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Israel planting thousands of ‘fake’ Jewish graves around Aqsa Mosque: Palestinian group

Tuesday, 22 May 2012 09:51 Israel is implanting “thousands of fake” Jewish graves in the land surrounding al-Aqsa Mosque “at the pretext of carrying out repair and maintenance works and new excavations” in a bid to lay hand on Palestinian and Islamic endowment lands, Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage said in a report on Monday.

“The Israeli occupation of Jerusalem is committing a very ugly crime on Palestinian lands, on Muslim endowment lands, and that is the implanting of thousands of fake Jewish graves in this site,” Abdel Majeed Mohammad, of the Aqsa Foundation was quoted in report as saying.

“What we learned from the people of Silwan is that there is limited number of Jewish graves (around Aqsa Mosque). The Israeli occupation is trying to impose a fait accomplice to control Palestinian endowment lands through implanting 3,000 graves.”

“This is the greatest paradox; on the one hand Israel bulldozes Muslim graves in Jerusalem, on the other hands it implants thousands of fake Jewish graves,” Mohammad said.

He added that thousands of Jewish tombstones were planted around the mosque to indicate graves, but underneath, there are no bodies, nor skeletons.

In January 2012, the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) reported that Israel “implanted 50 unreal graves in the northern part of Silwan district so as to control and seize about 20 dunums of Palestinian land there.”

“This Israeli move is aimed at separating the area from the walls of the Aqsa Mosque, where the IOA [Israeli Occupation Authority] also intends to establish a chain of Talmudic gardens and a large Jewish museum in the area connected with the Jewish cemetery in Ras al-Amud and Attour neighborhoods and the settlements, Maale Hazeetim and Maale David,” PIC reported.

In 2010 Israel said it had destroyed about 300 Muslim gravestones in a Jerusalem cemetery because they were “fake” and set up in a bid to snatch government land, according to AFP.

But the Islamic Movement completely denied the graves were fake, saying all of them contained bodies.

The demolition of the graves took place near the site of a planned Museum of Tolerance to be built by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based Jewish human rights group.

Bilawal urges Obama to “show courage”,apologies.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

NEW YORK: Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has urged President Barack Obama to show “some courage” and apologise to Pakistan for the Nato airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at Salala and bring US-Pakistan relations back on track.

“Pakistan deserves an apology,” he said, noting that his current week long visit to the United States was taking place at a crucial point in the relations between the two countries.
“I urge President Obama to show some courage. I understand he is running for reelection but if he is the same man who inspired the world with his message of hope and change the future of Nato mission in Afghanistan should be more important than poll numbers,” Bilawal told a gathering of PPP workers in New York.
The PPP chairman also called for an end to drone attacks inside Pakistani territory, terming them illegal and in violation of international laws.
“The continuing unilateral US drone attacks on Pakistani soil was a constant irritant to Pakistani public opinion – both as a clear violation of our sovereignty and the toll of collateral damage to innocent victims,” he said.
“I would like the American public to consider what their reaction would have been if American troops had been killed in such an attack on their border with Mexico.”
Referring to the US raid that killed former al Qaeda leader Osama bin laden in Abbottabad, the PPP Chairman said, “The unilateral action in Abbottabad made many in Pakistan question whether the United States actually considered Pakistan a military ally in our common war on terrorism and extremism.”
“The Raymond Davis fiasco made many in our country question the role and authority of CIA activities in Pakistan,” he added.
Bilawal added: “This is truly a moment of tension and re-examination. We are at a crossroads. The future of the bilateral relationship could well determine the success of moderation against extremism in South and Central Asia.”

US military course taught officers 'Islam is the enemy'

Pentagon suspends course after study materials posted online suggested that Mecca and Medina may have to be obliterated.

Associated Press in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 11 May 2012 08.28 BST

General Martin Dempsey speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon. The course was suspended when a student objected to the material. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

A course for US military officers has been teaching that America's enemy is Islam in general and suggesting that the country might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths, following second world war precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
The Pentagon suspended the course in late April when a student objected to the material. The FBI also changed some agent training last year after discovering that it, too, was critical of Islam.
The teaching in the military course was counter to repeated assertions by US officials over the past decade that America is at war against Islamic extremists, not the religion itself.
"They hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit," the instructor, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley, said in a presentation last July for the course at Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. The college, for professional military members, teaches mid-level officers and government civilians on subjects related to planning and executing war.
Dooley also presumed, for the purposes of his theoretical war plan, that the Geneva conventions that set standards of armed conflict, are "no longer relevant".
He adds: "This would leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable to the Mecca and Medina destruction decision point)."
His war plan suggests possible outcomes such as "Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation ... Islam reduced to cult status".
A copy of the presentation was obtained and posted online by Wired.com's Danger Room blog. The college did not respond to the Associated Press' requests for copies of the documents, but a Pentagon spokesman authenticated the documents. Dooley still works for the college, but is no longer teaching, said the joint chiefs of staff chairman, General Martin Dempsey. Dooley has refused to comment.
A military service record summary provided by army human resources at Fort Knox, Kentucky, shows that Dooley was commissioned as a second lieutenant upon graduation from the US military academy at West Point, New York, in May 1994. He has served tours in Germany, Bosnia, Kuwait and Iraq. He has numerous awards including a Bronze Star medal, the fourth-highest US combat award.
In what he termed a model for a campaign to force a transformation of Islam, Dooley called for "a direct ideological and philosophical confrontation with Islam", with the presumption that Islam is an ideology rather than just a religion.
He further asserted that Islam has already declared war on the west, and the US specifically.
"It is therefore illogical" to continue with the current US strategy, which Dooley said presumes there is a way of finding common ground with Islamic religious leaders, without "waging near total war".
The course on Islam had been taught since 2004, but was not part of the required core curriculum. It was offered five times a year, with about 20 students each time.
Though Dooley has been teaching at the college since August 2010, it was unclear when he took on that particular class, called Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism.
The joint staff suspended the course after it had received a student complaint, and within days Dempsey ordered all service branches to review their training to ensure other courses do not use anti-Islamic material.
On Thursday, Dempsey said the material in the Norfolk course was counter to American "appreciation for religious freedom and cultural awareness".
"It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn't academically sound," Dempsey said. "This wasn't about ... pushing back on liberal thought; this was objectionable, academically irresponsible."
In his July 2011 presentation on "counterjihad", Dooley asserted that the rise of what he called a "military Islam/Islamist resurgence" compels the US to consider extreme measures, "unconstrained by fears of political incorrectness".
He described his purpose as generating "dynamic discussion and thought", while noting that his ideas and proposals are not official US government policy and cannot be found in any current official defence department documents.
A Pentagon inquiry is seeking to determine whether someone above the professor's level is supposed to approve course materials and whether that approval process was followed in this case, said Colonel Dave Lapan, a spokesman for Dempsey.
The problem of negative portrayals of Islam in federal government is not new. A six-month review the FBI launched into agent training material uncovered 876 offensive or inaccurate pages that had been used in 392 presentations, including a PowerPoint slide that said the bureau can sometimes bend or suspend the law in counterterror investigations.