Organized Chaos in South Central, Los Angeles
BY DANIEL NUCCIO | BROWNSTONE INSTITUTE | OCTOBER 19, 2022
The LAPD’s 77th Division in South Central serves what some officers consider “pretty much the most violent area of the entire city and county of Los Angeles,” explained Officer Charles Simmering in a phone interview. “You’re just running and gunning all night. You’re just running. There’s never a dull moment. You’re just going from one call to the next to the next. ‘Organized chaos’ is the best way we describe it.”
Each night, he explained, the 77th Division puts out a minimum of 12 cars, usually two officers per car, all 24 officers feeling “beyond overwhelmed.” The 77th Division can’t afford to lose people, Simmering said. But, he continued, that’s exactly what’s happening.
“Last year at my division alone I think we lost roughly 40 officers – and that’s putting a hurt, putting a strain on everybody,” said Simmering.
“People are leaving,” he stated. “They’re tired. They’re fed up.” Their reasons vary according to Simmering’s account. Lack of support. Lack of trust on the part of the city. Frustrations over not being allowed to make their own decisions out on the job. Nonetheless, the departure of these officers only exacerbates some of the problems that drove them to leave.
“If you need a particular day off for something family-related, your mother’s birthday or kid’s birthday, or something important,” Simmering explained, “They deny you and say, ‘No, you can’t have the day off. Sorry. We’re undermanned. We need people here.’”
That is, they need people, assuming they are vaccinated for Covid-19 because to the city bureaucracy Covid-19 remains the greatest threat to the citizens of South Central, as well as the rest of Los Angeles. Hence, officers such as Simmering, who remain unvaccinated for Covid-19, are considered dispensable.
The Parallel Reality of LA’s City Workers
Announced in July of 2021 and later passed and approved that August at the height of the Pandemic Era’s mandate madness, Los Angeles’ vaccine mandate for city employees still remains in effect. Predicated on the continued threat of Covid-19 to public health, the effectiveness of Covid vaccines, and the danger posed by the unvaccinated, the mandate comes off as a relic from a bygone era, as do the protracted Byzantine processes to which employees seeking exemptions must submit and the testing protocols such employees must agree to follow.
According to the anti-mandate organization Roll Call 4 Freedom, the ordinance and the system it established are illegal. According to the unvaccinated employees living under the ordinance, the system often seems random and arbitrary. Yet, in October of 2022, when there appears to be little doubt that Covid vaccines do little to stop the spread of Covid and that the vaccinated can spread the disease as easily as the unvaccinated, vaccine mandates are alive and well in the city of LA.
By the account of James Greenfield, a manager in the sanitation department, “It’s like we’re living in a parallel universe… [we’re] just in a parallel reality.”
Looking back on the past year, Greenfield, who is unvaccinated for Covid due to religious reasons, described life under the ordinance in a phone interview, saying requirements for compliance are always changing, “the goal post is always moving.”
“It was originally, you know, submit an exemption…” he stated. “It later developed into like this four-page, unconstitutional questionnaire on your religious beliefs.”
The city also wanted employees to “have a pastor answer questions.” Greenfield added. “I mean it [was] just over the top on violating your, you know, your religious freedom.”
Greenfield said he filed for a religious exemption, but refused to fill out the four-page form.
As a condition of remaining employed while working through the exemption process, Greenfield said, he and other unvaccinated city employees were initially required to test twice per week, but that was later reduced to once per week. The city, he said, also threatened to deduct the cost of the tests from people’s paychecks. However, before the city could charge anyone’s paycheck, they first needed them to fill out paperwork giving them permission to charge their paychecks.
“I didn’t fill out the paperwork,” Greenfield said. “I’m not going to give [the city] permission to take money out of my paycheck.”
But, he noted, he believes “a lot of people were coerced” and the city managed to bill at least a couple of people before they had to stop.
More recently, said Greenfield, they tried to bill the tests to the insurance of unvaccinated employees but backed off from those attempts within a couple of weeks.
Yvette Smith, an animal control officer at the City of Los Angeles’ Harbor Animal Shelter in the San Pedro neighborhood, stated, “We just didn’t give our insurance information and then [the city] pulled away.”
Like Greenfield, Smith has been required to test for Covid for nearly a year as she works her way through the exemption process. During the past year, Smith said, she had submitted a request for a religious exemption, was informed that it was denied, and appealed the decision. Now, in October of 2022, she awaits a decision regarding her appeal.
In some ways, although frustrated and inconvenienced, she believes people in her department (or at least her corner of her department), have gotten lucky. “As long as you have submitted a religious exemption that [the city has] denied and it’s in some imaginary nebulous area and you agree to test, they’re pretty much leaving us alone. So I’m grateful for that.”
