ARABS WANT THEIR STATE BY NEXT AUGUST

ALEX JONES WEEKLY SHOWS AFTER 3PM
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101016_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101018_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101019_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101020_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101021_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101022_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101024_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101025_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101026_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101027_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101028_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101029_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101031_Sun_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101101_Mon_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101102_Tue_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101103_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101104_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101105_Fri_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20101107_Sun_Alex.mp3

ALEX JONES SPEECH AT COCONUT GROVE OCT 24,10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60K-wgVtlbE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLwWi4OCKmw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSYUHQhOvzs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQkiBXb0jw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9QK4bgSygE&feature=related

FALSE FLAGS (SET UP OR STAGED BY SOMEONE)
http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1219
http://www.god.tv/video/play?video=1227

FAMINE

REVELATION 6:5-6
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.(A DAYS WAGES FOR A LOAF OF BREAD)

FAMINE

MATTHEW 24:7-8
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

MARK 13:8
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.

LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.

A loaf of wheat bread may soon cost $23 due to skyrocketing food price inflation Mike Adams NaturalNews November 6, 2010

Within a decade, a loaf of wheat bread may cost $23 in a grocery store in the United States, and a 32-oz package of sugar might run $62. A 64-oz container of Minute Maid Orange Juice, meanwhile, could set you back $45.71. This is all according to a new report released Friday by the National Inflation Association which warns consumers about the coming wave of food price inflation that’s about to strike the western world.Will a loaf of bread cost $23 by 2020? Authored by Gerard Adams (no relation to myself, Mike Adams), this report makes the connection between the Fed’s runaway money creation policy (quantitative easing) and food price inflation. (http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojec…)For every economic problem the U.S. government tries to solve, it always creates two or three much larger catastrophes in the process, said Adams. Just like we predicted this past December, the U.S. dollar index bounced in early 2010 and has been in free-fall ever since. Bernanke’s QE2 will likely accelerate this free-fall into a complete U.S. dollar rout.The upshot of a falling dollar will mean rampant price inflation on the basic goods and services that Americans depend on to survive. Food in particular is likely to be hit hard by price inflation within the decade.The National Inflation Association has released its food price projections in a free downloadable PDF file here: http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojec…It offers statements like this: NIA is confident that the upcoming monetization of our debt will send nearly all agricultural commodities soaring to new all time inflation adjusted highs.The Federal Reserve, of course, is currently engaged in the most massive money counterfeiting operation the world has ever witnessed. And it seems determined to keep printing money until all the dollars the rest of us hold are near-worthless.

Even the UN sees rising food prices

It’s not just the NIA that sees a future with much higher food prices, by the way: Both the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization also predict rising food prices (although not to the same prices as the NIA).This is based on the trend of rising energy prices which directly translate into higher costs for farming, harvesting, transporting and processing foods. Catch the details on that story at http://www.naturalnews.com/029999_f…The UK Guardian newspaper is also reporting on soaring food prices due to fast-rising commodity costs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/…I also predicted food disruptions in my list of predictions published earlier this year at http://www.naturalnews.com/028167_p…(Many of those predictions have already come true, by the way!)Make no mistake: Food prices are on the rise. And with the Fed watering down the dollar thanks to its insane money counterfeiting policies, the U.S. is headed into a price inflation / dollar deflation scenario that mean you will have to spent a lot more dollars to buy the same food in 2015 as you did in 2010. (If the dollar even exists in 2015, that is…)What does this all mean to you and me? As the spring comes back in a few months, it might be a good time to start thinking about growing a little garden for yourself. We’ll be covering this story in much more detail in the spring, including details on where to get heirloom seeds, how to practice preparedness gardening (or gardening when it counts) and other similar topics.In the mean time, stay tuned to NaturalNews for tips and strategies on how to do more with less in uncertain times.

QE2: Last Rites for the World’s Reserve Currency Mike Whitney
Infowars.com November 8, 2010

Millions of Americans have no idea what Quantitative Easing is or how it will effect them personally. That’s why Wednesday’s announcement that the Fed will purchase another $600 billion in US Treasuries merely reinforced feelings of helplessness and a sense that government spending is out-of-control. Unfortunately, Ben Bernanke’s rambling explanation of QE2 in a Washington Post op-ed on Thursday only added to the confusion. The article is loaded with half-truths and omissions that are meant to mislead the public about how the program works and what the Fed’s real objectives are. It’s another missed opportunity by Bernanke to come clean with the people and let them know what policies are being enacted in their name. Here’s an excerpt from the article:The reason is that the Fed is locked in a violent exchange-rate war to push down the value of the dollar.The Federal Reserve’s objectives — are to promote a high level of employment and low, stable inflation. Unfortunately, the job market remains quite weak; the national unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, a large number of people can find only part-time work, and a substantial fraction of the unemployed have been out of work six months or longer. The heavy costs of unemployment include intense strains on family finances, more foreclosures and the loss of job skills…..Low and falling inflation indicate that the economy has considerable spare capacity, implying that there is scope for monetary policy to support further gains in employment without risking economic overheating. The FOMC decided this week that, with unemployment high and inflation very low, further support to the economy is needed…..the Federal Reserve has a particular obligation to help promote increased employment and sustain price stability. Steps taken this week should help us fulfill that obligation.

