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Will an Independent Scotland Throw Out UK Nukes?

| July 7, 2012

Scotland votes on independence in 2014 and may tell UK to remove Trident missiles

July 8, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | 1 Comment

Thousands of Palestinians to be forced into Israeli military service

Al Akhbar | July 8, 2012

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will be forced to complete military or community service with the Israeli army, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party announced it would back a controversial plan for reforming the country’s laws.

Meeting in Jerusalem, the party said it would support the recommendations proposed by the so-called Plesner committee last week which also include forcing orthodox Jews to serve.

“The party this morning discussed and unanimously adopted the principles laid out by the Plesner commission,” Likud spokeswoman Noga Katz said in a statement.

The decision means the government will now move towards drafting a law requiring all sectors of Israeli society to complete either military or community service, with penalties to be levied on those who fail to comply.

There are around 1,500,000 pre-1948 Palestinians, who Israel refers to as Israeli Arabs, inside the Jewish state.

Netanyahu’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman later confirmed that there would be no exceptions for Palestinians, many of whom see the Israeli army as a source of oppression.

The new law will replace the so-called Tal Law, which contained national service exemptions for ultra-orthodox Jews and Palestinians, but was overturned by Israel’s High Court earlier this year.

Likud’s decision to back the recommendations of the commission appeared to head off the possibility of a coalition crisis.

The Kadima party headed by Shaul Mofaz, which joined the government in May giving Netanyahu a massive parliamentary majority, had threatened to quit the coalition over the issue of military service for all.

But after the Likud party decision, Netanyahu’s office said the prime minister and Mofaz had agreed on the formation of a panel to draft the new law.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and vice prime minister Shaul Mofaz are in agreement on the formation of a commission charged with drawing up a law on the equality of service to be presented at the next government meeting,” the statement said.

Military service is compulsory for most Israelis over the age of 18, with men serving three years and women two.

The Israeli army brutally suppresses Palestinians calling for equal rights and was recently accused of aiding fundamentalist Jewish settlers shooting Palestinian protesters.

(Al-Akhbar, AFP)

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July 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli interrogators sexually harass Palestinian children in detention

Palestine Information Center – 08/07/2012

RAMALLAH — A number of Palestinian children who were detained in different circumstances have reported their exposure to abuse and maltreatment by Israeli soldiers and interrogators.

In some cases, the interrogators sexually harassed the children and on other occasions they threatened to rape them if they did not cooperate or make certain confessions, according to the children’s testimonies.

Palestinian statistics documented the detention of more than 9,000 children during the past ten years, mostly from occupied Jerusalem and West Bank villages such as Bil’in, Ma’sarah, Kafr Qaddum, Nabi Saleh and Beit Ummar.

A child named Mohamed said an Israeli interrogator threatened to sexually harm him if he refused to confess to throwing stones at soldiers and settlers.

Samer, another child, was given the choice of working as an informer or else he would be tortured, raped and jailed on a charge of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli patrol in Azzun village near Qalqiliya city.

For his part, director of the Al-Haq organization for human rights Shawan Jabbarin said the Israeli interrogators offer to get rid of the sexual and psychological pressure inflicted on the detained Palestinian children if they will work for them.

Jabbarin noted that Israel violates all limitations for the detention of minors under age 18 as stipulated by the fourth Geneva convention.

He stressed the need for the presence of a lawyer or one of the parents during the interrogation of children to prevent violations against them and to protect their rights.

The activist appealed to the UN and human rights organizations to intervene and oblige Israel to respect international law on the rights of children and release them all from its jails.

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July 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Israel slams door on UN Human Rights Council over settlement row

RT | July 7, 2012

Israeli officials say a UN fact-finding mission “will not be allowed to enter” the country and its occupied territories. On Friday, the Geneva-based Human Rights Council appointed three officers to probe Israel’s West Bank settlement activity.

­The UN’s top human rights body has commissioned three jurists to find out how Israel’s West Bank settlements affect “the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people.” The body called on Tel Aviv “not to obstruct the process of cooperation.”

This resonated harshly with Israel, who took no time to dub the mission “biased and flawed,” vowing not to support the officials.

“The fact-finding mission will find no cooperation in Israel, and its members will not be allowed to enter Israel and the territories,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor. “Its existence embodies the inherent distortion that typifies the UN Human Rights Council’s treatment of Israel and the hijacking of the important human rights agenda by non-democratic countries.”

