The Iron Wall

Posted on 2008-04-30

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The Iron Wall

 

Colonisation of Palestine

Agreement with Arabs Impossible at present

Zionism Must Go Forward

Originally published in Russian under the title O Zheleznoi Stene in Rassvyet, 4 November 1923

"The Jewish Herald" (South Africa) Friday, 26th November, 1937  

By Vladimir Jabotinsky

 It is an excellent rule to begin an article with the most important point,  but this time, I find it necessary to begin with an introduction , and, moreover , with a personal introduction.

             I am reputed to be an enemy of the Arabs, who wants to have them ejected from Palestine, and so forth. It is not true.

            Emotionally, my attitude to the Arabs is the same as to all other nations - polite indifference. Politically, my attitude is determined by two principles.  First of all, I consider it utterly impossible to eject the Arabs from Palestine. There will always be two nations in Palestine - which is good enough for me, provided the Jews become the majority. And secondly, I belong to the group that once drew up the Helsingfors Programme , the programme of national rights for all nationalities living in the same State.  In drawing up that programme, we had in mind not only the Jews, but all nations everywhere, and its basis is equality of rights.

             I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves  and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone. This seems to me a fairly peaceful credo.

             But it is quite another question whether it is always possible to realise a peaceful aim by peaceful means. For the answer to this question does not depend on our attitude to the Arabs, but entirely on the attitude of the Arabs  to us and to Zionism.

            Now, after this introduction, we may proceed to the subject. 

Voluntary Agreement Not Possible.

            There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs.  Not now, nor in the prospective future.  I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists.  I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.

My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries.  I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent.

 The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage.

 And it made no difference whatever whether the colonists behaved decently or not. The companions  of  Cortez and Pizzaro or ( as some people will remind us ) our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands; but the Pilgrim Fathers, the first real pioneers of North America, were people of the highest morality, who did not want to do harm to anyone, least of all to the Red Indians, and they honestly believed that there was room enough in the prairies both for the Paleface and the Redskin. Yet the native population fought with the same ferocity against the good colonists as against the bad.

 Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators. 

Arabs Not Fools 

This is equally true of the Arabs. Our Peace-mongers are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine , in return for cultural and economic advantages.  I repudiate this conception of the Palestinian Arabs. Culturally they are five hundred years behind us, they have neither our endurance nor our determination; but they are just as good psychologists as we are, and their minds have been sharpened like ours by centuries of fine-spun logomachy. We may tell them whatever we like about the innocence of our aims, watering them down and sweetening them with honeyed words to make them palatable, but they know what we want, as well as we know what they do not want.  They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and the Sioux for their rolling Prairies.

 To imagine, as our Arabophiles do, that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism, in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland for a good railway system. 

All Natives Resist Colonists

  There is no justification for such a belief. It may be that some individual Arabs take bribes. But that does not mean that the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously, and which even the Papuans will never sell. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.

 That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of "Palestine" into the "Land of Israel." 

Arab Comprehension

             Some of us have induced ourselves to believe that all the trouble is due to misunderstanding - the Arabs have not understood us, and that is the only reason why they resist us; if we can only make it clear to them how moderate our intentions really are, they will immediately extend to us their hand in friendship.

            This belief is utterly unfounded and it has been exploded again and again. I shall recall only one instance of many. A few years ago, when the late Mr. Sokolow was on one of his periodic visits to Palestine, he addressed a meeting on this very question of the "misunderstanding." He demonstrated lucidly and convincingly that the Arabs are terribly mistaken if they think that we have any desire to deprive them of their possessions or to drive them our of the country, or that we want to oppress them. We do not even ask for a Jewish Government to hold the Mandate of the League of Nations. 

            One of the Arab papers, " El Carmel," replied at the time, in an editorial  article, the purport of which was this : 

   The Zionists are making a fuss about nothing. There is no misunderstanding. All that Mr. Sokolow says about the Zionist intentions is true, but the Arabs know that without him. Of course, the Zionists cannot now be thinking of driving the Arabs out of the country, or oppressing them, not do they contemplate a Jewish Government. Quite obviously, they are now concerned with one thing only- that the Arabs should not hinder their immigration. The Zionists assure us that even immigration will be regulated strictly according to the economic needs of Palestine. The Arabs have never doubted that: it is a truism, for otherwise there can be no immigration.

 No "Misunderstanding" 

            This Arab editor was actually willing to agree that Palestine has a very large potential absorptive capacity, meaning that there is room for a great many Jews in the country without displacing a single Arab. There is only one thing the Zionists want, and it is that one thing that the Arabs do not want, for that is the way by which the Jews would gradually become the majority, and then a Jewish Government would follow automatically, and the future of the Arab minority would depend on the goodwill of the Jews; and a minority status is not a good thing, as the Jews themselves are never tired of pointing out. So there is no "misunderstanding".

The Zionists want only one thing, Jewish immigration; and this Jewish immigration is what the Arabs do not want. 

            This statement of the position by the Arab editor is so logical, so obvious, so indisputable, that everyone ought to know it by heart, and it should be made the basis of all our future discussions on the Arab question. It does not matter at all which phraseology we employ in explaining our colonising aims, Herzl's or Sir Herbert Samuel's. 

            Colonisation carries its own explanation, the only possible explanation, unalterable and as clear as daylight to every ordinary Jew and every ordinary Arab. 

Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed. 

The Iron Wall 

            We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. So that all those who regard such an agreement as a condition sine qua non for Zionism may as well say "non" and withdraw from Zionism. 

            Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population - behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. 

            That is our Arab policy; not what we should be, but what it actually is, whether we admit it or not.  What need, otherwise, of the Balfour Declaration? Or of the Mandate?  Their value to us is that outside Power has undertaken to create in the country such conditions of administration and security that if the native population should desire to hinder our work, they will find it impossible. 

            And we are all of us ,without any exception, demanding day after day that this outside Power, should carry out this task vigorously and with determination.  

            In this matter there is no difference between our "militarists" and our "vegetarians". Except  that the  first prefer that the iron wall should consist of Jewish soldiers, and the others are content that they should be British. 

            We all demand that there should be an iron wall. Yet we keep spoiling our own case, by talking about "agreement" which means telling the Mandatory Government that the important thing is not the iron wall, but discussions. Empty rhetoric of this kind is dangerous. And that is why it is not only a pleasure but a duty to discredit it and to demonstrate that it is both fantastic and dishonest.  

Zionism Moral and Just

             Two brief remarks:

             In the first place, if anyone objects that this point of view is immoral, I answer:  It is not true: either Zionism is moral and just ,or it is immoral and unjust. But that is a question that we should have settled before we became Zionists.  Actually we have settled that question, and in the affirmative.  

            We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet agree with it or not. 

            There is no other morality.

Eventual Agreement 

            In the second place, this does not mean that there cannot be any agreement with the Palestine Arabs. What is impossible is a voluntary agreement. As long as the Arabs feel that there is the least hope of getting rid of us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people. And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital character it is only when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall. Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders, whose watchword is "Never!" And the leadership will pass to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. Then we may expect them to discuss honestly practical questions, such as a guarantee against Arab displacement, or equal rights for Arab citizen, or Arab national integrity. 

            And when that happens, I am convinced that we Jews will be found ready to give them satisfactory guarantees, so that both peoples can live together in peace, like good neighbours.

But the only way to obtain such an agreement, is the iron wall, which is to say a strong power in Palestine that is not amenable to any Arab pressure.  In other words, the only way to reach an agreement in the future is to abandon all idea of seeking an agreement at present.      

From the text at http://www.jabotinsky.org/Jaboworld/docs/Iron%20Wall.doc (with some corrections of typography and grammar - emphasis is in the original).

THE ETHICS OF THE IRON WALL

By Vladimir Jabotinsky 

 

'The Jewish Standard', 5/9/1941 (London).

 Originally Published in  Rassviet (Paris) 11/11/1923 as a continuation of the previous article.

             Let us go back to the Helsingfors Programme. Since I am one of those who helped to draft it, I am naturally not disposed to question the justice of the principles advocated there.  The programme guarantees citizenship equality, and national self-determination.  I am firmly convinced that any impartial judge will accept this programme as the ideal basis for peaceful and neighbourly collaboration between two nations.

