and of course barkat won

Nir Barkat, 49, won 52% of the vote in Tuesday’s poll for Mayor of Jerusalem, routing ultra-Orthodox rabbi Meir Porush and Russian-Israeli billionaire Arkady Gaydamak. Media hailed his triumph as a secular revolution after five years under ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski. Barkat swept to victory on a hardline ticket, rejecting concessions to the Palestinians of any part of occupied east Jerusalem. A former member of Olmert’s Kadima, Barkat prides himself on having quit the centrist party after “exposing” what he said was a “plan to divide Jerusalem.” His hardline stance won him the backing of the city’s religious right-wing parties, which represent a hefty part of Jerusalem’s population of 700k. He promised to build new Jewish neighbourhoods in Arab east Jerusalem. The vast majority of Jerusalem’s Jewish population considers Israel’s designation of the city as its “eternal and undivided” capital a sacred mantra. Since Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it, its 250k Palestinian residents have boycotted municipal elections. “I see the big picture for Jerusalem,” said Barkat, who says his role model is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and who wants to turn the Holy City into “an international metropolis.” The incoming mayor has promised new legislation to attract companies, especially from Israel’s large computer industry, and young families in a bid to reverse an exodus from Jerusalem. – AFP via RawStory

8 (very short) new 9/11 clips

File One: New Release of Second Plane Hitting WTC

File Two: Second Plane Hitting the WTC

File Three: B&W Distant View of 2nd Plane Hitting WTC

File Four: New View of the First WTC Collapse

File Five: New Footage of WTC North Tower Collapse

File Six: Audio of Eyewitness to the First Plane hitting the WTC

File Seven: Close Up of Molten Debris Falling from South Tower WTC

File Eight: Second Impact WTC Zoom from Long Distance

mualem : probably israel’s d.u. bombs

Syria’s foreign minister suggests that Israeli bombs may be the source of uranium traces that diplomats at the UN nuclear agency said were found at a suspected nuclear site. Walid Mualem says the leaks by the diplomats about the traces found at the site were politically motivated and aimed at pressuring Syria. He told a news conference Wednesday that bombs containing depleted uranium have been previously used in Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP)

more bad words about dennis ross

extracted from Phil Giraldi, AntiWar.com, Nov 4 2008

[…] what is really scary about a possible Obama administration is Dennis Ross. Ross claims that he believes in diplomacy and has even written a book on the subject, though his one major foray in that area, Camp David in 2000, demonstrated that he was more interested in advancing Israeli interests than he was in creating a viable peace with the Palestinians. He was the architect of so-called “no surprises” negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis, in which all positions supported by the US had to be cleared by Israel before they were even placed on the table. If the Israelis said “no,” the US would back down. Ross was also one of the most vocal critics of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter after Carter wrote Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

Ross has most recently been in the news for his participation on a task force organized by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, headed by ex-senators George Mitchell, Daniel Coats, and Charles Robb. In this case, bipartisan most definitely does not mean objective. The task force included Ross; Steve Rademaker, husband of Danielle Pletka of the AEI; Michael Rubin, also of AEI; Kenneth Weinstein of the Hudson Institute; Kenneth Katzmann of the Congressional Research Service; as well as two generals, an admiral, two former Defense Department officials who worked for Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith, and a Lehman Brothers economist. Rubin drafted the report, assisted by the project director Michael Makovsky, who is the brother of David Makovsky, senior fellow at WINEP, a pro-Israeli think-tank that was founded by AIPAC. No one on the task force was an independent expert on Iran, who might have been willing or able to express Iran’s concerns or point of view. Indeed, apart from Rubin, no one on the task force knew anything about Iran at all, except possibly that it was part of the axis of evil.