Israel cut all ties with the council in March after the 47-nation body passed a resolution establishing the settlement probe. Israel accuses the commission of a “disproportionate focus” on Israel.

“The establishment of this mission is another blatant expression of the singling out of Israel in the UNHRC,” a Foreign Ministry statement said on Friday.

Now that the team is to be prohibited from Israel, it will have to gain evidence from second-hand sources, like local media.

But even if the mission finds that the settlements violate human rights, any attempts to punish Israel will most probably be defused by the US, Israel’s key ally.

The UN considers Israeli settlements illegal under international law. The Human Rights Council says Israel’s plans to build more houses in the West Bank and East Jerusalem undermine the peace process and pose a threat to the two-state solution.

The West Bank settlements are at the core of dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. Some 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a territory that Israel expropriated from Jordan in 1967. Palestinians claim the West Bank is part of their future state, and object to any settlements there.

Israel cites historical and biblical links to the West Bank, saying the status of the settlements should be decided in peace negotiations.

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July 8, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli-trained Colombian soldiers to protect UAE

Press TV – July 8, 2012

The United Arab Emirates has reportedly recruited soldiers form the Colombian army’s special forces units to protect the sheikdom in case of heightened tension in the Persian Gulf or domestic unrest.

According to the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, the oil-rich Arab country offers Colombian soldiers between USD 2,800 and USD 18,000 per year while officers are said to earn USD 550 a month in Colombia.

According to reports, more than 800 Colombian troops and officers have already been brought to the UAE and a total of 3,000 others are planned to be hired.

It is said that the UAE is employing the forces due to concerns in the Arab country regarding a conflict with neighboring Iran which may begin by an attack on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities or as a result of the growing tension over the UAE’s ownership claims on the three Iranian Persian Gulf islands.

On the other hand, the UAE rulers are worried about the public protests and the impact of the Arab Spring in their own territory. Colombian soldiers can then display their power and capability on the streets.

The choice of these soldiers is not surprising at all. Colombian troops have gained international recognition for fighting against underground groups and drug gangs.

According to some reports, the troops have acquired this capability and skill through training they have received from Israeli, US and British experts.

This is why Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in 2009 that Colombia is the “Israel of Latin America” as he was pointing to extensive military ties among Colombia, the US and Israel.

In recent years, the Colombian media have spread numerous reports about Israel’s interference in training the country’s forces in fighting the militia.

Colombia’s FARC rebel group said in 2007 that Israeli commando officers are training the country’s army in the Colombian jungles.

The Colombian Defense Minister Jose Manuel Santos announced that a group of former Israeli intelligence officers advised the Colombian military’s Chief of Staff.

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July 8, 2012 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian stabbed, shot in settler attack near Nablus

Ma’an – 07/07/2012

NABLUS – A Palestinian man was shot by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank on Saturday, after which a group of Israeli settlers stabbed him repeatedly, a Palestinian official said.

Jawdat Bani Jabir, 43, was shot in the face and the foot by soldiers in Yanun village, south of Nablus, governorate official Ghassan Daghlas told Ma’an.

A group of Israeli settlers who had descended into the village proceeded to stab him in several places, Daghlas added. Jabir’s condition could not be immediately confirmed.

An Israeli army spokesman said he was looking into the incident.

Daghlas said the settlers had entered Yanun village, and fatally stabbed five cattle. He pointed out that the village depends on agriculture and livestock.

Villagers came out to defend their homes, the official added.

Yanun is surrounded by Israeli settler outposts, illegal under both international and Israeli law.


Yanoun: Settlers and soldiers attack village, injuring 5

8th July 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Saturday 7 July, 2012, the village of Yanoun, located 12km southeast of Nablus, was attacked by illegal settlers from the illegal Itamar settlement. Five Palestinians were injured in the attack and large sections of agricultural land were set ablaze.

