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Israeli court sentences Palestinian speaker to prison

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Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Abdul Aziz Duwaik
Press TV – May 25, 2015

An Israeli military court has handed down a months-long prison term to the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and ordered him to pay more than a thousand dollars on charges on of delivering a speech at a pro-resistance celebration three years ago.

On Monday, the Ofer Court in northern Israel sentenced Abdul Aziz Duwaik to 12 months in jail and a fine of six thousand Israeli shekels (USD 1,550), Arabic-language Palestinian news agency Safa reported.

The Ahrar Center for Prisoner Studies and Human Rights condemned the verdict, demanding the immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners currently being held at Israeli detention facilities, the 67-year-old PLC speaker in particular.

Fuad al-Khafash, director of the Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO), said the Tel Aviv regime has targeted the Palestinian parliament ever since the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas scored a landslide victory in Palestinian elections in 2006, preventing Palestinian lawmakers from serving their respective nation.

Khafash named Hassan Yousef, Mohammad al-Natsheh, Hassan al-Bourini, Mohammad Maher, Yousef Bader and Ezam Salhab as some of the Palestinian legislators that Israel holds captive in its jails.

Israeli soldiers abducted Duwaik in the occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron) early on June 16, 2014. Palestinian sources said the senior Hamas official was taken away after his house in al-Khalil was stormed.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have also arrested at least sixteen Palestinians, including a number of teenagers, during separate raids on a number of houses across the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israeli military soldiers raided the town of Silwan, which lies on the edge of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) and al-Quds on Monday, and detained eleven Palestinians.

Israeli forces took away five other Palestinians from the entrance gate of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied West Bank.

In recent months, Israeli forces have frequently raided the houses of Palestinians in the West Bank, arresting dozens of people, who are then transferred to Israeli prisons, where they are kept without any charges.

There have been many reports about the deteriorating health of Palestinian prisoners held inside Israeli jails.

More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in 17 Israeli prisons and detention camps. Moreover, 540 Palestinians are held without any trial under the so-called administrative detention, which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge that allows Israel to incarcerate Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | 1 Comment

American ‘democracy’ at work

By Jay Syrmopoulos | The Free Thought Project | May 25, 2015

Atlanta, Ga. – An investigative team for an Atlanta television station WXIA, exposed massive government corruption when they found a secret meeting at a Georgia resort hotel held by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

The stunning investigative report included video footage of corporate lobbyists and legislators admitting that the legislators are paid by the lobbyists to attend the events.

Reporter Brendan Keefe attempted to gain entrance to the conference but was summarily denied access by ALEC staff and was subsequently escorted from the hotel, where Keefe was a paying guest.

In the video, Keefe approaches the conference room and is blocked by a woman who closes the door to the camera. The woman tells Keefe and the camera-person to follow her away from the room, as Keefe asks if there are legislators in the room.

As Keefe persists in questioning why he is not allowed access, he is confronted by Bill Meierling, an ALEC Director of Communications, accompanied by four sheriff’s deputies.

Keefe attempts to interview Meierling when he approaches, but the ALEC representative refuses and threatens to have the reporter “escorted from the building.” The fact that Keefe is a paying guest of the hotel is seemingly irrelevant when big business is attempting to conceal its incestuous relationship with government.

Why all the secrecy if there is nothing to hide?

Don’t Americans have a right to know that their elected representatives don’t actually represent them, but are simply the rubber stamp for corporate America to enact law?

The lack of transparency in the legislative process should raise serious red flags. The secretive process taking place in the video happens all across the country and in reality is how law is made in the U.S.

Prior to the hotel confrontation, Keefe interviewed Georgia State Senator Nan Orrock, a former ALEC member, who exposed the secretive activities taking place.

“(ALEC) is really a corporate ‘bill mill.’ I mean, they’re cranking out legislation and put it in the hands of legislators who go back and file it. … There are votes taken, that have the corporate votes, voting at the same table with the legislators on what bills to pick. That, at its core, just screams out, ‘inappropriate.’ … (Corporations) absolutely vote, and the truth be told, they write the bills,” said Orrock.

The hustle being pulled on the American public is laid bare, and the order followers enforcing it have been exposed.

ALEC is technically listed as a 501(c)(3) organization, for “charitable and educational purposes,” thus giving legislators a tax write-off for any funds received from the organization.

To provide a clearer example of this process, Keefe explains that ALEC will write a model bill, such as the Georgia Asbestos Claims Priorities Act, which effectively shields corporations from being sued by asbestos victims. The bill eventually presented was an almost exact duplicate of an ALEC bill first approved in a secretive closed-door meeting in a Las Vegas casino.

