New EPA Climate Change Indicator Is Deceptive
Science Under Attack | May 31, 2021
New climate change indicators on the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) website are intended to inform science-based decision-making by presenting climate science transparently. But many of the indicators are misleading or deceptive, being based on incomplete evidence or selective data.
A typical example is the indicator for heat waves. This is illustrated in the top panel of the figure below, depicting the EPA’s representation of heat wave frequency in the U.S. from 1961 to 2019. The figure purports to show a steady increase in the occurrence of heat waves, which supposedly tripled from an average of two per year during the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s.
Unfortunately, the chart on the top is highly deceptive in several ways. First, the data is derived from minimum, not maximum, temperatures averaged across 50 American cities. The corresponding chart for maximum temperatures, shown in the bottom panel above, paints a rather different picture – one in which the heat wave frequency less than doubled from 2.5 per year in the 1960s to 4.5 per year in the 2010s, and actually declined from the 1980s to the 2000s.
This maximum-temperature graph revealing a much smaller increase in heat waves than the minimum-temperature graph displayed so boldly on the EPA website is dishonestly hidden away in its technical documentation.
A second deception is that the starting date of 1961 for both graphs is conveniently cherry-picked during a 30-year period of global cooling from 1940 to 1970. That in itself exaggerates the warming effect since then. Starting instead in 1980, after the current bout of global warming had begun, it can be seen that the heat wave frequency based on maximum temperatures (bottom panel) barely increased at all from 1981 to 2019. Similar exaggeration and sleight of hand can be seen in the EPA indicators for heat wave duration, season length and intensity.
A third deception is that the 1961 start date ignores the record U.S. heat of the 1930s, a decade characterized by persistent, searing heat waves across North America, especially in 1934 and 1936. The next figure shows the frequency and magnitude of U.S. heatwaves from 1900 to 2018.
The frequency (top panel) is the annual number of calendar days the maximum temperature exceeded the 90th percentile for 1961–1990 for at least six consecutive days. The EPA’s data is calculated for a period of at least four days, while the heat wave index (lower panel) measures the annual magnitude of all heat waves of at least three days in that year combined.
Despite the differences in definition, it’s abundantly clear that heat waves over the last few decades – the ones publicized by the EPA – pale in comparison to those of the 1930s, and even those of other decades such as the 1910s and 1950s. The peak heat wave index in 1936 is a full three times higher than it was in 2012 and up to nine times higher than in many other years.
The heat wave index shown above actually appears on the same EPA website page as the mimimum-temperature chart. But it’s presented as a tiny Figure 3 that is only 20% as large as the much more prominent Figure 1 showing minimum temperatures. As pointed out recently by another writer, a full-size version of the index chart, from 1895 to 2015, was once featured on the website, before the site was updated this year with the new climate change indicators.
The EPA points out that the 1930s heat waves in North America, which were concentrated in the Great Plains states of the U.S. and southern Canada, were exacerbated by Dust Bowl drought that depleted soil moisture and reduced the moderating effects of evaporation. While this is undoubtedly true, it has been suggested by climate scientists that future droughts in a warming world could result in further record-breaking U.S. heat waves. The EPA has no justification for omitting 1930s heat waves from their data record, or for suppressing the heat wave index chart.
Although the Dust Bowl was unique to the U.S. and Canada, there are locations in other parts of North America and in other countries where substantial heat waves occurred before 1961 as well. In the summer of 1930 two record-setting, back-to-back scorchers, each lasting eight days, afflicted Washington, D.C.; while in 1936, the province of Ontario – also well removed from the Great Plains – experienced 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) heat during the longest, deadliest Canadian heat wave on record. In Europe, France was baked during heat waves in both 1930 and 1947, and many eastern European countries suffered prolonged heat waves in 1946.
What all this means is that the EPA’s heat-wave indicator grossly misrepresents the actual science and defeats its stated goal for the indicators of “informing our understanding of climate change.”
US state-run Voice of America, RFE/RL ‘defiantly refusing’ to follow Russian foreign agent law
Press TV – June 15, 2021
The Russian government’s media regulator says US state-run outfits Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [RFE/RL] are “defiantly refusing” to comply with Russian legislation on the work of foreign agents within the country.
Media regulator Roskomnadzor said Russian law describes restrictions and regulations “in detail” in order to prevent “ambiguous interpretations,” and there could be serious penalties for non-compliance.
“American media outlets Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [RFE/RL], which are listed as foreign agents, are defiantly refusing to comply with the law in full,” the regulator said in a statement.
“In particular, Voice of America is yet to establish a Russian legal entity, and Radio Liberty is systematically failing to comply with the requirement to mark the materials it posts.”
Roskomnadzor says the Russian laws are “much more tolerant than similar regulation in many foreign countries.”
The regulator referenced the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires foreign agents to submit regular financial reports and give a detailed description of contacts with government officials.
Russian ‘foreign agent’ law pinpoint NGOs that engage in political activity using foreign funding.
According to the legislation, mass media organizations and specific individuals, who are deemed “foreign agents”, must make the designation clear to their readers.
The law was expanded in 2017 to include media organizations after RT TV network (former Russia Today) was declared a foreign agent in the United States.
Latvia-based news outlet Meduza and Dutch-funded online newspaper VTimes have been added to the list of foreign agents in recent months. Both Voice of America and RFE/RL have had the designation for four years.
Roskomnadzor noted that, “Russian media outlets deemed foreign agents by the US – in particular, Russia Today and news agency Sputnik – have completely fulfilled their requirements under American law, unlike US state media in Russia.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused Moscow of using the ‘foreign agent’ legislation to “restrict independent reporting, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,” a charge Moscow denies.
The Russian media regulator said in February that it fined the Russian-language service of US-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe nearly $150,000 over non-compliance with its ‘foreign agent law.
Roskomnadzor said RFE/RL’s director failed to label nine of the US outlet’s websites operating in Russia.
Dear PETA, Israel’s animal rights record leaves a lot to be desired
By Zarefah Baroud | MEMO | June 15, 2021
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) praised Israel last week for being the first country to ban the sale of animal furs. Such legislation is worthy of praise, of course, but in the case of Israel any praise, especially regarding its ethics towards animals, is completely misplaced.
