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Egypt slams Israeli minister’s call to resettle Palestinians in Sinai

MEMO | November 28, 2017

Egyptian authorities have criticised the Israeli Minister of Social Equality Gila Gamliel over her recent statements, in which she called for an alternative Palestinian state to be established in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, denounced today Gamliel’s statements stressing that Egypt firmly rejects any kind of “talk or thoughts” that undermine Egypt’s territorial sovereignty.

“The Egyptian domestic affairs should not be included in any statements by foreign parties most importantly when these statements touch Egyptian sovereignty,” Shoukry said in a press conference.

Shoukry noted that the Egyptian authorities have conveyed Cairo’s rejection on Gamliel’s statements to the Israeli ambassador in Cairo, adding that her comments “were made a long time ago.” He also denied summoning the Israeli ambassador.

“The Egyptian land in Sinai, which was watered with the blood of our sons and martyrs, is not something that can be given away or allowed to be attacked,” the Egyptian minister added.

An official source at the Egyptian foreign ministry told Quds Press that officials believe that the recent mosque attack is an Israeli attempt to empty Sinai from its original residents to build a Palestinian state in as an alternative for the two-state solution in the West Bank.

The Egyptian official noted that the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv has asked Israel for clarifications on Gamliel’s comments, noting that the Israeli government had stressed that the statements “were personal comments and did not represent government policy.”

On his part, the Egyptian MP, Mostafa Bakry, told Quds Press that the Israeli statements were linked to the recent terrorist attack in Sinai.

Last week, Gamliel said during her visit to Cairo that “it is impossible to create a Palestinian state except in Sinai.”

Rejecting a Palestinian state in the West Bank, she noted that “a Palestinian State is a dangerous idea for the State of Israel,” she explained, stressing: “Between the River Jordan and the [Mediterranean] sea there cannot, and must not, arise a Palestinian state.”

“This call could be unacceptable to the international community and the Arab countries, which are neighbours to Israel, but it is based on our primary and historic right to the land of Israel,” the Israeli minister reiterated.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

Canada’s Unraveling Web of Deceit. Terrorism and War Propaganda

By Mark Taliano | Global Research | November 28, 2017

Now that Syria and its allies in the Axis of Resistance have done the world a favour by destroying most of the West’s terror proxies in Syria, the Canadian narrative is falling apart.

In 2016, Prime Minister Trudeau described the terrorists in this manner:

“The so-called Islamic State are terrorists, criminals, thugs, murderers of innocents and children and there’s a lot of labels for them.”[1]

He was right that there are a lot of labels for them. But some labels have been conspicuously absent from the Canadian narrative, and these are the most accurate of all: “proxies”, “assets”, “strategic assets”, “allies”.

These “criminals, thugs, and murderers” are also Canada’s proxies in the Middle East and beyond, and the Canadian government needs to take ownership for its criminality.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister, Ralph Goodale, for his part, recently claimed that chances for rehabilitating these people are “pretty remote”, and that pursuing charges against these people is “difficult”.[2]

Conspicuously absent from Goodale’s explanation of why it is difficult to prosecute these individuals is the previously mentioned stumbling block. If the terrorists are Canada’s assets, as they are, then prosecuting them would necessarily reveal the government’s guilt.

Consider the case of Swedish national Bherlin Gildo.[3]  In 2015, Gildo’s terror trial in the U.K. collapsed because the British intelligence agency M16 was supporting the same terrorists that Gildo was reportedly fighting for.

The Canadian government’s web of criminal war propaganda is unraveling at the seams. If the press was free, and not an appendage of the government’s criminal apparatus of deception, more Canadians might be aware of this.

Notes

[1] Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press, “Trudeau: ISIS Just ‘Terrorists’ And ‘Thugs,’ Not A State.” HuffPost, 29 March, 2016.(http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/03/29/trudeau-isis-terrorists-calgary-interview_n_9568642.html) Accessed 27 November, 2017.

[2] Rachel Aiello, Ottawa News Bureau Online Producer,“Chance of reintegrating Canadian ISIS fighters ‘pretty remote’: Goodale.” CTV News, November 26, 2017. (https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/chance-of-reintegrating-canadian-isis-fighters-pretty-remote-goodale-1.3693559) Accessed 27 November, 2017.

[3] Stuart J. Hooper, “Terror Trial Collapses: Suspect Fighting For MI6 SUPPORTED Fighting Group.”21st Century Wire, 4 June, 2015. (http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/06/04/terror-trial-collapses-suspect-fighting-for-mi6-supported-group/) Accessed 27 November, 2017.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Mark Taliano, Global Research, 2017

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

McGill University ignores its real racism problem

By Yves Engler · November 23, 2017

While accusations of student anti-Semitism at McGill draw international headlines, the university administration’s open association with the Jewish National Fund has been ignored.

In the latest iteration of a multi-year smear campaign against Palestine solidarity activists at the university, Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee activist Noah Lew cried “anti-Semitism” after he wasn’t voted on to the Board of Directors of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU). At a General Assembly last month Democratize SSMU sought to impeach the student union’s president Muna Tojiboeva. The ad-hoc student group was angry over her role in suspending an SSMU vice president and adopting a Judicial Board decision that declared a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions resolution unconstitutional.

(After two close votes, in February 2016 a motion mandating the student union support some BDS demands passed the union’s largest ever General Assembly, but failed an online confirmation vote after the university administration, Montreal’s English media and pro-Israel Jewish groups blitzed students. The resolution’s constitutionality was subsequently challenged.)

At the recent General Assembly Democratize SSMU’s effort to impeach the president failed. While they couldn’t muster the two thirds of votes required to oust the non-Jewish president of the student union, Democratize SSMU succeeded in blocking the re-election of two Board of Directors candidates who supported the effort to outlaw BDS resolutions.

After failing to be re-elected to the Board of Directors Noah Lew claimed he was “blocked from participating in student government because of my Jewish identity and my affiliations with Jewish organizations.” His claim was reported on by the National Post, Montreal Gazette, Global Television, as well as Israeli and Jewish press outlets. McGill Principal Suzanne Fortier sent out two emails to all students and faculty concerning the matter while the SSMU Board of Directors established a committee to investigate anti-Semitism. The affair was even mentioned in the House of Commons.

