Maldini

Israeli Operations in Gaza Kill 4 Children, Mother, 2 Gunmen By Jonathan Ferziger and Saud Abu Ramadan April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Four children, their mother and two gunmen were killed in Israeli military operations in the northern Gaza Strip, the head of Palestinian emergency services said. The five family members died after a tank shell hit a home in Beit Hanoun, and the armed men were killed nearby in an exchange of fire with Israeli troops that followed, said Mo'aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian Health Ministry. Twenty people were wounded, he said. The Israeli army said its forces had carried out operations in the area, including two air raids. An army spokesman said an Israeli soldier was wounded and that the military didn't know the extent of Palestinian casualties. Palestinian militants fired at least five unguided Qassam rockets into Israel after the Beit Hanoun deaths, without causing injuries, the army said. Egyptian mediators have been trying to negotiate a cease- fire with representatives of Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that controls Gaza and is designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union. Israeli forces have carried out military raids to stop near- daily rocket attacks from Gaza on southern Israel. The Israeli government also has tightened an economic blockade of the territory.

Gaza violence mounts as talks on a truce with Israel continue GAZA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Violence in the Gaza Strip has mounted on Monday leaving seven people killed and more than ten injured as leaders of Gaza militant groups headed for talks in Egypt on a truce with Israel. Mo'aweya Hassanein, chief of emergency and ambulance services in the Palestinian health ministry said that seven people were killed, including a mother and four of her children in an Israeli strike on northern Gaza Strip. He told reporters that an Israeli army tank fired a shell that hit a house in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, killing a mother and four of her children, the oldest is seven years old and the youngest is one year old. Palestinian security sources closed to ruling Hamas movement in Gaza said that several Israeli army tanks, armored vehicles and bulldozers backed by helicopters stormed the town early on Monday morning. Palestinian militant groups said in separate leaflets sent to reporters that they confronted the Israeli army forces with bombs and grenades, adding that Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants exchanged fire in the area. Hassanein had later said on Monday that four Palestinian militants were injured, two seriously, in an Israeli airstrike on a group of militants near the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad (Holy War) movement's armed wing claimed responsibility for wounding four Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza Strip and for launching two homemade rockets from the area at southern Israel. Hamas armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, had also said in a statement that its militants confronted the Israeli army forces in northern Gaza Strip, and had launched several mortar shells and homemade rockets at Israel. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the West Bank and the deposed government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip condemned the killing of the mother and her four children. The PNA said in a statement that the ongoing Israeli army escalation against the Gaza Strip "would harm the efforts to agree on a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also condemned the Gaza shelling, saying it would make peace negotiations with Israel even more difficult. Following seven reported Palestinian deaths in an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) action on Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Hamas is to blame for all the attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip and the consequences of such attacks. However, the deaths cast more shadow on Egypt's mediation efforts to forge a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestinian militant groups. In the meantime, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haneya said in a statement that "the current Israeli military escalation against Gaza is an evidence that Israel is not interested in the efforts to agree on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip." While the Israeli army and the Palestinian militant groups were exchanging fire in northern Gaza Strip, representatives of those groups headed on Monday afternoon to Cairo to hold talks with Egyptian officials on a truce with Israel. Egypt is mediating between Israel and the militant groups in the Gaza Strip to agree on a ceasefire, lift more than ten months of Israeli blockade and reopen the crossing points that Israel had closed down. Israel imposed a strict blockade on the Gaza Strip and closed down all crossing points of the enclave after Hamas movement took control of the Gaza Strip by force in June last year. Moreover, Israeli officials have said the Jewish state would consider the truce deal if Hamas could restrain Islamic Jihad and other smaller militant groups from attacking Israel.

By Robert Berger Jerusalem 28 April 2008 Five members of a Palestinian family and a passerby have been killed by Israeli tank fire in the Gaza Strip. As Robert Berger reports from VOA's Jerusalem Bureau, the incident could torpedo efforts for a ceasefire. Palestinian men carry the body of Rudina Abu Meatak, 6, at the morgue of the Kamal Edwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip,28 Apr 2008 An Israeli tank shell slammed into a Palestinian home in Gaza, killing four children, under six years old, and their mother. The family was eating breakfast when the explosion occurred. The Israeli army said it used tanks and aircraft to target Palestinian gunmen in an area often used to fire rockets. A tank shell apparently went astray and struck the home. The Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, promises revenge. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum is calling on all factions to launch attacks against Israel. The response came quickly, as militants in Gaza fired rockets across the border. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak blames Hamas for the incident, saying the army is operating in Gaza because of daily Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli border communities. Barak says Israel will continue to strike at Hamas. He accuses the group of using civilians as human shields. The incident occurred several days after Israel rejected an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire offer from Hamas. Israel says Hamas would use a truce to rearm for the next round of violence. And, now, Hamas says Israel will be responsible for the escalation resulting from what it describes as the "massacre" in Gaza.

Era- Reborn

Disrupted fuel supply causes U.N. aid cuts in Gaza GAZA (Reuters) - A U.N. agency suspended its aid operations in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after an emergency shipment of fuel designated for its use was blocked by petrol-hungry Palestinian farmers. Mahmoud al-Khuzundar of the Association for Petrol Station Owners in the Gaza Strip said 50,000 liters (13,209 gallons) of diesel was meant to be delivered to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to help aid distribution. But a group of Gaza farmers who wanted fuel to be distributed openly beyond UNRWA blocked the tanker from reaching the terminal where fuel is pumped into the Gaza Strip, forcing the aid agency to suspend operations. "We did not receive any fuel today and therefore the distribution of food supplies has been suspended," said Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA's media advisor in Gaza. Israel stepped up its blockade of Gaza in June after Hamas seized the territory, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, from its Fatah rivals. Israel says it has limited fuel and other deliveries in response to cross-border rocket attacks by militants in Gaza. Abu Hasna said the food suspension will affect at least 700,000 refugees in the Hamas-controlled territory. UNRWA said 50,000 liters of fuel should be enough to last about a week. The petrol station owners' association has been on strike, refusing to collect the fuel near Nahal Oz crossing -- the only border terminal used to pump fuel to the Gaza Strip -- in protest at Israel's cutbacks in supplies to the territory. UNRWA warned on Wednesday it would be forced to suspend food distribution to Palestinians on Thursday unless it received fuel supplies. The European Union called on Israel to ensure fuel deliveries to Gaza. "It is unacceptable that the U.N. should find itself having to consider suspending its humanitarian operations simply for a lack of fuel for its vehicles," EU aid commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement. "It is also unacceptable that public services, such as garbage collection, sewage treatment, or hospitals are on the brink of collapse for the same reason," he said. "It's essential that the fuel supply to Gaza is resumed, and in particular that fuel provision for the United Nations agencies, as well as basic services be guaranteed immediately." Colonel Nir Press, head of Israel's Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza, said Israel had coordinated with UNRWA Thursday's disrupted delivery and that he hoped it would be renewed on Friday. "There is about a million liters (264,170 gallons) of diesel and petrol in storage tanks on the Palestinian side of Nahal Oz. For a month now, the Palestinians have not been taking the diesel and petrol," Press said. Press accused the Islamist Hamas group of preventing its distribution and creating the fuel shortage. Palestinian militants attacked the Nahal Oz fuel terminal two weeks ago, killing two Israeli civilians. DRAMATIC SITUATION The French medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said its operations, which have already been hampered by the shortages, will also end unless it receives new deliveries. "Currently MSF is functioning on its emergency stock and only has 10 days of fuel left. If supplies are not restored, the situation could become dramatic very quickly," said mission chief Duncan Mclean. Israel allowed one million liters of EU-funded diesel fuel to be pumped to Gaza's only power station on Wednesday after Kanan Abaid, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority in the Gaza Strip, warned the plant would have to shut down unless supplies resumed. A European Commission official said there was enough fuel at the plant for about three days, but that it would have to shut down on Sunday if no new deliveries were allowed through. (Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Brussels and Francois Murphy in Paris) (Writing by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Ari Rabinovitch and Sami Aboudi)

UN suspends aid to Gaza for lack of fuel GAZA CITY (AFP) — The United Nations stopped distributing aid to the Gaza Strip on Thursday after running out of fuel as the Israeli terminal that supplies the besieged Palestinian territory remained shut. "We have just stopped the distribution of all food aid to 650,000 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip because of the lack of fuel in our storage in Gaza," said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) office in Gaza. "We also stopped transporting students and officials in the Gaza Strip," he told AFP. "Not a litre of fuel came from Israel," he added. Israel, which maintains a punishing blockade on the impoverished territory, accused the Islamist Hamas movement of preventing distribution of one million litres of fuel (260,000 gallons) delivered about a week ago. But UNRWA retorted that the stored fuel was not destined for UN agencies in Gaza, which buy their own supplies. Israel suggested that the United Nations complain to Hamas, which controls Gaza. "They should take it up with Hamas and demand they get fuel from the million litres stored on the Palestinian side of the border," foreign ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said. "We did try today to transfer fuel directly to UNRWA but a farmers' demonstration supported by Hamas prevented us from doing so," he told AFP. John Ging, who heads the UNRWA offices in Gaza, said Israel had promised to supply 100,000 litres of diesel and 20,000 litres of petrol to the United Nations. "It is unacceptable that the UN should find itself having to consider suspending its humanitarian operations simply for a lack of fuel for its vehicles," EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement. Israel stopped supplying petrol and diesel, and cut fuel supplies for Gaza's power plant by half after Palestinian militants attacked Nahal Oz two weeks ago, killing two Israeli civilian employees. It resumed shipments of fuel for the power plant several days later, but again halted deliveries after another attack killed three Israeli soldiers near the crossing. Israel has sealed the Gaza Strip off to all but very limited humanitarian aid since Hamas seized control of the territory from forces loyal to moderate president Mahmud Abbas last June. A Hamas delegation announced after talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo that the Islamist movement was ready to accept a phased truce that would only extend to the occupied West Bank in a second stage in return for an end to Israel's blockade. Senior Hamas official Mahmud al-Zahar, a former Palestinian foreign minister, said the group was ready to accept the truce extending to West Bank after a six-month delay, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported. In the past Israel has rejected a truce covering all of the Palestinian territories, saying that its operations in the occupied West Bank are essential to prevent militants from launching attacks inside the Jewish state. On Wednesday, Robert Serry, the UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process, urged militants to stop attacking border crossings and called on Israel to lift its blockade. Humanitarian agencies say Gaza, one of the world's most densely populated territories with 1.5 million people living on a narrow sliver of land, is on the brink of disaster. Israel says its sanctions are necessary to pressure Hamas to end persistent rocket attacks. The situation was highlighted on Wednesday at a UN Security Council session in New York that saw Western ambassadors walk out in protest after the Libyan delegate compared conditions in Gaza to those in Nazi death camps. Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya's deputy UN ambassador, said on Thursday the situation in Gaza is actually "worse" than in the Nazi camps. "It is more than what happened in the concentration camps because there is the bombing, daily bombs in Gaza," Dabbashi told reporters. "It is worse." Libya, the sole Arab member on the 15-member council, acts as a spokesman for the Arab group at the United Nations. Israel's ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman reacted furiously to Dabbashi's comments, saying that it showed that Libya remained a "terrorist" state despite its rapprochement with the West of the past five years. "Libya is a very pertinent example of what happens when you let terrorists infiltrate the Security Council," he said.