Throughout the country’s short history, Israel has repeatedly exposed its worrying position on environmental justice with its state-protected environmental terrorism and deliberate military attacks on animals. The military offensive against the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, for example, killed hundreds of Palestinians, as well as many animals, particularly those sheltered at the Gaza Zoo.
“This camel was pregnant, a missile went into her back,” Gaza zookeeper Emad Jameel Qasim told Gulf News at the time. “Look, look at her face. She was in pain when she died.”
According to Qasim, when Israeli soldiers entered the zoo, they made their way to the lion enclosures and shot the animals at point-blank range. Monkeys nearby tried to flee. Some were shot inside their enclosures, while others attempted to hide in clay pots and adjacent offices, only to be hunted down and killed in the most brutal of ways at the hands of the “world’s most moral army”. Many of the animals that weren’t killed by Israeli bullets starved to death because the people taking care of them were trapped in their own homes due to the Israeli bombardment.
Rather than a condemnation of Israel’s attacks on all living beings in Gaza, less than a month later PETA took it upon itself to come up with a solution to the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. The campaign group appealed to the Israeli Defence Ministry to install a “pro-vegetarian mural” on both sides of Israel’s apartheid wall and barriers in the West Bank and Gaza adorned with the phrases “Give Peas a Chance” and “Nonviolence Begins on Your Plate: Go Vegetarian”. PETA has made it perfectly clear through statements such as these that, like the lives of the people of Palestine, the lives of Palestinian animals are not worthy of mention.
![PETA poster [PETA]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/hebrew_sign2.jpeg?quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1 "hebrew_sign2")
Unfortunately, 2008/9 was not the only time that Israel has attacked Gaza Zoo. In 2014, during the occupation state’s so-called “Operation Protective Edge”, Israeli forces bombarded the zoo again, killing more than 80 animals. A number of the zoo’s lions had to be taken elsewhere to recover from the trauma they suffered, a privilege that no Palestinian human beings are afforded.
During that same assault on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian farmers were devastated by the bombing of their agricultural land and livestock. Ali Alommor, a Palestinian farmer in Gaza explained to Middle East Eye that his donkeys were vital for his livelihood and that of his family. However, the Israeli offensive left his donkeys “riddled with bullets” and one looking like it had been run over by a tracked vehicle, such as a tank or armoured bulldozer, as it tried to flee. Another farmer, Sami Abu Hadaeid, had to flee from the bombing, leaving his beloved sheep behind. All 30 of the animals were killed before he could return. They were either shot and decapitated by soldiers or were crushed underneath the rubble of their shelters. Israeli tanks also killed more than 500 cows that supplied many Palestinians with milk, supporting the livelihoods of sixty families. Similarly, in 2017 an Israeli F-16 aircraft fired a missile at a chicken farm in Gaza. The roofs of the enclosures collapsed, killing hundreds of the birds.
Israel’s lack of humanity and concern for Palestinian life has always been extended to include the local environment, livestock, and crops. Whether that be the state-protected illegal settler arson attacks on Palestinian olive groves, toxic waste dumping in the West Bank, or the destruction of Gaza’s water treatment infrastructure leading to the dangerous pollution of the Mediterranean Sea, the Israeli regime has remained consistent in its positions towards Palestine’s people, animals, and wildlife habitats.
At the very least, it is irresponsible for PETA to applaud any action by the Israeli government, considering Israel’s brutal legacy of violence towards Palestine’s environment and the animals it sustains. The activists within the organisation would be better off campaigning for animal rights in the territory occupied and controlled by the colonial state. Anything less diminishes their credibility.
See also:
Critics of conditions in Gaza Zoo expose the value placed on Palestinian lives
Friedman’s Last Gasp
By Jonathan Cook – New Left Review – June 10, 2021
Thomas Friedman’s recent column in the New York Times reflecting on Israel’s 11-day destruction of Gaza is a showcase for the delusions of liberal Zionism: a constellation of thought that has never looked so threadbare. It seems that every liberal newspaper needs a Thomas Friedman – the UK’s Guardian has Jonathan Freedland – whose role is to keep readers from considering realistic strategies for Israel-Palestine, however often and catastrophically the established ones have failed. In this case, Friedman’s plea for Joe Biden to preserve the ‘potential of a two-state solution’ barely conceals his real goal: resuscitating the discourse of an illusory ‘peace process’ from which everyone except liberal Zionists has moved on. His fear is that the debate is quietly shifting outside this framework – towards the recognition that Israel is a belligerent apartheid regime and the conclusion that one democratic state for Palestinians and Jews is now the only viable solution.
For more than five decades, the two-state solution – of a large, ultra-militarized state for Israel, and a much smaller, demilitarized one for Palestinians – has been the sole paradigm of the Western political and media class. During these years, a Palestinian state failed to materialize despite (or more likely because of) various US-backed ‘peace processes’. While Americans and Europeans have consoled themselves with such fantasies, Israel has only paid them lip-service, enforcing a de facto one-state solution premised on Jewish supremacy over Palestinians, and consolidating its control over the entire territory.
But in recent years, Israel’s naked settler-colonial actions have imperiled that Western paradigm. It has become increasingly evident that Israel is incapable of making peace with the Palestinians because its state ideology – Zionism – is based on their removal or eradication. What history has taught us is that the only just and lasting way to end a ‘conflict’ between a native population and a settler-colonial movement is decolonization, plus the establishment of a single, shared, democratic state. Otherwise, the settlers continue to pursue their replacement strategies – which invariably include ethnic cleansing, communal segregation, and genocide. These were precisely the tactics adopted by European colonists in the Americas, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Friedman’s function in the Western media – conscious or not – is to obfuscate these historical lessons, tapping into a long legacy of unthinking colonial racism.
One of the central pillars of that legacy is an abiding fear of the native and his supposedly natural savagery. This has always been the unspoken assumption behind the interminable two-state ‘peace process’. A civilized and civilizing West tries to broker a ‘peace deal’ to protect Israel from the Palestinian hordes next door. But the Palestinians continuously ‘reject’ these peace overtures because of their savage nature – which is in turn presented as the reason why Israel must ethnically cleanse them and herd them into reservations, or Bantustans, away from Jewish settlers. Occasionally, Israel is forced to ‘retaliate’ – or defend itself from this savagery – in what becomes an endless ‘cycle of violence’. The West supports Israel with military aid and preferential trade while watching with exasperation as the Palestinian leadership fails to discipline its people.
Friedman is an expert at exploiting this colonial mentality. He often avoids taking direct responsibility for his racist assumptions, attributing them to ‘centrist Democrats’ or other right-minded observers. Coded language is his stock in trade, serving to heighten the unease felt by western audiences as the natives try to regain a measure of control over their future. In some cases the prejudicial framing is overt, as with his concern about the threat of an ascendant Hamas to women’s and LGBTQ rights, couched in an identity politics he knows will resonate with NYT readers. But more often his framing is insidious, with terms like ‘decimate’ and ‘blow up’ deployed to cast Palestinians’ desire for self-determination as violent and menacing.
Friedman’s three-layered deception
Friedman’s promotion of the two-state model offers a three-layered deception. First, he writes that the two-state solution would bring ‘peace’, without acknowledging that the condition for that peace is the Palestinians’ permanent ghettoization and subjugation. Second, he blames the Palestinians for rejecting just such ‘peace plans’, even though they have never been seriously offered by Israel. And finally, he has the chutzpah to imply that it was the Palestinians’ failure to negotiate a two-state solution that ‘decimated’ the Israeli ‘peace camp’.
Such arguments are not only based on Friedman’s dehumanizing view of Arabs. They are also tied to his domestic political concerns. He fears that if Joe Biden were to acknowledge the reality that Israel has sabotaged the two-state solution, then the President might disengage once and for all from the ‘peace process’. Of course, most Palestinians would welcome such an end to US interference: the billions of dollars funneled annually to the Israeli military, the US diplomatic cover for Israel, and the arm-twisting of other states to silently accept its atrocities. But, Friedman argues, this withdrawal would carry a heavy price at home, setting off a civil war within Biden’s own party and within Jewish organizations across the US. God forbid, it might ‘even lead to bans on arms sales’ to Israel.
Friedman reminds us of Israeli businessman Gidi Grinstein’s warning that in the absence of a ‘potential’ two-state solution, US support for Israel could morph ‘from a bipartisan issue to a wedge issue’. The columnist writes that preserving the two-state ‘peace process’, however endless and hopeless, is ‘about our national security interests in the Middle East’. How does Friedman define these interests? They are reducible, he says, to ‘the political future of the centrist faction of the Democratic Party.’ A ‘peace process’ once designed to salve the consciences of Americans while enabling the dispossession of Palestinians has now been redefined as a vital US national security issue – because, for Friedman, its survival is necessary to preserve the dominance of foreign policy hawks in the Democratic machine. The argument echoes Biden’s extraordinarily frank admission made back in 1986 that ‘were there not an Israel the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region’.
Friedman then concludes his article with a set of proposals that unwittingly expose the true consequences of a two-state settlement. He insists that Biden builds on his predecessor’s much-ridiculed ‘peace plan’, which gave US blessing to Israel’s illegal settlements on vast swaths of the occupied West Bank, penning Palestinians into their Bantustans indefinitely. Trump’s plan also sought to entrench Israel’s control over occupied East Jerusalem, remake Gaza as a permanent battlefield on which rivalries between Fatah and Hamas would intensify, and turn the wealth of the theocratic Gulf states into a weapon, fully integrating Israel into the region’s economy while making the Palestinians even more dependent on foreign aid. Polite NYT opinionators now want Biden to sell these measures as a re-engagement with the ‘peace process’.
The US, writes Friedman, should follow Trump in stripping the Palestinians of a capital in East Jerusalem – the economic, religious, and historic heart of Palestine. Arab states should reinforce this dispossession by moving their embassies from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem. Neighbouring countries are encouraged to pressure the Palestinian Authority, via aid payments, to accede even more cravenly to Israel’s demands. (Of course, Friedman does not think it worth mentioning that Palestine is aid-dependent because Israel has either stolen or seized control of all its major resources.)
Once this subordinate position is guaranteed, divisions within the Palestinian national movement can be inflamed by making Hamas – plus the two million Palestinians in Gaza – dependent on the PA’s patronage. Friedman wants the Fatah-led PA to decide whether to send aid to the Gaza Strip or join Israel in besieging the enclave to weaken Hamas. For good measure, he also urges the Gulf states to cut off support to the United Nations aid agencies, like UNRWA, which have kept millions of Palestinian refugees fed and cared for since 1948. The international community’s already feeble commitment to the rights of Palestinian refugees will thus be broken, and the diaspora will be forcibly absorbed into their host countries.
Such proposals are the last gasp of a discredited liberal Zionism. Friedman visibly flounders as he tries to put the emperor’s clothes back on a two-state solution that stands before us in all its ugliness. The Western model of ‘peace-making’ was always about preserving Jewish supremacy. Now, at least, the illusions are gone.
Read on: Kareem Rabie, ‘Remaking Ramallah’, NLR 111.
© NEW LEFT REVIEW LTD 2021
The New Irish Soviet: State Bans Seniors from Traveling Until They’ve Had ‘Second Dose’ of AstraZeneca Jab
21st Century Wire | June 15, 2021
Since the crisis began in March 2020, there has been a distinct air of medical fascism which has gradually permeated Irish political rhetoric and policy – which has left many conscientious residents shocked.
This dark state of affairs appears to be coming to a head now, as technocrats in Dublin push the totalitarian envelope even further.
Suddenly, after 15 months of running an open-ended crisis narrative, the great and good are now saying, “Now is certainly not the time to be taking risks on travel,” as the government and media operatives begin ramping-up Project Fear once again.
As usual, the state has singled-out the most vulnerable target demographic upon which to leverage its power, and to mete out some of the most outlandish policies ever seen in the western world over the last 150 years, including policies that would even have been beyond the pale for Stalin’s Soviet Union.
Incredibly, after the Irish government pushed some 400,000 of its older citizens to inject the highly controversial, unlicensed experimental gene-based AstraZeneca jab, the government is now banning them from leaving the country – until they have received their second dose.
Irish Independent reports…
More than 400,000 people who are waiting for a second dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine have been told they cannot travel abroad.
The “vaccine bonus” for those who are a month on from their first AstraZeneca jab does not involve foreign travel, the updated advice from the HSE has warned.
People in their 60s, and a significant number of those with underlying conditions, have been left waiting for a second dose of the vaccine, which will take at least eight weeks, but may be even longer for many.
They can avail of the vaccine “bonus”, with one dose after 28 days, allowing certain limited meeting up with others indoors, but “this does not include foreign travel”.