Not surprisingly, the task force’s report, “Meeting the Challenge: US Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development” [.pdf], issued in September, concluded that Iran has no right to enrich nuclear fuel for any purpose. It advocated talking to Tehran, to give it a chance to surrender on all key issues before attacking it, urging the next president to build up forces for the assault from day one of the new administration. The task force recommended that US forces should remain in the area after Iran is bombed into submission, vigilant and ready to react to any possible resurgence by the mullahs. On Oct 23 an op-ed appeared in the WaPo by Coats and Robb that summarized the ‘bipartisan’ conclusions, without identifying the members of the task force itself, as many readers would certainly have realized from the names that the report was the latest neocon snow job. The WaPo apparently did not care that it was being exploited to promote a bad policy wrapped in a deceptive fog of bipartisanship.

Ross is a commentator for Fox News and the Ziegler distinguished fellow at WINEP, which he helped found in the 1980s. He is also chairman of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. He would only be a spear-carrier in the latest neocon absurdity, if it weren’t for the fact that he is a major player in the Obama campaign, as Obama’s top adviser on the Middle East and a key link to AIPAC. Ross reportedly has been helping the Obama campaign formulate positions that AIPAC would be comfortable with. It has been reported that Ross has aspirations to become secretary of state, but he lacks the seniority for that position, and may instead focus on the Middle East, either at State or at the NSC. Ross-watchers believe that if he is put in charge of Middle Eastern policy, he will guarantee that only Israeli security concerns will matter to the new administration, because that is the position he has always taken in the past. If the bipartisan report is any indication, he will be particularly interested in defanging Iran, a position that he has made clear in speeches to Israeli audiences. […]

who’s who in haredi jerusalem

Haredi voting signals weakening of
sector’s political establishment
Matthew Wagner, JPost, Nov 12 2008

No matter what the final results, the 2008 municipal elections will go down in history as a watershed event for haredi politics that will likely have far-reaching implications on the national level. For the first time in Israeli political history, the normally obedient haredi voters showed signs of rebellion. In two haredi centers — Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh — there is a significant haredi contingent that has come out openly against the haredi political establishment. The most embattled by far is the Ger Hassidic sect. Until now Ger, the single largest Hassidic sect in Israel, effectively controlled Agudath Yisrael (and the United Torah Judaism party, and the newspaper Hamodia – RB). But in this election there are signs that Ger has lost the support of a large segment of the haredi vote, and may lose its political hegemony. A growing number of haredim feel alienated from Ger‘s stringent interpretations of Jewish practice. For instance, Ger‘s Council for the Purity of the Camp has been spearheading a campaign for complete gender separation on buses and in public places such as post offices located in haredi neighborhoods. But more importantly, large segments within haredi society feel disenfranchised. Lubavitcher Hassidim, Sephardim not represented by Shas, Litvak haredim who work for a living, and those who are new to haredi Orthodoxy (hozrim b’tshuva) have consistently suffered discrimination. Their boys aren’t accepted to the good Talmudei Torah [religious elementary schools] and yeshivot. Their daughters aren’t admitted to the quality high schools. They watch as young men and women with the “right” family connections get jobs in prestigious Torah institutions while their own children are left behind, lacking in addition the required secular education needed to integrate in the modern Israeli labor market. Many have begun to question their obligations to a rabbinic leadership that rejects them and offers them no future. Many also are beginning to question rabbinic opinion on mundane matters such municipal elections. As one haredi put it:

What do rabbis know about politics? Do I ask a rabbi what kind of floor cleaner I should use? We need a separation between religion and politics. I don’t want rabbis to tell me what kind of cellular phone to use or where to sit on the bus. I live in Bnei Brak. I am very active in my community and I help a lot of people. But I can’t run in local elections because I don’t have the right connections with the people who control internal rabbinic politics. In the end, the best man isn’t chosen for the job.

