One of the most important videos you've never seen is this one, in which Benjamin Netanyahu, 9 years ago -- thinking there is no record -- explains his actually strategy to inflict pain on the Palestinians. He also describes how easy it is to manipulate the US, and how he made sure that the Oslo Accords would mean nothing.

First he says that the plan for the Palestinians is to:

hit them hard. Not just one hit... but many painful [hits], so that the price will be unbearable. The price is not unbearable, now. A total assault on the Palestinian Authority. To bring them to a state of panic that everything is collapsing ... fear that everything will collapse... this is what we'll bring them to...

The woman Natanyahu is speaking to wonders if the world won't object to what Israel is doing to the occupied Palestinians (she uses the word occupiers herself. He says the world will say nothing, just that Israel is defending itself. As for the US...

“I know what America is. America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction... Let's suppose that they [the Americans] will say something [i.e. to us Israelis] ... so they say it...” [i.e. so what?]

He then moves on to deal with the Oslo Accords. Under Oslo, Israel was to give back land in three phases. However, there was a loophole: if there were settlements or military bases, that land didn't have to be given back. So the question is, who defines what is a settlement or military site?

I received a letter – to me and to Arafat, at the same time ... which said that Israel, and only Israel, would be the one to define what those are, the location of those military sites and their size. Now, they did not want to give me that letter, so I did not give the Hebron agreement. I stopped the government meeting, I said: "I'm not signing." Only when the letter came, in the course of the meeting, to me and to Arafat, only then did I sign the Hebron agreement, or rather, ratify it. It had already been signed. Why does this matter? Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo accord.

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Sid Rosenberg not happy about MSNBC issuing an apology for his racist remarks!

Imus: What happened, tell me?

Sid: I guess I said something, and ahhh..MSNBC issued an apology at my behalf last week without even asking me about it...maybe I don't want to apologize.

Then he later criticized Michael Jordan's brother for re-enlisting back into the army.

Sid: He's a no-name, who cares.

Video

On November 23, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced that MSNBC had apologized for racist commentary delivered on radio host Don Imus's Imus in the Morning. In its apology, MSNBC stated: "The views expressed on the program are not those of MSNBC. Having said that, it was unfortunate that these remarks were telecast on MSNBC. We sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by these remarks."

from MMFA

From the November 12 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:

DON IMUS, host: They're [Palestinians] eating dirt and that fat pig wife [Suha Arafat] of his is living in Paris.

ROSENBERG: They're all brainwashed, though. That's what it is. And they're stupid to begin with, but they're brainwashed now. Stinking animals. They ought to drop the bomb right there, kill 'em all right now.

Imus in Hot water over racial remarks!

From US Wire: Palestinians Called 'Filthy Animals' on MSNBC's 'Imus'; CAIR Calls For Apology, Says Unchallenged Remarks Promote HatePalestinians Called 'Filthy Animals' on MSNBC's 'Imus'; CAIR Calls For Apology, Says Unchallenged Remarks Promote Hate.

Video

Media Matters:From the November 12 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:

DON IMUS, host: They're [Palestinians] eating dirt and that fat pig wife [Suha Arafat] of his is living in Paris.

ROSENBERG: They're all brainwashed, though. That's what it is. And they're stupid to begin with, but they're brainwashed now. Stinking animals. They ought to drop the bomb right there, kill 'em all right now.

BERNARD MCGUIRK, producer: You can just imagine standing there.

ROSENBERG: Oh, the stench.

IMUS: Well, the problem is that we have Andrea [Mitchell, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent] there. We don't want anything to happen to her.

ROSENBERG: Oh, she's got to get out. Just warn Andrea, get out, and then drop the bomb, kill everybody.

MCGUIRK: It's like the worst Woodstock.

ROSENBERG: Look at this. Look at these animals. Animals!

I don't know what to say. The United States not only permits this, we subsidize it - at great personal cost to our country. After all, why were we an Al Qaeda target in the first place?

Yes, we'll tie ourselves in knots to keep a taxpayer dollar from getting anywhere near an abortion, yet we continue to fund the slow starvation of the Palestinians.

