FEBRUARY2007

The European Union and the United States have agreed to withhold recognition for the new Palestinian unity government, sworn in on Saturday. In Washington the US secretary of state and the EU foreign policy chief renewed their call for the government to recognise Israel and renounce violence. The presence of militant group Hamas in the government is a major obstacle for the US, correspondents say.

But the US and EU said they would stay in touch with moderate Palestinians.That means those loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but not members of Hamas, says the BBC's Jonathan Beale in Washington.

The so-called Middle East Quartet - the United Nations, the EU, Russia and the US - have demanded that the Palestinian government renounce violence, recognise Israel and accept past peace agreements. Since Hamas won elections in January last year, a freeze has been imposed on international aid to the government. BBC WORLD NEWS.

Those criminal sanctions ensured that all the massive numbers of social and police workers previously selected by Arafat to serve his administration go unpaid, they will protest .......and as we have seen ensure further developments that prefigure civil war - just as they encouraged in Ireland at the beginning of last Century. We had better see that European Law will be no different from Colonial Law and we are already experiencing that with ridiculous farm legislation about "Everyone must plough on the same day" irrespective of terrain and weather conditions; just to mention one stupid exampleJ.Braddell, editor.

Gilad Atzmon - From Guilt to Responsibility

Speech given in Stockholm 18 March 2007
The impossible condition of being an ex-Israeli as well as an ethically orientated human being necessary leads towards a serious guilt complex. I am referring here to the obvious case of one feeling guilty for the crimes committed on one’s behalf by one’s brethren. Yet, I have to confess that while guilt can be charming, at least for a while, it is far from being a productive state of mind in the long term. Guilt is a self-centred endeavour, it doesn’t aim towards a change. In guilt alone, there is not much hope for better future. In fact, the only way to translate guilt into productivity is to transform remorse into responsibility.
At least in my case, responsibility is primarily grounded on the deep acknowledgment that, though totally against my will, as things are set by the Jewish State, every atrocity committed by Israel is actually committed in my name and on my behalf. In other words, my commitment to the Palestinian issue is evoked by my acceptance of my responsibility. Though shouting ‘not in my name’ would have helped to vindicate me as an individual person, it won’t change the grave sinister fact that every Israeli war crime is actually done in the name of the Jewish people. Thus, I have never been an advocate of the ‘not in my name’ call. Clearly, I am not searching for my own self-redemption but rather for a metaphysical shift of awareness. Consequently, responsibility is for me a form of intervention that bridges the necessary gap between silent acceptance and ethical commitment. My responsibility is my pledge to do whatever I can to bring the suffering of the Palestinians to an immediate halt.
I obviously set myself a very serious challenge here. Bearing in mind that my weapons are my saxophone and my pen, it may even sound slightly pathetic. One may wonder whether it is possible to knock down a nuclear regional superpower with a soprano saxophone or even with a pencil. Though I don’t have a definite answer yet, I am willing to admit that in the last seven years I have given it a go.
For me, being responsible means looking into the Israeli atrocities while regarding myself at the crux of the issue. While in the past I somehow tended to remove myself from the conflict, positioning myself as a detached scout, I now happen to search for the answers inside myself, in my own soul, in my esoteric experience. Following Otto Weininger, I’m inclined to believe that artists’ revelations about the world are the direct outcome of some sincere self-searching. However, while looking into myself I clearly found out that whereas I may be able to say some things about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I probably cannot really say much about its political aspects.
Generally speaking, discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from being an easy job. Furthermore, lately, the task is becoming more and more difficult. Due to some intensive pressure imposed on the Palestinians by Israel (with the full support of the willing and obedient West), the Palestinians are pushed into a state of civil war. As a result, the emerging animosity within Palestinian society (both in Palestine and in the Diaspora) makes it very difficult to suggest any intellectual or ideological contribution that may refer to a conflict resolution. Palestinian society is now officially divided about almost everything. Moreover, Palestinians may even find it difficult to agree upon the notion of the Palestinian cause. As it seems, many of us in the West happen to claim to support the Palestinian cause without really being able to suggest what this cause is anymore. Rather often we happen to classify activists based on their vision of the conflict resolution. We would say, “he is OK, he is for ‘one State’, but leave her alone, she is a Zionist ‘two States’ supporter”. In other words, we identify political affiliations with what seems to us as the ‘true’ Palestinian cause. But in fact, our image of the Palestinian cause is in itself dependent upon our own political culture, personal political struggles, personal affiliations and lifestyle. It has very little to do with Palestine, the Palestinians and their current or future needs.
Such a realisation may challenge the notion of solidarity and it implies some possible criticism over the entire issue of responsibility. Consequently, I have been recently coming to terms with the idea that I must be very careful with any rhetoric having to do with Palestine. Consequently, I avoid talking in the name of the Palestinians. Moreover, being an ex-Israeli, I do not allow myself to interfere with the Palestinian discourse of resolution. I am totally convinced that the future of Palestine is an internal Palestinian affair. The future of Palestine should be determined by the Palestinian people and by themselves alone. Yet I feel more than entitled to talk about the atrocities that are committed in my name. This is where my responsibility is coming into play.
