In this issue:

Zepp-LaRouche Cited in Arabic 'Right to Food' Declaration

Carter Shows Mideast Hope in Obama Is Gone

Jordanian Daily on Obama's Failure in Middle East

What Settlement Freeze?

From Volume 36, Issue 36 of EIR Online, Published Sept. 18, 2009
Southwest Asia News Digest

Zepp-LaRouche Cited in Arabic 'Right to Food' Declaration

Sept. 10 (EIRNS)—The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (anhri.net), based in Egypt, issued a declaration on Aug. 27, announcing "changes in the list of priorities" after consultations with its members, other NGOs, and other groups in Egyptian society. It announces the launching of "right-to-food program" due to "the crucial aspects of this right which is deteriorating rapidly as a result of privatization and so-called structural adjustment schemes that have thrown millions of Egyptians into the abyss of poverty and hunger."

The declaration cites the horrifying numbers of hungry people in the world, and other statistics that are similar to those listed in Helga Zepp-LaRouche's call from May 3, 2008 for doubling world food production internationally.

The ANHRI declaration states: "This is what made Helga LaRouche, chairman of the Schiller Institute and the German Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo), say in a statement, entitled 'Mankind Is in Danger. Instead of Wars of Starvation, Let Us Double Food Production!' that the world is heading towards an unprecedented catastrophe."

The declaration quotes extensively from Zepp-LaRouche's call, including the attack on speculation in food and the biofuels crime, as well as her reference to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, demanding that elimination of hunger and poverty become an inalienable right for all human beings and nations, and a step towards the pursuit of happiness.

The ANHRI describes Zepp-LaRouche as a "German-born specialist in studies of the German thinker Nicholas of Cusa and the German poet Friedrich Schiller; chairwoman and founder of the international Schiller Institute; leader of political campaigns in Germany with the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo); initiator of various initiatives for a dialogue of cultures."

In the weeks preceding the June 2008 Rome summit meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Zepp-LaRouche's call was reported extensively in the Egyptian press and other media, as the Egyptian government and President Hosni Mubarak adopted the fight against biofuels and speculation in food on the international financial markets as Egypt's main mission at the FAO summit. The ANHRI declaration appears only in Arabic and can be found at http://www.anhri.net/egypt/elmarsd/2009/pr0827.shtml

Carter Shows Mideast Hope in Obama Is Gone

Sept. 7 (EIRNS)—When former President Jimmy Carter wrote on Sept. 6 that "a majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we [a delegation of the group called 'The Elders'] met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea," he was commenting on the meteoric fall of Barack Obama in Southwest Asia since June 4, when the President gave what Carter calls the "historic Cairo Speech."

Less than 90 days later, the Carter delegation saw conditions in Gaza and Jerusalem far more horrible than before. Carter writes: "Gaza ... is now a walled-in ghetto inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians.... Gazans cannot produce their own food nor repair schools, hospitals, business establishments or the 50,000 homes that were destroyed or heavily damaged by Israel's assault last January.

"...[S]ettlement expansion is continuing apace, rapidly encroaching into Palestinian villages, hilltops, grazing lands, farming areas and olive groves. There are more than 200 of these settlements in the West Bank.

"An even more disturbing expansion is taking place in Palestinian East Jerusalem.... On Aug. 27, we Elders took a gift of food to 18 members of the Hanoun family, recently evicted from their home of 65 years ["four generations," he noted]. The Hanouns, including six children, are living on the street, while Israeli settlers have moved into their confiscated dwelling."

Without saying it directly, Carter indicates that the two-state negotiations are finished, unless there is a rapid turn away from what Obama has not done in the last three months—i.e., back up the Hillary Clinton-George Mitchell-national security team in trying to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian state peace that would include a Palestinian state. Palestinian leaders have greater interest in a declaration by the UN Security Council of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 border (proposed by EU foreign affairs official Javier Solana), and even in the unilateral declaration of a state in 2011, now outlined by Palestinian Authority (unelected) Prime Minister Salem Fayyad.

Neither of these "solutions" can succeed without the U.S. President ending the Sykes-Picot model of perpetual war.

In March 2009, EIR attended an excellent conference on the one-state solution, where Israeli, Palestinian, and Jewish intellectuals from around the world developed the idea that a new single state would require a constitution that gives equal rights to all citizens, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity. But such a one-man-one-vote state is unacceptable to the British Empire and its Netanyahu lackeys.

The only course to peace is for Obama to follow what Lyndon LaRouche laid out most recently in his May 4 speech in Connecticut, where he located Middle East peace as part of his four-power plan to rebuild the world financial system.

Jordanian Daily on Obama's Failure in Middle East

Sept. 9 (EIRNS)—The semi-official Jordanian daily Addustor today, under the title "Does President Obama Realize What This Reminder Means?" declares President Obama's failure to create any prospects for peace in the region. Author Yousuf Abdullah Mahmoud cites Israeli peace activist and writer Rachelle Marshall, who ridiculed Obama for a speech he gave in Germany in May, in which he said, "The Palestinians have to create an environment of security so that Israel feels secure." Marshall reminded Obama that nobody asked the Poles or Czechoslovaks to create an environment of security during World War II when the Nazis were occupying their country. This is a magnificent irony!

The author also cites Marshall's ridicule of a demand Obama made to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "to find a way to halt the incitement of anti-Israeli sentiments among Palestinians! Aren't they [the U.S. Administration] ashamed of making such demands?"

Marshall's article, titled "Israel says No to Obama. What Next?", appeared in August in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Marshall says if Obama were serious, he would have started by bringing Fatah and Hamas around one table. Why is he not doing that? she asks.

After listing Israel's flagrant refusal to stop settlement building and other activities showing total indifference to the U.S. demands, and showing that Obama did not put the full force of the U.S. behind these demands, Addustor concludes: "We have not seen anything on the ground that proves Obama's credibility."

What Settlement Freeze?

Sept. 9 (EIRNS)—For weeks now, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been running a media spin campaign claiming that he is about to sign an agreement with U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell. The reality is that his government has approved hundreds of new housing permits in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, which is behind the 1967 ceasefire lines, inside what is internationally recognized as Israeli-occupied territory.

In the last weeks alone, 1,200 or more permits have been approved. A few weeks ago Netanyahu approved up to 200 housing units in a complex in the middle of a Palestinian part of East Jerusalem called Ras al-Amud. The complex is sponsored by California bingo parlor "king" Irving Moskowitz, who finances the Israeli right wing, including Netanyahu's own political campaigns.

Over the weekend, Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved another 500 units in West Bank settlements. Now tenders have been published with the approval of the Housing Minister for another 486 apartments in East Jerusalem.

Daniel Seidemann, the founder of Amim, an organization that seeks to promote coexistence with Palestinians in Jerusalem, denounced the issuing of tenders, saying that the decision must have been made with the approval of Netanyahu. According to Ha'aretz, he said that this was yet another example of a fraud that leaders to creating facts on the ground even though there is talk of a freeze in settlement construction.

The French Le Canard Enchaîné quoted a high-level French diplomat, who said that, "until the United States and the European Union decide to threaten Israel with sanctions, Netanyahu will not go back, despite all political pressure. And no one on either side of the Atlantic envisages doing so." Le Canard reports that, in July, the French Consul in Jerusalem, Alain Remy, reported to his foreign ministry: "New construction and demolition are moving forward in and around Jerusalem." He cited a project which "would deprive 1,200 Palestinians of the village of al-Jania of 86 hectares of farmland," and the fact that the homes of 60,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem are threatened with demolition. The Consul wrote on July 22 that "Netanyahu is defying the international community by nibbling East Jerusalem through colonization. The objective, which is stated by the Prime Minister himself ... is the encirclement of the Holy City. This objective is contrary to all commitments made by Israel in the context of the Road Map, and incompatible with the two-state Solution."

Furthermore, reports Le Canard, after the EU asked Netanyahu to avoid "provocative actions" in East Jerusalem, "the secret services broke into the Centre for Studies of the Old City," currently being restored by a Franco-Israeli woman.

All rights reserved © 2009 EIRNS