Very sad:

One year after Israel launched its three-week offensive in Gaza that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and damaged or destroyed over 50,000 homes in a campaign aimed at stopping Hamas rocket fire, the survivors are still living in rubble. And it is not for want of money that thousands of residents of the coastal enclave remain homeless this winter: Moved by the plight of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians who were already reeling from a two-and-a-half year economic siege imposed by Israel with help from Egypt and the U.S. even before Israel's air and ground assault had begun, international donors earlier this year pledged over $4.5 billion to repair war damages. But that aid has failed to reach Gaza, according to Palestinians and relief agencies who accuse Israel of imposing Kafkaesque rules that bar entry to vital reconstruction materials and items as bizarre as glass, most schoolbooks, honey and family-sized tubs of margarine.

Says Chris Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations' Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), "Because the Israelis are not allowing in any reconstruction material, that $4.5 billion is just a paper figure." With over 80% of Gazans now surviving on humanitarian handouts from UNRWA, Gunness adds, "Palestinians are becoming more desperate and more extreme."

Relief officials estimate that Gaza needs 40,000 tons of cement and 25,000 tons of iron to start repairing the homes, hospitals, schools and shops destroyed during Israel's offensive. But so far, according to GISHA, an Israeli legal rights group, the Israelis have allowed only 19 trucks carrying construction material into Gaza since the war ended last January. "You could say that Israel has bombed Gaza back into the mud age," says UNRWA's Gunness, "because that's what they're building their houses out of now — mud."

Without parts to replace machinery damaged in the war, 97% of Gaza's factories have shut down, raising unemployment to over 43%. With scarce sources of income, many Gazans would probably starve if not for food handouts from the U.N. and other agencies. Over 40,000 Gazans have no electricity, 10,000 have no running water in their homes, and because Israel bans entry of the spare parts needed to run its sewage treatment plant, every day 87 million liters of sewage is dumped into the Mediterranean (which washes up on Israel's beaches, too.)

Although the international community occasionally protests Gaza's ongoing tragedy, so far no real pressure has been applied on Israel to loosen its stranglehold. One senior official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government recently confided to a U.N. colleague that Israel's goal for Gaza was: "No development, no prosperity, no humanitarian crisis." The U.N. official interpreted that to mean that Israel would provide Gaza with an intravenous drip of relief to keep its 1.5 million inhabitants alive, but just barely, in hopes that the people would overthrow the Hamas government they voted into power in the last Palestinian elections. But that hasn't happened yet, nor is it likely to; Hamas smuggles arms, money and supplies into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt, and, increasingly, joining the militants has become the only source of a monthly wage for young males. In the meantime, said John Ging, UNRWA's chief officer in Gaza, the Israeli siege is "facilitating the destruction of a civilized society." Before the siege Palestinians in Gaza prided themselves on the excellence of their schools and industriousness of their workforce, many of whom, in more peaceful times, found jobs across the fence in Israel.

Of course, considering how little Israel has conceded to the peace process in the past, just about anything would look good. But I'll cautiously give the Obama administration some props here - they do appear to be serious about forcing at least some progress with Israel:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday that Israel is making "unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction — a position clearly at odds with the prevailing Palestinian view.

Palestinian leaders have said they will not return to peace talks with Israel unless it halts all settlement building on lands they claim for a future state, and they believe Israel has blatantly defied a U.S. demand for a settlement freeze.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, Clinton said Israel is putting significant limits on settlement activity.

"What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements ... is unprecedented," she said.

The issue of settlements has become the biggest sticking point in getting Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Clinton made it clear that she wasn't pleased with Israeli settlement construction but that it was no reason to hold up talks.

"There are always demands made in any negotiation that are not going to be fully realized," she said.

Likely translation: We're going to take whatever crumb you throw as encouragement, but you're not going to get off the hook that easily.

Palestinians expressed deep disappointment and frustration at Clinton's words, which signaled a departure from past U.S. calls for a complete freeze on settlement activity.

"If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chance do Palestinians have of reaching agreement with Israel on permanent status issues?" Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Similar sentiments were voiced by Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab countries to have peace agreements with Israel. The two countries said most of the blame lay with Israel, but signaled their unhappiness with the American shift.

