Watchman Newsletter

Palestinians welcome Turkey involvement in Gaza, Fayyad says

Haaretz (Link) - Jack Khoury and Reuters (June 12, 2010)

The Palestinians would support any move that would lift the Gaza blockade, including Turkey’s possible involvement, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Saturday.

Fayyad’s comments came after the Lebanese Ad-Diyar newspaper quoted an Arab diplomatic source earlier Saturday, saying that Turkey could be given a central role in supervising the border crossings with the Gaza Strip as part of a deal to repair ties between Israel and Turkey.

The relationship between Israel and Turkey has deteriorated dramatically since the IDF raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31 in which nine people, including eight Turks and one Turkish-American, were killed.

“The Palestinian Authority welcomes any mediation that would lift the siege off Gaza,” Fayyad told reporters, saying that alleviating the Strip’s condition was “a general Palestinian interest, and doesn’t strengthen this or that faction.”

Fed to Conduct First Test Auction of Bank Cds

Money News (Link) - AP (June 11, 2010)

The Federal Reserve on Monday will conduct the first test of a new tool intended to soak up the huge amounts of money it has injected into the economy.

Under the program, the Fed will offer banks the opportunity to purchase the equivalent of certificates of deposit.

The so-called “term deposits” will pay interest and provide banks with an incentive to keep their money at the Fed. Otherwise, circulating it through lending could cause higher inflation.

In an effort to combat the financial crisis and stimulate the economy, the Fed cut a key short-term interest rate to a record-low rate of nearly zero. It also pumped about $1.5 trillion of extra funds into the financial system.

Once the economy is on firmer footing, the term deposits program will be one of the Fed’s tools for reeling in that extraordinary stimulus.

The central bank said Friday that it will auction $1 billion of the so-called “term deposit” securities on Monday. The securities will mature in 14 days.

The central bank said last month that a second operation will be conducted on June 28 for 28-day deposits and a third will be held on July 12, offering 84-day deposits. Amounts weren’t provided for those operations.

The operations are intended as a test of the term deposit program.

EU seeks to open sea route to Gaza

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Tovah Lazaroff and Herb Keinon (June 11, 2010)

The European Union wants to help open a sea route to Gaza and to revive and expand its role at the land crossings into the area, diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

Its Foreign Affairs Council plans to debate the matter on Monday, when ministers from the EU’s 27 countries convene in Luxembourg for their monthly meeting.

The debate comes amidst sharp international criticism of Israel’s three-year policy of closing Gaza’s land passages to all but humanitarian goods.

“The EU has called for an immediate and sustained opening of the Gaza crossings and they will look into options of how the EU could facilitate this,” a council spokeswoman told the Post.

According to diplomatic sources the EU has floated a plan for Gaza-bound ships to be inspected in Cyprus to ensure that no weapons are on board.

A European vessel would then accompany the ship to Gaza. In an alternative plan the ship would dock first in Ashdod to be inspected by Israel and then proceed under similar accompaniment to Gaza.

‘Nobody denies Jewish history here’

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Hilary Leila Krieger (June 11, 2010)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas laid out new requirements for moving to direct talks with Israel Thursday, dropping earlier calls for a settlement freeze in favor of progress on borders and security.

Specifically, he said he was looking for agreement from the Netanyahu government that the basis for borders would be the 1967 lines with agreed land swaps, an arrangement he said was in place during his direct talks with the previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

“Everyone around the world talks about the ’67 borders, but with some amendments, some swaps here and there,” he told a Brookings Institution forum the day after he met with US President Barack Obama and other top American officials.

Obama on Thursday reiterated America’s call for the parties to move quickly from indirect talks that began last month toward direct negotiations, which Israel has long called for. The Palestinians agreed to indirect talks so long as they dealt with substantive issues such as borders and security, but Israel prefers to address those and all other final status topics in face-to-face negotiations.

Israel: Want to End the Gaza Blockade? Grant Shalit his Rights

Israel National News (Link) - Maayana Miskin (June 11, 2010)

If Hamas truly wants to end the blockade on Gaza, there is an easy way to do so - allow the Red Cross to visit kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, says Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Granting visits to Shalit, as required by international law, is “the minimal condition for lifting the blockade,” he said.