While a great deal has been written about alleged student anti-Jewish attitudes, the McGill administration’s open association with an explicitly Jewish supremacist organization passes with nary a comment. On November 28 McGill’s Associate Vice-Principal Innovation Angelique Mannella is scheduled to participate in a Jewish National Fund networking event called Tech Shuk, which connects Jewish capitalists with Montreal start-ups in a “Dragon’s Den” style competition. But, the JNF is a racist organization. Owner of 13 per cent of Israel’s land, it systematically discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up a fifth of the population. According to a UN report, Jewish National Fund lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.” The JNF oversees discriminatory land use policies in Israel outlawed in this country 60 years ago.

In 2004 long-time McGill Principal Bernard Shapiro was the honoured guest at JNF Montréal’s annual fundraising dinner (two years later the then former University Principal was master of ceremonies at the event). The current president of JNF Montréal, Michael Goodman, was a member of the advisory board of McGill ASD (Autism spectrum disorder). In 2014 McGill gave an honorary degree to Marvin Corber. The University’s press releaseannouncing its two honorary degree recipients cited an award Corber received from the JNF. Corber has been a JNF Montréal campaign advisor and chair of its annual fundraising dinner.

While the university administration’s ties to the JNF are a stark example of its racial bias, McGill is also entangled in other more subtle forms of anti-Palestinianism. The Montréal university has a memorandum of understanding with Tel Aviv University, which claims to be on “the front line of the critical work to maintain Israel’s military and technological edge.” McGill also has a partnership with Technion, which conducts “research and development into military technology that Israel relies on to sustain its occupation of Palestinian land.”

In 2012 the estate of Simon and Ethel Flegg contributed $1 million to McGill’s Jewish Studies department partly for an “education initiative in conjunction with McGill Hillel.” But, the cultural organization turned Israel lobby group refuses to associate with Jews (or others) who “delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel; support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the state of Israel.”

Imagine the outcry if a McGill department accepted a large donation to work with an organization that openly excluded Jews and others who “delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Palestine and fail to recognize Palestinians’ UN enshrined rights.”

It’s time to discuss the McGill administration’s support for Jewish supremacy in the Middle East.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman on Syria, Lebanon and Other Issues

By Stephen Lendman | The People’s Voice | November 28, 2017

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova (MZ below) believes the “presence of ISIS in Syria is coming to an end” – maybe so but the US-supported terrorist threat in the country remains, not ending as long as Washington wants war, not peace.

MZ stressed that US-led forces “provid(e) cover to the extremists, ISIS in particular.” Surprisingly, the BBC reported their evacuation from Raqqa under US-led “supervision.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry accused Washington of supporting ISIS and other terrorists while claiming to be combating them.

“(N)ot only (did US-led aerial operations refuse) to launch strikes on the terrorists, but also created obstacles for the Russian Aerospace Forces as they tried to attack the targets in the specified area,” MZ explained.

Russian operations are key to Syria’s liberating struggle – Washington’s rage for endless war and regime change the greatest obstacle.

MZ: “I would like to digress and speak from the heart for a moment. I will say it in plain Russian without any professional jargon.”

“It’s about (Washington) providing cover to the terrorist militants. We provide numbers and facts. We talk about trends in fighting terrorism, and we analyze how the militants and terrorists were withdrawn, shielded and emboldened by the US-led coalition.”

This type straight talk is absent in the West, the BBC report a rare exception, nothing from US media on what’s going on – supporting US aggression, blaming victims for its high crimes.

MZ criticized Defense Secretary James Mattis’ Big Lie – claiming US forces in Syria have UN permission to be there. No such permission exists, no Security Council authorization.

Americans and their rogue allies are hostile invaders, aggressors, massacring civilians, destroying vital infrastructure, pretending to be combating terrorists they support.

Washington “intends to hold part of Syrian territory for as long as (it) wish(es). The goal behind this approach is to achieve the desired settlement result by force,” said MZ – aiming to oust Assad and destroy the country’s sovereignty.

Moscow is following events in Lebanon, in the wake of PM Saad Hariri’s forced resignation and detention under house arrest in Riyadh.

On Friday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil met with Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.

“Russia’s position on Lebanon remains unchanged. We strongly support the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of this friendly country and we believe that the Lebanese people should resolve all issues on their national agenda on their own, and we are against any outside interference that threatens to upset the existing political and religious balance in Lebanon,” said MZ.

US-led NATO troops are cooperating with ISIS in northern Afghanistan, MZ explained, “transporting” them aboard “unidentified helicopters… providing them with weapons…”

“Once again, this raises questions about the true aims of the foreign military presence in Afghanistan,” MZ stressed.

She commented on increasing opium production in the country. A UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said it nearly doubled since last year.

Pre-9/11, the Taliban eliminated most of it. Production flourishes in areas under US occupation. ISIS fighters sell it to raise revenues.

“The opiate industry in Afghanistan has become a key source for fueling terrorist activities, which further destabilizes that country and beyond,” said MZ.

Russophobia is active in Madrid, regime officials falsely accusing Moscow of involvement in Catalonia’s declaration of independence.

“Remarks by Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis that Russia allegedly seeks to weaken Spain are particularly dismaying,” said MZ.

She blasted his spurious accusation, “picked up from dubious sources,” she said.

Along with other issues, MZ commented on Russia’s lower house State Duma legislation regarding foreign media in the country – creating a legal framework for responding to Washington forcing RT America to register as a foreign agent.

Russia was “forced to… reply to the openly repressive (US) actions,” MZ explained.

US hostility toward Russia is greater than any previous time in memory, risking conflict between the world’s dominant nuclear powers, a potential doomsday agenda Washington appears to be pursuing.

-###-

Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia to launch ‘independent internet’ for BRICS nations – report

RT | November 28, 2017

The Russian Security Council has asked the country’s government to develop an independent internet infrastructure for BRICS nations, which would continue to work in the event of global internet malfunctions.

The initiative was discussed at the October meeting of the Security Council, which is Russia’s top consultative body on national security. President Vladimir Putin personally set a deadline of August 1, 2018 for the completion of the task, the RBC news agency reported.

While discussing the issue, members of the council noted that “the increased capabilities of western nations to conduct offensive operations in the informational space as well as the increased readiness to exercise these capabilities pose a serious threat to Russia’s security.”

They decided that the problem should be addressed by creating a separate backup system of Domain Name Servers (DNS), which would not be subject to control by international organizations. This system would be used by countries of the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The issue of excessive dependency on global DNS has previously been addressed by Russia. In 2014, the Russian Communications Ministry conducted a major exercise in which it simulated the “switching off” of global internet services and used a Russian backup system to successfully support web operations inside the country.

However, when reporters asked Vladimir Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov if the country’s authorities had been considering disconnecting from the global internet in 2014, Peskov dismissed these allegations as false.

“Russia’s disconnection from the global internet is of course out of the question,” Peskov told the Interfax news agency. However, the official also emphasized that “recently, a fair share of unpredictability is present in the actions of our partners both in the US and the EU, and we [Russia] must be prepared for any turn of events.”

“We all know who the chief administrator of the global internet is. And due to its volatility, we have to think about how to ensure our national security,” said Peskov. It’s not about disconnecting Russia from the World Wide Web, he added, but about “protecting it from possible external influence.”

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Suddenly, I’m a ‘Russian agent’

By Dave Lindorff | This Can’t Be Happening! | November 26, 2017

For a number of years now, I have been periodically interviewed as a source or a commentator on news programs and as an occasional panel participant on RT TV, the Russian government-funded English-language television station. For the past year, I’ve been paid a small amount for my work.

Effective Monday, November 13, something changed, though. RT suddenly became a“registered foreign agent.” The Russian government-funded news service, which has its headquarters in Washington, with bureaus in several other US cities, filed the required papers under protest — the only foreign news service operating here that is required to do so — and said it intends to sue. Russia is also retaliating and will be requiring some US news organizations operating in Russia, including Voice of America, to similarly register as foreign agents.

This means that as of two weeks ago, I have been working, at least on a minimal basis of perhaps one short 5-10-minute interview per week, for a “foreign agent.”

The US government, a lot of heavy-breathing members of Congress, and the bulk of the corporate media in the US at this point are suggesting that journalists like me are at best “useful idiots” helping to promote Russian propaganda in the US — propaganda that our government claims is designed to sow discord among the citizenry and to undermine support for American democracy. Why, RT has been accused of such heinous behavior, according to former National Security Director James Clapper “promoting a particular point of view, disparaging our system, our alleged hypocrisy about human rights, etc.”

Scary stuff, huh? He even accused RT of  airing debates by third-party presidential candidates during the 2016 campaign — something the corporate media for years has dutifully refused to do in what I guess they consider a patriotic defense of our two-party system.

Pathetic as the case against RT may be, I’ve been the butt of jokes by liberal friends who say that I’m a “Russian agent” because they’ve bought the spurious argument that Russia “hacked” the US election and delivered us a Trump presidency. I wonder though, how many such Americans have ever actually watched RT-TV. I suspect it’s very few. First off, it’s not that easy to see it on your TV, since most cable and fiber-optic television bundlers leave it out of their packages, as they also leave out the Al Jazeera English Channel option, in response to pressure from the government. If they did watch it — which you can and should do at least to check it out at RT-America and at RT.com (the international edition) — they would find shows hosted not by Russians, but by American journalists, many of them well known names like Larry King, Ed Schultz, Jesse Ventura and Chris Hedges. A number of these people are working for RT because they were either sacked by US media outlets, like Schultz at MSNBC or had a planned program cancelled like Ventura, also at MSNBC, or left in disgust like Chris Hedges, a veteran war reporter for the NY Times.

For myself, I have agreed to be a go-to expert source for RT because over the years, after once upon a time being called to be on shows like MSNBC, CBS News and NPR programs, I don’t get those calls anymore. It’s not that I or my journalism have changed, but that the corporate media have grown flaccid and afraid of controversy. If I want to talk on TV about a story like the one I broke — based upon documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — showing that the Houston FBI office learned or knew of a well-developed plot to conduct “intelligence” on the Houston Occupy movement, identify the leaders, and then “if deemed necessary” to assassinate them using “suppressed” sniper rifle fire, or the story I broke based upon information obtained from a county coroner suggesting that a potential key witness in the case of alleged Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was actually murdered by an FBI agent in Orlando, I have to talk about it on RT. No US corporate news organization will touch such stories. Same thing if I want to make the point that the US has been providing funding, arms and training in Syria to anti-Assad fighters of Al Nusra, an affiliate of the Al Qaeda organization. You simply cannot say such undeniably factually correct things on a US news program, but you can say them on RT.

I’m under no illusion that RT is some sainted news organization that doesn’t have a pro-Russian point of view. Of course it does, just as the government-funded BBC has a pro-British perspective. But I also well know (having worked for years as a staff journalist for major US news organizations), that every corporate news outlet in the US has a pro-US point of view, and that particularly where the story involves both US and Russian interests, as in the case of Ukraine and Syria, the whole truth is not being told by any Russian or US news organization. If I can get a bit of the truth out by talking on RT to counter propaganda and untruths in the US media, so much the better. I would hope that American viewers would have the sense to know that if they watch the news on RT, they are getting a pro-Russian perspective and to take what they see and hear with a grain of salt, just as I would hope they would consider American news reports with the same degree of skepticism (that may be optimistic!).

In any event, the reality is that I am no more an “agent of Russia” for agreeing to be interviewed (for a fee) on Russian TV than I would be an agent of Britain for being interviewed on the BBC or for having an article published in the New York Times or Business Week — both publications I’ve written for, the latter on retainer for five years.

Never once have I had an interview on RT edited to make it appear I’m saying something I didn’t say, and never once have I said something on RT that I didn’t firmly believe to be true based upon my own research.

