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This is another Iraqi WMD moment. We are being gaslit

By Jonathan Cook | October 18, 2023

Let’s say it again: The BIGGEST fake news comes from the establishment media. When the stakes are high, it barely bothers to hide its role as mouthpiece for Western propaganda.

This is another Iraqi WMD moment. We are being gaslit. Believe your eyes and ears, and the laws of physics, not the lies being peddled by our leaders and media about last night’s missile strike on the Baptist hospital in Gaza:

1. No Palestinian group has a rocket that can hit a hospital, killing hundreds. What they have are glorified fireworks that can cause minor damage and the occasional death or two. If Hamas or Islamic Jihad could cause the kind of damage that happened last night, you would hear about it happening in Tel Aviv or Ashkelon too. You don’t, because they can’t.

2. Israel’s apologists (and there are lots of them) are sharing all sorts of videos unrelated to the hospital strike. But the video of the strike itself shows that an incredibly large and powerful weapon is used. Listen to the noise the missile makes just before the hit – that whooshing noise is caused by its phenomenal velocity as it cuts through the air. That is not the noise of a falling Palestinian rocket.

If you watch videos being shared of Palestinian rockets being fired, notice how slowly they travel. Almost at a snail’s pace. If they fail, they drop at free-fall speed, not the near-supersonic speed of the missile that hit the hospital. To think otherwise is to misunderstand the laws of physics.

3. Israel’s apologists are trying to further muddy the waters by suggesting that either a Palestinian rocket fell, or was intercepted, and the rocket or fragments of it hit a very large ammo dump in the hospital. Let’s just accept the racist premise that hundreds of families were quite happy to seek safety next to a huge stash of explosives in the middle of a relentless Israeli bombing campaign. Let’s also accept the fantastical idea that a falling glorified firework or fragment of it could penetrate the hospital’s strong walls and set off such an explosion. If all this was true, you would still see a series of secondary explosions as the arms were detonated by the initial explosion. You don’t because there is only one explosion – from an enormous missile.

4. It’s a desperate psyop, so Israel has now released a recording of two Hamas militants conveniently having a chat after the missile strike, discussing whether they or Islamic Jihad did it. This is the same Israel that did not detect months of planning by Hamas that was needed to organise its breakout 10 days ago. But Israel got lucky this time, it seems, and just happened to be listening in when Huey and Louie decided to self-incriminate.

Remember Israel has a whole unit of ‘mistaravim’, Israeli Jewish undercover agents trained to pose as Palestinians and secretly operate among Palestinians. Israel produced a highly popular TV series about such people, set in Gaza, called Fauda. You have to be beyond credulous to think that Israel couldn’t, and wouldn’t, rig up a call like this to fool us, just as it regularly fools Palestinians in Gaza.

Most of the people spreading these lies know they are lies, including the media, and most especially the Middle East and defence correspondents. At least a few, like the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen and Jon Donnison, are trying cautiously to suggest it’s unlikely a Hamas rocket could cause damage on the scale seen at the Gaza hospital. But it’s not unlikely. It’s impossible, and they know it. They just don’t dare say it.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 3 Comments

Russia’s Questions on US Military Biological Program in Ukraine Remain Unanswered

Sputnik – 18.10.2023

UNITED NATIONS – The questions posed by Russia to the United States and Ukraine about their military biological program remain unanswered and need to be addressed, Russian Foreign Ministry Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department Deputy Director Kosntantin Vorontsov stated on Wednesday.

“Our well-founded questions to the US and Ukraine have yet to receive a proper response. They remain open and need to be addressed,” Vorontsov stressed during a meeting of the UN General Assembly First Committee.

Vorontsov pointed out that Russia has provided a “mass of evidence” regarding the US military biological program and emphasized that the facts regarding its implementation in Ukraine with the support of the Defense Department and affiliated entities requires close attention.

“The projects carried out in Ukrainian laboratories lead to the conclusion that biological weapons components were being developed in close proximity to Russian territory,” Vorontsov emphasized.

Since March 2022, Russia has repeatedly accused the United States of conducting in Ukraine biological research for military purposes. Russia has pointed out that up to 30 biological laboratories in Ukraine were likely involved in biological weapons production. The United States has denied the allegation.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Former ambassador and Assange advocate Craig Murray detained under UK terror laws

By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · October 17, 2023

On the morning of October 16, counter-terror police in Glasgow Airport detained journalist, whistleblower, human rights campaigner, and former British diplomat Craig Murray upon his return from Iceland. After grilling him intensively about his political beliefs, officers seized Murray’s phone and laptop.

Murray, a proud Scottish nationalist, flew back to Glasgow after several days in Reykjavik, where he attended a popular Palestine solidarity event, and also met with high-ranking representatives of the Assange Campaign, which raises awareness about the plight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Once his travel documents were processed at passport control, the officer informed him he would be detained for questioning. They then led him to a small backroom to be grilled by three nameless British counter-terror agents.

Murray told The Grayzone that British police warned him he would be committing a criminal offense and would be prosecuted if he refused to answer questions, answered untruthfully, deliberately withheld information, or refused to provide passcodes for his electronic devices. After his phone and laptop were seized for analysis, the interrogation began.

“First, they grilled me about the private Assange Campaign meeting,” Murray told The Grayzone. “You might think they would ask who was there, but they didn’t,” he said, adding, “my guess is they somehow knew already.”

Instead, “all the questions were financial,” Murray says. According to the former British ambassador, officers wanted to know “whether I get money for my contributions to the Campaign, if I get paid by WikiLeaks, Don’t Extradite Assange, even Julian’s family.”

“The answer each time was ‘no,’” Murray says, explaining: “My sources of income and where my money comes from were of particular interest to the officers.”

The one-time diplomat’s popular personal blog was also of interest to the officers, who reportedly demanded Murray tell them whether anyone else had access to it or could publish content on the platform, and if anyone other than himself authored any of its posts.

Strangely, Murray said he was not asked about a single article published on his website. Equally puzzling, he remarked, were the questions about the Palestine solidarity event he attended.

Officers apparently wanted to know why Murray had attended in the first place — “a strange question to ask of someone attending a protest,” he told The Grayzone. Nonetheless, he made it clear that he had gone because he was friends with one of the speakers, a former Icelandic interior minister.

Police reportedly also demanded details on the content of various speakers’ addresses at the event — information which Murray says he could not offer as he doesn’t speak Icelandic. When asked if he planned to attend any similar pro-Palestine events in Britain, he told them, “probably.”

“The weirdest question was, ‘how do I judge whether to share a platform with someone or not?’” Murray says, adding: “I do so based on who’s organizing the event.”

In this particular case, Murray continued, “it was [the] Palestine Solidarity Committee, so I was confident I was in safe hands.” Still, it struck the former ambassador as a bizarre line of questioning.

“My lawyer has never heard of such a question being asked during interrogations before,” Murray said, adding that “they speculate police have a surveillance photo of me in the proximity of someone they consider a ‘terrorist.’”

“I’ve no idea who that could be,” the outspoken human rights campaigner admitted. But, as he quickly observed: “If you attend a rally where 200,000 people are present, you can’t know who everyone is!”

Murray has since consulted with lawyers, who informed him that according to Section 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act — the draconian legislation under which he was subjected to the intensive questioning — he would be legally entitled to consult a lawyer if the interrogation lasted longer than an hour.

‘A sledgehammer to crack a nut’

Once the hour of questioning was up, the officers sent him on his way, but failed to return his phone or laptop. “I’m used to the idea of British and American spies having my computers,” Murray said.

On a trip to Germany at the end of 2022, two laptops belonging to Murray were stolen in separate locations. The second laptop happened to have been a locally-bought replacement for the first. He believes the thefts were “probably” carried out by “security services,” an interpretation reinforced by the fact the first laptop was stored in a bag containing a large sum of cash, along with vital heart medicine. The culprits inexplicably ignored the former, while pocketing the latter.

When probed by counter-terror cops about the contents of his laptop, Murray says he openly disclosed that device contained copies of leaked private emails of Stewart McDonald, a hawkish, deep state-connected Scottish National Party.

But “I’m not worried about any content on there,” he explained, so “it’s not a problem they have it.”

“I told the officers I pitied whichever poor bastard has to wade through McDonald’s emails,” he joked.

“Interestingly,” Murray notes, “one of them volunteered in response that the contents of seized digital devices are sifted electronically, rather than an individual going over the whole contents.”

“Presumably, algorithms run by keyword searches do the legwork, and whatever that throws up is studied and shared with different agencies,” he speculates.

Murray’s lawyers are now looking into the stop, with an eye on whether his interrogators told him the truth before his questioning began.

This April, British counter-terror police detained the French publisher and political activist Ernest Moret, who had led large protests in Paris against the neoliberal reforms of President Emmanuel Macron. Moret was detained under the same powers as Murray, then arrested when he refused to hand over passcodes to his electronic devices. He was ultimately held in British custody for almost 24 hours.

In July, a damning report by Britain’s terror legislation watchdog concluded the officers who detained Moret had made “exaggerated and overbearing” threats when they claimed that he would never again be able to travel overseas if he didn’t disclose information, as he’d be listed as a terrorist in international intelligence databases. The report also found police grilled him illegitimately regarding legally privileged conversations he had with his lawyer during the interrogation.

Schedule 7 is “powerful” and “must therefore be exercised with due care,” the reviewer said, before ultimately comparing police’s usage of the legislation to interrogate Moret to “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”:

“This was an investigation into public order for which counter-terrorism powers were never intended to be used,” the report noted, concluding “the rights of free expression and protest are too important in a democracy to allow individuals to be investigated for potential terrorism merely because they may have been involved in protests that have turned violent.”

But when it comes to carrying out political detentions, the legislation in question is not the only one in British officers’ arsenal.

Absent from the report was any reference to Schedule 3, Section 4 of Britain’s 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which was used to authorize the detention of this journalist at London’s Luton Airport this May. The provision grants authorities sweeping powers to delve into the personal and professional affairs of dissidents. According to Murray, British counter-terror cops appear to have approached him using “the same playbook” they employed with me.

Under the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which has been harshly criticized by the UN, an individual can be said to be serving “hostile” foreign powers without even knowing or intending to — or the powers in question being aware they are. This Orwellian precept was reinforced by London’s new National Security Act, which was passed in July 2023.

Anyone who has agitated the British national security state and plans on traveling to the UK may want to be careful what they keep on their devices. As one of Ernest Moret’s interrogators boasted to him, Britain is “the only country where authorities can download and keep information from private devices” forever.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Canadian Government Wants To Boost Opinion Monitoring, Under The Guise of Reducing “Misinformation”

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 18, 2023

The Canadian Department of Heritage appears to be aligning itself with a potentially alarming stance, according to a recent write-up by Blacklock’s Reporter. Liberals within the administration have expressed the need for a significant boost in funds to target what they deem as “incorrect” political perspectives. This request is centered around the Digital Citizen Initiative (DCI), a program set into motion by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in 2018 under the tagline of combating online disinformation to aid democracy and social inclusion.

The DCI appears to outstretch its reach. The program puts forth that its resources are insufficient and demands more financial backing. It claims that disinformation right now poses extensive damaging potential, affecting Canadians’ health, safety, political beliefs, trust in media, and their civic and democratic engagement. However, upon raising these grave concerns, it offers no substantial evidence or instances to back them up.

This widening net also engulfs various societal groups, claiming that disinformation creates an environment rife with discrimination, stigma, and marginalization, possibly fueling social divisions. Groups like people with lower digital competency and those from minority backgrounds, it maintains, might be susceptible to this so-called disinformation campaign.

In response, Canada’s government granted DCI $7.5 million for two years, intending to fund activities centered around digital, news, and civic literacy.

But the appetite of DCI seems insatiable. An additional $19.4 million was given to DCI and the Digital Citizen Contribution Program (DCCP) for research correlated with the government’s aim of understanding, tackling, and revisiting online misinformation.

Several key universities, non-profit organizations, and policy forums, amongst other institutions, across Canada have been the beneficiaries of DCI’s grants.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Russia and China Lead Multipolar Development as US Pours Fuel on Israeli Fire

By James Tweedie – Sputnik – 18.10.2023

The US is fuelling wars and massacres, while the BRICS nations’ quest for mutual peace and prosperity, peace activist and writer KJ Noh said.

Visiting Israel on Wedneday, US President Joe Biden pledged unqualified support to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s operation in the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, in revenge for attacks launched by the Hamas movement and others on October 7.

Biden even endorsed Netanyahu’s claim that Palestinian guerrillas were to blame for the bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist Baptist hospital in Gaza on Wednesday evening that killed some 500 men, women and children.

Peace activist and writer KJ Noh told Sputnik that the “optics are very, very striking” — comparing Washington’s handouts of arms to its client states to China’s building of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) tri-continental transport and trade network.

“Right at the very moment that China is building infrastructure and saving lives all over the world through the BRI, the US is planning to assist Israel in destroying infrastructure and cause death,” Noh said. “The contrast could not be more clear.”

“[Russian President Valdimir] Putin goes to the BRI and Biden goes to Israel. I think that it’s very, very clear,” he added.

The activist said “the writing is on the wall” for the West’s vision of a unipolar world — and had been for a long time.

“All you had to do was just look at the correlation of forces to see that this was not going to shift or change,” Noh said. “And clearly Russia is now on the offensive.”

He also drew a sharp contrast between the “lack of civilian casualties” in Russia’s 20-month military operation to de-nazify Ukraine and the 3,500 Palestinians killed in Israel’s “massive shelling, bombing, murder of children that has happened in recent days in Gaza.”

“That, too, is another contrast, just the kind of the difference between [a special military operation] and wanton slaughter of people who are encaged in the world’s largest open air prison.”

The US shows hits hypocrisy by painting Russia and China as authoritarian dictatorships and threats to its self-defined “rules-based international order” while giving free reign to Israel to flout the United Nations charter, he said.

“International law says that the occupation is illegal, and certainly international law says that war of aggression against civilians is illegal,” Noh said. “Turning Gaza into a free fire zone is a crime against humanity… and the fact that China is coming out against that somehow goes against global norms, that it’s authoritarian — this is the world upside down.”

“Gaza is a real mask-off moment where you see the ‘rules-based international order’ for the unmitigated and naked violence and injustice that it really is,” he added.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | 1 Comment

From Deir Yassin to Al-Ahli Hospital: Israel’s legacy of killing Palestinians

By Nasim Ahmed | MEMO | October 18, 2023

Israel’s propaganda machine has begun to work overtime to convince the world of the occupation state’s innocence in the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital yesterday. Complicit in the destruction of Gaza, Western leaders aided by the media have also started to work round the clock to dutifully parrot the lies, amplifying the fog of war. US President Joe Biden, who was the first Western leader to repeat the gruesome Israeli lie about 40 beheaded babies, dutifully trumpeted the Israeli narrative that a misfired Hamas rocket killed 500 people.

The playbook is all too familiar. First blanket denial. Then blame militants. As the truth emerges, Israelis cry “mistake”, “just an accident”. When that fails to quell public outrage and people demand accountability, Israel shouts anti-Semitism. And when all else fails, critics are denounced as Nazis and fascists in their twisted narrative. This course has been charted before. The same smokescreens used to obscure the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh are being deployed once again.

We don’t require a forensic investigation – though one should be carried out by an independent body – to hold Israel responsible for the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. Israel has been openly pre-justifying hospital bombing and school bombing before launching its military campaign. It’s been pre-justifying war crimes, declaring with no fear of accountability that it will impose collective punishment by denying Gazans electricity, water and food.

Israel’s denial is not credible, because the occupation state has a long history of committing atrocities and massacres against Palestinians. For decades, the brutal realities of massacres were suppressed, details buried. But slowly they came to light – stories of indiscriminate slaughter, rape, torture and exile, of defenceless civilians. The brutal details of these killings have been revealed over the course of time. Fortunately, in the world of social media, lies and propaganda are harder to conceal. While Israel still tries desperately to control the narrative, Palestinian voices now ring out louder. Their stories and images expose Israeli lies in real-time.

A cursory glance at history shows how mass killing of Palestinians was a strategy employed by Zionist military groups to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Israel’s potential ground offensive in Gaza raises a chilling prospect – mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing, repeating the dark tactics of the past.

One of the earliest and most notorious was the massacre at the Palestinian village Deir Yassin in 1948. As many as 250 people including men, women, children and the elderly are said to have been killed. The aim of the atrocity was to sow terror and fear to force Palestinians to flee. Some 750,000 Palestinian, three-quarters of the population, fled because of the terror campaign unleashed by the Israelis.

A month after Deir Yassin, Israeli forces slaughtered up to 200 Palestinians in the coastal village of Tantura. It was part of a ruthless ethnic cleansing campaign – Plan Dalet – to seize territory for a future Jewish state. Tantura was one of 64 Palestinian villages lining the road between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Once thriving coastal communities, all were wiped off the map – except two. The inhabitants were expelled en masse, joining the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands in 1948.

Israel’s seemingly never-ending drive to uproot Palestinians from their homes by force of arms and threat of imminent slaughter resulted in another massacre on 29 October 1956 in the village of Kafr Qasem, on the Israeli side of the 1949 Armistice (“Green”) Line. Soldiers went door-to-door, spraying homes with gunfire. Forty-nine residents were massacred in under an hour – men, women, children gunned down in cold blood. The violence was calculated, intended to stoke terror, make Palestinians flee for their lives.

According to Palestinian historians, the massacre at Kafr Qasem mirrored the typical Israeli blueprint of terrorising Palestinians into fleeing. In his book Atlas of Palestine (1917-1966), Dr Salman Abu Sitta lists at least 232 places where atrocities, massacres, destruction, plunder and looting were carried out by the Zionists between 1947 and 1956. Almost every one of 30 military operations were accompanied by one or two massacres of civilians. There were at least 77 reported massacres, half of which took place before any Arab regular soldier set foot in Palestine during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.

Decades of Israeli occupation birthed countless atrocities against Palestinians, including horrors beyond their borders. In 1982, the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon became a brutal killing field. Christian militia, unleashed into the camps under Israeli protection, went on a 38-hour rampage. They slaughtered over 3,000 Palestinian civilians in cold blood. Rape, mutilation and torture preceded endless executions. Parents saw their children die before facing the same fate.

Israel denied direct blame, but its fingerprints were everywhere. They lit up the camps at night to aid the killers. They prevented desperate victims from fleeing. UN resolutions declared Israel complicit in an act of genocide. Then Defence Minister Ariel Sharon, found personally responsible for enabling the bloodbath, faced no real consequences. The victims saw no justice. It was one of countless episodes of Israeli leaders incubating anti-Palestinian violence with impunity.

Israel’s violence against Palestinians extends far beyond isolated massacres. Thousands have been killed over decades to maintain Israel’s illegal occupation.

Past Gaza assaults bear names now synonymous with death – Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 left 1,400 Palestinians dead. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 killed 2,251 more. These attacks came on the heels of countless other operations, each leaving hundreds dead and thousands more wounded.

The onslaught did not cease. During the 2019 Great March of Return, Israeli snipers gunned down 267 unarmed protesters. Over 30,000 more suffered critical injuries. Children and medics were not spared.

With the fog of war descending once more as Israel’s propaganda machine lurches into motion, fabricating myths to shield the truth, following the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital, while Western leaders and media obediently amplify Israel’s distortions, muddying reality, let’s not forget Israel’s legacy of killing and massacres.

Just as in the past the truth will not be buried under this avalanche of deception. People around the world see through the web of lies, and recognise the regime’s brutality laid bare. The stories of those shelled while seeking care at Al-Ahli cannot be erased.

Israel’s desperate myths may multiply, but the blood-drenched reality remains. The propaganda will not whisk away the war crimes, nor inoculate Israel from accountability.

Nasimbythedocks

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

40 Palestinians massacred in Jabaliya, Khan Yunis

MEMO | October 18, 2023

The Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Gaza said that the occupation forces committed a new massacre in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 37 Palestinians.

The ministry said that occupation forces bombed Palestinian homes in the areas of Al-Qasasib and Halima Al-Saadia in the town of Jabaliya, north of the Gaza Strip.

In Khan Yunis, the occupation targeted a flat in the Japanese neighbourhood with missiles. There were families who fled bombing from several areas in the flat, with three people killed, including a child.

This new massacre comes hours after the Baptist Hospital massacre, in which more than 500 martyrs were killed and more than 1,000 were seriously wounded. The occupation bombed the hospital where hundreds of Palestinian families had sought refuge.

The Israeli occupation has committed 394 massacres against Palestinian families since the start of the aggression against the Gaza Strip on 7 October, with the death toll reaching about 3,000, with 12,500 Palestinians wounded. The number of martyred children rose to over 1,000, and female martyrs to 1,032.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Conscience of humanity shaken by targeting of civilians in Gaza: Pakistani envoy

Press TV | October 18, 2023

The Israeli regime’s “deliberate, indiscriminate and disproportionate” targeting of civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip goes against all norms of civility and violates international law, says Pakistani ambassador to Tehran.

In an interview with the Press TV website on Tuesday, hours before an Israeli air raid on a Gaza hospital killed more than 700 Palestinians, Muhammad Mudassir Tipu said the “conscience of humanity has been shaken” by the unrelenting massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“The conscience of humanity has been shaken by watching innocent civilians, children, older people, pregnant woman being killed; buildings being razed to ground; water and electricity being cut off; massive blockades; and the use of massive ammunition by the Israeli military forces,” he stated.

“That is why people are showing solidarity with the Palestinians, who are symbolizing their struggle for justice, all over the world.”

Demonstrations have been held worldwide in recent days in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine amid the new wave of Israeli genocidal bombardment of the besieged coastal strip.

One of the biggest demonstrations was held in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, where tens of thousands took to the streets following a call given by a local political party with the support of trade unions.

Tipu said the “sense of righteousness is deeply ingrained in the minds” of the people in Pakistan.

“We stand for those principles that are morally justified and right rather than the ones propagated for political and hegemonic ambitions. Pakistanis also believe in the equal application of international law and norms rather than using one set of laws for one country and another set of laws for another country,” he remarked in a conversation with the Press TV website.

“We can’t have double standards and false moral equivalences to justify unjustifiable and illegitimate positions,” the Pakistani envoy hastened to add.

The death toll in the Israeli aerial bombardment in the Gaza Strip has risen to 3,000, including at least 700 children, with tens of thousands of others displaced after the Israeli evacuation orders.

The Pakistani ambassador said massive pro-Palestine demonstrations must be seen in the context of years of forced and illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and repressive policies against its people.

“Our cause resonates with the cause of the hapless Palestinians who are facing unspeakable brutality and massive use of force on the civilians as well as an overwhelming use of military might over its innocent people,” he asserted.

Tipu also “appreciated” the role of the Iranian leadership in “standing up for the oppressed people of Palestine and making resolute efforts to halt and reverse the conflict in Gaza consistent with international norms.”

“The great Iranian leadership has also unambiguously urged for a just resolution of this historic injustice,” he remarked, adding that the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Iran had a phone conversation on Monday in which they “discussed this grave situation” in Palestine.

On Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar’s statement on Saturday that the Israeli aggression in the Gaza strip should be seen in the context of years of illegal Israeli occupation, the Pakistani envoy said he “clearly and unambiguously outlined Pakistan’s position on this crisis.”

He also dismissed any speculation about Pakistan mulling normalization with the Israeli regime.

“Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Mr. Jalil Abbas Jilani has categorically articulated that “there is absolutely no move to recognize Israel. Our position is very clear. We take decisions based on our interests and the interests of the Palestinians,” he told the Press TV website.

“I must emphasize that Pakistan is a sovereign country, with enormous capabilities, and would always take decisions of vital importance independently.”

He hastened to note that Islamabad “wishes to seek a just resolution” of the issue of Palestine so that “regional peace, development, and growth can take place and a sense of equity and justice prevails.”

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden whitewashes Israel’s slaughter of Gazans during Netanyahu meeting

(Photo Credit: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
The Cradle | October 18, 2023

US President Joe Biden landed in Israel on the morning of 18 October and held talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just hours after the Israeli army massacred hundreds of civilians in Gaza during an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

“I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. Based on what I’ve seen, it appears it was done by the other team, and not you,” Biden told Netanyahu, promoting the Israeli narrative that the hospital was demolished by an “errant rocket strike” from a resistance faction.

Biden did not provide any evidence to support his assessment and followed up his comment: “There are a lot of people out there who are not sure.”

“Israel has a value set like the United States does and other democracies, and they’re looking to see what we’re going to do. I am looking forward to having a thorough discussion about where everyone goes from here,” the US president added.

For his part, Netanyahu said the “civilized world must unite to defeat Hamas.” The forces of civilization will prevail for our sake, for your sake…and for the sake of peace and security,” he added.

The two western leaders did not answer any questions from the press. Biden is set to meet with the Israeli war cabinet to “seek a sense of Israel’s plans and objectives in the days and weeks ahead,” a White House official highlighted on Tuesday.

The US president also expected to meet with the Jordanian, Egyptian, and Palestinian heads of state in Amman, but Jordan canceled the summit at the last minute following the massacre committed at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.

“There is no point in doing anything at this time other than stopping this war. There is no benefit to anyone in holding a summit at this time,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said.

“This was the most advertised crime in history. It was a massacre by appointment. The Israeli government has been openly saying it was going to target hospitals for the last week, and the world just stood by and did nothing,” Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who was working in Al-Ahli Arab Hospital when Israel attacked it, told Al Jazeera.

Palestinian media reported that the hospital housed over a thousand people. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said women, children, medical staff, and “internally displaced people seeking safe shelter” were all killed during the attack.

At least 500 bodies have been identified so far, all of them civilians.

As Biden throws his full support behind Israel, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 3,300. The besieged enclave has also lost all access to drinking water, food, fuel, and electricity as Israel is blocking humanitarian aid deliveries.

His first trip to Israel this year comes as the Pentagon has deployed multiple warships and thousands of troops to Israeli waters in anticipation of a regional war. Resistance factions in the region called for a “day of rage” against the US and Israel on Wednesday.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

Russia Says ‘Masks Are Off’ After US Vetoes UNSC Resolution on Israel-Palestine Ceasefire

Sputnik – 18.10.2023

UNITED NATIONS – The United States showed its true intentions when it vetoed the UN Security Council resolution seeking a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said on Wednesday.

“The masks are off. No matter how hard the Americans tried to appear as peacekeepers, they ultimately failed. A huge foreign policy failure for Washington,” Polyanskiy stressed.

Earlier in the day, the US vetoed a Brazilian-drafted UN Security Council resolution that calls on Israel to rescind its evacuation order for Gazans.
Russia and the United Kingdom abstained.

Russia sought to amend the draft resolution to include a condemnation of “indiscriminate attacks” against civilians in Gaza, “in particular heinous strike against al-Ahli hospital,” and also to include a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The UN Security Council rejected both proposed amendments.

On Monday, the UN Security Council rejected a Russian-drafted resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Palestine-Israel conflict.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who’s to blame for the massacre at Gaza’s Baptist Hospital?

MEMO | October 18, 2023

Since Al-Ahli Baptist Church was struck yesterday evening and over 500 people were killed, social media has been abuzz with claims of who carried out this war crime. For Palestinians and reporters with knowledge of Israel’s rules of law – or lack there of – the answer was obvious; Israel hit the hospital. While officials in Tel Aviv first acknowledged the strike as an Israeli attack, they then backtracked and blamed the Palestinian resistance. However reporters covering the ongoing assault on Gaza and the resistance’s rocket fire into Israel have made it clear; the resistance’s rockets cause damage, they have been known to kill people, but they are not powerful enough to cause the amount of death and destruction caused by this one strike.

Looking through social media after the strike, a number of facts were clear to see. If Israel didn’t bomb the Gaza Baptist Hospital, why did the occupation army warn the Gaza Baptist Hospital to evacuate the premises before the bombing occurred?

Israel claims it didn’t hit the hospital, claiming a rocket being shot by Islamic Jihad misfired and caused the damage. To “prove” this, occupation forces have used a video which aired an hour before the strike – at 18:59 local time – when the strike took place around 19:50.

Israel’s newly appointed Digital Spokesperson Hananya Naftali then admitted that occupation forces bombed the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. The post has since been deleted.

Israel also deleted a video posted as “evidence” that the Palestinian resistance struck the hospital.

Meanwhile, the Western media prepared the world for the strike. With the BBC posting a question ‘Does Hamas build tunnels under hospitals and schools?’ a day earlier, in a manner that almost justifies Israel’s targeting of innocent civilians receiving treatment.

While the reporting of events following the massacre simply claimed that an “Israeli air strike killed hundreds of people at a Gaza hospital”, without condemnation of the obvious violations of international law and the possible war crimes once again committed by the occupation and it’s forces.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: UN Security Council sanctions on missile-related activities end

Press TV – October 18, 2023

The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced that the Islamic Republic, as of October 18, will no longer be subject to any restriction with regard to its ballistic missile-related activities and transfers by the United Nations Security Council.

The Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the entire restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile-related activities and its associated services and technology have “unconditionally” ended.

The termination came into force on October 18, eight years after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“As of today, 18 October 2023, the last part of unjustly imposed restrictions by the United Nations Security Council on missile-related activities and its associated services and technology to/from Islamic Republic of Iran, including asset freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, terminated unconditionally,” the statement said.

“According to the provisions of 2231 UNSC Resolution, termination of these restrictions, does not require any resolution, statement or any other action in the context of the UNSC and occurred automatically,” it added.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said cooperation in all military and defense areas would be carried out, without any restriction, based on the needs and discretion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, within the framework of bilateral contracts with other countries.

Pointing to the provisions of UNSCR 2231, the statement noted, “In accordance with paragraph 3 of Annex B, Iran is no longer ‘called upon’ by the Security Council ‘not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles.”

The Foreign Ministry said the Islamic Republic, by recalling the provisions of the UN charter, in particular article 25 as well as provisions of UNSCR 2231, emphasizes the commitments of all member states to effectuate the termination of the above-mentioned restrictions at the national level.

“Iran expects all States to modify and revise, in the case of existence, any relevant restriction or sanction, according to their domestic legal system,” it added.

The statement underlined that any measure, at the national or regional level, aiming at imposing sanctions or restrictions on defensive engagements and cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is in contradiction with the termination of restrictions of UNSCR 2231, and that Tehran reserves its right to take appropriate measures to secure its national interests.

“The defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been on the basis of domestic capabilities and capacities, and deeply rooted in resistance and power of Iranian Nation. Unconventional arms and weapons of mass destruction has no place in the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the statement said.

“Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to take necessary measures to strengthen its defense capabilities in order to protect its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity against any aggression and to counter the menace of terrorism in the region,” it added.

Stressing that the Iranian military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, are exclusively for self-defense, the statement said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to insist that all sanctions and restrictive measures introduced and applied against Iran, including those imposed under the pretext of its nuclear program, have been baseless, unjust and unlawful.”

Last month, the three European signatories to the JCPOA — the UK, Germany, and France — said they plan not to terminate their anti-Iran sanctions, including ballistic missile bans, arguing that Iran has been in non-compliance with the deal since 2019.

Iran halted some of its JCPOA commitments in 2019, a year after the US unilaterally walked out of the deal and after the EU failed to offer any compensation for the US withdrawal.

Iran said at the time the reduction of its commitments was in accordance with the deal, which allows parties to dishonor commitments should other parties do the same.

October 18, 2023 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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