At General Assembly, Russia calls for immediate halt to bloodshed in Gaza Strip
Press TV – November 2, 2023
Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has called for an immediate end to the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli regime continues its deadly bombing campaign in the besieged enclave.
Nebenzya made the appeal during the General Assembly special session on Palestine on Thursday, stressing that the bloodshed must be stopped in order to prevent the ongoing crisis from spreading to the entire.
“First of all, it is necessary to stop the bloodshed and to prevent the crisis from engulfing the entire region. Otherwise, the conflict will never be stopped,” he said.
Nebenzya also demanded that the mediators be allowed to work on a diplomatic solution, including the release of hostages.
“One will have to walk down this path sooner or later; the only question is how many innocent people will die in the meantime,” he said.
The Russian envoy said Israel is an occupying regime and therefore it does not have the right to defend itself in the current conflict as it claims.
On Tuesday, Nebenzya blamed the United States for the ongoing atrocities committed by Israel against Palestinians, after Washington opposed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an urgent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The envoy also slammed Western countries that abstained at the vote on Russia-proposed draft resolutions that called for a ceasefire.
A week earlier, Nebenzya said Moscow has for years been warning about the soaring tensions in West Asia and that the ongoing crisis in the region results from longstanding “destructive” policies of the United States.
Israel has been heavily bombing Gaza since October 7 when the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched a surprise operation in the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The aggression has so far killed 8,800 Palestinians and left more than 23,000 wounded.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
Canadian special forces in Israel are not helping Palestinians
By Yves Engler | November 2, 2023
Canada’s most elite soldiers have been dispatched to Israel. While it’s unclear if they are assisting the onslaught on Gaza, their deployment highlights close Canadian ties to the genocidal apartheid regime.
Global News has reported that JTF2 were in Israel. The stated reason for the deployment of Canada’s most specialized soldiers is to assist the embassy with security and evacuations. That may be true. But the deployment also reflects Canada-Israel military co-operation and may entail a more direct role in Gaza.
Would Israel accept special forces from South Africa or Chile? How about Russia? Or Syria?
Extremely unlikely. At minimum the JTF2 deployment reveals close military, as well as diplomatic and political, ties between the two countries.
After Hamas’ October 7 attack the Canadian Air Force flew 30 Israeli reservists back into the country. With flights evacuating Canadians from Tel Aviv to Athens, military aircraft transported Israeli reservists in the other direction.
Ten days ago, Canadian Forces Intelligence Command endorsed Israel’s highly suspect claim the IDF wasn’t responsible for killing hundreds at the al-Ahli Anglican Hospital in Gaza. Echoing US and Israeli claims, Canada’s military intelligence suggested an errant Palestinian rocket was the cause of the destruction. But a subsequent New York Times investigation rejected an important part of that claim while previous Al Jazeera and Britain’s channel 4 reports have questioned Israel’s denial.
Through the Five Eyes, Canadian military intelligence has close ties to its Israeli counterparts. The Department of National Defence run Communications Security Establishment (CSE) has long gathered intelligence on Palestinians for Israel. According to files released by Edward Snowden, CSE spied on Israel’s enemies and shared the intelligence with that country’s SIGINT National Unit. “Palestinians” was a “specific intelligence topic” of a CSE, US NSA and British GCH project shared with their Israeli counterpart.
Alongside relations with the Five Eyes intelligence apparatus, Israel has a Strategic Partnership with NATO. Canada and Israel both have military attachés in each other’s countries and top military officials regularly visit each other. The Israeli Air Force trains in Canada and Canada has a “border management and security” agreement with Israel, even though the two countries do not share a border. Additionally, the Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Fund has pumped tens of millions of dollars into joint research ventures between the countries’ military companies.
Through Operation Proteus Canadian troops in the West Bank have been regularly coordinating with their Israeli counterparts for over a decade. Since 2007 about 20 Canadian troops have been training Palestinian Authority security forces to act as the subcontractor of Israel’s occupation as part of a mission led by the Office of the United States Security Coordinator.
A bevy of Canadian groups, including some registered charities, assist the IDF in different ways. Israel and affiliated groups have long recruited Canadians in possible violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act. In 1947/48 hundreds of Canadians fought to establish Israel and ethnically cleanse Palestine. Israel’s initial Air Force was led by a Canadian and dominated by former World War II Canadian pilots.
Back to the present day, the JTF2 deployment to Israel may go beyond assisting evacuation efforts and embassy security. Since the fighting erupted three weeks ago the US has dispatched an aircraft carrier and about a dozen vessels with 15,000 soldiers to the region. US forces, including a three-star general, are advising the IDF on its fighting strategy. According to the New York Times, US special forces are helping locate Hamas hostages. Assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Christopher P. Maier, said their main task is to “identify hostages” but he also noted that “we’re actively helping the Israelis to do a number of things.”
JTF2 works closely with their US counterparts so they may be assisting its special forces with regards to hostages or other military planning. As part of their longer term plan, Israeli and US officials have discussed “granting temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France”, reported Bloomberg. JTF2 could be preparing for that possibility.
From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya to Haiti Canadian special forces have deployed on many politically controversial missions. What the secretive forces are doing in Israel remains unclear, but they certainly aren’t assisting the Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza.
Gaza: Where is Hezbollah?
lecridespeuples | Resistance News | November 2, 2023
Following the spectacular “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation launched by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, the army of occupation has inflicted an unprecedented level of massacre and destruction on its defenseless civilian population, trapped in the world’s largest concentration camp. While Israel’s official stated aim is the annihilation of the Palestinian resistance, its unofficial objective seems to be the ethnic cleansing of the entire Gaza Strip, where everything is being done to make life impossible, paving the way for the definitive liquidation of the Palestinian cause.
Since the beginning of this crucial phase in the Arab-Israeli struggle, where the stakes seem existential on both sides, all eyes have been turned towards the northern border of occupied Palestine, with concern, hope and/or frustration: while NATO provides Israel with all its political and military support, will the Lebanese Hezbollah, which has always vowed to stand firmly by the Palestinians and fight the occupier relentlessly until the total Liberation of Palestine, intervene at the hour of truth?
Why are all eyes on Hezbollah?
“France is ready for the international coalition against ISIS, to which we are committed for our operation in Iraq and Syria, to also fight against Hamas. […] We must also conduct this fight in such a way as to avoid setting the whole region ablaze. I warn Hezbollah, the Iranian regime, the Houthis in Yemen and all the factions in the region that threaten Israel not to take the ill-considered risk of opening up new fronts. To do so would be to open the door to a regional conflagration from which everyone would lose. This is a necessity for all the peoples of the region: let’s do everything we can to avoid adding tears to tears and blood to blood.“
These were the words spoken by French President Emmanuel Macron in Tel Aviv on October 24, 2023, at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, whom he had come to assure of his unconditional support, going so far as to make the ignoble and grotesque proposal of involving French and NATO armed forces in the fight against Palestinian resistance. If he was the first (and only) to suggest this idea, he was not the first to threaten the Lebanese Hezbollah not to open a new front against Israel. The arrival of a large American war fleet in the Mediterranean has been widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the entire “Resistance Axis” in general (an informal alliance comprising, in addition to Palestinian Resistance factions, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen) and Hezbollah in particular. When he announced the deployment of aircraft carriers in a speech on October 10, US President Joe Biden made it clear what he was talking about:
The United States has also enhanced our military force posture in the region to strengthen our deterrence. The Department of Defense has moved the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Eastern Mediterranean and bolstered our fighter aircraft presence. And we stand ready to move in additional assets as needed.
Let me say again — to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t. Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear.
Yesterday, I also spoke with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and the UK to discuss the latest developments with our European allies and coordinate our united response.
This macabre ballet of Western leaders renewing their unconditional allegiance and support to the State of Israel clearly indicates, in addition to their abject and irreversible moral decay, the seriousness of the threat hanging over the occupier, and underlines Israel’s fragility far more than its strength: if Hamas, the weakest link in the Resistance Axis, can break all the defensive lines around Gaza in the space of a few hours, shattering forever any illusions about the superiority of the Israeli army, the devastating consequences of a regional war against Israel suddenly appeared in people’s minds more forcefully than ever. Israel would face total annihilation. Hezbollah alone, with more than 100,000 men and an even greater number of rockets and precision missiles, would be capable of inflicting casualties on Israel considerably greater than those of October 7, seizing and holding to vast territories in occupied northern Palestine and destroying the country’s vital infrastructure. And what if States like Syria and Iran intervened? The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, was in no way exaggerating when he declared that, by visiting Israel, Joe Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, Olaf Scholz, Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron and others had come to the bedside of a dying friend:
The evil powers in the world can see that the Zionist regime is falling apart and on the verge of destruction due to the very strong, decisive blow of the Palestinian fighters. Thus, by making these trips, by expressing solidarity with the Zionist regime and providing it with criminal tools such as bombs and other weaponry, they are struggling to keep the wounded, crippled entity on its feet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was even more explicit about the presence of US naval air forces off the coast of Israel, saying that they were specifically directed against Hezbollah:
“I do not understand why the United States is sending aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean. It has sent one group and has announced the intention of sending another one. I do not see any sense in it. What are they planning to bomb there? Lebanon? What are they planning to do there? Or are they doing this for intimidation? But there are people there who are no longer afraid of anything. The problem should not be addressed in this way. Instead, we should look for compromise solutions. This is what we should do. These actions are certainly whipping up tension. If the conflict spreads beyond the Palestinian territories, things will get out of control.”