When the issue of the US government requiring RT America to file as a foreign agent came up, my wife told me she thought by continuing to contribute comments to the station I was probably hoping to get called before some Congressional committee, ala the 1950s House un-American Activities Committee with its hearings on Communist subversion. I told her she was right: I would love nothing better than to get questioned about my work by some Congressional panel, and would be happy to have rabid anti-Russian Congressmembers view any one of my RT clips and point to anywhere that I was pushing Russian propaganda.

Example: Here is a lengthy interview I did on RT International on the issue of “fake news” allegations and concerns expressed by Facebook’s head of security about calls for the company to block alleged fake news its news feeds. I’m betting it’s not a perspective you’ve heard on your evening news, but I certainly stand by the points I’m making, and am not purveying any Russian propaganda, but let the viewer be the judge.

What’s really going on here with this “foreign agent” registration requirement is a kind of paternalistic censorship, much like those North Korean TV sets that didn’t include settings on their channel selection dials for South Korean stations. It should concern every American who believes in the importance of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press, which after all is not just freedom for the US-based press, but also freedom of Americans’ right to read, listen to and view information from any source, and to make their own judgements about its veracity or logic. When the government, as it is doing here in making efforts to block RT from the internet and from cable and fios TV, and in requiring it to register as a foreign agent, thereby implicitly and perhaps eventually actually threatening those journalists like me who continue to contribute to or work for the Russian-funded station, it is deciding what is safe, and what is not safe for Americans to read, listen to or view. That is starting down a very dangerous slope; a slope that inevitably will lead to much broader censorship and self-censorship of media in the US.

Only a year ago, the Washington Post published a shabbily sourced and, frankly, libelous lead story based upon the “research” of a mysterious organization called PropOrNot, whose funding and personnel were left unidentified, that claimed to have uncovered a massive Russian propaganda campaign in the US. This outfit, most likely the work of the Pentagon’s cyber command, claimed that some 200 online news sites in the US, including RT, but also US sites like CounterPunch, antiwar.com, Truthout, Naked Capitalism and the Black Agenda Report, are either active promoters of Russian propaganda or “useful idiots” — a term tossed around wildly during the McCarthy period to demonize people said to perhaps ignorantly back a Communist agenda of subversion.

The thing is, despite claims by rabid members of Congress and in the military industrial complex that Russia has aggressive aims of conquest in Europe, Russia isn’t even a US enemy. In reality, Russia is a major trading partner of Europe’s and is a major supplier of European natural gas, the US and Russia have been fighting on the same side in Syria[?], the Russians are the ones who fly our astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and US corporate investment in Russia, despite several years of increasing sanctions levied over the issue of Ukraine and Crimea, is enormous. In other words, from the point of view of a journalist appearing on an RT program, it is no different from appearing on a BBC or Deutsche Welle, or, for that matter, on a CCTV program in China.

Meanwhile, if we want to really look for foreign agents at work in our country, look no further than the CEOs, presidents and board chairs of some of American’s largest companies. Collectively, the S&P 500 includes companies 48% of whose revenues are earned abroad. Since some, like the big telecom firms, earn almost no revenues abroad, it’s not surprising that some of the biggest corporations on the list are earning the bulk of their revenues and profits overseas (and are booking their profits there too in order to avoid US corporate taxes).

Take seven of the biggest: In the case of Apple, 62.3% of its 2016 revenues of $306 billion was earned abroad. For Qualcom, the figure was a whopping 98.6%$ of its $30.6 billion in 2016 revenues. Intel, meanwhile, “only” earned 82% of its $31.7 billion in 2016 revenues from abroad. ExxonMobil, headed by Rex Tillerson until he was named President Trump’s secretary of state, earned $67.3% of its 2016 revenues from abroad (and has been seeking a deal to license close to $1 trillion in gas an oil reserves off Russia’s Siberian coast in the Arctic Ocean), while Johnson & Johnson earned 5.2% of its 2016 revenues abroad. General Electric meanwhile, doesn’t just earn the bulk of its revenues abroad — about 53% in 2016. As of the end of 2014, 55% of its workforce of 305,000 was located abroad — a number that continues to rise. And yet President Obama, without a hint of irony, named GE’s then CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, to be a “jobs czar” for the administration in 2009 (a year later, GE reportedly paid no US taxes, though it paid $3 billion in taxes to foreign jurisdictions in which it operates).

Although clearly all of these nominally US corporations and their chief executives are American, it is equally clear that their real allegiance — since as we are continuously told, the fiduciary duty of corporate executives is to maximize shareholder value — is not to Uncle Sam. When push comes to shove, if a policy or bill in Congress is going to threaten their international business operations, these executives are going to lobby against it. If there’s a bill that will help them move profits abroad, they’ll push for it. They should, therefore, be required to register as foreign agents, yet never has such a thing even been proposed.

It makes a joke out of this whole campaign attacking RT-TV. Especially as it’s a safe bet — so safe I’m not even going to make the effort to dig up the numbers — that many or most of the Democrats and Republicans in Congress clamoring to have RT banned solicit and happily accept campaign contributions from these so-called American companies every election cycle, which should by rights make them also foreign agents in practice.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | | 5 Comments

Reporters Without Borders seeks to cancel press event critical of White Helmets

RT | November 27, 2017

A press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, has asked the Swiss Press Club to cancel a panel discussion on the “true agenda” of the controversial White Helmets group. But the club’s director won’t budge, noting that such demands are typically made by oppressive regimes.

Guy Mettan, executive director of the Swiss Press Club, says he was asked by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Switzerland to cancel the conference. The press freedom organization, which is a member of the Swiss Press Club, said it did not want to be associated with the event.

“I have never seen such a thing,” Mettan told Tribune de Geneve. “Now an organization that defends freedom of information is asking me to censor a press conference”.

“Usually the pressure to cancel press conferences comes from countries that are known to be dictatorships. RSF’s approach stunned me. It’s taking journalists for fools. As if they were not able to form an opinion for themselves!”

