Apartheid Made Official: Deal of the Century is a Ploy and Annexation is the New Reality
By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | September 17, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving quickly to alter the political reality in Palestine, and facing little or no resistance.
On September 10, Netanyahu declared his intentions to annex swathes of Palestinian land adjacent to the Jordan River, an area that covers 2,400 square kilometers, or nearly a third of the Occupied West Bank. That region, which extends from Bisan in the north to Jericho in the south, is considered to be Palestine’s food basket, as it accounts for an estimated 60 percent of vegetables that are produced in the West Bank.
While Israel has already colonized nearly 88 percent of the entire Palestinian Ghoor (or Jordan Valley), dividing it between illegal agricultural settlements and military zones, it was always assumed that the militarily occupied region will be included within the border of a future Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s announcement has been linked to Israel’s general elections of September 17. The Israeli leader is desperate, as he is facing “unprecedented alliances” that are all closing in to unseat him from his political throne. But this cannot be all. Not even power-hungry Netanyahu would alter the political and territorial landscape of Israel and Palestine indefinitely in exchange for a few votes.
Indeed, talks of annexation have been afoot for years and have long preceded the September elections or the previous ones in April.
A sense of euphoria has been felt among Israel’s rightwing officials since the advent of Donald Trump to the White House. The excitement was not directly linked to Trump but to his Middle East team, like-minded pro-Israel US officials whose support for Israel is predicated on more than personal interests, but religious and ideological beliefs as well.
White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, selected his team very carefully: Jason Greenblatt as special envoy for Middle East peace, David Friedman as United States Ambassador to Israel, and layers of other second-tier officials whose mission was never aimed at resolving conflict or brokering peace, but supervising a process in which Israel finalizes its colonization of Palestine unhindered.
Kushner’s masterstroke is epitomized in the way he presented his objectives as part of a political process, later named “Deal of the Century”.
In all fairness, Kushner’s team hardly labored or even pretended to be, peacemakers, especially as they oversaw the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territories. Indeed, none of these officials tried to hide their true motives. Just examine statements made by the just-resigned Greenblatt where he refused to name illegal Jewish settlements as such, but as “neighborhoods and cities”; and Friedman’s outright support for the annexation of parts of the Occupied West Bank, and much more.
The US political discourse seemed in complete alignment with that of Israel’s right-wing parties. When right-wing extremist politicians, the likes of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, began floating the idea of annexing most or all of the Occupied West Bank, they no longer sounded like marginal and opportunistic voices vying for attention. They were at the center of Israeli politics, knowing full well that Washington no longer had a problem with Israel’s unilateral action.
It could be argued, then, that Netanyahu was merely catching up, as the center of gravity within his right-wing coalition was slipping away to younger, more daring politicians. In fact, Israel, as a whole, was changing. With the Labor Party becoming almost entirely irrelevant, the Center’s political ideology moved further to the right, simply because supporting an independent Palestinian state in Israel has become a form of political suicide.
Therefore, Netanyahu’s call for the annexation of Palestinian land east of the Jordan River must not be understood in isolation and only within the limited context of the Israeli elections. Israel is now set to annex large parts of the West Bank that it deems strategic. This is most likely to include all illegal settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley as well.
In fact, Netanyahu said on September 11 that he was ready to annex the Jordan Valley region even before the election date, but was blocked by the Attorney General’s office. Netanyahu would not have taken such a decision if it represented a political risk or if it faced pushback from Washington. It is, then, sadly, a matter of time.
Suspiciously absent in all of this are the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Arab League, the European Union and, of course, the United Nations and its many outlets and courts. Aside from a few shy statements – like that of the spokesperson of the UN, Stéphane Dujarric, decrying that “unilateral actions are not helpful in the peace process” – Israeli leaders are facing little or no hindrance whatsoever as they finalize their complete colonization of all Palestinian land.
Unable to stage any kind of meaningful resistance against Israel, the Palestinian leadership is so pathetically insisting on utilizing old terminologies. The official Palestinian response to Netanyahu’s annexation pledge, as communicated by Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, came only to underscore the PA’s political bankruptcy.
“Netanyahu is the chief destroyer of the peace process,” Shtayyeh said, warning that annexing parts of the West Bank would have negative consequences.
For his part, the PA leader Mahmoud Abbas resorted, once more, to empty threats. Abbas said in a statement, “All agreements and their resulting obligations would end if the Israeli side annexes the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea, and any part of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.”