Indeed, neither Hezbollah nor its allies are afraid, on the contrary: in fact, it’s fair to say that both in occupied Palestine and on the international scene, fear has changed sides. Moreover, if Joe Biden began by threatening Hezbollah and then the Axis of Resistance not to intervene in the conflict between Israel and Gaza, he quickly denied the allegation (spread by the Netanyahu government) that the United States would intervene alongside Israel if Hezbollah attacked (“It’s not true. I never said that”, Biden replied curtly), and his administration is now quietly advising Israel not to do anything that might bring Hezbollah into the picture.
Finally, let’s not forget that the Resistance Axis itself has issued the most explicit warnings to US forces: any open intervention alongside Israel will result in massive intervention by Palestine’s allies, with direct strikes not only against the Zionist entity (Yemen has already struck it four times with drones and missiles), but also against US forces in the Mediterranean and throughout the Middle East. And these are not empty threats: US bases in Iraq and Syria have been struck daily by Resistance factions since October 8 (so far, 23 attacks were acknowledged by the US command, and only two “retaliations” from the occupying US forces have taken place, which clearly demonstrates who is emboldened and who is intimidated). It’s clear that it’s not just Gaza that’s on the offensive, but all the forces of the Resistance Axis, whose enthusiasm and morale are at an all-time high since the spectacular success of the “Al-Aqsa Flood”, which was certainly no surprise for Hezbollah and its allies.
How does Hezbollah view the situation?
Far from adopting the defeatist and catastrophist view prevalent in the West due to the pervasiveness of racism, imperialism and Hollywood mythology, promoted by the most formidable media propaganda machine in history and extolling the invincibility of White armies — be they those of NATO or Israel, largely assimilated to the dominant civilization— the Resistance Axis does not consider Gaza to be on the brink of annihilation, but on the threshold of its greatest victory. Gaza is not in a defensive position, but one of initiative and conquest. Gaza is not fighting for survival, but leading the greatest liberation battle in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. And the Palestinian Resistance has launched its most audacious attack to date at a time of its choosing, when its forces and those of its allies are at their peak, and those of the enemy are more fragile than ever.
The immediate objectives of the Resistance in Gaza are the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, an end to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque and to ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and especially in East Jerusalem, and the lifting of the blockade. These three goals will most certainly be achieved, even if it takes several years. Experience showed this in 2006: whether it’s the capture of Gilad Shalit by Hamas in June 25 or the capture of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev by Hezbollah in July 12, Israel always starts out in a rage, launching campaigns of destruction in the hope of achieving military success or turning the civilian population against the Resistance, then realizes that none of these objectives can be achieved and that its army is heading for a debacle, and saves face by asking its US sponsor to stop vetoing ceasefire resolutions at the UN Security Council. The occupying power finally resolves to engage in negotiations and yields to the demands of the Resistance: Hezbollah freed all its prisoners in 2008, and Hamas freed over 1,000 in 2011. This is a recurring pattern, and there’s every chance of it happening again this time.
Admittedly, the destruction inflicted by Israel on Gaza, the scale of the massacres and the humanitarian stranglehold are unprecedented. But they are by no means a military achievement. The command, strength and capabilities of Hamas and the other Resistance factions in Gaza remain intact, as demonstrated by their ability to maintain rocket and missile fire against Israel on a daily basis, to prevent his groud invasion by daily attacks and to strike the Israeli territory more and more deeply. The 2006 war in Lebanon definitively proved that a simple air campaign, however violent, was incapable of liquidating, or even significantly weakening, a popular Resistance that has adopted guerrilla tactics. And the prospect of a ground offensive, whether in Lebanon or Gaza, has always remained wishful thinking on the Israeli side, as the fighters of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad only dream of this opportunity to inflict considerable losses on Israeli forces. Decades of low-cost occupation against civilians in the West Bank have rendered the IDF absolutely incapable of carrying out a real offensive against armed forces worthy of the name, and this prospect literally terrorizes all echelons of command, who even fear mass mutinies and desertion on the part of their soldiers, the most cowardly in the world. The proof is that for 25 days, Israel has been promising an imminent ground offensive, but has only made timid incursions on the edge of Gaza, in largely deserted areas, still suffering heavy losses that only strict military censorship and the black-out imposed on Gaza allows hiding for the moment: is such an army ready to confront an urban guerrilla, or will it be decimated? All the massacres of civilians only reflect the impotent rage of the occupying army and unmask its cowardice, barbarity and insatiable thirst for innocent blood. The atrocious images that are broadcast every day constitute an unfathomable disgrace and arouse the indignation of the entire world, which has clearly understood that the IDF is not an army of fighters, but of murderers of women and children. And the prestige of the Israeli army is not only shattered internationally, but in the eyes of the Israeli government, military command and population, which are more divided than ever.
Hezbollah, like the other forces of the Resistance Axis, is certainly not indifferent to the humanitarian aspect of the situation in Gaza, and will most certainly intervene in force if a red line is crossed. But the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon remains focused on the military aspect, in which, however difficult it may be to accept amid the daily scenes of carnage and plight of Gaza’s civilian population, the Palestinian Resistance holds the upper hand, just as the Lebanese Resistance never lost the upper hand throughout the 33 days of massacre and destruction in 2006. Destroying civilian infrastructure, massacring and starving populations and imposing a medieval siege on them, depriving more than two million people of water, electricity, fuel and medicine can only win a war against a weak political leadership, and a people incapable of enduring such suffering: but the Palestinians have long demonstrated that their resilience is, quite literally, unrivalled and foolproof. They would be slaughtered to the last man, woman, child and baby rather than give in to Israeli mass terrorism or become refugees for the third time, after the forced exoduses of 1948 (Nakba) and 1967 (Naksa), of which they are the direct descendants. But there is no doubt that if the Resistance in Gaza is seriously threatened in its integrity or even its existence, or if the entire Palestinian population is threatened with imminent forced displacement or humanitarian catastrophe, then Hezbollah and all the forces of the Resistance Axis will intervene with all their firepower, and this will be the end of the temporary usurping entity, even if the price to pay is enormous. If Hezbollah was ready for all-out war against Israel over Lebanon’s maritime borders, how could it hesitate when the Palestinian cause faced an existential threat? It is even possible that certain forces of the Resistance Axis have already taken the decision to intervene massively against Israel, but they will do so at the opportune moment, probably when the Israeli occupant is bogged down in Gaza and has suffered another military disaster, which the Resistance might even have an interest in “encouraging” as much as possible, by letting Israel believe that it has no intention of intervening massively. Leaving the enemy in doubt and uncertainty, exerting the necessary pressure to dissuade it from crossing certain limits, and reserving surprises for it, is an art in which Hezbollah and its allies excel, and they must wish for a major Israeli ground incursion into Gaza as ardently as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who have promised to make it the invaders’ graveyard.
The speeches of Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, are by no means empty, bombastic language, but reveal the shared vision of the entire Resistance Axis with regard to the military situation in Gaza, and the unshakeable certainty of an upcoming triumphant victory, which will be multiplied tenfold in the event of a large-scale ground operation. Here are extracts from his speeches on October 30 and 31:
“In the continuity of the heroic battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood that the Palestinian Resistance, led by the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades, launched, we stand firm against the aggression, and continue to write chapters of honor and pride and achieve success after success on the road to the inevitable victory, God willing.
Before your very eyes, the Resistance stands proud, its fighters still have their fingers on the trigger and are facing up to the situation on the ground, and the blessed rocket barrages have not stopped, continuing to hit Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Asqelon, Beersheva and the whole area around Gaza, in retaliation for the continuing perpetuation of massacres and the deliberate targeting of our innocent civilians.
Our forces, alongside other Resistance factions, continue their heroic deeds on the battlefield, confronting the futile ground incursion maneuvers carried out by the enemy army under a deluge of fire, in a vain effort to give an illusion of achievement and restore confidence in the Gaza Brigade, which was the main target of the Al-Aqsa Flood.
The enemy is doing its utmost to paint a deceptive image of success, and to boast a mirage of progress and achievement on the ground, but we know full well what its real objectives are. We have maneuvered in the field time and again to deny the enemy opportunities to advance, in accordance with our understanding of the battle.
O army of successive defeats, O caravan of vile rats coming to sully the soil of our worthy and proud Gaza, inform Yoav Gallant [Israeli Defense Minister] and Herzi Halevi [Chief of Staff of the Israeli forces] of what happened to you West of Bayt Lahia, East of Khan Younis and Beit Hanoun, and today in the Zaitoun neighborhood. Tell them how you let yourselves be lured like fools into an ambush of death and into fields of horror. And once again, come forward, for I swear by God, we’re waiting for you with bated breath.
O our Palestinian people, O Arab and Islamic nations, O free men of the world, we continue our battle, the battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood. And at our side is our resilient people, ready for any sacrifice, who continue to chant, despite the bloodshed, his immutable attachment to his cause with the noblest marks of devotion and loyalty, as every Palestinian is ready to give everything on the path to freedom for our people.
With our stance and achievements, we reaffirm, with the support of our people, the value and dignity of our lives. Our people, in all their components and factions, pledge their loyalty to the call to Resistance and stand tall, rising from beneath the rubble, whether as martyrs, draped in the shroud of victory heralded by their sacrifice, or as survivors, shouting with all their might their support for the Resistance, in a scene that dismays the Zionist cowards, who have worked hard to turn the people against us but have failed to separate the Resistance from its popular base. […]
Recently, the Zionist enemy began ground maneuvers on several fronts. The first front is in the north-west of the Gaza Strip, while the second stretches from the eastern center of the Strip to its south-east. They are also present around the Beit Hanoun crossing and in the vicinity of Beit Hanoun.