Jordan's King Abdullah II traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After the meeting, a royal palace statement released in Jordan said both leaders "insisted on the need for an immediate halt of all Israeli unilateral actions, which undermine the chances of achieving peace, especially the settlement construction."

The Reaction: American history is littered with scores of examples of doing business with tyrants but the GOP hypocrite brigade now has the unmitigated gall to claim that some handshakes are "irresponsible." 

Mondoweiss: Palestinians don't have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, US says

DownWithTyranny!: Publicity seeking, lunatic fringe, Republican, Chuck DeVore vs Don Henley

Truthdig: Female soldiers battle sexual violence

Whiskey Fire: Guns don't kill people, but sick cultures do

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: CNBC worried about image...Edmund Burke denounces George Will...Lights, Cameras, Mayhem!...Shoddy by choice...BillO's power in Spain...Escalate To Babble Tantrum...A different view of America...Your liberal media sets a new standard...Media fails America again...More WaPo horse pucky...Dems letting Net Neutrality die...Time Warner scraps metering trials...Swelling WH press corps...Then and Now...He said/She said Journalism...Certain facts omitted...

Did the U.S. Secretary of State actually criticize Israel? At a joint press conference with Mahmoud Abbas? That's new:

BRUSSELS, March 4 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday criticized the Israeli government for plans to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, calling the actions "unhelpful" and a violation of international obligations.

Clinton made the rare public complaint about Israeli actions in response to a question at a joint news conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, on the West Bank.

Israeli plans to destroy the homes in Arab East Jerusalem, which Palestinians consider the capital of a potential Palestinian state, have touched a nerve in Palestinian society.

The Jerusalem municipal government in recent weeks began planning to evict 1,500 residents and raze 88 homes in an area designated as a national park, on top of other demolition plans in the Silwan area. Israel says the homes were built without permits, but Palestinians say permits are impossible to obtain and that many of the homes were built before Israeli occupation in 1967.

"It is a matter of deep concern to those who are directly affected, but the ramifications go far beyond the individuals and families that have received the notices," Clinton said. "It will be taken up with the Israeli government."

Juan Cole warns that Clinton will be attacked by the far-right-wing Israel crowd, and urged people to support her speaking out - in fact, to urge her to use even stronger language the next time.

Continuing with my recognition of the intrepid bloggers who filled in so ably while I was away...
Politics in the Zeros: Money for nothin', chicks for free

Lance Mannion: If Democrats think that Hussein and Muslim and madrassa and black are dirty words, just think what fun the Republicans are going to have with them.

Shakesville: Liss has some reading recommendations.

The Largest Minority: The Palestinians are still under occupation, so throwing $7 billion at the corrupt Fatah government won't change anything.

Over at Steve Audio's place, we're reminded it's not just the week before Christmas.

Media Bloodhound: Big news for democracy aint big news at the Paper of Record.

The redoubtable Blue Gal--the blogosphere's answer to Chone Figgins--shares about her breakfast with Santa and 71 Kindergarten kids.

to the barricades

"Palestinians and internationals living in the Bethlehem region have started a weblog. They want to tell the world what it is like to be living in occupied territory, under an economic siege, encircled by a wall and military checkpoints. For them the new site, Bethlehem bloggers, found at www.bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com, is a portal to communicate to the outside world and tell the stories of their lives in Bethlehem and what it is like to live in a Palestinian Ghetto."

by Dore Gold
THE PROSPECTS FOR NEGOTIATIONS IN THE POST-ARAFAT ERA

Some highlights:

Abu Mazen succeeded Arafat as chairman of the Palestine Liberation
Organization and is the Fatah faction's candidate to become the next
Palestinian Authority chairman. Abu Mazen has become known for his
conclusion that the Palestinian reliance on violence as a political tool was
a tactical mistake. However, on issues of policy he is extremely close to
Arafat.

In 2001, Abu Mazen admitted, "Had the Camp David summit been convened again,
we would have taken the same position" on the permanent status issues

What emerges from the foregoing analysis is that a
full-blown, final status peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians is
probably more remote today than five years ago.