Independent journalist Vanessa Beeley, who has done extensive reporting from inside Syria, will speak at Tuesday’s event alongside French journalist Richard Labeviere, an expert on the Middle East and international terrorism, and Marcello Ferrada de Noli, chair of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights (SWEDHR).

The conference, which will also include a multimedia presentation, is billed as offering “a clear view on what is the real agenda of these Hollywood so-called ‘first responders’ who received an Oscar for their performance.”

In a letter to Mettan published by Tribune de Geneve, Gérard Tschopp and Christiane Dubois, president and director of RSF in Switzerland, dismissed Beeley as a “so-called” journalist cited only by “Russian media propaganda.” They also claimed Swedish Doctors for Human Rights acts as “a tool of Russian propaganda.”

Noting that perhaps Mettan was unaware of this “information,” the letter urged the Swiss Press Club to “abandon” the event or risk tarnishing the club’s image. Mettan wrote back, denying the organization’s request and expressing disbelief that a group dedicated to protecting press freedom would advocate censorship.

“For the 20 years I have been working at the Swiss Press Club, I have always been under pressure to prevent people from expressing themselves. But so far these pressures have always come from authoritarian or dictatorial regimes, such as China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Bahrain,” wrote Mettan.

“This is the first time that a defense organization for journalists from a democratic country has sent me such a request. It goes without saying that I cannot act on it. It would dishonor a job that, I hope, is still yours.” Mettan called on RSF to participate in the event and present their point of view, rather than attempt censorship.

A documentary praising Syria’s White Helmets as heroes and saviors in Syria won an Oscar in February. Witnesses have meanwhile accused them of collaborating with terrorist groups, filming staged reports about their rescue work, engaging in looting and other misdeeds. Members of the group have been caught on camera several times performing dubious acts, including assisting with an apparent execution of a prisoner.

Read more:

Film about Syrian White Helmets wins Oscar amid allegations of terrorist ties

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

Hariri Says to Remain Lebanon PM: I Will Keep What Happened in KSA to Myself

Al-Manar | November 28, 2017

Lebanese Premier, Saad Hariri said on Monday he wants to remain Lebanon’s PM, preferring to keep what happened in Saudi Arabia, where he was believed to be held there against his will, to himself.

In an interview with French TV channel CNews, Hariri downplayed talk of his resignation, which he announced from Riyadh, saying that he was “always” the prime minister.

“I want to remain the prime minister of Lebanon and what happened in Saudi Arabia, I will keep to myself,” he said.

“It’s in the interest of Lebanon and other countries for Lebanon to remain stable,” Hariri said.

Asked multiple times whether his decision to announce his resignation in Riyadh was forced, Hariri sidetracked multiple times.

It is believed that Hariri was forced by the Saudi regime to announce his resignation in a bid to topple the Lebanese government. The move was seen by many observers as an attempt aimed against Hezbollah, which is a major partner in the Lebanese government.

Hariri returned to Lebanon in November 21, after President Michel Aoun launched a diplomatic campaign, led by Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, in which the president voiced rejection of any interference in Lebanese affairs.

Meanwhile on Monday, Hariri said he would resign from his post if Hezbollah refuses to accept changes to the current status quo, in remarks seen as an attempt to cover up ambiguity which surrounded his previously announced resignation.

“Hezbollah intervened in all Arab countries and [my] resignation sent a positive shock,” Hariri said.

“I am waiting for neutrality in the government and inside Lebanon – not just saying one thing and doing something else,” he added.

However, the Lebanese PM noted that Hezbollah is a regional issue that can’t be solved in Lebanon, but rather through a regional settlement.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Deception | , , , | 2 Comments

Saudi Coalition Crumbles In Yemen: Sudanese Mercenaries On Front Lines, Foreign Officers, Proxies In Revolt

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | November 26, 2017

Most Americans might be forgiven for having no clue what the war in Yemen actually looks like, especially as Western media has spent at least the first two years of the conflict completely ignoring the mass atrocities taking place while white-washing the Saudi coalition’s crimes. Unlike wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, which received near daily coverage as they were at their most intense, and in which many Americans could at least visualize the battlefield and the actors involved through endless photographs and video from on the ground, Yemen’s war has largely been a faceless and nameless conflict as far as major media is concerned.

Aside from mainstream media endlessly demonstrating its collective ignorance of Middle East dynamics, it is also no secret that the oil and gas monarchies allied to the West are rarely subject to media scrutiny or criticism, something lately demonstrated on an obscene and frighteningly absurd level with Thomas Friedman’s fawning and hagiographic interview with Saudi crown prince MBS published in the New York Times.

Saudi Arabia’s hired help in Yemen: Sudanese fighters headed to the front lines. Image souce: al-Arabiya

But any level of meticulous review of how the Saudi coalition (which heavily involves US assistance) is executing the war in Yemen would reveal a military and strategic disaster in the making. As Middle East Eye editor-in-chief David Hearst puts it, “All in all, the first military venture to be launched by the 32-year-old Saudi prince as defense minister is a tactical and strategic shambles.”  

And if current battlefield trends continue, the likely outcome will be a protracted and humiliating Saudi coalition withdrawal with the spoils divided among Houthi and Saudi allied warlords, as well as others vying for power in Yemen’s tenuous political future. But what unsurprisingly unites most Yemenis at this point is shared hatred for the Saudi coalition bombs which rain down on civilian centers below. For this reason, Hearst concludes further of MBS’ war: “The prince, praised in Western circles as a young reformer who will spearhead the push back against Iran, has succeeded in uniting Yemenis against him, a rare feat in a polarized world. He has indeed shot himself, repeatedly, in the foot.”

So how has this come about, and how is the war going from a military and strategic perspective?

First, to quickly review, Saudi airstrikes on already impoverished Yemen, which have killed and maimed tens of thousands of civilians (thousands among those are children according to the UN) and displaced hundreds of thousands, have been enabled by both US intelligence and military hardware. Cholera has recently exploded amidst the appalling war-time conditions, and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and schools have been bombed by the Saudis. After Shia Houthi rebels overran Yemen’s north in 2014, embattled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi vowed to “extract Yemen from the claws of Iran” something which he’s repeatedly affirmed, having been given international backing from allies in the West, and a major bombing campaign began on March 2015 under the name “Operation Decisive Storm” (in a cheap mirroring of prior US wars in Iraq, the first of which was “Desert Storm”).