            But it is absurd to expect the Arabs to have the mentality of an impartial judge; for in this conflict they are not the judges; but one of the contending parties. And after all, our chief question is whether the Arabs, even if they believed in peaceful collaboration they would agree to have any "neighbours", even good neighbours, in the country which they regard as their own. Not even those who try to move us with high-sounding phrases will dare to deny that national homogeneity is more convenient than natural diversity.   So why should a nation that is perfectly content with its isolation admit to its country even good neighbours in any considerable number?  I want neither your honey nor your sting", is a reasonable answer.

But apart from this fundamental difficulty, why must it be the Arabs who should accept the Helsingfors Programme, or, in that matter any programme for a State which has a mixed national population?  To make such a demand is to ask for the impossible.  The Springer theory is not more than 30 years old. And no nation, not even the most civilised, has yet agreed to apply this theory honestly in practice.  Even the Czechs, under the leadership of Masaryk, the teacher of all autonomists, could not would not do it.

Among the Arabs, even their intellectuals have never heard of this theory. But these same intellectuals would know that a minority always suffers everywhere: the Christians in Turkey, the Moslems in India, the Irish under the British, the Poles and Czechs under the Germans, now the Germans under the Poles and Czechs, and so forth, without end.  So that one must be intoxicated with rhetoric to expect the Arabs to believe that the Jews, of all the people in the world, will alone prove able, or will, at least, honestly intend to realise an idea that has not succeeded with other nations who are with much greater authority.

If I insist on this point, it is not because I want the Jews, too, to abandon the Helsigfors Programme as the basis of a future modus vivendi.  On the contrary we- at least the writer of these lines - believe in this programme as much as we believe in our ability to give effect to it in political life, though all precedents have failed.  But it would be useless now to the Arabs.  They would not understand, and they would not place any trust in its principles: they would not be able to appreciate them.

II

And since it is useless, it must also be harmful. It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are.  They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not "meet halfway" those who do not want to meet you.

There was a typical example in old Russia, when one of the oppressed nations, with one accord, launched a crusade against the Jews, boycotting them and pogroming them.  At the same time, this nation was fighting to gain its own autonomy, without any attempt to conceal it means to use its autonomy for the purpose of oppressing the Jews. Worse than before.  And yet, Jewish politicians and writers, (even Jewish nationalists) considered it their duty to support the autonomist efforts of their enemy, on the ground that autonomy is a sacred cause. It is remarkable how we Jews regard it as our duty to stand up and cheer whenever the Marsellaise is played, even if it is played by Haman himself, and Jewish heads are smashed to its accompaniment. I was once told of a man who was an ardent Democrat and always whenever he heard the Marsellaise, he stood stiffly attention, like a soldier on parade. One night burglars broke into his house, and one of them played the Marsellaise.  This sort of thing is not morality, it is twaddle.  Human society is built up on the basis of mutual advantage. If you take away the mutual principle right becomes a falsehood.  Each man who passes my window in the street has a right to live only in so far as he recognises my right to live; but if he is determined to kill me, I cannot admit that he has any right to live.  And that is true also of nations. Otherwise, the world would become a jungle of wild beasts, where not only the weak, but also those who have any scrap of feeling would be exterminated.

The world must be a place of co-operation and mutual goodwill.  If we are to live we should all live in the same way, and if we are to die we should all die in the same way.

But there is no morality, no ethics that concedes the right of a glutton to gorge, while more tempered people die of starvation. There is only one possible morality, that of humanity, and in practice it amounts in our particular instance to this: if besides the Helsingfors Programme we had our pocket full of concessions of every kind, including our willingness to participate in some fantastic Arab Federation od morza do morza  (from sea to sea) negotiations with regard to them would still be possible only if the Arabs would first consent to the creation of a Jewish Palestine.  Our ancestors knew that very well.  And the Talmud quotes a very instructive legal action - which has a direct bearing on this matter. Two people walking along the road find a piece of cloth. One of them says: " I found it.  It is mine:" But the other says: " No: that is not true: I found the cloth, and it is mine: " The judge to whom they appeal cuts the cloth in two, and each of these obstinate folk gets half.  But there is another version of this action.  It is only one of the two claimants who is obstinate: the other, on the contrary, has determined to make the world wonder at this magnanimity.  So he says: " We both found the cloth, and therefore I ask only a half of it, because the second belongs to B.  But B. insists that he found it, and that he alone is entitled to it.   In this case, the Talmud recommends a wise Judgment, that is, how very disappointing to our magnanimous gentleman.  The judge says: " There is agreement about one half of the cloth.  A. admits that it belongs to B. So  it is only the second half that is in dispute.  We shall, therefore divide this into two halves: And the obstinate claimant gets three-quarters of the cloth, while the "gentleman" has only one quarter, and serve him right.  It is a very fine thing to be a gentleman, but it is no reason for being an idiot.  Our ancestors knew that.  But we have forgotten it.  We should bear it in mind.  Particularly, since we are very badly situated in this matter of concessions.  There is not much that we can concede to Arab nationalism, without destroying Zionism.   We cannot abandon the effort to achieve a Jewish majority in Palestine.  Nor can we permit any Arab control of our immigration, or join an Arab Federation.  We cannot even support Arab movement, it is at present hostile to us and consequently we all, including even the pro-Arab rhetoriomongers, rejoice at every defeat sustained by this movement, not only adjacent Transjordan, and Syria, but even in Morocco.  And this state of affairs will continue, because it cannot be otherwise, until one day the iron wall will compel the Arabs to come to an arrangement with Zionism once and for all.

III

Let us consider for a moment the point of view of those to whom this seems immoral.  We shall trace the root of the evil to this - that we are seeking to colonise a country against the wishes of its population, in other words, by force.  Everything else that is undesirable grows out of this root with axiomatic inevitability. What then is to be done?

The simplest way out would be to look for a different country to colonise.  Like Uganda. But if we look more closely into the matter we shall find that the same evil exists there, too. Uganda also has a native population, which consciously or unconsciously as in every other instance in history, will resist the coming of the colonisers.  It is true that these natives happen to be black.  But that does not alter the essential fact.  If it is immoral to colonise a country against the will of its native population, the same morality must apply equally to the black man as to the white. Of course, the blackman may not be sufficiently advanced to think of sending delegations to London, but he will soon find some kindhearted white friends, who will instruct him. Though should these natives even prove utterly helpless, like children, the matter would only become worse.  Then if colonisation is invasion and robbery, the greatest crime of all would be to rob helpless children.  Consequently, colonisation in Uganda is also immoral, and colonisation in any other place in the world, whatever it may be called, is immoral.  There are no more uninhabited islands in the world.  In every oasis there is a native population settled from times immemorial, who will not tolerate an immigrant majority or an invasion of outsiders.  So that if there is any landless people in the world, even its dream of a national home must be an immoral dream. . Those who are landless must remain landless to all eternity.  The whole earth has been allocated. Basta: Morality has said so:

From the Jewish point of view, morality has a particularly interesting appearance.  It is said that we Jews number 15 million people scattered throughout the world. Half of them are now literally homeless, poor, hunted wretches.  The number of Arabs totals 38 million. They inhabit Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Iraq - an area that apart from desert equals the size of half Europe.  There are in this vast area 16 Arabs to the square mile.  It is instructive to recall by way of comparison that Sicily has 352 and England 669 inhabitants to the square mile.  It is still more instructive to recall that Palestine constitutes about one two hundredth part of this area.

Yet if homeless Jewry demands Palestine for itself it is "immoral" because it does not suit the native population.  Such morality may be accepted among cannibals, but not in a civilised world.  The soil does not belong to those who possess land in excess but to those who do not possess any.  It is an act of simple justice to alienate part of their land from those nations who are numbered among the great landowners of the world, in order to provide a place of refuge for a homeless, wandering people.  And if such a big landowning nation resists which is perfectly natural - it must be made to comply by compulsion.  Justice that is enforced does not cease to be justice.  This is the only Arab policy that we shall find possible. As for an agreement, we shall have time to discuss that later.