Bernanke mentions employment/unemployment 5 times in the first 3 paragraphs to give the impression that QE is about creating new jobs. But everyone knows that’s baloney. If Bernanke was really worried about jobs, he would have appealed to Congress for a second round of fiscal stimulus in his speech, which he didn’t, because he remains hawkish on deficits like his colleagues in the GOP-led congress.
Also, if QE2 is mainly about jobs, than why not settle on benchmarks to determine whether the program is successful or not? In other words, if unemployment is still hovering at 8 or 9% in June 2011, when the program ends, then we can assume that Bernanke was either wrong in his calculations or deliberately misled the public about what the program really does.The truth is, Quantitative Easing will not reduce unemployment, narrow the output gap, or increase aggregate demand. At best, it will lower long-term interest rates (slightly) and buoy asset prices. That may be good for the stock market, but it won’t lay the groundwork for a strong recovery. In fact, it might not even be enough to keep the economy from slipping back into recession. As last Friday’s report from he Bureau of Economic Analysis indicates, most of 3rd Quarter GDP was from rebuilding inventories. Remove inventory restocking, and final demand was a sickly 0.6%. So, how will Bernanke’s bond purchasing program increase final demand?

It won’t. If the Fed buys Treasuries, Treasury yields go down which pushes investors into riskier assets (like stocks). That pushes stocks higher, investors feel richer, spending takes off, businesses hire more workers, and the economy grows. It’s a great theory, but it doesn’t work. Yields are already at record lows and businesses are still not hiring because there’s no demand for their products. The problem cannot be fixed from the supply side, which is to say, that it doesn’t matter how cheap money is, if no one is borrowing. And no one is borrowing because they are either broke or out-of-work. Bernanke’s grand plan doesn’t get money to the people who need it, so the economy will continue to sputter.Also, Yields on the 10-year and 30-year Treasuries have already dipped in anticipation of QE2, but is there any sign that businesses are planning to start hiring again? Of course not, because low interest rates don’t matter in this environment. Case in point; record-low interest rates haven’t increased home sales at all. Cheap money doesn’t generate demand when personal balance sheets are underwater. Bernanke knows this because he’s studied Japan’s Lost Decade and understands what happened. They initiated two massive QE programs and got zippo—bank loans and credit continued to go sideways. So, Bernanke is being disingenuous. But why? The reason is that the Fed is locked in a violent exchange-rate war to push down the value of the dollar. Bernanke wants to trim the current account deficit to boost exports. But he’d rather not tell the American people that he’s using their currency as a bludgeon to beat trading partners into submission. It’s easier just to scribble some gibberish about “generating jobs” and send it off to the Washington Post.

The Fed is at war; that’s the truth of the matter. Economist Michael Hudson calls Quantitative Easing (QE) a form of financial aggression. But Hudson probably understates the case; monetary terrorism (moneterrorism?) is probably closer to the truth. QE is flooding emerging markets with cheap capital that’s forcing their leaders to take defensive action to protect their economies. EM’s have already seen the first wave of liquidity surge into their markets raising havoc with prices and forcing central banks to raise rates. But emerging markets aren’t taking it laying down. They’re throwing up protectionist barriers and monitoring capital flows. If Bernanke’s going to print more money, they’ll print, too. Mass competitive devaluation will ignite a full-blown currency war that leaves the present trade regime in tatters and the dollar in the dustbin.This is from Richard Portes in an article titled Currency wars and the emerging-market countries:If the large developed market countries do more QE, however, then the flow of liquidity to the emerging markets may force the latter to respond. They may try to resist exchange-rate appreciation by intervening in the foreign exchange markets. Here we do have competitive devaluation – the currency wars….This is why we see statements like The US will win this war: it will either inflate the rest of the world or force their exchange rates up against the dollar (Wolf 2010). But there is a potential downside for the US. Substantial dollar depreciation will weaken the global position of the dollar, as it did in the late 1970s. (Chinn and Frankel 2007)The Fed will proceed with QE. It will not accept foreign constraints on its monetary policy, nor will it run an internationally coordinated or cooperative monetary policy. (Currency wars and the emerging-market countries, Richard Portes, VOX)See? This isn’t about jobs at all. It’s about power. It’s about who is going to dictate policy to the rest of the world. Bernanke wants emerging markets to bear the costs of a financial crisis that originated on Wall Street and was nurtured every step of the way by the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve. Rather than accept responsibility for his actions–by restructuring the banking system and forcing them to write down their debts– Bernanke has decided to create inflation by opening the sluice-gates and releasing a wall of liquidity that will (inevitably) produce asset bubbles and turmoil in foreign markets. The plan will put the dollar under severe pressure and could trigger a flight from dollar-backed assets, particularly US Treasuries. That would spark the Doomsday Scenario; a disorderly unwinding of the dollar and a swift plunge into crisis. That possibility is not as remote as many think. Here’s a clip from the UK Telegraph’s Ambrose-Evans Pritchard: The Fed’s QE2 risks accelerating the demise of the dollar-based currency system… a chorus of Chinese officials and advisers is demanding that China switch reserves into gold or forms of oil. As this anti-dollar revolt gathers momentum worldwide, the US risks losing its exorbitant privilege of currency hegemony.(QE risks currency wars and the end of dollar hegemony, Ambrose-Evans Pritchard, Telegraph)