The attack began at roughly 2pm. The illegal settlers descended on the village and began setting fire to sections of land and firing on sheep while they were grazing. In the course of the attack on Yanoun, 5 residents of Aqraba, (the neighbouring village) were injured to varying degrees. Two men, Ibrahim Hamid Ibrahim, and Adwan Rajih bini Naber were beaten by settlers, and another, Joudat Hamid Ibrahim was stabbed in the shoulder after being beaten as well. When the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arrived, they joined in the attacks, injuring two more. Hakimun Ahmed Yusuf Bini Jaber, 42, was shot in the arm with live ammunition by an IOF soldier and Ashraf Adel Hamid Ibrahim, 29, was shot in the back with a tear gas canister when the soldiers attempted to scatter villagers who were aiding the injured.

The villagers who were aiding the injured attempted to carry the injured men to ambulances, but IOF soldiers blocked the roads and refused to let them through. The IOF and illegal settlers also stopped residents from putting out the fires. The first ambulance to leave was reportedly stopped at Huwwara checkpoint en route to a hospital in Nablus. Two of the injured men were taken from the ambulance and held in Israeli custody for an undetermined period of time. The second and third ambulance were not allowed to depart with those wounded for two hours.

After the attacks had stopped, IOF soldiers still held Adwan Rajih Bini Jaber captive, refusing to allow the ambulance carrying him to depart. Illegal settlers stood by heavily armed, protecting the fires that they had set to Palestinian land.

Nearing 6pm, illegal settlers and IOF soldiers once again advanced on the Palestinians, as internationals gathered to show solidarity, ending in the firing of tear gas canisters and live ammunition into the air.

Yanoun and its residents have been subject to terrorism by illegal settlers from Itamar for many years. On October 19, 2002, there was a temporary mass exodus due to the harassment, drawing parallels with the refugees created in 1948. The villagers returned little by little in the weeks following, with the help of peace activists from Ta’ayush & other groups but the village still suffers from violent attacks regardless.

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July 7, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 1 Comment

New Israeli military complex planned in Jerusalem

MEMO | July 5, 2012

Planning permission has been approved for the construction of a new military complex on Al-Zaytoun and Al-Mokabber Hills overlooking the southern side of Al-Aqsa Mosque. A site of around 10.5 acres has been earmarked for the project by the Israeli authorities. The new complex will include the HQ of the General Staff, a college of national security, a military academy and accommodation for soldiers and senior officers.

The project is consistent with the strategy of extending Israel’s de facto sovereignty over the so-called “holy basin” that is adjacent to the Al-Aqsa compound and the Old City of Jerusalem. This is planned to make Jerusalem the headquarters of Israel’s security, military and political authorities in order to be declared to be the “capital of the Jewish people” in 2020, at which stage there will be no place for the Palestinians.

A specialist in settlement affairs said that the plan contravenes international conventions and even Israel’s own planning and building regulations. Researcher Ahmed Laban pointed out that the proposed college complex is in occupied East Jerusalem, on the Palestinian side of the old Green Line. This, he added, is intended as yet another settlement in the heart of the Palestinian suburbs of Jerusalem.

The director of the International Jerusalem Centre, an expert in Jerusalem affairs, said that this project is an extension of a series of comprehensive plans started in 2007 to change Jerusalem’s mountains into massive military shelters for the Israeli leadership during non-conventional warfare. Hassan Khater confirmed that the Israeli government has already started on projects in other areas in Jerusalem. “The government is building shelters connected to its headquarter and others connected to the official residence of the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem,” he said. “Despite the secrecy and ambiguity surrounding these projects, it is clear that the Israeli government is carrying on with its Judaisation plans to prepare Jerusalem as the capital of the state.”

Both Khater and Laban confirmed their belief that the Israelis do not discriminate against Islamic heritage and Muslim residents in Jerusalem, pointing out that Palestinian Muslims and Christians are targeted equally. “Many Christian buildings have been destroyed and others are in danger if these projects go ahead,” said Mr. Khater.

Calling on the Palestinian Authority and the international community to take “serious measures” to stop the Judaisation of Jerusalem, both men also asked them to support the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem in their struggle against what is seen as the ethnic cleansing of their city by the Israeli authorities.

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July 7, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran, Russia emphasize need to implement Annan plan in Syria

Press TV – July 7, 2012

The Iranian ambassador to Moscow and the Russian deputy foreign minister have underlined the need for the implementation of the peace plan proposed by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to Syria for the settlement of the crisis in the country.

Reza Sajjadi and Mikhail Bogdanov met to discuss the situation in Syria.

