[tesla69]

Originally Posted by fugazifan

i asked when, not what. do you have a link to these findings?

look at rense.com or indymedia.com or msnbc.com I don't have time to research it

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

does it look like this?



do you eat with it or do you just talk?

 

someone's missing a cunt i think.
"shit, where's my cunt?"

[tesla69]

Here's your conspiracy


Why It Rains: Hamas holding �Israeli� gas reserves hostage
Jake Bower, The Electronic Intifada, 5 July 2006



An unexpected energy windfall on Israel's doorstep promises to resolve Israel's energy security concerns for years to come. Unfortunately for Israek, it is the Palestinian Authority that controls the licensing of these reserves. So, as Operation Summer Rains washes away the administrative and political structures in the occupied territories, has Israel decided to use Hamas as an excuse to dismantle the PA and seize its energy assets?

After the Iranian Revolution cut-off energy supplies in 1979, and the loss of Sinai's oil in 1982, Israel became dependent on expensive, long-distance energy imports. Towards the end of the 1990s, in an attempt to alleviate concerns over its energy security and reduce its dependency on imported oil, Israel decided to place a greater emphasis on natural gas. The architect of Israel's energy strategy at the time was Netanyahu's Minister of National Infrastructure, Ariel Sharon.

After Netanyahu's election defeat in 1999, Ehud Barak sought to take advantage of improved relations with Egypt to import some of Israel's gas from the Nile Delta [1]. There was, however, political resistance to the deal from within both countries and, when relations with Egypt began to deteriorate with the start of the 2nd Intifada and Sharon's subsequent rise to power, the $3 billion deal was put on the back-burner. However, the possibility of avoiding dependence on such a politically contentious source arose in 2000 when several energy companies, including British Gas (BG), announced the discovery of �significant deposits� of natural gas off the Israeli coast [2].

Estimated at 100 billion cubic meters of proven reserves, these discoveries potentially offer enough gas to meet Israel's goal of supplying 25% of its energy needs for more than 20 years - even without further imports [3]. The discovery has also raised realistic expectations of locating oil deposits beneath the gas fields.

Unfortunately for Israel, 60% of these reserves are in waters controlled by the Palestinian Authority, which has signed a 25-year contract with British Gas for further exploration in the area. Since this discovery, Israel has proceeded with the development of its reserves with the US-Israeli company Yam Tethys, but has been faced with an obvious dilemma over the Palestinian deposits [4]. Keen to secure the gas for its domestic market but unwilling to submit its sensitive energy supplies (and their profits) into the hands of the Palestinians, Israel has for the past 6 years pursued a policy of non-commitment, stalling and obstruction.

Despite early endorsement of the British Gas plan to develop the PA reserves for the Israeli market, the intensification of tensions during the Intifada allowed Sharon to veto the Gaza deal on security grounds. With the exploitation of the Palestinian reserves halted and the Egyptian deal put on hold, Israel has used the Yam Tethys supply as a stopgap. However, as its hungry economy quickly bought up these reserves and prices began to rise Israel needed to act to guarantee its future supplies. After years of on-off negotiations between the two reluctant trade partners, in July 2005, Israel signed a 15-year contract for Egyptian gas [5].

However, following the signing of the deal it was revealed that - impatient with Israeli intransigence - Egypt, British Gas and the Palestinian Authority had also been secretly negotiating a deal to sidestep the problematic Israeli market. Within a month, the three parties announced their plan to extract Gazan gas, transport it to Egypt in an Egyptian controlled pipeline, and then ship it on in liquefied form to the international market [6].

The possibility that Israel could be permanently excluded from such a tempting energy windfall on their doorstep, and that the main beneficiaries would be Egypt and the Palestinians, has since prompted Olmert to reverse Sharon's veto and reopen negotiations with BG over the supply of Gazan gas to Israel. Despite the ongoing international isolation of Hamas, the BG deal was high on the agenda during Olmert's recent meeting with British Chancellor Gordon Brown [6].