All sorts of catchwords are used against Zionism; people invoke Democracy, majority rule national self-determination.  Which means, that the Arabs being at present the majority in Palestine, have the right of self-determination, and may therefore insist that Palestine must remain an Arab country.  Democracy and self-determination are sacred principles, but sacred principles like the Name of the Lord must not be used in vain -to bolster up a swindle, to conceal injustice. The principle of self-determination does not mean that if someone has seized a stretch of land it must remain in his possession for all time, and that he who was forcibly ejected from his land must always remain homeless.  Self-determination means revision - such a revision of the distribution of the earth among the nations that those nations who have too much should have to give up some of it to those nations who have not enough or who have none, so that all should have some place on which to exercise their right of self-determination.  And now when the whole of the civilised world has recognised that Jews have a right to return to Palestine, which means that the Jews are, in principle, also "citizens" and "inhabitants" of Palestine, only they were driven out, and their return must be a lengthy process, it is wrong to contend that meanwhile the local population has the right to refuse to allow them to come back and to that "Democracy". The Democracy of Palestine consists of two national groups, the local group and these who were driven out, and the second group is the larger.

* A reference to the national-cultural autonomy theory of Otto Bauer and Karl Renner (who used the pseudonym of Rudolf Brenner) advanced at the second International by Austrian Social Democrats and adopted by the Jewish Russian  Bund (anti-Zionist socialists).

 http://www.jabotinsky.org/Jaboworld/docs/ethics.doc  (Journals of original Publication not given)

Yes, It Is Apartheid

Posted on 2008-04-30

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Yes, It Is Apartheid

By Yossi Sarid

26/04/08 "Haaretz" -- - The anchorwoman was clearly shocked: I don't have time now to respond to what you have said, she told the former U.S. president, allowing Jimmy Carter to make a narrow escape from her clutches. Then she added that she did not want to imagine what would happen to him if he bumped into her colleague from the security affairs desk in Channel 2's dark alley. And the pundit sitting there, sunk in deep thought as always, nodded his heavy head, confirming: He's lucky, the bastard, that we didn't gang up on him and cut him to shreds.

That's how it is here: The rulers set the tone, and the media begins to gripe: Not only did Carter's mission not help, it did damage. He alone was the reason Gilad Shalit was not ransomed out of captivity during the holiday. That's what happens when an enemy of the human race, the twin of the Twin Towers' bin Laden, sticks his nose where it does not belong.

Let's let old Carter be, so he may let sleeping warriors lie; he will not be back. The contents of his words, however, should not be ignored. "Apartheid," he said, "apartheid" - a dark, scary word coined by Afrikaners and meaning segregation, racial segregation.
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What does he want from us, that evil man: What do we have to do with apartheid? Does a separation fence constitute separation? Do separate roads for Jewish settlers and Palestinians really separate? Are Palestinian enclaves between Jewish settlements Bantustans?

There is no hint of similarity between South Africa and Israel, and only a sick mind could draw such shadowy connections between them. Roadblocks and inspections at every turn; licenses and permits for every little matter; the arbitrary seizure of land; special privileges in water use; cheap, hard labor; forming and uniting families by bureaucratic whim - none of these are apartheid, in any way. They are an incontrovertible security necessity, period.

The white Afrikaners, too, had reasons for their segregation policy; they, too, felt threatened - a great evil was at their door, and they were frightened, out to defend themselves. Unfortunately, however, all good reasons for apartheid are bad reasons; apartheid always has a reason, and it never has a justification. And what acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck - it is apartheid. Nor does it even solve the problem of fear: Today, everyone knows that all apartheid will inevitably reach its sorry end.

One essential difference remains between South Africa and Israel: There a small minority dominated a large majority, and here we have almost a tie. But the tiebreaker is already darkening on the horizon. Then the Zionist project will come to an end if we don't choose to leave the slave house before being visited by a fatal demographic plague.

It is entirely clear why the word apartheid terrifies us so. What should frighten us, however, is not the description of reality, but reality itself. Even Ehud Olmert has understood at last that continuing the present situation is the end of the Jewish democratic state, as he recently said.

The Palestinians are unfortunate because they have not produced a Nelson Mandela; the Israelis are unfortunate because they have not produced an F.W. de Klerk.

© Copyright 2008 Haaretz. All rights reserved

Thousands in Gaza protest against Israeli blockade

Posted on 2008-04-30

GAZA (AFP) - Thousands of Hamas supporters on Friday demonstrated in Gaza to demand that Israel lift its crippling blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.

The protesters massed in the north and the south of the narrow strip of land near border crossings into Israel and Egypt.

In Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, some 5,000 people waved Hamas flags and brandished banners proclaiming "No to the siege!"

"Hamas is working in a positive manner to end the siege and achieve a truce," Hamas official Yussef al-Shrafi told the crowd.

In Rafah, about 1,000 people called for Egypt to open its border crossing, the only one that bypasses Israel.

"We do not represent a threat to Egypt's security but we ask our brothers to open Rafah and break the siege," said Abu al-Sibbah, a Hamas leader.

Israel imposed its blockade after Hamas seized power in the territory last June.

On Thursday, UN agencies suspended aid distribution to Gaza saying they had run out of fuel. A UN envoy urged Israel to allow fuel supplies in and called on Hamas not to prevent its distribution.

Israel Rejects Hamas Truce Offer

Posted on 2008-04-30

Israel Rejects Hamas Truce Offer []

4/25/2008 12:10:47 PM Israel on Friday rejected the Hamas proposal for a six-month truce in the Gaza Strip, saying that the offer was intended to buy time for the Islamist extremist group to re-group rather than to bring peace in the area.

Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev said Friday that the offer does not appear to be "serious" and added that what Hamas seem to be proposing is 'the quiet before the storm.'

Ragev said that Israel wants peace in Gaza, but added that a truce is possible only if the Gaza militants stop attacking Israel, give up violence and stop the smuggling of arms from Egypt into the Palestinian territory.

Earlier Hamas had offered a six-month truce in Gaza if Israel lifts its blockade of the Palestinian territory. The Islamist group also offered to extend the truce to the occupied West Bank if the initial phase of the deal was implemented successfully.

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Al Sadr Says His Threat Is Targeted On U.S.-led Foreign Troops []

4/25/2008 11:52:01 AM Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced Friday that his threat to unleash an "open war" unless a crackdown against his Mahdi Army militia is stopped is targeted on U.S.-led foreign troops.

In a sermon during Friday prayers in Baghdad's militia stronghold of Sadr City, imam Sheik Hassan al-Edhari clarified that the Iraqi troops will be spared from the threat.

He also urged Iraqi soldiers and policemen "not to support the occupiers in combating your brothers." He called for an "end to the shedding of Iraqi blood" as a result of "a war between our Iraqi brothers."

Al-Sadr's message comes in the wake of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday. Al-Maliki vowed that the crackdown on Shiite militias would continue, adding that the government's fight against the militants has won political support from Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish political parties.

On Friday, the U.S. military said 10 militants were killed in a joint crackdown by U.S. and Iraqi forces in overnight clashes in northeastern Baghdad.

Also on Friday, a U.S. soldier was killed in a roadside bomb blast south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. With this, the number of American troops killed in April has risen to 39, according to the Associated Press.

Latest arrest exposes Israel's fifth column in the U.S.

Posted on 2008-04-30

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Pollard's Ghost

Latest arrest exposes Israel's fifth column in the U.S.

By Justin Raimondo

25/04/08 "Anti War" -- -Whenever the subject of Israeli spying in the U.S. comes up, the journalistic handle is always the same: the infamous Jonathan Pollard. His ghost hovers over the increasingly troubled "special relationship" - and he isn't even dead yet.

Convicted of espionage in 1986, Pollard did such damage to U.S. national security that top intelligence officials threatened to resign if Bill Clinton acceded to Israeli demands to pardon him. He is serving a life sentence for stealing secrets deemed so valuable that the Soviet Union reportedly agreed to trade them for the release of tens of thousands of Russian Jews for resettlement in Israel.

Pollard had top-secret clearance and was able to procure a long list of documents for his Israeli handlers, but what baffled - and alarmed - top intelligence officials was that he had known the titles and in some cases the serial numbers of specific documents. These could only have been provided by someone in a much higher pay grade - a top official privy to ultra-sensitive, need-to-know secrets. Continued

Blockade Halts Food Aid To Gaza

Posted on 2008-04-30

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Blockade Halts Food Aid To Gaza

Michael Bailey: 70,000 Gazans have no drinking water; UN can't feed 700,000 refugees

Friday April 25th, 2008

The Gaza Strip has fallen eerily silent as day-to-day life grinds to a halt in the face of an Israeli fuel blockade that has forced the UN to halt its food shipments into the territory. Michael Bailey of Oxfam in Jerusalem tells The Real News Network that some 300,000 Gaza residents have drinking water at home for less than five hours per day, every four days, and the UN can no longer get supplies to the 700,000 refugees living in Gaza.