“As long as this condition is not fulfilled, there is no reason to change the situation,” Lieberman declared.

Shalit was kidnapped in 2006 while on patrol outside Gaza, and has been held incommunicado by Hamas ever since. The terrorist group is demanding the release of more than one thousand terrorists held in Israeli prisons, including mass murderers, in exchange for the young soldier’s freedom.

Israel put a blockade on Gaza following the kidnapping and Hamas’ rise to power, while Egypt closed its border once Hamas seized control in 2007 and only opened it this week. Humanitarian goods are allowed into Gaza from Israel on an ongoing basis.

The flotilla organizers refused Shalit’s father’s request to bring him a letter.

Worst Locust Plague in Two Decades Threatens Australian Harvest

Bloomberg (Link) - Wendy Pugh (June 11, 2010)

The worst locust plague in more than two decades is threatening to strike Australia, the world’s fourth-largest wheat exporter, after rainfall boosted egg-laying by the insects in major crop growing regions.

“There are hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops and pastures that are potentially at risk,” Chris Adriaansen, director at the Canberra-based Australian Plague Locust Commission said in an interview by phone. “Tens of millions of dollars” will be spent during the southern hemisphere spring to reduce the affects of the infestation, he said.

The forecast plague could cost Victoria’s agriculture sector A$2 billion ($1.7 billion) if left untreated, the state government said today. Widespread egg-laying across south- eastern Australia has set the scene for the biggest hatching for at least 25 years, according to the commission, which describes locusts as the nation’s most serious pest species.

“The advice of leading scientists indicates the scale of the coming spring’s outbreak could be as bad as we experienced in 1973 and 1974 when locusts swarmed through much of Victoria,” state premier John Brumby said today in a statement. “Prior to that, the last outbreak of this scale was in 1934, so we could be facing a once-in-a-lifetime locust plague with locusts swarming right across the state.”

Sources: Obama Administration to Support Anti-Israel Resolution at UN Next Week

Weekly Standard (Link) - William Kristol (June 11, 2010)

The Weekly Standard has learned that senior Obama administration officials have been telling foreign governments that the administration intends to support an effort next week at the United Nations to set up an independent commission, under UN auspices, to investigate Israel’s behavior in the Gaza flotilla incident. The White House has apparently shrugged off concerns from elsewhere in the U.S. government that a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations; b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas; and c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.

While UN Ambassador Susan Rice is reported to have played an important role in pushing for U.S. support of a UN investigation, the decision is, one official stressed, of course the president’s. The government of Israel has been consulting with the U.S. government on its own Israeli investigative panel, to be led by a retired supreme court justice, that would include respected international participants, including one from the U.S. But the Obama administration is reportedly saying that such a “kosher panel” is not good enough to satisfy the international community, or the Obama White House.

Is the President Funding Terrorism?

Fox Business (Link) - David Asman (June 11, 2010)

This is the most provocative question we’ve ever raised on Scoreboard: Did the president just commit taxpayer funds for terrorists?

We don’t ask this to score points, but because we believe this could be one of the most serious breaches of U.S. terror law that we’ve seen since 9/11.

President Obama announced in a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he’s planning to send $400 million in so-called humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The problem is that the Gaza Strip is controlled by a terrorist organization called Hamas. And I use the word “controlled” mildly.

You step out of line with Hamas and they kill you. They also kill innocent civilians outside of Gaza. That’s why they’re on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. That’s also why people go to jail for giving money to Hamas.

In 2008, five members of the now-defunct Holy Land Foundation were convicted of funneling money to Hamas and sentenced to prison. The defendants said they “only gave much-needed aid to a volatile region.” That’s essentially what the president is saying about your money that he’ll be sending to Gaza. Of course, we’ll get all the assurances in the world about how the money will be closely watched and none of it will end up in the hands of terrorists.

But we’ve seen this movie before, many times. We know what happens when so-called “humanitarian aid” goes to areas controlled by terrorists. A good portion of the money always finds a way to Swiss bank accounts or to fund more terrorist activity. In the case of the late PLO chief Yasser Arafat, money meant for poor Palestinians went to his Swiss bank accounts and to other terrorists.

Anwar al-Awlaki: MI5 warns of the al-Qaeda preacher targeting Britain

Telegraph UK (Link) - Duncan Gardham and Con Coughlin (June 11, 2010)

The security services fear that a new generation of British extremists is being radicalised by Awlaki, who recruited the Detroit plane bomber. They are concerned that Awlaki’s followers could unleash a wave of easily planned guerrilla-style terrorist attacks, similar to the massacre in Mumbai.

Such small-scale attacks could be carried out cheaply by individuals with little terrorist training and without the need for the support of a large organisation.

The British security services have become so worried about Awlaki’s rising influence that they have alerted ministers to their fears.

He is now regarded as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.

A briefing paper, seen by The Daily Telegraph, has been circulated within government, warning that Awlaki has now “cemented his position as one of the leading English-speaking jihadi ideologues”. His growing influence was one of the factors that led to a raised terrorism alert level in Britain earlier this year.

Awlaki, who was born in America, but is of Yemeni descent, is in hiding in Yemen, where he also spent his teenage years. He has become the foremost influence on young radical Muslims across the world through his English language sermons delivered over the internet.

He said in a statement in March: “Isn’t it ironic that the two capitals of the war against Islam, Washington DC and London, have also become among the centres of Western Jihad [holy war]. Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea.”

IMF: Risks to Global Economy Have ‘Risen Significantly’

Money News (Link) - Frank McGuire (June 10, 2010)

The risks to a robust global recovery have “risen significantly” as many governments struggle with debt, a top International Monetary Fund official has warned.

“After nearly two years of global economic and financial upheaval, shockwaves are still being felt, as we have seen with recent developments in Europe and the resulting financial market volatility,” Naoyuki Shinohara, the IMF’s deputy managing director, said in Singapore on Wednesday.

“The global outlook remains unusually uncertain and downside risks have risen significantly,” Shinohara said, according to Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

Countries across Europe are being pressured to slash their deficits, which were deepened by the financial crisis and the governments’ response to it.

Some economists fear that moves by countries ranging from Britain to Spain to rein in public spending at the same time will set back a global recovery, the Telegraph reported.

Greece is tapping China’s deep pockets to help rebuild its economy

The Washington Post (Link) - Anthony Faiola (June 9, 2010)

Nearly bankrupt and sullied in the eyes of foreign investors, Greece is moving to rebuild its economy by tapping the deep pockets of another ancient civilization: China.

Spurred on by government incentives and bargain-basement prices, the Chinese are planning to pump hundreds of millions -- perhaps billions -- of euros into Greece even as other investors run the other way. The cornerstone of those plans is the transformation of the Mediterranean port of Piraeus into the Rotterdam of the south, creating a modern gateway linking Chinese factories with consumers across Europe and North Africa.

The port project is emerging as a bellwether for Greek plans to pay down debt and reinvent its broken economy by privatizing inefficient government-owned utilities, trains and even casinos. This week, the Chinese shipping giant Cosco assumed full control of the major container dock in Piraeus, just southwest of Athens. In return, the Chinese have pledged to spend $700 million to construct a new pier and upgrade existing docks.

The Greek government, for its part, is taking on the powerful unions in a bid to ensure that the Chinese can introduce dramatic changes to increase efficiency and productivity. That effort has ironically turned the Greek Communist Party -- which is closely aligned with the labor unions -- into the fiercest critic of China’s economic march on Greece.

FTM Exclusive: Two More Reasons Why America’s Economic Recovery Is Not As It Seems

Follow The Money Daily (Link) - Jerry Robinson (June 9, 2010)

The mainstream financial commentators still don’t get it. After years of getting it wrong time after time, many of the financial pundits and talking-heads are now puzzled as to why the price of gold is still going up considering that the “economic recovery” is finally taking hold. In my next article, I will outline several reasons why gold will reach $1,300/oz by the end of the summer. For now, let’s quickly consider two more reasons why the so-called economic “recovery” is not actually as good as it may seem on the surface.

GDP Numbers: Many have pointed to increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers as evidence that an economic recovery is beginning. This would be true if the numbers were not overly inflated by outrageous amounts of government spending which were then followed by government stimulus designed to increase consumption in the private sector. To illustrate this, consider how GDP is calculated. The components that economists measure when calculating GDP can be summed up nicely with the following equation.