Pennsylvania Democratic Primary Hillary Clinton : 1,258,245 Votes 55 % Barack Obama : 1,042,297 Votes 45 %

Analysis: Obama still struggling to win key constituencies PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Why can't Barack Obama close the deal? It's a question Hillary Rodham Clinton and her surrogates raised through the last days of the caustic Pennsylvania primary contest. And unfortunately for Obama — who lost to the former first lady by a 10-point margin Tuesday night — it's a question that bears repeating. The loss, despite a massive cash infusion and robust campaign presence in the state, underscores the persistent problems he's had winning over many of the voters who form the traditional Democratic party base. While the Illinois senator remains overwhelmingly popular among blacks, affluent voters and young people, other groups key to building the Democratic coalition remain elusive. Clinton bested him among white, blue-collar voters by a margin of 69 percent to 30 percent in Pennsylvania, similar to her showing in Ohio last month. She also won older voters, women and whites and improved her margins among white, non-Catholic men. To be sure, Obama has performed well among those groups in a handful of primaries, including Wisconsin and Virginia, both likely general election swing states. Obama surely will emerge with sufficient delegates to maintain his overall lead, and Clinton's win in Pennsylvania will not do much to close the popular vote gap as she tries to eat into his margin. But the sense of momentum that propelled him to crushing margins across 11 contests beginning in February has slowed, raising concerns among many party activists that he will be left bruised and limping by the time the primaries end in June. The Obama campaign points to the many advantages Clinton enjoyed in Pennsylvania: its large population of working class voters and seniors played to her strengths, and her family enjoys deep roots in Scranton, in the northeastern part of the state — a fact the New York senator never failed to bring up on the campaign trail. Former President Clinton, who remains a popular figure here, campaigned extensively for his wife. And she had the support of Ed Rendell, the state's popular governor and a savvy political operative in his own right. But Obama had considerable strengths of his own — money first and foremost. He spent $11.2 million on television ads to Clinton's $4.8 million. He spent countless more on phone banks, mail and voter targeting. Surveys among Pennsylvanians after they left the polls showed they viewed Obama as more honest and trustworthy than Clinton, and that they favored a candidate who can bring about change — Obama's core message — over one who, like Clinton, has had years of political experience. To be sure, the six-week hiatus after the last major primary in Mississippi were not particularly kind to either candidate. Obama was forced to defend his association with his 20-year pastor, Jeremiah Wright, after videos surfaced showing Wright delivering anti-American sermons from the pulpit. Obama also was confronted with his own comments at a fundraiser in San Francisco, where he described small-town voters as bitterly clinging to guns and religion. In the same period, Clinton came under withering criticism for her discredited tale of coming under sniper fire at an arrival ceremony in Bosnia as first lady in 1996. She stuck to the falsehood until television footage of the peaceful arrival surfaced, forcing her to acknowledge that she "misspoke." Clinton also goes into the final nine contests at a significant cash disadvantage, although her campaign said she raised $2.5 million online in the first few hours after winning Pennsylvania. She also must fight the perception that she is damaging Obama's chances in the general election by fighting on even with little chance of overcoming his lead in delegates and the popular vote. Phil Trounstine, director of the Survey and Policy Research Institute at California's San Jose State University, said that Obama's problems with key Democratic demographic groups are temporary and say nothing about how he would fare with those voters in a general election. "The notion that Obama cannot attract core constituencies is only being tested in matches against Hillary Clinton. That's not an argument that he can't win them against John McCain," Trounstine said. "If Barack Obama were the nominee, you would expect Ed Rendell and (Philadelphia mayor) Michael Nutter would work like crazy to deliver Pennsylvania. The same thing would happen in California and Texas, which Clinton also won." After the drubbing he took in Pennsylvania, Obama needs to hope the so-called superdelegates likely charged with settling the contest will find that argument persuasive. Otherwise, what has been an epic Democratic nominating contest may be lurching toward virtual stalemate. EDITOR'S NOTE _ Beth Fouhy covers presidential politics for The Associated Press.

Obama Fails to Close the Gap; Clinton Wins in Pennsylvania By Howard Lesser Washington, DC 23 April 2008 Hillary Clinton’s victory in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary will not prove decisive for her to secure the Democratic party’s presidential nomination. That was not expected, because neither the New York Senator nor her Illinois rival, Senator Barack Obama could have divided up Pennsylvania’s prize of 158 delegates to reach the total of 2,025 needed to clinch the race. However, the Pennsylvania contest culminates the longest phase since the primary season began in January to go without a state election, and the six-week lull heightened focus on the candidates’ skills in reaching voters in a critical, delegate-rich northeastern state. University of Pennsylvania law professor Anita Allen says that the six-week focus posed a worthy test of the two US senators’ electability in November’s national election. “The current campaign definitely tested the ability of Barack Obama to win in the general election in the fall, more than I think Hillary. Hillary wisely saw that her best strategy was to cast doubts about Barack’s electability, and I think she actually did that. And although Barack is going to be a formidable foe, I do think that his capacity to get around the fact that he is less experienced, that he is a man of color, and that he had less than a year in Washington (before declaring his candidacy) are going to be issues for him going forward,” she said. A loss in Pennsylvania for Hillary Clinton could have signaled the beginning of the end of her 2008 bid, which at one time had been described as a candidacy of entitlement. Going into Pennsylvania, Barack Obama held about a 140-delegate lead over Senator Clinton nationwide. Despite Clinton’s Tuesday win in Pennsylvania, analysts will be closely watching her margins of victory because a narrowing of her lead still could help propel Obama to the nomination in weeks ahead if he wins Democratic primaries in Indiana (May 6), North Carolina (May 6), West Virginia (May 13), and Kentucky (May 20). Professor Allen says it was a fitting finish to the Clinton campaign in Pennsylvania to hold its final rally at the University of Pennsylvania before an energized academic community of students, faculty, and a well-entrenched West Philadelphia community of local residents, many of whom are African-American. “I think being in the Philadelphia area was a good idea. They have a lot of support among people of color traditionally, but also among women, among educated people, and the Clintons were on our campus a lot. Bill, Hillary, and (their daughter) Chelsea spent a lot of time of the Penn campus. And they’ve also been seen at Drexel University down the street. They’ve been seen down the road a few miles on the Constitution Center and elsewhere, because I think they believe that this university is a source of support for them. The young voters are important in this election. The educated voters are important. The black vote, of course is important, and of course having this great university being right in the middle of a historically and ethnically African-American community is a way of saying that we’re both interested in the problems of a poor urban community and also interested in promoting the interests and values of our more educated population who have a great role to play in providing leadership and guidance and policymaking for our country in the future,” she noted. Although Senator Obama outspent Senator Clinton by wide margins of the past month and a half. He raised funds at the grass roots, from students, the poor, the wealthy, and a broad range of new first-time supporters. He also is considered an important stimulus for yesterday’s high voter turnout in African-American neighborhoods of Pennsylvania’s two largest cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Despite this, Professor Allen says his campaign was jeopardized in Pennsylvania by having to diffuse widely criticized comments depicting the bitterness of small town folks. For that reason, she says, his advisers recommended that the Harvard-law educated candidate refrain from matching the Clintons with an appearance at Pennsylvania’s prestigious Ivy League university where Mrs. Clinton spoke. “There was a group of professors trying to get Obama to come and give a speech in our sports stadium here on Penn’s campus. And over 200 professors signed a petition urging him to come. And what we were told was that the rally on the (historic Independence) Mall was the substitute and that at a time when Obama was being accused of being an elitist person in Pennsylvania, it was more appropriate, perhaps, that he meet in a less symbolically elitist location than Penn’s campus,” she said. Professor Allen points out that Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania victory most likely ensures she will continue to stay in the race into next month’s decisive primaries. “Hillary’s in this game if she wins Pennsylvania until the summer, I believe. But again, there will be some pressure on her to withdraw, but I think she can credibly stand up to that pressure if indeed she is the technical victor in Pennsylvania.” The downside of prolonging the campaign is that “so much of the attention the media has given to the election has turned to negative campaigning, snide remarks, slips of the tongue, animosities which are exaggerated.” However, Allen notes that if it turns out that one of them is doing less well, either after the primary season or toward the beginning of the convention, at that point, it would be a phenomenal thing if these two would decide to join forces, by sharing the ballot and running as President and Vice President “because there’s plenty of evidence here that a woman candidate and a black candidate can catalyze, can excite, and can promise a change of hope which we haven’t seen before. And they may have together skills and experience which would make the White House and Washington, DC in general a better place for all of us.”

Hamas will never recognize Israel, because Hamas is Israeli tool to keep the current devastating status.

Carter Says Hamas and Syria Are Open to Peace Tara Todras-Whitehill/Associated Press Former President Jimmy Carter spoke at the Israeli Council of Foreign Relations in Jerusalem on Monday. By ETHAN BRONNER Published: April 22, 2008 JERUSALEM — Jimmy Carter, the former American president, said on Monday that he had obtained a significant concession from the Palestinian group Hamas regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace and also found the Syrian leadership eager for a full peace treaty with Israel. Mr. Carter, who spoke in Jerusalem after several days of talks in the Syrian capital, Damascus, said he had extracted from Hamas a promise to respect the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if it were ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people. He said further that Syria believed “about 85 percent” of the issues between it and Israel had been resolved in prior negotiations and it wanted a peace deal “as soon as possible.” Given the general pessimism surrounding Israeli-Arab peace, Mr. Carter’s upbeat assessment had a contrarian quality to it, as did his decision to meet in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and the Hamas leadership, all of whom are shunned by the Bush administration which asked him not to hold the meetings. Mr. Carter called the agreement on a Palestinian state, obtained from Hamas in writing, important because it meant that Hamas, a radical group excluded from the Palestinian Authority yet currently ruling in the Gaza Strip, would not disrupt the negotiations or implementation of any accord if the Palestinian people supported it in a free vote. “If the agreement calls for a two-state solution and the recognition of Israel and Palestine, Hamas will, in effect, recognize Israel, if the people agree on the plan,” Mr. Carter told the Israel Council on Foreign Relations in a speech here. In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr. Carter struck a more cautious note, saying, “I’m not claiming it’s a breakthrough.” He added, “I don’t have any control over whether or not Hamas does what they tell me. I just know what they tell me.” Israeli officials opposed Mr. Carter’s meetings with Hamas leaders, saying doing so legitimizes a group they consider to be a terrorist organization. But Mr. Carter said on Monday, “The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria. The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet these people.” How a referendum would work is not clear. Mr. Carter said in the interview that he understood that only those Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would participate and that the voting would be monitored by international observers, including observers from the Carter Center. But Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader in Damascus with whom Mr. Carter had spoken, gave a televised news conference late Monday and said that Hamas wants all Palestinians, including those living abroad, to vote. Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan would likely insist on a right of return to their original homes in what is today Israel, something Israel has said it could never accept. Mr. Meshal also focused on the return of Palestinians to Israel and Hamas’s refusal to accept Israel’s legitimacy when he said, "Hamas accepts the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and with full and real sovereignty and full application of the right of the Palestinian refugees to return but Hamas will not recognize the state of Israel." In addition, Mr. Meshal emphasized something else — that no referendum could take place before Hamas and Fatah had reconciled their bitter dispute and the Palestine Liberation Organization, from which Hamas is excluded, was “reformed” to include it. Such goals seem at the moment rather distant. Mr. Carter had tried to get Hamas to agree to several other requests and all were turned down. Those included a prisoner exchange and declaring a 30-day unilateral cease-fire with Israel — Hamas fires rockets on Israeli towns and communities in an effort to hurt and kill civilians. On Monday a 4-year-old child was injured from shrapnel after a rocket hit a home on a kibbutz and caused damage, the Israeli army announced. Mr. Meshal said at his news conference that, through Egypt, he and Israel were working on a possible mutual cease-fire or period of calm so there was no reason to accept Mr. Carter’s suggestion of a unilateral cease-fire. Mr. Carter said he found the Hamas leadership, including Mr. Meshal, to be clear-thinking, educated people who gave no sign of fanaticism, although he did condemn in harsh terms their use of violence. He said they did not break for prayer, talk of holy land or God. “It was secular talk,” he said. “They are just as rational as you are,” he said, adding, “The thing that Meshal and I have is that we are both physicists.” Mr. Carter also said that while he was snubbed by the Israeli leadership over his talks with Hamas, he believes it was due to American pressure that meetings between him and top Israeli leaders were canceled. In the interview, Mr. Carter said that what he learned about Syrian intentions toward Israel may prove more significant than the Hamas agreement. He said that Mr. Assad believes there are only a few details left to work out on a full peace treaty but that the Bush administration is discouraging Israel to proceed because of other concerns, especially related to Iraq, that the Americans have with Syria. “All of our group were surprisingly impressed with his strength and knowledge of the details in contrast to what we had heard from propaganda,” Mr. Carter said of the Syrian president. He emphasized that for Syria, a deal with Israel has to be brokered by the United States to be meaningful. While Mr. Assad has an alliance with Iran, Mr. Carter believes that the relationship is as an alternative to one with the United States and the West, rather than his first choice. He said he expected Mr. Assad would be willing to separate from that alliance because he wants full peace with Israel. “He’s willing to put his eggs in that basket of peace with Israel, no matter what Iran thinks,” Mr. Carter said in the interview of Mr. Assad.