 

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Why Palestinian Unity is Not an Option

Posted on 2008-04-30

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Why Palestinian Unity is Not an Option

By Ramzy Baroud

25/04/08 "ICH" -- - Just days after the Hamas-Fatah clash last June in Gaza, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas looked firm and composed as he shook hands with members of his new emergency government. He made sure his move appeared as legitimate as possible, issuing decrees that outlawed the armed militias of Hamas, and also suspended consequential clauses in the Palestinian Basic Law, which had thus far served as a constitution.

The Basic Law stipulates that the Palestinian parliament must approve of any government for it to be constitutional. Abbas simply decreed that such a clause was no longer valid, effectively robbing Palestinians of one of their greatest collective achievements - democracy.

This system, when truly representative, is indeed precious and meaningful. Considering the impossible circumstances under which Palestinian democracy in particular was spawned and nurtured - military occupation, international pressure, extreme poverty - it was also deeply historic. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that followed the US occupation in Iraq, Arabs showed themselves as ultimately capable of carrying out democratic process.

Unfortunately, the achievement of democracy cannot guarantee its preservation.

Almost immediately after Hamas' sizable election victory in January 2006, both local and international forces scrambled to suffocate and reverse the outcome of this vote. Conceited intellectuals wrote about the incompatibility of Islam and democracy, politicians decried Hamas' victory as signalling the encroachment of militarism and extremism, and world leaders clambered to affiliate themselves with the ‘legitimate' Abbas, as opposed to the ‘illegitimate' Hamas. Indeed, it was a mockery.

For Israel, the clash between Abbas' Fatah and Islamic Hamas was a golden opportunity, one that is comparable to the benefits gleaned from another opportune moment, the terrorist attacks of September 11. The latter was recently - and not for the first time - described by Israeli Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu as good for Israel (Haaretz, April 16).

The Palestinian fight was also good for Israel; no longer would the nuisance of Palestinian democracy compete with Israel's self-ascribed "only democracy in the Middle East." More, Palestinians were once again depicted as the unruly mob, incapable of producing responsible peacemakers and creating an environment of ‘security', which the state of Israel so often claims to covet.

As for Abbas and his ministers, they knew too well that the newfound American-Israeli fondness for them was conditional. After all they are the same people, holding the same position and playing the same roles that they have always played. They are the ministers, aides, friends and officials of late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who were, like their president, repeatedly shunned. They also understood well their new appeal in representing the antithesis to Hamas. Rather than rejecting the role of the stooges, Abbas' cabinet ministers played along.

Suddenly the conflict that was hitherto seen as one between Israel and the Palestinians became one between Abbas and his supporters (Israel and the US) on one hand, and Hamas alone on the other. The problem as reported in mainstream media ceased being about settlements, occupation, and violations of international law, but rather about the anti-democratic ‘forces of darkness' in Gaza as opposed to the forces of peace and civilization in Ramallah and Tel Aviv. To re-enforce these highly deceptive images with ‘action', Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert initiated their quest for illusive peace. This started in Annapolis and was followed by regular, although equally futile ‘rounds' of talks in Israel. Few expected such meets to yield any meaningful outcomes; they were clearly intended only to further isolate Hamas and underscore the Abbas-Israeli alliance.

In order for the show to go on, Hamas and Fatah will not be allowed to reconcile, at least not until Israel and the US decide to change tactics. Of course this doesn't mean that there is no basis for reconciliation. Palestinian factionalism equals capitulation in the face of a harsh, emboldened enemy. Recently we have seen the 2005 Cairo Agreement, the 2007 Mecca Agreement and the March 2008 Yemen Agreement. But to win the approval of Israel in the West Bank - and to avoid the tragic fate of Gaza - Abbas is not interested in the points of agreement, but rather in the points of discord. Aljazeera reported that Azzam al-Ahmad, the Fatah member who signed the Hamas-Fatah memorandum in March, was chastised openly for keeping Abbas "in the dark", regarding the nature of the agreement. Al-Ahmad insisted that Abbas knew exactly what the agreement stipulated. It seems that a document that merely highlights a course of action towards full reconciliation between the two parties was too much for Israel to accept. Not even the blood of over 120 Palestinians in Gaza, who were killed in the matter of six days in early March, seemed a strong enough motive to override Israel's threats of Palestinian unity signalling the end of the futile ‘peace process'.

And, of course, there is the money trail. Just days before the Yemen fiasco, the US had agreed to transfer $150 million in support to the Palestinian Authority as "part of past pledges to boost President Mahmoud Abbas' government." Boost against whom? Surely not Israel.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad reportedly said it was "the largest sum of assistance of any kind to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority by any donor in one tranche since the Palestinian Authority's inception (in 1994)." Heart-rending indeed, Mr Fayyad, but one must wonder how much of the money will go to feed the starving in Gaza, or rehabilitate the refugee camps of the West Bank?

While such noble efforts by the UN's John Dugard, former US President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu have brought much needed attention to the plight of Palestinians and Gazans in particular, PA officials are too busy attending donor's conferences and issuing empty statements which few even bother to read. They act as if they are a neutral party caught in the middle of religious fanatics and Israel. Their fight no longer seems even remotely related to Palestine or its people. These are hardly the qualities of any liberation movement or leadership anywhere, in any period of history, recent or otherwise. Neither Abbas nor Fayyad are likely to be the exception.

Ramzy Baroud (http://www.ramzybaroud.net/) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

An Act Of War

Posted on 2008-04-30

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An Act Of War

Interview: Seymour Hersh

By Sarah Brown

25/04/08 "Al Jazeera " -- - Seymour Hersh, one of the world's best known investigative journalists, has turned his attention to the mysterious and controversial bombing of a Syrian facility by Israel last year.

Al Jazeera spoke to him about the bombing, why he feels the media failed on the story, and what it means for the Middle East.

Q: Why did Israel bomb a target in Syria?

A: Well I don't have the answers to that direct question - one thing that is terribly significant is that the Israel and its chief ally the US have chosen to say nothing officially about this incident and that's what got me interested - whoever heard of a country bombing another one and not talking about it and thinking they had the right somehow not to talk about it?

In 1981 when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq they were very noisy and public about it. In this case they said nothing publicly, but after a few weeks they began to leak [information].

They began to tell certain reporters very grandiose sort of stories about what was going on - ships arriving with illicit materials, offloaded by people in protective gear ... from a port in the Mediterranean across to the bomb site, commando's on the ground, soil samples.

And none of it turned out to be true, really, at least I could find no demonstrable evidence for it.

And so I have to say, that if this article I did generates a decision by Israel to go public with its overwhelming dossier that will answer any questions well that's great ... but they have not and [I find awful] the hubris, the arrogance of thinking that you could go commit an act of war by any definition and then say nothing about it.

Syria of course compounded the problem by being hapless and feckless in response. It took them, I think, until October 1, almost four weeks after the incident before the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, acknowledged it had actually been bombed.

Q: Why was Syria's reaction so muted?

A: I think they're just hapless. I don't think they have any idea about the 24 hour news cycle - it's just unbeknown to them.

So what happened is: A raid takes place, they announced rather quickly there was an intrusion by the Israelis, they initially say after a couple of days that munitions were bombed, then the foreign minister says in Turkey four or five days after the incident that nothing was bombed however, bombs fell but nothing was hit.

Then, three weeks later, the president says: "Oh, well actually a building was destroyed". You can't programme something that inept and that's a reality. They just weren't very good.

But there are other factors.

Q: Such as North Korea?

A: There were North Koreans, as the Israelis claimed at the site. They were building a facility, it was a military facility, I think my guess would be.

I was told two different things by various people inside Syria.

One said it was perhaps a chemical facility for chemical warfare, another one said more persuasively to me that "no, it was for missiles - short range missiles to be used in case we're attacked by Israel, we'd respond asymmetrically with missiles."

Q: Because they figure chemical weapons are of little use against a nuclear power?

A: Yes. They're incinerated. And I'm told they made that decision much longer ago than we might think.

I'm told they really devalued the use of a chemical warhead, certainly as a deterrent, because the response is nuclear.