During their meeting, they also called for the resolution of the Syrian crisis through solutions proposed in last week’s Geneva meeting, which aim to end the conflict, start national dialog and pave the way for a political resolution of the crisis.

They also stressed the necessity for the settlement of the Syrian crisis through political negotiations between Syrian sides and without any foreign interference.

Both sides also called on foreign players to avoid adopting unilateral measures against Syria and emphasized the need for respecting Damascus sovereignty as well as the Syrian people’s viewpoints in determining their fate.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011. The violence has claimed the lives of many people, including security forces.

The West and the Syrian opposition accuse the government of killing protesters, but Damascus blames ‘outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups’ for the unrest, asserting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.

July 7, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 1 Comment

France’s Zionist Puppet Masters

By Vacy Vlazna | Palestine Chronicle | July 6, 2012

France, the nation whose 1789 Revolution gave the world the ideals of Equality, Fraternity and Liberty especially freedom of speech and of the press, jumps to attention (as a docile marionette does) when its Zionist manipulators such as the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism(BNCVA) the France Israel Chamber of Commerce, International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, get a whiff of criticism of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In June, puppetmaster CRIF frantically pulled its incitement-to-hate-Israel-strings when Professor Christophe Oberlin had the temerity to light a spark of conscience and morality (important qualities for the medical profession) by setting an exam question for his students of humane medicine at Bichat Hospital Faculty of Medicine using the example of the massacre of 22 members of the Samouni family [by the Givati Brigade] during the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza “To what extent does it constitute a perpetual crime (war crime, crime against humanity, genocide crime)?”

Oberlin’s boss, the Puppet, oops, President of Diderot University, Vincent Berger shamefully apologised (for the truth) to CRIF and said an internal investigation would be mounted. Ironically, Diderot University prides itself on Denis Diderot’s humanist values and his profound respect for freedom of knowledge and thought. Diderot himself did not shy from controversy when accused of ‘publishing dangerous ideas’ and Berger’s unworthy coerced apology is at odds with Diderot’s “Every man has his dignity. I’m willing to forget mine, but at my own discretion and not when someone else tells me to.”

Professors Mads Gilbert and Eric Fosse, Norwegian surgeons, who attended the Samouni survivors and other innocent victims of Israel’s violent Cast Lead Operation in Gaza describe in their book, ‘Eyes in Gaza’, how in April 2009, Norwegian lawyers filed charges of ‘war crimes and gross violation of international humanitarian law’ against the war on Gaza’s key Israeli political and military leaders Ehad Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Gabi Ashkenazi, Eliezer Marom, Avi Mizrahi, Ido Nehoshtan, Yoav Galant, Ilan Malka (Givati) and Avi Peled (Golani) and requesting their arrest if they go to Norway. Gilbert and Fosse’s ‘Eyes in Gaza’ details the medical challenges of treating injured civilians in the thick of the fierce Israeli bombardment and severe medical shortages and should be a mandatory text for medical students and Vincent Berger.

Another serious attack on academic independence and freedom of expression occurred in February at the Paris 8 university when a conference titled “Is Israel an apartheid state?” which included the keynote speaker, Omar Barghouti, coordinator of the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel was obsequiously banned by the University president Pascal Binczak who closed the university down for 2 days after a delirium of “discrimination against a nation”-and-“incitement to hatred and violence” string-pulling by CRIF and the Simon Weisenthal Centre which warned of the threat to public order and danger to the Jewish community. This is the same Wiesenthal Centre that intolerantly desecrated the Muslim Ma’man Allah cemetery, Jerusalem to build its Museum of Tolerance. Shimon Samuels is the director of both the European Wiesenthal Center and the BNCVA.

The conference was peacefully held off-campus.

In January 2011, CRIF president, Richard Prasquier contacted the Minister of the Universities, Valerie Pécresse convincing her to cancel a BDS conference at the prestigious “l’Ecole Normale Supérieure” (ENS) in an attempt to silence Stephane Hessel, diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, former French resistance fighter, an editor of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and author of Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage) in which he states, “Today, my main indignation concerns Palestine, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank…. This conflict is outrageous.”