Saudi Arabia and its backers fear what they perceive as growing Iranian influence in the region, something grossly exaggerated, and seek to defend at all costs Yemeni forces loyal to President Hadi. The coalition includes Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Egypt, Sudan, and the US and UK, and the Saudi initiated war has also lately received behind the scenes political support from Israel, something recently confirmed by Israeli officials. Concerning the supposed Iran threat in Yemen, an emergency session of the Arab League recently doubled down on its shared commitment to wage war against Iranian interests after it blamed Tehran for a November 4 ballistic missile attack from Shia Houthi rebels against the Saudi capital, which Iran denies playing a role in.

But the Saudi coalition is now in shambles according to a new Middle East Eye investigation. The report highlights some surprising facts long ignored in mainstream media and which give insight into how the Saudi military campaign is likely to end in total failure as “more than two years into a disastrous war, the coalition of ground forces assembled by the Saudis is showing signs of crumbling.”

Below are 5 key takeaways from the full report.

1) Saudi coalition ground forces have a huge contingent of foreign fighters, namely Sudanese troops with UAE officers, suffering the brunt of the battle on the front lines.

Sudanese forces, which constitute the bulk of the 10,000 foreign fighters in the Saudi-led coalition, are suffering high casualty rates. A senior source close to the presidency in Khartoum told Middle East Eye that over 500 of their troops had now been killed in Yemen.

Only two months ago, the commander of the Sudanese Army’s rapid support force, Lieutenant General Mohammed Hamdan Hamidati, quoted a figure of 412 troops killed, including 14 officers to  the Sudanese newspaper Al Akhbar. “There is huge pressure to withdraw from this on-going fight,” the Sudanese source told MEE. A force of up to 8,000 Sudanese troops are partly led by Emirati officers. They are deployed in southern Yemen as well as to the south and west of Taiz in al Makha.

2) Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has been dubbed “president of the mercenaries” for accepting over $2.2 billion from Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to provide canon fodder for the Saudi ground war in Yemen in the form of thousands of young Sudanese troops, but he’s threatening revolt. To escape his untenable position, he is reportedly seeking help from Putin.

At home, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir is also having second thoughts. He remembers the lifeline he got when Riyadh deposited $1bn in Sudan’s Central Bank two years ago, followed by Qatar’s $1.22bn. But he hardly enjoys being known as “president of the mercenaries,” and he has other relationships to consider.

On Thursday, Bashir became the latest of a procession of Arab leaders to beat a path to Vladimir Putin’s door. He told the Russian president he needed protection from the US, was against confrontation with Iran, and supported the policy of keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. This follows an incident at home, which was variously described as espionage and a coup attempt. Taha Osman Ahmed al-Hussein was dismissed as the director of the Office of the Sudanese President after he was discovered carrying a Saudi passport and a residency permit for the UAE. He was caught maintaining secret contact with both.

3) Saudi-backed Yemeni fighters are increasingly mutinying and fear local mass push back from Yemen’s civilian population due to the unpopular bombing campaign.

Mutiny is also stirring in the ranks of Yemenis who two and a half years ago cheered the Saudi pushback against the Houthis who were trying to take over the entire country.

The Saudi relationship with Islah, the largest group of Yemeni fighters in the ground force employed by the coalition, has at best been ambivalent. The Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s closest partner in Yemen, Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, is openly hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Yemeni party… They [Islahi leadership] are feeling the political price they are paying for supporting a campaign that turned in Yemeni eyes from liberation to occupation… Enough is enough. The regional Islahi leadership are now talking of starting direct negotiations with the Houthis, a senior Islah source told MEE.

4) Saudi proxy fighters are at war with each other: an Emirati-backed militia fighting under the Saudi coalition is assassinating other members of the Saudi coalition in what’s increasingly an internal coalition civil war. 

They are also paying a physical price. A number of Islahi sheikhs and scholars as well as Salafis who rejected Emirati leadership have been killed or targeted by assassination attempts. The list is growing: there have been assassinations of Khaled Ali al-Armani, a leader in the Islah Party, on 7 December 2016; Sheikh Abdullah Bin Amir Bin Ali Bin Abdaat al-Kathri, on 23 November 2017 in Hadhramaut; Abdelmajeed Batees (related to Saleh Batees) a leader in the Islah Party on 5 January 2017 in Hadhramaut; Mohammed Bin Lashgam, Deputy Director of Civil Status, on 17 January 2017; Khaled Ali al-Armani, a leader in the Islah Party, on 7 December 2016…

“The Emiratis do not conceal their hostility to Islah. Islahi sheikhs and scholars are being assassinated, and this is being co-ordinated by the pro-Emirati militia. In addition, the UAE is clearly enforcing the blockade of Taiz, and withholding support for our fighters in the city,” the source said.

5) Oman is entering the fray, which will further fragment the Saudi coalition as rivalries for territorial control develop.

As if the balance of competing outside forces  in Yemen is not complicated enough, enter Oman. Oman, too, regards southern Yemen as its backyard. It is particularly worried about the takeover of a series of strategic ports and islands off Yemen by the Emiratis. A Qatari diplomatic source described this as the Emiratis’ “seaborn empire,” but the Omanis are upset by this too.

The Omanis are understood to be quietly contacting local Yemeni tribal leaders in south Yemen, some of them separatist forces, to organize a more “orchestrated response” to the militias paid for and controlled by Abu Dhabi.

Like the proxy war in Syria, it appears that Gulf/US plans have backfired, and we are perhaps in for a long Saudi coalition death spiral fueled by delusion and denial. Sadly, it is primarily Yemeni civilians and common people in the region that will continue to bear the brunt of suffering wrought by such evil and delusional stupidity.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

The big slide in renewable energy tells the real story

No, renewables are not taking over the world anytime soon.