GDP = C + I + G + EX – IM

In plain English, this calculation states that GDP is equal to four things added together:

Analysis: U.N. rebukes of Israel permitted in U.S. policy shift

Reuters (Link) - Louis Charbonneau (June 8, 2010)

Under President Barack Obama, the United States no longer provides Israel with automatic support at the United Nations where the Jewish state faces a constant barrage of criticism and condemnation.

The subtle but noticeable shift in the U.S. approach to its Middle East ally comes amid what some analysts describe as one of the most serious crises in U.S.-Israeli relations in years.

Under Obama, the United States seeks to reclaim its role as an impartial Middle East peace broker which critics say it lost during the previous administration of George W. Bush.

“Israel became used to unconditional support of the United States during eight years of the Bush administration,” said Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

She said Bush’s “extreme position” makes even mild criticism appear dramatic to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet.

However, Washington continues to block what it sees as efforts to use the United Nations as a forum for bashing Israel -- which one U.S. official told Reuters was “nine out of 10 initiatives regarding Israel in New York.”

Turkey is calling for a jihad against Israel

Guardian UK (Link) - Joshua Teitelbaum (June 8, 2010)

Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called the Israeli raid on the Mava Marmaris “murder conducted by a state.”

Support for Turkey is at an all-time high in the Arab world. The last time Turkish flags were carried through the streets of Middle Eastern capitals was during the first world war, as people took to the streets in continued support for the Ottoman sultan-caliph against the western entente powers. The sultan-caliph had proclaimed a jihad. Thanks to Turkish government support of a blockade-running mission led by a group of Hamas sympathisers, they are flying once again. No ruling Arab leader is as popular as the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose discourse amounts to calls for a jihad against Israel.

Israel’s relations with Ankara – military, economic, and tourist (Israelis once flocked to Turkey) – have been sacrificed on the altar of Turkey’s retrograde aspiration to lead the Islamic world and establish itself along with Iran as an alternative to American power. Turkey is once again turning eastwards.

The Erdogan government’s outrageous provocation of Israel could have been prevented. Israel begged the Turkish government not to let the Mava Marmaris depart with its meagre cargo of humanitarian aid (meagre compared to the aid Israel facilitates every day) and Islamist extremists armed to the teeth with clubs, wrist rockets that fire deadly projectiles, switchblades and military-style night vision equipment.

The provocation is all the more shameful since the Turkish government has proclaimed that all passengers were checked thoroughly. Is this the behaviour of a friendly country? Of the six ships, only the Turkish ship resisted violently; all the others were boarded without incident.

The Subprime Nation

The Trumpet (Link) - Robert Morley (June 8, 2010)

General Motors can’t keep up with demand. Vehicles are speeding off dealer lots. Does this surge in sales indicate that the economy is recovering? Or does it just mean that America hasn’t learned anything from its mess?

As GM goes, so goes the nation.

On June 2, GM announced a huge improvement in vehicle sales, up 17 percent over May of last year. The company also posted its first quarterly profit in almost three years. Showing strong demand for new models and higher fleet sales, GM appears to be benefiting from an improving economy.

Appearances can be deceiving. You might think the American economic recovery is for real, but don’t go out and mortgage the farm just yet.

Double-digit jumps in sales volume are certainly good signs, but beating last year’s figures isn’t much to brag about, if you recall. One year ago, GM (and Chrysler) were headed into bankruptcy protection, factories and dealerships were being shuttered, fears abounded about purchasing a vehicle from a company that would be run by government bureaucrats, and the whole economy was in free fall.

The real shock would have been if GM didn’t beat last May’s numbers.

Helen Thomas retires after flap Israel remark flap

Yahoo! News (Link) - AP (June 7, 2010)

Longtime Washington journalist Helen Thomas abruptly retired Monday, according to her employer, Hearst News Service.

The 89-year-old Thomas, dean of the White House press corps, leaves amid a brewing controversy over remarks she made about Israel and Palestinians.

Thomas, known for her confrontational questioning, apologized for comments that were captured on video and have spread widely on the Internet. On the May 27 video, Thomas says Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine,” suggesting they go to Germany, Poland or the U.S.