The criminal enemy approached these fronts after more than 20 days of bombardment using all types of weapons, attempting to displace our population and causing extensive destruction, presumably to restore the image of their defeated army that we shattered on October 7. As soon as these Zionist ground forces reached our defense lines and contact zones, our forces began harassing them and continue to defend themselves against the enemy’s planned attacks on all frontlines.
Our fighters are and have been engaged in fierce confrontations and direct clashes. Despite the enemy’s advance, our fighters have succeeded in engaging enemy forces and destroying 22 Zionist vehicles so far, using the highly penetrating Al-Yassin 105 shells and our devastating explosive guerrilla bombs that have been deployed in this battle.
Our fighters attacked the Zionist forces using various types of explosives and missiles, and they carried out infiltration operations from behind enemy lines in gatherings and advance areas, managing to kill many soldiers of the occupation. We continue to bombard ground forces with mortar shells and short-range missile barrages, while continuing to strike deep into enemy territory with rockets of varying ranges. Our naval forces successfully carried out multiple attacks on several naval targets, using the Al-Asif torpedo which entered service during this battle.
Our defensive operations continue and are only just beginning. By God’s grace and strength, we still have much in store. As we promised the enemy, Gaza will be its graveyard and a nightmare for its soldiers. […]
We affirm that the strategic results of this battle will consist of transformation at all levels and in all directions for the benefit of the Resistance and the project of Liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine, with the grace of God.”
This is on this assessment of the ground that Hezbollah plans its actions. And as Abu Obeida says in conclusion, let us recall that the ultimate goal of the Palestinian Resistance, Hezbollah and the Resistance Axis is not simply to lift the blockade or release the prisoners, to end the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the desecration of Al-Aqsa, nor even to impose a resolution of the conflict with the establishment of two States, a solution dead and buried for a long time due to Israeli colonization, in no way. The strategic goal of the Resistance Axis is to completely wipe out the State of Israel from the map, to expel all settlers and to establish a single Palestinian state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. Additionally, following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Resistance Axis forces announced that their goal was to drive out all U.S. forces from the Middle East. This long-term objective must be accomplished with as little loss of life as possible. It would be the inevitable result of a total regional war (which could have been triggered when Iran struck the US base of Al-Assad in Iraq, a first since Pearl Harbor), but it could cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians and Yemenis if it were carried out today, the US empire being in clear decline but not yet in its terminal phase of collapse (even if Covid, the debacle in Afghanistan then in Ukraine and the economic and energy crisis allow us to expect this moment more acutely than ever). Strategic patience requires waiting for the opportune moment, when a war may not even be necessary (or will at least be much less deadly and would not involve NATO forces), for example if the collapse of the United States follows the model of the Soviet Union. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah himself raised the hypothesis during an interview dating from 2019:
“The power of Israel depends essentially on that of the United States. Therefore, if something happens to the United States – like what happened to the USSR, for example a collapse of its economy, internal problems and discord, natural disasters or any other incident that could cause the United States to unite in focusing on their internal problems and reducing their presence and influence in the region – I assure you that the Israelis will pack up on their own and evacuate as soon as possible. Therefore, the destruction of Israel does not necessarily require war.”
Nasrallah stressed it again after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020:
“Within the Axis of Resistance, our will and our objective must be the following: the answer to the murder of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi is to expel American forces from our entire region! If we achieve this goal, and we will achieve it God willing, the Liberation of Al-Quds, of the Palestinian people, the full return of all Palestine and all the holy places of Palestine to the Arab-Muslim Nation will be very close, a stone’s throw away. When the United States leaves our region, these Zionists will pack up and leave (hastily). It may not even require a battle against Israel.”
As difficult as it may be to say and accept, it would not make sense for Hezbollah to start a war that would sacrifice Lebanese civilians by the thousands and destroy the country’s infrastructure in order to save 5,000 or even 10,000 Palestinians. Especially if Hamas can achieve this victory alone, albeit at the cost of enormous sacrifices, as neither Hezbollah nor its allies want to compete with it to take the laurels. If the Resistance in Gaza makes it out by itself, the humiliation will only be greater for the Zionist entity, and will accelerate its inevitable demise: it would be a much greater shock for Israel to be defeated by Gaza alone than by an international coalition of forces, and it would shatter any sense of security for the settlers around Gaza, who might never come back. But if, at any point, the Palestinian cause itself is at stake, if Gaza or the Resistance are on the verge of annihilation, if it is a question of saving Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and the Al-Aqsa mosque, Hezbollah and the Resistance Axis will enter the war in full force and will not shy away from any sacrifice, absolutely none, even if it had biblical proportions. Indeed, the ideal would be a Liberation of Al-Quds on the model of the Prophet’s entry into Mecca, that happened without any major combat (because then the superiority of the Muslim armies was so overwhelming that no one dared to oppose it), but if they have no other choice to save Palestine, Hezbollah and the entire Resistance Axis will not back down from Armageddon itself.
Is Hezbollah standing idle?
Last but not least, it should be remembered that since October 7, Hezbollah has not been sitting idle: it has continued to confront Israel on south Lebanon, and to inflict serious losses on its forces. Hezbollah’s policy is simple: initially, it lets the different factions of the Palestinian Resistance in Lebanon hit Israel with rocket attacks, or attempted incursions, which it unofficially covers and facilitates but without officially participating; secondly, when the occupier retaliates, Hezbollah declares that it cannot tolerate this aggression against Lebanon, and that it will respond (by the way, this is in no way impudent: according to international law, an occupied people has the right to use force to liberate their lands; an occupier only has the right to pack up, and cannot ever invoke self-defense): thus Hezbollah can support the Palestinian Resistance without departing from the defined rules of engagement against Israel, and carry out daily attacks against Israeli bases, troops and settlements along the whole border (all the videos of Hezbollah operations are displayed on this Telegram channel) without the situation escalating into a total war.
The Lebanese Resistance has just published this graph which indicates the losses inflicted on the occupier between October 8 and 30 “as part of operations on the road to the liberation of Al-Quds”: 120 Israeli soldiers were killed or injured, 65,000 settlers were evacuated from 28 settlements, 13 armed vehicles were destroyed (2 armored personnel carriers, 2 Humvees and 9 tanks) and 105 military sites were targeted. In addition, 69 communications systems, 17 jamming systems and 27 intelligence systems, 140 cameras, 33 radars and 1 drone were destroyed, so that Israel is almost completely blinded to what is happening on the Lebanese border, which would facilitate a major ground offensive from Lebanon. For its part, Hezbollah announced 49 martyrs so far: these are indeed low-intensity clashes, but on both sides, the losses in soldiers already represent almost a third of those of the entire July 2006 war, which is far from insignificant. Especially since this daily pressure on the occupier does not only represent moral support, but indeed military support. As Sheikh Naïm Qassem, Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, declared, Israel has amassed 5 brigades around Gaza, and 3 brigades on the Lebanese border: without the threat that Hezbollah poses to Israel, 8 brigades would be amassed around Gaza. It is therefore above all a matter of dividing the enemy’s forces, and of leaving its command in uncertainty, in order to paralyze its decisions and its willingness to massively commit its forces against the Palestinian Resistance. In this regard, the success is undeniable: to be convinced of this, one only needs to listen to the confused and contradictory declarations of Netanyahu, his ministers and the Israeli general staff on the launch of the ground operation, its timing, its scale, its objectives, etc.
Lebanon: Hassan Nasrallah discusses developments with Ziyad Al-Nakhalah (Islamic Jihad) and Salah Al-Arouri (Hamas)
Additionally, Hezbollah is directly involved in the daily operations of the Resistance in Gaza, working closely with Hamas and Islamic Jihad cadres based in Lebanon in a common command room. Following Nasrallah’s high-profile meeting with Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders on October 25, Hamas political leader Salah al-Arouri said:
“We are witnessing a heroic epic of Resistance in Lebanon against the occupier along the southern borders, where daily clashes break out and where martyrs fall daily among Hezbollah, the Al-Quds Brigades and the Al-Qassam Brigades. Hezbollah operates at all military and political levels, and our battle is also their battle. We share one goal and one destiny. Our struggle is united, our destiny is shared towards Al-Quds. We are in constant coordination in this battle.
Not all of our meetings with Hezbollah are public. We met Sayed Hassan Nasrallah on the first day of the battle. We are in constant meetings and maintain deep and precise communication with all the Resistance forces and our Hezbollah brothers, with Sayed Nasrallah on the front line.
If the enemy invades by land, it will mark a new and glorious chapter for our people and an unprecedented defeat for the occupation in the history of the Israeli-Arab struggle. Punishment for the crimes of the occupation is inevitable. We assure our people that the Resistance is doing well despite the crimes of the enemy and will ease your hearts regarding the extent of your suffering in the event of a brutal ground attack.
To the occupation, I declare this: be ready, because the battle has not yet begun.”
It is more than likely that Hezbollah was not surprised by the October 7 operation nor by its spectacular success, Nasrallah having constantly warned Israel not to underestimate the Palestinian Resistance, and to fear a massive reaction if they did not stop their ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and their provocations at the Al-Aqsa mosque: “Don’t miscalculate”, he kept warning the Israeli occupier and his new fascist government. We can even say that the Lebanese Resistance, which, thanks to its experience of liberating territories occupied by ISIS and Al-Nusra in Syria, has been planning an operation to invade Israel and liberate the Galilee for years, has transmitted its expertise to the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, which took the Israeli army completely by surprise by launching an operation it expected on its northern border. Hezbollah is therefore directly linked to all aspects of the terrain and the situation, and assists the Resistance factions in all possible ways, similar to what the United States is doing for Israel.
