an £85 million deal to supply radios.
In a letter to Saif in June 2008, Mr McDonald outlined the deal to train up to 90 members of the Khamis Brigade by Arturus, a UK-based private military security company. He added: ‘The MoD would then be willing to have serving personnel from UK SF [Special Forces] visit and provide quality assurance.’
Last night, Tory MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army commander, said: ‘Today’s friends are tomorrow’s enemies as these deals show.’

Blair warns Piece Talks during Arab Spring is IMPOSSIBLE

Blair warned that the Arab Spring, far from making Israeli-Palestinian peace talks more urgent, makes them almost impossible. Israel no longer knows what regional threats it may face, he explained, while Palestinian leaders will have trouble making “difficult compromises which will be tough to sell, in circumstances where they don’t know the regional context into which such compromises will be played.”

That should be obvious.
...
But instead of recognizing these obvious facts, France is pushing a plan to resume negotiations in Paris this fall, while the U.S. is working on its own plan for autumn talks in Washington. That both also propose a formula entirely unacceptable to Israel — requiring it to cede the entire West Bank without any Palestinian concession on the refugees in exchange, in line with Barack Obama’s May 19 speech — is mere icing on the cake.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

When Hamas joined with Fatah, Obama didn't even blink.  He did note America's hostility to his lies about Israeli borders however and vetoed the Palestinian Unilateral State in the UNSC

Of Balkans and Boomer Condemnation of Progeny

According to Bismarck’s best-known maxim on Europe’s most troublesome region, the Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Americans could be forgiven for harboring similar sentiments after the murder of two U.S. airmen in Germany by a Kosovar Muslim.

Remember Kosovo? Me neither. But it was big at the time, launched by Bill Clinton in the wake of his Monica difficulties: Make war, not love, as the boomers advise. So Clinton did — and without any pesky U.N. resolutions, or even the pretense of seeking them.
More Steyn:

• Gaddafi: The Steyn connection

Instead, he and Tony Blair and even Jacques Chirac just cried “Bombs away!” and got on with it. And the left didn’t mind at all — because, for a modern western nation, war is only legitimate if you have no conceivable national interest in whatever war you’re waging.
Unlike Iraq and all its supposed “blood for oil,” in Kosovo no one remembers why we went in, what the hell the point of it was, or which side were the good guys. (Answer: Neither.) The principal rationale advanced by Clinton and Blair was that there was no rationale. This was what they called “liberal interventionism”, which boils down to: The fact that we have no reason to get into it justifies our getting into it.
A decade on, Kosovo is a sorta sovereign state, and in Frankfurt a young airport employee is so grateful for what America did for his people that he guns down U.S. servicemen while yelling “Allahu akbar!”

The nations that built the modern world decided to outsource their future. In simple economic terms, the arithmetic is stark: In America, the boomers have condemned their shrunken progeny to the certainty of poorer, meaner lives.
In sociocultural terms, the transformation will be even greater. Bismarck, so shrewd and cynical about the backward Balkans, was also the father of the modern welfare state: When he introduced the old age pension, you had to be 65 to collect and Prussian life expectancy was 45.

(source)  

via sheikyermami.com IMAGE via nytimes.com  quote via brainyquote.com

Tony Blair defends religious faith but says G-d had nothing to do with his decision to go to Iraq

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and author Christopher Hitchens ahead of their debate on religion set up by Munk Debates in Toronto

via telegraph.co.uk

Mr Hitchens, 61, said: "Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects, in a cruel experiment, whereby we are created sick, and commanded to be well.
"And over us, to supervise this, is installed a celestial dictatorship, a kind of divine North Korea."
He said it was not necessary to have "divine permission to know right from wrong".
And he said religion may promise salvation but the price was the "surrender of your critical faculties".
He continued: "Religion forces nice people to do unkind things, and also makes intelligent people say stupid things."
In a question from the audience Mr Blair was asked what role faith played in his decision to invade Iraq.
He said: "I think we can nail this one pretty easily. It was not about religious faith.
"You know, one of the things that I sometimes say to people is, look, the thing about religion and religious faith is if you are a person of faith, it's part of your character, it defines you in many ways as a human being.
"It doesn't do the policy answers, I am afraid.
"Even on the major decisions that are to do with war and peace that I've taken, they were decisions based on policy, and so they should be, and you may disagree with those decisions, but they were taken because I genuinely believed them to be right."

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Sister in Law of Tony Blair: Reads Koran Every Day. On Page 60

It's hard to know where to start when describing the sheer ickiness of Booth. That she works as a paid stooge for the murderous Iranian regime's television channel has to come pretty near the top. A woman, choosing to act a front for a gang of thugs who uphold the punishment of death by stoning for adulteresses! This is surely Stockholm Syndrome gone gaga.