Zionists also tried to string along the French justice system since 2010 during a series of trials against French BDS activists citing the 1972 amendments to Law of 1881 whereby racially defamatory comments and incitement to racial hatred were criminalised. CRIF has 80 cases pending trial. In 2011, the judgement from the Bobigny criminal court ruled that “incitement to discrimination could only be applied to a population or a population group, and not to a state or the products of that state.” On 17 June 2011, judges of the tribunal of the 17th magistrate’s court of the Paris law courts ruled on the right of citizens to call for a boycott of Israel and its products.

When Olivia Zemor, president of CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, was acquitted on 8 July, 2011 “the judge explained that the article of law cited by the plaintiffs (article 24, paragraph 8, Law of 1881) is designed to “fight any form of racism” and cannot be cited in order to forbid a call for boycott “suggesting a certain form of conscientious objection, which each of us is free to express or not to express” and “launched by non-governmental organisations without prerogative powers”.

Even so, the new French president Francois Hollande was quick to emulate his predecessor, the Zionist ventriloquist dummy Sarkozy, stating ” I am totally opposed to the boycott of Israeli goods, which is illegal and does not serve the cause of peace.”

Tracking Zionist interests and manipulation of the French government is a matter of following the money which ultimately leads to the Israeli arms industry and to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

France is Israel’s largest European weapons supplier which as David Cronin points out is “at variance with the Union’s decade-old code of conduct on weapons exports. Formally declared legally binding by EU governments last year, the code forbids weapons sales in cases where they may exacerbate regional tensions or where there is a strong likelihood they will be used in violation of human rights.”

Charles Edelstenne, who by the way is also a director of Carrefour, is chairman and co-founder of Dassault Aviation, a major military supplier, which has a stake in Thales, a French multinational company that turns over more than $22 billion in revenue in Aerospace, Space, Defence and Security markets annually. Heron TP aircraft are built by Dassault Aviation and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) which was founded in 1953 by Shimon Peres and is owned by the government of Israel. Le Figaro, France’s second largest national newspaper is owned by Dassault. Lagardère, a French conglomerate with defence and aviation interests, owns the Paris-Match magazine and part owner of Le Monde, Xavier Neil, is a partner of Israeli company, Golan Telecom whose controlling shareholder, Michael Golan made ‘aliyah to Israel in 2007 ‘as part of his Zionist vision’.

Former President of France, Sarkosy (as well as Blair) is a personal [acquaintance of] Bernard Arnault, Europe’s 4th richest man, who controls the luxury goods empire of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) which also owns the French cosmetics chain Sephora and has stakes in the Carrefour supermarkets and in De Beers Diamond Jewellers Limited.

Sephora operates 269 stores in France and more than 1,400 stores in 27 countries. It retails the AHAVA Dead Sea products that are produced in Israel’s illegal colonies. EI blogger, Adri Nieuwhof points out that “Ahava uses Palestinian natural resources without the permission of or compensation to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel denies Palestinians access to the shores of the Dead Sea and its resources, although one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the occupied West Bank.”

French BDS activists have been targeting Carrefour supermarkets deshelving “Israeli agricultural products imported in France by the Israeli company Mehadrin, which is an essential tool for the Israeli policy of colonization of the Palestinian territories. Most of the products come from Israeli settlements, including from settlements located in the Jordan valley where 7,000 settlers have taken over 95 % of the Palestinian farmer’s lands and have ensured the control of 98 % of the water. As per international law, and in particular as per the IVth Geneva Convention, the activities of Mehadrin are criminal.”

Israeli Textile giant, Delta Galil also supplies Carrefour. It’s boss, Dov Lautman is an associate of Ehud Barak and a staunch Zionist. He a member of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors since June 2002 and a member of the Jewish Agency Executive. The Jewish Agency was established by the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1929. “It acts as agent of the government in assigning land to Jewish colonists” in Occupied Palestine.

From 2009 until 2011, when it hit a financial slump, Israeli billionaire Nochi Dankner’s Koor Industries Ltd held a 3% share stake in Carrefour. Former president and CEO of Strauss Group Ltd (which actively supports the vicious Golani and Givati elite brigades), Erez Vigodman joined Makhteshim Agan Group in January 2010 which is 40% owned by Danker’s Koor Industries. Maketish Agan is a pesticide factory located in the Ramat Hovav industrial zone that pollutes its environs with hazardous waste including Wadi el-Na’am, a village of more than 5,000 Bedouins. “In a 2004 study commissioned by the Israeli Ministry of Health found a high rate of birth defects among children living in the vicinity. In August 2006, Ben Gurion University epidemiologist Batya Sarov, formerly a specialist at Chernobyl, compared the environmental monitoring and health risks to Chernobyl.”