Meir Porush is trying to capitalize on this large swathe of the disenchanted haredi public. Historically, Porush’s Shlomei Emunim faction within Agudath Yisrael has represented small hassidic sects. But in this election additional groups of haredim have seen in Porush an alternative to the haredi rabbinic establishment. Although he was careful not to do so openly, Porush utilized the internet in his campaign. Although use of the internet is officially prohibited except when needed to make a living, Porush gave an interview to the popular Behaderei Haredim chat room. Behaderei Haredim is a forum readily used by disgruntled haredim to vent their frustrations. It is one of the examples of an increasingly independent haredi populace. Meanwhile, the rebbe of Ger, Ya’acov Aryeh Alter, aware of the threat that Porush presents, has called on his hassidim not to vote for him, even though he’s the city’s only haredi candidate.

Ger enjoys the support of the Boyan Hassidic sect, which is still angry at Porush for bucking its authority in the Betar municipal elections. The Viznitz and Sanz hassidic sects are also backing Ger for political reasons. But an absurd situation has been created in which a coalition of hassidic sects is opposing Jerusalem’s only haredi mayoral candidate. In Friday’s Hamodia, a weekly controlled by the hassidic sect, Alter placed a front page notice calling to vote for Agudath Yisrael. Conspicuously absent was the rebbe’s electoral command regarding the mayoral race. Porush’s name simply was not mentioned. The rebbe’s omission was particularly striking since it was accompanied by an ad publicizing the opinions of a list of leading haredi rabbis who specifically called to vote not only for Agudath Yisrael and for Porush. Even Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the most revered halachic authority among Litvak haredi Jewry, who is known to oppose Porush, nevertheless at the last minute and half-heartedly called on his followers to support him in the elections, since he was the only haredi candidate.

In Beit Shemesh there was an even more radical development. The same coalition of Lubavitchers, non-Shas Sephardim, Litvaks who work, and hozrim b’tshuva have banded together to form their own political party, called TOV. The party has also received strong support from American haredim, who aren’t used to rabbis who tell them how to vote in political elections. The haredi establishment is afraid that TOV, which ran a list in haredi Betar and won a seat on the local council, will transform itself into a national party that will weaken United Torah Judaism’s electoral strength. There are signs that a party like TOV would succeed in the haredi Elad, and perhaps in Modi’in Illit, as it did in Betar. And if Porush loses in his race against Barkat, there is always the chance that he will establish an independent party ahead of the upcoming national elections. On the other hand, if he wins, the anti-establishment movement within haredi society will be strengthened. Either way this municipal election will undoubtedly be remembered as a turning point in haredi politics.

penta-plane had black box in nose? (2m30s)

signs of neglect

– Daily Telegraph (London)

and on a vaguely related note : Pakistan instigated a crackdown on foreign currency flight, by suspending the licences of a prominent foreign exchange company this week. It was part of an investigation into illegal transfers abroad, that comes as the country faces a sharp fall in foreign reserves. Police said last weekend that investigators had arrested four foreign currency dealers, on suspicion of illegally sending money abroad. Among the four were two of the top officials of Khanani and Kalia International, police said. Newspapers have reported that $10bn had been illegally transferred out of the country in one year. In May, the state bank of Pakistan stopped exchange companies from sending cash abroad in euros, $US, £UK and UAE dirhams, in an effort to stabilise the rupee. Officials say that the activities of Munaf Kalia and Javed Khanani, arrested in Karachi and Lahore respectively, may have contributed to a big reduction of the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which have depleted to below $7bn today from more than $16bn in Oct 2007. The authorities say the flood of money out of the country has also caused an enormous drop in the value of the rupee. At the beginning of the year, it was trading at 65 rupees/$US. Last month it fell to a record low of 90 rupees/$US. However, the foreign exchange association of Pakistan has raised objections to the arrests. “The firm swooped upon is Pakistan’s biggest and most reputable. When the trial opens, the claim made by the Federal Investigation Agency will be put to the test,” stated an editorial in the Daily Times. The Pakistani newspaper pointed out that the country’s currency exchange business has become paralysed. “Other ‘currency dealers’ have closed their shops out of fear and even the legally allowed ‘currency exchange’ is mostly shut down,” it added.