Her entirely inappropriate addiction to the spotlight, although she was obviously designed as one of Nature's plus-ones, is another stand-out feature. A failed actress, a mediocre hack, it's pretty fair to say we would never have heard of her had her half-sister not married a man who became Prime Minister. And now her meal-ticket is Mohammed.

via independent.co.uk

Al Quds al Arabi, the London-based pan-Arabic newspaper, interviewed Lauren Booth about her conversion to Islam.

First, she said that she simply converted to Islam, not to any particular sect within Islam. I guess she needs to get past page 60 of the Koran to make such a decision. She said she did it after returning from Iran, not in Iran.

Some newspaper mentioned that she swam in Gaza in a bikini the last time she was there. She denies this, saying she kept her clothes on and swam early in the morning so no one would see, and anyway now that she converted all of her sins are gone so it doesn't matter, but she might sue the newspaper that claimed she was in a bikini.

Well, I did find a picture of her at the beach in Gaza...

via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

From Weasel Zippers:

(Daily Mail)- Tony Blair’s sister-in-law has converted to Islam after having a ‘holy experience’ in Iran.
Broadcaster and journalist Lauren Booth, 43 – Cherie Blair’s half-sister – said she now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves her home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque ‘when I can’.
She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom.
‘It was a Tuesday evening and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy,’ she told The Mail on Sunday.
When she returned to Britain, she decided to convert immediately.
‘Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day. I’m on page 60.

via ibloga.blogspot.com

precious

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Follow the Jihad Money to Tony Blair

In the Middle East 'peace process,' as in almost everything else in life, it's always worthwhile to follow the money.

London's Daily Mail did just that, and discovered that 'unpaid' quartet envoy Tony Blair made a lot of money for JP Morgan (which pays him an annual 'consulting fee' of 2 million British pounds) and for 'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen by pressuring the Israeli government to grant certain cell phone wavelengths to a 'Palestinian' phone company.

Acting in his capacity as the international Middle East peace envoy, Mr Blair helped to save the company by spending months putting pressure on Israel’s prime minister and his colleagues in a bid to change their minds.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed:

• Mr Blair spoke of the need to get Wataniya up and running in order to boost the Palestinian economy. However JP Morgan, the American investment bank that employs him as a consultant, has a financial stake in Wataniya through Wataniya’s owner, the Qatari firm Qtel, which is an important client of JP Morgan.

• Financial documents show that back in 2007, JP Morgan had been one of four ‘mandated lead arrangers’ of a $2 billion loan with which Qtel bought Wataniya from its original Kuwaiti owners. Last year, the bank joined a syndicate that lent Qtel a further $500 million, and became a ‘lead arranger’ for a Qtel bond issue which raised yet another $1.5 billion.
  

In these deals, JP Morgan would have been paid many millions of pounds in fees, and if the loans had gone bad, could have been exposed to substantial losses. ‘Its original exposure was probably around $200 million,’ one Wall Street expert said yesterday.

Last night a bank spokesman refused to comment, or to disclose any further details. He did not deny that Qtel was a significant JP Morgan client.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said he had no knowledge of any connection between JP Morgan and Qtel.

Mr Blair’s lobbying campaign also helped to enrich the family of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas – a central figure in the search for Middle East peace. A firm run by his son Tarek has secured a lucrative contract to provide advertising for Wataniya.

Mr Blair’s envoy role – for which, as he has often boasted, he is not paid
a salary – has now been enhanced.

There's much more to this story - including the use of an American 'small business' loan fund to finance it (yes, American taxpayers, you are once again footing the bill for 'Palestinian' corruption). Read the whole thing.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

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Blair: this is actually more like the phenomenon of revolutionary communism'

Blair: 'this is actually more like the phenomenon of revolutionary communism'
The news headlines say that Blair spoke about 'Radical Islam', but he doesn't actually name the phenomenon he's discussing.