Neither Abbas nor Shtayyeh seem troubled by the fact that a “peace process” does not exist, and that Israel has already violated all agreements.
While the PA is desperately hanging on to any reason to justify its continued existence, Netanyahu, with the full support of Washington, is moving forward in annexing the West Bank, thus making apartheid an official and undisputed reality.
The Palestinian leadership must understand that the nature of the conflict is now changing. Conventional methods and empty statements will not slow down the Israeli push for annexation nor Tel Aviv’s determination to expand its apartheid to all of Palestine. If Palestinians continue to ignore this reality altogether, Israel will continue to single-handedly shape the destiny of Palestine and its people.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His last book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’, and his forthcoming book is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Zaim University in Istanbul. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
Martial Law Masquerading as Law and Order: The Police State’s Language of Force
By John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | September 16, 2019
Forget everything you’ve ever been taught about free speech in America.
It’s all a lie.
There can be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks in a language of force.
What is this language of force?
Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.
This is not the language of freedom.
This is not even the language of law and order.
Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status quo.
Recently, this militarized exercise in intimidation—complete with an armored vehicle and an army of police drones—reared its ugly head in the small town of Dahlonega, Ga., where 600 state and local militarized police clad in full riot gear vastly outnumbered the 50 protesters and 150 counterprotesters who had gathered to voice their approval/disapproval of the Trump administration’s policies.
To be clear, this is the treatment being meted out to protesters across the political spectrum.
The police state does not discriminate.
As a USA Today article notes, “People demanding justice, demanding accountability or demanding basic human rights without resorting to violence, should not be greeted with machine guns and tanks. Peaceful protest is democracy in action. It is a forum for those who feel disempowered or disenfranchised. Protesters should not have to face intimidation by weapons of war.”
A militarized police response to protesters poses a danger to all those involved, protesters and police alike. In fact, militarization makes police more likely to turn to violence to solve problems.
You want to turn a peaceful protest into a riot?
Bring in the militarized police with their guns and black uniforms and warzone tactics and “comply or die” mindset. Ratchet up the tension across the board. Take what should be a healthy exercise in constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest) and turn it into a lesson in authoritarianism.
Frankly, any police officer who tells you that he needs tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray to do his job shouldn’t be a police officer in a constitutional republic.
Indeed, this is martial law masquerading as law and order.
All that stuff in the First Amendment sounds great in theory. However, it amounts to little more than a hill of beans if you have to exercise those freedoms while facing down an army of police equipped with deadly weapons.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
There are other, far better models to follow.
For instance, back in 2011, the St. Louis police opted to employ a passive response to Occupy St. Louis activists. First, police gave the protesters nearly 36 hours’ notice to clear the area, as opposed to the 20 to 60 minutes’ notice other cities gave. Then, as journalist Brad Hicks reports, when the police finally showed up:
They didn’t show up in riot gear and helmets, they showed up in shirt sleeves with their faces showing. They not only didn’t show up with SWAT gear, they showed up with no unusual weapons at all, and what weapons they had all securely holstered. They politely woke everybody up. They politely helped everybody who was willing to remove their property from the park to do so. They then asked, out of the 75 to 100 people down there, how many people were volunteering for being-arrested duty? Given 33 hours to think about it, and 10 hours to sweat it over, only 27 volunteered … and were escorted away by a handful of cops. The rest were advised to please continue to protest, over there on the sidewalk … and what happened next was the most absolutely brilliant piece of crowd control policing I have heard of in my entire lifetime. All of the cops who weren’t busy transporting and processing the voluntary arrestees lined up, blocking the stairs down into the plaza. They stood shoulder to shoulder. They kept calm and silent. They positioned the weapons on their belts out of sight. They crossed their hands low in front of them, in exactly the least provocative posture known to man. And they peacefully, silently, respectfully occupied the plaza, using exactly the same non-violent resistance techniques that the protesters themselves had been trained in.
As Forbes concluded, “This is a more humane, less costly, and ultimately more productive way to handle a protest. This is great proof that police can do it the old fashioned way – using their brains and common sense instead of tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray – and have better results.”
It can be done.
Police will not voluntarily give up their gadgets and war toys and combat tactics, however. Their training and inclination towards authoritarianism has become too ingrained.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if we are to have any hope of dismantling the police state, change must start locally, community by community. Citizens will have to demand that police de-escalate and de-militarize. And if the police don’t listen, contact your city councils and put the pressure on them.