However, Smith noted, “Every department is treating [the ordinance] differently.”
The Autumn Purge
Currently, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation appears to be one of the departments in which a purge of the unvaccinated is in full swing.
Navy veteran and former wildland firefighter, Rene Ochoa, has been a traffic officer with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation for the past 19 years. “I’ve been grateful for my job,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s helped me to have a lifestyle [I wanted], permitted me to have my home and provide for my wife and my children.”
Last year, he said, he filed a request for a religious exemption due to concerns about potential side effects and the use of aborted fetal cell lines in the development of the Covid vaccines. After his request was denied in May 2022, Ochoa said he appealed the denial. That appeal, he explained, was denied in July.
“Then, September 13 of this year…” he said, “I was walked off the job, locked out of my station in front of all my fellow coworkers…”
“I am currently on administrative leave,” stated Ochoa. “I have a Skelly hearing scheduled for Friday November 4 at 10:00 am.”
Amongst city employees working their way through the process of attaining a religious exemption from the Covid vaccine mandate, Skelly hearings are generally seen as the final step prior to termination.
Reflecting on the strong likelihood that he will lose his job on November 4, Ochoa said, “I’m in a much better position than a lot of other people I know that are younger than me and with maybe say half the time [in a city job].”
Because of his time working other positions with the city and with LA County, Ochoa is eligible for retirement, although with an early retirement penalty if he takes it before he turns 55; Ochoa is currently 53.
Smith expressed similar sentiments, commenting on the possibility she might be terminated. “I’m in a different position than most people. I’m pretty close to retirement [in June 2023] and kind of don’t give a shit at this point. So, you know, I’ll just keep jumping through the hoops until it bothers me too much and then I just won’t do it any more.”
If the City of Los Angeles does try to proceed with her termination, Smith is optimistic that she can work within the system to delay its finalization through a strategic use of vacation time, family leave, and possibly agreeing to unpaid leave until she can retire at least sort of on her terms. She admitted she is morally conflicted about having to resort to these kinds of tactics, but will do what she needs to do.
Yet, most Los Angeles city employees do not find themselves in positions where they can retire early or maneuver their way through the system until they can run out the clock and retire on terms they find acceptable.
Pearl Pantoja, for example, an employee with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, who was interviewed previously for an article published by Brownstone Institute about the troubles faced by LA city workers, has five children, one of whom has special needs. She also serves as the caregiver for her disabled mother. She and her family depend on her paycheck and the benefits that come with her job.
However, she said, “Friday, September 16, I was in effect placed on, my supervisor used the word suspension. I know the city’s calling it administrative leave without pay.”
“They gave me a notice with an appointment…” she stated. “It says you’re being placed off for non-compliance.”
But, Pantoja holds, “I was compliant, except they refused to accept my religious exemption.”
“They also did not… attempt to see if there were any reasonable accommodations that could be made so that I could continue to work.” Pantoja claims these are “parts of the process [that were] just simply ignored.”
Currently, Pantoja, like her colleague, Ochoa, awaits her Skelly hearing. Based on what she has seen happen to other unvaccinated colleagues, she is not optimistic about the future. “I have a colleague who lost his job and he is now homeless…I have another colleague who is expecting his first child and he’s now out of work and [has] no healthcare.”
“I’m really worried,” she said. “I almost know with certainty that I’m going to lose my job.”
What Lies Behind the Curtain
Perhaps the City of Los Angeles’ mandate, exemption process, and the personal and professional devastation they wrought can best be described as a form of organized chaos.
Part of what makes this all so frustrating and demoralizing, according to Greenfield, is the way the whole system is set up. No one is really accountable for any of the decisions made regarding exemptions, testing, appeals, or terminations. Everything is done through third parties and anonymous emails.
“You’ll get an email… with no name,” he explained. “Nobody attached to it. Nobody personally to talk to about it.”
“It’s like they’re just hiding,” he said. “They’re hiding behind a shroud. You know, supposedly there’s this committee that’s reviewing and coming up with these policies except who would know who’s on this committee. Who the names are? When they meet? It’s just a blind process like the wizard behind the curtain. The Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. You know, and that’s the process.”
Moreover, Greenfield noted, he and other unvaccinated city employees live with this feeling that “the hammer can drop anytime.”
“So, you’re just living under this uncertainty,” he said. “When’s the carpet going to get pulled out from beneath you?”
Simmering, who is currently on medical leave due to an injury sustained on the job, said the decision regarding his exemption has been placed on hold until he can return to work, at which point he said he’ll have to “play the Russian roulette with whether not they’re going to approve [his] exemption.”
“It’s like so much of the country is going in a different direction and maybe backtracking,” Greenfield said. “You know, maybe they thought [mandates were] a good decision. But [in LA], there’s no backtracking. It’s like they’re doubling down. [They’re] sticking to [their] guns here even though nobody else is.”
French journalist loses her job after reporting situation in Donbass
By Lucas Leiroz | October 19, 2022
The West continues to persecute journalists whose work reveals the reality of the Ukrainian situation. Recently, French filmmaker Anne-Laure Bonnel reported that she received threats and lost her job as a result of her work in the Donbass. Bonnel recorded two documentary films showing the situation of the ethnically Russian people in the regions attacked by Kiev. In response, she was “cancelled” in Europe. The case shows how the West no longer has any commitment to media freedom and is willing to take dictatorial measures to silence journalists who expose the crimes committed by NATO allies.
Anne-Laure Bonnel first came to Donbass in 2015, shortly after the conflict in the east began. At the time, she witnessed the horror of the genocide committed by the Ukrainian authorities and filmed impactful scenes from the lives of Donbass’ residents. In 2016, Bonnel presented the film “Donbass” during a film festival at the Sorbonne University. At the time, her work had been applauded by critics – a situation very different from what would happen some years later.
In February 2022, just a few days before the start of the Russian special military operation, she returned to Donbass in order to continue her project to document the humanitarian crisis in the region. In this recent trip, she filmed the scenes that composed a new film, called “Donbass: eight years later”. As in the first film, the work was not permeated by any political or ideological content, being just a documentary focused on exposing the local situation in a neutral and impartial way. However, this time her work was not welcomed in Europe.
Bonnel’s film was simply banned from all major European events. She was barred from participating in the festivals she used to work at. More than that, in a recent interview to RIA Novosti on October 18, Bonnel said that she was fired from her job at the University of Paris, where she taught for more than 15 years, and that she even received threats from pro-Kiev activists.
Bonnel also emphasizes that she suffered high psychological pressure with all these problems she has encountered since her return from Donbass. For her, the situation became truly unbearable, as her life changed completely just by the fact that she continued to do her work in the Donbass even with the start of the Russian operation. Suddenly, all the critics and fans who praised her in Europe started ignoring her films and trying to “cancel” her. All this left her deeply terrified and led Bonnel to remain silent for the last few months, only now coming to the public to denounce the persecution she has unfairly experienced.
These were some of her words during the interview:
“When I (…) came back [to France], I had to show my recordings to several people, and then I encountered the first problem: people who were interested in my recordings stopped showing up. That was the first problem (…) Once the film was released, I encountered other issues – they may or may not be related, it’s hard to say. But I lost my job at the University of Paris, where I taught for 15 years (…) My contract was not renewed (…) In an email from the university, I was told that I no longer met the values of the university, so they could not allow me to continue to work (…) Psychological pressure was put on me, I received threats. That’s why I lived in the shadows for a long time. It’s not easy”.
It is curious to note how an institution as prestigious and traditional as the University of Paris acted in a rude and authoritarian way when firing an employee just for having done exactly what a journalist is supposed to do: expose reality. Bonnel’s case reveals the real face of the current liberal West, which increasingly violates its own democratic principles just to support an illegitimate neo-Nazi regime.
The Bonnel case is just another sad episode in the persecution of journalists that has been promoted by the West and its Ukrainian proxy since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation. Sincere reporters have become one of the main targets of Kiev and the West.
While in Western “democracies” attempts are made to “cancel” independent journalism or classify it as “spreader of disinformation”, in the Ukrainian dictatorship the persecution is carried out by military means. It is not by chance that neo-Nazi terrorists killed Daria Dugina and bombed the hotel where the RT staff was staying in Donbass. It is also important to remember that hundreds of journalists are included on “Myrotvorets”, the infamous Ukrainian kill-list.
In fact, on several occasions, the West has made it clear that it is willing to do anything to prevent the reality about Ukraine from being revealed.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Telegram.
Canadian intelligence reported ‘no concerns’ about Freedom Convoy on day Trudeau invoked Emergencies Act
By Anthony Murdoch – Life Site News – October 17, 2022
OTTAWA – Documents show that the Canadian federal government received regular updates indicating the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa were non-violent in nature, despite the Trudeau administration’s claims otherwise.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Internal Department of Public Safety reports show that on the same day Prime Minister Justin Trudeau enacted the Emergencies Act (EA) to clear out the protesters, a report stated the protests were peaceful.
“No concerns at this time,” noted a February 14 report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Trudeau on the same day, however, claimed to reporters that the protests were “illegal and dangerous,” saying they could not be allowed “to continue.”
Multiple daily reports from the Department of Public Safety leading up to Trudeau enacting the EA show that there were no major concerns that the Freedom Convoy protests were violent.