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who helped broker peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978, said that Israel's enemy Hamas may accept, under certain circumstances, the Jewish state's right to exist. Hamas leaders told Carter that the group would accept a peace agreement negotiated by the leader of the rival Fatah group, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, on condition that the agreement is submitted to the Palestinian people for approval, the former president said in a speech in Jerusalem. ``Hamas leaders said they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 border and the right of Israel to live as a neighbor, provided the agreement was submitted to the Palestinian people for overall approval,'' Carter said. Hamas later said it wouldn't necessarily accept the results of a peace referendum, the Associated Press reported, and Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal said from Damascus the group won't recognize Israel. Mashaal offered Israel a 10-year truce if it withdraws from lands seized in 1967, AP added. The Islamic group which seized control of the Gaza Strip in June is sworn to Israel's destruction, and launches regular rocket attacks against Israeli towns, killing and maiming citizens. Israel has imposed a military and economic blockade on Gaza in a bid to stop the rockets and undermine Hamas rule, and has fired missiles into Gaza aimed at those launching rockets and at terrorist leaders, sometimes inadvertently killing or injuring citizens. `Actions, Words' The Bush administration said it didn't support Carter's meeting with a terrorist organization and was skeptical about what it accomplished. ``You have to look at public comments and actions. Actions speak louder than words,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters traveling with President George W. Bush today on Air Force One to New Orleans. Abbas, who is in control of the West Bank, renewed negotiations with Israel in December about a framework peace agreement that Bush wants by the end of the year. The two Palestinian factions don't recognize each other's right to rule. A cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is imminent, Ahmed Yousef, a spokesman for the Islamic organization said today. Hamas sent its proposals to Israel and is now awaiting a response. ``We expect a real development in this regard in the coming few days,'' Yousef said. Carter said that Hamas had rejected his proposal for a 30-day unilateral cease-fire. Syria's Role Syria believes that nearly all its differences with Israel have been resolved and that talks ``just need to be reconvened,'' Carter said in Jerusalem after meeting with Syrian officials in Damascus. Syria is eager that the U.S. play a ``strong role'' in talks with Israel, while in the meantime, the U.S. is opposing talks, Carter said. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed his country exchanged messages with Israel via third parties about the possibility of resuming peace talks, Syria's state-run SANA news service reported today. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the daily Yediot Ahronot last week that the two countries, which failed to sign a peace accord after the Six-Day war in 1967, clarified what they expect from a potential peace accord. Each side now understands what the other wants, Olmert said. Carter said that, while he is glad that Bush is committed to reaching a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, there is a general feeling that no progress is being made of any significance in the talks. `Just Isn't Working' The Israeli-U.S. strategy of excluding Syria and Hamas from peace negotiations ``just isn't working,'' and they would have to be involved in order to make progress, Carter said. Hamas leaders said that they are making progress in Egyptian-mediated talks about a prisoner exchange that would include Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Palestinian gunmen in June 2006. Hamas has agreed to allow Shalit to send a letter to his parents, Carter said. Carter's speech came after meeting with exiled Hamas leader Mashaal in Damascus and other Hamas officials in Cairo over the past week. By meeting with Hamas officials, Carter went against the policy of the Bush administration, which says Hamas must be sidelined until it recognizes Israel and ends violence, and ignored Israeli objections. The U.S. considers the group a terrorist organization. Hamas won 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections and ousted forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas from the Gaza Strip in June last year. Abbas heads the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization and controls the West Bank. `Obstacle to Peace' During a visit to Israel on April 11, U.S. Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice told reporters that she found it ``hard to understand what is to be gained by having discussions with Hamas when Hamas is, in fact, an obstacle to peace.'' Fifty members of the U.S. Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, wrote an appeal to Carter on April 14 not to meet with Hamas. In Carter's visit to Israel, President Shimon Peres told him it was a ``mistake'' to meet with Hamas. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declined to receive the former U.S. leader. Israel barred Carter from crossing into the Gaza Strip. Since his 1977-1981 presidency, Carter has occasionally embarked on private diplomacy. In 1994, he visited Pyongyang and persuaded North Korea to freeze its nuclear program. The agreement collapsed when the CIA discovered, in 2002, that North Korea ran a covert uranium-enrichment program. Carter also visited U.S. adversaries Iraq, when it was ruled by Saddam Hussein, and Cuba. Egypt navigates a delicate path with Hamas: it has called for Israel to lift a trade and travel blockade of the Gaza Strip, while declining to open its own border to Gazans, which has been forcibly breached in the past. Instead, Egypt has tried to mediate in the Abbas-Hamas dispute. Carter won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for promoting peaceful solutions to conflicts and social and economic justice.

Clinton lags in cash before Pennsylvania vote By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign began April awash in red ink and trailing rival Barack Obama in the scramble for cash ahead of Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, campaign records show. Documents filed late Sunday with the Federal Election Commission show Clinton raised $20.9 million in March, less than half the $42.8 million raised by Obama. Clinton's campaign said it had $8 million available for the state-by-state battle for the Democratic nomination, while Obama's campaign reported $51 million in the bank. Clinton's campaign also reported $10.3 million in debt. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has clinched the Republican nomination, raised $15.4 million in March and ended the month with $11.6 million in the bank. Opinion polls show that Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady who would be the first woman president, is favored to beat Obama in Pennsylvania. But Obama's fund-raising prowess has allowed him to outspend her heavily. Obama is an Illinois senator who would be the first black president. A defeat in Pennsylvania, or even a less-than-resounding victory, could increase pressure on Clinton to drop out of the race and allow the party to unify behind a candidate to take on McCain in the November election. Clinton spokesman Jay Carson said the New York senator's fund-raising has been strong since the end of March, thanks in part to a benefit concert by pop star Elton John. "Hillary will have the resources needed to compete and win because of the strength of her grassroots support and the influx of hundreds of thousands of new donors," Carson said in an e-mail. Roughly half of the campaign's debts are owed to companies headed by two senior advisors. Polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, owed $4.6 million, is headed by Mark Penn, who served as chief strategist until he was forced to step aside last month. Grunwald Communications, owed $530,000, is headed by Mandy Grunwald, who serves as the campaign's ad maker. (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, editing by Alan Elsner) (To read more about the U.S.

Hillary leads in Pennsylvania, including among bowlers, gun owners By STEVEN THOMMA McClatchy Newspapers Hillary Clinton leads among bowlers, gun owners and hunters in Pennsylvania, a blue-collar trifecta that is helping her hold an edge over rival Barack Obama heading into Tuesday's pivotal primary there. The New York senator leads by solid margins in all three slices of working-class Pennsylvania - the political battleground where the two Democrats have waged war for control of the state, according to a new poll conducted for McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The one group where she does not have a solid lead is among beer drinkers; they split evenly between her and the Illinois senator. Overall, Clinton leads Obama by a margin of 48-43 percent, with 8 percent still undecided. The telelphone survey of 635 likely Pennsylvania voters was taken April 17-18 and had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points. "Clinton leads in Pennsylvania," said Brad Coker, the managing partner for Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the poll. "However, the lead doesn't indicate she's going to win by a large enough margin to make a serious impact on Obama's overall delegate lead." Clinton leads among women, whites, Roman Catholics and Jews, voters older than 35, those looking for experience and those who rank Iraq, the economy or health care their top issues. She also leads in central and rural Pennsylvania as well as the Pittsburgh area. "She's a woman, that's the main reason," said Catherine Nichols, a retired receptionist from New Providence, explaining why she prefers Clinton. "And she has the experience from being in the White House for so many years." Obama leads among blacks, voters younger than 35, Protestants, and those looking for change or honesty. He leads in the Philadelphia area. "I'm getting tired of the same old thing over and over. It's time for a change," said William Allen, a retiree from Philadelphia. "He just has a different way of thinking and bringing people together." Despite Obama's solid support in some areas, Coker said that Pennsylvania's demographics make it difficult for him to win, given his inability to draw more support from whites, the working class, or older voters. Obama pulled just 33 percent of the white vote, but 83 percent of the black vote. "I would be surprised if Obama won Pennsylvania," Coker said. "There are not enough African-American and young voters. It's one of the older states." Ever since the two clashed in Ohio in early March - where she won with heavy support from the white working class - the two candidates have sparred over that key voting bloc in Pennsylvania. Their campaign's been marked by sharp disagreements over his comments claiming that small-town Pennsylvanians cling to religion and guns out of bitterness over their economic anxiety, as well as inflammatory sermons by Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. They've also offered dueling photo opportunities, with Obama bowling on camera, and Clinton downing a shot of whiskey and a beer. Many voters dismissed such efforts as silly or superficial - or said they had the opposite effect than the campaigns intended. Most saw clips of Obama bowling, for example, and several noted that he was bad at it. "I saw the gutter ball. Why make an idiot of yourself?" said John Ferko, a retired postal worker from Phoenixville, Pa., who supports Clinton. Indeed, Clinton seems to have won the better part of the culture clash, leading among hunters by a margin of 56-31 percent, among bowlers by 54-33 percent, and among gun owners by 53-28 percent. Her shot and a beer gambit apparently didn't pay off, however; self-identified beer drinkers split 44-44 percent between the two. Coker said one reason could be that beer drinkers include more African-Americans - Obama supporters - than the bowlers, gun owners or hunters. While Pennsylvanians seemed to divide along those lines, several voters said they were angry at the way the campaigns and news media played up the flashpoints more than such issues as the war in Iraq or the economy. "A lot of that little stuff is being blown way out of proportion," said Calvin Dolan of King of Prussia, who supports Clinton because of her intelligence and experience. A majority of likely voters said they watched the candidates debate last week on ABC, yet just 7 percent said it influenced their vote. Oscar Hilton, a retired hospital driver from Philadelphia who supports Obama, said he didn't like the way the debate moderators spent the first half of the debate asking about Obama's ties to his pastor or a 1960s radical before getting to other issues. "For 45 doggone minutes, that's all they talked about," Hilton said. "They tried to bait him and set him up. But he tried to stick to the most important things. We want to know what they're going to do about the issues." Hilton's issues? Stopping illegal immigration and getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, both of which he said would help American paychecks and the economy.

I will told you guys again, there is no war between Iran and USA BECAUSE Iran=Zionism=Criminals