Remember, they work for us. They might not like hearing it—they certainly won’t like being reminded of it—but we pay their salaries with our hard-earned tax dollars.
We must adopt a different mindset and follow a different path if we are to alter the outcome of these interactions with police.
The American dream was built on the idea that no one is above the law, that our rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away, and that our government and its appointed agents exist to serve us.
It may be that things are too far gone to save, but still we must try.
‘World order based on empires’: EU’s Verhofstadt ridiculed online for bizarre ‘Vote Leave’ rhetoric
European Union’s chief Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt © Reuters / Vincent Kessler
RT | September 16, 2019
EU Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt’s rant that tomorrow’s world order is “based on empires” has been met with mockery on social media, and with accusations that such rhetoric is ironically out of the ‘Brexiteers’ playbook.’
Belgian MEP Verhofstadt, who was a guest speaker at the Liberal Democrats Party conference in Bournemouth on Saturday, told the audience that the world order is no longer about nation states, but about empires, like the European Union. His words received a rapturous response from the pro-EU party delegates.
The world order of tomorrow is not a world order based on nation states or countries. It is a world order that is based on empires.
Verhofstadt claims that countries like China, India and the US have more characteristics of empires than nation states, because of the size of their populations and their influence on the world, and because of this, the EU has to respond.
However, the MEP’s remarks have been met with amusement and bemusement in equal measure, and with accusations that his rhetoric is that of “a madman.”
Brexiteers on Twitter have been quick to highlight the irony of Verhofstadt’s sentiments. They are astounded that the case for an EU empire has been warmly received by Remain supporters, who have consistently ridiculed Brexiteers for “harking back to Empire days.”
Others suggested the cheers for Verhofstadt were like a party political broadcast for ‘Vote Leave’ — the official campaigning organisation that helped win the 2016 EU referendum for Brexiteers.
Verhofstadt’s comments came as the Liberal Democrats officially decided their new Brexit policy at their conference. They stated that they would revoke article 50 and cancel Brexit altogether, if they won a majority at the next general election.
It’s a bold, if slightly risky position to take, which may embolden their core base of strong Remainers, but could disenfranchise other potential voters including ‘soft’ Leavers who may think such a move would be anti-democratic.
Why do so many spy agencies take so much interest in Gaza?
By Motasem A Dalloul | MEMO | September 16, 2019
The Gaza Strip is a part of Palestine with more than two million Palestinians living in around 365 square kilometres. It has been occupied by Israel since 1967, which has imposed a near-total 13-year land, air and sea blockade. It is regarded as one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
The coastal enclave has been subject to many Israeli military offensives, with three major attacks during the past decade alone. It has no natural resources and “less than four per cent of fresh water is drinkable and the surrounding sea is polluted by sewage.” Tragic humanitarian statistics — unemployment at 52 per cent; poverty 53 per cent; water pollution 95 per cent; and daily power outage 75 per cent — convey a bleak picture. A United Nations report warned in 2018 that it could soon become unfit for humans to live in by 2020.
However, Gaza has a presence in many corridors of power around the world, in both the East and the West. Last week, a security source in Gaza told me that they had so far discovered agents for 25 regional and international intelligence agencies operating in the territory.
Furthermore, every official or partisan Israeli election list has the issue of Gaza at the top of the agenda in their current campaigns. What are they promising to do with the Gaza Strip?
According to Ron Ben-Yishai, the military correspondent of Yedioth Ahronoth, for example, the Likud Party is planning a large-scale military ground operation in Gaza to deter the Palestinians’ “military power”, after which, he claimed, Israel will call for the world to disarm the security forces there and reconstruct the infrastructure and economy. The Blue and White party, said Ben-Yishai, is promising potential voters that it will do more or less the same thing as Likud.
The veteran journalist pointed out that the head of Israel’s Jewish Home party, Avigdor Lieberman, is promising its voters to carry out a similarly “strong” military operation in Gaza to “completely” remove its government before rebuilding the enclave “from zero”. Again, the intention is to have a disarmed population on Israel’s doorstep. The Yamina alliance led by the former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, meanwhile, is promising to carry out a massive air strike in Gaza and carry out assassinations (“targeted killings”) of Palestinian leaders.