Dankner is also a director of Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises, Israel’s sole cement producer, which supplies construction materials to Israeli companies building the illegal Annexation Wall and ‘products of Nesher were seen in construction sites in West Bank settlements and in the construction of the light rail project in Jerusalem, which connects the settlement neighbourhoods of the city with the city center.’

In 2007 Jonathan Kolber, Koor Industries chairman and former director of Makhteshim, who is also on the board of directors of Elbit (Israel’s largest defence firm specialising in drones ad surveillance), invested in Eyeblaster along with BRM Capital managing director Eli Barkat. Eli’s bother, Nir was a founder of BRM. Nir Barkat, as mayor of Jerusalem drives the judaisation of occupied Jerusalem through ethnic cleansing, home demolitions and illegal colony construction.

LVMH also has the jewellery lines of TAG Heuer, Chaumet, Christian Dior Montres, Zenith, Fred, Hublot, including the joint-venture De Beers Diamond Jewellers Limited. In 2012 Nicky Oppenheimer sold the family’s 40% stake in De Beers after its long and lucrative relationship with Israel’s diamond industry which still continues.

Patrick Galey, in his article “Israeli Blood Diamonds: The Global Coverup’ reveals the close connection between the Israeli diamond industry and the Israeli military. ” Israeli economist Shir Hever, in evidence given at 2010’s Russell Tribunal on Palestine, said that it was the Israeli Defense Forces, among other organizations, that most benefited from Israel’s lucrative diamond business.”

“Overall the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries,” Hever told the Tribunal. “Every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel some of that money ends up in the Israeli military, so the financial connection is quite clear.”

“That is not counting the private diamond revenue that goes to the Israeli Army. Steinmetz, [a buyer of rough diamonds from De Beers] one of the world’s leading diamond producers, owns a charitable foundation that has “adopted” a unit in the Israeli Army. The diamond giant is funding the notorious Givati Brigade, responsible for one of the worst atrocities perpetrated on the people of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead” i.e.. the Samouni massacre.

Zionist puppeteers ensure that the French government protects its interests in Israel. For all the financial loss of billions of dollars, due in part to the successful BDS campaign against it, the massive debt of Veolia Environnement, a multinational French company which is heavily implicated in Israel’s apartheid framework, is being propped up by tax monies by the French government through Caisse des Dépôts (CDC), a public investment authority that manages public funds. Veolia built the Jews-only Light Rail Project in Jerusalem and provides Jews-only bus services along the Jews-only Highway 443 for illegal colonists to the illegal colonies built on stolen Palestinian land in Occupied Palestine.

Little wonder then, in April, that Zionist interests in France could pull strings to prevent 100 Flytilla activist from leaving France when Air France refused to embark passengers marked on Israel’s blacklists. A French woman was taken off an Air France plane when she failed to declare herself an Israeli or a Jew. The French government went as far as urging its citizens not to take part in the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ campaign which simply requested participants to openly state to Israel authorities their intention to travel to Occupied Palestine.

Despite French attitudes that show 20% are positive towards Israel and 65% are negative (BBC Poll), France manifests as a puppet regime of global Zionism surrendering the civil liberties of its citizens, the academic freedom and independence of its universities, and its binding responsibilities to uphold international law noteably the Geneva Conventions which protect Palestinian human rights. It is the determined and principled actions of French activists, withstanding Zionist antisemitism hysteria, who uphold the tattered motto of France- liberté, égalité, fraternité.

– Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters.

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July 7, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 3 Comments

No Accountability Yet for Toronto G20 Police Crimes

TheRealNews | July 5, 2012

“Paul Jay: Until police and their political masters are held responsible under the criminal code, it can all happen again.”

July 7, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | 1 Comment

Israel, Canada ink energy research deal

By Tony Cadwalader | DED | July 6, 2012

In case you missed it, earlier this week Canada and Israel signed a new energy cooperation agreement, according to YnetNews. The deal was inked during Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s visit to Israel last week, the site reported.