Thanks, I'm just a truth seeker

Darfur Saving Darfur: Zionist Conspiracy? Exploiting African Genocide for Propaganda by Ned Goldstein, WW4 REPORT The death toll in the Darfur region of western Sudan has reached between 200,000 and 400,000 as of Oct. 1, with 2.5 million displaced. The UN warns that the death toll could escalate precipitously if the situation is allowed to deteriorate. The dictatorial — and genocidal —Khartoum regime led by Omar al-Bashir, is possibly the world's most brutal and murderous. The conflict in Darfur is rooted in the long oppression of marginalized groups seeking political and economic equality. Ethnic identification has become increasingly polarized in Darfur, the tribes from which the rebels draw their numbers generally characterized as Black Africans, and the Sudanese army and its proxy militias described as Arab. While the debate over what to do about Darfur continues, the Sudanese government and critics of the US-based Save Darfur coalition have continued to accuse the movement (or, at least, elements of it) of having ulterior motives: namely, to benefit Israel—both by diverting attention from Israeli war crimes to those of the Khartoum regime and its supporters in the Arab world, and, more ambitiously to actually destabilize Sudan's Islamist government. Khartoum and Israel: Mutual Exploitation? The Sudanese government has, unsurprisingly, stressed the participation of Zionist and Jewish groups in the Save Darfur movement—and flatly accused Israel of being behind the insurgency in Darfur. As early as Dec. 21, 2004, Republic of Sudan Radio reported that Sudanese Interior Minister Ahmad Harun, flanked by two other government ministers, "accused the Zionist entity of supplying the rebels with weapons in the framework of Israel's plan that targets Arab nations." In May 2005, the Sudanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samir al-Shaybani told a Syrian interviewer: "We can even say that these powers want to dismember Sudan and replace this government with another one that serves their strategic interests, represented in obliterating Sudan's Arab identity. Top among these powers is the Zionist lobby, which considered the Darfur issue primarily a Jewish issue requiring solidarity between the Jews and some African tribes, which claim to be in conflict with Arab tribes. The Darfur issue has thus been depicted within the framework of mass annihilation. The Zionist groups and US Administration played on this theory and dedicated huge resources and large media and diplomatic campaigns to promote this erroneous diagnosis of the conflict." Some of the Sudan government's accusations are rooted in the history of the 30-year civil war, in which Israel is believed to have aided the southern rebels. This war came to an end last year in a power-sharing agreement between Khartoum and the southern guerilla groups, even as the situation in Darfur was escalating towards genocide. Another factor is prominent Israel advocate Charles Jacobs' anti-slavery efforts targeting Sudan. But the most pronounced accusations started after the Darfur crisis first erupted in 2003. The Jerusalem Post reported Dec. 16, 2004, that for the first time, Israel was providing aid to relief efforts in Sudan, in order to "help alleviate the humanitarian crisis" in Darfur. The Post said "Israel joined with several US Jewish groups, including the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the Union for Reform Judaism, the New Jersey MetroWest Federation and UJA-Federation of New York in sending $100,000 to support the International Rescue Committee and aid children in Sudan and Chad orphaned by the civil war in Sudan's Darfur region." Darfur native Muhammed Yahya said his countrymen were "grateful for the assistance and astonished by its source." "We have been taught for all our lives, from the primary school to the university, that you are the top enemy for Muslims and Arabs all over the world," Yahya said of the Jews and Israelis behind the $100,000 effort. Now, he said, "we realized that what we have been taught all our lives is a kind of a rumor. When we have been killed, you are protecting us; when we are displaced, you are trying to save us; when our people are murdered and raped, you are there trying to help us." Ayre Mekel, Israel's Council-General in New York at the time, said "The State of Israel is following the developments in Darfur carefully, and as a people who has gone through persecution, we could not sit idly on the sidelines through such a devastating humanitarian disaster. This is according to the Jewish values." In 2004, the Save Darfur coalition was launched in the US. An article in the April 27 2006 Jerusalem Post, describing the April 30 rally in Washington DC, the first large mass action on the Darfur issue, declared, "US Jews leading Darfur rally planning," and introduced the "Save Darfur" coalition that is now placing full-page ads in major newspapers and ubiquitous television spots. "Little known, " the paper said, " is that the coalition, which has presented itself as 'an alliance of over 130 diverse faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organization' was actually begun exclusively as an initiative of the American Jewish community." The paper adds that it continues to be "heavily weighted with a politically and religiously diverse collection of local and national Jewish group." In New York, the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, United Jewish Communities, UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs sponsored the first full-page ad in the New York Times. The paper also noted that while large evangelical Christian groups were in the coalition, that these groups had not done the "kind of extensive grassroots outreach that will produce numbers." The Washington Post reported April 27 that the rally organizers scrambled at the last minute to add two speakers from Darfur because of objections from Sudanese immigrants that the speakers list contained eight western Christians, seven Jews, four US politicians, several celebrities, but no Muslims and no one from Darfur. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute participated, explaining that "it was important that Arab Americans make clear our deep concern with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Our presence in this multi-ethnic multi-religious coalition sends this message." Zogby did admit to some reservations, but concluded: "And while we may have had questions about... the groups involved in the Save Darfur effort, the coalition included significant respected US and international organizations as well. The International Crisis Group, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Amnesty International, the AFL-CIO/Solidarity Center and a number of US Muslim groups had signed on as sponsors." The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a national organization which "coordinate communal activity" nationwide — including pro-Israel advocacy — chartered buses from all over the country, eight from upper Manhattan alone. The JCRC in San Francisco is currently headed by former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) top honcho Thomas Dine. An Israeli flag was waving prominently at the rally. Predictably, the Sudanese regime denounced the rally more Zionist pressure. The April 27 Jerusalem Post also claimed the main organizer behind the rally was former Manhattan borough president Ruth Messinger and the organization she heads, the AJWS, which acts as a Jewish peace corps worldwide. In 2006, Messinger ran for a seat in the World Zionist Congress on the left-liberal "Hatikva" slate. Messinger told the Washington Post on April 27, "we are interested because this is a humanitarian crisis and we are the Jewish organization that responds to crises around the world. But we are also interested because this is a genocide which has particular meaning to Jews who have sworn never again." The AJWS started organizing the coalition after the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC issued a first-of-its-kind "genocide alert," about Darfur. Critics have noted that mass death in conflicts in Ethiopia, the eastern Congo, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, and Uganda, where the violence is seen as African-on-African, rather than Arab-on-African, have not elicited similar responses from the Holocaust museum. Many of the other concerned parties in the west that have focused on Darfur have likewise ignored conflicts of similar scale elsewhere in Africa. Neither the UN nor the European Union have been willing to apply the "genocide" label to Darfur, as the US has. The Jersualem Post also said: "There are critics who say the heavy Jewish involvement might have deterred some other groups from joining. The fact that the aggressors in Darfur are Arab Muslims - though it should be said that the victims are also mostly Muslim - and are supported by a regime in Khartoum that is backed by the Arab League has made some people question the true motives of some of the Jewish organizations involved in the rally." While the Jewish organizers tried to play down the Jewish composition of the rally, large African-American groups like the NAACP and Africa Action were noticeably absent. By the time of the coordinated global action for Darfur on Sept. 17, the NAACP was on board. But at the Sept. 17 rally in New York's Central Park, African-American participation was still small, despite outreach efforts on the part of the Save Darfur coalition. One speaker from Harlem, Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, noted that the coalition was so tenuous that if they got together in a room to discuss other issues in the Middle East, it would quickly fall apart. He echoed the rest of the speakers in condemning Khartoum's behavior, but disagreed about calling for UN peacekeepers, warning that the Darfur issue was being exploited by those who sought to destabilize Sudan and gain access to its oil. Abdur-Rashid instead preferred pressure on the Khartoum regime and the rebels to go back to the negotiating table. Abdarahmane Wone, a North America representative of the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM), who attended the rally, told WW4 REPORT that he supported the call for UN peacekeepers, but regretted that the political left has ceded the initiative to the right wing on the Darfur issue. Darfur as Strategic Distraction Israel advocates had hoped the Save Darfur movement would do more to renew the Black-Jewish alliance that went back to the civil rights era in the US. However, on Sept. 29, after a pro-Israel rally in the wake of the Lebanon war, an organizer identified as a "Jewish official" admitted to New York's Jewish Week "that all the Jewish support for Darfur, trumpeted in Jewish newspapers earlier this year as a harbinger of a renewed alliance between Jews and blacks, proved to be a bust. Jews continue to be the backbone of the Darfur rallies but at the Israel rally, he said 'there were speakers who were black but there was not a concerted black turnout.'" According to Hishaam D. Aidi of Columbia University's Middle East Institute, writing in the Spring 2005 issue of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) journal, "Israel and Zionist organizations have long been interested in issues of race and ethnicity in the Arab world." Israel has been accused of arming the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in southern Sudan, and more recently, through the SPLA, rebel forces in Darfur. Both the SPLA and Israel deny the charges. But a Washington Post story of April 17, 1987 claimed: "Recent visitors to [sPLA leader John] Garang's headquarters at Boma in the southeast reported seeing crates of weapons supplied by Israel. Israel aided an earlier generation of southern rebels during the 1955-72 civil war as part of a policy to destabilize Arab governments." The SPLA also received 20 million in "non-lethal" aid from the US government in 1996. According to his BBC obituary following his death in an air accident last year, Garang was also trained in the US at Fort Benning, GA. Israel has also reportedly trained Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. Both the southern Sudanese and the Kurds were seen as local ethnic groups facing Arab imperialism. Aidi writes that "the Zionist concern for minorities in the Arab world is strategic: by focusing on how Arab states (mis)treat their minorities, pro-Israel scholars can shift the spotlight from Palestine, highlight Arab double standards, demonstrate how the subordinate status of minorities in the Middle East necessitated a Zionist project to lift Middle Eastern Jews 'up from dhimmitude' and show how Israel protects minority rights better than any other state in the region." Aidi also notes, "Given the American Jewish community's silence over the Congo, Uganda and Sierra Leone, it seems the outrage over Darfur is as moral as it is political. 'Now millions of African people face genocide and the UN's top priority is condemning the Israeli security fence that saves lives on both sides of the security barrier,' stated Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY)." Charles Jacobs: Anti-Slavery as Political Stratagem The divide on the Darfur issue has roots that go all the way back to 1993, when long-time Israel advocate Charles Jacobs first started to target Sudan, over the issue of slavery. Almost immediately, Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Louis Farrakhan denounced Jacobs as a "Jewish consultant," and took Sudan's side, questioning whether there really was a slavery problem. At the time, the NOI received millions of dollars in support from Libya, which was then collaborating with the Sudan regime and was even implicated in the importation of slaves. Jesse Jackson and others who participated in the 1995 Million Man March with Farrakhan were reluctant to alienate him, and Jacobs and columnist Nat Hentoff both charged Jackson's refusal to alienate Arab states also caused his silence on Sudan. Beyond members of the congressional Black Caucus, there was little organized African-American support for Jacobs' American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG). The AASG also used a highly controversial means to fight the Sudanese slave trade: they bought slaves' freedom from their captors, a practice known as "redemption" that critics, including UNICEF, argued worsened the situation by fueling the Sudanese slave market—and by extension the Sudanese regime's war against the Christian and animist south, where slaves from captured villages were a goad for pro-government warlords. Most of the support for the AASG came from mostly conservative Christian organizations, including Christian Solidarity International (CSI) which eventually lost its UN NGO status for its relationship to John Garang. Another Jewish supporter of Jacobs' efforts was Barbara Ledeen, wife of prominent neo-con columnist and political operative Michael Ledeen, and director of a conservative think tank, the Independent Women's Forum. Ledeen charged, "The fact that Farrakhan is a player, protecting the government of Sudan and the government of Mauritania, sends a message to other African-American leaders that they better not mess with this." Another early supporter of Jacobs was right-wing Israel advocate Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, and a speaker at the 2004 convention of the pro-Israel media watchdog, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA). Senators Lincoln Chafee and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, and Rep. Patrick Kennedy all expressed doubts about the efficacy and morality of Jacobs' efforts. Richard Miniter of the Wall Street Journal related in a 1999 article for the Atlantic Monthly how he turned against the efforts of Jacobs and his allies during a trip with Christian Freedom International (CFI) to Sudan. "As I spoke with [district government spokesman Adelino Rip] Goc," Miniter said, "a crowd of villagers encircled us. 'Does anyone here support slave redemption?' I asked. No one did. One man said that I should talk to Machar Malok Machar. In a previous raid on Akoch, Machar was captured and marched into the desert. Before sunrise on the second day he crawled away and hid. He waited for hours until the Muslim slave raiders departed. Then he walked home, with his hands still tied behind his back, to find his wife and family missing, his hut burned, his cattle and goats gone. After I heard his story, I asked him about slave redemption. 'It is bad,' he said. 'They do these terrible things to put shillings in their pockets. They are crazy for the money. Why would you give it to them?'" Even CFI head Jim Jacobson, who Miniter accompanied on that Sudan trip, started to discourage the practice of slave redemption after what he saw in Sudan. Jacobs was undeterred, saying the important thing was getting slaves out of "the hands of monsters." Jacobs claimed he would stop if it was proved slave redemption did more harm than good, but he has rabidly attacked criticism of his efforts. Jacobs has also criticized Israel for normalizing relations with Mauritania. Although Jacobs claims to be a liberal, he often associates with the right-wing. This seems to be a pattern for Israel advocates, including many neo-conservative officials who started out as liberals, and commentators such as Phyllis Chesler, David Horowitz and Alan Dershowitz. Jacobs was the co-founder of CAMERA, and its executive director for a period in the '80's. He also founded the David Project, which backed the "Columbia Unbecoming" project, to expose supposed anti-Israel bias at Columbia University, charged by its critics as a McCarthyite witch-hunt. This was undertaken in cooperation with Campus Watch, run by the right-wing and (many say) Islamophobic Daniel Pipes. The David Project is funded by the Charles and Lynn Shustermann foundation, and is an affiliate member of the Israel on Campus Coalition, which, in cooperation between the Shustermanns and Hillel, brings a heavily right-wing roster of Israel advocacy speakers to campuses. Jacobs is also an advisor to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), whose board and staff include Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former CIA director R. James Woolsey, Virginia's Rep. Eric Cantor, and such conservative heavy hitter as Gary Bauer, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Frank Gaffney and Richard Perle. Another supporter is Lebanese scholar Dr. Walid Phares, alleged to be associated with the fanatically anti-Palestinian Guardians of the Ceders (GOTC), responsible for several massacres during Lebanon's civil war. The late investigative journalist Robert Friedman wrote in The Nation June 6, 1987 that CAMERA was "created specifically to keep the U.S. press in line...At least in one case, it has assigned freelance reporters to dig into the personal lives of liberal journalists whose views deviate from the narrowest spectrum of pro-Israeli opinion. CAMERA, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the rest of the lobby don't want fairness, but bias in their favor. And they are prepared to use McCarthyite tactics, as well as the power and money of pro-Israel PACs, to get whatever Israel wants." Jacobs is also a client of Benador Associates, a PR firm run by Eleanor Benador, whose list of clients reads like a neo-con who's who. Benador supplied to the media many of the op-eds and talking heads that pushed for the Iraq war, and now push for war on Iran, including the famously bogus piece by Iranian emigre Amir Taheri which falsely claimed a new law would compel Iranian Jews to wear yellow insignia. Jacobs also served as the spokesperson for the National Unity Coalition for Israel (NUCI), consisting of 500 fundamentalist Christian and right-wing Jewish supporters of Israel. The group was so right-wing that Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, a leader in coordinating Christian Zionist support for Israel, said he resigned from the NUCI's board because of the group's "anti-Rabin, pro-Likud" positions. On Jan. 21, 1998, the New York Times quoted Jacobs saying the NUCI was "'giving voice' to evangelical Christians who are ardent Zionists." Jacobs also put out a press release protesting the US government for its Oct. 17, 2005 decision to upgrade Sudan's human trafficking status from Tier III — the worst possible ranking — to Tier II. Ironically, among countries ranked as Tier II is Israel. In 2000, Jacobs and other Sudan activists started a campaign to divest from Sudan, targeting mutual funds like Fidelity that invest in oil companies doing business in Sudan. In 2002, Jacobs' Israel advocacy and Sudan activism visibly converged when a movement to divest from Israel briefly gripped some prominent US universities, including Harvard. In an Oct. 4, 2002 op-ed piece for the Boston Globe, titled, "WHY ISRAEL, AND NOT SUDAN, IS SINGLED OUT," Jacobs' noted that Harvard's president Lawrence Summers denounced the divestment from Israel campaign on his campus as anti-Semitic "in effect, if not in intent." Jacobs attacked Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for "investigat[ing] false reports of Jews massacring Arabs," and asked why they don't "care so much less about Arab-occupied Juba, South Sudan's black capital?" It is "a human rights complex" Jacobs explains, "and is not hard to understand. The human rights community, composed mostly of compassionate white people, feels a special duty to protest evil done by those who are like 'us.'" Then comes the laundry list: "The biggest victims of this complex are not the Jews who are obsessively criticized but the victims of genocide, enslavement, religious persecution, and ethnic cleansing who are murderously ignored: the Christian slaves of Sudan, the Muslim slaves of Mauritania, the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Christians in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt." In 2005, Jacobs trumpeted the success of his Sudan divestment initiative with a note on the AASG website: "SudanActivism.com—a website devoted to empowering college students with the tools to launch their own divestment campaigns—is launched. Campaigns at Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth succeed in pressuring the schools to divest holdings in companies operating in Sudan. Their successes spawn similar campaigns at schools across the country." Harvard president Summers, who found divesting from Israel to be anti-Semitic in effect, said of the Sudan divestment effort: "This is the right thing to do in light of the ongoing events in Darfur." Jacobs-Speak Crosses the Pond Jacobs often assails progressives for attacking Israel and ignoring Sudan, but ironically many self-identified progressives (like Jacobs) are leaders of the battle against divestment from Israel. ENGAGE, formed in response to the British academic boycott of Israel, states in its website: "Engage is a single issue campaign. It focuses on one issue, antisemitism, and is therefore concerned also about the demonization of Israel, and of Jews who don't think of themselves as anti-Zionists. We believe that a new commonsense is emerging that holds Israel to be a central and fundamental evil in the world. We disagree with this notion and we think that it is dangerous. The danger is that this kind of thinking may well lead to, and license, the emergence of a movement that is racist against Jews in general. " However, amidst posts calling out anti-Semitism and attacking Israel boycott campaigns, the one other issue Engage increasingly addresses is Darfur. On Oct. 1, David Hirsh, a sociologist professor and one of the leading forces of Engage, titled a post, "Death in Darfur." Hirsh writes: "It is not 'the Zionists' who are 'using' Darfur to deflect attention from Israel's human rights abuses; it is the genocidaires in Darfur who are using 'Zionism' to deflect attention from their genocide. The ongoing human catastrophe in Darfur has continued to accelerate, while the alleged 'world community' is either paralyzed or, in some cases, actively collaborating with the criminals." Engage also uses the construct that boycotting Israel is anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent. John Pike, a founding member of the group, denounced the short-lived boycott of Israeli academics by the British teacher's union NAFTHE. "Does that amount to anti-Semitism? I think it does, in effect, if not intent." British anti-Zionist commentator Mark Elf of the blog Jews Sans Frontieres told WW4 REPORT: "Engage has recently turned its ire on Jews for Justice for Palestinians because of their campaigning against the occupation. Before that their targets were Jews Against Zionism and organisers of the academic boycott like Stephen and Hilary Rose. All the while the main organiser of Engage - David Hirsh - claims to be a non-zionist and yet his own position on zionist rule is indistinguishable from that of another Engage 'contributor' - John Strawson - who ran for a seat on the World Zionist Congress under the banner of Meretz." Jacobs and the Assault on Mideast Studies It was the "Columbia Unbecoming" imbroglio that thrust Jacobs and his efforts into the spotlight most fully. The episode allowed elements of Jacobs' multi-pronged Israel advocacy to converge: media campaigns, attacking Middle Eastern studies departments, using student activists—and Sudan activism. Columbia Unbecoming was a combined effort of the David Project, campus Israel activists, and media, especially the right-wing New York Sun. Columbia Unbecoming produced an eponymous video in which mostly Jewish and sometimes Israeli Columbia students claimed harassment and anti-Semitism by professors in MELAC, or Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures. A Columbia committee eventually exonerated the named professors. At the height of the Columbia Unbecoming affair, Columbia Professor Dan Miron told the New York Sun: "Israelis are put to a test that is not applied to anyone else. You will not hear any murmur about the people of Sudan but...Israel is singled out in a way that is racist." In their March 2005 coverage of a public screening of the film, the Jewish Week reported: "Charles Jacobs, founder of the David Project, one of the event's sponsors and the man behind the 'Columbia Unbecoming' documentary, called Jewish critics of the film, including some Columbia professors, 'Marranos of Morningside Heights,' a derogatory reference to Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid the Spanish Inquisition.... Jacobs added that Middle East departments in the United States are controlled by two trends: Palestinianism and Saidism, named after the late, controversial Columbia Professor Edward Said, a champion of the Palestinian cause. Palestinianism, Jacobs said, 'is a cult that obscures any credible academics regarding Israel. It's a highly cultivated weapon of mass distraction.' Saidism, on the other hand, is a 'gag order on Westernism that enforces silence,' he said." The account went on to describe a telling incident. "Immediately following the speech by Jacobs, in which he introduced a small band of black Sudanese to talk about their torture by Arabs, the documentary was screened. As the film, which has gone through a number of edits, ended, a few students featured in it spoke." Each one of the Sudanese — and Mauritanian — ex-slaves got up to thank Israel and the Jewish people for their freedom. The event was co-sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which opposes the creation of a Palestinian state. Morton Klein, the head of ZOA, told the audience, "There is no occupation," referring to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Another featured speaker was feminist writer Phyllis Chesler, who has been featured on the ENGAGE website as well. Chesler, author of The New Anti-Semitism, told the audience: "The largest practitioner of apartheid on the planet is Islam, in terms of both religious apartheid and gender apartheid…" Cheered on by the crowd, Chesler said the Palestine Solidarity Movement, a national campus movement to divest from Israel, "is a group in my opinion that's quite similar to the Ku Klux Klan, or to the Nazi party." The situation deteriorated after Chesler brought up Jenin. As the Jewish Week described it: "When Chesler defended Israel's actions regarding the 2002 battle in Jenin, one woman in the audience shouted, 'We should have bombed them from the start' —referring to the Palestinian residents of Jenin. 'We should have killed them all,' a man yelled." When an activist from Jews Against the Occupation rose to ask a question, stating that he had once been shot by the Israeli army, he "was drowned out by a sea of invectives." One audience member shouted "Too bad they missed." The account also reported harassment of the reporters on hand. "The Jewish Week's reporter was approached with…demands for identification and was flash-photographed repeatedly by a woman in the audience. When asked to stop, the woman said, 'We're taking pictures of you. We want to know who you are.' A New York Times photographer, taking photos of the silenced dissenter from Jews Against the Occupation leaving the room, was surrounded by a large group of people telling her to put down her camera. 'You have no right to do this,' one woman yelled, waving her hand in the photographer's face. Another man said, 'It's our event, not his. Don't distort it like the Times always does.' The photographer left the auditorium." Which Way Forward? WW4 REPORT asked Jen Marlowe, a Jewish film-maker and activist who recently co-authored a film and a book about Darfur, what she thought would be the most useful role for Jewish activists on the issue. She replies, "I feel certain that the motivations of the majority of Jewish activists on Darfur are simply trying to protect human life and a feeling of connection with the horror of genocide. However, Jewish groups need to share the space and the 'stage' with Darfurian groups and Muslim groups as truly equal partners in leading the activist efforts." Marlowe also said that in order for there to be legitimacy in criticizing regimes that violate human rights, including boycotts and sanctions, there cannot be a double standard. "If Jewish Darfur activists make any connections between Sudan and Israel at all, I would like to see it be because they are calling for the end of human rights violations in both places," she says. Marlowe says there are many Arab-Americans who are outraged at what is happening in Darfur, but feel uncomfortable with the current coalition, because of a feeling that it may be combined with other agendas. Marlowe concludes: "A clear message from Jewish activists that Darfur is not being co-opted for other purposes would allow others, including Arabs and Muslims, to come on board, and there would be more true diversity in Darfur activism." Note: Postings in "Campus Watch in the Media" do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch.