By definition, this can be classed medical fascism – where state and corporations have codified policy in order to coerce and effectively enforce an experimental medical procedure. On paper, this is in direct violation of the Nuremberg Codes which have been recognised for decades as de facto international law. Moreover, citizens are being denied informed consent, which is also a violation of both Irish and European law and contravenes the human rights charter.
This is an incredibly dangerous move by the state, and while it may be done under the now acceptable auspices of fear and general hysteria – it has still been done with no actual scientific evidence to justify it – only often repeated conjecture and increasingly vague claims used to further underpin the ever-evolving self-licking ice cream cone which is the seemingly never-ending “variant” scare.
Intelligent, sober people can now see that the variant scare has been contrived to justify the government’s omnipresent threat of more lockdowns, restrictions and border closures, and above all: to force vaccine compliance.
Meanwhile, technocrats in Brussels are using these artificial travel obstacles created by member states in order to create an artificial demand for a new Vaccine Passport (or ‘COVID credentials’) regime, which they have recently rebranded as a “Digital Wallet” due to pushback against its previous vaccine “Green Pass”:
The EU Digital Certificate, paving the way for travel within the bloc, is due to be operational here from July 19.
The HSE does not specify the same travel restriction for people who received one dose of the other vaccines.
Moreover, government ministers continue to make assertive claims about the alleged “effectiveness” of these unlicensed experimental injections against the newly branded “variants” which are now being deceptively sold to the public as ‘deadly mutations’ of the previously touted ‘novel’ coronavirus:
Public Health England has previously found that one dose of vaccine gives just 33pc protection against the more infectious Delta variant that originated in India.
It said yesterday that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine give 96pc protection while the AstraZeneca gives 92pc.
It comes amid concern at the inevitable rise in the Delta variant, with around 140 cases detected here so far. Another 242 cases of coronavirus were diagnosed yesterday.
How the UK government could make any such claims about the level of “protection” any COVID vaccine actually provides against the alleged ‘variants’ may be more a feat of political science and propaganda than actual clinical science, because the source of these sweeping claims emanates from the pharmaceutical manufacturers themselves. Does anyone seriously doubt by now that these private interests have captured European governments’ regulatory and political institutions?
Still, Irish ‘science’ experts appear to be confused as to how to play the new variant-vaccine narrative. Luke O’Neill, professor of biochemistry at Trinity College, spoke with the Irish Independent, claims to know how the rebranded ‘Delta variant’ virus behaves, while at the same time admitting that, ‘there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount it around’. He then defers to the UK experts and their own spurious Delta claims, whilst advising hapless Irish citizens who have had one dose of the experimental AstraZeneca injection to ‘take care’. By now, this contortionist feat of ‘public health’ gymnastics has become commonplace:
“We know from the UK that one shot of AstraZeneca is not giving the same level of protection from the Delta variant as two shots, so I would think those who have had one shot of AstraZeneca will have to take some precautions until they’ve had their second shot,” he said.
“We’re lucky in that there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of the Delta variant around, at least currently. The goal has to be to get the second shot into the vulnerable people – including the over-60s – as quickly as possible.”
Of course there is no mention by any government officials about the fact that this problematic AstraZeneca jab has already been halted in multiple countries (and it hasn’t been allowed to be released in the United States either) due to confirmed risks of maiming or death due to fatal blood clotting – a fact now accepted by experts worldwide. This is now accepted as a clear and present danger for any members of the public taking part in this unprecedented human experiment.
In Europe, health officials have stated that countries should also avoid giving the AstraZeneca vaccines to people over 60, as said by the head of the EU drug regulator’s COVID-19 task force on Sunday. But for some strange reason, no Irish politician or mainstream media outlets want to talk about this serious problem.
All of this comes amid the backdrop of British PM Boris Johnson announcing the delaying of an end to the UK government’s indefinite ‘state of emergency’ and lingering lockdown policies. The government claims this is because of fears of the alleged Indian Variant (recently rebranded to ‘Delta Variant’), while claiming that somehow COVID-19 “cases” (not actual clinical cases, but PCR and lateral flow ‘positive’ tests) are now at a three-month high. Britain was scheduled to lift all remaining restrictions on June 21st, but now says that it needs more time to vaccinate more of its population – as extremist voices in political and media circles continue to blame these alleged new ‘outbreaks’ of COVID-19 on ‘the unvaccinated.’
Based purely on its words and polices, Ireland’s ruling Fine Gael-Fianna Fail regime (from the onset, ‘opposition’ party Sinn Fein has also supported these same draconian policies) now finds itself as the vanguard of a new European Soviet.
Needless to say, this level of medical tyranny and mass-hysteria is unprecedented.
The real question remains: will the public at large and conscientious members of the press and government, come to their senses and wake up before the damage to democracy and freedom becomes irreparable?
FBI hypes QAnon threat again, says some conspiracy theorists ‘likely’ to attack Democrats
RT | June 14, 2021
Some followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory might decide to engage in real-world violence against the ruling Democrats, FBI and Homeland Security analysts wrote in a memo provided to Congress that has now been made public.
“We assess that some DVE [domestic violent extremist] adherents of QAnon likely will begin to believe they can no longer ‘trust the plan’ referenced in QAnon posts and that they have an obligation to change from serving as ‘digital soldiers’ towards engaging in real world violence—including harming perceived members of the ‘cabal’ such as Democrats and other political opposition—instead of continually awaiting Q’s promised actions which have not occurred,” says the memo, breathlessly reported by CNN and other corporate media outlets as a clear and present danger to the US.
Right below that assessment of likelihood, however, the FBI and DHS say that other QAnon adherents “likely will disengage from the movement or reduce their involvement in the wake of the administration change,” which might be “spurred by the large mainstream social media deplatforming of QAnon content.”
The memo itself leads with the disclaimer that it’s “provided for informational purposes only.” It is dated June 4, and was provided to Congress at the request of Senator Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to CNN. An earlier, classified version of the memo was provided to lawmakers in February, according to Heinrich.
This might explain why there are references to mass deplatforming of QAnon – which was going on in the wake of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol – and that the most recent example of “DVE activity” is dated January 8.
One of the examples, dated back to March 2020, was also questioned by an expert. There was “no evidence” that the train derailment in California “was directly linked to QAnon,” said Marc-Andre Argentino of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College London.