A January 27 report said, “The Freedom Convoy so far has been peaceful and cooperative with police.”
Blacklock’s Reporter listed five such statements asserting there were no issues.
A January 29 report stated there were “No major incidents,” while a report from February 1 said, “no violence took place.”
A February 6 report concluded that disruption to “government activities is so far minor.”
A report from February 10 said that there was a “minimal” amount of people on Parliament Hill, while an update from the next day stated the “situation remains stable and planning is ongoing.”
Canada’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino also claimed the Freedom Convoy might be violent in nature, despite the internal reports stating otherwise.
Government staff even wrote that the “majority of the events have been peaceful,” noting that as most people were working from home, there was very little disruption to “government activities.”
Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs in a memo said that it had “not observed any significant indicators of foreign state involvement related to the truckers’ convoy.”
Canada’s draconian COVID measures were the catalyst for the Freedom Convoy, which took to the streets of Ottawa to demand an end to all mandates for three weeks in February.
The EA gave the Trudeau government unprecedented powers such as the ability to freeze bank accounts without a court order and deploy police at will.
While Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23, many who supported the Freedom Convoy were targeted by the federal government and had their bank accounts frozen without a court order.
Canada’s Public Order Emergency Commission began public hearings last Thursday into Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act.
The hearings are open to the public livestream and will call forth at least 65 witnesses over six weeks.
Video footage showed police using what many said was disproportionate force
Many claims by government officials and mainstream media pundits that the Freedom Convoy would lead to violence never came to light.
After Trudeau had enacted the EA, scuffles only broke out after police directly intervened in the protests.
Video footage of police on horseback trampling an elderly protester went viral, as well as videos showing non-violent protesters being physically assaulted and pepper-sprayed by police.
Also, an independent journalist said she was beaten and intentionally shot at with a tear gas canister.
Just recently, former Ottawa Police Service (OPS) chief Peter Sloly testified that Freedom Convoy protesters were permitted by the cops to park their vehicles outside Canada’s Parliament in the early days of the protest.
OPS interim chief Steve Bell recently acknowledged his department did not request that Trudeau invoke EA to take down the Freedom Convoy.
Even Sloly said he did not request the use of the EA. He resigned as OPS Chief on February 25.
Trudeau had made claims that the Freedom Convoy protesters were funded by foreign entities with ties to terrorist-linked financing. This reasoning was used as justification for Trudeau to use the EA against the Freedom Convoy.
Canada’s state broadcaster the CBC in March had to retract a story that falsely claimed most support for the Freedom Convoy came from foreigners.
“Until Proven Otherwise, it is Likely Covid mRNA Vaccines Played a Significant Role in All Unexplained Heart Attacks Since 2021”
BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | OCTOBER 18, 2022
“Until proven otherwise, it is likely that Covid mRNA vaccines played a significant or primary role in all unexplained heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure since 2021.”
That’s according to Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a renowned British cardiologist who once endorsed the vaccines on TV but is now raising awareness of their dangers. In September his two–part, peer-reviewed analysis of vaccine efficacy and safety was published in the Journal of Insulin Resistance.
Dr. Malhotra made the comments in a new interview with James Freeman Wells, a former Head of U.K. Trade and Business Inflation Statistics at the Office for National Statistics, the U.K.’s Government statistics agency. James has tweeted a link to the full interview here.
Dr. Malhotra’s comments come ahead of a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Damage, where he will speak to MPs and Peers about the evidence of the risks from the vaccines, putting it in the context of wider problems with the way medicine is regulated and marketed globally. The meeting was originally planned for September but was delayed due to the Queen’s death and will now take place this coming Thursday, October 20th in the House of Commons of the U.K Parliament.
Referring to the worrisome influence of large pharmaceutical companies in the regulation of drugs – whom he describes as “immoral” and “psychopathic” because he says they are constitutionally unable to put people before profits – he proclaims:
“It’s time to put patients before profits, to put truth before money, to put human needs ahead of the needs of an immoral, psychopathic entity. Let’s do this.”
James Wells has posted a link to a template letter to encourage your MP to attend here.
Let’s hope this delivers another hammer blow to the wall of silence that has thus far met the growing clamour for recognition of the extraordinary level of injuries associated with these experimental genetic vaccines.
‘Profiles of the Vaccine-Injured’: New CHD Book Exposes Life-Changing Impact of Vaccine Injuries
The Defender – October 17, 2022
Governments, public health experts and the media have so often repeated the false claims that vaccine injuries are “rare,” “almost nonmeasurable” or “one in a million,” that many people believe them — until they experience an injury.
The controlled messaging — together with censorship of vaccine injury stories in the public square and indecent gaslighting of injured individuals who speak up — have thrown a cloak of invisibility over vaccination’s potential to ruin health and torpedo financial security.
“Profiles of the Vaccine-Injured: ‘A Lifetime Price to Pay’” — a new book by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) with a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — exposes the official soft-pedaling of vaccine risks as a dangerous lie.
As the book takes pains to explain, vaccine injuries are common, not rare. They are “equal opportunity,” affecting all demographic groups, including young and old, rich and poor.
Vaccine injuries are, more often than not, profoundly life-changing, and they have significant ripple effects on family members.
And, with the advent of experimental COVID-19 injections, they are occurring on a scale never before seen.
Because nearly all vaccines, whether fully licensed or authorized for emergency use, are liability-free, in most cases, families are left holding the bag for the medical, educational, caregiver and other expenses that a serious vaccine injury generates — costs that have the potential to bankrupt not only individual households but the nation.
Nine stories
The heart of the book resides in nine vaccine injury stories, told by mothers of injured children and by persons injured as adults.
Their injuries, at ages ranging from 12 months to 49 years, followed receipt of “routine” childhood vaccines, travel vaccines or COVID-19 shots.
The interviews convey in vivid detail what it’s like to live with conditions such as severe autism, chronic pain or immune systems gone haywire — and, in one case, describe the tragic loss of a promising teenager’s life shortly after receiving a shot.
The nine individuals also describe experiences with gaslighting and obfuscation by the medical profession, strained family relationships and interrupted or curtailed careers, along with immense regret for “the worst decision of their life.”
Equally importantly, they identify a theme that, while common, is perhaps one of the most underrecognized facts about vaccine injury: “When it comes to vaccine injuries, there’s no help legally or financially — you’re on your own.”
Dollars and cents
Although the two pieces of legislation that established vaccines’ liability-free status have been in place for years or decades — the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (for most licensed vaccines) and the 2005 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act (for Emergency Use Authorization vaccines) — the laws and their financial ramifications remain unknown to large swaths of the public.
Both laws created mechanisms for vaccine injury compensation, but little more than one in four petitioners (28%) to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program have obtained anything — usually after years of wrangling with adversarial government attorneys — and no one has received compensation from the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) for a COVID-19 vaccine injury.
Just after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, The Associated Press described the CICP as “an obscure program with a record of seldom paying claims,” and interviewed worried experts who admitted the program could “get overwhelmed very, very quickly.”
Instead of getting “overwhelmed,” Forbes noted that relatively few individuals had, by November 2021, applied to CICP for compensation for COVID-19 vaccine-related injuries or deaths — around 1,360 — but the financial magazine speculated that the low number might be because “people don’t know the special fund exists.”
By September 2022, the landscape had shifted, with nearly 9,000 CICP petitions filed, though the program’s fiscal year 2022 budget contained funds sufficient to compensate at most three applicants.
As Wayne Rohde, a long-time analyst of U.S. vaccine injury compensation statistics, stated in an analysis of the CICP, “Our government really does not want to compensate those who have been injured.”
An unhealthy nation
In its introductory chapters, “Profiles of the Vaccine-Injured” also takes a comprehensive look at other sources of information on vaccine injuries, ranging from vaccine package inserts to published research.
Discussing the poor showing of U.S. children — and adults — in global health rankings, the book reiterates a point that CHD has emphasized in other books: namely, that vaccination must be considered a key “elephant in the room” linked to America’s chronic disease epidemics.
The recent forced release of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) V-safe app suggests that the COVID-19 injections are responsible for shocking numbers of debilitating symptoms, including severe pain as well as unprecedented rates of hospitalization and worse.
In fact, while Americans’ health disadvantage — which “begins at birth and extends across the life course” — had translated into plunging life expectancy even before the COVID-19 injections, premature deaths have become especially noticeable since the vaccines’ rollout.
Exposing the truth behind the vaccine safety myth, “Profiles of the Vaccine-Injured” is, as Kennedy writes in his foreword, ultimately a call to arms.
“When you are done weeping and tearing out your hair from fury, frustration and indignation, join Children’s Health Defense in doing something about it,” Kennedy wrote.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Difficult months ahead: Why Israel is afraid of the Lions’ Den
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 18, 2022
This headline in the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, only tells part of the story: “The Lions’ Den, Other Palestinian Groups are Endless Headache for Israel, PA.”
It is true that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority are equally worried about the prospect of a widespread armed revolt in the Occupied West Bank, and that the newly formed Nablus-based brigade, the Lions’ Den, is the epicentre of this youth-led movement.