Despite BG's commitments to Egypt and the PA, the company has announced that it is willing to enter into a deal with Israel. Within Israel, political legitimacy for the reversal has come from increasing criticisms of high prices caused by Egypt's effective monopoly of Israeli gas supply. Also, according to Haaretz, Israel is confident that it has enough �influence� to persuade Egypt to back out of the Gazan deal, with �senior government sources� asserting that: �The gas off Gaza will come to Israel in the end.� [6].

Until last week, Israel's confidence did not make any sense. The security situation that provoked Sharon's original veto of Gazan gas had not improved and it seems inconceivable that Israel would allow the PA, let alone Hamas, to reap the benefits of the Gazan gas fields. BG has made it clear that its Gazan gas will be developed soon, whether Israel likes it or not, but if Hamas is not to be the partner, then who is?

The arrival of �Summer Rains� gives us a sour answer. If the ongoing attacks on Gaza succeed in destroying the Palestinian Authority as a viable political entity, all commercial contracts with the Authority, such as that with British Gas, will become worthless and will have to be renegotiated with the Israeli government. Perhaps the most valuable �hostage� that Hamas has in the current crisis then is not the 19-year old Israeli soldier, but the Palestinian gas reserves that Israel claims as its own, and may go to extreme lengths to rescue.


Jake Bower is the pseudonym of a postgraduate historian in the UK who specialises in the strategic and tactical framework behind American foreign interventions. The above article was edited from a wider analysis of the regional and global dynamics of the new �great game� for control of energy resources and transit infrastructure.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

"Haile I, behold I Jah, behold I Jah...

Midnight, a vision of the Most High
Lord I, I should have never shown my face up in the
Holy Battle in a, Yarushalem yeah,
I should have begged Natty Congo not to come away
I should have moved another way
Oh Lord,
I should have stayed another day..
whoa I!
Over, to the yonder side,
over, to the yonder side,
a go
a man
a stay
a plan
a go
a man
a simple plan
a sold them sold them sold them sold them soul.....

they ask me why I play music?

MUSIC IS THE MOST HIGH!" (

 

)

I took out the more visible sloganeering 'cause it wouldn't make sense on a message board, and I won't quote the name of the author of the text. This sums up my feelings about the whole thing perfectly, though. Sorry about the long text.


Just over a year since the last Lebanese conflict, the permanent crisis in the Middle East has again exploded into open war. This time the theatre is the “Gaza strip” one of the most densely populated territories in the world. The scenes are the same: missiles and aerial bombardments, followed by tanks and by street-by-street, house-to-house fighting, with a vertiginous increase in the number of victims. As always, the civilian population also pays an extremely high price.
Coming suddenly to a head, this crisis is just the latest episode in the unresolved “Palestinian question”, which is the epicentre of a wider Middle Eastern question: a drama with many actors, all jointly responsible. Firstly, imperialism as a whole, and its various fractions endlessly in competition with each other – primarily the USA and the European Union, but also Russia and the Asian powers – who exploit and feed local conflicts in order to retain or increase their economic and political presence on both fronts.
Secondly, the bourgeoisie of the countries in the area – from Israel to Iran – are also involved in the game of clashes and alliances, whether declared or kept quiet, in defence of their own capitalist interests. Countries such as Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia have historically brandished the banner of the “Palestinian question” as a shield in their respective national politics, manoeuvering the Palestinian fractions to their own advantage, even within their own internal military conflicts. Today Iran presents itself as a “champion” against Israel, in order to assert itself as a power in the region, and finances Hamas, while conversely Egypt applauds a defeat for Hamas, as weakening Iran. Coming from those who put fuel on the fire, calls for a truce and for peace are tardy and hypocritical.

The USA, although firm in support of Israel, has been caught at a critical moment, that of the presidential handing-over and a redefinition of their foreign policy line.
The European Union – which already has a substantial military intervention force in the Lebanon – has taken on a fresh attempt to bring the parties to mediation, but is paying the penalty of lacking the structures to realise a general Middle Eastern political line: a synthesis that could combine “defending Israel” with safeguards for Europe’s pro-Arab tradition, for long the key to its imperialist penetration in the area.
For the moment, the last word rests with the destructive violence of weapons. The enormous disproportion between the Israeli army and Hamas militias should not cause us to lose the international perspective. The Palestinian proletariat is held hostage by the national issue, which is manipulated by capitalism and imperialism. But none of the many champions of the “rights of the Palestinian people” has ever said a word in support of the “invisible army” of the immigrant Palestinian workers exploited in Israel, and in the lands of their Arab “brothers”. To denounce only one of the two conflicting “barbarisms” leads to supporting one group of capitalist interests against another, and thus to supporting, directly or indirectly, one of the competing imperialist fractions.