Q: Didn't some of your sources tell you there was evidence to support the theory that the US wanted Israel to test Syria's air defences because they are similar to those of Iran?

A: In the beginning. This plan was staffed - by that I mean it was staffed by the US joint chiefs of staff, it was staffed by people in the vice president's office.

The little bit I know about that process was in the summer, months before the mission, there was a lot of talk about doing the mission [and] there was a report in the intelligence community from the Defence Intelligence Agency saying that Syria had dramatically increased the capability of its radar and command control system.

[It said that it had] anti-aircraft radar close or parallel to that now known to be installed in Iran - so this was a way of testing the Syrian radar.

You can walk all over Syria and no-one cares, it's a small country of 17 million people. But to go into Iran and check out radars by overflying any site, that leads to counter attack.

The Israelis have been overflying with impunity, there's not much Syria can do and [the Israelis] knew Syria wouldn't do anything.

So it was initially understood by my friends as a radar operation, it was only after the fact that they learned something else.

It was very hard to get information [in Israel] because they have a bar against speaking and military censorship has been imposed on this issue.

But I did get some people to say to me "Ah, that stuff about radar was [rubbish] - it was never going to happen, that's a way or a vehicle for us to get in".

It seems clear from what I've learned from my American friends and the Syrians that the Israelis came right in and the only target they had was the one they bombed.

They weren't looking at any radar site, they just went in and whacked it.

So, then you really get to the next level of questions that I didn't really deal with in the article because it's so hypothetical - who authorised it?

Who did they talk to? I mean Israel does not do a raid like this without talking to the White House and I can't find anybody that knew they were going to hit the facility beforehand.

That could be that just I can't find it, and if not that doesn't mean it's not there, and it could also be that somebody like Dick Cheney, who has done this before, overrode the chain of command.

So in other words, normally all this information about an Israeli attack would soak through to the joint chiefs, but he undercut that process perhaps - he's done it before in other incidents - but I just can't tell you for sure what happened here.

Q: Was the raid's purpose to act as a potential deterrent to Iran?

A: Of course that was the idea for the US, to let the Iranians know that despite the national intelligence estimate "We're ready to ... we have a proxy and the Israelis will go bang for us if we need."

But of course, for Israel, this whole mission had another point of view.

I think the Israelis were troubled by the North Koreans there [at the site], they were troubled by the building and they thought: "What the hell, whatever it is we're not going to let them be. We're going to hit the facility before it gets up, whatever it's going to be.

If they thought it was nuclear I hope they'll show us, otherwise they just hit a building that wasn't done yet.

And the [result] was terrific for them, because it gave Olmert a big jump, a big boost of support

Q: You mean after the war in Lebanon in 2006?

Absolutely. And also it was seen as a message to Bashar Assad, the president of Syria, who the Israelis believe has become cocky after the Hezbollah war because he was a big supporter of Hassan Nasrallah [Hezbollah leader] - he is Assad's big buddy.

The Israelis thought that they could take him down a peg, and also the message to Bashar Assad is: "So, what's Iran doing for you now, buddy? We go and pop you in the head and is Iran doing anything?"

And the American press and the international press end up being used on this one [story] in a scandalous way.

Q: On media culpability, this was a big issue in the lead up to the war in 2003 - questionable evidence that supposedly provides a cause for war. Is the media being manipulated again here?

A: The press was feckless on this and credulous and took everything at face value.

For me the US press - I don't think they've come face to face with what happened here.... the newspapers missed without question the biggest moral story of the last decade, which is the illegal road to war in Iraq and we missed it.

And that's not our job, it's not our job to miss that, our job is not to listen to the president. There were elements of the same pattern of "kiss-up" going on and that's very disturbing.

Q: With US elections this year, do you think any foreign policy is going to change with a new president, especially towards Israel, Iran and Syria?

A: Well certainly [it won't change] with McCain, he's talking about not even changing the war, which I think is a big mistake.

Somebody I know wrote a wonderful essay making the point that Iraq is a dead body, and David Petraeus, the general, and our ambassador Ryan Crocker they're the undertakers, and their job is to keep up with the rouge and the makeup on the body for the next six months until we get past the election - that's their goal.

[On Israel] it's very hard, you know in America there's just no questioning. The American Jewish influence is enormous. There's a lot of money.

I just wish many American Jews would read the Israeli papers - particularly Haaretz - more carefully and they would see there's really a vibrant criticism of the Israeli government ... and you just don't see that today.

I'm Jewish and I'm not anti-Semitic and I'm not anti-Israel - [Israelis] understand that, just as by the way a lot of Americans don't understand that many of the leadership of Hamas and others.

Not everyone spends their life there wanting to kill Jews, they're more willing than people would like to believe to co-exist, they just don't like the system the way it works now.

Q: What do you think of Bush's legacy to the world?

He's done more to terrify the world than anybody I know. The world is so much more dangerous.

I have a very wise friend, born in Syria, who's a businessman in the West now.

Right after the bombing began in Iraq he said to me: "This war will not change Iraq - Iraq will change you" and so I've seen it come and it's very scary.

It's very scary to see how things are so fragile right now, nothing going on good in Lebanon nothing going on with Syria nothing going on with Iran ... We can't talk to people we don't like?

We've got to negotiate, it's the only way we're going to resolve our problems.

Bush And Sharon Had Secret Deal To Expand West Bank, Claims Olmert

Posted on 2008-04-30

A letter that President Bush personally delivered to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon four years ago has emerged as a significant obstacle to the president's efforts to forge a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians during his last year in office.

Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Why is zayde being busted for spying 25 years ago?

Posted on 2008-04-30

American engineer Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly providing an Israeli "handler" classified data on nuclear weapons, F-15 fighter jets, and the Patriot missile air defense system.

'Mossad did not have spies in US'
US knows there have been no Israeli spies since Pollard, says David Kimchi.

Kadish is 84 years old, and the crimes allegedly took place more than 25 years ago, between 1979 and 1985.

Today Kadish lives an open, active life in a New Jersey retirement village where, according to a community newspaper, he and his wife open their succa every year to raise money for local charities and for Magen David Adom. According to the New Jersey Jewish News, "Ben-Ami grew up in what was then Palestine and fought with the Hagana. He also served in both the British and American military during World War II and is an ex-commander of the Jewish War Veterans Post 609 in Monroe."

News accounts suggest that Kadish's handler was the same man who directed Jonathan Pollard. Probably to avoid any issue of statute-of-limitations, the indictment alleges that this zayde maintained ties to his handler until last month.

Why now?

Do federal prosecutors really see Kadish as a major criminal?

More likely, Kadish is being used by American officials as a means to loosen support for Israel as the two countries enter a tenacious period of negotiations. This is a pattern of American pressure that repeats itself.

The tactic is geared to embarrass American supporters of Israel, particularly congress members who oppose weapons sales to Israel's foes, dangerous concessions to the Palestinians, or the abrogation of previous commitments to Israel.

During the last 30 years, particularly in times of tension, American officials claimed that Israel stole plans for the Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, diverted nuclear material from a US plant in the 1960s, illegally obtained krytron triggers for nuclear weapons, pilfered computer components from Patriot missiles, and used American technology on the Lavie aircraft that was later transferred to China. The 2005 arrest of two AIPAC staffers is more of the same, and they were charged under the creaky 1917 Espionage Act statute older than Kadish. For years, unnamed American spy-hunters have been looking for an accomplice to Jonathan Pollard. Leaks on these stories almost always took place on the eve of some contretemps with the US State Department.

Today's case against Kadish reflects more the impatience of the US Secretary of State with Israel's decision to continue building in Jerusalem and in settlement blocs and to retain security roadblocks. To push ahead in the illusionary Annapolis process at all costs, the State Department must de-emphasize President George Bush's letter to Prime Minister Sharon stating that it is "unrealistic" to seek a "full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." With Bush on his way to Israel to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary, what better way to deflate the goodwill and cut down the gifts the President is supposedly bringing?

Lastly, in the twilight of the Bush administration, a presidential pardon for Jonathan Pollard is again being discussed, at least by Jewish and Israeli sources. Disclosure of another Pollard-like spy would be an effective tool to keep Pollard locked up for good.