By Bjørn Lomborg | Watts Up With That? | November 26, 2017

We have spent the last two centuries getting off renewables because they were mostly weak, costly and unreliable. Half a century ago, in 1966, the world got 15.6% of its energy from renewables. Today (2016) we still get less of our energy at 13.8%.

With our concern for global warming, we are ramping up the use of renewables. The mainstream reporting lets you believe that renewables are just about to power the entire world. But this is flatly wrong.

The new World Energy Outlook report from the International Energy Agency shows how much renewables will increase over the next quarter century, to 2040. In its New Policies Scenario, which rather optimistically expects all nations to live up to their Paris climate promise, it sees the percentage increase less than 6 percentage points from 13.8% to 19.4%. More realistically, the increase will be 2 percentage points to 15.8%.

Most of the renewables are not solar PV and wind. Today, almost 10 percentage points come from the world’s oldest fuel: wood. Hydropower provides another 2.5 percentage points and all other renewables provide just 1.6 percentage points, of which solar PV and wind provide 0.8 percentage points.

Neither will most renewables in 2040 come from solar PV and wind, as breathless reporting tends to make you believe. 10 percentage points will come from wood. Hydropower provides another 3 percentage points and all other renewables provide 6 percentage points, of which solar PV and wind will (very optimistically) provide 3.7 percentage points.

Oh, and to achieve this 3.7 % of energy from solar PV and wind, you and I and the rest of the world will pay – according to the IEA – a total of $3.6 trillion in subsidies from 2017-2040 to support these uncompetitive energy sources. (Of course, if they were competitive, they wouldn’t need subsidies, and then they will be most welcome.)

Most people tend to think about electricity for renewables, but the world uses plenty of energy that is not electricity (heat, transport, manufacture and industrial processes).

Actually, if the world miraculously could make the *entire* global electricity sector 100% green without emitting a single ton of greenhouse gasses, we would have solved just a third of the total global greenhouse gas problem.

As Al Gore’s climate adviser, Jim Hansen, put it bluntly:

“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and [the] Tooth Fairy.”

We need to get real on renewables. Only if green energy becomes much cheaper – and that requires lots of green R&D – will a renewables transition be possible.

References

Data for graph: “A brief history of energy” by Roger Fouquet, International Handbook of the Economics of Energy 2009; IEA data DOI: 10.1787/enestats-data-en, and World Energy Outlook 2017, unfortunately not free, https://www.iea.org/weo2017/

Hansen quote: http://www.columbia.edu/…/mail…/2011/20110729_BabyLauren.pdf

The world emitted 49Gt CO₂e in 2014, and all electricity/heat came to 15Gt or less than a third, http://cait.wri.org/profile/World.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | 2 Comments

Fighting Israel’s Wars

How the United States military has become Zionized

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 28, 2017

There has been a report that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is looking into foreign lobbying in Washington while another story relates how his team is investigating the alleged contact of a Donald Trump associate with a Hungarian. Both are part of the ongoing investigation into Russiagate. Unless I am wrong, which happens occasionally, Hungary is a member of the European Union and also of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It has relatively free elections and its government changes as a result.

No one but the Mueller commission has considered contact with a Hungarian citizen to be a potential threat to American democracy. But then again, no one has really made the case in any kind of credible fashion that meeting with a Russian is either ipso facto criminal or treasonous, or that Moscow’s media does anything beyond what other state-owned broadcasters tend to do, but you wouldn’t know that from reading the mainstream press or from watching MSNBC and CNN.

An independent observer might well note that there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy in all of this. Case in point, the latest globalist-interventionist-neocon think tank the Alliance to Secure Democracy is currently being funded by a bundle of foreign governments, presumably doing so without any interference from Mueller or from those who run the Foreign Agents Registration desk at the Department of the Treasury.

And one other thing you can bet on is that Mueller will not be looking at the country that actually does interfere in American politics most, which is our best friend in the whole world and greatest ally Israel, the beneficiary of roughly one billion dollars-worth of lobbying carried out by hundreds of full time staff on its behalf.

Punish Israel for corrupting our politicians and media? On the contrary, now that we are officially into the holiday season, a whole bunch of goodies designed to make Benjamin Netanyahu’s eyes sparkle are pending. The highest priority item is the Trump Administration’s cooperation with the Israeli government in a frantic effort to bury a United Nations report that includes a database of all the companies that operate in Israel’s illegal settlements. Also regarding the U.N., Congress is considering a bill that would block U.S. aid to any country that opposes “the position of the United States.” Lest there be any confusion, Ambassador Nikki Haley has made it clear the American “position” would pretty much consist of never criticizing or voting against Israel.

Congress is meanwhile also making a list and checking it twice, looking into the vexing issue of how to make any and all criticism of Israel equate to anti-Semitism as a step forward to turning such activity into a hate crime with actual criminal penalties. The House Judiciary Committee has been holding meetings to try to decide how exactly one might do that without completely jettisoning the First Amendment, which once upon a time was intended to guarantee free speech. On November 8th, nine experts, seven of whom were Jewish, were summoned to address the issue of “codify[ing] a definition of anti-Semitism that incorporates a controversial component addressing attacks on Israel… [as] a necessary means of stemming anti-Semitism on campuses.”

The proposed amendment to the Civil Rights Act would use language being considered for the still pending Anti-Semitism Awareness Act to considerably expand the currently accepted government acceptance of anti-Semitism as “demonization” of Israel and/or its policies. A broader definition would have real world consequences as it would potentially block federal funding for colleges and universities where students are allowed to organize events critical of Israel. Fortunately, the hearing did not produce the result desired by Israel. To their credit, four of the witnesses, all Jewish, opposed expanding the definition of anti-Semitism and even some congressmen uncharacteristically indicated that to do so might be a bridge to far.

Indeed, one might argue that there is a tendency in Washington to see the world and even domestic policies through Israel’s eyes. One might even suggest that the United States government is being progressively Zionized because of the free hand that Israel and its supporters have, which gives them the ability to seek benefits for Israel that they would be unlikely to pursue for the United States. To cite only one example, an Israel Victory Caucus was launched in the House of Representatives in April advocating Israeli defeat of all its neighbors. The keynote speaker at the event, noted Islamophobe Daniel Pipes, explained “Victory means imposing your will on your enemy so he no longer wants to continue to fight,” before demanding “What I want the U.S. government to do is say, ‘Israel, do what you need to do to win your war.’”

Israel has been uniquely successful at imposing its will over Congress and the White House. Every freshman class in Congress, plus spouses, is automatically whisked off for a deluxe all expenses paid propaganda trip to Israel, which is funded by an affiliate of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC). That is supplemented frequently throughout the year through taxpayer funded CODELS by established politicians to find out the “facts” on what is going on in the Middle East. During congressional recesses Congressmen are sometimes more likely to be found visiting Israel than dealing with problems in their own districts and they routinely return spouting whatever line is being promoted by the Israeli government.

There is also the training of American police in “Israeli methods,” which is funded both by government and foundations set up for that purpose. Less well known is the inroads Israel has made with the American military establishment. Shoshana Bryen, former executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and currently affiliated with the Jewish Policy Center, who has been involved in hosting the indoctrination of U.S. national security personnel, recently described it this way: “I have taken more than 400 American security professionals – primarily retired American Admirals and Generals – to Israel in more than 30 trips. And at the other end of their careers, I have sent more than 500 cadets and midshipmen of our service academies to Israel before they received their commissions. And I can say that they all understood the fundamental and profound principles that guide both the United States and Israel. They don’t always agree with Israel’s politics – or Israel’s defense choices – or any other single aspect of Israeli political, military and social life, but I never found one that didn’t believe in the relationship between Jews and the land of Israel. The United States military, then, is a Zionist institution.”

Last Monday, Colonel Pat Lang, former special ops officer and head of the Defense Humint Service, considered Bryen’s assertion, writing “It’s an open question but I think the answer is probably yes. The U.S. military now seems to be totally focused on Israeli policy goals in Iran, Syria and Iraq… Israel wants Iran neutered and eliminated as a power rival in the Middle East. The putative Iranian nuclear weapons program is just one target of Israeli policy toward Iran. To reach the goal of Morgenthau-style comfort with regard to Iran, Israel wants to destroy Syria and Hizbullah as allies of Iran… The process of conditioning American officers to make them Zionists has been ongoing for a long time. when I came in the Army in 1962, there was little interest in Israel in the officer corps… [The] 1967 war was a watershed. Israel’s total victory had been unexpected by most. Americans are mentally driven by aggressive sports analogies and Israel was a winner. That made a big difference in spite of the repeated day long attacks by the Israeli air force and navy against U.S.S. Liberty, an American SIGINT collector positioned off the Egyptian coast. LBJ suppressed an armed reaction by a U.S. carrier battle group in the area and a subsequent naval investigation. His policy then became one of relatively complete support of Israel. The indoctrination and conditioning program described by Shoshana Bryen began in earnest after that and has carried through to the present under the umbrella of AIPAC and its galaxy of linked organizations especially JINSA. This program has been wildly, incredibly successful. As a result, there is an unthinking willingness among senior, and not so senior American officers to support Israeli policy in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and now Saudi Arabia. The handful of M[iddle] E[ast] trained and educated U.S. officers are ignored, treated as technical experts or shoved out the door when they speak up.”

How deeply Israelophilia has been drilled into the American corporate psyche is best illustrated by a recent article that appeared on the National Interest website. The article was written by retired Israeli Colonel Shimon Arad, who apparently has contributed to the site previously, and its thrust is that the United States should only sell military hardware to the Middle East when Israel is satisfied that the sales will not undercut its self-defined military edge. In other words, U.S. defense industries and national security arrangements should be subordinated to Israeli interests and even subject to veto by the Netanyahu government.

Arad’s condescending piece, sub-titled “Israel’s Greatest Fear: An Arms Race Sparked by the F-35,” should be read fully to demonstrate just how arrogant the Israelis have become in dealing with their American puppet. Arad argues that no advanced fighters comparable to what Israel receives for free from the U.S. taxpayer should be sold to any Arab country, no matter how friendly or strategically valuable. Previous pledges that the new F-35 would not be sold to Arabs “played a significant role in [Israel]’s acquiescence to the sale of… advanced… fighters to the Gulf states…” “Acquiescence” is the key word, implying that Israel should by rights have the option to stop such sales by putting pressure on Congress. Arad then goes on to describe how sales to the United Arab Emirates would be a “dangerous precedent,” but he is clearly talking only about Israeli interests as the United States is in no way threatened by such a move. He concludes that “Israel must express its strenuous objection to the release of the F-35 to any and all Gulf and Arab countries.”

In an earlier article, Arad complained about Arab states being sold sophisticated air defenses, presumably because that would make it more difficult for Israel to bomb them. Why an American publication should provide a pulpit to an Israeli who is promoting a narrowly construed Israeli interest that differs significantly from the actual interests of the United States is not completely clear. The site’s readers apparently agreed with that observation in that most of the comments were highly critical both of Arad and of Israel. Someone should remind the colonel that America’s three major military concentrations in the Middle East – five bases in Kuwait, Al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, and the Fifth-Fleet home base and Naval Central Command in Bahrain – are all in Arab countries that have accommodated Washington in ways that Israel never has. To place them on a list of countries that are somehow always suspect just because Israel perceives nearly all Muslims as enemies, is not in America’s own interest, but this has been the unfortunate pattern in the lopsided relationship prevailing between Washington and Tel Aviv.

The infiltration by little Israel of key sectors of the bureaucracy of a seemingly oblivious giant United States is extraordinary by any measure, but it has been brought about by a highly focused and well-funded powerful domestic lobby that has remarkable access both to the political class and to the media. As Admiral Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff once put it, “No American president can stand up to Israel.” He should have added Congress and even the Pentagon to his indictment but what he said is, unfortunately, truer now than it was when he made the comment back in 1997.

November 28, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 2 Comments