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Forget the NHS, spend on defense – US ambassador tells UK

RT | May 15, 2018

Woody Johnson, the US ambassador to the UK, has said that Britain should spend more on military defense at the expense of the NHS, insisting there needs to be ‘trade-offs’ to ensure security and to remain a strong US ally.

Johnson seemed to indicate to journalists assembled in London that, if increasing spending on defense was to the detriment of national treasures such as the NHS, then that was a price worth paying. He said: “Healthcare is always going to be an issue, education is always going to be an issue, transportation and infrastructure are always going to be issues, etc. But how important is it to defend yourself?”

The current owner of American Football team, the New York Jets, Johnson has been serving as Donald Trump’s US ambassador to the UK since January this year. Parroting a Trumpian trope, Johnson warned that his boss doesn’t want to bankroll fellow NATO countries such as Britain to safeguard their security – claiming they needed to pay their way on the world stage.

The US ambassador was talking in relation to Britain’s ambition to buy 138 of the F-35 Lightning II next generation warplanes, as reported in The Times. Some 15 jets have reportedly been bought so far, with military officials committing to an additional 33 by 2025.

It may not come as a surprise to some in the UK that an official from the US, a country which views good healthcare not as a right, but something that should be determined by financial capability, is advising its ‘close ally’ to ditch increased spending on the NHS to ward off supposed threats to national security from ‘enemies’ such as Russia.

Johnson added: “You’re going to have to make trade-offs and go through the emotional and practical and philosophical arguments in terms of what you want to do, what you want to be, how important is defense? How you want to be perceived, by the US, but also by Russia and others?”

The ambassador’s intervention comes on the back of suggestions that there is a black hole in the region of £20 billion ($27 billion) in the UK Ministry of Defence’s budget over the next decade, reports Forces Network.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , | 3 Comments

Rights group: Israel arrested 500 Palestinians over Facebook posts

Reporting Israeli crimes against Palestinians is considered by Israeli judiciary incitement of terror.

Days of Palestine | May 9, 2018

Palestinian Prisoners’ Centre (PPC) said yesterday that Israel had arrested 500 Palestinians, including women and children, as a result of their social media posts, Al-Resalah newspaper reported.

PPC spokesman Riyadh Al-Ashqar said that the Israeli occupation began arresting Palestinians because of their social media posts following the start of the Jerusalem Intifada claiming such uploads incite terror against Israel.

Israel is using its recently formed “Cyber Unit” to monitor Palestinian social media posts, the centre said.

This unit, Al-Ashqar said, classifies any post that glorifies Palestinian martyrs, discloses Israeli crimes, supports resistance or mentions the words and phrases including “martyr” and “intifada” as “incitement of terror”.

In the recent years, Al-Ashqar said, Israeli occupation courts have issued hundreds of sentences against Palestinians on the ground of incitement on social media.

The sentences ranged between months and years in prison, house arrests or bans from using social media platforms and mobile phones. The terms were handed down to men, women and children.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | 2 Comments

‘Expel the Israeli ambassador’: Irish FM blasted for double standards over Gaza and Skripal case

RT | May 15, 2018

Ireland’s foreign minister is being accused of hypocrisy for failing to expel Israel’s ambassador over the IDF killing 60 Palestinians on Monday, despite sending a Russian diplomat home over the Skripal case without evidence.

Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney expelled a Russian diplomat in March following Britain’s claim that Russia was behind the poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England. The decision faced pushback from many in Ireland who claimed it was a hasty move, made before any evidence was presented.

Opposition politicians and activists are now questioning why the same robust response applied in the aftermath of the Skripal case has not been implemented in a situation where 60 people were killed and thousands more injured by Israeli forces.

Coveney issued a statement on Gaza, Monday, saying we all have “a political responsibility to try to reduce tensions and protect unarmed protesters.” He said he was “gravely concerned that the use of force seems disproportionate to the threat” and called for an independent investigation.

The minister also summoned Israeli Ambassador Ze’ev Boker to a meeting on Tuesday to express his “shock and dismay” at Monday’s events, The Journal reports.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald says Coveney’s actions don’t go far enough, however, and called for the Israeli ambassador to Ireland to be expelled.

“I know that the Tánaiste [Deputy Prime Minister] has called in the Israeli ambassador – actually the Tánaiste should be sending the Israeli ambassador home. The Irish State now needs to recall our diplomatic mission from Israel,” she said.

The Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) is also calling for diplomatic expulsion. “This is the single deadliest day for Palestinians in the occupied territories in four years,” IPSC National Chairperson Fatin Al Tamimi said. “The ambassador for apartheid and his staff should be expelled, and the Irish Ambassador in Tel Aviv recalled, just as South Africa has done.”

Irish people on social media called Coveney out for taking a different tack in his treatment of the Russian diplomat, suggesting the Irish government is happy to follow Britain’s orders but will fail to act on “crimes against humanity.”

Meanwhile, the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) will hold protests across the country Tuesday, calling for an end to the “ongoing massacre of unarmed Palestinians” by Israeli forces.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza killings: Names and faces of those killed by Israeli forces this week

Middle East Eye | May 15, 2018

Eight-month-old Laila is youngest Palestinian killed in Gaza on Monday, the deadliest day since 2014 war.

From left: Ahmed Alrantisi, Laila Anwar Al-Ghandoor, Ahmed Altetr, Alaa Alkhatib Ezz el-din Alsamaak, Motassem Abu Louley (screengrab)

Sixty-two people were either killed or died of wounds inflicted by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip on Monday and Tuesday as thousands of Palestinians demonstrated across the occupied territory to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Gaza Ministry of Health released the names of 59 Palestinians killed:

1. Laila Anwar Al-Ghandoor, 8 months old

2. Ezz el-din Musa Mohamed Alsamaak, 14 years old

3. Wisaal Fadl Ezzat Alsheikh Khalil, 15 years old

4. Ahmed Adel Musa Alshaer, 16 years old

5. Saeed Mohamed Abu Alkheir, 16 years old

6. Ibrahim Ahmed Alzarqa, 18 years old

7. Eman Ali Sadiq Alsheikh, 19 years old

8. Zayid Mohamed Hasan Omar, 19 years old

9. Motassem Fawzy Abu Louley, 20 years old

10. Anas Hamdan Salim Qadeeh, 21 years old

11. Mohamed Abd Alsalam Harz, 21 years old

From left: Fadi Abu Salah, Motaz Al-Nunu, Jihad Mohammed Othman Mousa, Mousa Jabr Abdulsalam Abu Hasnayn, Ezz Eldeen Nahid Aloyutey, Anas Hamdan Salim Qadeeh

12. Yehia Ismail Rajab Aldaqoor, 22 years old

13. Mustafa Mohamed Samir Mahmoud Almasry, 22 years old

14. Ezz Eldeen Nahid Aloyutey, 23 years old

15. Mahmoud Mustafa Ahmed Assaf, 23 years old

16. Ahmed Fayez Harb Shahadah, 23 years old

17. Ahmed Awad Allah, 24 years old

18. Khalil Ismail Khalil Mansor, 25 years old

19. Mohamed Ashraf Abu Sitta, 26 years old

20. Bilal Ahmed Abu Diqah, 26 years old

21. Ahmed Majed Qaasim Ata Allah, 27 years old

From left: Mahmoud Wael Mahmoud Jundeyah, Ibrahim Ahmed Alzarqa, Musab Yousef Abu Leilah, Jihad Mufid Al-Farra, Saeed Mohamed Abu Alkheir, Mohamed Hasan Mustafa Alabadilah (screengrab)

22. Mahmoud Rabah Abu Maamar, 28 years old

23.Musab Yousef Abu Leilah, 28 years old

24. Ahmed Fawzy Altetr, 28 years old

25. Mohamed Abdelrahman Meqdad, 28 years old

26. Obaidah Salim Farhan, 30 years old

27. Jihad Mufid Al-Farra, 30 years old

28. Fadi Hassan Abu Salah, 30 years old

29. Motaz Bassam Kamil Al-Nunu, 31 years old

30. Mohammed Riyad Abdulrahman Alamudi, 31 years old

31. Jihad Mohammed Othman Mousa, 31 years old

32. Shahir Mahmoud Mohammed Almadhoon, 32 years old

33. Mousa Jabr Abdulsalam Abu Hasnayn, 35 years old

From left: Shahir Mahmoud Mohammed Almadhoon, Khalil Ismail Khalil Mansor, Mahmoud Saber Hamad Abu Taeemah, Mohamed Ashraf Abu Sitta, Mustafa Mohamed Samir Mahmoud Almasry, Obaidah Salim Farhan (screengrab)