The Hearst announcement came shortly after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called her remarks “offensive and reprehensible.”

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

Our World: The plain truth about Israel

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - Caroline Glick (June 7, 2010)

This country is the US’s greatest strategic asset in the region. Indeed, given the strategic importance of the Middle East to American national security, Israel is arguably its greatest strategic asset outside the military.

In other times, Hearst Newspapers White House Correspondent Helen Thomas's demand that the Jews "get the hell out of Palestine," and go back to Poland, Germany and America would have been front page news in every newspaper in the US the day after the story broke.

In other times, had the dean of the White House Correspondents Association expressed such hatred for the Jews, the White House would have immediately removed her accreditation rather than wait three days to criticize her.

In other times, the White House Correspondents Association would have expelled her.

In other times, her employer - Hearst Newspapers - would have fired her.

But in our times, it took days for anyone other than Jews and conservatives to condemn Thomas's vile statements to Rabbi David Nesenoff. And she was not fired. She was allowed to retire.

Egypt-Gaza border to stay open

The Jerusalem Post (Link) - AP (June 07, 2010)

The embargo of Gaza has been a failure and Egypt will keep an open border with the Hamas-run territory for the foreseeable future, an Egyptian security official said on Monday.

Keeping the Rafah crossing point open long term would seriously undercut Israel's efforts to isolate and punish Gaza's Hamas rulers and give the Palestinians back a crucial link to the outside the world.

Egypt opened its border with Gaza soon after Israel's commando raid on an international flotilla of activists trying to break the blockade last week.

The Egyptian security official explained that the border closure has failed to achieve its goals, including the release of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas since 2006. Israeli airstrikes and Egyptian efforts have also not choked off the bustling smuggling trade that makes use of hundreds of tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Ground Zero Mosque Sponsor Unmasked as Free Gaza Donor

Israel National News (Link) - Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu (June 6, 2010)

The Muslim cleric behind the proposed giant mosque near Ground Zero is none other than a major donor to the pro-Hamas Free Gaza movement, the New York Post reported. The cleric, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf also is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization.

The Free Gaza group has been behind several attempts to break the Israeli sea embargo on Hamas. The latest attempt, under the guise of sending humanitarian aid, was foiled Saturday when the Israeli Navy intercepted the “Rachel Corrie” ship before it could approach the Gaza Coast.

The Perdena organization has donated $366,000 to Free Gaza, which has organized several attempts to break the Israeli sea embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza. Earlier in the week, the Mavi Marmara ship’s terrorist “activists” opened fire and brutally beat Navy commandos, despite Free Gaza promises that there would be no violence. Free Gaza spokeswoman Greta Berlin has charged that the IDF edited and falsified videos clearly showing that the passengers on the ship initially assaulted commandos before they reached the decks.

Forgive Me, FCC

Omega Letter (Link) - Jack Kinsella (June 6, 2010)

The Federal Communications Commission has been given a new mandate -- to ‘save’ mainstream journalism.  It appears that the mainstream media, (the networks, [except Fox] the NYTimes, LATimes, Washington Post and [probably] the Huffington Post.

It appears that only the liberal ‘mainstream’ media needs saving, however.   So-called ‘conservative media’ is doing just fine.  According to the FCC’s working papers, one of the ways they intend to save the mainstream is by monitoring ‘hate speech’ on the internet.

The FCC is responding to a petition signed by the National Hispanic Media Coalition, together with various other left groups, including Free Press,  the Media Access Project, Common Cause, the Prometheus Radio Project, and the League of United Latin American Citizen.

Discoverthenetworks.org reports that even while Free Press [backed by George Soros] “calls for revolution, the overthrow of the capitalist system, and the socialization of America, Free Press has been regularly granted audiences not only with members of Congress, but with those overseeing media policy at the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission.

For example, when Julius Genachowski became chairman of the FCC, he promptly appointed Free Press spokeswoman Jen Howard to be his Press Secretary. By late September … Genachowski announced his plan to push for net neutrality.” 

Another group comprising the coalition is the Center for Media Justice, aka, the Center for “social justice” and “environmental justice.”