What now?
Hezbollah’s decisions are influenced neither by the threats of enemies, nor by the reproaches (or even bitter insults) of friends who allow themselves to be carried away by emotion and see in Hezbollah’s attitude cowardice or a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. Hezbollah has never cared about “saving face” and is only driven by its long-term strategic vision, which is entirely focused on the total liberation of Palestine and the ways to achieve this strategic objective while minimizing sacrifices, if possible. Those who consider the eradication of Israel an unrealizable illusion are the same people who, in 1982, would have considered the desire of the nascent Hezbollah to expel by force the Israeli army which occupied half of Lebanon, or who, before October 7, would have found it inconceivable that the Resistance in Gaza could break the siege and inflict such losses and humiliation on the enemy. The red lines which, if crossed, would bring in Hezbollah and the Resistance Axis with all its firepower are probably clearly drawn, but it would not be wise to divulge them: it would be telling Israel that he can go this far without risking an all-out war. Leaving the enemy in confusion and exerting controlled pressure on the Lebanese border is the best strategy for this phase of the battle: Hezbollah demonstrates that he is present, that he is not afraid of confrontation or of escalation, and that he is ready for open war.
Whatever happens, October 7 will go down in history as a resounding victory for the Palestinian Resistance, and an earthquake for Israel. No massacre, no destruction, no genocide can ever erase it. As Sheikh Naïm Qassem pointed out, Israel has little choice today but between being content with the crushing defeat it has already suffered, or persisting in blind revenge and suffering discredit and defeat on a much bigger scale. Each of these two scenarios is satisfactory for the Palestinian Resistance and its allies, who will not abandon it, whatever the price to pay. And already, the confidence of Israeli society in its army and in itself, which has only become more fragile over the last two decades, is irremediably broken, and the process of remigration of Israeli settlers to Europe and America will only accelerate.
Hassan Nasrallah’s speech announced for November 3, in tribute to the martyrs of the Lebanese Islamic Resistance who fell in recent days, will finally break the silence of the Hezbollah Secretary General, an expert in psychological warfare, whose silence as well as his speeches are feared and deciphered by Israel. He will not necessarily make thunderous announcements, though many people expect him to do so, but he will clarify the very tense situation on the Lebanese border, which is getting worse every day, and could degenerate into open conflict at any time. Of all the speeches Nasrallah has given, this is probably the one that will be the most eagerly awaited and followed by both friends and enemies of the Party of God and Palestine.
Review: Against Our Better Judgment, by Alison Weir
The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel
BY RICHARD C. COOK • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 1, 2023
As the crisis involving the Israelis and Palestinians deepens after the October 7 Hamas attack, we might pause to examine how the state of Israel was created in the first place. At the current juncture, as World War III looms on the horizon, as massacres are currently being perpetrated by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza, with a death toll exceeding 9,000, of which over 4,000 are children, and as a Western armada is gathering in the eastern Mediterranean, it is befitting to review journalist Alison Weir’s book Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. The book was published in 2014, is packed with often hard-to-access details, and is masterfully documented. Alison Weir is also head of a group she has founded: If Americans Knew.
Alison Weir’s book is crucially important in considering ways to gain a broader perspective in order to defuse the situation. It is also of keen interest with respect to the larger potential conflict, where U.S. political leaders are again trotting out the phrase, “Axis of Evil,” this time to describe the nations of Russia, China, and Iran. (Sometimes North Korea is tossed in for good measure.) It’s Iran, of course, that U.S. leaders are identifying as an alleged sponsor of the resistance groups in and around Palestine, including Hamas.
Following are what I view as the main points from Alison Weir’s book. My own interspersed editorial comments are in italics. Page numbers are given in parentheses only for quotations from the book.
Origin of Zionism in the U.S. Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel begins by explaining that support for Zionism, defined as the desire for creation of a Jewish national state somewhere in the world, goes back in U.S. history to the late 1880s, around the time that the Zionist Movement was becoming prominent in Europe. By the 1910s, there were thousands of U.S. adherents, though many Jews opposed Zionism as not in the interests of the Jewish people and certain to result in antagonism toward them. Probably a majority of Jews in the U.S. had never even heard of Zionism and/or were happy to have assimilated into American society. In fact, there was nothing that could even be viewed remotely as an “anti-Semitism problem” in the U.S. at this time.
Role of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Louis Brandeis and Creation of the Parushim. Still, some very powerful people became Zionists, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, whose main disciple was future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Brandeis formed a secret organization called the Parushim, whose sole purpose was to bring about the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This Zionist organization required an oath that appeared to give life and death power over its sworn members.
“Parushim,” also spelled “Purushim,” is the Hebrew word from which the name “Pharisees” is derived, meaning “separatists.” From the Pharisees came Rabbinical Judaism and the idea that, “We should not assimilate or acculturate at all.” (prezi.com) I would note that Alison Weir’s book did not aim at giving an account of the deeper motivations of the Zionist movement, other than its claim to be a reaction to European “anti-Semitism.” For more depth, I would recommend a careful reading of the classic The Controversy of Zion by British journalist Douglas Reed (1895-1976).
Justice Louis Brandeis was close to Wall Street banker Jacob Schiff. Brandeis was also closely involved with the creation of the Federal Reserve System, as was Schiff, though Brandeis’s involvement in political issues was largely behind the scenes.
The Federal Reserve, I would add, was largely a project of the U.S. Money Trust and the British/European Rothschilds. The Rothschilds were also heavily involved in Zionism and in the creation and support of the Zionist state. The fact that Zionism was sponsored by some incredibly rich people might cause us to ask to what extent financial rewards played a role in the rapid conversion of many Jews and non-Jews to Zionism during this period. For information on creation of the Federal Reserve, see my own book, Our Country, Then and Now (Clarity Press, 2023).
Collaboration Between the Parushim and Great Britain. Justice Louis Brandeis’s Parushim worked closely with Zionists in Great Britain, including travel back and forth, to persuade the British government to designate Palestine as a future Jewish homeland. This was after Zionist leaders had rejected such locations as Kenya. Thus was created a “contract” between Britain and the Parushim that if the British would generate what became the Balfour Declaration, the U.S. Zionists would endeavor to assure U.S. entrance into World War I against Germany on the side of Britain. This contract was fulfilled by both parties, though, as in the U.S., many British Jews opposed Zionism for similar reasons—as a threat to Jewish assimilation.
The Balfour Declaration specified that it should be “clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” (p.97) At the time, non-Jewish communities made up 92 percent of the population of Palestine.
Zionism and the Failure to Make Peace with the Ottoman Empire. World War I begin in 1914. By 1915-1916, the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with Germany but not at war against the U.S., offered to make a separate peace with the U.S. The Ottomans had also offered to allow the Jews of Europe to live at peace anywhere in their empire. The U.S. sent a delegation to negotiate this separate peace, but Brandeis informed the British Zionists that the delegation was on its way. The British Zionists then send their leader, Chaim Weizmann, to intercept the U.S. delegation at Gibraltar, where he prevailed on it to call off the negotiations. The reason was that the British were going to lay claim to Palestine after the war as a homeland for the Jews, so they wanted to assure that Palestine was going to be available for British control. The British design was to break up the Ottoman Empire, not leave it intact through a separate U.S.-instigated peace.
Warnings Against the Zionist Project. Diplomats within the U.S. State Department both in Washington, D.C., and in the Middle East were aware of and warned against the Zionist project, arguing that a million Palestinians would be displaced or made virtual servants/slaves of the invaders.
World War I. In 1917 the U.S. entered the war on the side of Britain, per the Zionist agreement, and Germany was defeated, along with the Ottomans. Britain also signed a secret agreement with France by which it would get control of Palestine after the war. Control was implemented through the vehicle of a British Mandate approved by the League of Nations.
During this period, antagonism against Jews had begun to grow within U.S. society, partly in reaction to perceptions that Jews controlled the banks and other financial institutions. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” had also appeared. While claimed to be a forgery from Czarist Russia, the Protocols received credence and publicity from Henry Ford and others.
Germany was aware that the Zionists had contributed to the defeat of Germany in WWI. This contributed to the anti-Jewish attitudes of Germans after the war and was a factor in the later Nazi anti-Jewish policies.
During WWI, the Parushim gave the FBI a list of Americans who were opponents to Zionism or the war. Many of these people were arrested and sent to prison. Through all of this, Brandeis was directing matters from behind the scenes. He was arguably the most powerful person in the U.S., but his political activities were secret or carried out through proxies.
At the end of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson sent a commission to Palestine to investigate the situation. Known as the King-Crane Commission, its report “recommended against the Zionist position of unlimited immigration of Jews to make Palestine a distinctly Jewish state.” The report stated that “the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine,” that “armed force would be required to accomplish this,” and that “the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.” The report of the King-Crane Commission “was suppressed.” (p.25)
Zionism After World War I. Between the two world wars, a growing number of U.S. Zionists worked to further the project for the creation of Israel. In Germany, the Zionists supported the rise of the Nazis, as this would lead to German Jews wanting to emigrate to Palestine. In Iraq, where the Jewish leaders did not support Zionism, Iraqi Jews were attacked, even murdered, to force them to emigrate to Palestine. Without arousing the anxiety of Jews around the world that they were unsafe in their homelands, Zionist planners believed there would not be enough Jewish settlers to create a Zionist state and force the Palestinians out.