The memo says more than 20 QAnon followers were among those arrested for trespassing at the Capitol on January 6. Over 400 people have been charged in connection with the riot, however. As 25,000 National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC to secure Joe Biden’s inauguration, mainstream media outlets cited a purported FBI memo warning about militias threatening to storm DC and state capitals. No one showed up on the appointed day, however.
As criticism of the “occupation” in DC grew, the Capitol Police cited another secret intelligence bulletin claiming QAnon, Boogaloo Boys, or some other sovereign citizen militia would try to attack the Capitol on March 4. The House adjourned early citing the threat, while the Senate carried on. Nothing happened.
The Capitol was actually attacked on April 2, but not by QAnon. An African-American man rammed into a barricade, killing one Capitol Police officer and attacking another with a knife before he was shot to death. He claimed to have been a member of Nation of Islam, which disavowed him. The last remaining 2,000 National Guard troops departed the Capitol on May 24.
According to the FBI memo, followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory believe that the US is run by “a corrupt cabal of ‘global elites’ and ‘deep state’ actors run a Satan-worshiping international child sex trafficking ring,” which Donald Trump tried to oppose while president.
Democrats have accused the Republican party of being QAnon believers, but a recent poll suggested that 23% of Republicans – as well as 15% of independent voters and 8% of Democrats – actually found the conspiracy theory plausible.
THE PERMANENT NATURE OF “TEMPORARY” TYRANNY
Computing Forever | June 14, 2021
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The Enduring False Narrative About the PULSE Massacre Shows the Power of Media Propaganda
Democrat Hillary Clinton visits the site of Pulse nightclub in Orlando, July 22, 2016. (Photo by Brooks Kraft/Getty Images)
By Glenn Greenwald | June 14, 2021
On the fifth anniversary of the PULSE nightclub massacre in Orlando, numerous senators, politicians and activist groups commemorated that tragic event by propagating an absolute falsehood: namely, that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was motivated by anti-LGBT animus. The evidence is definitive and conclusive that this is false — Mateen, like so many others who committed similar acts of violence, was motivated by rage over President Obama’s bombing campaigns in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and chose PULSE at random without even knowing it was a gay club — yet this media-consecrated lie continues to fester.
On Saturday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) falsely described the massacre as an “unspeakable act of hate toward the LGBTQ+ community.” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) went even further, claiming “the LGBTQ+ community was targeted and killed—all because they dared to live their lives.” Her fellow Illinois Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin, claimed forty-nine lives were lost due to “anti-LGBTQ hate” (he forgot the +). These false claims were compiled by the gay socialist activist Matt Thomas, who correctly objected: “the shooter literally picked PULSE at random from Google after security was too tight at the mall he went to first,” adding that while LGBT groups “are hopeless of course,” too much money and power is at stake for them to give up this self-serving fiction. But he asked, “Shouldn’t the bar be a little higher for senators?”
In the immediate aftermath of that horrific crime, it may have been reasonable for the public to speculate that Mateen, given his professed support for ISIS, chose PULSE because it was a gay club. That belief also neatly played into a liberal political agenda of highlighting anti-LGBT hate crimes, and also comported with the dual stereotypes of the gay-hating Muslim and the closeted gay man who harbors self-hatred that ends up directed at other gay people. This storyline was instantly consecrated when politicians and LGBT groups quickly seized on this claim and ratified it as unquestionably true.
Rather than acknowledging that it was anger over his relentless bombing raids in the Muslim world, President Obama immediately declared that anti-LGBT hatred was the real cause. “This was an attack on the LGBT community,” the president said, adding: “And hatred towards people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, is a betrayal of what’s best in us.” Chad Griffin, then-head of the largest LGBT advocacy group, Human Rights Campaign, claimed: “the maniac who did this was somehow conditioned to believe that LGBT people deserve to be massacred, that they are ‘less than’ in this society.”
Then-candidate Hillary Clinton, as part of her campaign, made a pilgrimage to Orlando and seized on the attack. In addition to its constituting anti-American terrorism, the Democratic nominee proclaimed the massacre “was also an act of hate,” adding that “the gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month.” She vowed: “We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America.” Speaking with Clinton in Orlando, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that it is “a cruel irony that a community defined almost exclusively by whom they love [LGBT people] is so often a target of hate.” Then-candidate Donald Trump also endorsed this view: “A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub, not only because he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens, because of their sexual orientation.”
Liberal propagandists who pose as journalists treated this storyline as definitively proven. The massacre was “undeniably a homophobic hate crime,” Jeet Heer wrote in The New Republic. “Let’s say it plainly: This was a mass slaying aimed at LGBT people,” Tim Teeman wrote in The Daily Beast. In USA Today, James S. Robbins speculated that Mateen was likely “trying to reconcile his inner feelings with his strongly homophobic Muslim culture.” In the days following the killing spree, one writer in USA Today, Steph Solis, even accused those of questioning this narrative of propagating bigotry and exhibiting cruel indifference to gay suffering: “Those who insist the shooting was solely an Islamic terror attack try to erase the LGBT community from the narrative, causing only more pain by invalidating their experiences in this ordeal.”
Barack Obama and Joe Biden place flowers for victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, June 16, 2016. (Photo SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
But journalism is supposed to function on evidence, not speculation, and there never was any evidence that supported the storyline that he was driven by hatred for LGBTs. The evidence that was available suggested the opposite.
On June 12, 2016, Mateen spent just over three hours in PULSE from the time he began slaughtering innocent people at roughly 2:00 a.m. until he was killed by a SWAT team at roughly 5:00 a.m. During that time, he repeatedly spoke to his captives about his motive, did the same with the police with whom he was negotiating, and discussed his cause with local media which he had called from inside the club. Mateen was remarkably consistent in what he said about his motivation. Over and over, he emphasized that his attack at PULSE was in retaliation for U.S. bombing campaigns in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. In his first call with 911 while inside PULSE, this is what he said about why he was killing people:
Because you have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. … You need to stop the U.S. airstrikes. They need to stop the U.S. airstrikes, OK? . … This went down, a lot of innocent women and children are getting killed in Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan, OK? … The airstrikes need to stop and stop collaborating with Russia. OK?