The author served as Israel's deputy chief of mission in Washington. He blogs at iconsultorg.blogspot.com

Pollard prosecutor: Spy arrest shows Israel lied to US

Posted on 2008-04-30

Pollard prosecutor: Spy arrest shows Israel lied to US

 

 

Pollard prosecutor Joseph E. DiGenova slams Israel, says Kadish arrest shows 'this was much larger espionage operation with sleeper cells in the United States than we understood or could have known at the time'

Associated Press

 

 

The arrest of Ben-Ami Kadish, accused of passing US military secrets to the same handler as convicted spy Jonathan Pollard , confirms that the espionage ring was larger than previously believed and that the Israelis lied about it, a former US prosecutor says.

The similarities are quite eerie," said Joseph E. DiGenova, the US attorney who oversaw the 1980s-era Pentagon spy scandal that ensnared Pollard. "This was a much larger espionage operation with sleeper cells in the United States than we understood or could have known at the time," DiGenova said.

Citing court papers, DiGenova said Pollard's handler, Yosef Yagur, used the same methods with Kadish that he did with Pollard, finding a US Citizen with security clearance to take classified materials from the workplace and letting him copy them.

 

 

DiGenova said he and other investigators in the 1980s were convinced there were other Americans involved in the espionage. "It was obvious they had other people supplying the information so they could target the finds," he said. "You want to protect your ultimate source."

 

 

25 years later

Charles S. Leeper, a former assistant US attorney who was the lead trial attorney in the Pollard case, called the Kadish case fascinating. "I am not aware of any other case where the government has brought espionage charges more than 25 years after the conduct in question," he said.

 

 

DiGenova said the charges can be brought so long after the fact because the case can be viewed as a continuing conspiracy based on communications between Yagur and Kadish. "He was an agent in place then, and he's an agent in place now," he said.

 Earlier, IsraeliForeign Ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel said the events in question dated back to the early 1980s, and that since then there has been much care taken to observe the directives of the prime ministers not to engage in any activities of this type in the US.

 

 

Kadish, a US Army veteran, was arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy. He was released on $300,000 bail, but could face a possible death sentence on the charge

Ezra: New spy case won't harm U.S.-Israel ties

Posted on 2008-04-30

Environment Minister and former senior security official Gideon Ezra said Wednesday that he does not believe Israel's relations with the U.S. will suffer in light of revelations that an American Army engineer spied for Israel in the 1980s.

"Our strategic relationship with the United States is stronger than this," Ezra, a former deputy head of the Shin Bet security services, told Israel Radio.

Ben-Ami Kadish was arrested Tuesday on charges that he  over 20 years ago.

But the former head of the Mossad espionage agency, Labor MK Danny Yatom, said Wednesday that the arrest had touched a nerve with Washington.

"I think what primarily bothers the Americans is the feeling that Israel didn't tell them the whole truth two decades ago, in 1985, when the Pollard affair exploded," Yatom told Army Radio.

The 84-year-old Kadish was to be charged with slipping classified documents about nuclear weapons, fighter jets and air defense missiles to an Israeli Consulate employee who also received information from convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, authorities said.

Kadish acknowledged his spying in FBI interviews, and said he acted out of a belief that he was helping Israel, court papers said

Yatom added: "The Americans asked if there are additional people that Israel ran or are running in the United States. The answer, to the best of my knowledge, was always no," Yatom said.

"If what has been reported is true, and it appears it is true, and Ben-Ami Kadish kept in touch with what the Americans described as his old handler in Israel, I can call it unnecessary stupidity," the Labor MK said.

A U.S. citizen, Kadish was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday, where he was facing four counts of conspiracy, including allegations that he conspired to disclose U.S. national defense documents to Israel, and that he acted as an agent of the Israeli government.

According to the criminal complaint, the activities occurred from 1979 through 1985 while the Connecticut-born Kadish worked at the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in Dover, New Jersey.

Yuval Steinitz, another official with inside knowledge of Israel's intelligence services, did not deny a second spy had operated in the U.S. in parallel with Pollard - but insisted such espionage ceased long ago.

"The Americans know... that since Pollard was exposed in 1985, Israel doesn't recruit agents or receive classified material [in] the United States," said Steinitz, a former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan, a former Mossad official who recruited Pollard to spy for Israel, said he was not aware of the Kadish case.

"I have no idea," he said. "This is the first time I've heard about it. I'll go listen to the news."

When asked whether he recognized Kadish's name, Eitan repeated, "I have no idea."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel issued a response Wednesday, saying "since 1985, a great deal of care has gone into following the guidelines of every prime minister in Israel, which prohibit this kind of activity in the United States."

"The relations between Israel and the United States have always been based on true friendship and similarity of values and interests," he added.

The Prime Minister's Bureau said Tuesday that Israel was not familiar with the details of the case, and was examining the issue. Israeli officials fear that the case might strain Israel-U.S. relations.

Kadish was accused of taking home classified documents several times and letting the Israeli government worker photograph them in Kadish's basement. The documents included information about nuclear weapons, a modified F-15 fighter jet, and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, the Israeli government worker often provided Kadish with lists of wanted classified national defense documents.

Prosecutors also allege Kadish conspired to hinder a communication with a law enforcement officer, and making a materially false statement to a law enforcement officer.

Those charges stem from a conversation in which Kadish was allegedly told by the Israeli contact to lie to U.S. law enforcement agents and tell them that he didn't remember many of the relevant details. A day later, Kadish lied to FBI agents about his communications with the Israeli worker, the complaint said.

According to U.S. law enforcement officials and various documents, Kadish got in touch with his Israeli contact after Israel agreed in 2004 to secretly acknowledge to American officials that Pollard was not an isolated case, thereby confirming longtime American suspicions that Pollard was not the only American spy working for Israel.

Kadish admitted spying for Israel between 1979 and 1985, and then asked his Israeli contact what to do.

The complaint said Kadish did not appear to receive any money in exchange for his suspected spying, just small gifts and restaurant meals.

The complaint noted that Pollard was charged in November 1985 with espionage-related offense after he provided classified information to the same Israeli worker, among other people.

UN Cuts School Children's Meals

Posted on 2008-04-30

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UN Cuts School Children's Meals

By Jeremy Lovell in London

23/04/08 "SMH" -- - A "SILENT tsunami" unleashed by costlier food is threatening 100million people, the United Nations has warned, revealing that its World Food Program has begun cutting the provision of school meals to some of the world's poorest children as the global food-price crisis worsens.

Aid bodies said there was enough food to go round but the key was to help the poor afford it, and urged producing nations not to curb exports to stockpile food at home.

In London, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said Britain would seek changes to EU biofuels targets if it was shown that planting crops for fuel was driving up food prices - a day after the bloc stood by its plans to boost biofuel use.

Britain has also pledged $US900million ($947 million) to help the UN World Food Program alleviate its immediate problems and address longer-term solutions to "help put food on the table for nearly a billion people going hungry across the world".

In a meeting of experts which Mr Brown called on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, the head of the World Food Program, Josette Sheeran, said a "silent tsunami" threatened to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.

"This is the new face of hunger; the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are," she said.

Riots in poor Asian and African countries have followed steep rises in food prices caused by many factors: rising demand from consumers in developing countries such as China and India, the effect of climate change on food production, dearer fuel and the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel.

Rice from Thailand has more than doubled in price this year.

Ms Sheeran said artificially created shortages, such as those caused by countries that have slowed or stopped exports, were worsening the problem.

The major food exporters Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Cambodia have closed their stocks to safeguard supplies.

"The world has been consuming more than it has been producing for the past three years, so stocks have been drawn down," Ms Sheeran said.

"The world knows how to produce food and will do so. But we will have a couple of challenging years."

Rising prices meant the UN food program was running short of money to buy food.

A program providing meals for 450,000 Cambodian children has been suspended and Ms Sheeran said a similar program in Kenya, serving 1.2 million children, was facing cuts of nearly 50per cent.

She said the cutbacks reflected "heartbreaking decisions" and were the biggest challenges of the program in 45 years.

"The era of cheap food is over," said Rajat Nag, managing director general of the Asian Development Bank.

He urged Asian governments not to distort markets with export curbs but use fiscal measures to help the poor.

"We want to temper what we think is a bit of an over-reaction. There is still enough supply," he said.

Mr Brown raised further doubts about the wisdom of using crops to help produce fuel, an idea whose recent popularity in the United States and Europe has been dented by fears that it harms the environment and makes food dearer.