Opponents of Zionism in the U.S. diplomatic service were threatened with having their careers destroyed if they did not support the claims that Jews in foreign countries were suffering discrimination so should want to move to Palestine. The Zionists worked to limit immigration opportunities for Jews elsewhere than Palestine, including the U.S. The Zionists opposed measures by the British government to limit the number of Jews who could enter Palestine.
Collaboration Between the Zionists and Nazis. Building on work by author Hannah Arendt, Edwin Black wrote The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine. Click Here According to author Tom Segev, “Arendt stated that many Jews would have survived ‘had their leaders not helped the Nazis organize the concentration of Jews in the ghettos, their deportation to the east, and their transport to the death camps.’” (p.146) This was called the “Haavara Agreement.”
The famous 1930s Jewish boycott of German products may have been instigated by Zionists to promote anti-Jewish sentiment leading to more desire among Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Other Zionists made claims that persecuted Jews were prone to becoming revolutionary communists for the same purpose.
Zionist Activities Between the World Wars. In the U.S. during the 1920s and 1930s, Zionist leaders muffled talk of a Jewish state in Palestine and focused on creating new institutions there as altruistic enterprises. An example was Hebrew University, opening in Jerusalem in 1925. Zionist leaders complained that most U.S. Jews saw themselves first and foremost as American citizens. Organizations like the American Zionist Emergency Council and the United Jewish Appeal were founded to generate funding and support. Donations to the United Jewish Appeal in 1948 was four times that of the American Red Cross. Pro-Zionist publicity and lobbying efforts were unleashed across the U.S. Some Jews, like the American Council for Judaism, still opposed Zionism as inimical to real Jewish interests. The ACJ opposed the Zionists’ “anti-Semitic racialist lie that Jews the world over were a separate, national body.” (p.152)
Zionist advocacy in the U.S. had powerful political adherents. New York Congressman Emanuel Celler told President Harry Truman, “We’ll run you out of town,” if he did not support the program. Senator Jacob Javits said, “We’ll fight to the death and make a Jewish state in Palestine if it’s the last thing that we do.” (p.38) Zionist propaganda included funding of best-selling pro-Zionist books by non-Jews. Zionists such as wealthy Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermyer began to interject “dispensationalist” ideas of “Christian Zionism” into the discourse through sponsorship of the “Scofield Reference Bible.” (Untermyer was also a leading backer of the Federal Reserve and advocate of the worldwide Jewish boycott of Germany.)
Today, as we all know, “Christian Zionism” among “evangelicals” is part of the bedrock support of the Israel Lobby. Leading evangelical ministers like Jerry Falwell received large donations from Zionist supporters. An entire “dispensationalist” mythology involving the “Rapture,” etc., has been constructed and promoted to justify the political union between this group of American religionists and the most extreme factions of Israeli politics led today by such figures as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though Netanyahu has surfaced this mad mythology to cover Israeli genocide in Gaza, the topic is not covered in detail in Alison Weir’s book, so will not be dealt with further here.
Protestant Support of Zionism. By the 1930s, U.S. Zionists were trying to organize American Protestants in their support. By the end of WWII the Christian Council on Palestine had grown to 3,000 members and the American Palestine Committee to 6,500. The appeal to Protestants was based on generating sympathy for refugees, though no mention was made of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians becoming refugees due to the Zionist takeover. During the Israeli war of independence in 1947-1949, Christian churches and institutions in Palestine were assaulted by the Zionists along with the Palestinians.
Beginnings of Terrorism and U.N. Partition of Palestine. In Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s, the Zionists tried to buy Palestinian land but few inhabitants wished to sell. The Zionists then began to organize terrorist forces to drive them out. These terrorist groups also targeted British government officials, as Palestine was still a British Mandate. Author Alison Weir cites a statement by David ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, that suggests this was at least part of what started today’s worldwide phenomenon of terrorism.
By the start of the 1947-1949 war, Jews made up 30 percent of the Palestinian population but owned only 6-7 percent of the land. In 1947, Britain turned its Palestine Mandate over to the U.N. A General Assembly resolution to partition gave the Zionists 55 percent of the land of Palestine. The U.S. State Department opposed the partition plan as against the wishes of local people and in violation of U.S. interests and of democratic principles. Officials warned that partition “would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future.” (p.45) Officials said the proposal was for “a theocratic racial state” that discriminated “on grounds of religion and race.” (p.45) The leading anti-Zionist Department of State official, Loy Henderson, was exiled by his superiors to a post as ambassador to Nepal.
U.S. Government Opposition to Zionism. Nevertheless, virtually the entire U.S. executive branch was opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. Statements and reports were made by a 1946 commission headed by Ambassador Henry F. Grady, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson. A 1948 report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that, “The Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives.” (p.47)
Jewish leaders were well aware that U.N. partitioning of Palestine was temporary and that over time, the Jewish state would expand to absorb the entire region. The concept of “Eretz Israel” was formulated, whereby the Zionist state would encompass Transjordan, as well as parts of Lebanon and Syria. Zionists also had begun using U.S. antagonism toward the Soviet Union as an argument for creation of a pro-Western Jewish state. This hearkened back to the early days of Zionism, when Zionist leaders characterized their proposed state as a bulwark of British influence in the Middle East; i.e., as an extension of British colonialism and geopolitics.
Today, pro-Zionists make the argument that Israel is an outpost of benign “Judeo-Christian” influence in the Middle East, as they try to arouse antagonism toward the one billion Muslims in the world in a purported “clash of civilizations.” Such attitudes became prominent in U.S. politics during the “War on Terror” of the Bush/Cheney administration that continues today through U.S. labeling of anti-Zionist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorist” organizations. This is despite the historical fact cited above that it was the Zionists who introduced terrorism into the Middle East.
U.S. Recognition of Israel and the Role of President Truman. The U.S. was the first country to recognize Israel as an independent state when on May 14, 1948, President Harry Truman issued a statement of recognition following Israel’s proclamation of independence on the same date. Truman’s main motivation was believed at the time, and still is today, the winning of Jewish support in the presidential election that year. His decision was strongly opposed by Secretary of State George Marshall, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, the CIA and National Security Council, and top State Department official George Kennan. Intelligence agent Kermit Roosevelt wrote: “The present course of world crisis will increasingly force upon Americans the realization that their national interests and those of the proposed Jewish state in Palestine are going to conflict.” (p.51) Contrary to the belief that U.S. oil interests promoted the Zionist project, officials argued that U.S. ability to access Middle Eastern resources would be adversely affected. Truman also had pro-Zionist insiders at high levels of his administration.
Author Alison Weir points out that bribery also played a part. “Gore Vidal wrote: ‘Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.’” (p.167) Jewish businessman Abraham Feinberg explained his raising of cash for Truman in an oral history interview published by the Truman Library in 1973. The CIA also discovered Feinberg’s illegal gun-running to Zionist groups.
I may be the first writer to point out that Truman’s action in accepting bribes, if discovered, could have been seen and treated as an impeachable offense.
Zionist Takeover of Palestine. At the time of Israel’s proclamation of independence and immediate U.S. recognition, the U.N. resolution of partition had been passed, with war ensuing between Zionist and Arab forces. The U.N. General Assembly adopted the partition plan by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions, with many nations subjected to intense Zionist lobbying and threats. For instance, “Financier and longtime presidential adviser Bernard Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition.” (p.55) A Swedish U.N. mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was killed by Zionist assassins. To this day, no accepted legal authority for the U.N. in its partitioning of Palestine has ever been demonstrated. In other words, it was likely an extra-legal action in response to Zionist lobbying.
Though sporadic violence between Jews and Palestinian Arabs had taken place over the previous two decades, the Zionists committed wholesale massacres of Palestinians after the U.N. resolution for partition. By the end of Israel’s war of independence in 1948, over 750,000 Palestinians had been expelled from Zionist-controlled territory. Israeli historian Tom Segev wrote: “Israel was born of terror, war, and revolution, and its creation required a measure of fanaticism and cruelty.” (p.58) Today this is called in Arabic the “Nakba”—“catastrophe.”
The most well-known massacre took place at the village of Deir Yessin in April 1948, before any Arab armies had joined the fight. There, 254 villagers were murdered in cold blood. The heads of two militias present at Deir Yessin, Irgun and the Stern Gang, were Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, both of whom later became prime ministers of Israel. The Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1947, killing 86. The Stern Gang also solicited aid from the Axis powers during WWII.
Zionist Front Organizations in the U.S. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Zionists created a number of front organizations to raise money used to finance militant activities in Palestine. After WWII, the U.S. maintained an arms embargo against Israel and the Middle East. Foremost among the sponsors of the front organizations intended to skirt the embargo was Irgun. One group, the Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinians Jews, claimed it was formed to fight the Nazis in Europe, but was intended instead to fight the British and Arabs in Palestine. These groups espoused such radical ideologies as the idea that “non-Jews are the embodiment of Satan, and that the world was created solely for Jews.” (p.67) Another group, headed by Orthodox Rabbi Baruch Korff, hatched a plot to blow up the British foreign office in London that was exposed in the New York Herald Tribune. Through political influence, U.S. charges against Korff were dropped. Later he “became a close friend and fervent supporter of President Richard Nixon, who called him ‘my rabbi.’” (p.71) Nixon’s support for Israel manifested in the gigantic airlift of military supplies that helped save Israel from defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Another major organization raising money for sending arms to the Zionists in Palestine was the Sonneborn Institute. Between 1939 and May 1948, the Jewish Agency for Israel was also active, raising the equivalent today of $3.5 billion.