Barack Obama claims Jewish "kinship" His racial makeup, his middle name and "scurrilous e-mails" about him are partly responsible for the discomfort some people have with him, Barack Obama told Jewish leaders during a private meeting in the Philadelphia area today. He also told his audience of about 75 people at a synagogue that he feels a sense of "kinship" with the Jewish community, and that he has been influenced in his life by Jewish writers, philosophers and friends. "There is a kinship and a sense of shared community that predates my political career and will extend beyond this particular election," Obama said, according to the pool report from the closed-door event. "Know that I will be there for you, just as I believe that you will be there for me." Stressing the point, he added: "My links to the Jewish community are not political. They preceded my entry into politics." Before Obama showed up, several of his supporters spoke to the assembly at Rodeph Shalom synagogue, according to Larry Eichel, the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who filed the account for the traveling press corps. All of the speakers offered assurances that Obama is a friend of Israel and of the American Jewish community. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) told the group that Obama "unequivocally rejects the Palestinian right of return" because he understands that Israel must remain a Jewish state, according to Eichel's report. Also from the report: Obama was asked why he favors meeting with Iranian leaders but criticized President Carter's recent meeting with Hamas. He responded: "Hamas is not a state, Hamas is a terrorist organization ... so I think here is a very clear distinction." Asked under what circumstances he'd use force against Iran, he declined to specify. He pledged to continue the U.S. practice of vetoing anti-Israeli resolutions at the U.N. and said that he would be "uniquely positioned" to do so due to his background. "That kind of blunt talk is something I can deliver with more credibility than some other presidents might," he said. Asked if he ever talked to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright about his ex-pastor's controversial remarks, Obama said he had done so privately. He also said that there was nothing in his own background that shows anything but a love of country and an understanding of the importance of the relationship between blacks and Jews.-- Christi Parsons Christi Parsons writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune's Washington bureau

