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Israel has destroyed 380 mosques since 7 October

MEMO | January 12, 2024

The Israeli occupation army has destroyed 380 mosques and three churches in Gaza since the beginning of its aggression on 7 October, the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip revealed yesterday.

Earlier, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the death toll from the aggression on the territory had risen to 23,469 martyrs and 59,604 wounded.

The Ministry of Health stated that the occupation had committed ten massacres against families in the territory in the past 24 hours, resulting in 112 deaths and 194 injuries.

Since October, the occupation army has deliberately targeted mosques, churches, and historical sites in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to erase the religious, cultural, and heritage presence in the territory, and to conceal the historical evidence and Palestinian historical depth in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s well-oiled PR machine collapses

By Ali Choukeir | The Cradle | January 11, 2024

“Israel condemns South Africa’s decision to play advocate for the devil.”

“History will judge South Africa for its criminal complicity with the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and it will judge it without mercy.”

With these highly emotive words, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy lashed out at South Africa for filing a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the genocidal Israeli military assault that has killed more than 22,000 civilians in Gaza and injured tens of thousands more.

As the war in Gaza enters its fourth month, Israel faces challenges in shaping international public opinion despite its substantial Hasbara propaganda machine, and a significant budget allocated to ‘public diplomacy’ activities globally. Observers and researchers say the occupation state is losing the propaganda war, ceding its long-cultivated ‘victim’ image to one of a perpetrator of horrendous war crimes.

Hasbara is part of Israel’s ‘national security’

Following the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October aimed at targeting the occupation army’s Gaza Division and taking captives to advance a prisoner swap deal, Israel intensified its media and digital diplomacy efforts, alongside its military and security actions. Recognizing the importance of framing those events to shape public perception, Israel made every effort to construct unimpeachable narratives that cast the Palestinian resistance actions as ‘terrorism,’ both domestically and internationally. 

But faced with unprecedented levels of pro-Palestinian activism on social media and on the ground in the form of global protests, Israel and its western allies collaborated heavily on quashing those counter-narratives in order to create support for Tel Aviv’s military assault on Gaza. 

Greg Shupack’s book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, highlights three central frameworks that form the foundations of Israel’s narrative to the west: 

  1. Creating equal blame between both parties to the conflict.
  2. Framing ‘extremists’ as the main obstacle to peace efforts and undermining moderate voices.
  3. Emphasizing Israel’s right to ‘self-defense’ even in the face of unarmed protests, with little regard for Palestinian rights.

These frameworks essentially guide western mainstream media coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Though, additionally, Israel leverages historical claims to Palestinian land and anti-Semitism accusations to shape its narrative and appeal to western sympathy.

Several key Hasbara strategies were employed to impact the western media narrative following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood:

First, the tapping into the western conscience: Both at official and popular levels, this involves associating Hamas with ISIS (“The world defeated ISIS. The world will defeat Hamas”) and framing 7 October as Israel’s 9/11. This tactic aims to create an emotional connection by reducing what can be termed the ‘emotional gap.’ 

Second, falsifying facts and fabricating lies: This tactic plays a significant role, taking advantage of the ‘anchoring bias,’ which involves presenting a version of events that influences how subsequent information is perceived, such as the notorious allegation, now debunked, of 40 beheaded babies. Utilizing this strategy, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, for example, claimed that Hamas fighters have instructions on how to make chemical weapons.

Third, paid advertising and utilizing influencers: High profile social media figures like Elon Musk were flown into Israel for PR stunts while in a little over a week, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry ran 30 ads that have been seen over four million times on his platform X. 

Fourth, establishing the idea of cultural difference: By dehumanizing and ‘othering’ the Palestinians, Israel seeks to emphasize its unique connection to western civilization in West Asia. Statements by Israeli officials, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s use of the words “fighting human animals” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the civilized world to combat “barbarians,” contribute to this narrative. 

The information war shifts dramatically

It can be argued that Operation Al Aqsa Flood constituted a qualitative leap for the Palestinian cause in the media realm, based on the results reaped from massive global public interaction, inputs from global influencers, large demonstrations in many countries – all of which have slowly seeped into the corporate media coverage.

Despite the vast disparities between Palestinians and Israelis in terms of capabilities, technologies, material resources, and major media reach, social media became the great equalizer in this information war, making it increasingly difficult for establishment outlets to ignore the new global discourse on Palestinian developments and events. 

Equally important to Hasbara’s failings is the recognition of Palestinian performance and narrative in the information war:

Israelis are now forced to chase down their top allies to help salvage their narrative shortcomings, as in when President Herzog complained to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about defining Hamas as a terrorist organization. UPDAY, Europe’s largest news group, was revealed to have instructed its staff to prioritize the Israeli point of view, minimize coverage of Palestinian deaths, avoid pro-Palestinian headlines, and formulate comments by Israeli politicians in a way that dehumanizes their adversaries. These kinds of revelations have prompted audiences everywhere to read their media with a pinch of salt.

More instructive is the growing numbers of journalists and political figures who have left their organizations in protest of the enforced pro-Israel discourse, with prominent celebrities being sacked for public stances that favor the Palestinian perspective.

Western and Israeli media performances have diminished public trust in the Israeli and western narrative globally, particularly over wild, unsubstantiated allegations, all now proven false, that Hamas “beheaded 40 babies,” ran its operations from a command center under Shifa Hospital, and was in active pursuit of chemical weapons capabilities. US President Joe Biden’s quickly debunked endorsement of the claim that babies had been beheaded based on “photos he has seen,” also played a role in this shift.