Zionism and Organized Crime. Financial backers of Israeli independence included members of organized crime, including Meyer Lansky, head of the Jewish Mafia in the U.S. In an April 19, 2018 article in Tablet (tabletmag.com) entitled “Gangsters for Zion: Yom Ha’atzmaut: How Jewish mobsters helped Israel gain its independence. Robert Rockaway wrote: “In 1945, the Jewish Agency, the pre-state Israeli government headed by David Ben-Gurion, created a vast clandestine arms-purchasing-and-smuggling network throughout the United States. The operation was placed under the aegis of the Haganah, the underground forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, and involved hundreds of Americans from every walk of life. They included millionaires, rabbinical students, scrap-metal merchants, ex-GIs, college students, longshoremen, industrialists, chemists, engineers, Protestants and Catholics, as well as Jews. One group, who remained anonymous and rarely talked about, were men who were tough, streetwise, unafraid, and had access to ready cash: Jewish gangsters.” Rockaway, a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, also wrote that through their control of U.S. ports, the Jewish mob arranged for arms deliveries to Israel aboard vessels flying the flag of Panama.
Recruiting Jews to Relocate to Palestine. “Zionist cadres infiltrated displaced persons’ camps that had been set up to house refugees displaced during WWII. These infiltrators tried secretly to funnel people to Palestine. When it turned out that most didn’t want to go to Palestine, they worked to convince them—sometimes by force.” (p.74) Another recruiting source was Jewish foster children in Christian homes. The Zionists claimed to be the sole representative of all the world’s Jews in order to legitimize efforts to divert war survivors to Israel, not to countries like the U.S. to which many preferred to go. “After a voluntary recruitment drive netted less than 0.3 percent of the DP [displaced persons] population, a compulsory draft was implemented.” (p.79) Some draftees were required to fight in Palestine in the Zionist war of independence. Meanwhile, the secretive Sieff group was formed in Washington, D.C., to carry out back channel lobbying for the Zionist project. The group was protected by such powerful individuals as Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and the aforementioned financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch.
Fate of the Palestinian Refugees. Three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees fled to neighboring regions in a gigantic humanitarian disaster. A 1948 State Department report stated “The total direct relief offered…by the Israeli government to date consists of 500 cases of oranges.” (p.83) The value of land confiscated by the Zionists amounted to $5.2 trillion in today’s dollars. Christians also suffered as “numerous convents, hospices, seminaries, and churches were either destroyed or cleared of their Christian owners and custodians.” (p.83) Efforts by U.S. government officials to withhold aid to the Israeli government due to the refugee crisis were overruled by President Truman.
Zionism and the media. Even as early as WWI, the Zionists exerted almost complete control over the U.S. press. This included placing pro-Zionist articles in prestigious newspapers like The New York Times. In 1953, author Alfred Lilienthal wrote: “The capture of the American press by Jewish nationalism was, in fact, incredibly complete. Magazines as well as newspapers, in news stories as well as editorial columns, gave primarily the Zionist views of events before, during, and after partition.” (p.86) Zionist coercion extended to withdrawal of advertising, cancellation of subscriptions, and blacklisting of journalists and authors, even those offering a mere trace of sympathy toward the displaced Palestinians. Particularly emotional in their support of Zionism were the journals the Nation and the New Republic. An example of how the Zionists could destroy an author’s career was the attack on then-famous journalist Dorothy Thompson after “she began to speak about Palestinian refugees, narrated a documentary about their plight, and condemned Jewish terrorism. (p.92)
We all know that the complete slanting of U.S. media coverage toward Zionism and Israel dominates news reporting at all levels and across the ideological spectrum, from the top newspapers and networks to what is left of small town journalism. This includes so-called “independent” outlets like Breitbart. The start of this bias began, perhaps not coincidentally, during the time before WWI when the newsrooms of U.S. newspapers were taken over by propagandists sympathetic to the Federal Reserve System and the Money Trust. Today, of course, we have the internet, which has begun to make inroads into the control of the news by pro-establishment media corporations and Deep State censors. Internet outlets also must be cautious, however, so are often reduced to the role of “limited hangouts,” reporting only selected stories that protest particularly egregious Israeli offenses, but never the “big picture.”
In conclusion we can say that, as Alison Weir’s book makes clear, it was largely American Zionists who financed and enabled the violent takeover of Palestine and who thereby share responsibility over the past three-quarters of a century for the atrocities committed against a diverse population whose forebears had been living in peace and rooted in the region for millenniums. This population also inhabited the holy city of Jerusalem, sacred to the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions.
The book also makes it clear that people can oppose Zionism—the forceful establishment of a Jewish national state in Palestine—without being anti-Jewish or “anti-Semitic.” Of course, most of the indigenous people of Palestine are “Semites” in ethnicity and language. Also, the most forceful opponents of the original Zionist movement in Great Britain, the U.S., and possibly other nations, have been, and still are, Jews themselves who had successfully assimilated into their host cultures. Examples are the Hassidic Jews of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Jews in Iran who refuse to support Israel.
Many more volumes could or should be written about U.S. enabling of Israel and Zionism and about Israel’s and Zionism’s interference in internal U.S. affairs. I would include an examination of Israel’s possible participation in the JFK/RFK assassinations and the 9/11 attacks, U.S. acquiescence in Israel’s nuclear weapons program, Israel’s links with the Neocons who control today’s U.S. foreign policy, and today’s courting of World War III against more than half the world’s countries, starting with Israel’s nemesis, Iran. Will the U.S. stumble into WWIII because of its pro-Zionist captivity?
Copyright 2023 by Richard C. Cook. Comments are welcome and will be read at monetaryreform@gmail.com.
Richard C. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst who served with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he broke the story of the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Shuttle. After serving at Treasury, he exposed the disastrous flaws of a monetary system controlled by private finance in his book We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform. As an adviser to the American Monetary Institute and while working with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, he advocated the replacement of the Federal Reserve System with a genuine national currency. His latest book is Our Country, Then and Now (Clarity Press, 2023).
“Every human enterprise must serve life, must seek to enrich existence on earth, lest man become enslaved where he seeks to establish his dominion!” Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943), Translation by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014.
Countries Begin Downgrading Ties with Israel Over Relentless Bombing of Gaza
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | November 1, 2023
A trio of South American countries, along with Jordan, have cut ties with Israel over the onslaught in Gaza. According to Palestinian sources, the Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed nearly 9,000 people, half of which are women and children.
On Tuesday, Bolivia took the most extreme step and cut all ties with Israel. Deputy Foreign Minister Freddy Mamani explained that Bolivia “decided to break diplomatic relations with the Israeli state in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip.”
The next day, Tel Aviv responded by saying Sucre’s move was “capitulation to terrorism and to the ayatollah regime in Iran.”
Colombia and Chile announced they would recall their ambassadors to Israel. Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on X, “I have decided to call our ambassador in Israel for consultation. If Israel does not stop the massacre of the Palestinian people we cannot be there.”
Chile posted a press release saying Santiago would also recall its diplomat.
“Given the unacceptable violations of International Humanitarian Law that Israel has incurred in the Gaza Strip, the Government of Chile has decided to recall the Chilean ambassador to Israel, Jorge Carvajal, to Santiago for consultations. …”
“Chile strongly condemns and observes with great concern that these military operations – which at this point in their development entail collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza – do not respect fundamental norms of International Law, as demonstrated by the more than eight thousand civilian victims, mostly women and children.”
Jordan joined the South American nations in downgrading ties with Israel. The Foreign Ministry announced it was recalling its ambassador. “Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi decided to immediately recall Jordan’s ambassador to Israel,” a statement said. The move is to reflect Amman’s condemnation of the “Israeli war that is killing innocent people in Gaza.”
While Tel Aviv receives near unconditional backing from Washington, Israel lacks the international community’s support for its war. On Monday, the UN General Assembly voted 120-14 for a ceasefire in Gaza.
After a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, Tel Aviv launched a military operation. The bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 3,600 children.
As the German Health Ministry drowns in millions of unwanted vaccine doses, Karl Lauterbach begs Germans to please, please line up for their fifth jab
eugyppius: a plague chronicle | November 1, 2023
From the erstwhile vaccine propagandists at Der Spiegel, who I think are also tiring of the insipid autumnal vaccination liturgy and its noxious political enablers:
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has again called on people to get a booster vaccination. “Despite the pandemic and awareness campaigns, the importance of the Covid booster is apparently greatly underestimated,” he tells Spiegel. “So far, unfortunately, only a fraction of those for whom it is recommended have had a booster vaccination.” He calls on all at-risk groups and older people to catch up and ideally combine it with a flu vaccination.
According to the vaccine uptake statistics of the Robert Koch Institute, only about 2.5 million people have received three or more boosters. This means that only a fraction of those over 60 are likely to have sufficient protection against Covid …
They let Lauterbach flap his gums a little more about population immunity, Long Covid, secondary infections and how the vaccines can make all this better because reasons, before sticking the knife in him:
Lauterbach urgently needs to boost vaccine uptake. The pharmaceutical contracts concluded under his predecessor Jens Spahn have secured much larger quantities of vaccine than are currently being used. Between September and November, about 14.1 million vaccine doses of monovalent vaccine targeted at XBB 1.5. will be delivered. An additional 10.6 million vaccine doses of Novavax XBB 1.5. vaccines will also become available, as soon as they are approved by the European Commission.
Our dissolute snake oil salesmen – who is either so stupid or so desperate that he actually tweeted a link to this not-so-subtle takedown – is currently sitting on 11.5 million Pfizer/BioNTech doses, trembling at the prospect of Novavax dropping another 10 million on his head, with no hope at all that more than 5 million Germans will ever line up for these worthless products. This is despite the best efforts of the regional press, who have been trying to gaslight their elderly readers into getting yet another jab since September. Today the Main Post published a typical piece, claiming that vaccine demand is starting to creep up now, really it is; while yesterday it was the turn of Münchner Merkur to claim that everyone is talking about the shiny new vaccines and to drag in some pulmonologist to talk about the “predominantly positive reception” they’ve enjoyed.
Dear idiot reporters: The official vaccine dashboards may be down, but the RKI still publish day-by-day uptake statistics. Stop lying.
Fired Unvaccinated New York City Teachers Still Fighting for Reinstatement and Back Pay After Supreme Court Win
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | October 31, 2023
In a precedent-setting victory last month, a New York State Supreme Court judge ruled that 10 New York City school teachers fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds must be reinstated with back pay, benefits, seniority and attorney fees.
But the city immediately appealed the decision, so none of those teachers have returned to their jobs or received any payments.
“These workers absolutely did win reinstatement and back-pay,” Sujata Gibson, the teachers’ attorney told The Defender. “Unfortunately, in New York State courts, the government is entitled to an ‘automatic stay’ of any such relief pending resolution of the appeal.”
Gibson also said:
“CHD [Children’s Health Defense] is supporting us in our fight to defend these wins on appeal, and we are pursuing additional options to try to speed this process up and secure relief for additional plaintiffs. But the fight is not over yet.”
Nearly 7,000 New York City Department of Education (DOE) workers who sought religious accommodation from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in 2021 were denied based on standards that a federal court later ruled unconstitutional.
Some of the workers, along with Teachers For Choice, sued the city in February, in a lawsuit sponsored in part by CHD and CHD New York.
The suit also sought class-action certification for all DOE workers who were denied religious exemptions. Judge Ralph Porzio denied the motion to grant class status, a ruling the plaintiffs are appealing.
Regardless, Gibson said the decision was “a precedent-setting victory, and a watershed moment in the teachers’ fight.”
Thousands of workers were subjected to the very same processes the judge ruled were “arbitrary and capricious,” and they could sue individually based on that precedent, if it is upheld by the appeals court, Gibson said.
Michael Kane, one of the plaintiffs and a member of Teachers For Choice, told The Defender that after filing the appeal, the city has six months to take the next step in the case — so even though they won with the last ruling, the fired teachers will have to continue to fight for their rights and the relief they are entitled to.
The struggle continues, despite confusion on social media
Last week, a Fox News story from Oct. 25, 2022, “New York Supreme Court reinstates all employees fired for being unvaccinated, orders backpay” was picked up and celebrated on social media by influential figures and their followers. It circulated on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram, where hundreds of thousands of social media users “liked” the posts, Kane said.
The story itself was vague — it did not cite the actual case that had been ruled on and it gave the impression that all New York City workers fired for refusing vaccination would be returning to work with back pay.
In fact, the story was posted after the state’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of plaintiffs George Garvey and 15 other New York City Department of Sanitation employees who were fired by the city for non-compliance with the mandate.
That historic ruling was applicable not only to the 16 workers who sued but also to all public employees in New York City, including the police and fire department.
But in that case, the city also appealed the ruling and the appeals process is ongoing.
New York City workers, with substantial public support, continue to fight, Kane said.
He added:
“This isn’t just for us, it’s for our kids and our grandkids. This is laying the groundwork. It took over 50 years for Plessy v. Ferguson to be overturned by Brown v. Board of Education. Civil rights battles are long, protracted struggles, and that’s what we’re in. It’s not fun, but that’s what we’re in.”
Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Ukraine Is Set to Make Lobby Push in US for More Weapons and Training
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | November 1, 2023
Ukraine and some European countries are ramping up a lobbying push in the US to get Americans to back more aid to Kiev. Ukrainian officials are seeking new long-range rockets and accelerated training programs. The propaganda push comes after a Time Magazine article portrayed Kiev in disarray and a hotbed for corruption.
According to Politico, “Ukrainian officials and allies in Europe are ramping up their lobbying campaign in the US for new weapons and training.” The authors cite a recent Ukrainian delegation that toured America with a wishlist that included: “US Marine Corps training on conducting ship-to-shore operations; new air defenses to take down the Russian glide bombs that are devastating Ukrainian forces; and the long-range, single-warhead version of the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) the Biden administration secretly shipped to Ukraine last month.”
The representatives of the Ukrainian government are attempting to adapt their message to the current American political landscape. Roman Tychkivskyy, a former Ukrainian marine and current defense official, compared Russians to Hamas.
The White House is attempting to package support for the proxy war against Russia, Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, and the massive military buildup in the Asia Pacific into a massive $105 billion aid bill.
Tychkivskyy went on to dub Russia, North Korea, and Iran an “axis of evil.” Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson recently referred to Russia, China, and Iran as the new “axis of evil.” However, Representative Johnson is vowing to package aid for Israel in a stand-alone bill, a blow to Kiev that was hoping to get the bulk of the $105 billion aid bill.
Politico additionally reports a European delegation will visit the US to lobby Americans, they will argue that spending billions of dollars on arming Ukraine will create jobs at home. William D. Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, says the notion that weapons spending creates jobs is a myth.
“There are many ways to create more and better jobs without resorting to increased weapons spending,” he explained. “Virtually any other form of government outlay, or even a tax cut, yields greater employment than military spending.”
One item on Kiev’s wishlist is long-range ATACMS rockets with conventional warheads. The White House recently approved sending Ukraine the cluster variant of the missile. The Department of Defense is reluctant to send the unitary warhead because the US lacks surpluses in its stockpiles. However, Washington no longer uses the cluster variant of the weapon.
Additionally, Kiev is seeking to accelerate the F-16 training program for Ukrainian pilots. The soldiers began training on the advanced aircraft this week. The Pentagon said the pilots will take several months to complete the program and did not provide a clear timeline.
An article published by Time earlier this week portrayed Kiev as a dysfunctional government with the Ukrainian military in disarray. A close aide to President Zelensky said that the leader had become dogmatic in his view that Kiev could reconquer all of Ukraine by military force even as failures mounted.
Ukrainian forces reported receiving orders that they lacked the military capabilities to complete. If the West comes through on weapons deliveries, “we don’t have the men to use them,” a Ukrainian official explained.
Still, Tychkivskyy is pushing for training on maneuvers to cross the Dnieper River. Kiev believes a successful operation can be used to set up a campaign to retake Crimea. “Once we are able to cross the river successfully and move the troops to the other side, there’s not many obstacles for us to move fast, closer to Crimea,” he said.
Potential Health Risks of mRNA-Based Vaccine Platforms
Despite 30 Years of Development, Thousands of Patents, Basic Questions are Unanswered
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | November 1, 2023
My clinical practice is loaded with patients who took one or two vaccines early in 2021 and realized like most of us that the the mRNA products were not safe. A common question is: “doctor when does this shot get out of my body?”
Acevedo-Whitehouse and Bruno raise this point in a recent peer reviewed publication concerning the entire mRNA vaccine product pipeline.
Therapeutic applications of synthetic mRNA were proposed more than 30 years ago, and are currently the basis of one of the vaccine platforms used at a massive scale as part of the public health strategy to get COVID-19 under control. To date, there are no published studies on the biodistribution, cellular uptake, endosomal escape, translation rates, functional half-life and inactivation kinetics of synthetic mRNA, rates and duration of vaccine-induced antigen expression in different cell types. Furthermore, despite the assumption that there is no possibility of genomic integration of therapeutic synthetic mRNA, only one recent study has examined interactions between vaccine mRNA and the genome of transfected cells, and reported that an endogenous retrotransposon, LINE-1 is unsilenced following mRNA entry to the cell, leading to reverse transcription of full length vaccine mRNA sequences, and nuclear entry. This finding should be a major safety concern, given the possibility of synthetic mRNA-driven epigenetic and genomic modifications arising.
These are stunning revelations. I have called for a halt on mRNA research development until these fundamental questions can be answered. If synthetic mRNA cannot be broken down by the human body, there were be no way to shut off potentially dangerous antigens such as the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, Influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA), or any other toxin produced from the genetic code. To make matters worse, it appears that all of these proteins will be expressed on the cell surface and cause auto-immunity with any new mRNA vaccine. This alone is a show stopper for me in my practice. I am advising NO mRNA vaccines for my patients.
Acevedo-Whitehouse K, Bruno R. Potential health risks of mRNA-based vaccine therapy: A hypothesis. Med Hypotheses. 2023 Feb;171:111015. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2023.111015. Epub 2023 Jan 25. PMID: 36718314; PMCID: PMC9876036.
Real Names of Stolen Villages, Illegal Settlements of the Gaza Perimeter
By Perla Issa | Institute For Palestine Studies | October 25, 2023
If you are to read Western news reports coming from Israel, you would likely believe that Kfar Azza, Be’eri, Erez, Nahal Oz, and the other settlements that surround Gaza are “idyllic spots,” “little pieces of paradise, little pieces of heaven;” and “small farming communities.”
What is missing from this picture, what is missing from the vast majority of Western news reports on the genocide unfolding in Gaza is that these “pieces of paradise” are built on stolen land — stolen by Zionists from the Palestinian people through violence. And that the Palestinian population have been huddled and caged in one small corner of their original lands for over 75 years. That is what is currently called the Gaza Strip. About 80 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees, refugees from what today is called the Gaza perimeter. As Palestinian resistance increased over the years, as Palestinians, generation after generation, have tried to break the cage and return home, that cage has become tighter and tighter.
