Ban Ki-Moon 'URGES' Israel not to kill unarmed civillians. 7 dead - 111 injured

A UN report into the bloodshed along the Israeli-Lebanon border on Nakba Day, has slammed the Israeli army for using unnecessary force, a newspaper said yesterday.

The report was released by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this week and passed on to the 15 members of the Security Council, with a copy also passed on to Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

The study focuses on the events of May 15 when thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon marched on the Israeli border. As the protesters tried to scale the fence, Israeli troops opened fire, killing seven and injuring 111, the report said.

The report found Israeli troops "used direct live fire against unarmed demonstrators" and urged the army to avoid doing so in situations where there was no immediate threat to life.

In his concluding remarks, Mr Ban urges the Israeli military to act only with the level of force appropriate to the threat facing its troops.

Israel eyeing reoccupation of Sinai

Regional analysts say Israeli officials are thinking about reoccupying the Sinai Peninsula because of the growing prospect of infiltration by al-Qaida and other militants such as Hamas, the inability of the Egyptian military to guarantee security and the prospect of a cut-off of vital natural gas supplies flowing through a repeatedly sabotaged pipeline, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Israeli officials already have warned of a heightened terrorist threat from the Sinai. In April, Israeli aircraft attacked a car said to be carrying three Hamas operatives allegedly planning to abduct Israelis there.

In response, Israel's counter-terrorism bureau issued an instruction that told of "updated information that terrorist organizations are continuing their efforts to abduct Israeli tourists in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula for bargaining purposes" and that "terror agents that are residing in Sinai are coordinating plans for such attacks with local Bedouin collaborators."

Since the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in January, Israel has become increasingly concerned with the security of the Sinai, a stretch of land that is three times the size of Israel's pre-1967 border area, or some 23,000 square miles.

As G2Bulletin recently reported, some 400 al-Qaida militants are known to have infiltrated into the Sinai with the help of Hamas Palestinians from bordering Gaza. There also is Israeli concern that Hamas could bring in rockets from the Gaza Strip and shoot them into Israel along the 140-mile border between Israel and the Sinai.

Egyptian authorities also claim they no longer can maintain security in the region.

Egyptian police are abandoning their remote stations and checkpoints, which are coming under increased attacks from Bedouin tribesmen in the region. Bedouin tribesmen ransacked numerous abandoned government facilities and have threatened to attack South Sinai oil installations and tourist resorts.

"The Sinai is already known as a lawless land," according to a senior Israeli official. "There is real concern that if the Egyptians don't get the Sinai back under their control, it could develop into a major threat to Israel."

Obama Administration Lists Israel as a Terror Sponsor!

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) maintains a list of “specially designated countries” (SDCs) that “have shown a tendency to promote, produce or protect terrorist organizations or their members.” The folks from these nations get special scrutiny when they enter the U.S.

Here’s the short list:

Afghanistan
West Bank
Algeria
Bahrain
Oman
Bangladesh
Pakistan
Philippines
Egypt
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
Indonesia
Somalia
Iran
Sudan
Iraq
Syria
Israel
And so forth....

Israel? Yes Israel is one of the thirty-six SDCs that “promote, produce, or protect” terrorists, according to the Obama Administration. With splendid equality, they manage to list the world’s biggest victim alongside the globe’s leading perpetrators of terrorism. Israelis coming into America get the same high level of scrutiny that Iranians do!

This information, which comes to us courtesy of the wonderful website www.ruthfullyyours.com, is as shocking as it is credible.

That Obama has tried to maintain that there is a moral equilibrium between Israel and the aggressive Arabs that surround it is well known. But to list Israel as a promoter, protector, or producer of terrorism is quite extraordinary.

Doubtless some politically correct soul at ICE or in the State Department felt that the U.S. needed to show impartiality in making up its list and include non-Muslim countries. What better rebuttal to those who would claim that the ICE is profiling Muslims than to say that Israel is also on the list?

Small justice for some!

USA "Blackmails" UN. - General Assembly can nullify "VETO POWERS" under "Uniting for Peace" mechanism

The US could withdraw funding from the United Nations if its members decide to recognise and independent Palestinian state, a close ally of President Barack Obama has warned.

By Jon Swaine, New York and Adrian Blomfield

6:21PM BST 24 Jun 2011

Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the UN, said there was "no greater threat" to US support and funding of the UN than the prospect of Palestinian statehood being endorsed by member states.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian authority, plans to ask the UN general assembly, which comprises all 192 members, to vote on recognition at its annual meeting in New York in September.

The US and Israel are pressing Mr Abbas to drop his plans. Mr Obama has strongly opposed the move, raising the prospect of a veto in the UN Security Council, which is expected to vote on a Palestinian statehood proposal in July.

But Palestinian officials have spoken of their determination to a circumvent a US veto by deploying a rarely used Cold War mechanism known as "Uniting for Peace" under which a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly can override the Security Council.

Although Palestinians believe they are close to securing such a majority, the General Assembly does not have the power to confer UN membership on a new Palestinian state, meaning that a successful vote would represent little more than a symbolic triumph.

Even so, Republicans in the US Congress are promising to react aggressively to any approval of statehood. Two congressmen have already vowed to initiate bills to withdraw UN funding in the House of Representatives.
Such a development could be devastating to the UN. The US provides almost a quarter of its $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion) annual budget, making a yearly contribution of almost $600 million (£375 million).
Speaking at an event in Washington, Miss Rice said the Obama administration was devoting "extraordinary efforts and energy" to restarting middle-eastern peace talks so that a vote in September could be avoided.
On the prospect of it being approved, she said: "This would be exceedingly politically damaging in our domestic context, as you can well imagine.
"And I cannot frankly think of a greater threat to our ability to maintain financial and political support for the United Nations in Congress than such an outcome".
A video of Miss Rice making the comments has been removed from the internet.
Attempting to play down their significance, a spokesman for the ambassador said: "These were informal remarks in a domestic setting."
The US is desperate to avoid being put into a position of having to wield its veto. With growing international support for Palestinian statehood, even in Europe, the US is looking increasingly isolated in its support for Israel and a veto would badly damage Mr Obama's credentials in a rapidly changing Middle East.
But the president faces a politically damaging backlash from the pro-Israeli lobby and its many supporters in Congress if he does not block a resolution, a move that could also cost all-important Jewish votes in key swing states like Florida during next year's presidential election.
Mr Obama has already angered the Israeli government and its US supporters by calling for a Palestinian state that roughly corresponds to the existing boundaries of the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel occupied after the Six Day war of 1967.
The move was intended to rejuvenate the stalled Middle East peace process.
But Palestinian officials, in public at least, say they remain committed to a UN vote as the only realistic way of breaking the deadlock.
Western powers have backed a two-year Palestinian state-building programme that reaches fruition at the end of August. It has already been judged a success by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and Palestinian officials say it would be hypocritical for the West to back the state-building exercise but not its "logical outcome".
Britain has indicated that it would not join the US in vetoing Palestinian statehood in the Security Council. But David Cameron is also hoping to avert a highly divisive vote in the general assembly.
"The question is whether we can do anything that might deflect the Palestinians from going ahead with this," a British diplomatic source said.
Some Palestinian officials have conceded in private that they do not want to fall out with Mr Obama and are working on ways to resume peace talks with Israel and postpone a statehood vote.