In the hours he spent surrounded by the gay people he was murdering, he never once uttered a homophobic syllable, instead always emphasizing his geo-political motive. Not a single survivor reported him saying anything derogatory about LGBTs or even anything that suggested he knew he was in a gay club. All said he spoke extensively about his vengeance on behalf of ISIS against U.S. bombing of innocent Muslims.
Mateen’s postings on Facebook leading up to his attack all reflected the same motive. They were filled with rage about and vows of retaliation against U.S. bombing. Not a single post contained any references to LGBTs let alone anger or violence toward them. “You kill innocent women and children by doing U.S. airstrikes,” Mateen wrote on Facebook in one of his last posts before attacking PULSE, adding: “Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.”
It was of course nonetheless possible that he secretly harbored hatred for LGBTs and hid his real motive, but that never made sense: the whole point of terrorism is to publicize, not conceal, the grievances driving the violence. And again, good journalism requires evidence before ratifying claims. There never was any to support the story that Mateen’s attack was driven by anti-LGBT hatred, and all the available evidence early on negated that suspicion and pointed to a radically different motive. But the media frenzy ended up, by design or otherwise, obscuring Mateen’s anger over Obama’s bombing campaigns as his motive in favor of promoting this as an anti-LGBT hate crime.
As the FBI investigation into Mateen proceeded, all the early media gossip — that Mateen was a closeted gay man who had searched for male sexual partners and had even previously visited PULSE — was debunked. The month after the attack, The Washington Post reported that “The FBI has found no evidence so far that Omar Mateen chose the popular establishment because of its gay clientele,” and quoted a federal investigator as saying: “While there can be no denying the significant impact on the gay community, the investigation hasn’t revealed that he targeted PULSE because it was a gay club.” The New York Times quickly noted that no evidence could be found to support the speculation that Mateen was gay:
F.B.I. investigators, who have conducted more than 500 interviews in the case, are continuing to contact men who claim to have had sexual relations with Mr. Mateen or think they saw him at gay bars. But so far, they have not found any independent corroboration — through his web searches, emails or other electronic data — to establish that he was, in fact, gay, officials said.
The following year, the local paper that most extensively covered the PULSE massacre, The Orlando Sentinel, acknowledged that “there’s still no evidence that the PULSE killer intended to target gay people.”
As the investigation proceeded, this anti-LGBT hate crime narrative became more and more unlikely. But the question of Mateen’s motives was settled once and for all — or at least it should have been — during the unsuccessful attempt by the Justice Department to prosecute Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, on numerous felony charges alleging her complicity in her husband’s attack. That trial — quite justifiably — ended in a full acquittal for Salman, but evidence emerged during it that conclusively disproved the widely held view that Mateen chose PULSE because he wanted to kill gay people.
Along with my then-colleague Murtaza Hussain, I extensively reported on the Salman trial and compiled all the evidence that emerged during it that proved anti-LGBT hatred was not part of Mateen’s motive. But it was not just us: virtually every journalist who covered that trial, including several who began believing or at least suspecting that this was an anti-gay hate crime, definitively concluded that this was false. Reporter Melissa Jeltsen covered that trial for The Huffington Post and — writing under the headline “Everyone Got The Pulse Massacre Story Completely Wrong” — explained:
Almost overnight, a narrative emerged that until now has been impossible to dislodge: Mateen planned and executed an attack on PULSE because he hated gay people. . . . Salman’s trial cast doubt on everything we thought we knew about Mateen. There was no evidence he was a closeted gay man, no evidence that he was ever on Grindr. He looked at porn involving older women, but investigators who scoured Mateen’s electronic devices couldn’t find any internet history related to homosexuality. (There were daily, obsessive searches about ISIS, however.) Mateen had extramarital affairs with women, two of whom testified during the trial about his duplicitous ways.
Mateen may very well have been homophobic. He supported ISIS, after all, and his father, an FBI informant currently under criminal investigation, told NBC that his son once got angry after seeing two men kissing. But whatever his personal feelings, the overwhelming evidence suggests his attack was not motivated by it.
Even the gay reporter for NBC News who covers the LGBT community, Tim Fitzsimons, tried to make clear that the commonly held view of the PULSE attack as an anti-LGBT hate crime was false. “The attack on the nightclub has long been seen as a hate crime directed at the LGBTQ community,” explained the headline under which he wrote, “but all evidence says the gunman chose it at random.”
NBC News, June 12, 2018
What that conclusive evidence proved is that Mateen had spent days scoping out Disney locations but concluded they were too secured to attack. Search records from Mateen’s phone and computers showed him looking for “Orlando clubs,” but never “gay Orlando clubs.” That night, after cell tower records and security cameras showed him scoping out several Disney venues, he used his phone to Google the search term “Orlando nightclubs” — not “gay clubs” — and chose PULSE because the popular nightclub was the first search term that appeared. Witnesses said that when he entered, he asked security guards: “where are the women?” As Jeltsen wrote: “As far as investigators could tell, Mateen had never been to PULSE before, whether as a patron or to case the nightclub.” None of Mateen’s phones or computers had any evidence he sought sex with men but contained ample evidence of his affairs with numerous women.
Whatever Mateen’s motives were, the horror and tragedy of the extinguishing of forty-nine innocent lives at PULSE on June 12, 2016, remains the same. But this enduring falsehood — which continues to deceive many well-meaning people through this very day, long past the point that it has been definitively debunked — is damaging for so many reasons.
Lying about what happened dishonors Mateen’s victims. It harms the cause of LGBT equality, which does not need lies and fabrications to be a just movement. It obscures how often U.S. violence in the Muslim world causes “blowback” — to use the CIA’s term — by motivating others to bring violence to the U.S. as retaliation and deterrence for violence against innocent Muslims. And a major reason for the completely unjust prosecution of Noor Salman was to appease understandable demands within the Orlando LGBT community for someone to be punished, but mob justice rarely produces anything benevolent.
No matter how noble the intent, journalism — and activism — becomes corrupted if it knowingly supports falsehoods. That the PULSE massacre was an act of anti-LGBT hatred is a fiction. Unless you are a neocon, there is no such thing as a “noble lie.” It is way past time for politicians and activist groups to stop disseminating this one.
Anti-Palestinian Bigotry Overshadowed by Anti-Semitism Uproar
By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | June 13, 2021
In response to the recent upsurge in pro-Palestinian activism basically every major Canadian media outlet has published stories about rising anti-Semitism. B’nai B’rith claims there were more anti-Semitic incidents in May than all of last year. The government recently acceded to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) demand for an emergency summit on antisemitism, which will be led by staunch Zionist Irwin Cotler.