It is no secret that Egypt is a major player in the situation in Gaza. It plays a role in the Israeli and internationally-backed blockade, and has a special unit in almost every security agency tasked with dealing with the Gaza Strip. In practice, Egypt, is the only state beside Israel which has a land border with the Gaza Strip, but regards it as a security issue and is dealing with it as such. As far as the Palestinians can see, though, since the time of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s deep state gives priority to Israel’s interests in Cairo’s relationship with Gaza.
End Gaza Siege! – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]
The UAE has imposed severe restrictions on Gaza since the victory of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, in the 2006 elections. Hamas has been the de facto government in Gaza ever since. The government in Abu Dhabi has since deported or asked hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to leave the Emirates, and has been running active intelligence agencies in the Gaza Strip with the help of Palestinian MP Mohammed Dahlan who lives in the UAE with his family.
During the 2014 Israeli military offensive against Gaza, the security services discovered that an ostensibly medical aid convoy which entered the territory included intelligence staff instead of doctors and medical staff. To avoid clashes with the UAE, the Gaza security officials immediately deported the UAE nationals.
Jordan also has a hidden agenda in Gaza. A security source told me that a Jordanian MP who visited the territory during the 2014 Israeli offensive was discovered collecting and reporting intelligence on behalf of a certain country. He was immediately deported with the threat that he would be exposed to the media if he did not leave his hotel in the enclave at once.
Other known agents active in Gaza include those working on behalf of Saudi Arabia, Western powers, the US and Russia. Prior to 2008/9, an American citizen in her 20s entered Gaza posing as a journalist and claimed to me that she was a CIA agent. Israel, of course, has many Palestinian collaborators in the territory.
Why are the countries of the world paying so much attention to the sliver of land known as the Gaza Strip? Could it be because Gaza is the only place in the whole Arab world which is being ruled by the people who were chosen by democratic elections declared to be free and fair by international monitoring bodies, including the NGO run by former US President Jimmy Carter? Or is it because the Gaza Strip is a “superpower” that the whole world is afraid of? May be the latter is true precisely because of that electoral accountability.
Israel to rule on revoking BDS founder’s residency
Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian co-founder of the BDS movement
MEMO | September 16, 2019
Efforts to revoke the residency of Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), have been escalated to Israel’s deputy Attorney General for a decision over his status in the country.
Barghouti, considered “major threat to the citizens of Israel” by the country’s ultra-right politicians, has already been banned from entering the US; a decision denounced by the Palestinian human rights activists as “McCarthyite repression”. His entry ban in April along with Israel’s decision to block American Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering the country due to their support for BDS, is being used by Barghouti’s opponents in Israel to revoke his residency status.
Keti Shitrit, a member of the Likud Party, which does not recognise the right of Palestinians to a state of their own and campaigns for a Zionist state from the “Jordan River to the Sea”, is reported protesting against the “absurd situation where Israel denied entry to two Congresswomen due to their support of BDS, while allowing the BDS founder and leader to reside in Israel and receive full benefits from the State of Israel”.
The remarks came as the Israeli government faces further pressure to expel Barghouti from the country. The initial call to revoke his residency status came from Betzalmo. In its letter to the Israeli Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit and Interior Minister Arye Deri, the right-wing NGO noted the US’ denial of entry and asked why the Israeli government has not acted in a similar fashion to strip Barghouti of his residency rights.
According to Arutz Sheva, Mandelblit has referred the decision to Deputy Attorney General, Dina Zilber.
“We are pleased that the AG [Attorney General] has finally decided, after years of appeals from Betzlamo and several MKs, including the Minister of the Interior who addressed him on the matter, to pass this decision to the Deputy AG,” the Israeli group said in a letter. “We have no doubt that the Deputy AG shall decide that anyone who harms the State of Israel will not receive benefits from it. Any other decision would ridicule and curtail Israel’s struggle against the boycott movement and the Israel’s demand from other countries to fight against it,” it added.
Knesset member Shitrit is reported to have written to Deputy Attorney General, in what seems to be an attempt to put further pressure on Zilber. “It has been brought to my attention the decision whether to revoke the BDS leader Omar Barghouti’s residency is at your desk,” the Likud MK said. After denouncing BDS she added: “honorable Deputy AG, I urge you to exercise your authority, to weaken the power of the BDS leader, to maintain our dignity and not to let our major enemy dwell within us.”