My task is far from being hard to define. I would argue that if indeed the crimes against the Palestinians are committed by the ‘Jewish State’ in the name of the ‘Jewish’ people, before any progress can be made, we first must grasp what the word ‘Jewish’ stands for. In other words, it is Jewishness which I am trying to contemplate. I try to learn its metaphysics, its historical and cultural background. I try to understand how Jewish lobbies are operating within different organisations, institutes and systems of hegemony. I argue that if it is the Jewish State that is engaged in terrorising the Palestinians, we better understand once and for all what hides behind the notion of Jewishness. Yet, I find it necessary to elaborate on the differences between the different categories having to do with the ‘J’ word.
Resolutely, I differentiate between Judaism (the religion), Jews (the people) and Jewishness (the ideology). I refrain categorically from referring to Jews and avoid criticism of Judaism. The reasons are obvious. First, though Israel regards itself as the ‘Jewish State’, it is far from being the State of the Jews. Many Jews are living outside of Israel and have nothing to do with Israel or the Israeli crimes. Second, it isn’t Judaism that inflicts so much pain on the Palestinians but rather people who follow some peculiar modern secular vision named by some as Zionism. Thus, it is the Jewishness that I am interested in, the ideological mindset and the cultural framework. I am interested in the collective bond that provides Zionism with a substantial body shield. I am interested in that which transforms Global Zionism into a leading and winning contemporary worldview.
But this is exactly where the real problem starts. Although I firmly refrain from referring to racial or ethnic categories, enormous energy is invested in stopping me and others from saying that which we feel entitled to say. Jewish political pressure groups both in the left and in the right, both Zionists and anti-Zionists, both sectarian Marxists and Fascist settlers fight to keep the differentiation between Judaism, Jewishness and the Jews as blurred as possible. May I suggest that they know what they are doing. It is this tactic that allows them to dismiss any possible criticism of Israel and its lobbies as being a racist assault. As long as the demarcation between Judaism, Jews and Jewishness is obscure, Israel is safe from criticism.
By maintaining such a tactic, Jewish groups in the left and in the right have managed to block any meaningful debate having to do with Israel, the Jewish State, Palestine, world Jewry, the Israeli Lobby in America, etc.. Every essential discussion is dismissed immediately as a form of racism or as plain anti-Semitism. My responsibility therefore is to stand up and resist. My duty is to insist that Jewishness is an Ideology, or at least a mindset. It is an idea that made the Nakba possible, it is an ideology that has maintained ethnic cleansing policies for six decades, it is an a unique intuition that lives in peace with 80% starvation in Gaza.
It is not the Jews and it is not Judaism that are to be blamed here, but it is not Zionism either. Jewishness is actually a deeper concept than mere Zionism. How do I know that it is deeper than Zionism? I know because I look into myself and into my past. I know because I grew up in Israel and I can tell that as a young lad, the word Zionism was foreign to my ears. My peers and myself were Israelis, we were the Jewish people, we were not Zionists. Zionism was a foreign abstract expression, it smelled of Galut (Diaspora). We were Jews and our enemies were the ‘others’ whoever they were at the time: the Germans, The Goyim, the anti-Semites, the Arabs in general the Palestinians in particular and so forth.
My responsibility thus is to expose the real meaning of the Jewish idea in its full extent. My mission is to get to the essence of this almighty fear that settles comfortably at the core of the Jewish collective psyche. My responsibility is to expose the carriers and protagonists of this ideology. As an artist, my duty is to look into myself and to trace its origin in my own soul.
If I am indeed correct and Jewishness is an ideology, then it cannot just position itself beyond criticism. If I am indeed on the right track, it is my duty as an intellectual and as an artist who believes in free spirit, to point out that the Palestinian discourse is viciously shaped by an absurd form of political correctness that blocks any meaningful and fruitful discourse.
I will use this unique opportunity and mention as well that I am tired of hearing people telling me “Gilad, you can say it all, you are a Jew.” I just do not accept it. There is nothing in my ethnic belonging or biological origin that should grant me with any special entitlement. I must admit as well that I have never found myself telling a Muslim or an Arab friend “you can say it, you are an Arab.” I do not remember myself ever hearing anyone suggesting to anyone else: “you can say it, you are Protestant, Irish, Black, etc.”. Noticeably, the Jewish State and its supporters have managed to position their beloved country in a very privileged precious position, far beyond criticism. My responsibility is to expose this tactic as a complete fallacy.
I believe that we cannot bring hope to Palestine unless we teach ourselves to speak freely, unless we allow ourselves to open up the discourse. I may as well suggest that I truly believe that the Zionists and the Israelis will benefit from such an initiative.
The Israelis and their supporters set themselves in an artificial detached heaven. They have surrounded themselves with security walls and have managed to block all channels of criticism. While in a complete state of blindness, the Israelis have failed to notice that they have become the embodiment of modern evil. More than anyone else, it is the Jewish State and the Israelis who need an immediate wake up call.