But comparatively little attention has been devoted to anti-Palestinian bigotry despite the publicly verifiable evidence that suggests Palestinian Canadians or those identified with them have faced greater discrimination and violence. And once again, CIJA and B’nai B’rith muddy the waters of understanding racism by conflating criticism and actions against Israel with anti-Semitism.
Let’s take a look at the record over the past few weeks:
- On May 13 a group of Israeli flag waving individuals in Thornhill, Ontario are on video trying to fight and threatening to “run over” a small group of Palestinian activists. At one-point police pull their guns apparently fearing an Israel supporter was going to hit them with his vehicle in a bid to reach the Palestinians.
- On May 15 a Jewish Defence League (JDL) supporter interviewed prior to the pro-Palestinian rally said he was looking to brawl. He then tells a passerby, “I used to rape guys like you in prison, bro.” Subsequently, a pro-Israel individual is caught on camera swinging a stick wildly at someone. At another point an older JDL-aligned individual is caught on camera with a knife and bat.
- On May 16 a Zionist was photographed with a hammer in his hand at a protest in Montréal. At the same pro-Israel rally an individual rips a Palestinian flag from the man’s hand and the crowd cheers.
- A Palestinian family in Hamilton that put up a sign on their lawn with a Palestinian flag saying: “We support human rights. #FreePalestine #OngoingNakba” had it stolen on May 24 and a note was left saying: “KEEP YOUR POLITICS AND ANTI-SEMITIC RACISM OUT OF MY COUNTRY AND MY NEIGHBOUR-HOOD. IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY COUNTRY, GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!” The theft was not caught on camera but there is a photo of the note and stolen sign.
- On May 25 a recent immigrant from Gaza in Calgary with a Palestinian flag in his rear window films his car being cut off and stopped by a pickup truck. The motorist slams on his window, demanding to fight as he yells “terrorist fuck”, “terrorist ass” and “I have a picture of Mohammed in my car Alah”. He then laughs manically as he rips off the Palestinian Canadian’s windshield wiper.
These instances don’t count individuals — such as a social justice teacher in Toronto put on home assignment, McGill students on a blacklist, a doctor in Toronto smeared and threatened with being fired — for standing up for Palestinian rights. Nor do the above-mentioned examples count anti-Palestinian police racism. In Halifax, Windsor, Calgary, Hamilton and possibly elsewhere the police ticketed dozens of individuals simply for attending Palestine solidarity protests. A report from Windsor suggests — though I have no recorded proof — that cars playing Arabic music were specifically targeted by the police. There’s also a report from Hamilton suggesting that women with Hijabs received eight of 12 tickets given out at a rally.
Before detailing/evaluating the main purported incidents of anti-Semitism it’s important to mention both the discrepancy of resources the two “sides” have to document abuses and their impulse to do so. B’nai B’rith, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, CIJA and the Jewish Federations’ operate hotlines to tabulate incidents of anti-Jewishness and have significant capacity to communicate perceived acts of discrimination. They send individuals to video and photograph pro-Palestinian protests with the express purpose of discovering “proof” of anti-Jewish acts.
Not only does the official Israel lobby have greater resources to document perceived abuses and promote them through the media, it has a greater interest in focusing the discussion this way. As Israeli oppression of Palestinians has become ever more difficult to defend, the lobby’s emphasis on driving the discussion towards anti-Semitism has grown. For its part, the pro-Palestinian movement is more focused on discussing the violence meted out against Palestinians.
With that in mind, let’s look at the most high-profile incidents of “anti-Semitism” cited by supporters of Israel:
- After massive Palestine solidarity demonstrations on May 15, a knife and bat wielding JDL aligned individual was beaten up after apparently picking a fight (his photo was actually on the cover — subsequently removed — of a May 16 press release titled “CIJA Concerned by wave of violence and antisemitism connected to conflict in the Middle East”). But, even if CIJA’s showcased victim had not been associated with the violent JDL, swung a bat or held a knife would his beating have been an act of bigotry? When a counter protester fights with someone on the other side is that a political disagreement that elevates to violence or an act of bigotry? (During protests against Israel’s brutal 2014 assault on Gaza that left over 2,100 Palestinians dead, I was shoved, spat on, had my bike damaged and lock stolen by members of the JDL in Toronto. Were those acts of bigotry or would it only have been an act of bigotry if I had punched or spat back?)
- On May 26 Global News did a two-minute video report and accompanying article on a Vancouver restaurant owner who claimed to have been a victim of discrimination. Israeli immigrant Ofra Sixto took to Facebook and the nightly news to cry discrimination, but according to credible accounts she was the racist. When a Palestinian solidarity car caravan happened to pass her Denman street restaurant, she yelled some variation of “this is how they are in their countries”, which was heard by a white male, sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, walking past and another woman sitting with her family at a cafe next door heard. They objected. The man later left a negative review of Ofra’s Kitchen online saying that the owner was racist. There’s a variety of screenshots and corroborating evidence suggesting the owner instigated the racism while Sixto hasn’t provided any external evidence, screenshots or other proof of her claims. (And it’s also not exactly clear how anyone was supposed to know the restaurant was Jewish owned).
- On May 16 — a day after thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took over downtown Montréal — a small pro-Israel rally was held downtown. Pro-Palestinian counter protesters reportedly threw objects (rocks according to some) at the pro-Israel group. I could not find video of objects being thrown but there is video of minor scuffles between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian individuals and, as I mentioned above, a photo of a Zionist with a hammer and an individual snagging a Palestinian flag. There is also a great deal of video of the Montréal riot squad trying to disburse Palestine solidarity protesters, which suggests they were treated as the aggressors.
- On May 18 the Montréal municipality of Côte-Saint-Luc, which is heavily Jewish, robocalled all residents to tell them not to be worried about an upsurge of anti-Jewishness (In other words, they frightened people by telling them not to be worried!) Aside from the massive pro-Palestinian demonstration on May 15 and clashes at the May 16 rally, the reason for the robocall was that two men allegedly drove through the municipality yelling anti-Jewish slurs and an Israeli flag flying on a municipal building was removed. I could not find any video evidence of the vehicle though the police detained two individuals.