Jews vs. Israelis
By Gilad Atzmon | September 16, 2019
Now would be the correct time for Ali Abunimah, JVP, & CO to form an orderly queue to issue their deep and sincere apology to me. Since the early 2000s my detractors within the so called Jewish ‘Left’ together with their sometime stooges, have been harassing me, my publishers and my readers for pointing out that Zionism is an obsolete concept with little meaning for Israel, Israelis and their politics let alone the conflict that has been destroying the Eastern Mediterranean region.
In my 2011 book The Wandering Who, I argue that “Since Israel defines itself openly as the ‘Jewish State’, we should ask what the notions of ’Judaism’, ‘Jewishness’, ‘Jewish culture’ and ‘Jewish ideology’ stand for.” Just before the publication of the book I was urged by both JVP’s leader and Ali Abunimah to drop the J-Word and focus solely on Zionism. In Britain, a gang of so called ‘anti’ Zionist Jews relentlessly terrorised my publisher and promoters. Funny, most of these authoritarian tribals who worked 24/7 to silence me have been expelled from the British Labour Party for alleged anti-Semitism. Now, they promote the ideal of ‘freedom of speech.’
In ‘The Wandering Who’ and in the years preceding its publication, I realised that the Palestinian solidarity discourse has been suffocated with misleading and often duplicitous terminology that was set to divert attention from the root cause of the conflict and that acted to prevent intelligible discussion of possible solutions.
Let’s face it. Israel doesn’t see itself as the Zionist State: not one Israeli party integrated the word ‘Zionism’ into its name. To Israelis, Zionism is a dated and clichéd concept that describes the ideology that promised to erect a Jewish homeland in Palestine. For Israelis, Zionism fulfilled its purpose in 1948, it is now an archaic term. In ‘The Wandering Who’ I presented a so-far unrefuted argument that an understanding of ‘Jewishness’, a term familiar to every self-identified Jew, may provide answers to most questions related to Israel and its politics. It may also help us to grasp the fake dissent that has dominated the so- called Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist campaign for the last two decades.
Though I was probably the first to write about the crucial shift in Israeli society in favour of Judeo-centrism, this shift is now mainstream news. Haaretz’s lead writer, Anshel Pfeffer, just wrote a spectacular analysis of this transformation. Pfeffer’s view is that Israelis are going to the polls this Tuesday to decide whether they are “Jews” or “Israelis.”
According to Pfeffer, in the mid 1990s it was Netanyahu’s American campaign guru, Arthur Finkelstein, who promoted “a message that could reach secular and religious voters alike. In his polling, he had asked voters whether they considered themselves ‘more Jewish’ or ‘more Israeli.’ The results convinced him there was a much larger constituency of voters, not just religious ones, who emphasized their Jewish identity over their Israeli one.”
In light of Finkelstein’s observation, Likud focused its message on Jerusalem. Its campaign slogan was: “Peres will divide Jerusalem.” In the final 48 hours before Election Day there was also “an unofficial slogan, emblazoned on millions of posters and bumper stickers distributed by Chabad Hasidim: “Netanyahu is good for the Jews.”
In a Haaretz interview after his narrow 1996 defeat, Peres lamented that “the Israelis lost the election.” When asked then who had won, he answered, “The Jews won.”
Pfeffer points out that Netanyahu learned from Finkelstein that the “Jew” is the primary unifier for Israelis. This certainly applies to religious Jews but also to those who regard themselves as secular. After all, Israel has really been the “Jewish State” for a while.
This is probably the right place to point out that Netanyahu’s move of locating Jewishness at the heart of Israel is a reversal of the original Zionist promise. While early Zionism was a desperate attempt to divorce the Jews from the ghetto and their tribal obsession and make them “people like all other people,” the present adherence to Jewishness and kinship induces a return to Judeo-centric chauvinism. As odd as this may sound, Netanyahu’s transformation of Israel into a ‘Jewish realm’ makes him an ardent anti Zionist probably more anti Zionist than JVP, Mondoweiss and the BDS together.
Pfeffer points out that when Netanyahu returned to power in 2009 and formed a right-wing/ religious coalition, was when “the Jews prevailed — and have done so ever since in four consecutive elections, including the last one in April 2019.”
To illustrate this Pfeffer cites the 2012 Israeli High Court of Justice decision to deny a petition by writer Yoram Kaniuk and others to allow themselves to be registered solely as ‘Israelis’ as opposed to ‘Jews.’