Unsurprisingly, the three Georgia Senators that sponsored the bill had received over $22,000 in ALEC “scholarships” to attend resort meetings around the same time the asbestos bill was initially being forwarded.

How can anyone continue to put faith in the state after realizing exactly how the corrupt legislative process truly works?

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Video | | 2 Comments

The Detail

The alleged Nazi gas chambers

By Robert Faurisson | INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW

On the subject of the Nazi gas chambers, Jean-Marie Le Pen recently stated: “If you take a thousand-page book on the Second World War, the concentration camps occupy two pages and the gas chambers ten or fifteen lines, and that’s called a detail.”

He might have brought up some even harder hitting and more precise arguments, and referred to Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle, Elie Wiesel, René Rémond, Daniel Goldhagen, and even the text of the Nuremberg Tribunal judgment.

Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle

Three of the best known works on the Second World War are General Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday [Country Life Press], 1948), Winston Churchill’s The Second World War (London: Cassell, 6 vols., 1948-1954), and the Mémoires de guerre of General de Gaulle (Paris: Plon, 3 vols., 1954-1959). In these three works not the least mention of Nazi gas chambers is to be found.

Eisenhower’s Crusade in Europe is a book of 559 pages; the six volumes of Churchill’s Second World War total 4,448 pages; and de Gaulle’s three-volume Mémoires de guerre is 2,054 pages. In this mass of writing, which altogether totals 7,061 pages (not including the introductory parts), published from 1948 to 1959, one will find no mention either of Nazi “gas chambers,” a “genocide” of the Jews, or of “six million” Jewish victims of the war.

Elie Wiesel

The same goes for the autobiographical account, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 1960), in which Elie Wiesel relates his experience of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Moreover, in the first volume of his memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea (New York: Random House/Knopf, 1995, p. 74), he writes, “Let the gas chambers remain closed to prying eyes, and to imagination.”

René Rémond

In the third volume of his Introduction à l’histoire de notre temps (“Introduction to the History of Our Times”), René Rémond, who was then president of the commission on the history of the deportation within the Comité d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale (Committee on the History of the Second World War), made no mention whatsoever of these gas chambers (Le XXe siècle de 1914 à nos jours [“The 20th Century from 1914 to the Present”], Le Seuil, 1974). Fourteen years later, when he had become president of the Institut d’histoire du temps présent (Institute of Contemporary History), once again he made no mention of them in a 1,013-page work entitled Notre Siècle de 1918 à 1988 (“Our Century from 1916 to 1988,” Paris: Fayard, 1988).

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

Since March 1996, the Jewish-American historian Daniel Jonah Goldhagen has been treated as the darling of the media the world over, thanks to his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1996, xiv-634 pp.). While he does mention Nazi gas chambers, it is for little more than to note that “their efficiency has been greatly overstated” (p. 10), and that they have always been, and wrongly, “the overwhelming focus of popular and even scholarly attention” (p. 165). Goldhagen goes as far as to declare that “gassing was really epiphenomenal to the Germans’ slaughter of the Jews” (p. 533, n. 81) and that “the imbalance of attention devoted to the gas chambers needs to be corrected” (p. 535).

The Nuremberg Judgment

France’s Fabius-Gayssot law of 1990 specifically forbids the “challenging” or “contesting” of the portions of the judgment of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg (September 30 and October 1, 1946) relating to “crimes against humanity,” including the use of execution gas chambers. But it is noteworthy that, of the 84,000 words of the judgment’s text (in the French version), only 520, extremely vague, are devoted to gas chambers. This is 1/160th of the entire text, or 0.62 percent. In other words, 99.38 percent of the judgment does not deal with these gas chambers.

Why Such Reticence?

Why were Eisenhower, Churchill, de Gaulle, Elie Wiesel, René Rémond, Daniel Goldhagen, and the Nuremberg Tribunal so reserved on the subject of the Nazi gas chambers? Of course, revisionists have explanations for this reticence that, however, the Fabius-Gayssot law forbids us to make public in France.