Media professionals and politicians are also increasingly undermining the Israeli narrative by employing the term ‘genocide’ rather than ‘self-defense’ – largely because international organizations have now weighed in to provide facts and figures showing that Tel Aviv indiscriminately kills civilians, in greater numbers and with greater firepower than in any other conflict this century. 

They have even begun to undermine their own tired argument that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” as western political leaders rush to differentiate Netanyahu’s jingoistic right-wing coalition with the rest of Israel’s body politic, though that is mainly because they need to unseat the former in order to rehabilitate Israel’s post-war image.

In the meantime, the Palestinian narrative emphasizes resistance to Israel’s ongoing oppression, and has succeeded in contextualizing the events of 7 October as a justifiable resistance by Gaza, “the largest open-air prison in the world,” against 75 uninterrupted years of inhumane oppression – an oppression the world has come to intimately understand through three harrowing months of genocide on their X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook platforms. 

Because the mainstream media has had to – at least gratuitously – provide some balance to the biggest news story of the day, Palestinian historical context has seeped into the news, as seen in myriad interviews, such as with Palestine’s ambassador to Britain Husam Zomlot, which helped to extend public understanding beyond recent events.

Despite ferocious Israeli efforts to restrict the Palestinian narrative in western nations, pro-Palestine protests have grown unchecked, and hashtags like #StandWithPalestine continue to dominate social media platforms. The hashtag reached over 4.8 billion views, outpacing #StandWithIsrael on TikTok, even amid the many restrictions in play.

In attempting to gain and maintain global sympathy on the back of 7 October events, Israel’s disinformation and deceptive tactics through its global Hasbara apparatus has faced significant setbacks and backlashes, which may have been entirely avoided had it not chosen to blow Gaza to bits. 

The vicious murder and maiming of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women, children and refugees, in Tel Aviv’s almost gleeful rage-fest that followed Hamas’ operation, has permanently flipped Israel’s David vs Goliath narrative. And its collaborating western allies have suffered an equal blow in the social media realm, as all of Israel’s debunked storylines were parroted verbatim in major western capitals.

Gaza has undoubtedly thrust the Palestinian cause back into the global spotlight, gaining support at popular levels rarely seen globally, and increasing pressure on governments, NGOs, and media outlets to both acknowledge and address Israel’s ongoing genocide. 

Given the now obvious challenges Tel Aviv faces in achieving its stated military goals, even a nominal field victory for Netanyahu can no longer make up for the country’s Hasbara collapse. It is a national security disaster that more than matches a military loss. For Israel, this war was lost from the moment it dropped bombs on homes in the Gaza Strip.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Mr Biden, you are a war criminal

By Dr. Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt | MEMO | January 12, 2024

In case you forgot Joe Biden, you are the commander in chief and the president of the United States. You are responsible for the slaughter and mass atrocities in Gaza. More than 24,000 have been killed in three months and almost 60,000 have been injured; 8,000 more are missing. About two-thirds of those figures are made up of children and women. According to the WFP, 70 per cent of the population is starving and half of the physical infrastructure, housing, hospitals etc have been bombed to rubble. You have signed the death sentence of these innocent human beings. Israel’s leaders openly promote collective punishment and without any hesitation brutally attack hospitals, schools and UN facilities. Untreated sewage and overcrowding are leading to the rapid spread of disease, with the full support of the White House in Washington.

The consequences are that your country is sinking together with Israel and your friend the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Your country is isolated both diplomatically, politically and morally. Your support of the most intense bombing campaign in history is not only related to human rights, which you normally use as a weapon to coerce other countries, it is also undemocratic, goes against the Geneva Convention and is an attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing. South Africa has filed a case at the main judicial body for the United Nations, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Your country is not only complicit, but in real time Israel would not be able to commit genocide without your help.

Crimes against humanity

Let us take it one by one. The crimes against humanity include mass starvation and famine. The denial of water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies and food to the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the camp, ghetto, prison or whatever you prefer, is not only a war crime it is genocidal examples of aggravated war crimes explicitly prohibited by provisions of the 4th Geneva Convention on Belligerent Occupation. Israel as the Occupying Power does not enjoy any right of self-defence against an Occupied People and is under a pervasive duty to protect the civilian population under all circumstances. Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently said: “For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare.” It added: “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”

According to HRW: “Providing weapons that knowingly and significantly would contribute to unlawful attacks can make those providing them complicit in war crimes.” The same organisation has called for an arms embargo to be imposed on Israel to stop its unlawful attacks.

On 25 December 2023 the Times of Israel wrote that 245 US transport planes and 20 ships have delivered more than 10,000 tonnes of military aid. The Defence Ministry has made 40 billion shekels (almost $2.8 billion) in additional purchases from the US of armaments and military equipment since the start of the conflict.

According to Bloomberg, your country has sent “2,000 laser-guided Hellfire missiles that can be launched from Apache helicopters,” as well as an array of other mortars and ammo, including “36,000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition, 1,800 of the requested M141 bunker-buster munitions and at least 3,500 night-vision devices.” Approximately 92 per cent of Israel’s arms industry is either financed by or delivered from the US. These weapons are used to kill Palestinian refugees including women and children in an unprecedented manner. This is not all. Other sources note that Israel is using 155mm shells and 120mm mortar shells to strike both Lebanon and Gaza with white phosphorus. Your Administration has also provided intelligence and logistics help in order to expedite a smooth genocidal war against the Palestinians.