February 6, 2007 -- Right-wing French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy received money from international American fugitive and Russian-Israeli Mafia kingpin Marc Rich, according to informed French sources. The money was transmitted through the Luxembourg-based Clearstream clearing division of Deutsche Borse. Sarkozy diverted attention away from his receipt of funds from the Russian-Israeli Mafia Clearstream accounts of Bank Menatep, the bank owned by jailed Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.



Germany has made reviving Middle East peacemaking a priority of its six-month term as EU leader.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed the European Union's insistence that any new Palestinian government must recognise Israel. She made the point, as holder of the EU presidency, to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas who is visiting Berlin.

He wants the EU to lift a financial boycott on the Palestinian Authority.

The Quartet (Russia, the EU, the US and UN) say they will await the formation of a new unity cabinet with the Hamas militant group before any decision.

Irish bishops: Israel has turned Gaza Strip into a 'large prison'
By The Associated Press
A group of Irish Roman Catholic bishops on Tuesday called into question Ireland's commercial ties with Israel, saying Israel has made the Gaza Strip "little more than a large prison" for Palestinians.

"Where there is evidence of systematic abuse of human rights on a large scale, as in the Occupied Territories, there are questions that must be asked concerning the appropriateness of maintaining close business, cultural and commercial links with Israel," said auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Raymond Field.

There is a long history of support for Palestinians in Ireland, particularly among nationalist parties such as Sinn Fein, which equate their own fight to end British rule in Ireland with the desire by Palestinians for their own state.Field, chairman of the Irish Commission for Justice and Social Affairs (ICJSA), which advises Ireland's top Catholic clerics on social issues, described travel restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as an "injustice."

"We are calling for an end to restrictions on family reunification, and an end to humiliating treatment of people at checkpoints," Field said in an ICJSA statement ahead of a meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern.

Field said restrictions, which Israel says protect it against Palestinian attacks, also make it difficult for Christians to worship at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem."In effect, the communities of Bethlehem and East Jerusalem are forced to live divided by a 25 foot wall," said Field."We also intend to raise with Minister Ahern the intolerable situation that is the daily lot of the Palestinians who live in Gaza," Field said.

The ICJSA's statement also questioned the way in which the European Union handled its dealings with Israel."While we welcome cooperation between the EU and its neighbouring countries, nevertheless such cooperation should not be at the expense of a large segment of the indigenous population - in this case the Palestinians." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/831315.html

EU 50th Birthday and Poland requests..........