However, the growing armed resistance in the West Bank is causing more than a mere ‘headache’ for Tel Aviv and Ramallah. If this phenomenon continues to grow, it could threaten the very existence of the PA, while placing Israel before its most difficult choice since the invasion of major Palestinian West Bank cities in 2002.
Though Israeli military commanders continue to undermine the power of the newly formed group, they seem to have no clear idea regarding its roots, influence and future impact.
In a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, claimed that the Lions’ Den is a “group of 30 members”, who will eventually be reached and eliminated. “We will lay our hands on the terrorists,” he declared.
The Lions’ Den, however, is not an isolated case, but part of a larger phenomenon that includes the Nablus Brigades, the Jenin Brigades and other groups, which are located mostly in the northern West Bank.
The group, along with other armed Palestinian military units, has been active in responding to the killing of Palestinians, including children, elders, and, on October 14, even a Palestinian doctor, Abdullah Abu Al-Teen, who succumbed to his wounds in Jenin. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 170 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Gaza, since the beginning of the year.
The Palestinian response included the killing of two Israeli soldiers, one in Shuafat on 8 October, and the other near Nablus on 11 October.
Following the Shuafat attack, Israel completely sealed the Shuafat refugee camp as a form of collective punishment, similar to recent sieges on Jenin and other Palestinian towns.
Citing Israel’s Hebrew media, the Palestinian Arabic daily, Al Quds, reported that the Israeli military will focus its operations in the coming weeks on targeting the Lions’ Den. Thousands more Israeli occupation soldiers are likely to be deployed in the West Bank for the upcoming battle.
It is difficult to imagine that Israel would mobilise much of its army to fight 30 Palestinian fighters in Nablus. But not only Israel, the PA, too, is terribly concerned.
The Authority has tried but failed to entice the fighters by offering them a surrender ‘deal’, where they give up their arms and join the PA forces. Such deals were offered in the past to fighters belonging to Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, with mixed degrees of success.
This time around, the strategy did not work. The group rejected the PA’s overtures, compelling the Fatah-affiliated governor of Nablus, Ibrahim Ramadan, to attack the mothers of the fighters by calling them ‘deviant’ for “sending their sons to commit suicide”. Ramadan’s language, which is similar to language used by Israeli and pro-Israel individuals in their depiction of Palestinian society, highlights the massive schisms between the PA’s political discourse and those of ordinary Palestinians.
Not only is the PA losing its grasp of the narrative, but it is also losing whatever vestiges of control it has left in the West Bank, especially in Nablus and Jenin.
A senior Palestinian official told the Media Line that the Palestinian “street does not trust us any more”, as they “view us as an extension of Israel”. True, but this lack of trust has been in the making for years.
The ‘Unity Intifada‘ of May 2021, however, served as a major turning point in the relationship between the PA and Palestinians. The rise of the Lions’ Den and other Palestinian armed groups are but a few manifestations of the dramatic changes underway in the West Bank.
Indeed, the West Bank is changing. A new generation that has little or no memory of the Second Intifada (2000-2005), had not experienced the Israeli invasion then but grew up under occupation and apartheid, feeding on the memories of the resistance in Jenin, Nablus and Hebron.
Judging by their political discourse, chants and symbols, this generation is fed up with the crippling and often superficial divisions of Palestinians among factions, ideologies and regions. In fact, the newly established brigades, including the Lions’ Den, are believed to be multi-factional groups bringing, for the first time, fighters from Hamas, Fatah and others into a single platform. This explains the popular enthusiasm and lack of suspicion among ordinary Palestinians of the new fighters.
For example, Saed Al-Kuni, a Palestinian fighter who was recently killed by Israeli soldiers in an ambush on the outskirts of Nablus, was a member of the Lions’ Den. Some have claimed that Al-Kuni was a leading member of Fatah’s Brigades, and others say he was a well-known Hamas fighter.
This lack of certainty regarding the political identity of killed fighters is fairly unique to Palestinian society, at least since the establishment of the PA in 1994.
Expectedly, Israel will do what it always does: amassing more occupation troops, attacking, assassinating, crushing protests and laying sieges on rebellious towns and refugee camps. What they fail to understand, at least for now, is that the growing rebellion in the West Bank is not generated by a few fighters in Nablus and a few more in Jenin, but is the outcome of a truly popular sentiment.
In an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, translated by Al-Quds, an Israeli commander described what he has witnessed in Jenin during a raid:
“When we enter (Jenin), armed fighters and stone throwers wait for us in every corner. Everyone takes part. You look at an old man … and you wonder, will he throw stones? And he does. Once, I saw a person who had nothing to throw (on us). He rushed to his car, grabbed a milk carton and he threw it on us.”
Palestinians are simply fed up with the Israeli occupation and with their collaborating leadership. They are ready to put it all on the line; in fact, in Jenin and Nablus, they already have. The coming weeks and months are critical for the future of the West Bank and, in fact, for all Palestinians.
Looking beyond US violence and PA dependence
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 18, 2022
Belatedly, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has issued a statement of clear mistrust in US diplomacy towards Palestine. “We don’t trust America and you know our position. We don’t trust it, we don’t rely on it, and under no circumstances can we accept that America is the sole party in resolving a problem,” Abbas told reporters before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazakhstan last Thursday.
Despite being beholden to the international community’s diplomacy and, more recently, to Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz’s concessions which allow Abbas to consolidate his hold in Ramallah, it is clear that the PA does not trust Washington. Even though Abbas’s statement does not reflect the complete reality of the situation, particularly the PA’s dependence on the US for its own survival, his call to reduce America’s role is significant.
This comes at a time when Russia has threatened to cut diplomatic relations with Israel if the latter sends military aid to Ukraine. The US, meanwhile, does not relish a secondary role to Russia, with Abbas stating that the US can still be part of diplomatic negotiations only within the Middle East Quartet. Washington’s response, ironically and hypocritically, was to berate Putin’s threat as “a far cry from the type of international partner needed to constructively address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The US should take a look at its own global track record of foreign intervention under various “constructive” guises. Does Operation Condor in Latin America ring any bells in the White House, for example? Likewise, Libya’s destruction under a NATO umbrella, albeit it was a planned US intervention post-9/11? Both expose the sham of Washington’s “commitment” to human rights.
President Joe Biden’s administration is actually worse than its predecessors in terms of its hypocrisy. Biden’s electoral victory brought no real change other than him being an alternative to Donald Trump, whose belligerence can at least be credited with exposing US diplomatic double standards. Trump’s overt concessions to Israel, alarming as they were due to their swift approval, were the culmination of decades of covert US diplomacy.
Biden’s promise to revert to the two-state paradigm, defunct though it is, has been particularly problematic for Palestinians due to it being just a veneer for sticking to Trump’s damaging policies. Washington’s disappointment at Abbas’s words is undoubtedly feigned, and ignores its own dismal record when it comes to Palestine. How is sending billions of dollars in military aid to Israel every year conducive to bringing about an “independent and viable Palestinian state”? Or how does preserving Abbas’s presidency — his mandate expired in 2009 — to prevent a democratically-elected alternative from entering Palestine’s political arena, help democracy and the aforementioned Palestinian state? The PA and Abbas might distrust the US, but both depend on Washington for their survival.
The US commitment to the so-called Abraham Accords is gaining ground internationally, eclipsing a defunct paradigm which Biden claims to support. Russia is within the fold of international consensus regarding the two-state compromise, even when it is clear that decolonisation is essential for the political aspirations of the Palestinian people. The PA stands in the way of decolonisation by begging the international community to keep the two-state “solution” alive.
Abbas cannot be taken seriously in anything he says or does; his leadership is tied to international donors and Israel’s colonial expansion. Nevertheless, the mere possibility that the US might lose its prominence in terms of involvement with Palestine deservers to gain traction, particularly if Fatah loses its iron grip on Palestinian politics and the people of occupied Palestine get the chance to experience a democratically-elected government which thrives less on hyperbole and more on the Palestinians’ own narrative.
US envoy for Iran: Reviving JCPOA ‘not even on agenda’
Press TV – October 18, 2022
The US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, has acknowledged that negotiations on a revival of the 2015 Iran deal are “not even on the agenda” for now, trying to shift the blame on Tehran for the stalled diplomatic process.
Malley, in an interview with CNN on Monday, accused the Islamic Republic of not being interested in restoring the deal and claimed that the administration of US President Joe Biden believed diplomacy was the best way to prevent Iran from what he called “acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
“President Biden made it clear from the first day he came into office that one of his priorities was to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And he believes and we continue to believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal,” Malley told CNN.
He referred to the latest remarks by the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, that he did not expect any movement anytime soon in efforts to revitalize the Iran deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), accusing Tehran of raising issues that were “inconsistent” with a return to the deal.
Iran has demanded that the United States provide assurances that it would not leave the JCPOA again before it could reenter the agreement. Washington has refused to give a legally enforceable guarantee, leaving Iranian negotiators suspicious of the Biden administration’s seriousness in the talks.
“The reason the talks are at a standstill and at an impasse and why they’re not so far moving at all and why they’re not the focus is because Iran has taken a position in those talks for the past two months which is simply inconsistent with a return to the deal; they’re making demands that have nothing to do with the JCPOA and as long as that’s the case, the talks will be stopped,” Malley claimed.
Asked about the fate of negotiations on the JCPOA’s revival, Malley said, “It’s not even on the agenda. It’s not the focus because there’s no movement… We will see whether this is a government that is interested in reaching that deal. But at this point, the focus is on what’s happening around because the talks are stalled.”
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing on Monday that the JCPOA-related talks may be fatally stalled, saying, “We don’t see a deal coming together anytime soon.”
Last week, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani reaffirmed the Islamic Republic’s commitment to keeping up the talks aimed at reaching an agreement on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s approach is to remain in the course of negotiations so as to reach a lasting and sustainable agreement that would simultaneously guarantee the fundamental interests of the government as well as those of the Iranian nation,” Kan’ani told reporters.
Kan’ani said the three EU parties to the deal – France, Britain and Germany – and the United States have linked the talks to the latest violent riots in Iran, asserting that Tehran will not allow other states to interfere in its domestic affairs.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also made clear that Tehran is ready for bilateral interaction with all parties so that the negotiations would come to fruition.
The current crisis over Iran’s nuclear program was created in May 2018, when former US president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed tough economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic under what he called the “maximum pressure” policy.
The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April last year, months after Biden succeeded Trump, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
Despite notable progress, the US indecisiveness and procrastination have caused multiple interruptions in the marathon talks.
Tehran breaching nuclear deal with drone supplies to Russia – US
Samizdat | October 18, 2022
The US on Monday accused Iran of breaching the conditions of the 2015 nuclear deal with the West by selling ‘kamikaze’ drones to Russia. Moscow stated that it is only using “Russian hardware.”
Russia has used autonomous loitering munitions to devastating effect in its attacks on Ukrainian military and energy infrastructure in recent weeks. Flying at low altitude, these unmanned aircraft can evade traditional air defense systems before dive bombing their targets, and are rumored to cost a fraction of the price of the missiles Kiev’s forces fire to intercept them.
The distinctive delta-wing design of the drones has led Ukrainian and Western officials to claim that they are Iranian Shahed-136 UAVs.
“Earlier today our French and British allies publicly offered the assessment that Iran’s supply of these UAVs [to] Russia is a violation of UN Security Council resolution 2231,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on Monday. “This is something that we agree with.”
Adopted in 2015, Security Council resolution 2231 sets out the terms of Iran’s nuclear deal with the US, UK, China, France, Germany and Russia, in which it agreed to restrict its nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief. The resolution includes embargoes on Iranian arms exports, and although the US unilaterally pulled out of the deal in 2018, Washington argues that an embargo on missile parts covers drone exports, and is valid until 2023.
Tehran has denied providing arms to either side of the conflict in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that he had received “no information” concerning the alleged use of Iranian drones in Ukraine.
“Russian hardware is being used,” he said, adding: “you know it well. It has Russian designations.”
Photographs of wreckage from blast sites in Ukraine show the drones bearing the Russian designation ‘Geran-2’, allegedly a localized version of the Shahed-136.
Russia’s use of the so-called ‘kamikaze’ drones has sparked panic in Ukraine, with video footage showing troops desperately firing at them with small arms. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has argued that Ukraine needs newer and more advanced air defense weapons from the West to counter the threat, although the Pentagon has no effective method of defending against these drones at present.
Featured Video
Iran Blockade Complications
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Pirates of Mediterranean: Israel does as it pleases in the Sea of Three Continents
- Minab children massacre not ‘unfortunate situation’ but ‘heinous war crime’: Tehran
- OPCW Forced To Pay Damages To Whistleblower Who Found Evidence Of False Flag In Syria
- Iran can thrive under blockade, the US and its allies cannot
- Iran slams US leadership, debunking fabrications, false war costs
- Here’s why Iran is sovereign and Germany is not
- Israel pours $730m into global propaganda machine as reputation collapses
- Leaked audios reveal pro-Israel groups ‘paid’ for US pardon of convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernandez
- Congress Extends Section 702 Spy Program 45 Days
- Zionists Are Gunning for Your Freedom of Speech
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 32 Across S Lebanon, Including Children – Amid “Ceasefire”
- Israel to pour $730m into propaganda arm amid reputational crisis
- Real Cost of Iran War Likely Double the $25 Billion Figure the Pentagon Gave to Congress
- Israel conducts farthest-ever strike in long history of attacks on Gaza humanitarian aid flotillas
- In Gaza, Israel commits 10+ ceasefire violations a day – Daily Update
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
- Israel’s top Jewish religious body ‘refuses to condemn’ smashing of Jesus statue
- Nun assaulted in Jerusalem amid ‘pattern’ of anti-Christian attacks by Israelis
- Former Tik Tok official describes massive pressure from Israel lobby
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
Aletho News 