“The World Energy Council believes that the recent oil and gas deposits found in Israel’s coastal plains is one of the largest in the world. If estimates of the basin containing up to 250 billion barrels of shale oil prove accurate, Israel will become one of the world’s top-three countries in shale oil resources, behind just the United States and China, the report said.”

Russia has taken a keen interest in Israel lately, and with these discoveries it is likely Russia would offer its help. This would have larger geopolitical ramifications in the region as Turkey’s efforts to block gas production in the region could be rebuffed by Russia, a long time strategic partner. […]

“Gazprom and other Russian companies are also likely to do well in any gas exploration deals developed with the strongly pro-Moscow (and very cash hungry) Greek Cypriot government.

“The stakes are not small: the offshore Levantine Basin (which Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Israel and even Gaza will all have some claim to) is believed to have 120 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and ‘considerable’ oil.  Drillers working in Israeli waters have already identified what look to be 5 billion barrels of recoverable oil in addition to over a trillion cubic feet of gas. (US firms were involved in these finds.) Israel’s undersea gas reserves are currently estimated at about 16 trillion cubic feet and new fields continue to be rapidly found.

“The new Israeli-Russian agreement is part of a conscious strategy by the Israeli government to use its nascent energy wealth to improve its embattled political position. With Italy reeling under the impact of big wrong-way bets on Iran, Rome may also begin to appreciate the value of good ties with a closer and more dependable [sic] neighbor. Another sensible target for Israeli energy diplomacy would be India: the two countries are already close in a number of ways, including trade and military technology, and India is eager to diversify its energy sources.

“Gas is one thing, but potential for huge shale oil reserves under Israel itself, however, is a new twist. According to the World Energy Council, a leading global energy forum with organizations and affiliates in some 93 countries, Israel may have the third largest shale oil reserves in the world: something like 250 billion barrels. (The US and China are both believed to have larger shale oil reserves, with the US believed to have the equivalent of well over 1 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable shale and China having perhaps one third of that amount. Canada’s Athabaskan oil sands reserves may contain the equivalent of 2 trillion of barrels conventional oil, or more than all the conventional oil known to exist in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran combined.) If the estimates of Israeli shale oil are correct, Israel’s gas and shale reserves put its total energy reserves in the Saudi class, though Israel’s energy costs more to extract.”

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July 6, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , | 1 Comment

Israel warns Lebanon of total destruction in new war

Al Akhbar | July 6, 2012

A senior Israeli general threatened Lebanon with destruction on Thursday, saying the military was prepared for a “very violent” war should conflict spark on the border.

Brigardier-General Hertzi Halevy, commander of the IDF’s 91st Division, told local Israeli media that any attack by Israeli forces would leave Lebanon more badly damaged than in the 2006 war, when Israel killed over 1,200 Lebanese and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

“Lebanon will sustain greater damage than that done during the second Lebanon war,” Haaretz quoted Halevy as saying, referring to the 2006 attack. “The response will need to be sharper, harder, and in some ways very violent.”

Israel’s aerial bombardments of heavily populated areas such as Gaza and Beirut have been heavily criticized by rights groups and the UN, drawing claims of war crimes.

Referring to a UN report led by Richard Goldsmith, which concluded that Israel carried out a string of human rights abuses in its 2008-09 bombardment of Gaza, Halevy said war “cannot be nice.”

“After the Goldstone Report, people in the international community and in Israel thought that battle in a densely populated area could be carried out in a nicer way. It cannot be nice. Without the use of great force, we will find it difficult to achieve our aim, and the enemy should also know that,” he said.

Halevy’s provocative comments come a week ahead of the sixth anniversary of the 2006 war, with the general adding that Israeli forces should enter Lebanon with great force and wreak havoc in villages.

Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah have exchanged warnings in recent months, with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah saying in May that his group had the ability to strike any target in “occupied Palestine.”

“Today, we are capable of not only striking Tel Aviv as an area, but also capable of striking specific targets in Tel Aviv and any place in occupied Palestine,” he said.

Halevy’s remarks also come after Israel destroyed one of its own spying devices in south Lebanon on Monday after it was discovered by Hezbollah.

Lebanese security sources said an Israeli drone fired an air-to-surface missile, while Hezbollah said the device was destroyed using a remote-controlled explosive.

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July 6, 2012 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | 3 Comments

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