#BDS: Prominent #Bahrain Activist @MARYAMALKHAWAJA withdraws from UNESCO conference which is honouring Israeli President #fuckIsrael

"Maryam AlKhawaja has withdrawn from a UNESCO conference on human rights. In an open letter to the organisers, written in a personal capacity, Maryam explains that whilst she was "honoured" to be invited to participate in an event which will honour her father, Abdulhadi AlKhawaja, she is "utterly disappointed" that he is to be honoured alongside Shimon Peres. The letter, which has been reprinted on Electronic Intifada, also contains a list of human rights violations which Peres is allegedly responsible for."

Read more

#BDS Photo: "No To Normalization With #Israel" by @WLEXT #Bahrain

#BDS: #البحرين تشارك وإسرائيل في البرلمان اليهودي الاوروبي

طالب سفيرا البحرين لدى الولايات المتحدة وبلجيكا اسرائيل بتقديم الدعم لسلطات البحرين من اجل الوقوف بوجه الاحتجاجات الشعبية المطالبة بالتغيير واقامة حكم ديموقراطي، واتهما ايران بزعزعة الاستقرار في المنطقة.

وخلال المؤتمر المركزي الأول للبرلمان اليهودي الاوروبي الجديد في بروكسل هاجم سفير البحرين في بروكسل احمد محمد الدُرسي ايران. وقال ان طهران تزعزع الاستقرار في المنطقة كلها.. واعتبر الدرسي انه لا صلة بين ما حدث في تونس وليبيا ومصر من (ثورات الربيع العربي) وبين ما يحدث في البحرين "حيث تآمرت ايران" حسب تعبيره، داعياً المجتمع الدولي الى تأييد بلاده في مواجهتها مع ايران وقال بصريح العبارة ان بلاده تتوقع من المجتمع الدولي كله وفيه الكيان الاسرائيلي ان يقف الى جانبها في مواجهتها الحالية مع ايران.

صحيفة "القدس العربي" قالت في مقال لها، ان السفير البحريني جلس على منصة الشرف ضمن اخرين بينهم واديم رابينوفيتش، من رؤساء البرلمان الجديد، وعضو الكنيست الاسرائيلي زئيف ألكين الذي مثل الكنيست الاسرائيلي، وسفيرة البحرين في واشنطن، هدى عزرا النونو وهي يهودية بحرانية، حيث امتدحت في خطبتها تسامح مملكتها الصغيرة التي يعيش فيها ستة وثلاثين يهوديا.

إقرأ\ي المزيد

#BDS: Bahrain: Washington Conference with Zionist Participation Takes Opposition by Surprise

"A planned conference in support of the Bahraini uprising caused a stir among opposition activists after it was revealed that prominent pro-Israeli figures were invited to attend.

“Americans for Democracy and Human rights in Bahrain,” a conference organized by the Institute for Gulf Affairs, was supposed to be held in Washington Wednesday.

An informed opposition source said that the conference has been postponed but didn’t disclose the reasons behind the change of plans.

The goal of the conference was to shed light on the ongoing human rights violations occurring in Bahrain, especially as they are receiving very little media attention in the Arab world.

According to the Institute for Gulf Affairs website, the event was intended to be a follow up to a previous conference held in Beirut last summer.

However, a closer look at the names of the participants raised questions about how far the opposition was willing to go in order to be heard?

Among those invited by the organizers to attend, for example, are Elliot Abrams, US Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Simon Henderson from the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs, all of whom are well-known for their unswerving support for Israel."

Read more

#BDS: Bahrain's secret Mossad ties revealed?

"New Wikileaks cables expose classified documents that include evidence of alleged cooperation between Persian Gulf state and Israeli intelligence agency

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange released additional classified documents about Israel and the Middle East: Britain's Guardian newspaper stated that the sensitive documents expose, among other things, Israeli criticism of the man who is the de facto head of state in Egypt, Hussein Tantawi Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

The diplomatic cables were transferred to Yedioth Ahronoth and some have been published on Friday."

Read more

#BDS: Bahrain's Ambassador to the U.S meets with senior representatives of AIPAC

"Feb 19, (collive) -- One a recent snowy evening, guests arrived at the Lubavitch Center in Washington, DC, home of American Friends of Lubavitch, which played host to a private dinnermeeting for a visiting foreign dignitary.

"Heading to dinner with a prominent JewishAmbassador to the United States - will say more after I see if it's on-the-record," William Daroff, Vice President for Public Policy for the Jewish Federations of North America, tweeted onhis account.

He was referring to Houda Nonoo, Bahrain's Ambassador to the U.S. - believed to be the Arab world's first Jewish envoy, who attends services at The Shul of the Nation's Capital at Lubavitch Center.

Joining him were senior representatives of AIPAC, American Jewish Committee, B'nai B'rith International, Anti-Defamation League and other prominent members of the Washington Jewish community."

Read more

#BDS: Bahrain-based Saudi-financed "Islamic" bank Arcapita doing rich business with Israel military

This blog reported on 9 October that American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) Board Member Marwan M. Atalla and his investment firm NEST U.S.A. Inc. are shareholders in Cirrus Design Corporation, an aircraft manufacturing firm which does millions in business with Israeli military contractors closely tied to the Israeli military establishment. (See "Board member of Ziad Asali's ATFP does millions in business with Israeli military firm" )

As the earlier post explains, Cirrus has a long history of working with Israeli companies and recently chose an Israeli military contractor called TAT Technologies to supply $10 million worth of aircraft parts. TAT Technologies is run by Israeli military officers, including a former commander of Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon, and its factory is built on the land of the ethnically-cleansed Palestinian village of Yasur.

Since publishing that post, I have received new information from a former employee who is also a current minority shareholder at Cirrus. According to this individual Atalla was an active board member of Cirrus until 2001, but was forced to resign along with other independent board members when another investor, the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain took a majority stake in Cirrus. Atalla and his firm NEST U.S.A. Inc. remain shareholders of Cirrus as of this time, according to NEST's own website.

In 2005, the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain changed its name to Arcapita. Arcapita is financed by investors in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and is well-connected to those countries' ruling families.

The Arcapita website states on its current corporate investments page that it acquired a stake in "Cirrus Design Corporation" in 2001, but does not say how big the stake is. A 2007 report on aviation industry website AVweb, put Arcapita's stake at a controlling 58 percent.

While the AVweb report mentions that Arcapita was seeking to divest from Cirrus, in fact it has become more deeply involved. An April 2009 press release from Cirrus stated that Arcapita had pumped even more money into the company during the global financial crisis.

As an Islamic investment bank, all of Arcapita's investments are screened by its Shariah Supervisory Board which currently includes a religious scholar and former judge from the Supreme Court in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, as well as religious scholars from Pakistan and Bahrain. Such advisory boards are supposed to screen investments to make sure they comply with Islamic banking standards -- typically avoiding interest, or investments in alcohol or pornography.

But for Arcapita, at least, there seems to be nothing un-Islamic about profiting from deals with the Israeli military establishment -- the same military that has slaughtered more than nine thousand Muslims, Christians and others and injured and permanently maimed tens of thousands more in Palestine and Lebanon in the past decade alone in what numerous international investigations have termed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Needless to say, Arcapita-controlled Cirrus' business with the Israeli military establishment is a gross violation of the Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel.