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ZeroHedge banned from Twitter after BuzzFeed accuses it of coronavirus conspiracy and ‘doxxing’ Chinese scientists

RT | February 1, 2020

The popular news blog ZeroHedge has been suspended from Twitter. While no reason was given, their last tweet referred to speculation the coronavirus could be a bioweapon and BuzzFeed had just accused them of doxxing.

The site’s last tweet before the suspension referenced a paper by Indian scientists pointing to uncanny similarities between the 2019-nCoV virus and HIV, which internet researcher Christopher Torres Lugo described as “conspiracy theories claiming that 2019-nCoV is a bioweapon.”

Twitter does not comment on reasons for suspending or banning any particular account, leaving ZeroHedge’s 673,000 or so followers in the dark on Friday afternoon, until the site itself said it received noticed it had engaged in “abuse or harassment.”

About two hours before the suspension published a story accusing ZeroHedge – which it refers to as “a popular pro-Trump website” – of revealing personal information of a scientist from Wuhan, China and “falsely accusing them of creating the coronavirus as a bioweapon.”

Release of personal information, or doxxing, would be a violation of Twitter rules. However, the BuzzFeed story purports to identify by name the proprietor of ZeroHedge, who writes under the pseudonym Tyler Durden.

BuzzFeed was outraged by the “rumors and lies” allegedly pushed by ZeroHedge about the origins and characteristics of the coronavirus, which causes a respiratory infection that has so far sickened almost 10,000 people across the world, and killed over 200 – mainly in China.

The first patient was reported in the city of Wuhan, in Hebei province, just a month ago. The WHO has declared a global health emergency due to the rapid spread of the virus.

ZeroHedge’s most recent article included the tweets of several scientists who were alarmed by a pre-publication paper authored by a team of Indian virologists, noticing the “uncanny similarity” between the 2019-nCoV and HIV-1 and finding it “unlikely to be fortuitous.”

Commenting on the suspension, ZeroHedge wondered, “Are we then to understand that we have now reached a point the mere gathering of information, which our colleagues in the media may want to eventually do as thousands of people are afflicted daily by the Coronavirus, is now synonymous with ‘abuse and harassment’? According to Twitter, and certainly our competitors in the media, the answer is yes.”

BuzzFeed notoriously published the so-called ‘Steele Dossier’ in January 2017, claiming that Russian intelligence services had compromising material on president-elect Donald Trump including video of him cavorting with urinating prostitutes at a Moscow hotel. None of the claims from the dossier, compiled by a freelancing British spy on commission from the Democratic National Committee, were ever corroborated.

See also:

Zerohedge Suspended On Twitter

Coronavirus Contains “HIV Insertions”, Stoking Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | | 2 Comments

UkraineGate Part 3 – A not so noble president

Les-Crises.fr

The documentary was produced by French investigative journalist Olivier Berruyer, founder of popular anti-corruption and economics blog Les Crises.

In this third episode, we publish several important testimonials, through exceptional exclusive interviews. You will thus discover the revelations of several personalities, such as the Director of the Ukrainian Action Centre against Corruption, but also a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine, a former Ukrainian diplomat, and other famous specialists on Ukraine… We are particularly grateful to Oleksandr Onyschenko for the importance of his testimony. This oligarch, a former member of parliament, was a close associate of Petro Poroshenko, whose mission included corrupting Ukrainian elected officials. Disgusted by these mafia practices, he repented by becoming a whistleblower. Since our interview, he has been arrested in Germany, where he is awaiting an extradition judgment – Interpol having refused to prosecute him since 2016…

info@ukrainegate.info

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | 1 Comment

Die Linke Lawmaker Reveals How NATO Fooled Gorbachev About Bloc’s Eastward Expansion Plans

Sputnik – January 31, 2020

In the 30 years since US Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” verbal commitment to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 not to expand NATO beyond German lands, the alliance has swallowed up every member of the former Warsaw Pact, along with half a dozen former Soviet and Yugoslav republics.

NATO broke all of the promises it made to Moscow, encouraged by the ‘blindness’ of Soviet leaders, Die Linke lawmaker and Bundestag Defence Committee member Alexander Neu, has stated.

In an op-ed regarding the upcoming Defender 2020 Europe drills, touted by NATO as the largest US deployment in Europe in 25 years, the opposition lawmaker argued that the alleged ‘Russian threat’ which the drills are meant to deter was imaginary, and that NATO is the side acting like the real aggressor.

Taking a retrospective look into the foreign and security policy developments in Europe over the past three decades which have led to the current impasse, Neu recalled that while Western leaders appeared to show support for General Secretary Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ about a common security policy in the Euro-Atlantic area ‘from Vladivostok to Vancouver’, their support proved superficial.

“With the end of the Cold War, German unification, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West was suddenly seen as the winner of the confrontation. All ideas about a collective understanding and common security were swept aside. The promises made by the United States during negotiations on German unity stipulating that NATO would not expand beyond Germany if the Soviet Union accepted a united Germany turned out to be a lie and a fraud,” the lawmaker argued.

According to Neu, “the Soviet side,” for its part, “proved to be blinded and refrained from asking for a contractual promise – this was an unforgivable mistake made by the then increasingly incapable Soviet leadership under Gorbachev.”

Talks between Mikhail Gorbachev and US Secretary of State James Baker, 1990. © Sputnik / Sergey Guneev

The rest is history, the German opposition lawmaker wrote, with NATO beginning its eastward expansion in 1999, and the process continuing ever since. “Even post-Soviet republics were admitted into the alliance. Protests by the Russian side against these gains in security policy, contrary to the 1990 US commitment, have been and will continue to be coolly brushed aside,” Neu noted.

Ultimately, Neu suggested that amid the ongoing tensions between the West and Russia, whether over Ukraine, Georgia or Syria, instead of trying to take de-escalatory steps, the self-proclaimed winners of the Cold War “continue to claim their right to the geostrategic loot,” with Russia portrayed as an aggressor which has insolently refused to remain subordinate to the ‘New World Order’ proclaimed by George H.W. Bush.

“In short: NATO is moving its military infrastructure further and further toward Russia’s borders, breaking the promise it made in 1990. And Russia’s reactions to these offensive actions by the US-led alliance are called aggression and threats. This is the wrong perception, but unfortunately is also widespread among most media and journalists in the West, who are full of conviction that we are the good guys. And since Russia is no longer willing to stand by and watch the geopolitics and imperialism-driven policies of the US and its vassals, NATO countries are massively increasing military spending (to 2 percent of GDP) and training as close to Russia’s borders as possible to show who is in charge.”

The Defender 2020 Europe drills were another demonstration of this, Neu noted, but promised that he, as a lawmaker, and member of the Bundestag Defence Committee, would “call for resistance” to the drills.

The Defender 2020 drills are expected to kick off in February and will continue until August, and will involve the participation of about 37,000 troops from 18 countries.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | 1 Comment

A New US Air Force Video Game Lets You Drone Bomb Iraqis and Afghans

By Alan MacLeod – MintPress News – January 31, 2020

The United States Air Force has a new recruitment tool: a realistic drone operator video game you can play on its website. Called the Airman Challenge, it features 16 missions to complete, interspersed with facts and recruitment information about how to become a drone operator yourself. In its latest attempts to market active service to young people, players move through missions escorting US vehicles through countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, serving up death from above to all those designated “insurgents” by the game. Players earn medals and achievements for most effectively destroying moving targets. All the while there is a prominent “apply now” button on screen if players would like to enlist and conduct real drone strikes all over the Middle East.

The game has failed to win over David Swanson, director of the anti-war movement World Beyond War, and the author of War is a Lie.

“It is truly disgusting, immoral, and arguably illegal in that it is recruitment or pre-recruitment of underage children to participate in murder. It is part of the normalization of murder that we have been living through,” he told MintPress News.

Tom Secker, a journalist and researcher into the influence of the military on popular culture was similarly unimpressed by the latest USA.F. recruitment strategy, telling us:

The drone game struck me as sick and demented… On the other hand, many drone pilots have described how piloting drones and killing random brown people is a lot like playing a video game, because you’re sat in a bunker in Nevada pushing buttons, detached from the consequences. So I guess it accurately reflects the miserable, traumatised, serial killing life of a drone pilot, we can’t accuse it of inaccuracy per se.”

Game Over 

Despite the fact that they are rarely, if ever in any physical danger, the military has considerable difficulty recruiting and retaining drone pilots. Nearly a quarter of Air Force staff who can fly the machines leave the service every year. A lack of respect, fatigue and mental anguish are the primary reasons cited. Stephen Lewis, a sensor operator between 2005 and 2010 said what he did “weighs on your conscience. It weighs on your soul. It weighs on your heart,” claiming that the post traumatic stress disorder he suffers from as a consequence of killing so many people has made it impossible for him to have relationships with other humans.

“People think it is a video game. But in a video game you have checkpoints, you have restart points. When you fire that missile there’s no restart,” he said. “The less they can get you to think of what you’re shooting at as human the easier it becomes to you to just follow through with these shots when they come down,” said Michael Haas, another former USAF sensor operator. The Airman Challenge game follows this path, using red dots on the screen to represent enemies, sanitizing the violence recruits will be meting out.

“We were very callous about any real collateral damage. Whenever that possibility came up most of the time it was a guilt by association or sometimes we didn’t even consider other people that were on screen,” Haas said, noting that he and his peers used terms like “fun sized terrorist” to describe children, employing euphemisms like “cutting the grass before it grows too long,” as justifications for their extermination. The constant violence, even from afar, takes a heavy toll on many drone operators, who complain of constant nightmares and having to drink themselves into a stupor every night to avoid them.

Others, with different personalities, revel in the bloodshed. Prince Harry, for example, was a helicopter gunner in Afghanistan and described firing missiles as a “joy.” “I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful,” he said. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.”

A Nobel Cause

Drone bombing is a relatively new technology. Barack Obama came into office promising to end President Bush’s reckless aggression, even being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. While he slashed the number of American troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, he also greatly expanded US wars in the form of drone bombings, ordering ten times as many as Bush. In his last year in office, the US dropped at least 26,000 bombs – around one every twenty minutes on average. When he left office, the US was bombing seven countries simultaneously: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan.

Up to 90 percent of reported drone casualties were “collateral damage,” i.e. innocent bystanders. Swanson is deeply concerned about the way in which the practice has become normalized: “If murder is acceptable as long as a military does it, anything else is acceptable,” he says, “We will reverse this trend, or we will perish.”

History did not exactly repeat itself with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, but it did rhyme. Trump came to power having made multiple statements perceived as anti-war, strongly criticizing Obama and the Democrats’ handling of the situation in the Middle East. Egged on even by so-called “resistance” media, Trump immediately expanded drone bombings, increasing the number of strikes by 432 percent in his first year in office. The president also used a drone attack to kill Iranian general and statesman Qassem Soleimani earlier this month.

Killing in the Game of

In 2018, the armed forces fell well short of their recruitment targets, despite offering a package of benefits very attractive to working-class Americans. As a result, it totally revamped its recruitment strategy, moving away from television and investing in micro-targeted online ads in an attempt to reach young people, particularly men below the age of thirty, who make up the bulk of the armed forces. One branding exercise was to create an Army e-sports team entering video game competitions under the military brand. As the gaming website, Kotaku wrote, “Positioning the Army as a game-friendly environment and institution is crucial, or even necessary, to reach the people the Army wants to reach.” The Army surpassed its recruitment goal for 2019.

Although the Airman Challenge game is a new attempt at recruitment, the armed forces have a long history being involved in the video game market, and the entertainment industry more generally. Secker’s work has uncovered the depths of collaboration between the military and the entertainment industry. Through Freedom of Information requests, he was able to find that the Department of Defense reviews, edits and writes hundreds of TV and movie scripts every year, subsidizing the entertainment world with free content and equipment in exchange for positive portrayals. “At this point, it’s difficult to effectively summarise the US military’s influence on the industry, because it’s so varied and all-encompassing,” he said.

The US Army spends tens of millions a year on the Institute for Creative Technologies, who develop advanced tech for the film and gaming industries, as well as in-house training games for the Army and – on occasion – the CIA. The Department Of Defense has supported a number of major game franchises (Call of Duty, Tom Clancy games, usually first or third-person shooters). Military-supported games are subject to the same rules of narrative and character as movies and TV, so they can be rejected or modified if they contain elements the Department Of Defense deems controversial.”

The video games industry is massive, with hyper-realistic first person shooters like Call of Duty being among the most popular genres. Call of Duty: WWII, for example, sold $500 million worth of copies in its opening weekend alone, more money generated than blockbuster movies “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Wonder Woman” combined. Many people spend hours a day playing. Captain Brian Stanley, a military recruiter in California said, “Kids know more about the army than we do… Between the weapons, vehicles, and tactics, and a lot of that knowledge comes from video games.”

Young people, therefore, spend huge amounts of time effectively being propagandized by the military. In Call of Duty Ghosts, for instance, you play as a US soldier fighting against a red-beret wearing anti-American Venezuelan dictator, clearly based on President Hugo Chavez, while in Call of Duty 4, you follow the US Army in Iraq, shooting hundreds of Arabs as you go. There’s even a mission where you operate a drone, which is distinctly similar to the Airman Challenge. US forces even control drones with Xbox controllers, blurring the lines between war games and war games even further.

Cyber Warfare

Although the military industrial complex is keen to advertise opportunities for pilots, they go to great lengths to hide the reality of what happens to the victims of airstrikes. The most famous of these is likely the “Collateral Murder” video, leaked by Chelsea Manning to Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange. The video, which made worldwide news, laid bare the callousness towards civilian lives Haas described, where Air Force pilots laugh at shooting dead at least 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists. While those commanders ultimately in charge of military operations in the Middle East appear on television constantly, trying to sanitize their actions, Manning and Assange remain in prison for helping to expose the public to an alternative depiction of violence. Manning has spent the majority of the last decade incarcerated, while Assange awaits possible extradition to the United States in a London prison.

The Airman Challenge video game, for Secker, is merely “the latest in a long line of insidious and disturbing recruitment efforts by the US military.” “If they feel they have to do this just to recruit a few hundred thousand people to their cause, maybe their cause isn’t worth it,” he said.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

GoFundMe Closes down US-based Palestinian Group’s Account

Palestine Chronicle | January 31, 2020

The popular online fundraising platform GoFundMe has closed down the account of Palestinian advocacy organization Al-Awda without providing any reason.

Based in the US, Al-Awda is a non-profit organization of activists and students who are dedicated to the education of the public on the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in Palestine.

The account was closed this month, according to the head of Al-Awda, Abbas Hamideh.

“We are an American non-profit (501c3) organization advocating for Palestinian refugees,” Hamideh wrote.

“They refuse requests to disclose reasons why they shut down a legitimate fundraiser after using them successfully for the past four years. Why did they shut us down? Could it be because we are advocates of the BDS movement and one of its founders?”

GoFundMe is a California-based crowdfunding platform that permits people to raise money for celebrations and causes and claims to be the world’s largest crowdfunding site by money raised.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Trump’s Deal Is Bid to Complete the Evil ‘Plan Dalet’

The Zionist terror conspiracy to steal the land of Palestine is nearing its bizarre climax

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | January 31, 2020

After 70 years of pissing on the Palestinians, America and Israel suddenly want to “improve” their lives. But when you look closer at Peace to Prosperity it’s all about thieving more Palestinian land, stripping these good people of what remains of their self-respect and grinding them further into the Holy Land dust.

The Trump document’s 180 pages are devoted to the self-aggrandizement of Israel and military domination of the Middle East, by proxy, by the warmongers of the US. And to achieve its aims Trump shamelessly circumvents international law, ignores existing UN resolutions and makes daft and insupportable claims.

How fitting that the unveiling ceremony was graced by an American president facing impeachment and an Israeli prime minister facing multiple corruption charges. Another party to the farce was Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s election rival, who commanded the infamous Operation Pillar of Defence (2012) and Operation Protective Edge (2014) onslaughts against Gaza and is no doubt wanted in many quarters for war crimes.

“This is clearly a serious proposal, reflecting extensive time and effort,” said Dominic Raab, UK’s foreign minister, in a statement. “We encourage them (the leaders) to give these plans genuine and fair consideration, and explore whether they might prove a first step on the road back to negotiations.”

Prime minister Boris Johnson in the House of Commons said: “No peace plan is perfect, but this has the merit of a two-state solution. It would ensure Jerusalem is both the capital of Israel and the Palestinian people.”

Can he not read? Trump’s plan says: “Jerusalem will remain the sovereign capital of the State of Israel, and it should remain an undivided city. The sovereign capital of the State of Palestine should be in the section of East Jerusalem located in all areas east and north of the existing security barrier, including Kafr Aqab, the eastern part of Shuafat and Abu Dis, and could be named Al Quds or another name as determined by the State of Palestine.”

Does Johnson not know that the Old City is part of East Jerusalem which is officially Palestinian and the Palestinians obvious want a presence there – and why not? Doesn’t he understand that Al Quds is the Arabic name for the Holy City and it’s a grave insult to suggest calling some village miles away by that name.  I can imagine the fury of ordinary Palestinians who have dreamed of self-determination in their homeland – as promised – ever since the British left in 1948.

The British government says “the best way to achieve peace is through substantive peace talks between parties”, as if negotiation between a strong party and a weak party, between one party with a gun to the other’s head, is ever going to work.

Fortunately MP Crispin Blunt put the matter in perspective: “Yesterday we welcomed the release of a proposal — which we described as serious — that ignored the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, the 1967 borders, international humanitarian law, and repeated United Nations Security Council resolutions, the last of which the United Kingdom signed up to in December 2016. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that this is an annexation plan. Annexation is going to start on 2 February — and there is the map.”

Yep, this is indeed an annexation plan and it’s flat-out contrary to international law. What’s needed is not more talks but enforcement of the law and the numerous UN resolutions applicable to this situation, and the sanctions to make it stick. But justice and law are no part of Trump’s deal, only ways of getting round it.

The document doesn’t say who is responsible for producing Peace to Prosperity, but it reads like the work of Israel’s hasbara Dirty Tricks department and edited by disinformation chief Mark Regev, currently Israel’s ambassador in London.

The Zionist terror plan to steal the land of Palestine

It’s plain to see that Trump’s ‘peace’ proposal is actually the climactic fulfillment of the long-running and thoroughly nasty Plan Dalet (otherwise known as Plan D). This was the Zionists’ blueprint, in anticipation of the British leaving, for the violent and murderous takeover of the Palestinian homeland as a prelude to declaring Israeli statehood – which they did in May 1948. It was drawn up by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency.

Plan D’s intention was not only to gain control of the areas of the Jewish state and defend its borders but also to control the areas of Jewish settlements and concentrations located outside Jewish borders and ensure “freedom of military and economic activity” by occupying important high-ground positions on a number of transport routes.

“Outside the borders of the state” may seem a curious thing to say when nobody knew where Israel’s borders actually ran, except where marked on the 1947 UN Partition Plan map. Israel has purposely kept her borders fluid in order to accommodate the Zionists’ perpetual lust for expansion.

Success would depend on, amongst other things, “applying economic pressure on the enemy by besieging some of his cities”, on “encirclement of enemy cities” and on “blocking the main enemy transportation routes….  Roads, bridges, main passes, important crossroads, paths, etc. must be blocked by means of: acts of sabotage, explosions, series of barricades, minefields, as well as by controlling the elevations near roads and taking up positions there.”

In other words, a reign of terror.

Jewish forces would occupy the police stations, described as “fortresses”, fifty of which had been built by the British throughout Palestine after the Arab unrest of 1936-39.

Plan D discussed “operations against enemy population centers located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed force”.  These operations included:

  • “Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centers which are difficult to control continuously.
  • “Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.”

Villages emptied in this way were then fortified.

If they met no resistance “garrison troops will enter the village and take up positions in it or in locations which enable complete tactical control,” said the Plan. “The officer in command of the unit will confiscate all weapons, wireless devices, and motor vehicles in the village. In addition, he will detain all politically suspect individuals…  In every region, a [Jewish] person will be appointed to be responsible for arranging the political and administrative affairs of all [Arab] villages and population centers which are occupied within that region.

34 massacres are said to have been committed in pursuit of Plan D’s racist and territorial objectives.  The massacre at Deir Yassin by Jewish terror groups set the tone in order to ‘soften up’ the Arabs for expulsion. More atrocities followed the declaration of Israeli statehood on 14 May 1948. 750,000 Palestinians were put to flight as Israel’s forces obliterated hundreds of Arab villages and towns. The village on which Sderot now stands was one such. To this day they have been denied the right to return and received no compensation.

And here are the chilling guidelines for besieging, occupying and controlling Arab cities…

  1. By isolating them from transportation arteries by laying mines, blowing up bridges, and a system of fixed ambushes.
  2. If necessary, by occupying high points which overlook transportation arteries leading to enemy cities, and the fortification of our units in these positions.
  3. By disrupting vital services, such as electricity, water, and fuel, or by using economic resources available to us, or by sabotage.
  4. By launching a naval operation against the cities that can receive supplies by sea, in order to destroy the vessels carrying the provisions, as well as by carrying out acts of sabotage against harbor facilities.

Plan Dalet is one of the sickest documents in history and shows why so many people question Israel’s legitimacy.

Atrocities occurred at Deir Yassin, Lod (Lydda) and Ramle. The Deir Yassin massacre was carried out by the two Zionist terror groups, the Irgun and the Stern Gang. On an April morning in 1948 (before the Israeli state declaration) 130 of their commandos made a dawn raid on this small Arab town with a population of 750, to the west of Jerusalem. The attack was initially beaten off, and only when a crack unit of the Haganah arrived with mortars were the Arab townsmen overwhelmed. The Irgun and the Stern Gang, smarting from the humiliation of having to summon help, embarked on a ‘clean-up’ in which they systematically murdered and executed at least 100 residents – mostly women, children and old people. The Irgun afterwards exaggerated the number, quoting 254, to frighten other Arab towns and villages.

The Haganah played down their part in the raid and afterwards said the massacre “disgraced the cause of Jewish fighters and dishonored Jewish arms and the Jewish flag”.

Deir Yassin signaled the beginning of a deliberate program by Israel to depopulate Arab towns and villages – destroying churches and mosques – in order to make room for incoming Holocaust survivors and other Jews.

In July 1948 Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up the town and drove out the population. Donald Neff reported how, as part of the ethnic cleansing, the Israelis massacred 426 men, women, and children. 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque. The remainder were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Of all the blood-baths they say this was the biggest. The great hero Moshe Dayan was responsible. Was he ever brought to book? Of course not. Lydda airport is now Ben Gurion airport.

The Israeli state’s greedy ambition overran the generous borders gifted to the Zionists in the UN Partition Plan and by 1949 the Zionists had seized nearly 80 percent of Palestine, provoking the resistance backlash that still goes on today.

Israel’s numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, and its continual defiance of international law and the UN Charter, undermine the Jewish state’s claim to legitimacy as far as Arabs and many non-Arabs around the world are concerned.

UN Resolution 194 called on Israel to let the Palestinians back onto their land. It has been re-passed many times, but Israel still ignores it. And so does the Trump plan. The Israelis also stand accused of violating Article 42 of the Geneva Convention by moving settlers into the Palestinian territories it occupies, and of riding roughshod over international law with their occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

But as Plan D shows, “expulsion and transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) were always a key part of the Zionists’ scheme. According to historian Benny Morris no mainstream Zionist leader could conceive of future co-existence without a clear physical separation between the two peoples. Ben-Gurion, who became Israel’s first prime minister, is reported to have said in 1937: “New settlement will not be possible without transferring the Arab fellahin…” The following year he declared: “With compulsory transfer we have a vast area [for settlement]… I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”

On another occasion, he remarked: “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it is true, but 2,000 years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country.”

Ben-Gurion reminded his military commanders that the prime aim of Plan D was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. He was well aware of his own criminality.

Today under the Trump plan, as the Guardian points out, a Palestinian state would receive territory, mostly desert, near Gaza to compensate for the further loss of about 30% of the West Bank. And we are all asked to recognize the Jordan valley, which makes up about a third of the occupied West Bank, and the Old City of Jerusalem, as part of Israel.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

Lebanon FM: We Categorically Reject Naturalization of Palestinian Refugees

Al-Manar | January 30, 2020

Lebanese FM Nassif Hitti has stressed via Al-Manar TV that Lebanon categorically rejects the naturalization of the Palestinian refugees, but that it supports their right to return to their land.

Hitti denounced the so-called “Deal of the Century”, considering that it infringes on the peoples right to choose their destiny and violates international laws.

“It is unacceptable to tamper with Lebanon’s borders,” Hitti said in a comment on one of the stipulations of the so-called “The Deal of the Century” which denied Lebanon its right to its Israeli-held territories.

The Lebanese to diplomat emphasized that he will convey Lebanon’s stance towards the US ‘deal’ during the meeting of the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo next Saturday.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

Zionist Terror in London

Why I have withdrawn from my commitment to play at the Great 606 Jazz Club this Saturday night

By Gilad Atzmon | January 31, 2020

They destroyed the Labour Party, now they have launched a campaign against the British arts scene. Will they successfully abuse the moniker of anti-Semitism to destroy any place, person or organization where they sense opposition?

The 606 Jazz Club and its owner, Steve Rubie, have been subjected to a constant barrage of pressure and threats for hosting my concert. In a familiar first act,  a Jewish “member of the public” asked the 606 to explain why the club gives a [music] platform to me, whom he duplicitously  calls ‘an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier.’  The UK Jewish press avidly repeated the lies about me.  Ludicrous accusations were made. The club was told that I advocate the ‘burning of synagogues.’ I was accused of suggesting that “Hitler was right after all.” The accusations are false and, of course, unsourced as they cannot be found anywhere in my work. If I were a Hitler supporter who urged burning synagogues, certainly these campaigners would have used Britain’s strict hate speech laws to have me spend some time behind bars.

I have played in the 606 club for many years and Steve and I have spent many hours discussing Israel and its politics. Steve has no doubts that the accusations against me are unfounded. Yesterday  he wrote a moving  statement explaining why I am invited to play at his club on a regular basis despite the constant pressure he endures. Amazingly, Steve had to point out that The 606 is  “a music venue first and foremost. We are here to promote the best in UK music and Gilad falls in that category…” This is without regard to Steve’s disagreement with most of my political views.

Steve’s explained the basic core western value that political disagreement is no reason to stop the music. Are we to live in a land where Tories and Labour block each other’s arts events? Ridiculous. But apparently kosher in the case of supporters of Israel and its critics. The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA)  were not persuaded by the simple truth of Steve’s letter. Last night, the CAA launched its new strategy, to threaten and then harass the Jazz community, the club, that artists and the jazz audience whenever it so decides.  A few hours ago the CAA posted the this Tweet:

“Campaign Against Antisemitism will be selecting a number of future dates on which to picket the @606Club over its decision to provide notorious antisemite Gilad Atzmon with a platform.”

This should horrify every Brit, Jew and Gentile, as it horrifies me.  In 2017 a similar CAA campaign ended in a vicious attack on an audience member who suffered a serious eye injury.

This morning I decided that in the light of the CAA’s threats, I am withdrawing from the gig. I do not want to see the art scene obliterated by an insane Zionist pressure group. I certainly don’t want British artists and audiences subjected to violence. I did this despite my concerns about the consequences of bowing to anti-cultural bullies and my obligation to the British artists who have played with me for decades and whose livelihoods depends on such gigs.

Of far larger concern is that a pressure group that tweets its call for volunteers to destroy our art scene enjoys such impunity in Britain. How is it that British tax benefits granted charitable status to the benefit of the CAA that openly threatens to harass the Jazz community, its audience, venues and artists?

I deeply believe that  Britain must reinstate its liberal and universal values of tolerance and diversity, and as a first step, I intend to file a complaint against  the CAA with the Charity Commission. I ask you to examine their rules and decide if you want to do the same.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 1 Comment

Afghanistan will need ‘billions in foreign aid,’ US agency warns

RT | January 31, 2020

A US agency warned on Friday that Afghanistan will need vast amounts of foreign funding to keep its government afloat through 2024. International money pays for roughly 75 percent of all of Afghanistan’s costs, while government revenue covers barely a quarter of Afghan public expenditures.

The warning comes as foreign donors become increasingly angry over the cost of corruption and the US seeks a peace deal with the Taliban to withdraw its troops from the country. The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which issues reports quarterly to US Congress, monitors all US spending relating to the 18-year war in Afghanistan.

According to the SIGAR report for the last quarter of 2019, international donors, led by Washington, provide the Afghan government with $8.5 billion annually to cover everything from security to education and health care. The US is paying $4.2 billion yearly just for Afghanistan’s security and defense forces.

SIGAR also said that “enemy-initiated attacks” rose sharply last year, with the fourth quarter seeing a total of 8,204 attacks – up from 6,974 during the same period in 2018.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Liz Warren’s Chronicle of Self-Awareness

By Steve Sailer • Unz Review • January 30, 2020

From CNBC:

Elizabeth Warren proposes criminal penalties for spreading voting disinformation online
PUBLISHED WED, JAN 29 2020
Sunny Kim

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday released a plan to fight disinformation and to hold tech companies accountable for their actions in light of the 2016 election.

“Disinformation and online foreign interference erode our democracy, and Donald Trump has invited both,” Warren said in a Tweet Wednesday. …

Warren proposed to combat disinformation by holding big tech companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google responsible for spreading misinformation designed to suppress voters from turning out.

She added she will also open up data for research so that academics and organizations can provide the public with knowledge on disinformation.

With her superb grasp of symbolism and self-awareness, Warren chose to announce her plan to fight online disinformation on the one-year anniversary of her helping spread Jussie Smollett’s hate hoax disinformation online.

Also this week, Liz endorsed Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx, who let Jussie walk last year.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

France sends warships to Mediterranean to deter Turkey

MEMO | January 30, 2020

French President Emmanuel Macron has sent warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to give support to Greece against Turkey’s quest for energy reserves in the region.

Together with Macron was Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was on a visit to the French capital Paris to gather support against Turkey. Mitsotakis welcomed the decision and described the warships as “guarantors of peace.”

“The only way to end differences in the eastern Mediterranean is through international justice,” he told reporters after holding talks with Macron. “Greece and France are pursuing a new framework of strategic defence.”

Tensions have increased significantly over the past year in the Eastern Mediterranean due to Turkey’s dispute with Southern Cyprus over the distribution of energy resources in the waters off the island of Cyprus.

In June last year, Turkey deployed drilling vessels to search for natural gas in retaliation to a deal struck by Greece, Southern Cyprus and Israel earlier that month, in which the three states agreed to build a pipeline harnessing the reserves of natural gas off the southern shores of the island. This pipeline – named EastMed – which is estimated to produce a profit of $9 billion over 18 years of the reserve’s exploitation, would be supplying gas from the Eastern Mediterranean region all the way to countries in Europe.

Turkey has called on those countries to participate in a fair and equal distribution of the energy resources discovered off Cyprus, insisting that they are attempting to exclude and alienate Turkey by striking their own deal without the consideration of both the major regional player and the people of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Therefore, it stresses that the drilling activities that Turkey is carrying out is legal and within territorial waters.

The EU, however, has repeatedly called on Turkey to give up its claim on having a share in the energy resources, claiming that its activities are “illegal”, leading to the Union to impose sanctions on the Republic in July last year over the issue, as well as due to Turkey’s military incursion – Operation Peace Spring – into northern Syria in October.

As France is one of the most prominent supporters of Greece in the dispute, Macron accused Turkey of being the one responsible for raising tensions as well as causing trouble in war torn Libya. “I want to express my concerns with regard to the behaviour of Turkey at the moment,” said Macron. “We have seen during these last days Turkish warships accompanied by Syrian mercenaries arrive on Libyan soil. This is an explicit and serious infringement of what was agreed in Berlin [conference]. It’s a broken promise.”

Greece itself has reportedly long been prepared for a military confrontation, with Defence Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos recently warning that the country was “examining all scenarios, even that of military engagement.” This was shown with Greece’s arming of 16 Aegean islands last week, in violation of international law which stipulates that they remain demilitarised. When Turkey called on Greece to disarmed them and uphold international law, Greece refused.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ won’t bring peace – that was the plan

The proposal deliberately includes a host of unrealisable preconditions before what remains of Palestine can be recognised

By Jonathon Cook | The National | January 2, 2020

Much of Donald Trump’s long-trailed “deal of the century” came as no surprise. Over the past 18 months, Israeli officials had leaked many of its details.

The so-called “Vision for Peace” unveiled on Tuesday simply confirmed that the US government has publicly adopted the long-running consensus in Israel: that it is entitled to keep permanently the swaths of territory it seized illegally over the past half-century that deny the Palestinians any hope of a state.

The White House has discarded the traditional US pose as an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinian leaders were not invited to the ceremony, and would not have come had they been. This was a deal designed in Tel Aviv more than in Washington – and its point was to ensure there would be no Palestinian partner.

Importantly for Israel, it will get Washington’s permission to annex all of its illegal settlements, now littered across the West Bank, as well as the vast agricultural basin of the Jordan Valley. Israel will continue to have military control over the entire West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his intention to bring just such an annexation plan before his cabinet as soon as possible. It will doubtless provide the central plank in his efforts to win a hotly contested general election due on March 2.

The Trump deal also approves Israel’s existing annexation of East Jerusalem. The Palestinians will be expected to pretend that a West Bank village outside the city is their capital of “Al Quds”. There are incendiary indications that Israel will be allowed to forcibly divide the Al Aqsa mosque compound to create a prayer space for extremist Jews, as has occurred in Hebron.

Further, the Trump administration appears to be considering giving a green light to the Israeli right’s long-held hopes of redrawing the current borders in such a way as to transfer potentially hundreds of thousands of Palestinians currently living in Israel as citizens into the West Bank. That would almost certainly amount to a war crime.

The plan envisages no right of return, and it seems the Arab world will be expected to foot the bill for compensating millions of Palestinian refugees.

A US map handed out on Tuesday showed Palestinian enclaves connected by a warren of bridges and tunnels, including one between the West Bank and Gaza. The only leavening accorded to the Palestinians are US pledges to strengthen their economy. Given the Palestinians’ parlous finances after decades of resource theft by Israel, that is not much of a promise.

All of this has been dressed up as a “realistic two-state solution”, offering the Palestinians nearly 70 per cent of the occupied territories – which in turn comprise 22 per cent of their original homeland. Put another way, the Palestinians are being required to accept a state on 15 per cent of historic Palestine after Israel has seized all the best agricultural land and the water sources.

Like all one-time deals, this patchwork “state” – lacking an army, and where Israel controls its security, borders, coastal waters and airspace – has an expiry date. It needs to be accepted within four years. Otherwise, Israel will have a free hand to start plundering yet more Palestinian territory. But the truth is that neither Israel nor the US expects or wants the Palestinians to play ball.

That is why the plan includes – as well as annexation of the settlements – a host of unrealisable preconditions before what remains of Palestine can be recognised: the Palestinian factions must disarm, with Hamas dismantled; the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas must strip the families of political prisoners of their stipends; and the Palestinian territories must be reinvented as the Middle East’s Switzerland, a flourishing democracy and open society, all while under Israel’s boot.

Instead, the Trump plan kills the charade that the 26-year-old Oslo process aimed for anything other than Palestinian capitulation. It fully aligns the US with Israeli efforts – pursued by all its main political parties over many decades – to lay the groundwork for permanent apartheid in the occupied territories.

Trump invited both Netanyahu, Israel’s caretaker prime minister, and his chief political rival, former general Benny Gantz, for the launch. Both were keen to express their unbridled support.

Between them, they represent four-fifths of Israel’s parliament. The chief battleground in the March election will be which one can claim to be better placed to implement the plan and thereby deal a death blow to Palestinian dreams of statehood.

On the Israeli right, there were voices of dissent. Settler groups described the plan as “far from perfect” – a view almost certainly shared privately by Netanyahu. Israel’s extreme right objects to any talk of Palestinian statehood, however illusory.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition will happily seize the goodies offered by the Trump administration. Meanwhile the plan’s inevitable rejection by the Palestinian leadership will serve down the road as justification for Israel to grab yet more land.

There are other, more immediate bonuses from the “deal of the century”.

By allowing Israel to keep its ill-gotten gains from its 1967 conquest of Palestinian territories, Washington has officially endorsed one of the modern era’s great colonial aggressions. The US administration has thereby declared open war on the already feeble constraints imposed by international law.

Trump benefits personally, too. This will provide a distraction from his impeachment hearings as well as offering a potent bribe to his Israel-obsessed evangelical base and major funders such as US casino magnate Sheldon Adelson in the run-up to a presidential election.

And the US president is coming to the aid of a useful political ally. Netanyahu hopes this boost from the White House will propel his ultra-nationalist coalition into power in March, and cow the Israeli courts as they weigh criminal charges against him.

How he plans to extract personal gains from the Trump plan were evident on Tuesday. He scolded Israel’s attorney-general over the filing of the corruption indictments, claiming a “historic moment” for the state of Israel was being endangered.

Meanwhile, Abbas greeted the plan with “a thousand nos”. Trump has left him completely exposed. Either the PA abandons its security contractor role on behalf of Israel and dissolves itself, or it carries on as before but now explicitly deprived of the illusion that statehood is being pursued.

Abbas will try to cling on, hoping that Trump is ousted in this year’s election and a new US administration reverts to the pretence of advancing the long-expired Oslo peace process. But if Trump wins, the PA’s difficulties will rapidly mount.

No one, least of all the Trump administration, believes that this plan will lead to peace. A more realistic concern is how quickly it will pave the way to greater bloodshed.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | 4 Comments

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