34. Mohammed Mahmoud Abdulmoti Abdal’al, 39 years old

35. Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim Hamdan, 27 years old

36. Ismail Khalil Ramadhan Aldaahuk, 30 years old

37. Ahmed Mahmoud Mohammed Alrantisi, 27 years old

38. Alaa Alnoor Ahmed Alkhatib, 28 years old

39. Mahmoud Yahya Abdawahab Hussain, 24 years old

40. Ahmed Abdullah Aladini, 30 years old

41. Saadi Said Fahmi Abu Salah, 16 years old

42. Ahmed Zahir Hamid Alshawa, 24 years old

43. Mohammed Hani Hosni Alnajjar, 33 years old

44. Fadl Mohamed Ata Habshy, 34 years old

45. Mokhtar Kaamil Salim Abu Khamash, 23 years old

46. Mahmoud Wael Mahmoud Jundeyah, 21 years old

47. Abdulrahman Sami Abu Mattar, 18 years old

48. Ahmed Salim Alyaan Aljarf, 26 years old

From left: Mohammed Hani Hosni Alnajjar, Yehia Ismail Rajab Aldaqoor, Mohammed Riyad Abdulrahman Alamudi, Ahmed Adel Musa Alshaer, Fadl Mohamed Ata Habshy, Ismail Khalil Ramadhan Aldaahuk (screengrab)

49. Mahmoud Sulayman Ibrahim Aql, 32 years old

50. Mohamed Hasan Mustafa Alabadilah, 25 years old

51. Kamil Jihad Kamil Mihna, 19 years old

52. Mahmoud Saber Hamad Abu Taeemah, 23 years old

53. Ali Mohamed Ahmed Khafajah, 21 years old

54. Abdelsalam Yousef Abdelwahab, 39 years old

55. Mohamed Samir Duwedar, 27 years old

56. Talal Adel Ibrahim Mattar, 16 years old

57. Omar Jomaa Abu Ful, 30 years old

58. Nasser Ahmed Mahmoud Ghrab, 51 years old

59. Bilal Badeer Hussein Al-Ashram, 18 years old

60 – 62: Unidentified

Middle East Eye has live coverage of protests in Palestine and Israel here.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Trump / Israel Collusion on Syria

By Renee Parsons | CounterPunch | May 15, 2018

Considering the sequence of recent events in the Middle East, it is obvious that the circumstances regarding the US withdrawal from the nuclear accord with Iran were carefully thought out in advance, as a pre-arranged strategy to pave the way for escalating Israel’s conflict with Iran and the war in Syria.

In presenting their own self-serving narrative of lies and distortions that Iran is conducting a ‘secret’ nuclear weapons program, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump remain oblivious to the stunning hypocrisy of their own duplicity and stupidity; as if the rest of the world does not see through their pathological deceits. In their most recent public presentations, both pathetically flawed individuals, trapped in a Matrix of their own, continue to confuse war with peace and have no clue how to distinguish the difference.

Publicly projecting one’s own evil agenda onto an ill-fated population is an old political trick to deflect attention from one’s own sins while pointing the finger elsewhere and it would come as no surprise to discover that National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has dual citizenship with Israel, has been the key choreographer.

Immediately after Trump’s April 3rd “time to get out of Syria” and ‘bring our troops home” statement, an alleged gas attack occurred on April 7th that was allegedly ordered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That attack was followed by Netanyahu’s April 30th dog and pony show as a warm up for Trump’s much anticipated announcement withdrawing from the nuclear accord with Iran (JCPOA) on May 8th. By May 9th, Netanyahu was in Moscow viewing the Russian Victory Day parade along side Russian President Vladimir Putin.

We can only speculate on the details of the Putin-Netanyahu conversation but it is an unlikely coincidence that Russia’s previous plan to provide its sophisticated S300 surface to air missile system to Syria has been put on the backburner and it appears the Russians took no active role to counter the Israeli offensive.

As reported in Haaretz, Netanyahu used the old cliché with Putin that “Israeli has the right to defend itself in the face of Iranian aggression” and as Putin should be aware, that is smokescreen lingo for Israel will pursue its policy of death and destruction throughout the Middle East with no apologies to anyone and international law be damned.

All this of course comes after the US, Israel, Saudis and their proxies suffered a humiliating defeat in Syria thanks to the Russians in the air and Iranians on the ground, both of which provided military assistance at the request of Assad.

Netanyahu’s promise to provide a ‘new and conclusive proof of a secret nuclear weapons program that Iran has been hiding for years from the international community in its secret atomic archive” proved to be nothing more than a rehash of outdated, useless talking points.

It was not an oversight that Netanyahu failed to provide his own data about Israel’s super secret nuclear weapon arsenal which has been kept top-secret since the 1960’s. Estimated at 200 nuclear warheads in a 2016 email by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former President Jimmy Carter revised his estimate upwards in 2014 to 300 Israeli nuclear warheads while in 1996 the authoritative Jane’s magazine put the number at 400 Israel nuclear warheads. If American intelligence was correct in 1986 that Israel had 200 nuclear warheads, with a production schedule of ten each year since the mid 1970’s, a more accurate current estimate could be as high as 600 Israeli nuclear warheads.

It might have been worth the price of admission to hear Netanyahu’s response to Iran’s Hassan Rouhani’s first UN visit as President in 2013 when he called for a ‘nuclear free zone’ in the Middle East? Or let’s hear Netanyahu or Trump explain how Iran signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1968 with its Parliament ratifying the Treaty in 1970 while Israel has consistently refused to sign and refused to allow IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspections of its nuclear facilities? The NNPT has now been signed by 191 nations, not including Israel.

It is astonishing that after his ‘fake news’ testimony before a subservient Congress in 2002, Netanyahu continues to perpetuate the Iran lie practically word for word as he perpetuated the Iraq wmd lie in 2002:

“there is no question whatsoever, that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing towards the development nuclear weapons, no question whatsoever – and there is no question that once he acquires it, history shifts immediately…”

While Trump’s long anticipated declaration relied heavily on scare tactics, bombast and a barrage of belligerent, unverified accusations citing ‘new evidence’ presented at Netanyahu’s flim-flam event, Trump failed to provide one iota of evidence that Iran had not been in compliance with the Agreement. Trump failed to explain how attempts to improve the Agreement had failed and totally missed the irony when he dutifully parroted that Iran’s ‘regime has funded a long reign of chaos and terror by plundering the wealth of its own people” as if America’s history of spreading global chaos and terror remains a Deep State secret.

Within hours of Trump’s green light, Israel initiated a massive bombing attack on Iranian positions in Syria, according to Haaretz, firing from Israeli positions in the disputed Golan Heights in southwest Syria. The GH, which is within missile range of Damascus, has been occupied by Israel since the Six Day War in 1967 and remains internationally recognized as Syrian territory.

The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) reported that its Iron Dome missile defense system was deployed and intercepted some twenty incoming projectiles in what may have been an unprecedented return volley from Syria which Israel labelled as an “act of aggression”. The Iron Dome system was built for Israel by the American weapons manufacturer Raytheon and with Congress funding the system, courtesy of $705 Million from the American taxpayer.

As Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said referring to an increased US budget allotment for Israel, “I thank our great friend the United States, which has invested $6.5 billion to defend the skies of the State of Israel.”

The speed and ease with which Israel stepped in and took control has been stunning, requiring the capitulation of Trump and Putin as Israel assumed all the authority to initiate attacks with no fear of reprimand or being held accountable to anyone. With the same confident assurance since the confiscation of Arab lands for Israeli settlements began in 1947, Israel has never been a nation that respected diplomatic protocol or honored international law.

Meanwhile, Members of the US Congress continue to “sit in their places with bright, shiny faces.”

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist and staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump served legal notice warning of Israeli false flag operation

MEMO | May 15, 2018

US President Donald Trump has been served with a legal notice reminding him of his Constitutional duties with regard to the situation in the Middle East, especially his decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and warning him of an impending Israeli false flag operation likely to threaten the lives of US citizens. America’s responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council are also pointed out by the signatories to the notice, who are British journalist Sarah Jane (Lauren) Booth; former CIA Operations Officer Phil Geraldi; ex-Pentagon official Michael Maloof; Scott Bennett, a former US Army Officer and State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism; ex-US Diplomat and Attorney J. Michael Springmann; and Edward C Corrigan, a Canadian Barrister and Solicitor.

Their formal letter has been sent to Trump with copies going to the International Criminal Court, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, among others. The signatories give the US President “legal notice” of “a massacre beginning at the time of the Nakba anniversary in order for you to register a response and call upon the Israelis to cease and desist in your capacity as President of the United States and a Permanent Member of the Security Council and NATO.” The address for receipt of the notice to be acknowledged is given as International Delegates of the New Horizons Conference in Tehran.

The US President is reminded that he is expected to advise the US Congress, the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court in The Hague) about this legal matter. He is warned “that ‘false flag’ attacks may be used by Israeli agents in order to assign blame to Palestinian factions and escalate the ongoing protests in Gaza and the West Bank into a larger conflict in order to falsely draw the United States and American military personnel into this artificially created conflict.” Such an attack, claim those behind the legal notice, “represents a clear and present danger to the citizens of the United States of America, because it may be designed to trigger and escalate American military actions against Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Russia, since these nations are opposed to the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem; and rising tensions already exacerbated by the US withdrawal from the [nuclear deal with Iran].”

The initiation of this impending attack, Trump has been told, will involve a new and higher level massacre of Palestinian civilians protesting against the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Furthermore, the letter serves as “Legal Notice [that] the United States can have no military alliance due to the fact that Israel has no internationally recognised fixed territorial borders which are required to be defined in such an agreement.” This notice, it is pointed out, will be “EXHIBIT 1 in any war crimes investigation and prosecution (past, present, future) relating to this matter.” There are, it is claimed, “national and international legal violations” involved.

The signatories cite a number of publications as evidence of the seriousness of their claims and warning to the President, and seek legal protection for themselves against “any retaliation, detainment, investigation, sequestration, interrogation, discrimination, imprisonment, torture, financial consequences, or any other negative or prejudicial consequences or actions taken against them.” Indeed, the former government and military officers and officials seek “whistle-blower protection” because they are “fulfilling [their] oaths to the US Constitution.”

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Confronting Anti-Palestinianism in Canada’s NDP

By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | May 14, 2018

This is the final article in a four-part series on the NDP leadership’s suppression of debate on the Palestine Resolution. Here are the first, second and third installments on the topic.

To effect change people need to know what and who they are up against. By nakedly suppressing debate on the Palestine Resolution at its recent convention the NDP leadership did internationalist minded party members the favour of clarifying that. They demonstrated the need to directly confront anti-Palestinianism within the party.

Over the next year NDPers who support Palestinian rights and care about party democracy should hound the leadership over their suppression of the Palestine Resolution. Every single elected representative, staffer, riding association executive and party activist needs to be prodded into deciding whether they side with Palestinian rights and party democracy or suppressing the Palestine Resolution and enabling ongoing Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession.

The best way to channel disgust with suppression of the Palestine Resolution is by forcing the party to sever its ties with Israel lobby organizations. NDP officials must stop participating in expenses-paid Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) lobbying trips to Israel and reject requests from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to speak at its conferences. They also need to remove their MPs from the Canada–Israel Parliamentary Group, stop inviting Israeli Labor Party MPs to their convention and refrain from events put on by the explicitly racist and colonial Jewish National Fund.

Any MP who takes a CIJA-funded lobbying trip to Israel should receive a deluge of emails from across the country, visits to their office by local activists and the withdrawal of any form of activist support until they apologize. MPs and party representatives need to understand that these lobbying tours may be free, but they have a political cost.

Palestine solidarity activists in Victoria should immediately launch a campaign to force Randall Garrison and Murray Rankin to withdraw from the Canada–Israel Parliamentary Group. If emails don’t do the trick, visiting their offices, questioning them at community events or occupying their offices might.

At an individual level anti-Palestinian comments should be socially stigmatized. Just like members making openly sexist or homophobic statements, individuals espousing anti-Palestinian views need to feel isolated in NDP circles.

An example of the wild anti-Palestinianism accepted in the party, the president of an NDP riding association sits on the board of the explicitly racist and colonialist Jewish National Fund. President of the Windsor-Tecumseh federal NDP, Noah Tepperman is a board member of the Windsor JNF and has funded the organization’s events in other cities. Before the party convention Tepperman sent an email to all riding associations calling on them to oppose Palestine resolutions and he has tweeted that “BDS = Racism” and “Distressed to hear Canada’s Green Party endorsed the anti-free speech/anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic BDS movement.” Heir to the southern Ontario Tepperman furniture, appliance and electronics business, Noah Tepperman should be removed from his position, just as a supporter of a White nationalist group or Christian anti-abortion activist would be.