22.02.2007 - 09:19 CET | By Andrew Rettman
EUOBSERVER / WARSAW - Poland wants the EU's upcoming 50th birthday declaration to mention the "dark" side of recent European history such as Communism and the Balkan wars, while hinting that changes to the EU voting system could become a Polish red line in future talks on the new EU constitution. "It shouldn't simply be a self-celebration by the old member states. It should include our part of Europe as a parallel process experienced after WWII," Warsaw's lead negotiator or "sherpa" on the birthday declaration, Marek Cichocki, said in Warsaw on Tuesday (21 February)."It should also make mention of the dark legacy of European policy. During the great successes of extending the European Union in the 1990s, we had parallel to that a serious war in the Balkans," he added, saying the German EU presidency has a "responsibility" to address the tough issues.

The declaration will be drafted in English by an official in the chancellery of German leader Angela Merkel. It will have three parts - on EU history, EU values and the EU's future. It should be written in plain language and be no more than three pages long, the Polish negotiator said.

The "dark" events should go into the history section alongside the "successes" of setting up the single market. The history paragraphs should also state the "historical truth" of the EU's Christian origins, but Christianity should be kept out of the EU values chapter. Mr Cichocki warned that only values with a "universal character" such as human rights and rule of law should go in. "It should not represent all the values that we find in our national constitutions, because then we will have a very long list," he said. The sherpa also suggested "openness" as a key value - a term to be understood as openness to future enlargement but also in a broader sense as openness to the influence of other cultures, including Islam, to immigration and other aspects of globalisation.

The EU future section should talk about Europe as a provider of security for member states, both in terms of energy security and in the military sense. "The aspect of security is very appealing," he said, referring to the Pleven Plan of 1950, which called for the creation of an EU defence community. "We should recall these old ideas."

The security proposal reflects the Polish government's closeness to the hawkish world view of US president George W. Bush's Republican party, with Warsaw just a few days away from agreeing to a US plan to build an anti-ballistic missile base in Poland in a project reminiscent of the Cold War. Mr Cichocki envisaged the birthday declaration as a text that would "provide a reference for many years, as a symbol of basic agreement between member states...We would be very happy if this document plays the same role as the Messina declaration."

The Messina declaration by the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in 1955 was a statement of intention to create the European economic community. It paved the way for the signing of the EU's founding treaty, the treaty of Rome, in 1957. The Messina comparison depicts the EU birthday text as a precursor of a new EU treaty, with the German EU presidency keen to get agreement by June on how to revive the EU constitution after French and Dutch referendums in 2005 derailed the existing constitution document. The new constitution is to be put in place by 2010.

Red lines sketched
Mr Cichocki - who is also Poland's sherpa in the constitution talks - said negotiations on the new treaty will not start in earnest until after French presidential elections in April or May, adding that it is too early to talk about Poland's "red lines."But he hinted that Warsaw will reject any text that does not change the current proposal for a new EU voting system, which ties member states' votes more strongly to population size giving Germany more power to force through EU projects disliked by Poland.

"There is broad political consensus in Poland that this double majority system in the present constitution is not acceptable," Mr Cichocki said. It is as yet unclear what alternative voting rules the Polish government might come up with, but speculation is mounting that Warsaw will put forward voting-weights based on the 1949 ideas of British mathematician Lionel Penrose.

The Penrose "square root law" says voting weight should be based not on the simple population size of individual member states, but on the square roots of national populations in a complex piece of game theory that would help Poland resist German pressure.

"Frankly, I don't see how any government could sell this kind of square root model in a popular referendum," Pawel Swieboda, a former high-ranking Polish diplomat who now runs the demosEUROPA think-tank in Warsaw, told EUobserver. "Perhaps this will just be an interim proposal and the government will end up aiming for something different down the line - such as placing a cap on the maximum voting weight that anybody could have, effectively counting Germany as, say, 70 million people instead of 82 million," he said.