not too keen on rahm

	Comment to Natasha Mozgovaya, Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz: US Jews laud Obama pick of Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff
Talkback
Title: When it hits the fan, now they will blame Jews and Israelis Name: David City: Tsfat State:
Just wait. He’s an egoist, who refers to himself in the third person, as if he is a god of some kind. A dangerous, one-sided, self-important individual. What is modern orthodox? Another name for One world socialism or Humanism or Christianity lite.

faurisson on the latest auschwitz claims

Another hackneyed Auschwitz “revelation”!
Robert Faurisson, alt.revisionism, Nov 9 2008

The latest issue of the German mass-circulation daily Bild announces the recent discovery of new documents on Auschwitz, writing, in particular, that one of them seems to prove the existence of a homicidal gas chamber in that camp. In Berlin, Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the Federal Archives, thinks that in this “discovery” he has found the way to silence the revisionists. In reality, there is strictly nothing new about this type of document, and the building plans of the “gas chamber” in question (Gaskammer, fully spelt out) are those of a simple “delousing facility” (Entlausungsanlage, fully spelt out as well). Besides, a passage in the Bild article demonstrates the unease of our fraudsters. Here it is in German, followed by an English translation:

“Dass in der 11,66 mal 11,20 Meter großen “Gaskammer” nicht Kleidungsstücke mit dem bei der SS üblichen Blausäure-Mittel entlaust, sondern Menschen vergast werden sollten, muss als sehr wahrscheinlich angenommen werden.”

“It must be considered very likely that in this 11.66m by 11.20m ‘gas chamber’ it was not garments that were deloused with hydrogen cyanide, in the SS’s usual way, but that it was human beings who must have been gassed.”

The reader will have noted:

“It must be considered very likely […] that it was human beings who must have been gassed.”

This passage was left out of the articles in the French or English-language press which have, so far, come to my attention and which claim to quote Bild.

I shall permit here myself to remind readers that I was the first in the world to publish the building plans for the Auschwitz crematoria supposed to have housed homicidal gas chambers; the spaces in question were actually either morgues, an air-raid shelter, or some other innocuous rooms. I discovered those drawings in 1976 in the camp archives and began publishing them with an article in the Spanish magazine Interviu (February 1979), a piece carrying a photo of me holding a sheet with crematorium plans altogether comparable to the ones now shown in Bild.

In the nearly thirty years since then, I have never ceased going over the conclusions to be drawn from those plans and from a number of other elements, like the inspection of the purported crime scenes at Auschwitz, or, on the one hand, the scientific bibliography regarding delousing, disinfection or anti-infestation methods using Zyklon B and, on the other hand, the procedure for executing a condemned prisoner with hydrogen cyanide gas as followed in certain American penitentiaries. Invented shortly after the first world war and still in use today under another name, Cyanosil, Zyklon B is a hydrogen cyanide-based substance.

From then onwards, nearly all the revisionist researchers (Fred Leuchter, Germar Rudolf, Carlo Mattogno and many others) have made extensive use of those plans or of others still, which Bild discovers today just as someone might discover the moon or the Loch Ness monster. Indeed the anti-revisionists have also, at their end, had to publish these plans and then attempt, though in vain, to challenge the obvious significance thereof. Such was precisely the case with the French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac. I’ll recall that he, after having deployed the formidable means put at his disposal by the Klarsfeld couple to uphold “the Holocaust” argument in general and that of the alleged homicidal Auschwitz gas chambers in particular, wound up writing that, all things considered, those arguments were fit only “for the rubbish bins of history” (Valérie Igounet, Histoire du négationnisme en France, Paris, Gallimard, 2000, p. 652).