"We need to look closely at the impact on food prices and the environment of different production methods and to ensure we are more selective in our support [for biofuels]," Mr Brown said.

When my finger was on the button for Israel

Posted on 2008-04-25

When my finger was on the button for Israel

April 22, 2008 | In January 2004, when I was a 25-year-old Canadian law student in New York, I decided to apply for an internship at the Israeli Consulate. Little did I know, the speechwriter for the Israeli delegation to the United Nations was quitting, and I was soon asked to fill the vacancy. It was just the beginning of a bizarre, revealing and often comical two and a half year journey into the nerve center of Israeli and Middle Eastern politics -- a journey that grew even stranger with my transfer, the following year, to an even more unlikely job in Jerusalem, at the heart of the Israeli government.

On an excruciatingly slow August day in New York City, a resolution was coming up for consideration, apparently, at the U.N. General Assembly. There was almost nobody at the Israeli Mission, and those there already had their afternoons planned. "You should go," one of my superiors said to me. "It won't be a big deal. Just take notes."

Nobody thought to explain to me what the resolution was about, and I didn't think to ask, but I was happy to agree, having very little else to do at the time. And although I had not yet done it at a meeting of the General Assembly, I had gone on a few of these little note-taking missions at the U.N.'s other organs. I went to the meeting hall and took my seat at Israel's place, the little placard reading "ISRAEL" in front of me. Thankfully, Italy and Ireland were there, so I didn't have to deal with Iran sitting -- or refusing to sit -- beside me, as I'd experienced at a previous meeting. There seemed to be more tension in the room than usual, and a few more people than would normally be present at a regular discussion. Something was clearly up.

Although I didn't recognize him, the Italian representative greeted me and shook my hand. Then he leaned in and said, "So you know, the vote is definitely going to happen today after all."

I smiled and nodded, as if I knew what he was talking about. But I was suddenly numb, thinking, "The vote? The vote? What vote? Nobody said anything about a vote!"

"So have you decided how you're voting?" I asked, more than a little awkwardly. I had absolutely no idea how this sort of discussion normally progressed.

Clearly that was not how, because he gave me a strange look and nodded. "Yes, we've worked it out."

I knew at very least that the "we" was not just the Italian delegation but the whole European Union, which always voted together on issues of foreign policy. Still, that cleared up nothing for me.

Would you excuse me?" I said to the Italian as suavely as possible -- which is to say not suavely at all -- before darting out of the room to the hallway, clutching my cellphone. There were still lots of people streaming in, and many had not yet taken their seats, so I knew there was still some time and was not yet totally overcome by the situation.

I called the Israeli Mission, trying the extensions of various senior diplomats, but none of them picked up. Finally I reached the deputy ambassador's secretary, and started to tell her about the situation, but the phone connection dropped. I had previously noticed that cellphone reception at the U.N. was terrible, but it had never really affected me until now. I tried again and was not able to get any signal whatsoever.

I swore quietly to myself, unsure what to do. This bad cellphone reception problem, I thought, probably didn't affect most diplomats here quite as much because they probably actually knew what they were doing. I was not so lucky.

Racing back into the assembly hall, I scanned the room, noting that most people were now seated, and those in front who ran the meeting were clearly getting ready to proceed. Starting to get a bit desperate -- "Should I vote at all? Will there be repercussions if I don't vote? What are we even voting about?" -- I looked around the room again, hoping that some solution to this problem would present itself. Then one did: the United States of America.

I knew that Israel usually voted along with the Americans, its closest ally and supporter. And since there were no Israelis around to tell me what to do, I figured that I might as well just ask the Americans.

I walked up to them, and after quickly confirming that their U.N. tags listed their country as the United States, I greeted the one who appeared to be the senior diplomat. He was in his mid- to late 50s and was quite clearly an important official from the State Department. Just as clearly to him, I was sure, I was a fool.

"Um, yeah," I said, drawing out my words awkwardly and almost stuttering. "I'm, uh, representing Israel at this meeting."

His brow furrowed a bit, and while still trying to remain diplomatic, he gave me a look that seemed to say, "What are you, 15?"

"Anyway," I went on, leaning in so that nobody else would hear me, "I don't really, exactly, know how I'm supposed to vote, and -- "

"You don't know?" he asked incredulously.

"Not as such," I said slowly, and paused for a second on this note. "There has been some miscommunication in the Israeli Mission today."

 

He just nodded.

Anyway," I continued painfully, "I just wanted to know if you would mind telling me how you guys were going to vote."

He looked around warily to make sure that nobody was around. Then he leaned in even closer to me. His two assistants did the same, until the four of us were essentially in a huddle on the floor of the assembly hall.

"This is just between you and us," he warned me, and when I nodded, he whispered, "We're voting no."

Our huddle broke then, and I fought the urge to give the American diplomats a high-five.

"Thank you very much," I told them instead.

"Good luck," the senior diplomat said, and I walked away, aware that they were probably puzzling over the fact that Israel was now sending very young-looking North Americans to handle its diplomacy.

Heading to my seat, I thought, "No! They're going to vote no! But what does that mean? No to what?" I was not about to ask the Americans to explain to me exactly what the resolution they were voting against was about, since that would make Israel look even more ridiculous, so I just made my way across the hall, trying to decide whether to vote the same way as they were.

Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.? Part 1

Posted on 2008-04-25

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7545.htm">

Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.? Part 1

BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work. 

Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series. 

Published: 12/12/01 FOX News. Part 1 of a 4 part series:  Part 2-  Part 3  - Part 4
These items have since been removed from the FOX News web site:


 

 

 

Carl Cameron Investigates Part 1 - Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?

Author: Carl Cameron

Part I:
BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence. At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work. 

Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron has details in the first of a four-part series. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) 

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States. 

There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." 

Fox News has learned that one group of Israelis, spotted in North Carolina recently, is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to spy on a group of Arabs who the United States is also investigating for links to terrorism. Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States. 

Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity." 

The first part of the investigation focuses on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. They repeatedly made contact with U.S. government personnel, the report says, by saying they wanted to sell cheap art or handiwork. 

Documents say they, "targeted and penetrated military bases." The DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, and even secret offices and unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel. The majority of those questioned, "stated they served in military intelligence, electronic surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units." 

Another part of the investigation has resulted in the detention and arrests of dozens of Israelis at American mall kiosks, where they've been selling toys called Puzzle Car and Zoom Copter. Investigators suspect a front. 

Shortly after The New York Times and Washington Post reported the Israeli detentions last months, the carts began vanishing. Zoom Copter's Web page says, "We are aware of the situation caused by thousands of mall carts being closed at the last minute. This in no way reflects the quality of the toy or its salability. The problem lies in the operators' business policies." 

Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.? A general accounting office investigation referred to Israel as country A and said, "According to a U.S. intelligence agency, the government of country A conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any U.S. ally." 

A defense intelligence report said Israel has a voracious appetite for information and said, "the Israelis are motivated by strong survival instincts which dictate every possible facet of their political and economical policies. It aggressively collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a high priority target." 

The document concludes: "Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection objectives." 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy here in Washington issued a denial saying that any suggestion that Israelis are spying in or on the U.S. is "simply not true." There are other things to consider. And in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone system and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation that both have been compromised by our friends overseas. 

HUME: Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something? 

CAMERON: It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected - none of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not have know? Almost a direct quote. 

HUME: Going into the fact that they were spying on some Arabs, right? 

CAMERON: Correct. 

HUME: All right, Carl, thanks very much. 

Copyright: 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information Clearing House endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Carter: Hamas will accept Israel's right to live in peace

Posted on 2008-04-25

Former US president Jimmy Carter during his visit to the Barzilai hospital in Israel

The former US president Jimmy Carter. Photograph: Sebastian Scheiner/AP

The former US president Jimmy Carter today said Hamas was prepared to accept Israel's right to "live as a neighbour next door in peace".

Carter was speaking after meeting Khaled Meshal, an influential leader within the militant organisation, in Damascus last week.

The former president insisted Hamas would not undermine efforts by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to reach a peace deal with Israel.

Hamas believed any peace agreement negotiated by Abbas would have to be submitted to the Palestinian people in a referendum, he added.

"There's no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel's right to exist in peace within 1967 borders," Carter said.

However, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, later said Carter's comments "do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum".