That is how the Israeli residents of these “farming communities” — around 50,000 people living on 1,038 squared kilometers of stolen lands (the Sha’ar HaNegev, Eshkol, and Sdot Negev regional councils)— have been able for years to live, prosper, raise families, have dinners, swim in pools, dance, sing and celebrate “unity and love” in large concerts just a few kilometers away from where over 2.1 million people live on 365 squared kilometers, usurped from their lands, subjugated to daily humiliation, purposely impoverished and caged in, unable to move, live, fish in the sea, and certainly unable to celebrate “unity and love.”
A simple glance at Google maps puts this reality in plain sight. How can such an urban reality exist? A people density of 5,753 people per squared kilometer next to a people density of 48 people per squared kilometer. Can there be any doubt that in order to keep such a reality for decades a vast amount of daily violence needs to be applied in order to prevent any spill over?
Google Maps screenshot of the Gaza Strip and surrounding area, showing the wide disparity in urban density between Palestinian and Israeli-controlled areas. Taken on Oct 16, 2023. The image used as the header of this article, however, is a historic map from 1948 from Palestine Open Maps.
Palestinians live this reality on a daily basis, while Israelis, living in “idyllic spots,” thought that they could afford to forget it. They thought they could afford to forget how they came to live on that very land.
Let us here, remind ourselves of this reality.
In an oral history project of interviews with Zionist fighters, the truth is spoken plainly and simply. Michael Cohen from the Negev Brigade of the Israeli Occupation Forces (Formed from the Palmach, the elite fighting force of the Haganah) explains in a recorded video how the brigade expelled Palestinians in October 1948 from what “today you would call the Gaza Perimeter. It’s the entire Western sector bordering on today’s Gaza Strip.” He explains how “expelling was easy.” That the majority of the Palestinians “had no plans to hurt us” but that “we couldn’t allow ourselves, we, as an army and the [Jewish] settlements around us, to leave Arab settlements in our underbelly. We kicked them out.”
He explains how in many places, Palestinians left without a fight: “On one or two occasions, there was some sort of resistance, even using firearms. But that was rare … The Negev was cleared of all villages!” But with time the soldiers realized that the people they had expelled were coming back and that “it was difficult to finish the job with them.” He explains that they had to block them, “block means shoot to kill!” In his own words: “So in that case I saw it with my own eyes, I didn’t just see it with my own eyes, I also did it. Expulsion was one thing that needed to be done and it was done.”
Indeed, violent expulsion was done, but violence breeds violence. Through Cohen’s testimony we can see how Palestinian resistance was changing and adapting in response to Israeli violence. The villagers and Bedouins went from friendly coexistence, to acquiescence, to non-violent resistance by quietly returning to their lands, but once faced with deadly force, they resorted to armed resistance, they started attacking roads and planting mines. The Israeli response was more violence, they demolished Palestinian homes and burned fields forcing the population to flee again. Cohen explains how they planted explosives and “would topple down the houses in one full swoop.” He further explains: “The demolition [of the houses] and/or the burning of the fields, it wasn’t a one-time thing during the deportation, it was a process.”
Avri Ya’ari of the Haganah explains in another recorded video how they expelled the people of Huj (هوج), a Palestinian village lying 2.5 kilometers from the current Israeli settlement of Sderot and 6.5 kilometers from the Gaza Strip; where Ariel Sharon built a ranch. Through Ya’ari’s testimony we get a sense of the large disproportionate of force between the Israeli armed forces and the Palestinians and again we see how the Palestinian population was peaceful.
Ya’ari: There was Huj … but the relations with them were very good …
Interviewer: The Arab population, when did they leave the area?
Ya’ari: When they were told to. [Laughter]
Interviewer: What do you mean?
Ya’ari: They were told to take a hike.
Interviewer: Who told them?
Ya’ari: The army, the Israeli Defense Forces. In certain stages … how should I say it? They cleared the area of Arabs. The people of Huj, who had been very friendly and later suffered terribly in the refugee camps, they told them, they’d be back in two or three weeks.
Palestinians indeed have been attempting to return ever since by any and all means at their disposal. Therefore, if you wish to help end the violence, to usher in peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis, then recognize what lands Israeli settlements have been built on and call them by their names, their real names. In the table below is a list of some of the settlements that surround Gaza and the corresponding Palestinian lands that they have been built on, whether it be city, village, or tribal lands.
|
Israeli settlement |
Name of depopulated Palestinian city that corresponding Israeli settlement is built on | Name of depopulated Palestinian village that corresponding Israeli settlement is built on | Name of depopulated Tribal land that corresponding Israeli settlement is built on | Additional notes from author |
| Ashkelon | Al-Majdal (المجدل)
Al-Jura (الجورة), Al-Khisas (الخصاص), Ni’ilya (نعليا) |
Built on the village lands and orchards | ||
| Zikim | Hirbiya (هربيا) | Built on the citrus groves of the village | ||
| Karmiya | Hirbiya (هربيا) | Built on the orchards of the village | ||
| Mavqiim | Barbara (بربرة) | Built on the village and its orchards | ||
| Erez | Dimra (دمرة) | |||
| Sderot | Najd (نجد) | |||
| Mefalsim | Wadi ez Zeit of Gaza city | |||
| Kfar Aza | Turkman quarter of Gaza city | |||
| Nahal Oz | Waqf Esh Sheikh Zarif in Gaza city (وقف الشيخ ظريف) | |||
| Sa’ad | Jdeide quarter of Gaza city | |||
| Alumin | Turkman quarter of Gaza city | |||
| Be’eri | Wuhaitat al Tarabin (الوحيدات ترابين) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe lands | |||
| Re’im | Ghawali al-Zari’i (غوالي الزريعي) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe lands | Built next to the ancient ruins of Tell Jamma (تل جمة) in the Gaza valley | ||
| Kisufim | Abu Khammash (ابو خماش) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe lands | |||
| En HaShlosha | Ma’in Abu Sitta village (معين ابو ستة), Umm Tina hamlet (ام تينة) | part of the Arab al Ghawali (عرب الغوالي) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe | Umm Tina is described in an oral history project by a former villager as “fertile land extending as far as the eye can see, wide and spacious, with almond orchards and fields of wheat, barley, lentils, watermelons, and cantaloupes … a wonderful country.” | |
| Nirim | Ma’in Abu Sitta village (معين ابو ستة), | part of the Arab al Ghawali (عرب الغوالي) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe | Built on the ruins of the village’s former school | |
| Nir Oz | Ma’in Abu Sitta village (معين ابو ستة), | part of the Arab al Ghawali (عرب الغوالي) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe | Built on the village orchards | |
| Magen | Ma’in Abu Sitta village (معين ابو ستة), Abu Tailakh (أبو تيلخ) and Abu Nuqeira (ابو نقيرة) hamlets | Part of Arab al Ghawali (عرب الغوالي) clan of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe | Built on the village orchards, engulfing the shrine of Sheikh Nuran (مقام الشيخ نوران ) and the Abu Qurayda spring (بئر أبو قريدة) | |
| Ami’Oz,
Zohar, Ohad, Mivtahim, Yesha |
Umm ‘Ajwe (أم عجوة) and Tell Rabiya (تل رابية) hamlets | Part of the Najmat clan (نجمات ) of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe | ||
| Sde Nitsan,
Talmei Eliyahu |
Karm ‘Aqel (كرم عقل) | Part of the Najmat clan (نجمات ) of the Tarabin (ترابين) tribe | ||
| Holit | El-Buhdari hamlet (كرم البهداري) | Part of the Najmat al-Kassar (نجمات القصار) clan of the Tarabin tribe (ترابين) | Built on the village orchards | |
| Peri-Gan,
Sede-Avraham, Deqel, Talme-Yosef, Avshalom, Yated, Yevul |
El-Ahmar (كرم الاحمر) and El-Khilawi (كرم الخلاوي) hamlet | Part of the Najmat al-Kassar (نجمات القصار) clan of the Tarabin tribe (ترابين) | Built on the village orchards |
Editor’s Note: This is not an exhaustive list. Feel free to contact the author directly at perla@palestine-studies.org. You may also seek additional resources such as All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, the Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question (Places section), Palestine Open Maps, Palestine Remembered, and The Return Journey (Atlas) for further reading on the history of destroyed and depopulated villages across all of Palestine.
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Book Review
New paperback: Butchered by “Healthcare”
Lies are Unbekoming | October 20, 2026
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
“Screening Tests Are Useless”, on tests that find diseases that would never have hurt you. “The FDA Protects the Big Drug Companies”, on an agency funded by the companies it regulates. “The Journals’ Sins Are the Editors’ Sins”, on ghostwritten studies and captured peer review. “Opioids and ‘Pain Management’”, on how a generation was prescribed its way into addiction. “Prozac and Relatives” and “Antipsychotics Are Disastrous”, on what psychiatry does to adults and children. “Surgery: Money Before Patients”. “Failed Cancer Treatments”. “Futile CPR and Overprescribing”. “Billing Scams & Specialty Warfare”. “Hospitals Are Sharks”. Each with a Patient Tips section at the end on how to survive it.
If you have ever walked out of a doctor’s office with a prescription you didn’t ask for, or watched a parent put through a treatment that made them worse, this is the book you want on your shelf before the next appointment. … Full review
Butchered by “Healthcare” is available on Lulu now.
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