Obama Continues To Take Fire For "Bitter" Comments The blow up over Sen. Barack Obama's "bitter" comments continued unabated in the latest media cycle, remaining the dominant theme in the presidential contest. Though much coverage is devoted to Obama's counterpunch yesterday, in which he mocked Sen. Hillary Clinton as "Annie Oakley" for her recent comments on her experience with firearms, he is nevertheless widely seen as badly wounded by the episode. The issue led all three nightly newscasts last night. According to NBC Nightly News, "Obama says he is only sorry for a poor choice of words. But Hillary Clinton and John McCain both seized on his comments as the three candidates accused each other of not connecting to blue-collar voters. Obama today took on Hillary Clinton and John McCain for calling him an elitist." Obama said, "When I hear my opponents both of whom have spent decades in Washington saying I'm out of touch, it is time to cut through the rhetoric and look at the reality." The CBS Evening News reported Obama's comments "gave Hillary Clinton some much-needed ammunition heading into next week's Pennsylvania primary." CBS added, "Obama's admittedly ill-chosen words have plagued him for days, left him labeled as out of touch, and forced him to defend himself today in Pittsburgh from two foes." CBS added that Obama "is in a political pickle." ABC World News adds that Hillary Clinton "is not missing a single opportunity to contend to voters that Obama is out of touch." ABC noted that Obama "is now suggesting Clinton's populism is all show. When the former first lady reminisced about learning to hunt with her dad, Obama mocked her as Annie Oakley." The AP reports that "after days on the campaign defensive," Obama accused Clinton of "leveling criticism straight from the Republican playbook," though he admitted that he "may have made a mistake last week in the words that I chose." Obama's "focus turned to Clinton...reflecting what aides say is a rising anger after days of criticism of his comments. Asked about the impact of the long nominating battle on the party's chances of winning the White House, he said, 'I have tried to figure out how to show restraint and make sure that, during this primary contest, we're not damaging each other so badly that it's hard for us to run in November.'" Obama said Clinton "may not feel that she can afford to be so constrained." The Washington Post quotes Obama as saying, "I'm sure that Senator Clinton feels like she's doing me a great favor, because she's been deploying most of the arguments that the Republican Party will be using against me in November, and so, it's toughening me up. And I'm getting a run through the paces here." Obama Says He "Mangled" Comments The Philadelphia Inquirer reports this morning that in an interview with their editorial board yesterday, Obama "said he had let several thoughts run together when he said nine days ago that people were 'bitter' about lost jobs and 'cling to guns or religion.' 'The problem was that I just mangled it, which happens sometimes,' he said. The thoughts that ran together, he said, were that people who feel abandoned find stability in their traditions but also are vulnerable to politicians exploiting wedge issues." McCain Calls Obama's Comments "Elitist" Fox News' Special Report reported Sen. John McCain "went directly after" Obama's "suggestion that when economic times get tough, rural and working class Americans get bitter and cling to guns and religion in order to cope." McCain said, "Hope in America is not based on delusion, but in the faith that everything is possible in America." McCain added, "I think the comments are elitist. ... I can only look at his remarks and I have seen them now several times and say that those are certainly not the vision that I have of America and its strength and its greatness and what its fundamentals values and beliefs are." The New York Times says McCain "threw himself into the culture war," saying that Obama's comments were "a fundamental contradiction of what I believe America's all about." Clinton Airs New Ad On "Bitter" Remark Clinton is now up on the air with an ad in Pennsylvania highlighting Obama's comments. Fox News' Hannity and Colmes aired a portion of an ad the Clinton campaign is running in Pennsylvania. In the ad a narrator says: "Barack Obama said people in small towns cling to guns or religion as a way to explain their frustrations." The ad then shows unidentified people on the street making the following comments, "I was very insulted by Barack Obama. ... It shows how out of touch Barack Obama is. ... I'm not clinging to my faith out of frustration and bitterness. My faith is very uplifting. ... The good people of Pennsylvania deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said." The Politico provides a full transcript of the ad. In Fundraising Email, Obama Camp Slams Foes' "Fake Outrage" The Hill reports that the Obama camp "sent a fundraising e-mail to supporters Monday afternoon, accusing" Clinton and McCain "of being the candidates who are 'out of touch.' ... 'Both our opponents have been spinning the media and peddling fake outrage around the clock,'" campaign manager David Plouffe "wrote. In response, he said, the campaign is making a fundraising push with a goal of lining up 1.5 million donors by May 6." Clinton Comments On "Bitter" Remark Received Poorly The Washington Post reports in a front-page story that at a trade debate, Clinton "encountered a flash of resistance." Clinton "declared: 'Many of you, like me, were disappointed by recent remarks he made.' Some audience members shouted 'No!' When she suggested that voters in Pennsylvania...might find Obama's remarks 'offensive,' loud cries of 'No!' could be heard again." Opinion Pieces Critical Of Clinton's Handling Of Issue While some editorials today see the affair as harming Obama, such as pieces in the Chicago Tribune and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a number of liberal columnists in big papers are highly critical of Clinton's attacks on Obama, portraying her as hypocritical for portraying Obama as elitist, led by a trio of pieces from the Washington Post this morning. The Washington Post's E. J. Dionne writes, "Something doesn't parse when a Wellesley and Yale Law School graduate whose family made $109 million since 2001 relentlessly assails a former community organizer on the grounds that he is an elitist." The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson says Clinton "made a show of demonstrating that she's actually just a regular gal. The point wasn't really to convince anyone that she, Bill and Chelsea commute between their two lavish mansions in a five-year-old Ford F-150 pickup with a gun rack and a 'Jesus Rocks!' bumper sticker. Her aim was to prove to the nation -- or at least to Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana -- that she's better at feigning regularness than Obama." The Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes, "Since when is Hillary Clinton a gun lover, a hunter or even a weekend skeet shooter? She is apparently none of the above -- at least she will not say when she last fired a gun. The truth, if a guess is allowed, is that she does not give a damn about guns and hunting, and when she brings up her 'churchgoing family' and 'Our Town' values, they are expressions of treacly nostalgia and not the life of incredible affluence and situational morality she now enjoys." Obama, Clinton Clash On Trade In a story that is getting only light coverage this morning, USA Today reports Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton "exchanged barbs Monday about trade and who best can lift up the middle class in separate appearances before steelworkers and industry executives" in Pittsburgh. Obama said, "You can't spend the better part of two decades campaigning for NAFTA and PNTR for China and then come here to Pennsylvania and tell the workers that you've been with them all along." The AP adds that Clinton "told manufacturers and union workers...that her husband made mistakes related to" NAFTA "that she plans to fix." Clinton said, "As smart as my husband is, he does make mistakes." The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review adds that Clinton and Obama "promised to tighten rules on trade with China." Clinton Maintains Six-Point Lead In Pennsylvania A new poll out this morning from Quinnipiac University shows Sen. Hillary Clinton maintaining her six-point lead over Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania as the Democratic primary in the state heads into its final week. Clinton leads Obama 50%-44%, identical to her lead in a similar poll released April 8. The poll surveyed 2,103 likely Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters from April 9-13. Quinnipiac says there was no noticeable difference in Obama's numbers in the returns from April 12-13, which came after the disclosure of his "bitter" comment. Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said this morning that "a bigger problem for Democrats looms in Pennsylvania. One out of four Clinton voters, including a third of men, say they will vote for Republican Sen. John McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic candidate." Allentown Mayor Backs Clinton The Allentown Morning Call reports this morning that Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski (D) yesterday endorsed Clinton, saying she "has solutions to problems facing urban areas like Allentown" and she "has proven herself to be a very capable legislator, extremely knowledgeable on the issues, adept at getting things done, and aware of the needs of our inner city residents and middle class." Carter, Gore Said To Be Preparing To Call On Clinton To Drop Out Fox Special Report reported last night that former President Jimmy Carter and former Vice President Al Gore "reportedly are planning to team up in a call to Hillary Clinton to end her presidential race. The Scotsman newspaper published in Scotland says the two men have been in discussions and are said to believe the prolonged battle is hurting the Democratic Party." The paper "claims that they may ask Senator Clinton in private to bow out or they may publicly endorse Barack Obama in hopes that other super delegates will follow." Journalists Like McCain Better Than Obama? The Washington Post's Dana Milbank notes both John McCain and Barack Obama "appeared before the nation's newspaper editors yesterday" at the American Society of Newspaper Editors annual meeting hosted by the Associated Press. Milbank adds, "On the same day, the two media darlings of the presidential election cycle came to address their base -- and McCain easily bested his likely opponent." According to Milbank, "The dueling appearances by McCain and Obama nicely captured the current dynamic in the presidential cycle. McCain, his nomination secure, had the luxury to joke and pander. Obama, wounded by the Democrats' internecine fighting, was defensive and somber. ... McCain got a standing ovation -- an honor Obama did not receive when his turn came two hours later." McCain To Lay Out Economic Plan Sen. John McCain is set to make a major economic address today. The Washington Post reports McCain will propose "that affluent seniors pay more for government-provided drug benefits as a way to control health-care spending, aides said during a preview of a major speech on economics that the senator will deliver in Pittsburgh." The proposal is "similar to a controversial one put forth last fall by President Bush, in which married retirees who make more than $160,000 a year would pay increasingly higher costs for the newly established Medicare prescription drug plans." The Washington Times reports McCain will also call "for a freeze on discretionary spending in order to get the federal budget in better shape, his advisers said yesterday evening." The Wall Street Journal adds that McCain "will also acknowledge economic distress among students and families." McCain "plans to aid students caught in the credit crunch who may have trouble obtaining college loans and to call for another big tax cut -- this one helping families with children." The proposals, "combined with those he has already put on the table, show the Arizona senator's mixed approach to economics. He pushes tax cuts, a traditional Republican favorite; government reforms, such as an end to pork-barrel projects; and new spending for those he sees as deserving, such as students looking for loans and homeowners who need to refinance their troubled mortgages."