- In Edmonton Adam Zepp told Global News he was walking out of his parents’ driveway at 9 p.m. on May 16 when a car drove by with young men yelling “Free Palestine”. Forced to loopback due to the neighborhood layout, Zepp says the men subsequently said, “are there any Jews here? Any Jews live here? Where do the Jews live?” There’s no indication Zepp took down the car’s license plate or recorded the incident. In an interview a representative of Edmonton’s Jewish Federation claimed rather vaguely that others also saw a car passing by.
- Another widely cited act of discrimination is a TikTok video of two young Arab women, reportedly students at Laurier University, dancing as they burn an Israeli flag, flush it down the toilet, puke over it and fake stab it. Purported outrage over these students “promoting violence” is extremely cynical. The groups calling this “anti-Semitism” frequently justify Israeli violence and often promote the Israeli military in Canada.
- Many of the lesser incidents presented are placards that in one way or another link Israel to the Nazis. (Of course Nazi comparisons are generally in poor taste, but the Israel lobby regularly invokes the Nazi Holocaust so it’s hypocritical of them to complain about that.)
While all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, must be condemned, readers can judge for themselves who are the primary victims of hatred and discrimination in Israel, as well as here in Canada.
The only Turkish boots on the ground in Palestine are on Israeli soldiers’ feet
By Omar Ahmed | MEMO | June 14, 2021
When last month’s ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza, the head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, thanked Iran for its support. “The Islamic Republic of Iran did not hold back with money, weapons, and technical support,” he said. Haniyeh also thanked Qatar for its pledge to rebuild Gaza after the latest devastating military offensive by Israel, which lasted eleven days and nights last month.
Similar sentiments were conveyed by the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. “All our thanks go to the Islamic Republic of Iran for its consistent support over the years to Hamas and other resistance factions,” he explained. He also briefly recognised support from Qatar, Turkey, and Kuwait.
Apart from Sinwar’s passing reference to Turkey, expressions of gratitude to Ankara were noticeable by their absence. This was despite the frequent pro-Palestinian rhetoric and denunciations of Israel by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The last time that Haniyeh thanked Turkey publically was back in 2016 over its aid efforts in Gaza.
It was clear that, after the latest onslaught on the Palestinian people, the resistance chose to recognise Iran’s help where it matters most, in the field with the armed resistance and, to a lesser extent, Qatar’s assistance for the reconstruction of Gaza.
Why has Turkey been left out, despite being a friend of Palestine? It could be something to do with the uncomfortable truth that despite Ankara’s stance towards Palestinian national liberation, it maintains important diplomatic and trade ties with Israel. The Palestinian factions know this very well. National liberation, as I have written before, will ultimately rest on a military solution, which is why Iranian support has been singularly recognised by the factions.
The status quo of the secular Turkish republic is one that is supportive of Israel. It was the first Muslim-majority country to recognise the statehood of Israel a year after its creation in occupied Palestine in 1948. The rise of Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) over the past two decades has, admittedly, coincided with diplomatic tensions between Ankara and Tel Aviv, especially after the Gaza flotilla attack in 2010.
While political ties have unquestionably deteriorated over the years and reached a new low with Israel’s desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque last month, business ties haven’t. According to the Turkey-based, pro-Kurdish news agency Mezopotamya Ajansi, “When the AK Party came to power, the trade volume between Israel and Turkey was 1.4 billion dollars, today it is 6.5 billion dollars.”
The report cites data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) and says that Israel was ranked as the third-highest importer of Turkish goods last year, for a total value of $4.7 billion.
Political ties between the two countries are served by their respective embassies, which remain open. Turkey appointed a new ambassador to Israel after the downgrade in ties and withdrawal of its envoy in 2018 in protest of the deadly attacks on Gaza that year. At the end of last year, Erdogan said that Turkey would like better relations with Israel but claimed that Palestine is the “red line”. The latest and ongoing aggression, however, suggests that this is not the case.
An interesting development last month, though, was the Turkish proposal to establish an international force to protect Palestinians from future Israeli attacks. This was followed by the signing of a security agreement between Turkey and the Palestinian Authority earlier this month, modelled on a similar pact made with Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA). Some have questioned what support Turkey can offer the Palestinian people beyond charitable donations, and to what extent such a hypothetical international force could really protect them. Hence, it remains to be seen if and how this security agreement will be implemented.
What is clear, is that Turkey won’t risk political, military, and economic consequences in any moves that directly affect the security of Israel. Iran knows only too well that its flagrant support of non-state actors opposed to Israeli and Western interests comes at a hefty price in terms of sanctions and attempts to isolate it. Faced with its own economic problems, Turkey will be reluctant to go down such a lonely route, even if both regional powers are arguably supporting Palestine out of ulterior motives.
In any case, the trade will continue as usual, and the only Turkish boots on the ground in occupied Palestine will be worn by Israeli soldiers. As media outlets in Turkey have reported in the past, Turkish-made military boots have been supplied to the Israeli army: “YDS is a leading supplier of boots, assault vests, and bags to armies across the world. Israeli soldiers are among those who use Yakupoğlu garments.” Tension between Israel and Turkey, said one CEO, does not affect business.
The next Palestinian uprising will inevitably involve more support from Iran, and only Arab states and non-state groups aligned with Tehran are vehemently opposed to the occupation state. Reinforcing this, Haniyeh is reportedly planning visits to both Iran and Lebanon, which will include meetings with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei in Tehran and Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. He is expected to travel after his meetings in Cairo over stalled prisoner exchange negotiations with Israel, owing to the latter’s political uncertainty. With a new Israeli government now in place, though, that may change.
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From the Archives
Are There 50,000 ‘Israeli-born’ Individuals Living in the UK?
By Professor David Miller | August 18, 2026
Recent disclosures by the Zionist regime show that some 2,069 British nationals were serving in the IDF as of March 2025, according to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to the occupation forces (1,686 dual British-Israeli, plus 383 multinational). We cannot tell from the figures how many of these were already settler colonists and intend to stay in the colony, and how many will return or have returned to the UK. Presumably, those returning to the UK will number far fewer than 2,000, since many are known to have become permanently residents of the colony.
Additionally, the IDF figures only provide a snapshot, and do not tell us how many have served in the Jewish supremacist military either before or after March 2025. One way into the question of how many genocidaires are living in Britain is to ask how many current British residents were born in the Zionist colony. There is data on that, as we shall see. … continue
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