In addition, there are at least 15 US navy ships in the region, air surveillance, American drones over Gaza, fighter squadrons and thousands of troops to project US military strength in support of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank and as a deterrence against Israel’s neighbours.

Mr Biden. This is your legacy.

Your government cannot support a ceasefire in the UN Security Council in the unjust onslaught of the people in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In fact, there is no war. There is no self-defence. One of the best equipped armies in the world is committing attempted genocide by using a scorched-earth annihilation strategy. There is no real war taking place. There are some 300,000 soldiers against a small group of 30,000 guerilla fighters with light weapons. This cannot be described as a war. The biggest forced displacement in history of more than two million people, or more than 80 per cent of the total population, in the shortest span of time is the disaster that will taint your records for future historians.

Your unwavering support for the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv is undermining future references to human rights and democracy by your Administration. My guess is that the Orwellian Newspeak of ‘pauses’ instead of ceasefire and ‘no visa for violent and militant settlers’ from the West Bank (implicitly recognising the illegal settlements) are blatantly clear examples of the primitive hypocrisy coming out of the White House. It is easy to see that the attempt to mislead the world by claiming that the US is trying to moderate Israel’s brutal massacre against the Palestinian people is pure propaganda and spin. This is also the case with your government’s rebuke against the fascist ministers in Israel suggesting mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza.

May I remind you that Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the beginning of October aggressively tried to force Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Adullah to take in hundreds of thousand refugees. In December, your friend Netanyahu told members of the Likud party that Israel is “working to facilitate the so-called ‘voluntary migration’ of Gaza’s Palestinians.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, was interviewed by Kan Bet radio and claimed he had been contacted by “countries in Latin America and Africa that are willing to absorb refugees from the Gaza Strip.”

“We have to make it easier for Gazans to leave for other countries,” he said. “I’m talking about voluntary migration by Palestinians who want to leave.”

There is no existential threat against Israel from an enemy with no army, no air force, no navy, no state and almost no civilian infrastructure, this is indeed a combat between David and Goliath. As stressed by Jeremy Scahill from the Intercept, Mr Biden you have shown unwavering and staunch support for Israel over the past 50 years. The Palestinians do not have hundreds of nuclear weapons which are in the possession of the so-called Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Israel can burn Gaza and its people to the ground because the US facilitates it, politically and militarily. It does not have hundreds of nuclear weapons. Mr Biden, you have been defending Israel’s disproportionate use of force, collective punishment and brutal massacres in plural.

Your government is also supporting the more than 60,000 American settlers in the West Bank. They believe in the heroism of the terrorists and racists Baruch Goldstein and Meir Kahane, two American citizens whose followers are part of the Likud led government. They are seen as the prophets of the settler movement and the American fanatics who compose approximately 15 per cent of the total settler population in the occupied West Bank. In addition, there are about 100,000 US citizens in occupied East Jerusalem.

During the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, as Scahill notes, in public you Mr Biden were neutral, but in private you met with then Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, and it appears from Begin’s biography that your support for the brutality of the invasion even outstripped the Israeli standpoint. According to Begin’s account, you said you would go even further, even if that meant killing women and children. Israel’s former Ambassador to the United States from 2009-2013, Michael Oren, writes that in Israel’s alliance with America, the first principle was ‘no daylight’. The second, ‘no surprises’. The US and Israel always could disagree but never openly. This is the point as he says “we are an ultimate ally for the United States.”

When elected three years ago, after four years with Donald Trump, you said that you would promise to reclaim the mantle of global leadership as “a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress and security.” But now we see your real purpose as a full time promoter of apartheid in Israel and disaster in Gaza.

Israel’s violations of international law include collective punishment, an emerging famine and diseases due the restriction of food, water, medicine and fuel. It is unprecedented and is eroding all narratives about democracy and human rights. You are even violating US law. According to the US Foreign Assistance Act section 620I “No assistance shall be furnished to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance.”

Catholicism and terror

Mr Biden, you once referred to himself as “Israel’s best Catholic friend.” A friend who supported and supplied Israel with more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs which have been dropped on Gaza. According to reports in the New York Times, the Biden Administration is so committed to fuelling the carnage in Gaza that it has even invoked rare emergency powers for transferring tank ammunition without Congressional review. The arms shipment was put on an expedited track right after Washington vetoed a ceasefire proposal in the Security Council.

According to military historian Robert Pape: “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns,” comparable to the carpet bombing of German cities in World War II.

Mr Biden, you probably don’t care. One of your famous predecessors Eisenhower advocated “that the nation guard against the potential influence of the military–industrial complex.” This is interesting because it appears that your administration consists of the most right-wing neoconservatives in the history of the United States. Advisers and foreign policy “experts” who still believe the US is Master of the Universe.

Your Administration’s corporate ties illustrate your personal involvement as a warmonger. Your Secretary of Defence and comrade in arms, Lloyd J. Austin III, serves on the board of Raytheon, one of the world’s largest weapons makers while Blinken is affiliated with Pine Island Capital Partners, an investment firm which specialises in defence companies. Both companies have high stakes in delivering deadly weapons for the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.

The recent Memorandum on United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy (CAT) from 23 February 2023, states clearly: “The United States CAT Policy will bolster the security of allies and partners and contribute to shared security objectives; enhance global deterrence; promote respect for international humanitarian law and human rights; adhere to international nonproliferation norms; strengthen partnerships that preserve and extend our global influence. Hypocrisy is evident and the world is watching.”