Or, this from Nobel prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz: The world is on the verge of moving to another regime of managed exchange rates and fragmented capital markets….A new global reserve system or an expansion of IMF money (called special drawing rights, or SDRs) will be central to this co-operative approach. With such a system, poor countries would no longer need to put aside hundreds of billions of dollars to protect themselves from global volatility, and these would add to global aggregate demand…. with such a system, the US would no longer enjoy the extraordinarily cheap borrowing that comes with being the minter of the most important global reserve currency. But the current arrangement is an anomaly. The world is at a critical juncture.(A currency war has no winners, Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian)Or this from economist Michael Hudson who believes that the rising powers Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) will challenge the current dollar-dominated regime leading the way to a new multi-polar world order. Here’s what he says:The most decisive counter-strategy to U.S. QE II policy is to create a full-fledged BRIC-centered currency bloc that would minimize use of the dollar….A BRIC-centered system would reverse the policy of open and unprotected capital markets put in place after World War II. … In September, China supported a Russian proposal to start direct trading using the yuan and the ruble rather than pricing their trade or taking payment in U.S. dollars or other foreign currencies. China then negotiated a similar deal with Brazil. And on the eve of the IMF meetings in Washington on Friday, Premier Wen stopped off in Istanbul to reach agreement with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to use their own currencies in a planned tripling Turkish-Chinese trade to $50 billion over the next five years, effectively excluding the dollar.It won’t happen overnight, but the transition away from the dollar has already begun. The financial crisis has greatly eroded US moral authority and the trust that’s needed to preserve America’s role as the steward of the world’s reserve currency. Bernanke’s misguided hyper-monetarism is merely hastening the dollar’s decline. QE2 could very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

ATMs Crash Across The Country After Bank Holiday Warning
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com November 8, 2010

Image: Betsy Fletcher-Following rumors of a bank holiday that could limit or prevent altogether cash withdrawals later this week, Twitter and other Internet forums were raging yesterday about numerous ATMs across the country that crashed in the early hours of Sunday morning, preventing customers from performing basic transactions.It’s unknown whether the crashes were partly a result of a surge of people trying to withdraw their money in preparation for any feared bank shutdown, or if mere technical glitches were to blame. The fact that the problem affected numerous different banks in different parts of the U.S. would seem to indicate the former.The Orange County Register reported that the problems were part of a national outage which prevented people from performing simple transactions such as cashing checks and withdrawing money.Computer issues were blamed for similar issues in Phoenix Arizona, while in Birmingham Alabama, Wells Fargo customers’ online banking accounts and ATMs displayed incorrect balances.The banks primarily affected were Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America, but according to blogger Phil Brennan, who studied Twitter feeds and other Internet message boards that were alight with the story, numerous other financial institutions were also affected, including US Bank, Compass, USAA, Suntrust, Fairwinds Credit Union, American Express, BB&T on the East Coast and PNC.Twitter is going crazy with reports of ATMs and online accounts going down as of 01:00 hours EST of the 7th of November 2010, writes Brennan. This is happening to many banks all across America. Some are trying to say that it is a computer glitch to do with the change in Daylight Savings Time, but I will call BS on this as we manage to put our clocks back over here in the UK without knocking out ATMs and online accounts nationally.

Brennan questions whether the outages were the first warning shots in a move to devalue the dollar, just days after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke sparked an international currency war by announcing that the Fed will buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds over the next eight months.Any perceived inability of banks to deal with a sudden demand for cash would undoubtedly place in peril the United States’ triple A credit rating and spark a fresh dollar crisis.In the light of what is going on geopolitically, I am still very suspicious about the reasons for this mass downtime of ATMs and Online Accounts, adds Brennan. There is still a very distinct possibility that November the 11th will turn into an extended Bank Holiday so I would advise all those who can get their money out of their banks to do so, even if you have to pay your upcoming bills manually.As we reported last week, the bank holiday rumor has reared its ugly head once again, after a story emerged that a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.Though the story is still an unconfirmed rumor, banks have been preparing for limiting withdrawals. As we reported back in February, Citigroup sent an advisory to its customers at the start of the year which stated that the bank reserved the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. The advisory stoked fears that financial institutions were preparing for bank runs.While we still think this new bank holiday rumor will subside as the previous two did earlier this year and last, in the current economic climate it would be foolish not to keep at least a small amount of your savings in physical cash. The current financial turmoil has been likened with the post 1929 period, during which newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a bank holiday that lasted four days, therefore such a scenario is not without historical precedent.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.