P.O.D. - When Angels And Serpents Dance

Tibet Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA By Richard M Bennett Given the historical context of the unrest in Tibet, there is reason to believe Beijing was caught on the hop with the recent demonstrations for the simple reason that their planning took place outside of Tibet and that the direction of the protesters is similarly in the hands of anti-Chinese organizers safely out of reach in Nepal and northern India. Similarly, the funding and overall control of the unrest has also been linked to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and by inference to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) because of his close cooperation with US intelligence for over 50 years. Indeed, with the CIA's deep involvement with the Free Tibet Movement and its funding of the suspiciously well-informed Radio Free Asia, it would seem somewhat unlikely that any revolt could have been planned or occurred without the prior knowledge, and even perhaps the agreement, of the National Clandestine Service (formerly known as the Directorate of Operations) at CIA headquarters in Langley. Respected columnist and former senior Indian Intelligence officer, B Raman, commented on March 21 that "on the basis of available evidence, it was possible to assess with a reasonable measure of conviction" that the initial uprising in Lhasa on March 14 "had been pre-planned and well orchestrated". Could there be a factual basis to the suggestion that the main beneficiaries to the death and destruction sweeping Tibet are in Washington? History would suggest that this is a distinct possibility. The CIA conducted a large scale covert action campaign against the communist Chinese in Tibet starting in 1956. This led to a disastrous bloody uprising in 1959, leaving tens of thousands of Tibetans dead, while the Dalai Lama and about 100,000 followers were forced to flee across the treacherous Himalayan passes to India and Nepal. The CIA established a secret military training camp for the Dalai Lama's resistance fighters at Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, in the US. The Tibetan guerrillas were trained and equipped by the CIA for guerrilla warfare and sabotage operations against the communist Chinese. The US-trained guerrillas regularly carried out raids into Tibet, on occasions led by CIA-contract mercenaries and supported by CIA planes. The initial training program ended in December 1961, though the camp in Colorado appears to have remained open until at least 1966. The CIA Tibetan Task Force created by Roger E McCarthy, alongside the Tibetan guerrilla army, continued the operation codenamed ST CIRCUS to harass the Chinese occupation forces for another 15 years until 1974, when officially sanctioned involvement ceased. McCarthy, who also served as head of the Tibet Task Force at the height of its activities from 1959 until 1961, later went on to run similar operations in Vietnam and Laos. By the mid-1960s, the CIA had switched its strategy from parachuting guerrilla fighters and intelligence agents into Tibet to establishing the Chusi Gangdruk, a guerrilla army of some 2,000 ethnic Khamba fighters at bases such as Mustang in Nepal. This base was only closed down in 1974 by the Nepalese government after being put under tremendous pressure by Beijing. After the Indo-China War of 1962, the CIA developed a close relationship with the Indian intelligence services in both training and supplying agents in Tibet. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison in their book The CIA's Secret War in Tibet disclose that the CIA and the Indian intelligence services cooperated in the training and equipping of Tibetan agents and special forces troops and in forming joint aerial and intelligence units such as the Aviation Research Center and Special Center. This collaboration continued well into the 1970s and some of the programs that it sponsored, especially the special forces unit of Tibetan refugees which would become an important part of the Indian Special Frontier Force, continue into the present. Only the deterioration in relations with India which coincided with improvements in those with Beijing brought most of the joint CIA-Indian operations to an end. Though Washington had been scaling back support for the Tibetan guerrillas since 1968, it is thought that the end of official US backing for the resistance only came during meetings between president Richard Nixon and the Chinese communist leadership in Beijing in February 1972. Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer has described the outrage many field agents felt when Washington finally pulled the plug, adding that a number even "[turned] for solace to the Tibetan prayers which they had learned during their years with the Dalai Lama". The former CIA Tibetan Task Force chief from 1958 to 1965, John Kenneth Knaus, has been quoted as saying, "This was not some CIA black-bag operation." He added, "The initiative was coming from ... the entire US government." In his book Orphans of the Cold War, Knaus writes of the obligation Americans feel toward the cause of Tibetan independence from China. Significantly, he adds that its realization "would validate the more worthy motives of we who tried to help them achieve this goal over 40 years ago. It would also alleviate the guilt some of us feel over our participation in these efforts, which cost others their lives, but which were the prime adventure of our own." Despite the lack of official support it is still widely rumored that the CIA were involved, if only by proxy, in another failed revolt in October 1987, the unrest that followed and the consequent Chinese repression continuing till May 1993. The timing for another serious attempt to destabilize Chinese rule in Tibet would appear to be right for the CIA and Langley will undoubtedly keep all its options open. China is faced with significant problems, with the Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province; the activities of the Falun Gong among many other dissident groups and of course growing concern over the security of the Summer Olympic Games in August. China is viewed by Washington as a major threat, both economic and military, not just in Asia, but in Africa and Latin America as well. The CIA also views China as being "unhelpful" in the "war on terror", with little or no cooperation being offered and nothing positive being done to stop the flow of arms and men from Muslim areas of western China to support Islamic extremist movements in Afghanistan and Central Asian states. To many in Washington, this may seem the ideal opportunity to knock the Beijing government off balance as Tibet is still seen as China's potential weak spot. The CIA will undoubtedly ensure that its fingerprints are not discovered all over this growing revolt. Cut-outs and proxies will be used among the Tibetan exiles in Nepal and India's northern border areas. Indeed, the CIA can expect a significant level of support from a number of security organizations in both India and Nepal and will have no trouble in providing the resistance movement with advice, money and above all, publicity. However, not until the unrest shows any genuine signs of becoming an open revolt by the great mass of ethnic Tibetans against the Han Chinese and Hui Muslims will any weapons be allowed to appear. Large quantities of former Eastern bloc small arms and explosives have been reportedly smuggled into Tibet over the past 30 years, but these are likely to remain safely hidden until the right opportunity presents itself. The weapons have been acquired on the world markets or from stocks captured by US or Israeli forces. They have been sanitized and are deniable, untraceable back to the CIA. Weapons of this nature also have the advantage of being interchangeable with those used by the Chinese armed forces and of course use the same ammunition, easing the problem of resupply during any future conflict. Though official support for the Tibetan resistance ended 30 years ago, the CIA has kept open its lines of communications and still funds much of the Tibetan Freedom movement. So is the CIA once again playing the "great game" in Tibet? It certainly has the capability, with a significant intelligence and paramilitary presence in the region. Major bases exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and several Central Asian states. It cannot be doubted that it has an interest in undermining China, as well as the more obvious target of Iran. So the probable answer is yes, and indeed it would be rather surprising if the CIA was not taking more than just a passing interest in Tibet. That is after all what it is paid to do. Since September 11, 2001, there has been a sea-change in US Intelligence attitudes, requirements and capabilities. Old operational plans have been dusted off and updated. Previous assets re-activated. Tibet and the perceived weakness of China's position there will probably have been fully reassessed. For Washington and the CIA, this may seem a heaven-sent opportunity to create a significant lever against Beijing, with little risk to American interests; simply a win-win situation. The Chinese government would be on the receiving end of worldwide condemnation for its continuing repression and violation of human rights and it will be young Tibetans dying on the streets of Lhasa rather than yet more uniformed American kids. The consequences of any open revolt against Beijing, however, are that once again the fear of arrest, torture and even execution will pervade every corner of both Tibet and those neighboring provinces where large Tibetan populations exist, such as Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan. And the Tibetan Freedom movement still has little likelihood of achieving any significant improvement in central Chinese policy in the long run and no chance whatever of removing its control of Lhasa and their homeland. Once again it would appear that the Tibetan people will find themselves trapped between an oppressive Beijing and a manipulative Washington. Beijing sends in the heavies The fear that the United States, Britain and other Western states may try to portray Tibet as another Kosovo may be part of the reason why the Chinese authorities reacted as if faced with a genuine mass revolt rather than their official portrayal of a short-lived outbreak of unrest by malcontents supporting the Dalai Lama. Indeed, so seriously did Beijing view the situation that a special security coordination unit, the 110 Command Center, has been established in Lhasa with the primary objective of suppressing the disturbances and restoring full central government control. The center appears to be under the direct control of Zhang Qingli, first secretary of the Tibet Party and a President Hu Jintao loyalist. Zhang is also the former Xinjiang deputy party secretary with considerable experience in counter-terrorism operations in that region. Others holding important positions in Lhasa are Zhang Xinfeng, vice minister of the Central Public Security Ministry and Zhen Yi, deputy commander of the People's Armed Police Headquarters in Beijing. The seriousness with which Beijing is treating the present unrest is further illustrated by the deployment of a large number of important army units from the Chengdu Military Region, including brigades from the 149th Mechanized Infantry Division, which acts as the region's rapid reaction force. According to a United Press International report, elite ground force units of the People's Liberation Army were involved in Lhasa, and the new T-90 armored personnel carrier and T-92 wheeled armored vehicles were deployed. According to the report, China has denied the participation of the army in the crackdown, saying it was carried out by units of the armed police. "Such equipment as mentioned above has never been deployed by China's armed police, however." Air support is provided by the 2nd Army Aviation Regiment, based at Fenghuangshan, Chengdu, in Sichuan province. It operates a mix of helicopters and STOL transports from a frontline base near Lhasa. Combat air support could be quickly made available from fighter ground attack squadrons based within the Chengdu region. The Xizang Military District forms the Tibet garrison, which has two mountain infantry units; the 52nd Brigade based at Linzhi and the 53rd Brigade at Yaoxian Shannxi. These are supported by the 8th Motorized Infantry Division and an artillery brigade at Shawan, Xinjiang. Tibet is also no longer quite as remote or difficult to resupply for the Chinese army. The construction of the first railway between 2001 and 2007 has significantly eased the problems of the movement of large numbers of troops and equipment from Qinghai onto the rugged Tibetan plateau. Other precautions against a resumption of the long-term Tibetan revolts of previous years has led to a considerable degree of self-sufficiency in logistics and vehicle repair by the Tibetan garrison and an increasing number of small airfields have been built to allow rapid-reaction units to gain access to even the most remote areas. The Chinese Security Ministry and intelligence services had been thought to have a suffocating presence in the province and indeed the ability to detect any serious protest movement and suppress resistance.

Darfur The U.S. role in Darfur, Sudan By Sara Flounders What is fueling the campaign now sweeping the U.S. to “Stop Genocide in Darfur”? Campus organizations have suddenly begun organizing petitions, meetings and calls for divestment. A demonstration was held April 30 on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to “Save Darfur.” Again and again it is said that “something” must be done. “Humanitarian forces” and “U.S. peacekeepers” must be deployed immediately to stop “ethnic cleansing.” UN troops or NATO forces must be used to stop “genocide.” The U.S. government has a “moral responsibility to prevent another Holocaust.” Outrage is provoked by media stories of mass rapes and photos of desperate refugees. The charge is that tens of thousands of African people are being killed by Arab militias backed by the Sudanese government. Sudan is labeled as both a “terrorist state” and a “failed state.” Even at anti-war rallies, signs have been distributed proclaiming “Out of Iraq—Into Darfur.” Full-page ads in the New York Times have repeated the call. Who is behind the campaign and what actions are they calling for? Even a cursory look at the supporters of the campaign shows the prominent role of right-wing evangelical Christians and major Zionist groups to “Save Darfur.” A Jerusalem Post article of April 27 headlined “U.S. Jews Leading Darfur Rally Planning” described the role of prominent Zionist organizations in organizing the April 30 rally. A full-page ad for the rally in the New York Times was signed by a number of Jewish organizations, including the UJA—Federation of NY and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. But it wasn’t just Zionist groups that called it. The rally was sponsored by a coalition of 164 organizations that included the National Association of Evangelicals, the World Evangelical Alliance and other religious groups that have been the strongest supporters of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. The Kansas-based evangelical group Sudan Sunrise helped arrange buses and speakers, did extensive fund raising and co-hosted a 600-person dinner. This was hardly an anti-war or social justice rally. The organizers had a personal meeting with President George W. Bush just before the rally. He told them: “I welcome your participation. And I want to thank the organizers for being here.” Originally the demonstration was projected to draw a turnout of more than 100,000. Media coverage generously reported “several thousands,” ranging from 5,000 to 7,000. The rally was overwhelming white. Despite sparse numbers, it got wide media coverage, focusing on celebrity speakers like Academy Award winner George Clooney. Top Democrats and Republicans gave it their blessing, including U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Corzine, by the way, spent $62 million of his own money to get elected. The corporate media gave this rally more prominence than either the anti-war rally of 300,000 in New York City on the day before or the millionfold demonstrations across the country for immigrant rights on the day after. U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, Secretary of State Condo leezza Rice, Gen. Wesley Clark and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have all argued in favor of intervention in Sudan. These leading architects of imperialist policy often refer to another model when they call for this intervention: the successful “humanitarian” war on Yugoslavia that established a U.S./NATO administration over Kosovo after a massive bombing campaign. The Holocaust Museum in Washington issued a “genocide alert”—the first such alert ever issued—and 35 evangelical Chris tian leaders signed a letter urging President Bush to send U.S. troops to stop genocide in Darfur. A special national curriculum for students was established to generate grassroots support for U.S. intervention. Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) have embraced the campaign. Liberal voices such as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Rabbi Michael Lerner of TIKKUN and Human Rights Watch have also pushed the campaign to “Save Darfur.” Diversion from Iraq debacle The criminal invasion and massive bombing of Iraq, the destruction of its infrastructure that left the people without water or basic electricity, and the horrible photos of the U.S. military’s use of torture at Abu Ghraib prison created a world outcry. At its height, in September 2004, then Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell went to Sudan and announced to the world that the crime of the century—”a genocide”—was taking place there. The U.S. solution was to demand the United Nations impose sanctions on one of the poorest countries on earth and that U.S. troops be sent there as “peacekeepers.” But the rest of the UN Security Council was unwilling to accept this view, the U.S. “evidence” or the proposed action. The campaign against Sudan increased even as evidence was being brought forward that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was based on a total lie. The same media that had given credibility to the U.S. government’s claim that it was justified in invading Iraq because that country had “weapons of mass destruction” switched gears to report on “war crimes” by Arab forces in Sudan. This Darfur campaign accomplishes several goals of U.S. imperialist policy. It further demonizes Arab and Muslim people. It diverts attention from the human rights catastrophe caused by the brutal U.S. war and occupation of Iraq, which has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. It is also an attempt to deflect attention from the U.S. financing and support of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people. Most important, it opens a new front in the determination of U.S. corporate power to control the entire region. U.S. interest in Sudan Sudan is the largest country in Africa in area. It is strategically located on the Red Sea, immediately south of Egypt, and borders on seven other African countries. It is about the size of Western Europe but has a population of only 35 million people. Darfur is the western region of Sudan. It is the size of France, with a population of just 6 million. Newly discovered resources have made Sudan of great interest to U.S. corporations. It is believed to have oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia. It has large deposits of natural gas. In addition, it has one of the three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, along with the fourth-largest deposits of copper. Unlike Saudi Arabia, however, the Sudanese government has retained its independence of Washington. Unable to control Sudan’s oil policy, the U.S. imperialist government has made every effort to stop its development of this valuable resource. China, on the other hand, has worked with Sudan in providing the technology for exploration, drilling, pumping and the building of a pipeline and buys much of Sudan’s oil. U.S. policy revolves around shutting down the export of oil through sanctions and inflaming national and regional antagonisms. For over two decades U.S. imperialism supported a separatist movement in the south of Sudan, where oil was originally found. This long civil war drained the central government’s resources. When a peace agreement was finally negotiated, U.S. attention immediately switched to Darfur in western Sudan. Recently, a similar agreement between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Darfur was rejected by one of the groups, so the fighting continues. The U.S. poses as a neutral mediator and keeps pressing Khartoum for more concessions but “through its closest African allies helped train the SLA and JEM Darfuri rebels that initiated Khartoum’s violent reaction.” ( www.afrol.com) Sudan has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the world. Over 400 ethnic groups have their own languages or dialects. Arabic is the one common language. Greater Khartoum, the largest city in the country, has a population of about 6 million. Some 85 percent of the Sudanese population is involved in subsistence agriculture or raising livestock. The U.S. corporate media is unanimous in simplistically describing the crisis in Darfur as atrocities committed by the Jan jawid militias, supported by the central government in Khartoum. This is described as an “Arab” assault on “African” people. This is a total distortion of reality. As the Black Commentator, Oct. 27, 2004, points out: “All parties involved in the Darfur conflict—whether they are referred to as ‘Arab’ or as ‘African,’ are equally indigenous and equally Black. All are Muslim and all are local.” The whole population of Darfur speaks Arabic, along with many local dialects. All are Sunni Muslim. Drought, famine and sanctions The crisis in Darfur is rooted in intertribal fighting. A desperate struggle has developed over increasingly scarce water and grazing rights in a vast area of Northern Africa that has been hit hard by years of drought and growing famine. Darfur has over 35 tribes and ethnic groups. About half the people are small subsistence farmers, the other half nomadic herders. For hundreds of years the nomadic population grazed their herds of cattle and camels over hundreds of miles of grassy lowlands. Farmers and herders shared wells. For over 5,000 years, this fertile land sustained civilizations in both western Dar fur and to the east, all along the Nile River. Now, due to the drought and the encroaching great Sahara Desert, there isn’t enough grazing land or enough farmland in what could be the breadbasket of Africa. Irrigation and development of Sudan’s rich resources could solve many of these problems. U.S. sanctions and military intervention will solve none of them. Many people, especially children, have died in Sudan of totally preventable and treatable diseases because of a U.S. cruise missile attack, ordered by President Bill Clinton on Aug. 20, 1998, on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. This plant, which had produced cheap medications for treating malaria and tuberculosis, provided 60 percent of the available medicine in Sudan. The U.S. claimed Sudan was operating a VX poison gas facility there. It produced no evidence to back up the charge. This simple medical facility, totally destroyed by the 19 missiles, was not rebuilt nor did Sudan receive a penny of compensation. UN/NATO role in Sudan Presently 7,000 African Union troops are in Darfur. Their logistical and technical back-up is provided by U.S. and NATO forces. In addition, thousands of UN personnel are overseeing refugee camps for hundreds of thousands dislocated by the drought, famine and war. All of these outside forces do more than hand out needed food. They are a source of instability. As capitalist would-be conquerors have done for hundreds of years, they consciously play one group off against another. U.S. imperialism is heavily involved in the entire region. Chad, which is directly west of Darfur, last year participated in a U.S.-organized international military exer cise that, according to the U.S. Defense Depart ment, was the largest in Africa since World War II. Chad is a former French colony, and both French and U.S. forces are heavily involved in funding, training and equipping the army of its military ruler, Idriss Deby, who has supported rebel groups in Darfur. For more than half a century, Britain ruled Sudan, encountering widespread resis tance. British colonial policy was rooted in divide-and-conquer tactics and in keeping its colonies underdeveloped and isolated in order to plunder their resources. U.S. imperialism, which has replaced the European colonial powers in many parts of the world, in recent years has been sabotaging the economic independence of countries trying to emerge from colonial underdevelopment. Its main economic weapons have been sanctions combined with “structural adjustment” demands made by the International Monetary Fund, which it controls. In return for loans, the target governments must cut their budgets for development of infrastructure. How can demands from organizations in the West for sanctions, leading to further underdevelopment and isolation, solve any of these problems? Washington has often used its tremendous power in the UN Security Council to get resolutions endorsing its plans to send U.S. troops into other countries. None were on humanitarian missions. U.S. troops carrying the UN flag invaded Korea in 1950 in a war that resulted in more than 4 million deaths. Still flying that flag, they have occupied and divided the Korean peninsula for over 50 years. At the urging of the U.S., UN troops in 1961 were deployed to the Congo, where they played a role in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the country’s first prime minister. The U.S. was able to get a UN mandate in 1991 for its massive bombing of the entire Iraqi civilian infrastructure, including water purification plants, irrigation and food processing plants—and for the 13 years of starvation sanctions that resulted in the deaths of over 1.5 million Iraqis. UN troops in Yugoslavia and in Haiti have been a cover for U.S. and European intervention and occupation—not peace or reconciliation. The U.S. and European imperialist powers are responsible for the genocidal slave trade that decimated Africa, the genocide of the Indigenous population of the Americas, the colonial wars and occupations that looted three-quarters of the globe. It was German imperialism that was responsible for the genocide of Jewish people. To call for military intervention by these same powers as the answer to conflicts among the people of Darfur is to ignore 500 years of history. Sara Flounders went to Sudan just after the bombing of the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in 1998 with John Parker as part of an International Action Center fact-finding delegation led by Ramsey Clark.

Latest Pennsylvania poll: Clinton ahead by 4 points The survey was done before Sen. Barack Obama's opponents jumped on him for describing some small-town voters in Pennsylvania as being "bitter," but a new poll from the Keystone State shows a very tight race there between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Newsmax/Zogby survey puts Clinton ahead 47%-43%. That's the smallest lead for Clinton of any Pennsylvania poll in the last week or so, according to Real Clear Politics. It also puts Obama within the poll's 3.2 percentage points margin of error because Clinton's support could be as low as 43.8% (47-3.2=43.8) and Obama's could be as high as 46.2% (43+3.2=46.2). Pennsylvania's primary is set for April 22. Interestingly, Zogby says it did not use its automated, robo-call technology to do its latest survey. Instead, the polling company says, the survey "was conducted April 9-10, 2008, and includes 1,002 likely Democratic primary voters using live telephone operators calling from Zogby's in-house call center in Upstate New York." In the past, Clinton campaign pollster and adviser Mark Penn has complained that automated polls may not be as reliable as those done by humans. As for what Obama said about small-town folks, there's lots of commentary out there this morning about what it may or may not mean for his campaign. Some conservative bloggers, such as John Hinderaker at Powerline, are making the case that Obama's done himself great damage. David Sirota at The Huffington Post, though, says Republican Sen. John McCain isn't being straight when he attacks Obama on this one because McCain has said similar things in the past.

Tibet Documents present picture of Tibet's brutal past Left: Serfs carry goods to the Potala Palace. Right: A herdsman's left foot was chopped by the head of his tribe. File photo Among the documents at the Archives of the Nationalities Cultural Palace in Beijing are some that hint that a feudal-serfdom institution existed in Tibet before the democratic reform in 1959, which was more brutal than the system of medieval Europe. According to the Thirteen and Sixteen laws - the Tibetan feudal legal codes that were compiled in the 17th and 18th centuries and were applied until 1959 - Tibetans were divided into three social strata within nine grades: In the upper stratum, the King of Tsang and other rulers belonged to the upper grade; Geshes, teachers of morals, abbots, high-ranking officials, or "headmen who had more than 300 attendants and servants", the middle grade; while "the independent bachelors, servants doing odd-jobs in government offices" were relegated to the upper grade of the lower stratum; "blacksmiths, butchers and beggars who had permanent residence and paid taxes", to the middle grade of the lower stratum; and "women, beggars, butchers and blacksmiths" to the lower grade of the lower stratum "whose life-price was a straw rope". Documents kept at the Archive of the Tibet Autonomous Region show the monasteries, officials and aristocrats owned, governed and inherited all the arable land and pastures. The social strata were strictly followed. One sentence in Article Three of the Thirteen Laws, a copy of which is filed under the No MB101 in the Archives of the Nationalities Cultural Palace, reads: "Persons of low social stratus who quarrel with those of high status shall be arrested". The eighth article of the Thirteen Laws says: "A drop of blood of the people of high status is worth one qian (0.16 oz) of silver, while a drop of blood of the people of low status is worth one li (one 10th of a qian) of silver". Figures from the old Tibetan local government from June 1959, which are kept at the Tibet autonomous region's archives, show that of the 3.3 million khals (in Tibetan measurements, about 541,200 acres) of land under cultivation in old Tibet, local government officials owned 1.2 million, or about 39 percent; aristocrats owned 790,000, or 24 percent; and the high clergy owned 1.2 million, or 37 percent. These "manorial lords", accounted for just 5 percent of the population. The serfs and house-slaves who accounted for 95 percent of the population were the property of serf owners. Even their offspring became the property of the serf owners from birth. According to many original contracts preserved in the Archives of the Nationalities Cultural Palace and the Archive of the Tibet Autonomous Region, the manorial lords had the freedom to exchange serfs or present serfs to each other as gifts. Serfs had to pay high interest on their debts by doing corvee (unpaid labor) or by selling their own children. A certificate, written in the old form of the Tibetan language, used before 1959 and kept as No MC 1015 File at the Archives of the Nationalities Cultural Palace, reads: "Being unable to pay back the money and grain we owe Nedong Dekhang, we, Tsewang Rabten and my wife, serfs of the Dusong Manor, must give up our daughter Gensong Tonten and younger son Padma Tenzin to Dekhang to repay the debts. The descendents of their son and daughter will be Dekhang's serfs." Part of another contract, also kept at the Archives of the Nationalities Cultural Palace, as No MC 10144 File, was signed in 1947 by Drashi Choda to pay off his debt by letting his sister Tsering Lhamo work for Lharang without pay for 10 years. It reads: "I, Drashi Choda, belong to the Nari Monastery of the Nari Manor. I borrowed 34 khal (about 1,047 pounds) and 3 sheng (0.085 bushels) of grain from the Lharang granary in the Wood-Monkey year, the interests of which amount to 6 khal (184 pounds) and 14.5 sheng (0.41 bushels). The principal and the interest total 40 khal (1,232 pounds) and 19.3 sheng (0.49 bushels) of grain. "As I am unable to pay back the sum annually, I ask my younger sister Tsering Lhamo, who shares weal and woe with me, to pay off my debts by doing 10 years' unpaid service for the Lharang beginning at the first day of the 12 month of this Fire-Dog year." The contract also stipulates: "In case of violation of the contract, Drashi Choda shall be punished according to the local law." According to old Tibetan administration records of 1950, kept at the Archive of the Tibet autonomous region, 90 percent of Tibet's 1 million people were homeless. Of the 20,000 in Lhasa at the time, more than 1,000 families lived as beggars. Some serf owners tortured their slaves by chopping off their feet and hands, gouging out their eyeballs, cutting off their tongues or pushing them off cliffs. They could do this legally, because they were protected by the Thirteen and Sixteen Laws. Article Four of the Thirteen Laws stipulated: "Those who loot, kidnap, steal and kill, commit armed robberies or rebel against the authorities shall be punished corporally by: gouging out the eyes; cutting off the foot, tongue or hand; being pushed off a cliff; drowning; or execution." (China Daily April 10, 2008)

No, the most important thing that we should promot is the stand against the fragmentation the world into pieces, they follow the rule which saying Divide and Conquer