Those who today raise their voices only against the USA “warmongers” and Israel as the only “aggressor”, hide behind ideological smokescreens the reality of the Middle Eastern bourgeoisie which is violent, bloody and repressive, and a “peaceful” Europe which has stationed abroad tens of thousands of troops, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, as a guarantee of its own imperialist interests.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I wonder how long Im Westen nichts Neues

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by sarramkrop

Those who today raise their voices only against the USA “warmongers” and Israel as the only “aggressor”, hide behind ideological smokescreens the reality of the Middle Eastern bourgeoisie which is violent, bloody and repressive, and a “peaceful” Europe which has stationed abroad tens of thousands of troops, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, as a guarantee of its own imperialist interests.

yes. now we're talking.

it's not like the british empire didn't fuck it up good in the middle east first (and in india, asia, pakistan, iraq/kuwait, etc.)

the fact is though, any group of people is going to protect their interests at the expense of others. history has no saints. is there a cure for that? i don't think so-- moderation, perhaps, is the best we can hope for.

[Everyneurotic]

couldn't rep porky.

[Mostly Harmless]

 

'nuff said.

[Florya]

After screening ads for the Disasters Emergency Comittee, a coalition of humanitarian charities, after and during such conflicts as Darfur, Rwanda and Congo, and natural disasters in China, Pakistan, Indonesia and Thailand in recent years, the BBC nas refused to show a similar ad to raise money for the people of Gaza.
They say it's because they don't want to compromise their impartiality.
The only other time they've refused to run ads for DEC - after the last Israeli conflict in Lebanon.

Does anyone else see a pattern emerging?

[tesla69]

Killing all the animals in the zoo - how is that warranted in any way - assuming this story is true - who knows anymore.

http://story.chinanationalnews.com/i...d/458766/cs/1/

[mangajunky]

make falafel not war -

when's the cookoff?

[Kanamori Happy]

Originally Posted by Moshe

wish i had such good english.

I'd rather get stabbed in the heart than see tens of innocent bystanders killed in an attempt to stop the "knife-wielding lunatic".

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Kanamori Happy

I'd rather get stabbed in the heart than see tens of innocent bystanders killed in an attempt to stop the "knife-wielding lunatic".

you're wrongly attributing mathematical proportions to a metaphor.

if hamas is the lunatic and "me" is israel, then the "me" contains millions of civilians who would die if my heart gets stabbed.

the question if you wanna do the math correctly works only after you remove the metaphor:

would i kill a number of them in order to save the lot of us?

some would rather have martyrdom than survival, but i'd gut alive any motherfucker who threatened my family, without a moment's thought.

[Kanamori Happy]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

some would rather have martyrdom than survival, but i'd gut alive any motherfucker who threatened my family, without a moment's thought.

Gutting is one thing, but blowing him up and while doing so injuring or killing tens of innocent people, is a different thing altogether.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Kanamori Happy

Gutting is one thing, but blowing him up and while doing so injuring or killing tens of innocent people, is a different thing altogether.

again the bad math! again!!!

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

would i kill a number of them in order to save the lot of us?

considering the casualty rates are running well over ONE HUNDRED TO ONE, I suppose the the real people saying this to themselves are the palestinians, as it is clear that they pose no real or sizable threat to the Israeli population as a whole...

100-1 speaks for itself, and if it doesn't then ideology has blinded some..

its as peter tosh sang before them killed him too.. "everyone is crying for peace, but no one is crying for justice!"

God Bless the Souls..

 

Seliyu be'selam lai tanat'se fitihe (Pray for Peace built upon Justice)

[Moshe]

Originally Posted by Kanamori Happy

I'd rather get stabbed in the heart than see tens of innocent bystanders killed in an attempt to stop the "knife-wielding lunatic".

fair enough. how would you like your kids getting stabbed in the heart?