At the convention, representatives of the NDP-aligned Broadbent Institute supported the party establishment’s move to suppress debate on the Palestine Resolution. Any donor or supporter of that organization who believes Palestinians are human beings or cares about party democracy should ask if those supporting suppression of debate were acting on behalf of the Broadbent Institute. During his time as federal party leader Ed Broadbent (1975 – 89) took a number of anti-Palestinian positions. He should be prodded to apologize and distance himself from suppression of the Palestine Resolution.

Ditto for former Ontario leader (1970-78) Stephen Lewis. Probably the loudest anti-Palestinian at the NDP convention, Janet Solberg works at the Stephen Lewis Foundation and has long worked for her brother. Does Stephen Lewis agree with his sister and will he apologize for his previous anti-Palestinian statements?

While it is essential to challenge various personal and institutional ties to Palestinian dispossession, NDP officialdom’s connections to Israel lobby groups wasn’t what drove their suppression of the Palestine Resolution. Rather, as I detailed, the party establishment’s overriding concern was media backlash. But, silencing and driving out extreme anti-Palestinian voices and disrupting the party leadership’s ties to Israel lobby groups is a more achievable medium-term objective than shifting the dominant media. Additionally, getting the NDP — a powerful political institution — to forthrightly criticize Canada’s complicity in Palestinian dispossession is necessary in order to force open space within the dominant media to challenge Israeli policy.

Confronting suppression of the Palestine Resolution and the party establishment’s ties to Israel lobby groups is also essential to constrain their capacity to repeat the same anti-democratic practices at the next convention. Putting the party leadership on the defensive over the Palestine Resolution and its ties to Israel lobby organizations also increases the likelihood that they will criticize the federal government’s indifference to Israel’s killings in Gaza, detention of Palestinian children, Donald Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem and opposition to proper labeling of Israeli settlement wine (issues the NDP foreign critic has recently criticized). The party leadership has taken these basic steps partly as a way to head off activist pressure. Of course, a party serious about opposing Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession would also challenge Canada-Israel military ties, a free trade agreement that allows settlement products to enter Canada duty-free, registered charities that channel tens of millions of dollars to projects supporting Israel’s powerful military, racist institutions and illegal settlements, etc.

At a certain level the question is which ideology and individuals are at home in the NDP: Those in favor of suppressing debate on the Palestine Resolution and Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession or those who support Palestinian rights and party democracy.

It is necessary, for justice and democracy’s sake, that those who thwarted the Palestine Resolution come to regret their decision. They must realize that while not in control of the party machinery or dominant media, Palestine solidarity activists have righteousness on their side and wind in their sails.

Yves Engler is the author of A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation .

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

The Stomach-Churning Victim Blaming by “Labour Friends of Israel”

By Craig Murray | May 14, 2018

The true face of the organisation calling itself “Labour Friends of Israel” has been revealed today, in truly disgusting victim-blaming tweets reacting to the massacre of over fifty Palestinians – including yet more children – by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza.

No Israelis were injured and no “border communities” attacked. This amplification of the worst extreme right wing zionist propaganda by the Likud government shows beyond doubt that “Labour Friends of Israel” is nothing whatsoever to do with the professed values of the Labour Party, but rather a well-funded entryist front solely intended to promote the interests of a violent, expansionist and aggressive foreign state.

I am not a Labour Party member and I do not know what institutional ties the “Labour Friends of Israel” has to the Labour Party, but whatever they are they should be cut off immediately.

The “Labour Friends of Israel” featured very prominently on our TV screens after the recent English local elections, beating the drum for their widespread accusations of anti-semitism within the Labour Party. They have been driving that agenda for many months. One would like to think that the mainstream media would, after today, cease to accept them as a genuine and well-motivated group and understand them for the hate-filled fanatics they truly are. Of course that will not happen, and they will be back on television shortly accusing yet more lifelong anti-racism campaigners who have the temerity to criticise Israel.

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | 2 Comments

Mercury improves child behavior! – US Mainstream Media Report

May 15, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | | 1 Comment