Via ABC's 'This Week':

AMANPOUR: I guess no surprises. There's zero apologizing for what happened in Iraq. You stick to your contention about the weapons of mass destruction, and if it wasn't weapons of mass destruction, then you say at least the byproduct would be getting rid of Saddam Hussein, and wouldn't the world be a better place without him? But you also talk about not comprehending the complexities that were going to be unleashed in Iraq. What precisely?
BLAIR: What I think we understand more clearly now is -- and this is something I didn't understand fully at the time of 9/11 -- in a sense, at that point you think there were 3,000 people killed in the streets of New York in a single day. And I still think it's important just to hold that thought in our mind, because I always say about this, the important thing is, if these people could have killed 30,000 or 300,000, they would have.
And that really changed the calculus of risk all together. But what I understand less clearly at that time was how deep this ideological movement is. -- this is actually more like the phenomenon of revolutionary communism. It's the religious or cultural equivalent of it, and its roots are deep, its tentacles are long, and its narrative about Islam stretches far further than we think into even parts of mainstream opinion who abhor the extremism, but sort of buy some of the rhetoric that goes with it.
AMANPOUR: In your book your wrote that this is not something to be combated on an electoral cycle, this will take a generation.
Do you think everybody gets it? I mean, you see President Obama now faced with drawing down in Iraq, faced with ramping up in Afghanistan, but still putting a deadline on. What sort of message does that send as to the commitment to fight this?
BLAIR: I think it's perfectly sensible to set the deadline, provided it's clear that, as it were, that is to get everyone focused on getting the job done.
But in general terms, I think the answer to your question is no, I think a lot of people don't understand that this is a generational-long struggle. and I think one of the things we've got to have and one of the debates we've got to have in the west is you know are we prepared for that, and are we prepared for the consequences of it?

(more)

via islamineurope.blogspot.com

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Lauren Booth : Her idiocy again

An Al Quds day letter to Tony Blair.
From Lauren Booth, in Iran

Gilad Atzmon: I guess that Tony Blair’s  sister in law, Lauren Booth, could easily use the phone and tell Tony what she thinks of him, his politics and his new memoir. However, being a peace activist she decided also to share it with the rest of us.