My own explanations, which cannot be published in France without committing a crime, would include the following:

  1. The Nazi extermination gas chambers never existed.
  2. Eisenhower, Churchill, and de Gaulle knew or suspected that their own governments’ propaganda about gas chambers was not true. (Thus, on August 30, 1943, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull wrote to Standley, US Ambassador in Moscow: “… there is insufficient evidence to justify the statement regarding execution in gas chambers” [Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers 1943. US Government Printing Office, 1963, vol. 1, p. 416])
  3. Elie Wiesel probably now regrets that he did not mention gas chambers in his autobiographical work, Night.
  4. René Rémond revealed to me in November 1978 that he was “ready to follow [me] on the gas chamber matter.”
  5. Goldhagen probably realizes that the gas chamber story is fishy, and, anyway, prefers to insist on killing methods that permit him to accuse millions of Germans of complicity in crimes, rather than emphasize a specific killing method that implies only a handful of German criminals.
  6. The Nuremberg Tribunal judges had nothing substantive to say about the gas chambers because they understood that no investigation had been conducted as to the specifics of the “murder weapon,” and because neither the “witnesses” nor former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss had been asked hard specific questions about the gas chambers.

From The Journal of Historical Review, March-April 1998 (Vol. 17, No. 2), pages 19-20.

About the Author

Robert Faurisson is Europe’s leading Holocaust revisionist scholar. He was educated at the Paris Sorbonne, and served as a professor at the University of Lyon in France from 1974 until 1990. His writings on the Holocaust issue have appeared in several books and numerous scholarly articles. This essay, less the final section headed “Why Such Reticence?,” was published in the New Year’s Day, 1998, editions of the French periodicals Rivarol (“Avez-vous des textes?”), and, with some slight modifications, in National Hebdo (“Précisions sur le détail”).

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | 1 Comment

Hezbollah victories belong to all Lebanon: Nasrallah

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Press TV – May 24, 2015

Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah says the resistance movement’s success in forcing Israeli forces out of Lebanon’s soil 15 years ago was a victory for all Lebanese and Muslims.

Nasrallah made the remarks in the southern town of Nabatiyeh on Sunday during a televised speech celebrating the anniversary of the Israeli forces’ withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

He paid tribute to those who sacrificed their lives to bring victory to the resistance movement.

The Hezbollah chief added that if the the resistance movement had not risen against the Tel Aviv regime Israel would have occupied Lebanon.

Hezbollah forced the Israeli military out of the southern parts of Lebanon on May 25, 2000, after more than two decades of occupation.

People in Lebanon consider May 25 as a beginning of dramatic change in the region.

The Lebanese commemorate the day as a national holiday and see it as a transformation that changed the regional equations for good, and put an end to the invincibility myth of the Israeli military.

Nasrallah said after the Israeli regime attacked Lebanon, some groups in Lebanon hesitated to stand against the Zionist regime and even communicated with “the Israelis and considered them allies and friends.”

But, he added, some other Lebanese “did not wait for the Arab League, the United Nations Security Council, the UN, the US or the West. They rather relied on their capabilities, men, heroes and friends in Iran and Syria, and the resistance was launched.”

“This victory was achieved by some of the Lebanese who believed in resistance,” said Nasrallah.

“From the very first day, the resistance believed that it was defending all Lebanese,” he said, adding that “backstabbing and treason did not prevent it from dedicating its victory to all of Lebanon, the Arabs and the world.”

Takfiri threat

Nasrallah called on the international community and especially on the Lebanese authorities to step up fight against ISIL Takfiri group which is threatening mankind.

Nasrallah said “history is repeating itself” and a scheme spearheaded by ISIL Takfiri group is threatening the Middle East region.

“We are before a danger that is unparalleled in history,” Nasrallah said referring to ISIL terrorist group, adding, “We must understand the threat.”

Nasrallah stressed that all people in the region are facing the threat of the terrorist group, adding, “We are before a threat that does not tolerate the existence of others. All people in the region are facing this barbarous situation.”

The Hezbollah chief stated that remaining silent against the Takfiri threat would be unproductive, adding, “Those who believe that their silence would protect them and their sect are delusional. It is unacceptable to wait and we must take the initiative” against the Takfiri threat.

Nasrallah stressed that those refusing to counter the terrorist group will suffer a lot.

He said the US-led coalition allegedly fighting the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria has not been instrumental in putting an end to the brutalities of the Takfiri group.

“What has the US-led coalition done? The number of their airstrikes throughout a year is much less than the number of Israel’s raids on Lebanon in the [2006] July war or its raids on Gaza,” Nasrallah added.

He urged the Christians in Lebanon to fight the Takfiri group, asking, “Who will protect your women from enslavement and your churches from destruction?”

“We call on everyone in Lebanon and the region to shoulder their responsibilities in the face of the threat and to end their silence and neutrality,” he said, adding, “We call on you to defend your land, sovereignty and people.”

Nasrallah noted that people in the Lebanese city of Arsal are feeling the threat of the Takfiri group every day, calling on the Lebanese government to take action to save the people.

“We are ready to stand by Arsal’s people, but the state must shoulder its responsibility,” he said.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah fighters are present in Syria combating against terrorists, saying, “We are fighting alongside the Syrian army and popular resistance based on our vision that fighting there is aimed at defending everyone in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.”

He also called on Saudi Arbia, which has been pounding Yemen since March 26, to stop bombarding the impoverished Arab country.

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US, UK, and Canada Reject Nuke-Free Mideast

Press TV has interviewed two journalists and political commentators Hafsa Kara-Mustapha from London and Maxine Dovere from New York, to discuss the United States’ rejection of a proposal made by Arab countries to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli interrogators use ‘brutal’ methods to obtain false confessions

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Ma’an – May 24, 2015

BETHLEHEM – Israeli interrogators are using “oppressive and brutal” methods to frighten Palestinian detainees and force them into confessing to attacks against Israel, a Palestinian official said Sunday.

Issa Qarage, who heads the Palestinian Authority prisoners’ affairs committee, made his comments during a visit to prisoners’ families in the northern West Bank village of Qusin in Nablus district, where he met with former detainee Noor Muhammad Hilmi Hamamrah, 15.

Hamamrah told him that during his interrogation in the Etzion detention center, Israeli interrogators had made him open his mouth while they used pincers to forcibly pry out part of his braces, causing bleeding.

An interrogator then told Hamamrah that he would pull out all of his teeth if he didn’t confess to throwing stones at Israeli vehicles, Qarage relayed.

Qarage said that the boy eventually made the confession.

Hamamrah was detained from his family home on April 15 at 3:00 a.m. and was taken in a military truck to the nearby Beitar Illit settlement where he was held for three hours before being taken to the detention center.

An Israeli prison spokesperson could not be reached for comment on Hamamrah’s account.

Prisoners’ rights group Addameer has long reported that treatment of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces tantamount to torture is “widespread and systematic.”

In 2014, international rights group Defense for Children reported that 93 percent of children detained by Israeli forces were denied access to legal counsel, while others endured prolonged periods of solitary confinement for interrogation purposes, a practice that amounts to torture under international law.

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Virginia Cop Resigns After Tasering and Pepper Spraying Man Having Medical Emergency

By Carlos Miller | PINAC | May 22, 2015

A Virginia cop who tasered a man sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, following it with a ten-second blast of pepper spray into the man’s face, was forced to resign last week after his chief said he had used excessive force.

But Fredericksburg police officer Shaun Jergens said he only did it because the man in the car was not complying.

However, David Washington was experiencing a medical emergency, perhaps a diabetic seizure, which is why he struck another vehicle before running over a median and knocking over a city sign.

When the car came to rest, the 34-year-old man remained motionless in his car with the seat belt strapping him in.

“Get out the car or I’m going to fucking smoke you,” Jergens yelled after tasering and pepper spraying him.

“I can’t see,” Washington responded.

“That’s the point, get out. Don’t move around,” Jergens said, barking contradictory orders the way cops tend to do.

The cop ended up having to drag him out of the car, laying him face-down on the street where Washington remained handcuffed, continuing to moan that “I can’t see.”

Meanwhile, one of the three cops at the scene entered Washington’s car through the passenger’s side, causing the car to roll back on the suspect’s foot, adding to the pain and torture he was already enduring.

A female cop at the scene realized what was happening and jumped in the car to move it off his foot as Washington continued to moan in pain.

“You’re ok? We’re going to help you out,” asked one of the male cops who put him in that position.

Another cop then crouched down to Washington and asked, “you’re sick? Sick how?”

As if getting tased, pepper sprayed and his foot run over while laying face down on the hot asphalt wasn’t enough evidence of his medical emergency, it was later discovered he was having an actual medical emergency, not that any of the three cops were able to recognize that.

After all, they’re only trained to hurt, not help.

And that is important to understand anytime you hear the Police PR Spin Machine talking about how they are keeping everybody safe.

No, they’re only keeping themselves safe as was evident in this video where all three of them kept their guns trained on him, ordering him to show his hands when he was having a medical emergency.

Washington was transported to the hospital and will be charged with hit-and-run, hit-and-run (property damage), reckless driving, and driving on a revoked or suspended license.

In 2013, Fredericksburg police made the news for tasering a man for 42 seconds straight.

Below are three videos from each of the officers’ body cams.

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Video | , | 2 Comments