ROBIN SHEPHERD ON NEXT AUG PALESTINIAN STATE
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/2631

Will UK join push for ultimate solution of MidEast peace through the United Nations? NOV 5,10

Will UK join push for ultimate solution of MidEast peace through the United Nations?Amid all the brouhaha over British Foreign Secretary William Hague’s visit to Israel this week, the key question of the moment has yet to be asked: If peace talks fail, will Britain join France and others in openly declaring that a Middle East peace might have to be imposed through the United Nations? I have not seen a clear and unambiguous quotation from the Foreign Secretary or any of his senior officials to that effect. But if you put together everything that is being said and everything that is not being said, and you set that against the international mood music my instincts tell me that we are ineluctably heading towards the UN route. For example, as the BBC’s MidEast headline today roars: Mid-East peace talks: UK says window closing. But what does that mean in practice? That Britain would be prepared simply to let matters rest should that window ultimately close? That the UK would say: a plague on both your houses and retreat back to the island and wash its hands of the whole business? If only the British outlook were characterised by such indifference. Here is how the BBC characterises the British position in its article today:

Mr Hague said that both sides had obligations, but that it was largely up to Israel to break the impasse.We do want Israel to announce a new moratorium on settlements [said Hague]… That is what the whole of Europe wants, that is what the United States wants,he said.In other words, Israel is going to get the blame if and when the talks collapse.It is not that there is anything new in all this. It is just that the Arab/Palestinian side has been remarkably successful in portraying Israel as the intransigent party in a current round of peace talks representing history’s last chance for a solution. Either there is an agreement on the way or something radical will have to be considered. And that something would be an imposed settlement authorised by the UN Security Council sometime in the middle of 2011.Look. I have no proof, and this is little more than speculation. But given that British foreign policy in the Middle East has long been driven by a foreign office that is almost as slavishly deferential to the Arabs as it is to the United Nations, given that the new British government is almost entirely opportunistic in the management of its foreign policy, given (see last posting but one) our new strategic ally France has mooted the UN route, and given that the Palestinians and the UN are already preparing the way for such a move, the notion that Britain is going to jump on the bandwagon has a certain inevitability about it. The Palestinian/Arab side can hardly be under any illusions as to how weak Britain has become under the new government and how prone it is merely to go with the flow of global events.At the very least, it would be good if the journalists would start posing the question. Because if Britain and France do join forces diplomatically (as they have recently agreed to do militarily) on this issue, this would constitute a powerful combination to help legitimise and energise a movement that already has the support of dozens of nations in the Arab and Musim world.The UN route would be a disaster for Israel’s security. But it is the looming issue of the moment, and we urgently need clarity on precisely where Britain stands on the matter.

Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated OCT 30,10

Before the storm: Palestinian ability to go through UN for unilateral declaration of statehood not to be underestimated Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz has written an extensive analysis of the prospects of the Palestinian leadership opting for a unilateral declaration of statehood, probably sometime in 2011, as an alternative to working for a negotiated end to the conflict. It is crucial to understand the issue since it could add an entirely new dynamic into the situation, give new momentum to the Palestinian cause, and simultaneously put Israel in a perilous situation.There are many reasons to be concerned about a move towards a unilateral declaration of statehood, not least because the Palestinians would undoubtedly want to go beyond the demilitarised state being offered by the Israeli government and also because they would then seek to argue that Israel is not merely an occupying power but also an invading power. This they could use as a justification for renewed resistance, for which read terrorism.Horovitz has produced an excellent analysis and I recommend reading it in full. But since, at nearly 3,000 words, some readers may not have the time to go through it from beginning to end, I offer here a bullet point rendition of what I take to be the most important points, along with some comments of my own. Points taken from Horowitz’s piece (which are my words, not his) are in bold italics while my own comments follow in normal script:

** Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has himself declared a summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood. Stop the press right here: summer 2011 is effectively tomorrow. In other words, the threat should be treated as imminent.

** Last Tuesday, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry said to Fayyad: We are in the home stretch of your agenda to reach [statehood] by August next year, and you have our full support.The day before, PA President Mahmoud Abbas repeated what is an increasingly common theme from PA officials in threatening a resort to the United Nations in the context of a possible unilateral declaration of statehood. In other words, the potential move to a unilateral declaration of statehood with recognition at the UN should not only be treated as imminent, senior UN officials are sounding increasingly positive about such a possible move.

** Important and influential governments are also sounding more receptive to the idea. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner recently said that if the negotiations became deadlocked France cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option. These are dangerous and irresponsible words which could encourage the Palestinian side to deliberately deadlock peace talks so as to get a better deal at the UN.

** It is true that the Americans have said they would veto any such deal. But this may not be enough to kill it. Consider the example of Kosovo whose own unilateral declaration of independence was opposed by Russia, another of the permanent security council members with veto powers. This has not stopped some 70 countries from recognising Kosovan independence which is now basically a fait accompli. The Palestinians are well aware of the Kosovo example and frequently talk about it as a precedent. As Horovitz notes, the point here is not that there is a direct analogy between Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia on the one hand and Israel and the Middle East on other. Rather, the point is that unilateral declarations of independence can build unstoppable momentum if a critical mass of nations support it and there is some sort of embryonic government (in this case the PA) to recognise.

** The Kosovo precedent is not the only one. Consider Lithuania which declared independence unilaterally in 1990 despite the fact that the Soviet Union still existed and had its armies on Lithuanian soil. This is another strong example of how a determined national movement with international support and with a governmental apparatus can build new dynamics to its own advantage.

** While fully aware of the potential dangers of any unilateral declaration of independence, too many Israeli officials underestimate the prospects of it actually happening. The Palestinians have made a unilateral declaration of independence before, in 1988 when more than 90 countries recognised it. It came to nothing, many Israelis point out. But the situation now is very different since, among other things, there is a recognised PA government. Indeed so, and in 1988 we were still in the Cold War, we hadn’t had the Oslo process or the Clinton peace efforts in 2000 and 2001, or the second Intifada, or 9/11. Nor was the demonisation of the Jewish state quite so deeply rooted in western countries as it now is.

** The Palestinians are serious about this. As Salam Fayyad said to an Italian newspaper last week: [In 2011] the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation… The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end.That’s straight from the horse’s mouth.Once again, Horovitz has written a great analysis of a crucial issue and I recommend reading his piece in full.

Editor's Notes: Unilateralism is no mirage
By DAVID HOROVITZ 10/29/2010 16:23 JERUSALEMPOST.COM

Netanyahu's right: Palestinians won’t achieve peace with Israel by unilaterally declaring establishment of Palestine. But they're not talking about peace. They're talking about statehood.The months go by, and while Israel keeps its head buried in the sand, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s declared summer 2011 deadline for Palestinian statehood draws nearer.Photogenically picking olives with Fayyad on Tuesday, the UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry offered his stamp of approval for the purportedly soon-to-be-established Palestine.All international players are now in agreement that the Palestinians are ready for statehood at any point in the near future, Serry said to Fayyad. We are in the home stretch of your agenda to reach that point by August next year, and you have our full support.A day earlier, the PA President Mahmoud Abbas had spoken about the possibility of seeking statehood unilaterally, via what he termed a resort to the United Nations.Other PA officials have frequently invoked this option of late, bemoaning Israel’s ostensible torpedoing of peace hopes and looking to the international community for unilateral recognition.A couple of weeks ago, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made plain that even some countries that consider themselves to be firm friends of Israel might not prove deaf to Palestinian efforts toward unilateral recognition, saying that France cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option if the negotiating process is beset by prolonged deadlock.And officials within the US administration, while indicating to their Israeli counterparts that the US would veto any effort by the Palestinians to seek binding UN Security Council backing for the unilaterally declared establishment of Palestine within the pre-1967 lines, have also been stressing the limits of their veto power. Look at the case of Kosovo, for instance, they suggest. This is a nation that has not been recognized by the Security Council, where permanent member Russia is implacably opposed, but whose statehood – declared by its parliament in February 2008 and recognized by some 70 countries, including the US – is nonetheless something of a fait accompli.

The Kosovo precedent is certainly not lost on the Palestinians. Earlier this month, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti urged that an independent Palestine be declared now on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, including east Jerusalem and that the world community be pressed to recognize it and its borders, as it did in the case of Kosovo.Serene in the face of such ostensible pressures, the Israeli government continues to insist that there is no credible, viable path to statehood for the Palestinians via the unilateral route.Opening Sunday’s cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared that We expect the Palestinians to honor their commitment to hold direct negotiations. I think any attempt to bypass them by appealing to international bodies is unrealistic...

But is it?

THE KOSOVO precedent is plainly quite different from the Palestinian context. (Indeed, Israelis who have spent time in Kosovo say that people there often compare their emergence to that of Israel.) But there are numerous critical parallels and themes that Israel would be extremely foolish to ignore.Independent Kosovo was born out of the fragmentation two decades ago of Yugoslavia, and what proved to be the impossibility of peacefully resolving the conflicting demands of one of the former Yugoslavia’s six constituent republics, Serbia, with those of the Albanian majority in what had been the autonomous area of Kosovo. The unilateral declaration of statehood followed years of violence, international intervention, the designation by the Security Council in 1999 of Kosovo as a UN protectorate, and the terminal failure of a succession of efforts to foster substantive negotiations between Kosovo’s Albanian leadership and Belgrade.A fragmenting federation, war, NATO involvement on the ground and the absence of anything remotely close to an agreed framework for resolving the crisis – in all these aspects Kosovo differs utterly from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict arena. Just to be on the safe side, furthermore, the US made explicit, when recognizing Kosovo, that this process represented no legal precedent whatsoever.Where the potent similarities begin, however, is that in Kosovo, as with the Palestinians, the international community was galvanized by a group that sought independence from another party whose rule it did not accept; and where that group was impatient and felt that it had sufficient strength to advance its cause.Kosovo’s road to independence featured an earlier declaration of a separate republic, in 1992, which went nowhere because, as Nikolas Gvosdev pointed out in an article in World Politics Review a few days ago, it had no formal governing presence in any part of the territories it claimed as its state and no real institutions of state. But by 2008, Kosovo did have a functional governmental apparatus in at least part of the territory it claimed, and it has subsequently gained a certain critical mass of international recognition.

As a result, Gvosdev notes with what ought to be dramatic resonance for Israeli ears,any future talks with Serbia will be aimed not at getting Kosovo to give up its independence, but rather at determining the conditions and arrangements under which Belgrade will accept an independent government in Pristina.Try re-reading that sentence with certain substitutions after a unilateral assertion of Palestinian statehood: Any future talks with Israel will be aimed not at getting Palestine to give up its independence, but rather at determining the conditions and arrangements under which Jerusalem will accept an independent government in east Jerusalem.The echoes from Kosovo of that shift to international acceptance over the past couple of decades drastically undermine official Israel’s insistently sanguine response to the Palestinians’ unilateralist threats. Fayyad’s entire state-building exercise has been designed to demonstrate, Kosovo-style, the attainment of a formal governing presence in at least part of the territories being claimed and the establishment of a functional governmental apparatus.And much of the international community has long-since been won over. So Israel’s blithe, dismissive reminder that the Palestinians have little to show from their last attempt at the unilateralist route – the 1988 declaration of statehood that won recognition from some 90 nations – is simply outdated. We are not in 1988 anymore.Kosovo is not the only cautionary tale. Gvosdev cites the case of Lithuania to demonstrate that a potential state need not be in full control of the territory it claims in order to gain international recognition:

When Lithuania redeclared its independence in 1990, he writes, numerous states... recognized its status as a sovereign member of the international community, even though the Soviet Union rejected such a claim and refused to withdraw its forces from Lithuanian soil. By the time the USSR accepted the reality of Lithuanian independence on September 6, 1991, a separate Lithuanian government had already been functioning for more than a year. Even the United States, which was one of the last states in the world to extend de jure recognition, had already begun to deal with a government in Vilnius on a de facto basis.THE PALESTINIANS themselves, it is asserted in the prime minister’s circle, don’t believe they have a serious unilateral option. Even Fayyad, it is stated, knows that borders, for instance, have to be demarcated by agreement.Everyone understands that a solution must be negotiated, sources close to Netanyahu have repeatedly stated. Everything else is a mirage. They know that. We know that.Every now and again, it is noted in Jerusalem, the Palestinians come out with statements threatening variously that Abbas will resign, they’ll dismantle the PA, they’ll shift to seeking a one-state solution or they’ll go the unilateral route. This rhetoric is viewed as a case of the Palestinians essentially saying, Hold us back. Our commitment to reconciliation is not real. We have other options. In fact, though, runs the Jerusalem mantra: There are no other options.Essential aspects of statehood, it is pointed out, include a defined territory, a defined population, effective government and the recognition of other states. Official Israel, as far as I can understand, believes the Palestinians to be deficient in at least two of those areas.One might acknowledge that they represent a defined population and they could certainly count on widespread international support. But in the official Israeli assessment, they lack a defined territory – negotiations having thus far failed to define borders – and they lack effective government – which is less a critique of Fayyad’s institution-building efforts and more a factual description of the practical limitations of PA authority, over such basic areas as controlling what goes in and out of its would-be Palestine. Official Israel, largely unmoved by evidence to the contrary in cases such as Kosovo and Lithuania, evidently wants to believe that these deficiencies doom the notion of unilateral statehood.

In conversation with some in Israeli officialdom this week, I ventured the suggestion that the resort to unilateralism, at the very least, would surely ratchet up the pressure on Israel. The international community is less sympathetic to Israel, and more impressed by the Palestinian leadership’s credentials and ostensible capacity to maintain stability, than it was when Yasser Arafat tried the unilateral declaration route 22 years ago, I noted. And so, if Palestine is being stymied because of the failure to negotiate core issues like agreed borders with Israel, then a Palestinian unilateralist effort would surely provoke intensified calls on Israel to negotiate those borders, and other core issues, in a spirit of greater compromise.The frustrated response was that Israel is ready to negotiate. In rather anguished terms, it was noted that the Palestinians claim they need other solutions because the talks are going nowhere, but that the talks are only going nowhere because the Palestinians are refusing to negotiate. And as for the Palestinian claim that settlements are the problem, the official line from Jerusalem was that the settlement enterprise does not preempt a negotiated solution, that no planned construction will affect the contours of peace, that the overwhelming majority of proposed construction is within the settlement blocs, and that the minority of building that is outside the blocs – an extra house or two here and there in an isolated settlement – won’t make a difference, because it would either be dismantled under a peace agreement or would be on the Palestinian side of the border.These may all be eminently reasonable arguments, but none of them, I repeated, is likely to forestall international pressure if the Palestinians do opt for the unilateral route.The point was acknowledged. Of course there’d be pressure, one source finally allowed. And then he added, ruefully: You don’t think we’re under pressure already? TRADE MINISTER Benjamin Ben-Eliezer this week spoke for some in the government who are internalizing the growing perceived international legitimacy of Palestine. Time isn’t merely working against us, observed Ben- Eliezer, who just got back from talks in Washington. It’s racing against. Racing.Many in the Israeli diplomatic hierarchy, moreover, understand that the world has changed in the past couple of decades – and specifically that the US no longer calls the shots globally in the way that it once could. American economic dominance, American military dominance and American diplomatic dominance have receded. There are more global power centers. The US itself, recognizing these changes, works more readily with international forums.For Israel, for whom the alliance with the US remains paramount, these shifts have nonetheless required a shift in diplomacy, a diversified investment of effort and energy.In terms of the conflict with the Palestinians, these shifts have also required a gradual internalization that the Middle East peace Quartet – that constellation of would-be mediators comprising the US, UN, EU and Russia – potentially carries real weight, and is no longer just a diplomatic construct designed to give the international community a superficial sense of involvement, while only the US really matters.

This changing climate again renders some of the public Israeli comments on unilateralism – the blasé dismissal of a unilateral Palestine as a mirage and a pipe dream – unconscionably complacent. And Netanyahu’s own assertion on Sunday that attempts at unilateralism will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process completely misses the point.By definition, a resort to unilateralism will not give any impetus to a genuine diplomatic process. The whole thrust of unilateralism is an escape from a genuine diplomatic process – an attempt to achieve, without agreement, ambitions and gains that could not be won at the peace table, and to achieve them without the concessions that a genuine diplomatic process would require.OTHER ISRAELI arguments against unilateralism also seem unlikely to give the Palestinians much pause. It is suggested that a unilateral declaration of statehood, though endorsed by long sympathetic nations, might be strongly resented by other, fairer-minded countries that oppose the abandonment of the diplomatic process. But one wonders how many such nations there might turn out to be, and how grave a concern that would be for the Palestinians, given the international hostility to Israel right now, and Israel’s perceived responsibility for the failure of the direct talks to date.It is asserted that unilateral statehood might cause problems of legality for the Palestinians in countries where their independence was not recognized. Would a President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas be accorded a White House welcome in a US that had not formally recognized his country, or a Downing Street hearing in a Britain that was similarly withholding recognition? Here, too, it is unlikely that the Palestinians would be too fearful of a diplomatic cold shoulder; American or British mandarins would presumably prove capable of finding a legaldiplomatic finesse to solve such problems.It is argued that a resort to unilateralism would breach the Oslo Accords and that various signatories and witnesses to these and other interim agreements, including the US, EU, Egypt and Jordan, might resent the breach and withhold recognition. They might. They might not. A concern for the Palestinians? Possibly. But enough to deter them? Unlikely.Officials have issued vague threats about Israel’s capacity to take unilateral actions of its own should the Palestinians pursue the unilateral route. Risibly, anonymous officials were quoted in some newspapers here last week warning that Israel might respond by dismantling isolated settlements or reviving Ehud Olmert’s convergence plan for the removal of tens of thousands of settlers from areas outside the settlement blocs. As threats and warnings go, these are absurd. Don’t declare statehood because, if you do, we’ll take steps that would ease the process for you?! The Palestinians are hardly going to be quaking at the prospect.

Perhaps Israel might seek to unilaterally annex the major settlement blocs. But Israel would want to annex them anyway in the context of a negotiated accord; this way, the Palestinians might reason, Israel would simply be annexing with less legitimacy and less support, and without the Palestinian leadership having compromised and condoned it.Another purported bulwark against Palestinian unilateralism is the notion that the subsequent legal vacuum of voided accords and conflicting assertions of authority could cause chaos and violence on the ground, to the detriment, among others, of the Palestinian Authority. This seems a more credible consideration for the PA to bear in mind. Then again, Abbas and Fayyad may have an elevated sense of their capacity to maintain relative stability. Or they may be prepared to risk chaos and violence.And, finally, it is noted that a unilateral declaration of statehood – with many of Palestine’s key parameters and fundamental aspects still unresolved – is no substitute for the benefits of finding a binding, detailed, stable agreement with an enemy turned full peace partner. As Netanyahu said on Sunday, peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations.That argument, of course, is undeniable...if your goal is peace. The thing is, however, that the Palestinians are talking about something else. About statehood. About a process that would give international weight to their demands no matter what the immediate practical implications, and no matter how many problems – all the core issues, plus the question of the fate of Gaza – remain unresolved. International support for statehood, without the necessity to come to terms with Israel, to legitimize Israel.AT TUESDAY’S olive-picking event, timed to coincide with the 65th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Fayyad expressed the hope that when we celebrate the 66th UN Day next year, we will be celebrating also the emergence of a Palestinian state.A day later, he told an Italian newspaper that he would give Israel one more year of grace. These colonies, he said of the settlements, can no longer be there. They are illegal everywhere; here and in Jerusalem.In 2011, he said more bluntly this time, the United Nations will celebrate the birth of our nation... The deadline is next summer, when the Israeli occupation of the West Bank must end.Israel can talk dismissively about pipe dreams and mirages. But Fayyad isn’t being light-headed. He’s a perfectly clear thinker. And he knows exactly where Palestine is heading. Israel doesn’t.

Clintonite: Obama Needs OKC Bombing to Reconnect with the American People
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com November 6, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjO6NFLLE04&feature=player_embedded

Former Clintonite and Democrat operative Mark Penn says Obama needs an OKC bombing to regain his popularity.Remember, President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma, right? said Penn on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show on Thursday. And the president right now seems removed. It wasn’t until that speech [after the bombing] that [Clinton] really clicked with the American public. Obama needs a similar defining moment, according to Penn.Clinton realized a boost in his popularity ratings after the attack. On the day of the attack, April 19, 1995, Clinton had a 46 percent approval rating. A few days later, after delivering a speech on the attack, a Time/CNN poll revealed his approval had jumped to 60 percent. It subsequently slipped to 42 percent the following month.Penn is the president of the polling firm Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates. He served as pollster to the president for Bill Clinton and became one of the Clinton’s most prominent and influential advisers. Penn has worked on the election campaigns of Tony Blair, Ed Koch, Menachem Begin, and a number of Latin American political candidates. His consulting firm works for large multinational corporations, including Texaco, AT&T, Ford Motor Company, Merck & Co., Verizon, BP, and McDonald’s. Penn has served as a key strategic adviser to Bill Gates and Microsoft since the mid-1990s.In July, another former Clintonite, Robert Shapiro, said the only thing can preserve Obama’s increasingly tenuous grip on power is a terror attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9/11.

The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership, said Shapiro, writing for the Financial Times. He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.Shapiro is clearly communicating the necessity for a terror attack to be launched in order to give Obama the opportunity to unite the country around his agenda in the name of fighting terrorists, just as President Bush did in the aftermath of 9/11 when his approval ratings shot up from around 50% to well above 80%, writes Paul Joseph Watson.No terrorist event occurred prior to the election and establishment Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives and increased their influence in the Senate.Earlier this year, Obama claimed America can absorb a terror attack. We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever… we absorbed it and we are stronger, Obama told intelligence operative and prized Operation Mockingbird asset Bob Woodward in July.Penn’s claim is sure to stir up right-leaning conspiracy mills that insist federal agents helped Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on behalf of the Clinton administration, writes Stephen C. Webster for Raw Story. This is especially likely in the wake of President Clinton’s analogy in April, comparing irrational tea party rage to the right-wing militia movement many credit with fostering McVeigh’s thought process.In April, Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer he was worried that anti-government rhetoric would lead to violence and another Oklahoma City. He said he was concerned about people opposed to the government using the internet.In 2006, several FBI documents provided dramatic evidence that the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by a conspiracy involving more people than Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.Since the bombing, a number of witnesses have come forward to refute the official version, including Jane Graham, a ninth floor survivor. Several witnesses connected to the OK City bombing have mysteriously died, including Oklahoma City police officers Terrance Yeakey, Gordon Martin and Ken Griffin, a number of Oklahoma City firefighters, Dr. H. Don Chumley, GSA employee Mike Loudenslager and others.

Noam Chomsky: No Evidence that Al-Qaeda Carried Out the 9/11 Attacks
Washington’s Blog November 6, 2010

Leading liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky just told Press TV:The explicit and declared motive of the [Afghanistan] war was to compel the Taliban to turn over to the United States, the people who they accused of having been involved in World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist acts. The Taliban…they requested evidence…and the Bush administration refused to provide any, the 81-year-old senior academic made the remarks on Press TV’s program a Simple Question.We later discovered one of the reasons why they did not bring evidence: they did not have any.The political analyst also said that nonexistence of such evidence was confirmed by FBI eight months later.

The head of FBI, after the most intense international investigation in history, informed the press that the FBI believed that the plot may have been hatched in Afghanistan, but was probably implemented in the United Arab Emirates and Germany.
Chomsky added that three weeks into the war, a British officer announced that the US and Britain would continue bombing, until the people of Afghanistan overthrew the Taliban… That was later turned into the official justification for the war.All of this was totally illegal. It was more, criminal, Chomsky said.As Wired wrote on September 27, 2001:President Bush has said he has evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, so it would seem obvious that the FBI would include him and other suspects on its 10 most wanted fugitives Web page.

Think again.

Bin Laden is listed, but only for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. There is no mention of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000, both of which he is widely believed to have orchestrated. And forget about Sept. 11.The reason? Fugitives on the list must be formally charged with a crime, and bin Laden is still only a suspect in the recent attacks in New York City and Washington.There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged, said Rex Tomb, who is head of the FBI’s chief fugitive publicity unit and helps decide which fugitives appear on the list. To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993, said in a Sept. 12 interview conducted by Frontline that there is no concrete proof that bin Laden is responsible for the USS Cole and the 1993 WTC attacks, but bin Laden celebrates those attacks and associates himself with people who are responsible for it.

President Bush promises to reveal evidence linking bin Laden to the suicide hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden has applauded the attacks but denies direct involvement.The Bush administration never provided such evidence.As I wrote last December:President Obama said Tuesday night as justification for the surge in troops in Afghanistan:We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people.Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban”, who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden.

Is that true?

On October 14, 2001, the Taliban offered to hand over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted bombing if the Taliban were given evidence of Bin Laden’s involvement in 9/11.

Specifically, as the Guardian writes:

Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over. He added, There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty …Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved and the bombing campaign stopped, we would be ready to hand him over to a third country, Mr Kabir added.However, as the Guardian subsequently points out:A senior Taliban minister has offered a last-minute deal to hand over Osama bin Laden during a secret visit to Islamabad, senior sources in Pakistan told the Guardian last night.For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the US without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan’s military leadership said.And yet … the U.S. turned down the offer and instead prosecuted war.And in 2006, FBI agent Rex Tomb told reporter Ed Haas that the FBI still did not have enough evidence:The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.In fact, many leading liberals have expressed doubts about 9/11, including Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, William Blum, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, Lewis Lapham, Dan Hamburg, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Marc Crispin Miller, Howard Zinn, Robert McChesney, Gore Vidal, Chris Floyd, Robert Fisk, Medea Benjamin, Doris Granny D Haddock, Paul Hawken, David Cobb, Randy Hayes, Ernest Callenbach, Dennis Bernstein, Paul H. Ray, Michael Franti, Janeane Garafalo and Ed Asner.As have many prominent old-fashioned conservatives. And the 9/11 Commissioners themselves.