In the end, the Bild reporter has done nothing but recycle an old rumour. It remains to be seen whether the Jewish authorities find fault with his clumsiness or, instead, congratulate him for being so willing to help with their propaganda.

iaea protests leak & ‘hype’

IAEA irked at ‘premature’ Syria nuclear disclosures
Pakistan Daily News, Nov 12 2008

VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog criticised on Tuesday diplomatic disclosures that it had found uranium traces at a Syrian site under investigation, saying this was an effort to prejudge the agency’s conclusions. It was a rare open expression of irritation within the agency about news leaks. Several diplomats tracking the IAEA said on Monday that particles of processed uranium turned up in some test samples IAEA inspectors took at the site. These were not enough to draw conclusions about any undeclared nuclear activity but warranted further investigation, they told Reuters. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming confirmed the agency was drafting a report on Syria and had put it on the agenda of the agency’s Nov 27-28 governors meeting — both firsts, in what diplomats said hinted inspectors had found something serious. But she said the IAEA’s evaluation of findings from a June visit to the site was not finished and a public verdict was unwarranted until then. Fleming said:

We regret that people are trying to prejudge the IAEA’s technical assessment. We are, however, accustomed to these kinds of efforts to hype and undermine the process before every meeting of the IAEA board.

The IAEA did not challenge the substance of Monday’s revelations about the uranium traces. A diplomat close to the agency said its concern was that the leaks could not reflect the full picture and that circulating highly confidential information before an official report could discourage Syrian cooperation with the IAEA. Syria’s ambassador to the IAEA did not return messages asking for comment. There was also no comment from Damascus. Diplomats said the question was the provenance of the contamination, since intelligence from Washington and other nations contained nothing to suggest nuclear fuel was stored at the site. The particles retrieved from some environmental swipe samples were of processed uranium, not of raw uranium ore, they said. Such traces could have been carried to the site inadvertently on scientists or workers or on equipment trucked in, they said. Syria has one declared atomic site, a research reactor.

Row over claims of Syrian nuclear find
Ian (Mossad) Black, Guardian, Nov 12 2008

Claims that traces of uranium were found at the site of an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor which was bombed by Israel last year prompted a row about politically motivated leaks yesterday. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, said the UN body was taking very seriously allegations that Syria has a hidden atomic programme. But he declined to confirm that uranium had been detected. Unnamed diplomats said on Monday that samples taken by UN inspectors from Kibar in northern Syria contained traces of uranium combined with other elements. The uranium was processed, suggesting some kind of nuclear link. “It isn’t enough to conclude or prove what the Syrians were doing, but the IAEA has concluded this requires further investigation,” said a diplomat with links to the Vienna-based watchdog. Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman, said the agency was drafting its first-ever report on Syria, and had put it on the agenda of the agency’s governors meeting at the end of this month. But she added that the IAEA’s evaluation of findings from the June visit to the site was not finished and that a public verdict was unwarranted until then. “We regret that people are trying to prejudge the IAEA’s technical assessment,” she said. “We are, however, accustomed to these kinds of efforts to hype and undermine the process before every meeting of the IAEA board.” The IAEA did not challenge the substance of Monday’s revelations about the uranium traces.

The concern is that the leak of confidential information could jeopardise future Syrian cooperation. Syria has repeatedly denied being involved in any illicit nuclear activity. But Damascus fuelled suspicions immediately after last September’s Israeli air strike by razing the remains of the bombed structure it described as a military facility and then stonewalling before reluctantly allowing UN inspectors to visit it. The US says the site, close to the Euphrates river and the Iraqi border, was a secret nuclear reactor that was almost completed before it was attacked. Israel has never publicly acknowledged carrying out the raid but Israeli officials say privately that the attack helped restore its deterrent capability. Israel is an undeclared nuclear power and, unlike Syria, has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The mystery was compounded in August when the Syrian official charged with liaising with the IAEA, General Muhammad Suleiman, was assassinated by a sniper — a killing which remains unexplained and has fuelled speculation that he was murdered to prevent him being questioned about the nuclear issue.