Mr President, you and your government do not comply with international humanitarian law, but it also seems as though you do not uphold your own laws. This can be seen in the light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes. The brutal massacres with lethal support from you and your government have clearly shown that you are bereft of commitment to democratic principles. 153 nations demanded a ceasefire in a UN General Assembly vote and again you were isolated when voting against, with ten smaller countries including Israel and Austria. Security Council resolutions were met with a veto from you. It is shameful and shows that you are a war criminal directly supporting famine and genocide. Mr Biden, you, your government and Congress are enabling these annihilations.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Goes to Court for the Crime of Genocide

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JANUARY 12, 2024

A friend of mine who follows international developments closely recently observed that the United States and Israel have “own goaled” themselves to become widely perceived as together the two most evil governments on earth. It is a judgement that is hard to disagree with regarding the Jewish state if one examines the abundant evidence that Israel is systematically committing war crimes against the largely unarmed Palestinian civilian population in an effort to bring about ethnic cleansing or even genocide in Gaza and on the West Bank. The process would include removing the Palestinians physically and/or killing them if they resist, which is what is currently taking place. Something like 10,000 dead Palestinian children attest to the brutality and inhumanity of the effort, together with nearly 400 doctors and nurses who were directly targeted plus more than 100 UN employees trying to bring aid to the civilians. What Israel is doing is monstrous, almost unimaginable. A number of senior Israeli officials have confirmed their government’s view, supported by public opinion, that a land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea swept clean of Arabs would be the most desirable outcome of current developments.

The United States is at the same time loathed alongside Israel because it is enabling the slaughter by the Israelis while simultaneously spewing the lies that it is somehow restraining or even making more “humanitarian” Israel’s attack. Nothing could be farther from the truth as the White House recently worked hard to defang a major UN-led diplomatic effort that had global support to bring about a ceasefire that would enable emergency relief supplies to be introduced into the battered enclave. Instead, Israel now continues its daily bombardment of Gaza and controls entering supplies, slowing the process down while watching people die of famine and disease, not to mention from artillery shells and bombs. Oh, and the United States both funds the Israeli war effort and supplies the munitions that make it all possible. That makes Washington an accessory to the war crimes and to what most of the world considers to be a genocide being perpetrated openly and with malice.

In spite of all that, and the tons of evidence of atrocities of all kinds which even includes “friendly fire” killing of Jewish hostages, the Joe Biden Administration continues to spout the nonsense that neither war crimes nor a genocide are taking place. Thursday saw the opening of the International Court of Justice hearings on evidence filed by South Africa demonstrating that Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians amounts to a genocide as defined by the 1948 “UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” which both Israel and the US have signed. On the day before it opened at the Hague, US National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby preemptively stated that the charges were “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” State Department spokesman Matt Miller added that the United States is “not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Israel’s bombing and physical destruction of Gaza. Both comments are contrary to the fact that Israel is clearly creating at a minimum “conditions that don’t allow the survival of the population,” which is a definition of genocide. It all means that the United States will be fighting hard on behalf of its favorite son, doing whatever lying, coercing and cheating that it might take to protect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the crimes-against-humanity crew that he has surrounded himself with. As it is not a US interest to become a nation that condones the killing of tens of thousands of helpless civilians, one must ask the question “Who owns you Joe and why are your top officials lying about what is taking place?”

As an American, what I find most offensive about the current state of play is that my country has been turned into a war criminal by a group of politicians and staff appointees controlled by a foreign government and its lobby whose ignorance is so profound that they should not be running a hot dog stand. In particular, it is soul-destroying to hear the pathetic squealing coming out of a subservient White House every time Israel kills another hundred or so Palestinian children and women cowering in the ruins of a hospital, church or school. Each squeal in support of more “humane” or “restrained” warfare is followed by an assertion from Netanyahu to the effect that Israel’s war cabinet will make its own decisions about who it will kill and when. One senior official Itamar Ben-Gvir even warned Biden that Israel is “no longer a star on the American flag.” Indeed, but it is not that Israel is ungrateful, as those two-thousand pound bunker buster bombs supplied by Biden can really do a number on them “terrorists.” The Biden Administration has now expedited two shipments of munitions to Israel worth about $253 million, relying on another lying rascal Antony Blinken of the State Department’s claim that the weapons were urgently needed for poor “victim” Israel to “defend itself, allowing circumvention of existing Congressional authority requiring legislative approval of arms sales. There is no step so low when pandering to Israel that the Biden Administration will not take it!

It is all as if Genocide Joe is in a hurry to get the job done on those pesky Palestinians so he can get back to the serious work of fooling the US electorate into voting for him a second time. He is now going around the country trying to sell the product that he is “saving democracy,” which he is claiming would be destroyed by Trump. As Trump is on an apparent revenge tour, Biden might actually be more right than he usually is, but one has to ask what is happening to American democracy with the current open borders and two wars being de facto fought simultaneously without any actual threat to the US having ever been involved and without the consent of the American people. Quite the contrary, opinion polls suggest the wars are very unpopular while Biden weasels his way to support the fighting while pretending that the US is not directly involved. Can one imagine voluntarily putting the survival of one’s nation in the hands of someone like Joe Biden?

