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Originally designed for battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance, albeit often to call in lethal military strikes, drones have been employed by the U.S. since 2001 to identify and kill human targets. The first "hunter-killer" unmanned combat air vehicle, the Predator, was used by the Pentagon in Bosnia in 1995 and later in the 78-day air war against Yugoslavia in 1999. The Predator and its successor, the Reaper, capable of carrying fifteen times more weaponry and flying at three times the speed, have been used for deadly attacks in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and with particularly murderous effect in Pakistan since the autumn of 2008. They are equipped with cameras connected by satellite links to bases in the United States. The United States has not only increased its arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles by twenty five times over the past decade, it has massively increased the range and lethality of its hunter-killer drones. A recent report disclosed that beginning in 2008 the Air Force Research Laboratory started to "build the ultimate assassination robot," described as "a tiny, armed drone for U.S. special forces to employ in terminating 'high-value targets.'"
Palestinians came face to face with Oslo’s failure. This was intensified during the second intifada, the destruction of Jenin, the confinement of Arafat the mayhem in Ramallah and the long list of corruption charges against the PA. It was against this backdrop that the Palestinians went to the polls in 2006 and voted Oslo out by voting Hamas in. The West and Israel boycotted the newly elected government but knew that they needed to reinvent their approach of pacifying the Palestinians through a system of economic dominance. It was then that Bush’s West Bank First Policy began. The underlying assumption of this policy is to reward so called “moderates” in the WB and engage them with promises of economic prosperity in hope that full stomachs will mean a tame population.
Through Avatar I lived the story of the Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan and Lebanese peoples and the wars waged against them; where the West treats these peoples as if they were the children of the “Navi” tribe with their blue clothes in their planet Pandora. Settlers landed on planet Pandora driven by the greed for its wealth. Their calculations were focused on the material gains which they can only get through possessing the land and its natural resources. To be able to do that they had either to kill or expel the Navi who are tied to their land, nature, holy tree and their customs which show equal respect to human life and nature, in bleak contrast to the attitude of the invading settlers who mock sanctities and human respect for nature. They only see the things which give them large amounts of money. This contrast between the values of two cultures is at the essence of the creation of Israel. For seventy years, it has killed the Palestinians on a daily basis, Judaized their holy places, settled their land, confiscated their water, uprooted their trees, mocked their beliefs, their commitment to their land and their way of life.
There were chuckles and sniggers in Qatar last month when Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, warned that a military dictatorship was imminent in Iran. Threatening America's most intransigent adversary, Clinton seems to have been oblivious to her audience: educated Arabs in the Middle East where America's military presence has long propped up several dictators, including such stalwart allies in rendition and torture as Hosni Mubarak. Of course, by her own standards, Clinton was being remarkably nuanced and sober: during the presidential campaign in 2008 she promised to "obliterate" Iran. An over-eager cheerleader of the Bush administration's serial bellicosity, Clinton exemplifies Barack Obama's essential continuity with previous US foreign policymakers – despite the president's many emollient words to the contrary. Clinton has also "warned" China with an officiousness redolent of the 1990s when her husband, with some encouragement from Tony Blair, tried to sort out the New World Order. But the illusions of western power that proliferated in the 90s now lie shattered.
It is appropriate to adopt caution, and to beware making hasty analysis, when it comes to passing judgment on problematic issues, whose dimensions, meanings and significance are unclear: One such issue that falls into this zone requiring caution and patience is the discourse centred around what is known as Political Islam. In distinguishing between Islam as source of worship and its political orientation is mere superficiality, given that Islam is essentially based on a comprehensive system that incorporates both the personal, as well as the political affairs, of the individual human being and the community of which he is a part. The establishment community and political administration in the Mohammedan Prophetic Message were given a similar status to prayer when The Prophet said: “Those who, if We give them power in the land, establish worship… (Sura Hajj, verse 41).
If young British Muslims had any doubts that they are singled out for special treatment in the land of their birth, the punishments being meted out to those who took part in last year's London demonstrations against Israel's war on Gaza will have dispelled them. The protests near the Israeli embassy at the height of the onslaught were angry: bottles and stones were thrown, a Starbucks was trashed and the police employed unusually violent tactics, even by the standards of other recent confrontations, such as the G20 protests. But a year later, it turns out that it's the sentences that are truly exceptional. Of 119 people arrested, 78 have been charged, all but two of them young Muslims (most between the ages of 16 and 19), according to Manchester University's Joanna Gilmore, even though such figures in no way reflect the mix of those who took part. In the past few weeks, 15 have been convicted, mostly of violent disorder, and jailed for between eight months and two-and-a-half years – having switched to guilty pleas to avoid heavier terms. Another nine are up to be sentenced tomorrow.
The British anger at Israel would be a positive signal in the right direction if we were not aware of Foreign Secretary David Miliband investing enormous efforts trying to amend Britain's ethical stand just to appease Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak and other Israeli leaders. The Foreign Ministry's reaction could almost be deemed a revelation, were we able to forget that just five weeks before Israel launched its lethal criminal attack against Gaza, David Miliband visited Sderot, an Israeli town on the Gaza border to offer his support. "No country can accept constant bombardment of its citizens", Miliband told the people of Sderot. He then continued, "Israel should, above all, seek to protect its own citizens". It was that foolish statement that made us all complicit in Israel's flattening of Gaza. The truth of the matter is tragic. The British political system is paralyzed by the Israeli lobby. Like in the US, British national interests are sacrificed for the sake of dirty Zionist cash.
At a time when extreme and even unthinkable measures are being taken to
completely sever the few remaining passageways of life into Gaza through Rafah’s
underground tunnels into Egypt, other tunnels of a different kind and a
different purpose are being dug elsewhere everyday in broad daylight for all the
world to see in occupied East Jerusalem under the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and
its surrounding areas, these illegal underground Israeli excavations – done
underneath civilian populated areas – not only threaten the very foundation of
Islam’s third holiest shrine, but it also poses a serious threat to the
residents of the neighborhoods under which these non-stop network of
“archeological explorations” are taking place.
Four years ago, the blessed shrines of the tenth and eleventh Imams (a) were heinously targeted in Samarra in what was an intentional and calculated strike at one of the most potent symbols in Shia Islam. There are those who would like us to pass off February 22, 2006 as one more day in the pain-ridden history of Shi’ism; one more dark episode pushed to the depths as it were. Such that when we turn to look back in 5 years or 50 years time, there are no lessons to be derived – there is only a reaffirmation of the living insignia of oppression and suffering. This kind of reaction, subsumed in a palpable fatalism, achieves nothing except to multiply the oppression. The attack on the blessed shrines emerged from a particular context from which we can derive both specific and general lessons. Not wanting to ring alarm bells aloud, the present situation and context is not dissimilar to that of February 2006. It is therefore incumbent upon us to closely analyse the conditions of our recent past, following which, we can begin to sketch some of the responsibilities that we must shoulder.