Dear Tony,
Congratulations on your political memoir becoming an instant bestseller. I’m in Iran and have the only copy in the country.  I can tell you, its so fiercely fought over, it’s worth its weight in WMD’s. Note to Random House; have ‘A Journey’ translated into Farsi and Arabic asap, it’ll fly off the shelves in this part of the world.
Tony, yesterday I went the Al Quds day protest in Tehran. You may have heard of it? It’s the rally where Iranians gather to protest against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, including the Holy city of Jerusalem.
I’m being sarcastic by asking if you’ve heard of Al Quds day, because I know you have. It is after all your very worst nightmare right? It must be horrifying with the ‘world view,’ you express in your memoirs to watch scenes on the BBC news showing the precise meeting point of politics and Islam.
Personally I’ve never understood this fear of ‘political Islam’ it seems to me that religious people should always be educated on world events rather than kept in ignorance like say, Mid West Christian Zionists in the US who can’t even find their home city on a map of their state.
Anyway, yesterday, I stood in the midst of more than one million Iranian Muslims all chanting in unison ‘Marg Bar Isre-hell!’ and ‘Marg Bar Am-ri-ca!’ You know what that means Tony I’m sure ; ‘Down with Israel, down with America’. The men, women and children around me withstood a day of no water and no food (it’s called Ramadan, Tony, it’s a fast). Coping with hunger and thirst in the hundred degrees heat, as if it were nothing. They can withstand deprivation in the Muslim world, and think it a proud thing to suffer in order to express their fury at the continued slaughter of Palestinians. To protest the theft of what little remains of Palestinian land by settlers. To protest the blockade of Gaza causing immense suffering to millions.
Now,  the Christian Zionists in the US and the Jewish Zionists in Israel would have you believe that I was am in danger in Iran, especially on a day like Al Quds. Well here again Tony, you’ve been fed and have consumed in its entirety, a massive lie. The lie that says that when Muslims march they march against infidels (like me I suppose) in some kind of Middle Eastern homage to the ancient crusades.
Yet the crusade Tony is yours, not ‘theirs.’
Today I spoke with many women  on the Tehran protest. One mother who wept, not out of hatred for ‘the West’ but out of empathy for the mothers of Rafah, Khan Younis, Nablus and Jenin. Do you recognise these place names Tony, as Middle East peace envoy you really should. Israel has massacred children in all of these cities in recent years. Didn’t you know?
Anyway the women I met were gentle, frustrated by the refusal of the international community to stop the arrests of Palestinian children, to stop the routine bombing of the tunnels (the main access still for food and essential items in the Gaza strip). We embraced in the streets of Tehran like sisters. Not in Islam Tony, but in the fight against your brand of extremism and prejudice.
And today when the streets of London reverberate with cries of ‘Allahuakbar!’ and ‘Down Down Israel.’ Christians and Jews will join the thunderous cries of ‘Down Down Israel, marching against the ‘political’ Muslims you say you fear so much, That you would have me fear too if you could.
Having spent a good deal of time in Palestine in recent years, certainly more than you and your the ‘peace envoy’ supposedly. It repulsed me to read your blatant swallowing of the Israeli narrative regarding Palestine and its people.
The ‘conflict’ between Palestine and Israel is according to you all about religion and has nothing at all to do with the ethnic cleansing of the Arab population, nor the degredation of those who remain by their Israeli occupiers. You say that Arabs have and always will see ‘Jews’ as enemies. For God’s sake Tony do your history. And if you’re going to run a ‘Faith Foundation’ then better gen up on Islam 101 don’t you think? Did your pals in Tel Aviv forget to tell you how many thousands of Jews lived in Historic Palestine in harmony with their Arab neighbours before 1948? Do you really not know that even today tens of thousand of Jews reside contentedly in Iran?
I’ve sat with dozens and dozens of Muslim families, those whose children have been burned by Israeli/US phosphorous bombs. Those who are still suffering hunger due to the Israel siege of Gaza. Those who have lived through the early days of sanctions against Iran when they needed food vouchers just to live. And every single Muslim in these suffering families has the same message ; ‘We don’t hate anyone for their race or their religion. We cannot hate Jews they are in our holy book it is against the teachings of the Koran.’ But Tony let me ask you this. Why should any people Muslim or otherwise have NO right to justice and NO right to challenge an evil being done to them and their children? or to those who share a set of common beliefs? Do you have no understanding of what it is like to live in Gaza? Under siege, attacked with chemical weapons, your children’s schools razed to the ground by Israeli missiles, your hospitals shelled, your electricity limited, your water undrinkable?
Or do understand the ‘idea’ of the hardships suffered by millions in the Middle East as a direct result of your support for Israel and just think they deserve it?
In your book you say you knew full well how many Beirut homes were flattened, how many civilians died in Lebanon in 2006. Yet you dismiss Lebanese rage about Israeli land theft of ‘Shebas Farm’ as being an irrelevance, about a ‘tiny’ amount of land. You cannot see it as part of an attack on Lebanese life as a whole, by it’s heavily armed aggressive neighbour. You see it as: ‘Israel is attacked. Israel strikes back.’ As if Israel lives in placid peace, being kindly to all around it in between these massacres.
As other world leaders came out to demand Israel immediately cease its 2006 bombing raids on Lebanese cities, you stayed silent.
‘If I had condemned Israel’ you say ‘I would have been more than dishonest. It would have undermined my world view.’
Your world view that Muslims are mad, bad, dangerous to know. A contagion to be contained. Your final chapter is a must read here in the Middle East Tony, congratulations! For it lays out the ‘them’ and ‘us’ agenda of your friends in Washington and Tel Aviv and in David Milliband, the ambassador of Zionism that he is.
In the final chapter you say; ‘we need a religious counter attack’ against Islam. And by ‘Islam’ you mean the Al Quds rallies, the Palestinian intifada (based on an anti Apartheid struggle Tony, NOT religious bigotry), against every Arab who fails to raise a flag as the F16s rain on their homes and refugee camps and breaks out singing ‘Imagine all the people…’
When you say ‘extremism’ must be ‘controlled and beaten’ you mean the message of solidarity shared by Non Muslims alike on the streets of London and across the world today,  joining the Al Quds day protests.
‘Not only extremism must be defeated’ you say but ‘the narrative that has to be assailed.’
Iran is indeed the place where Islamic tradition meets political action.
But I’m not afraid here Tony. The people are kind, friendly, full of good humour.
They are also highly aware of the history of this region, the wrongs perpetrated by Israel against Palestine and the political machinations of the US and the UK governments.
And as your book remains highly sought after here in Tehran. It’s that and not Islam, that you and your Israeli chums should be afraid of because it reveals you in all your ignorant glory.
Lauren Booth
Broadcaster and Journalist
Mail on Sunday
Press TV, UK

via intifada-palestine.com

have another drink Tony... you are going to need it

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Tony Blair smacks his bitches up [UPDATED]

Blair:

"Diana was easier to get along with, an “extraordinarily captivating” woman. Blair says he warned her he had a bad feeling about her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. “Dodi Fayed was a problem,” he says, though he admits he was at a loss to say exactly why. “I felt uneasy.”"

Diana and Dodi were killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997. Blair’s memorial speech, calling her the “people’s princess,” caught the public mood perfectly and helped cement his popularity at the time.

Elsewhere, Blair speaks of his relationship with alcohol, saying he drank a whisky or a gin and tonic before dinner, and a “couple of glasses of wine or even half a bottle with it.”

“I had a limit,” he says.” But I was aware it had become a prop” — though, on balance, he thinks booze did him more good than harm.

via vosizneias.com

Photo: The Telegraph
The former prime minister’s memoir describes Mr Brown as "maddening" and blames him for allowing the Tories into power by deviating from his predecessor's New Labour strategy.
Mr Blair disclosed that his former chancellor put “relentless personal pressure” on him during his time in Number 10.
He admitted that he repeatedly considered sacking Mr Brown but failed to identify anyone who could replace him and eventually concluded that he was better “inside and constrained” than “outside and let loose”.
He also accuses his Chancellor of effectively trying to blackmail him into backing down over a pensions reform.
Mr Blair said Mr Brown lacked political instinct "at the human gut level", according to The Guardian.
He wrote: "Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero."
He described Mr Brown as a “maddening figure” who was not capable of being a “normal bloke” sort of politician, but conceded that he possessed an acute “analytical intelligence” which stood him in good stead as chancellor.
In his long-awaited memoir, A Journey, Mr Blair wrote: “My failure to [remove him] was not a lack of courage…It was because I believed, despite it all, despite my own feelings at times, that he was the best chancellor for the country.”

via librabunda.blogspot.com

the gloves just came off. let us see if Mr Emotional IQ at zero wants to play

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Tony Blair says he is 100% on Israel's Side

Jerusalem - Israel has the right to protect itself, former British prime minister Tony Blair said in an interview with Channel 10 on Tuesday.
Blair met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday to discuss the repercussions of last week’s flotilla raid.
“Any investigation has to be full and impartial, and there may be some sort of international element that could be part of it,” Blair said.
While Blair stressed the need to launch an international, impartial probe into the incident, he assured that he wholeheartedly supports Israel’s right to self-defense.
“There are no questions at all. There have been rockets fired from Gaza, there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis,” the former UK premier said said.
“When it comes to security, I am one hundred percent on Israel’s side.
via vosizneias.com

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Blair: 2-state solution or hell of a fight - Israel News, Ynetnews

Blair: 2-state solution or 'hell of a fight'

Quartet's Mideat envoy says next month will be 'completely critical' in efforts to resume negotiations between Israel, Palestinians
Yitzhak Benhorin

Published:

11.29.09, 21:15 / Israel News

WASHINGTON – Quartet envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair portrayed Sunday a harsh picture of the region without a Palestinian state. "The alternative to a two-state solution is a one-state solution and that will, I assure you, be a hell of fight," he said in an interview to the CNN network.
According to Blair, the next month "will be completely critical and fundamental" in the efforts to resume direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Piece Efforts

US 'hopeful' settlement freeze can revive piece talks / AFP American official says Obama administration hopes halt of settlement construction will contribute to resumption of negotiations, hasn't changed position on matter Full story

The former British prime minister noted that it was essential for the sides to sit down and talk "as quickly as possible".
"I've just spent some time with the Israeli prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu," Blair said, "and I think he is genuine and serious in wanting the negotiation to start."
He said he believed that "the majority of people, both Israelis and Palestinians, want to see a two-state solution." According to Blair, the Israelis want to know that their security is going to be protected, while the Palestinians want to know that the negotiations will really end the occupation and lead to a Palestinian state.
He added that he thinks "the Palestinians have made significant progress on security and the Israelis are prepared to change significantly their posture on the West Bank."

'We have to find a way through'

Blair, who served as British premier during the peace talks with Northern Ireland, which were led by US Senator George Mitchell, defended American President Barack Obama and his special Mideast envoy Mitchell, following a New York Times article accusing them of having no strategy.
"I have worked with Senator George Mitchell together very closely. He is, in my view, one of the most skilled and strategic negotiators I've ever come across… I think President Obama and Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton are completely committed to doing this… I went through situations in times in the Northern Ireland process where people were convinced that the thing was going to fail, where even at times I found it difficult to see a way through. But the thing is there is a way through here, because in fact both parties want to achieve a two-state solution."

Blair said he believes the biggest difference between the Bush administration and the Obama administration stems from the fact that Obama has made the Israeli-Palestinian peace process "a central strategic objective" at the very beginning of his administration.
"I have absolutely no doubt that he holds to that, and whatever the difficulties and the obstacles, we have to find a way through. And personally, I'm an optimist by nature and I believe we will," he concluded.

via ynetnews.com

that sounds like a threat. which side are you on Blair? Palestine is Jordan. And if Jerusalem were occupied, then why does LIFE Magazine have photos of ethnic cleansing of Jews and evictions of Jewish homes in Jerusalem in 1947?

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