TURKEY:

Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul has pledged in an interview with EUobserver to change "in a few weeks time" a notorious penal code article curbing free speech, saying that Ankara will continue reforms even if the"climate" in the EU towards Ankara's membership bid is currently not optimal.
http://euobserver.com/9/23563/?rk=1

EU to highlight gender pay gap ahead of Women's Day
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The European Commission is planning to present a report highlighting a 15 percent pay gap between men and women in the EU just ahead of Women's Day, with a separate report showing that in the private sector, the gender pay gap lies even higher at 25 percent.
http://euobserver.com/9/23565/?rk=1

Is Prince Harry a target or a trigger ? February 25th, 2007

nuclear - 900,000,000 Euros
Lithuania paid to do the job but takes the money and runs?

EUOBSERVER / VILNIUS - Lithuania is considering asking the EU to extend the deadline for closing the second "Chernobyl-type" nuclear reactor at its Ignalina power plant, despite signing up to close the unit by 2009 in its EU accession treaty and pocketing €900 million in EU aid.

"When the European Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency experts visited Ignalina, they said it's much safer than any other atomic installations in the region and that it could be operated safely until 2025," Lithuanian president Valdimis Adamkus said on Thursday (23 February).

Asked if Vilnius is planning to ask the EU to relax Lithuania's legal obligations to shut the plant down by 2009, he said "I did not say we are not going to do that," making it clear that Lithuania will honour its promises if it cannot find agreement for the move at EU level. But Mr Adamkus said Russian leader Vladimir Putiin's bullish foreign policy speech at the Munich security conference two weeks ago was an "eye-opener" for him.

"Yes," he answered to the question if Russia is using energy as a political weapon. "I read the Munich speech twice to understand what it means."

Copyrights Debate

26.02.2007 - 17:40 CET | By Helena Spongenberg
EUOBSERVER / FOCUS - MEPs in the European Parliament's legal affairs committee are set to adopt a report on collective cross-border management of copyright on Tuesday (27 February) saying a "big-bang" style introduction of competition into the collective management of authors' rights could damage cultural diversity in Europe.

Hungarian socialist MEP Katalin Levai wrote the report following the May 2005 European Commission recommendation on collective cross-border management of copyright and related rights for legitimate online music services.

The report, however, has been delayed since November 2006 partly due to the heavy interest in the topic, which could see a change in the way music copyright is managed across Europe.

"It is very complicated as there are many different sides interested," said an aide in Ms Levai's office about the delay. But the report is expected to be adopted in tomorrow's committee meeting.

Creative rights
The commission recommendation called for EU member states to help create more competition in the European music sector by opening up the possibility of EU cross-border online services for the management of copyright and other related rights.

Traditionally, European songwriters' rights have been managed by national "collecting societies" that grant distribution licences for record labels and online shops and collect royalties of a few cents per download.

The societies - some of which date back to the 1850s - hold monopolies for each EU member state and cooperate with each other via reciprocal contracts that allow, say, a French society to licence Swedish music in France while channelling cash from French royalties back to Sweden.

But with the EU digital music sector set to become a €3.9 billion a year industry by 2011, the major record labels are pushing Brussels to break-open the rights monopolies system.

In her draft report Ms Levai calls on the commission to re-examine its recommendation and propose EU legislation on cross-border copyright management instead but with more restrictive changes.

"A 'big-bang' style introduction of competition in the field of collective management of authors' rights should not be pursued because of the risk of irreversible damage to cultural diversity in Europe," the report says.

She explains that if the market for collective rights management was opened without some kind of control "the market power would be concentrated in the hands of a few major rights holders."

Less profitable local and minority repertoires would then easily be scrapped, she argues.

If adopted by the legal affairs committee, the Levai report will go through a first reading in the parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg in April.

The commission has meanwhile invited all interested parties to submit their views on their initial experience of the 2005 copyright management recommendation.

Penalty for downloading music
In the meantime, a draft report proposing criminal penalties on those who infringe intellectual property rights has been postponed for a second time because centre-right and socialist MEPs cannot agree on the scope of the directive.

Some MEPs are calling for music copies made for personal use to be excluded or do not like the report as a whole, while hardliners, such as Dutch liberal MEP Toine Manders, want personal copies included.

Mr Manders called, in an amendment, for infringement penalties to include the seizure and destruction all counterfeit material and equipment used to carry out the infringement.

The draft report by Italian socialist MEP Nicola Zingaretti is set to be voted on when the parliament legal affairs committee meet again in March.