Israel continues to play its own hand as the US has given it political cover to bomb and otherwise kill as it sees fit. Civilian deaths from bombing totaled 247 on one night alone in early January, but the Netanyahu government has just announced that it will be shifting from large scale troop movements in Gaza to more “directed” operations that will focus on Hamas concentrations, finding hostages, and destroying the tunnels that connect resistances points. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesperson for the Israeli military, described how the new phase of the campaign, hopefully to be completed by the end of the month, will involve fewer soldiers and airstrikes, though Israel has previously lied repeatedly about its actual intentions. Ironically, the US concern appears to be that the war is already expanding apart from Gaza. The violence by armed settlers directed against Palestinians on the West Bank is increasing and foreign targeting by Israel now includes the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, regular bombing missions directed against targets in Syria which recently killed a dozen senior Iranian officials near the Damascus airport, assassinations in Iraq, as well as the terror bombing in Tehran claimed by ISIS that killed 103. Both Israel and the US are known to have cooperative clandestine relationships with ISIS.

And there are several other issues that are worthy of mention. First, is how a steady stream of mostly Republican hawks have been making the pilgrimage to Israel to express their wholehearted support of Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. Most recently, former Vice President Mike Pence made the trip and was photographed near Israel’s border with Lebanon writing messages or possibly signing off on US made artillery shells that were about to be fired against Hezbollah. This pushing for direct US involvement in an impending war that should and could be avoided has had an impact in Washington, where clowns like Senator Lindsey Graham have called on the Biden administration to “… hit Iran. They have oil fields out in the open, they have the Revolutionary Guard headquarters you can see from space. Blow it off the map.” This pressure has prompted Biden to pledge to those in Congress calling for war and also to the Israelis that he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and do whatever it takes to stop it. As US intelligence has declared its judgement that Iran has no such weapons program, the alleged intelligence suggesting that Iran has a secret program will inevitably come from Israel and Netanyahu, so guess what? Israel will be working hard to produce fabricated evidence that will drag the US into a first strike against Iran, which will in turn hit back against US bases in Syria, Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq. It is all too reminiscent of the neocon-Israeli plot that dragged a clueless George W. Bush and Condi Rice into initiating the disastrous Iraq War in 2003.

And the other issue that absolutely no one chooses to talk about is the “secret” Israeli nuclear arsenal of 200-400 weapons together with delivery systems, which is definitely a potential game changer no matter what happens in Gaza and on the West Bank. Would Israel use the nukes? They sure would, especially if the war they are deliberately expanding should turn against them somehow. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was queried about how the rest of the world might respond to Israel using its nukes to effectively wipe out its Arab neighbors, he responded “That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force… We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”

The plan by America’s “best friend” and “closest ally” to nuke the world even has a name: “The Samson Option,” recalling how the Biblical strongman Samson brought down the temple where the Philistines were mocking him, killing thousands of them. So maybe Joe Biden should be thinking long and hard about how, and with whom, he is getting our country set up to go to war. Or just maybe it is already too late!

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

India gets a rude awakening in West Asia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JANUARY 12, 2024 

From the standpoint of affirming ‘solidarity’ with the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7 attack, India has swung away to the far horizon and has unceremoniously dumped the US-Israeli axis, which provided beacon light to Delhi’s West Asian policies in the past few years. 

From a strategic asset, the Israeli connection is becoming a liability for the Indian government. Delhi spurned Netanyahu’s repeated entreaties to brand Hamas as a terrorist organisation — by the way, India never pointed finger at Hamas for the October 7 attack. It has resumed the traditional stance of voting against Israel in the UN General Assembly resolutions on the Palestine problem. The Netanyahu-Modi pow-wows have become infrequent. 

This is a far cry from the controversial gesture by PM Modi during his ‘historic’ five-day visit to Israel in 2017 to pay homage at the tomb of the founding father of Zionism Theodor Herzl in Haifa. It is doubtful if any Indian prime minister would repeat Modi’s feat in the future. With reasonable certainty, it can be said that the future of Zionism in West Asia itself looks rather bleak.

Again, for reasons that remain obscure even today, India decided to be a strong votary of the ill-fated Abraham Accords that purportedly aimed at ‘integrating’ Israel into the Arab fold but, in reality, to isolate Iran in its neighbourhood. Delhi never provided a rational explanation for such a dramatic shift in the traditional policy not to take sides in the intra-regional fratricidal strife in West Asia or identify with the US hegemony in that region. 

Delhi followed up by enthusiastically lining up with a surreal venture called ‘I2U2’ which brought together India and the UAE with the US and Israel as a condominium to promote the spirit of the Abraham Accords. In an extravagant gesture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a 5-day visit to Israel to participate in ‘I2U2’.  

Above all, Delhi, which hosted the G20 Summit last year and was supposedly highlighting the rise of the Global South in the world order, instead ended up arranging photo-ops for the visiting US President who hijacked the event and instead catapulted a phoney, laughable idea as the main outcome of that historic event — the so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC). 

The US apparently incentivised Delhi by planting the patently absurd thought that IMEEC would toll the death knell for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China of course retaliated by just hoisting the BRI flag high all over the Maldives (population: 515,132 in the 2022 census) on India’s soft underbelly from where it is visible all over the subcontinent day and night.

However, Indian diplomats are quick learners and course corrections come naturally to them. Delhi has understood that such absurdities in its West Asian policy will do no good and may even be counterproductive as they raise hackles in the Arab Street. Thus, Qatar ticked off India recently by ordering the 15 Indian schools in Doha that cater to the needs of the largely-Hindu 700,000-strong Indian ex-patriate community to ignore Hindu holidays, especially Diwali. 

Consistent with the championing of the Global South, India should have voiced support for South Africa’s brilliant initiative to petition the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to bring Israel to justice for its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. After all, it was in South Africa that Mahatma Gandhi had finessed the concept of resistance to racialism. But, alas, India lacked the courage of conviction and the moral fibre to do so. 

