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Maduro re-elected Venezuelan president; rival candidate challenges results

Press TV – May 21, 2018

Nicolas Maduro has been re-elected for a second term in office as Venezuela’s president in an election rejected as “illegitimate” by his main rival, who has also demanded that a repeat vote be held later this year.

With more than 90 percent of the ballots cast in Sunday’s presidential election counted, the National Election Council announced that incumbent Maduro had won another six-year term after securing 67.7 percent of the vote.

Maduro’s main challenger Henri Falcon came in second with 21.2 percent, followed by the president’s other rival, Javier Bertucci, who gained some 10 percent, said the Council’s head, Tibisay Lucena.

With the country’s mainstream opposition having boycotted the vote, the turnout was 46.1 percent, according to the board, which means 8.6 million out of the 20.5 million eligible voters took part in the election.

The ballots were recorded electronically, making the voting quick and easy. The presence of government troops around polling stations also ensured the safety of voters.

Some 150 international observers from 30 countries and international organizations were present in the Latin American country to monitor the process.

Maduro hails ‘historic’ win

When the results were released, Maduro’s supporters gathered outside his Miraflores presidential palace in downtown Caracas, celebrating his re-election with fireworks.

Maduro, surrounded by thousands of his supporters, also hailed his “popular victory,” saying, “This was a historic day! The day of a heroic victory! The day of a beautiful victory – of a truly popular victory.”

“Never before has a presidential candidate taken 68 percent of the popular vote,” he told the cheering crowd.

“The whole of Venezuela has triumphed! Democracy has triumphed! Peace has triumphed! Constitutionality has triumphed [These were] elections that were constitutional, legitimate and legal,” he said. “We have a president of the people! A working president!”

The president also called on the defeated challengers to join him for negotiations about the future of the country.

He said “permanent dialog” is needed with the entire opposition so that Venezuela could set aside political disputes.

Vote ‘lacks legitimacy’

However, before the official results were announced, Falcon said he would not recognize the vote for what he called irregularities, including widespread vote buying in favor of Maduro.

“As far as we are concerned there has been no election. There must be new elections in Venezuela,” he told reporters. “The process undoubtedly lacks legitimacy and as such we do not recognize it.”

Falcon, who broke with an opposition boycott to run for the election, also called for a fresh election to be held in November or December.

Several of Venezuela’s Latin American neighbors as well as the European Union also joined voices with Maduro’s challenger and said they would not recognize the results of the election.

They alleged that the conditions did not exist for the election to be free and fair.

However, former Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who is in Venezuela as an international observer, said he has no “doubt about the voting process.”

“It is an advanced automatic voting system. I come here to keep peace, coordinate and promote dialogue so as to improve the democratic mechanism here. What I need to do here is to see whether people can cast their ballots at their own discretion. Now we all see how people vote, don’t we?” he added.

The US also said it would not recognize the election and would actively consider oil sanctions on the country.

Washington has already imposed sanctions against Venezuela and blamed, together with its allies in the region and elsewhere, Maduro’s government for the country’s acute economic crisis.

On Saturday, the US ramped up pressure on Caracas by imposing new sanctions against the government’s top officials.

Maduro’s government, however, said the US was using new sanctions to sabotage the election.

It called Washington’s move as part of “a systematic campaign of aggression” by President Donald Trump’s administration and said they had no legal base.

May 21, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Yes, Virginia, There is a Deep State

By Thomas L. Knapp | The Garrison Center | May 20, 2018

Since the “Russiagate” probe began, US president Donald Trump and his supporters have used lots of bandwidth raging against what they refer to as the “Deep State.” Does the Deep State exist? If so, what is it, and are its forces arrayed specifically against Donald Trump and his administration?

Yes, the Deep State exists — probably more so at one end of its numerous definitions and less so at the other, but to some degree at both ends.

At the seemingly more benign end, the Deep State is simply what one might think of as the “permanent government” — the army of bureaucrats and functionaries whose careers span multiple administrations. Like all career employees of large organizations as groups, they tend to fear and resist change, and their sheer mass has an inertial effect. They energetically do things the old way and drag their feet on new things.

At the end dismissed by mainstream commentators as “conspiracy theory,” the Deep State is an invisible second government which acts in a coordinated manner to protect its prerogatives and advance its interests and favored policies versus changes supposedly demanded by “the people” via their elected representatives in Congress and the presidency. The premier example of this view is the claim that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the military industrial complex because (in one version) he was about to get the US out of Vietnam.

If that end of the spectrum sounds crazy to you, consider:

Former FBI attorney Lisa Page and former FBI deputy counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok, while working on a pre-election investigation into alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian government, exchanged text messages with incendiary content such as “there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.”

In mid-May, it emerged that an FBI informant approached two or three (reports vary) advisers to Trump’s campaign during the same period to pry into those advisers’ alleged ties to the Russian government.

Is President Trump stretching the reports we’ve seen when he tweets “Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president. It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a ‘hot’ Fake News story?”

Well, maybe. But not by much. On any fair reading, those two stories combined do look a lot like the second definition of Deep State skulduggery. The FBI was meddling in — acting to influence or in extremis overturn — a US presidential election (sound familiar?). The messages between Page and Strzok color that meddling as intentional Bureau political action, not as incidental investigative fallout which just happened to touch on the election.

While I disagree with President Trump on most issues, it’s hard to disagree with him when he rails against a transparently political witch hunt that has dragged on for more than a year visibly and for months before that beneath the surface. The Deep State is real. And dangerous.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org).

May 21, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

US anti-tank missiles found at former Al-Nusra facility in Syria – Russian MoD

RT | May 21, 2018

US-made TOW anti-tank missiles, along with other weapons, have been found in facilities once controlled by Al-Nusra militants in Syria’s Homs province, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The trove was located in a former observation point of the Al-Nusra Front terrorist group in the liberated Zaafaran settlement in Homs province, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria said on Monday. “[We] can see here a large number of gas masks, weapons produced abroad, for example, TOW-2 anti-tank guided missiles. The facilities are very well-equipped,” Andrey Nekipelov, an official at the center, stated.

The BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided) is one of the most widely used anti-tank missiles, which has been produced in the US since the 1970s. The missile has an operational range of more than 3,000 meters and an armor penetration of up to 800 millimeters, depending on the model. The TOW-2 referred to by the Russian MoD is an advanced and upgraded version of the missile.

Hundreds of the missiles have fallen into the hands of various rebel factions during the Syrian conflict. The US-made TOW was reportedly used in an attack on an RT crew in Syria back in 2015.

In 2016, another video published by a Syrian rebel group showed what appeared to be a direct hit by a US-made BGM-71 TOW on the turret of a Russian-supplied T-90 tank of the Syrian Army. A TOW usually devastates its target after a direct hit, causing ammo to explode and killing the crew. The alleged T-90, however, seemed to have been saved by its reactive armor.

TOW was reportedly deployed in the Vietnam War in 1970s, as well as in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a number of other conflict zones where Washington has been engaged in recent decades. Syria has become one of the recent locations where anti-tank missiles were spotted.

Speaking to RT back in 2016, German journalist Jurgen Todenhofer suggested that the US knows that the weapons it delivers to rebels end up with terrorists. “Everybody knows that they are using allies and they are allowing allies… It doesn’t matter if a TOW rocket or a TOW missile, which is an American missile, comes [to terrorists] from another group,” he said at the time. – Video

May 21, 2018 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

‘Americans seen as invaders’: Palestinian officials equate US embassy move to Israeli occupation

RT | May 20, 2018

Palestinian politicians have condemned the US for moving its embassy to Jerusalem, likening the move to Israel’s seizure of Palestinian land.

Feisal Abu Shahlaa, a member of the Fatah party, said the US is now viewed as “invaders” of Palestinian territories following President Donald Trump’s decision to move the country’s diplomatic headquarters from Tel Aviv. The US now officially recognizes the city as Israel’s capital. “What we see is a seizure of our lands, something only Israelis did before,” Abu Shahlaa said in an interview with Sputnik.

Ruhi al Fattuh, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee echoed his party colleague’s remarks. “The land the US embassy stands on was illegally occupied. The Americans continue the Israeli practice of building settlements in Palestine,” Fattuh said.

Fattuh said Palestinians also see the relocation as a breach of international law citing UN Security Council Resolution 478 which ruled out recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 1980.

Fattuh was adamant that Palestinians will appeal to the UN to defend their rights, saying: “Americans will not succeed in changing Jerusalem’s historical status as the capital of an independent Palestinian state.”

Shahlaa went on to blame the US for the 60 Palestinians who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza while protesting the embassy’s opening Monday. An eight-month-old baby thought to have inhaled Israeli tear gas was among the dead.

Calling on other Arab other Muslim-majority countries to close their embassies in protest, Shahlaa insisted that “aggressive actions” are now “forcing Palestinians to abandon all attempts to reach a peaceful resolution [of the conflict] and move on and resist.”

During demonstrations on the day of the US Embassy’s inauguration in Jerusalem, at least 60 Palestinian protesters, including children, were killed by Israeli bullets and tear gas in what the Palestinian government describes as a “terrible massacre.” The violence was condemned by rights groups and most UN Security Council members, with even the US’ closest allies refusing to stand by Washington’s support for Tel Aviv.

Israel however blames Hamas for instigating the violence, saying the group organised attacks on the border fence with Gaza which justified Israel’s use of deadly force. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu called the Gaza border clashes “a warlike act,” rather than “civilian” protests. “Israel will continue to defend itself as necessary and will not allow anyone who calls for its destruction to break into our borders and threaten our communities,” Netanyahu said, deflecting widespread criticism.

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US says won’t recognize Venezuela presidential election

Press TV – May 20, 2018

The United States government says it is not going to recognize the outcome of Venezuela’s presidential election which will be held on Sunday.

US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan made the announcement in a press briefing on Sunday and stressed that Washington was actively considering strict sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry.

He also noted that the US would discuss a response to vote with its allies at the G20 meeting in the Argentinean capital Buenos Aires on Monday.

Washington has already put in place sanctions against Caracas and top Venezuelan government officials, as well as other measures to further weaken the country’s troubled economy and prevent the government and its state oil company from accessing international credit through US markets or entities.

On Friday, the US Treasury slapped sanctions against the head of the Venezuelan socialist party, Diosdado Cabello, and his wife, Marleny Josefina Contreras, who heads the country’s tourism institute, and his brother, Jose David.

Earlier in May, the administration of US President Donald Trump has slapped more sanctions against a number of Venezuelan companies and officials, accusing them of trafficking narcotics.

President Nicolas Maduro, who is running for a second six-year term in the vote, says the US has joined forces with opposition groups to topple his socialist government.

His opponents blame him for mishandling the economy and accuse him of dictatorial tendencies.

Maduro is predicted to win the Sunday election against main opposition candidate Henri Falcon.

Some opposition members have boycotted the vote, claiming it is rigged to ensure that Maduro wins a second six-year term in office.

Caracas, however, has assured the public that the election will be free and fair, saying those opposition members who refuse to participate in the election believe they have no chance to win.

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Rights Group: Israeli Army Endangering Syrian Lives

IMEMC News & Agencies – May 20, 2018

Following last week’s extensive military activity, which saw projectiles landing in the occupied Syrian Golan heights, Al-Marsad, the independent, non profit human rights organisation, reiterates its call for the removal of Israeli army posts from Syrian civilian areas. Since its occupation of the Golan heights in 1967, Israel has constructed army posts and bases, laid landmines and erected a fortified fence to maintain control over the region and its Syrian population.

As a result, there are multiple Israeli army posts and bases in and close to Syrian residential and agricultural areas. Their presence puts the Syrian civilian population at risk of stray fire and is unlawful. The danger is tragically all too real. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, approximately 20 Syrian civilians were killed during an attempted military strike on an Israeli military post in the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan.

As an occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation under international humanitarian and human rights law to protect the lives of Syrians in the Golan. Article 48 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, says that Parties must ensure respect and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects. Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires State Parties to address threats to life and life-threatening harm and injuries that may result in loss of life.

Furthermore, PNN reports, both international humanitarian law and Israeli military law provide that military objectives such as army posts should not be within or near densely populated areas. Article 58b of the Additional Protocol requires that Parties ‘avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas’. Israel’s own Manual on the Laws of War (1998) prohibits ‘mingling military targets among civilian objects, as for instance, a military force located within a village or a squad of soldiers fleeing into a civilian structure’.

However, instead of complying with these requirements and removing existing military posts from Syrian civilian areas, the Israeli authorities have in fact recently completed the construction of a new Israeli military post in Majdal Shams. Al-Marsad urgently calls on Israel to comply with its legal obligations and immediately remove this new military post and all existing military posts in and close to Syrian civilian areas within the Golan heights to prevent any further harm or loss of life.

For additional information, please contact marsad@golan-marsad.org or researcher@golan-marsad.org.

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

On Accountability in the Light of Israeli Brutality

By Gilad Atzmon | May 20, 2018

For the last few weeks Israel has displayed a new level of institutional criminality. Fearing that Palestinian protestors attempting to return to their land would cross the Gaza border fence, Israel deployed hundreds of snipers, scores of tanks and drones across the Gaza Strip border. The government ordered forces to shoot at anyone who managed to reach the border. (although it is clear that Israeli forces also shot well inside the border.) This was a premeditated massacre: a cold blooded governmental decision to shoot at protestors. The outcome of this disastrous decision is known and it reveals the murderous nature of the Jewish State.

The world reacted in disgust. The UN voted two days ago to send an international war crimes probe to Gaza. Israel has already refused to cooperate with this fact finding mission.

These events in Gaza proved that the nature of Israeli barbarism has no precedent in human history. Israel is not a tyrannical dictatorship deploying death squads against protestors, nor were the killings the result of an outburst by a lone commander on the battlefield. Instead, Israel’s actions resulted from a non-ethical continuum that stretched from the Israeli PM to the last IDF sniper on the Gaza dunes. The Jewish state is a democracy. Its army is a popular army. The events in Gaza were the direct outcome of a policy that remained unchanged for 6 weeks despite the high level of civilian casualties on the Palestinian side. We are talking about an murderous system that is institutionalised at all levels of the state that repeatedly defines itself as ‘The Jewish State.’

This has exposed a complete absence of moral awareness. Israel has acted with impunity to kill on a mass scale as if ethics had never made it to Israel. However John Adlington from Treflach seems to be really upset that I  insist that Jews must look into themselves so that they can understand what is it about their culture and politics that evoke so much fury. John Adlington from Treflach wrote to his local paper, Oswestry Advertiser, complaining about a local music venue inviting me to perform and run Jazz workshops. In Adlington’s eyes I am ‘anti-Semitic’ for insisting that Jews, like everyone else, must reflect on their actions to understand once and for all why their history has been a chain of total disasters and how they bring misfortune on themselves.

I remain firmly behind those words that upset Mr. Adlington “… maybe the time is ripe for Jewish and Zionist organisations to draw the real and most important lesson from the Holocaust. Instead of constantly blaming the Goyim for inflicting pain on Jews, it is time for Jews to look in the mirror and try to identify what it is in Jews and their culture that evokes so much fury. It may even be possible that some Jews would take this opportunity to apologise to the Gentiles around them for evoking all this anger.”

I insist that it is well past the time for the Jewish State and Jewish institutions to figure out why the entire world has been disgusted by the actions of the IDF in Gaza. It is time for the Jewish State and Jewish organisations to grasp that Israeli criminality paints Jews in a disastrous light. It is time for Israelis and Jews alike to accept that as long as Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish State,’ the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians doesn’t reflect well on Jews. The ongoing Gaza siege doesn’t present the Jewish State as a humanist adventure either. I would advise Mr. Adlington that in this imaginary ‘racist contest’ he is well ahead of me. Expecting Jews not to self reflect and to understand their role in their own misfortune is actually a surrender to Jewish racial exceptionalism.

If the Jewish State and its many satellite lobbies and advocacy bodies around the world were taking responsibility for their actions, the Gaza massacre wouldn’t have happened because the Palestinians would, by now, be living back on their land and peace would have prevailed. However, if promoting Jewish accountability and peace is ‘anti-Semitism’ one may wonder, what is a real bigot?

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

NDP MPs must stop being ‘friends’ with Israel

By Yves Engler · May 19, 2018

Is it appropriate for NDP Members of Parliament to be working for “greater friendship” with a country that is killing and maiming thousands of non-violent protestors?

Would it have been appropriate for any elected member of the party to be a “friend” with South Africa’s government during the apartheid era?

Victoria area MPs Randall Garrison (left) and Murray Rankin are members of the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group (previously named Canada-Israel Friendship Group).

Garrison is vice-chair of a group designed to promote “greater friendship” and “cooperation” between the two countries’ parliaments.

The chair of the group is York Centre MP Michael Levitt, a former board member of the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund, who issued a statement blaming “Hamas incitement” for Israeli forces shooting thousands of peaceful protesters, including Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani.

The Interparliamentary Group is one of many pro-Israel lobbying organizations in Canada. In conjunction with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, the Interparliamentary Group has hosted wine and cheese lobbying events on Parliament Hill. Three hundred parliamentarians and parliamentary staff attended their 2014 “Israeli Wine Meets Canadian Cheese” gathering in the East Block courtyard.

The group regularly meets the Israeli Ambassador and that country’s other diplomats. Representatives of the Group also regularly visit Israel on sponsored trips. For their part, Garrison and Rankin both participated in CIJA-organized trips to Israel in 2016.

The Interparliamentary Group works with its Israeli counterpart the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group. In 2016 the Group sent a delegation to the Israeli Knesset and last year they organized a joint teleconference with Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group co-chairs Yoel Hasson and Anat Berko.

Last month Hasson responded to Meretz party Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg’s call for an investigation into the Israel Defense Forces’ killing of non-violent Palestinian protesters by tweeting, “there was nothing to investigate, the IDF is doing what’s necessary to defend the Gaza border.”

Chairman of the Zionist Union Knesset faction, Hasson opposed the UN resolution on a Palestinian state. When the Knesset voted to strip Arab MK Hanin Zoabi of parliamentary privileges for participating in the 2010 Gaza flotilla Hasson and MK Carmel Shama “nearly came to blows” with Zoabi and her fellow Balad party MK Jamal Zahalka. Hasson later called Zoabi a “terrorist”.

Berko is even more openly racist and anti-Palestinian. A Lieutenant-Colonel in the IDF reserves prior to her election with Likud, Berko openly disparaged African refugees. In February Israel National News reported, “Berko said that the MKs should see the suffering that African migrants have caused South Tel Aviv residents before jetting off to Rwanda” to oppose an effort to deport mostly Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to the small East African nation.

In January Berko co-sponsored a bill to bypass a High Court ruling that Israeli forces cannot use the bodies of dead Palestinian protesters as bargaining chips. The aim of the bill was to make it harder for the bodies to be given over for burial, which should happen as soon as possible under Muslim ritual, in the hopes of preventing high profile funerals. In a 2016 Knesset debate Berko make the ridiculous claim that the absence of the letter “P” in the Arabic alphabet meant Palestine did not exist since “no people would give itself a name it couldn’t pronounce.”

In response Richard Silverstein noted, “Apparently, the fact that the word is spelled and pronounced with an ‘F’ (Falastin) in Arabic seems to have escaped her. It’s worth noting, too, that according to her logic, Israeli Jews do not exist either, since there is no letter ‘J’ in Hebrew.”

Garrison and Rankin must immediately withdraw from the Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group. If the NDP MPs refuse to disassociate themselves from the pro-Israel lobby organization, party leader Jagmeet Singh should replace them as (respectively) NDP defence and justice critics.

Israel’s slaughter in Gaza should lead to an end of the NDP’s anti-Palestinian past.

Please join me in asking Garrison (Randall.Garrison@parl.gc.ca) and Rankin (Murray.Rankin@parl.gc.ca) to withdraw from the Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group. Make sure to cc Jagmeet Singh (jagmeet@ndp.ca)

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli police break activist’s leg while in custody: Report

Press TV – May 20, 2018

Activists say Israeli police have brutally beaten an Arab-Israeli NGO worker after arresting him at a Haifa demonstration, which landed him in hospital with a broken leg.

Jafar Farah, the CEO of the Mossawa Center, was one of the 21 people arrested on Friday during a demonstration against the May 14 Israeli carnage in the Gaza Strip.

Footage of Farah’s arrest shows him being escorted away from the protest on his own feet and in handcuffs.

However, the police said the activist is now hospitalized, without providing further details on his condition.

Farah’s relatives and Adalah, an organization dedicated to Palestinian legal rights in Israel, accused the police of breaking the campaigner’s leg while in custody.

Adalah said in a statement that the Israeli police had dealt with the Haifa demonstration “like a war,” beaten those who attempted to escape and denied the detainees access to lawyers for over an hour after their arrest.

“All the detainees were handcuffed for the entire night and kept sitting on the police station floor. Many of them experienced serious bruising to their wrists. Adalah considers these arrests to be illegal, as the police violence in Haifa was unprecedented and unprovoked,” the statement read.

Additionally, the Mossawa Center said on Facebook that Farah had been assaulted while in police custody and is now in Bnai Tzion Hospital with a broken leg.
Israeli policemen arrest a protester in Haifa on May 18, 2018.

Israeli lawmaker Ilan Gilon said he had passed an urgent question to Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan regarding Farah’s arrest.

“I demand to know if police brutality led to the broken leg by Jafar Farah,” he said on Facebook. “The idea that a protester leaves his home to use his democratic right and is taken to an interrogation because of that, and as it ends it turns out his limbs are broken, is a thought that makes my blood run cold.”

In a Twitter post, Merav Michaeli, another Israeli lawmaker, called Farah “a partner in the struggle for equality and peace,” condemning his “frightening” treatment at the hands of policemen.

Member of the Knesset (MK) Ayman Odeh, who met the Haifa detainees, said police forces brutally oppressed the protest without any explanation.

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime “wants to silence any voice of resistance and dissent coming from here, to silence any voice that embarrasses it and its actions.”

MK Aida Touma-Suleiman also spoke against the Israeli police clampdown on Haifa demonstrators, saying, “the attempts to scare and silence people will fail again!”

“The violence exerted on protesters was unchecked. Interrogators continued to beat up the detainees after they were arrested without any explanation or justification. As a result, some of them were injured. Jafar Farah’s leg was broken,” she added.

Israeli forces killed at least 65 Palestinians during protests near the Gaza fence on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe), which coincided this year with the US embassy relocation from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem al-Quds.

More than 2,700 Palestinians were also wounded as the Israeli forces used snipers, airstrikes, tank fire and tear gas to target the demonstrators.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) convened on Friday, demanding an “independent, international commission of inquiry” into the Gaza killings and denouncing “the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force” by Israeli forces against Palestinians.

Israeli officials angry with UN rights council

The move infuriated Israeli officials, with the minister of military affairs claiming that the council had become a “cheerleader for terrorists.”

In a post on his Twitter account on Saturday, Avigdor Lieberman rejected the probe into the Gaza killings. He had earlier urged Tel Aviv and the US to immediately withdraw from the UNHRC.

Netanyahu also railed against the UNHRC, saying the Geneva-based body had backed terrorism by launching the Gaza investigation.

“There is nothing new under the sun. An organization that calls itself a council for human rights has once again proven that it is hypocritical and biased” and that its “purpose is to harm Israel and support terror,” the Israeli premier said.

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Congress Ignores Israel’s War Crimes: It’s the American Way

By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | May 20, 2018

While many European parliamentarians have been outspoken in their disgust at the “horrific” one-sided atrocity being clearly observed in the Israeli slaughter of Palestinian demonstrators last week, most of their U.S. counterparts appear to have lost their ability to express themselves over the egregious human rights violations being committed by the Israeli Army in Gaza. Sixty-two unarmed Palestinian demonstrators were shot dead and nearly three thousand more were injured by gunfire and tear gas versus no Israelis killed or wounded while a leading Knesset parliamentarian has assured the public that the Army has plenty of bullets left to kill all the Gazans if necessary.

The White House, however, has obviously not seen the video footage of the slaughter, and was instead celebrating the opening of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem intended to coincide with the 70th Anniversary of the creation of Israel, which some might also refer to as the 70th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Christians and Muslims. Donald Trump tweeted that it was a “great day for Israel,” apparently having missed watching the slaying of the Palestinians by split screen as the largely American Jewish celebrants yukked it up with a broadly grinning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A short time later someone named Raj Shah at the White House told reporters at a press briefing that “The responsibility for these tragic deaths rests squarely with Hamas. Hamas is intentionally and cynically provoking this response” as “a gruesome and unfortunate propaganda attempt.”

And meanwhile over at the United Nations, American Ambassador Nikki Haley vetoed a Russian proposal seeking an investigation into the carnage, explaining that that Hamas, aided of course by Iran, was to blame for the violence. “I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council: who among us would accept this type of activity on your border? No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.” She then walked out when Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Permanent Representative to the United Nations began to speak.

Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who was part of the Jerusalem delegation, even as violence was erupting in Gaza forty miles away, also knew whom to blame, saying “As we have seen from the protests of the last month and even today, those provoking violence are part of the problem and not part of the solution.” He was not talking about the 200 Israeli snipers firing into an unarmed crowd of Gazans.

To be sure, some Democratic Congressman have expressed horror over what has been taking place. Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum and Bernie Sanders have all spoken up. Sanders said that “Israel should be condemned.” Congressman Mark Pocan declared that “There are better ways to deal with the tensions in Gaza than bullets.” Pocan and Raúl Grijalva, Pramila Jayapal, Keith Ellison, and Hank Johnson all expressed shock and dismay at “the lethal force used by Israeli troops against mostly unarmed protesters demonstrating at Gaza’s border.” They asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to “show utmost restraint, allow for unfettered medical attention for those who have been wounded, and ease the 12-year blockade on Gaza, which has contributed to grave food insecurity, unemployment and a humanitarian crisis for Gaza’s two million inhabitants.”

Congressmen Johnson and Pocan as well as Dan Kildee of Michigan have recently called for the Israeli government to permit them to enter the Palestinian region to see what is happening on the ground there. The three congressmen visited Israel in 2016 but were blocked from crossing into the Gaza Strip by the Israeli Coordination and Liaison Administration, which operates the borders and entry points, limiting who can enter and leave as well as the flow of such essentials as food supplies. It might astonish some Americans to learn that Israel can stop any U.S. Congressmen from entering Gaza, which Tel Aviv illogically claims is no longer under its control even though it has turned the area into an outdoor prison camp.

One notes particularly the lack of even a single Republican concerned over the completely disproportionate carnage in Gaza. Senator Rand Paul, who once referred to Israeli controlled Gaza as a “concentration camp,” is notable by his absence. Senators Ten Cruise, Lindsey Graham, Dean Heller and Mike Lee (a bit of a surprise that, but he is a Mormon) were all part of the official delegation, which also included a number of GOP House members as well as Florida governor Rick Scott.

Regarding the Democrats, it has long been observed that the party base does not any longer support the philo-Israel policies embraced by the Clintonesque Democratic National Committee leadership. Those congressmen who have spoken out certainly deserve the public’s support when they find Israel’s behavior just too much to take.

It would have been refreshing to see more Congressmen criticizing Israel for what are indisputably war crimes in using live fire against unarmed demonstrators. And they should use the same blunt language they use when criticizing Russia or North Korea or Iran. Unfortunately, even when there have been comments or statements that express some concern, they are inevitably and invariably wrapped in excuses for Israel’s inhumane actions, referring to provocative protests “organized by Hamas,” a claim that is pure Israeli propaganda, and/or blaming “all sides,” which again distributes the fault to make Israel look like a victim as well as the Gazans. It is typical newspeak intended to avoid making Israel and its friends unhappy.

The truth is that what Israel does in its own neighborhood endangers the United States and makes every American who travels through the Middle East a target. I recently returned from a conference in Iran and, as the Gaza tragedy was unfolding, we American participants were all wondering if we would make it home. We considered that Israel, bent on a war with Iran that would drag the U.S. in to do the real fighting, might just choose their moment of apparent strength with the new Embassy and the “successful” slaughter of the Palestinians without so much as a peep out of the White House, as a good time to escalate. How many civilian airliners might get shot down? How many more Palestinians will have to die for the monstrous Benjamin Netanyahu’s blood lust truly to be satisfied?

May 20, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

BBC gets “technical difficulties” when reporter mentions MI6’s involvement in torture

May 19, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Spend on schools or bow to US demands? German politicians debate NATO strategy

RT | May 19, 2018

US President Donald Trump has accused Germany of not contributing enough to the NATO budget – but will German Chancellor Angela Merkel dance to Washington’s tune?

Politicians on both sides of Germany’s political spectrum shared their views with RT.

On Thursday, Trump warned NATO members that they will be “dealt with” if they fail to fulfill their financial obligations to the US-led military alliance. Germany was singled out as one of those said to be delinquent on their obligations.

Speaking to RT, Martin Dolzer of Die Linke (Left Party) said that buying into Trump’s ideas may send the world order “into chaos,” citing US policy in the Middle East as evidence. Dolzer stressed that Germans do not want war, and said that more vital issues should be on agenda instead of boosting military spending.

“The German population does not want any more military expenses, the German population needs money for kindergartens, for education, for the growth of civil society organizations and the social sector,” Dolzer said. “There has to be a change. And the people in Germany, I think most of them want this change, but the government does not follow it.”

Though Merkel has shown no interest to raising defense spending, Alternative for Germany (AfD) chief whip Hansjorg Mueller believes she is poised to “bend down before the wish of the big brother” – a reference to Trump and the US.

“Our government is the government of a vassal state and governments of vassal states always obey to the wish of the big brother,” Mueller said.

Mueller believes a rise in defense spending would only further split German society, which is already divided over the chancellor’s immigration policy, and significantly weaken Merkel’s position. “We are viewing the doom of her leadership over Germany,” he told RT.

Apart from its reluctance in meeting Washington’s demands, Berlin is also at odds with its ally over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The US is opposed to the project and signaled that it might be targeted by sanctions. The measures could also affect German companies.

The situation with the project is “pure blackmail,” said Mueller, adding that he hopes Merkel does not give in the “dead-end game.”

Meanwhile, Dolzer believes the pipeline is necessary for stability. “If we want to have stable organization of the industry this is very, very necessary to build this Nord Stream pipeline and to not follow the sanctions,” Dolzer said, adding that the US government must be reminded that it cannot act like “a monopoly power” around the globe.

May 19, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment