Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

In this mailing: Malcolm Lowe: The EU's Embarrassing Little Secret in Labeling Israeli Products Jagdish N. Singh: Fake Protests Uzay Bulut: Turkey Destroys Kurdistan, World Silent The EU's Embarrassing Little Secret in Labeling Israeli Products by Malcolm Lowe  •  November 19, 2015 at 5:00 am The EU alleges that the "Interpretive Notice" has nothing to do with a boycott of Israel, and the U.S. has officially concurred in that assessment. The EU says the Interpretive Notice merely responds to "a demand for clarity from consumers, economic operators and national authorities." But this is disingenuous. There is a long list of separatist movements in the EU, some demanding independence, others demanding greater autonomy. It is easy to imagine that some Jews in Israel have corresponding sympathies with such movements and "demands for clarity" about the products of the respective European states. Surely some Israeli Jews would like to buy Scotch whisky only from the few firms that are still in Scottish hands. How can Israelis' right to know fairly be denied? Israel is entitled to request that Europeans label their products accordingly. What has happened is another manifestation of the infuriating zeal of the European Commission to issue endless directives to all member states in order to impose uniformity in cases where most Europeans never imagined that uniformity was necessary. Boycotting products made by Jews, now, and then. On November 11, 2015, the Commission of the European Union issued the "final" version of its "Interpretative Notice on indication of origin of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967." It recommends the labelling of all such goods as originating in an "Israeli settlement." The decision aroused dismay and anger not just in the parties constituting the current Israeli government but also in most of the parliamentary opposition in the Knesset. After all, the original settlement program in all those areas was the Allon Plan. This plan was adopted shortly after 1967 by the then Labour Alignment, which was the direct ancestor of the chief current opposition party. So the European Commission has succeeded in alienating also those whom it would like to replace the Netanyahu government. Continue Reading Article  Fake Protests by Jagdish N. Singh  •  November 19, 2015 at 4:30 am When no one is out there to protect freedom and democracy, groups masquerading as democratic forces move in to serve the designs of their masters. Anyone questioning the authorities' interpretation of Islam is dealt with in a barbaric fashion, from the 2am "knock on the door" to sham trials, public floggings, protracted imprisonment, rape, beatings, torture and extrajudicial murder. In some countries, the lawyers who represent such clients are also murdered. Mauritania passed a new anti-slavery law this year, but have yet to start jailing slave-owners instead of anti-slavery activists. The government has yet to release award winning anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, arrested last year for organizing a peaceful demonstration against slavery. Many theocracies have little-to-no respect for law; freedom of expression; equal justice under the law; freedom of (or from) religion; for women's rights; tolerance of homosexuals or other sexual preferences -- but they condone the sexual assault of children. Indian activists protest a visit by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Oct. 28, 2015. (Image source: Students Islamic Organisation of India) One of the reasons democracy has not really taken roots in much of the contemporary world is that some groups still remain aligned to the status quo -- reactionary forces in our society. They apparently prefer to join a democratic system, and then invent ways to hijack its terminology and misuse its tools to destroy it from within. As such groups can be found the world over, sadly India is no exception. A case in point is the protest, organized by the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights and the Students Islamic Organisation of India, against the recent visit of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to New Delhi to attend India-Africa Forum Summit. The organizers said in a press statement: Continue Reading Article  Turkey Destroys Kurdistan, World Silent by Uzay Bulut  •  November 19, 2015 at 4:00 am If Kurds left their homes, they would be shot. If they stayed in their homes, they would be bombed. The Kurdish town of Cizre in Turkey was indiscriminately bombarded by Turkish security forces in September. Many homes were heavily damaged or destroyed. Photographic evidence shows many buildings and vehicles in the town riddled with bullet holes. In 1990s, the Turkish military used to burn down Kurdish villages; today they burn down Kurdish towns. This month, three neighborhoods in the Kurdish city of Silvan in Diyarbakir Province -- Tekel, Konak and Mescit -- were put under military curfew and then attacked from November 3 to November 14. Telephone lines, water, and electricity were cut. The neighborhoods, besieged by armored police vehicles, were then bombarded by tanks and artillery shooting from the hills. Many houses were hit by bullets and bombs; some houses were burned. [1] Representatives of the governor's office in Diyarbakir claimed that the military operations aimed to "remove the ditches and barricades" set up by some Kurdish youths, but reports coming from the town showed that the operation actually seemed to aim at ethnically cleansing the town from its indigenous population for more than two thousand years, the Kurds. [2] Continue Reading Article