It is too much to expect the ICJ to put Netanyahu in a cage and try him in the Hague court for his abominable acts against humanity. But there is a strong likelihood that with tacit western support, the ICJ may issue in the coming weeks some sort of interim order for a ceasefire. And in the present atmosphere, that can prove to be a game changer.

All this makes India’s decision to stay clear of the US’ harebrained idea of disciplining Yemen’s Houthis a sensible step. The theatre of the absurd playing out in the Red Sea with the Five Eyes in the cockpit is incredibly complicated. One main vector there is about the phenomenon of the Houthi resistance as such. 

An old friend and Beirut-based editor-in-chief of the Cradle, Sharmine Narwani tweeted about the quagmire in the Red Sea that awaits the Anglo-American attack on Yemen today:

“I honestly question whether the US or UK have carefully considered #Yemen‘s potential responses to this act of war. Ansarallah (Houthi) is an unusual member of the region’s Axis of Resistance. It marches to its own tune and its mindset is entirely devoid of western narrative grooming. There is no guessing at the full spectrum of its retaliatory palette, but I would not want to be an American or Brit in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or any of the neighbouring waterways right now.

“It may be that Washington misread the Russian and Chinese abstentions at the UNSC yesterday (on Red Sea). Or, perhaps Moscow and Beijing dangled that bait so the US would miscalculate this badly. The Americans are now militarily engaged, supplying, or bogged down on 5 separate fronts: Ukraine, Gaza-Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Syria. US adversaries can easily hold out until the fatigue sets in; they are nowhere near depleted. 

“Bottom line is I think the entire Global South is going to be wearing Abdul Malik al-Houthi t-shirts by springtime.”

Indeed, it is such prescience that is often lacking in India’s West Asia strategy. This is not a region for one-dimensional men. It has been a strategic mistake to be aligned to the US and its allies in the Indian Ocean under the rubric of ‘maritime security’. The erstwhile colonial powers are innovating Neo-mercantile mechanisms to transfer wealth to their metropolis. Why should Indians act as ‘coolies’, as during British rule? 

Most important, India should be seized of the Renaissance that is sweeping through the Muslim countries in West Asia. It is epochal in its sweep and has cultural, political and economic dimensions — and will inevitably have far-reaching geopolitical significance. That is why, it becomes imperative that Delhi stops viewing the region though Netanyahu’s Zionist eyes. It is important to terminate India’s collaboration with the US and colonial powers such as France and the UK to interfere in the region on the pretext of maritime security in the Indian Ocean. 

India has no reason to have institutionalised partnerships with the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). In a conceivable future, the curtain could well be descending on the western military bases in West Asia. Delhi should grasp the reality that something fundamentally changed post-October 7 in the geopolitics of West Asia. 

It is in sync with what Germans call the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) that Saudi Arabia is demanding that the security of the Red Sea is an international responsibility in cooperation with the riparian countries and UN support. Since 2018, Saudi Arabia has called for the establishment of a Council of States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and in 2020, eight countries signed the Council’s founding charter, who include, ironically, Yemen. Saudi Arabia plans to host a summit meeting of the Council of States. 

Today’s Anglo-American missile strike against Yemen should come as a rude awakening to India messaging that the very same western powers who are backing Israel are also escalating the conflict in Gaza and step by step transforming it as a regional conflict — all in the name of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia, the regional superpower in the Red Sea, has called on the US to exercise restraint.  

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US, UK Trying to Distract From Genocide in Gaza by Strikes in Yemen – Ansar Allah Member

Sputnik – 12.01.2024

DOHA – The US and the UK are trying to divert attention from the genocide in the Gaza Strip with ill-conceived airstrikes against the Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen, Hezam al-Asad, a member of the movement’s political bureau, said on Friday.

The US and the United Kingdom carried out overnight airstrikes against Houthi positions in four governorates of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the cities of Al Hudaydah, Saada and Taiz, provincial government officials told Sputnik. The US and UK officials confirmed the airstrikes, saying these were targeting Houthi military facilities and positions in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and not civilian population centers.

“Through these hostile and ill-conceived operations, Washington and London are trying to divert attention from the ongoing crimes of genocide. We will continue to defend our principled position on the key issue for us — Palestine — and neither the US nor the UK will be able to dissuade us from supporting our people in the Gaza Strip, whether in the Red or Arabian Seas,” al-Asad wrote on X.

The Red and Arabian Seas will remain closed to Israeli-associated ships until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends, the political bureau member added.
“Our armed forces are well prepared and the aggressors will regret their aggression against the Yemeni people,” he said.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

More Disregard for International Law: Moscow Hits Out at US-UK Attack on Yemen

Sputnik – 12.01.2024

MOSCOW – Strikes by the US and the UK on Yemen are another example of the distortion of UN Security Council resolutions and complete disregard for international law in the name of escalation in the region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

The US and the UK carried out overnight airstrikes against Houthi positions in four governorates of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the cities of Al Hudaydah, Saada and Taiz, provincial government officials told Sputnik. The US and UK officials confirmed the airstrikes, saying these were targeting Houthi military facilities and positions in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and not civilian population centers.

“US airstrikes on Yemen are another example of the Anglo-Saxons’ distortion of UN Security Council resolutions and complete disregard for international law in the name of escalating the situation in the region for their own destructive purposes,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran strongly condemns ‘arbitrary’ US, British attacks on Yemen

Press TV – January 12, 2024

Iran has strongly condemned US and British military attacks on Yemen, calling them an “arbitrary” action and a clear violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a violation of international laws and regulations.

Yemen’s Ansarullah officials said explosions hit the cities of Sana’a, Hudaydah, Sa’ada and Dhamar early Friday, with a US official announcing that American and British attacks against Yemen were carried out by airplanes, ships and submarines.

In Iran’s first reaction to the aggression, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani stressed that the “arbitrary attacks will have no result other than fueling insecurity and instability in the region”.

“These military attacks are carried out in line with the continuation of the full support of the United States and the United Kingdom for the last hundred days of the Zionist regime’s war crimes against the Palestinian nation and the oppressed citizens under the complete siege of the Gaza Strip,” he said.

“While the Zionist regime continues its attacks and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in Palestine, the United States and England are trying to detract the attention of the people of the world from the crimes of this fake, criminal and aggressor regime against the people of Palestine by expanding their umbrella of support for the Zionist regime,” he said.

Kan’ani expressed his concern about the consequences of such arbitrary attacks for regional and international peace and security, calling on the international community to prevent the spread of war, instability and insecurity in the region with responsible reactions and actions.

Earlier, President Joe Biden said US and British forces launched airstrikes on Yemen, characterizing them a “defensive action” and pledging that he “will not hesitate” to order further attacks if needed.

The attacks come as Israel’s three months of a ferocious military campaign against the besieged people of Gaza is sputtering in the face of heroic resistance from Palestinian fighters.

The economic costs of the invasion are also beginning to mount as operations by Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea against Israeli ships and vessels bound for Israeli ports in solidarity with the Palestinian people are having a mark.

Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called Yemen a part of the reality and security of the West Asian region.

“Yemeni leaders, emphasizing the security of navigation, say that they will only stop the ships that are going to spread the war and send weapons to the occupied territories,” he told his Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide.

The US-led aggression, however, came on the first of two days of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague where Israel faced the charge of being involved in genocide in Gaza.

The ricochet from the case, observers say, will inevitably land at the doors of the West, especially the US and Britain which have supported the invasion with continued shipments of armament and ammunition.

“America’s entry into direct war against civilians, women and children of Gaza is a strategic mistake,” Amir-Abdollahian said in a phone conversation with Eide late Thursday.

“We have warned since the beginning of the bombing and genocide in Gaza that war is not the solution, but if the killing of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank continues, the scope of the war will expand. This warning is due to our understanding of the situation in support of Palestine in the region.”

The Norwegian foreign minister emphasized the need for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the sending of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the start of a political process based on the formation of an independent Palestinian government, as he welcomed Iran’s constructive role in the region to reduce tensions.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

DeSantis Doesn’t Oppose Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 11, 2024

During the latest GOP debate, Governors Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis argued which candidate would give more support to Israel. Desantis pledged to support Israel even if it conducts an ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Haley said she has a record of fighting for Tel Aviv.

Moderator Jake Tapper asked the Florida Governor, “Some Israeli cabinet officials are pushing for the mass removal of Palestinians from Gaza. Governor Haley told CNN last week, she does not support that, do you?”

He responded, “We’ve got to support Israel in word and in deed, in public and in private, and they’ve got to be able to finish the job. I think to be a good ally, you back them in the decisions that they’re making with respect to Gaza.” The Florida Governor added, “But for us to be sitting in Washington second-guessing them, I don’t think that’s the right way.”

When asked for clarity, DeSantis explained further, “As president, I am not going to tell them to do that. I think there’s a lot of issues with that. But if they make the calculation that to avert a second Holocaust, I think some of these Palestinian Arabs, Saudi Arabia should take some. Egypt should take some,” DeSantis said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials have called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Netanyahu said he was looking for other countries that would “absorb” the Palestinians.

The Florida Governor attempted to contrast himself with the former South Carolina Governor on Israel policy. He said he does not support the creation of a Palestinian state, unlike Haley.

“We also have a disagreement, Gov. Haley and I. When she was at the [UN], she supported the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. The problem with that is the Palestinian Arabs don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.” DeSantis continued, “So doing a two-state solution doesn’t create something that’s going to lead to a lasting peace. It creates a stepping stone for Israel’s destruction. So under no circumstances as president am I going to pressure Israel to risk their security to do a so-called two-state solution.”

When asked about Israel, Haley endorsed Israel’s current policies. “Right now we have to make sure that Israel has the support that it needs.” She explained, “There should be three things. Give Israel whatever it wants to get the job done. Two, eliminate Hamas once and for all. And three, do whatever it takes to bring the hostages home.”

Haley said she fought for Israel every day when she was the US Ambassador to the UN. She attacked DeSantis for his relationship with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). “It’s really rich that Ron is going to act like he suddenly cares for Israel when he brought [Massie] to Iowa,” she said. “That’s the most anti-Israel Republican in the state, the person that went and voted against Israel’s right to exist in Congress, the person that voted with the squad against antisemitism on college campuses.”

Massie has voted against providing additional military funding for Tel Aviv and opposed laws restricting Americans’ First Amendment rights. The Congressman also criticized Republicans who prioritize Israel over the US.

During the debate, Haley explained in her worldview, “First of all, we need to understand that the reason we need to support Israel is Israel’s a bright spot in a tough neighborhood. They’re the tip of the spear when it comes to defeating terrorism. It has never been that Israel needs America, it has always been that America needs Israel.”

Several Israeli and international human rights groups have concluded Israel is an apartheid state. The Israelis subject millions of Palestinians to a brutal military occupation. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called the Palestinians that live in Gaza “animals.”

DeSantis also attacked President Biden, claiming the White House had not done enough to support Israel. “So we’ve got to support Israel, in word and in deed, in public and in private. And they need to be able to finish the job. Joe Biden is knee capping them. He’ll say one thing, then he goes, and his base doesn’t like Israel, so he’s got to do all these other things.” He argued, “This is a time to recognize that they suffered the most murder of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas wants a second Holocaust. They want to annihilate the state of Israel.”

The Biden administration has placed some pressure on Israel to scale back operations in Gaza and release tax money to the Palestinian Authority. However, Tel Aviv has publicly snubbed Washington’s requests. Even with Israeli noncompliance, Biden has remained steadfast in providing Israel with all the support it needs to continue military operations in the besieged Gaza Strip.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

UK Communications Regulator Forms 350-Person Team to Enforce UK’s New Online Censorship Law

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | January 11, 2024

The authorities in the UK are “thinking of the children” – but really, of online censorship, say critics – and in doing so, thanks to Online Safety Act, are dipping their toes into the long since established in the US “revolving door” policy.

In the UK there is evidence of this flow going in one direction – from private Big Tech corporations to government jobs.

Reports say that in order to implement the controversial law that considerably restricts online speech, the regulator tasked with this, Ofcom, has employed as many as some 350 new staff – those from tech giants among them.

Former senior Microsoft, Google, and Meta employees are now working for Ofcom – and a further 100 jobs will be created in order to make sure the Online Safety Act is enforced.

Those who pushed its adoption for a long time and continue to justify it, as well as the new, ex Big Tech hires, like to frame and sell the legislation as necessary in order to protect children’s well-being online.

However, this is also the easiest way to protect themselves from criticism, as few people are willing to argue against a case positioned in this way.

However, many still have and do, and the gist of their opposition to the act and nebulous terms like “legal but harmful content” that must be suppressed is that one of the provisions – forcing messaging apps to scan user content (with child sexual abuse always first mentioned as a target – but not the only one) means a serious threat to encryption and therefore, online safety of everyone, including children.

But when big legacy media outlets are now reporting about the law, and the Ofcom hiring policy that has just come to light, they too like to focus on just the part of the Online Safety Act that its creators say is there for the sake of the children.

If they mention any “critics” – it’s to, bizarrely, like the FT has done, say that despite the move to bring in hundreds of new people, Ofcom will still be “stretched” – in, that is, its effort to control and censor at such a large scale.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

What Really Happened in Maui?

John Leake appears in documentary about Lahaina disaster

JOHN LEAKE | COURAGEOUS DISCOURSE | JANUARY 11, 2024

Last fall I was invited by Blaze Media to give an interview about my findings for my forthcoming book, Goodbye, Lahaina: The Perfect Firestorm, which will be released on August 9, 2024, the one-year anniversary of the disaster.

I combined the on-location interview with another extended research trip to Maui. My initial intuition about the Lahaina disaster has been confirmed beyond my worst suspicions. The story is a perfect expression of the following themes:

  • Federal and state governments consistently fail to do daily managerial work because such work does NOT benefit the special interests that drive policy.
  • With unlimited debt financing always (eventually) made available for state-contracted emergency response and/or cleanup, emergencies always turn out to be bonanzas for players and stakeholders who are well-positioned to exploit them.
  • Federal and state agencies are now a striking mixture of corruption and incompetence in equal measure. In a corrupt system, incompetence that amplifies disasters is rewarded by the greater sums of state funds allocated for the response. In the case of the Lahaina fire, the cleanup is proving to be a bonanza, with billions being shoveled to contractors who are excavating, testing, and hauling away the ash and soil.
  • Similar perverse incentives are at play in state responses to financial crises, emerging infectious diseases, and wars. Proper management of public affairs requires skill and diligence, but there is no money in conscientious management for special interests and industries. The payoff—i.e., bailouts, pandemic countermeasures, weapons, and billions of “aid”—comes with the catastrophe.

Please watch Blaze’s brief documentary (no longer behind paywall) and share it with your friends.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | | Leave a comment

Ramaswamy accuses Google of attempting to “rig this election” after YouTube deletes channel of creator who interviewed him

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | January 11, 2024

GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Big Tech of engineering electoral outcomes through censorship measures. This comes following YouTube’s banning of a popular conservative online personality who had just conducted an interview with Ramaswamy.

GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy and video creator shaneyyricch have both vociferously criticized YouTube.

As per shaneyyricch, his channel had racked up a substantial 150,000 followers and had garnered over 185 million views in merely three months.

Despite this, it was terminated without any warning or given justification by YouTube. A ban slapped on him for violating community rules, he insists, had not been preceded by any strikes against his account.

Undeterred, he promised to keep generating content on X and Rumble.

In the wake of his unexpected ban, shaneyyricch shared the video he recorded with Ramaswarmy on X, soliciting opinions on why it could’ve possibly led to the termination of his YouTube channel.

As part of the content in consideration, Ramaswamy elaborates on several proposed changes for the electoral process, including one-day-only voting, making the Election Day a national holiday, mandating voter IDs, and sticking to paper ballots.

In a public denunciation of YouTube, Ramaswamy declared, “Big Tech censorship to rig an election…who would have ever imagined.”

He then threw an open challenge to Google, stating, “If Google is going to rig this election, just end the charade & say so. That seems to be the message they’re sending.”

January 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

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