The US and Israel have criticised Carter's decision to meet officials from Hamas, which they consider to be a terrorist group.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, refused to meet him because of his insistence that Israel should talk to Hamas.

Carter said it was a "problem" that Israel and the US refused to engage with the militant group, adding that peace negotiations had "regressed" since a US-hosted conference in Annapolis in November.

"The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria," he said. "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved."

Carter - who won the Nobel peace prize in 2002 - also said Hamas had promised to allow a captured Israeli soldier to send a letter to his parents and "made clear to us that they would accept an interim ceasefire in the Gaza Strip".

However, he said Hamas had rejected his proposal for a month-long unilateral ceasefire.

He added that Syria wanted the US to play a "strong role" in facilitating renewed peace negotiations between Syria and Israel.

Rights group: Israel allows fewer Gaza cancer patients to enter

Posted on 2008-04-25

Rights group: Israel allows fewer Gaza cancer patients to enter
By Haaretz Service
Tags: Shin Bet, Cancer patients 


Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) on Monday said the Shin Bet security service has recently tightened its policy of issuing permits to cancer patients from Gaza seeking treatment in Israel, Army Radio reported.

The human rights organization said that the Shin Bet ignored all 12 requests that were submitted over the past two weeks.

Ruhama Marton, the president of PHR, told Army Radio that the "Shin Bet is delaying its answer to the extent that it's the same as not answering at all. What is at issue here is a matter of life and death: for cancer patients, a four-week waiting period equals death."

In response, a Shin Bet spokesperson said that the security service has recently detected a growing tendency of Palestinians to falsify medical documents in order to exploit Israel's issuing of entry permits on humanitarian grounds.

"The 12 request forms in question have been handled and transferred to the IDF coordination office in Gaza," the spokesperson said.

At the beginning of April, a United Nations agency said Israel turned away more sick Palestinians from Gaza seeking treatment since Hamas seized control of the coastal strip and several have died each month unnecessarily.

The World Health Organization said Israel denied entry permits to 18.5 percent of patients seeking to leave the Gaza Strip in 2007 versus 10 percent in 2006.

In absolute terms, however, the number of patients from Gaza who were treated in Israel substantially increased, rising from nearly 5,000 in 2006 to 7,000 in 2007.

Related articles:

  • WHO: Israel turning away sick Gazans, who die in 'avoidable tragedies'
  • Barak: Gaza plight a concern, but suffering in Sderot more important
  • IDF checkpoint coordinator blames Palestinians for Gaza fuel crisis

    •  

    Hamas offers truce in return for 1967 borders

    Posted on 2008-04-25

    Hamas offers truce in return for 1967 borders

    No Israeli response, but U.S. rejects it as 'no change'

    DAMASCUS, Syria - The leader of Hamas said Monday that his Palestinian militant group would offer Israel a 10-year "hudna," or truce, as implicit proof of recognition of Israel if it withdrew from all lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East War.

    Khaled Mashaal told The Associated Press that he made the offer to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in talks on Saturday. "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition," Mashaal said.

    In his comments Monday, Mashaal used the Arabic word "hudna," meaning truce, which is more concrete than "tahdiya" - a period of calm - which Hamas often uses to describe a simple cease-fire.

    Hudna" implies a recognition of the other party's existence.

    Mashaal said Hamas would accept a Palestinian state limited to the lands Israel seized in 1967 - that is, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. But he said the group would never outright formally recognize Israel.

    Carter comments
    Earlier, Carter said that Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

    Carter said the group promised it wouldn't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum.

    In the past, Hamas officials have said they would establish a "peace in stages" if Israel were to withdraw to the borders it held before 1967. But it has been evasive about how it sees the final borders of a Palestinian state and has not abandoned its official call for Israel's destruction.

    There was no immediate reaction from Israel to Hamas' truce offer.

    Israel, which evacuated Gaza in 2005, has accepted the idea of a Palestinian state there and in much of the West Bank. But it has resisted Palestinian demands that it return to its 1967 frontiers.

    In Washington, the State Department dismissed Carter's assessment of his meetings, saying there was no indication Hamas wanted peace with Israel.

    "What is clear to us is that there certainly is no change in Hamas' position," said deputy spokesman Tom Casey. "It does not recognize Israel's right to exist, it has not eschewed or walked away from terrorism and violence, nor has it said it will honor any of the previous agreements that have been made with the Israeli government."

    Carter's comments came after his much criticized meetings with the top Hamas leaders in Syria in last week.

    Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he decided not to meet with Carter in Israel because he does not wish to be seen as participating in any negotiations with Hamas.

    Carter also urged Israel to engage in direct negotiations with the Islamic militant group, saying it was a "problem" that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with Hamas. Both governments consider it a terrorist organization.

    'Problem' with Israel, U.S., Carter says
    "The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria," he said. "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved."

    "There's no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel's right to exist in peace within 1967 borders," he said.

    In his comments Monday, Carter said Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking has "regressed" since a U.S.-hosted Mideast conference in Annapolis, Md., in November.

    Israel has been negotiating directly with Abbas, who heads a moderate government based in the West Bank. Abbas lost control of the Gaza Strip last June, when Hamas violently seized control of that territory.

    Carter said Hamas has promised to let a captured Israeli soldier send a letter to his parents, and said the militants "made clear to us that they would accept an interim cease-fire in the Gaza Strip."

    However, Carter said Hamas rejected his specific proposal for a monthlong unilateral cease-fire.

    Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    video u must watch

    Posted on 2008-04-25

    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=f5s9hHycmiQ

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    U.S. to Expand Collection Of Crime Suspects' DNA

    Posted on 2008-04-25

    NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

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    U.S. to Expand Collection Of Crime Suspects' DNA

    Policy Adds People Arrested but Not Convicted

    By Ellen Nakashima and Spencer Hsu
    Washington Post Staff Writers

    19/04/08 "Washingtonpost" -- -- The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested in connection with any federal crime and from many immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than 1 million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database.

    The policy will substantially expand the current practice of routinely collecting DNA samples from only those convicted of federal crimes, and it will build on a growing policy among states to collect DNA from many people who are arrested. Thirteen states do so now and turn their data over to the federal government.

    The initiative, to be published as a proposed rule in the Federal Register in coming days, reflects a congressional directive that DNA from arrestees be collected to help catch a range of domestic criminals. But it also requires, for the first time, the collection of DNA samples from people other than U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who are detained by U.S. authorities.

    Although fingerprints have long been collected for virtually every arrestee, privacy advocates say the new policy expands the DNA database, run by the FBI, beyond its initial aim of storing information on the perpetrators of violent crimes.

    They also worry that people could be detained erroneously and swept into the database without cause, and that DNA samples from those who are never convicted of a crime, because of acquittal or a withdrawal of charges, might nonetheless be permanently retained by the FBI.

    "Innocent people don't belong in a so-called criminal database," said Tania Simoncelli, science adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We're crossing a line."

    She said that if the samples are kept, they could one day be analyzed for sensitive information such as diseases and ancestry.

    Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said the collection of DNA samples "will provide an additional form of biometric identification from persons who would normally be fingerprinted." FBI rules preclude using DNA samples to determine a person's genetic traits, diseases or disorders.

    The database expansion was authorized by Congress as an amendment to the Violence Against Women Act and was billed primarily as a way to track down serial rapists, murderers and other offenders. "We know for a fact that the proposed regulations will save the lives of many innocent people and will prevent devastating crimes," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), a sponsor of the legislation. "These regulations are long overdue -- we should have done this 10 years ago."

    The proposed rule applies to all federal agencies with the authority to arrest or detain, including the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Internal Revenue Service. Although details of the policy have not been announced, officials said they expect the bulk of the new DNA samples to be collected through cheek swabs.

    U.S. officials said that when the measure is fully implemented, roughly 1.2 million people a year could be added to the national database. About 140,000 of those would be people arrested for federal crimes. Many of the rest would be foreigners detained for being in the United States illegally.

    Immigration rights advocates note that most illegal immigrants are detained for administrative violations, not federal crimes. By adding their DNA to the database, "it casts them all as criminals," said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild.

    The rule's scope is still being negotiated, officials said, but it will not cover illegal immigrants picked up at sea; people being processed for legal admission to the United States, such as asylum seekers; and people undergoing secondary screening at ports of entry. It was unclear yesterday whether Mexican border-crossers who are briefly detained and then released in Mexico will be covered