Every so often we hear from one Torah rabbi or another that “Zionism is not Judaism.” Those who have reached this point surely grasp that ‘Zionism vs. Judaism’ is a fake dichotomy. It serves to confuse and to divert questioning minds from the path toward an understanding of the conflict: In Israel Zionism is an empty concept, politically, ideologically and spiritually. Israel defines itself as ‘The Jewish state’ and orthodox rabbis are at the centre of this transition in Israeli politics and life.
I guess that Abunimah and JVP were desperate to silence me at the time as they foolishly believed that shooting the messenger or alternatively burning books was the way forward for human rights activism. I stood firm. The observations I produced in ‘The Wandering Who’ were endorsed by the most profound thinkers associated with the conflict and the anti war movement. My observations are more relevant than ever and in Israel they have entered mainstream analysis. When it comes to Palestine solidarity we have managed to waste a good two decades of intellectual progress thanks to authoritarian lobbies operating in our midst. For truth and justice to prevail, we have to learn to speak the truth as we see it, and to accept JVP and Abumimah’s apologies when they are mature enough to come clean.
Why 9/11 matters in 2019
By Catte Black | OffGuardian | September 11, 2019
On 9/11 2001 three steel-framed high-rise buildings collapsed completely at near free-fall speed allegedly due to fires – which, if true, makes them the only steel-framed high-rises in construction history to have ever done this. Only two of these buildings had been struck by planes.
The official explanation for this event is that Moslem terrorists somehow confounded all the usual security procedures and ‘attacked America’ because they ‘hated our freedoms.’
This version of the meaning behind 9/11 was the catalyst for the perpetual war currently being waged, the ultimate fail-safe irrefutable argument to silence criticism of the Patriot Act, Guantanamo and the creeping emergence of fascism in the Western world.
A narrative as crucial as that needs to be closely examined, but the mainstream media has not only failed to perform this function, it has successfully persuaded many intelligent people that it doesn’t need to be done, and that only lunatics would bother subjecting the official story to any examination.
Eighteen years ago the idea of large scale false flags or government deceptions may have seemed absurd to most of us. But the unraveling of so many official narratives in recent years; the lies over WMDs, the lies over Ghouta, the lies over Libya and Ukraine, the repeat evidence for wholesale manipulation, if not fabrication, of events to promote war, means it ought to be impossible for any thinking person to simply take the events of 9/11 on trust any more.
How can any of us continue to question everything 9/11 has brought us, but not question 9/11 itself?
It all comes down to some very basic questions:
- Has the government sufficiently explained its version of events?
- Does this version fit the observed facts better than any other?
The fact this is still considered by so many intelligent people to be an “out there” thing to ask speaks volumes about how much even the most savvy of us are currently brainwashed.
But beyond the media silence, complicity and ridicule things are changing.
Today New York first responders are launching a campaign for a new inquiry into the events of 9/11.
A new scientific study finds fires did not bring down WTC7.
The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry are working on behalf of victims’ families to get justice for those who died or were injured that day.
The phrase “conspiracy theorist” is an empty meme invented to deter enquiry. We don’t think this is a good thing and we don’t intend to be controlled by it. We believe facts really should be sacred – however unpopular they may be and whatever label someone may have attached to them.
10,000+ cases under review in Denmark after phone data glitch used to convict the innocent
RT | September 11, 2019
Dozens of prisoners have been released and over 10,700 criminal cases are under review after Danish police realized the software they use to pinpoint the location of cellphone users is riddled with inaccuracies.
Some 32 prisoners – some of whom had already been convicted and sentenced – were released after an external audit launched late last month revealed gaping flaws in the geolocation system used as evidence in their cases. Danish courts have declared a two-month moratorium on the use of cellphone data as evidence following the discovery that it is not nearly as reliable as previously thought, and over 10,700 cases since 2012 are being reviewed.
“We simply can’t live with the idea that information that isn’t accurate can send people to jail,” chief public prosecutor Jan Reckendorff told public broadcaster DR. While admitting that exiling phone evidence from the justice system, even temporarily, was a “drastic decision,” Reckendorff said it was “necessary in a state of law.”
Danish police discovered earlier this year that the software used to convert data from mobile towers into information usable by police would drop calls and omit other data, leaving holes in the record it created of a cellphone’s location. While that problem was fixed by March, it led them to question the infallibility of cellphone data as criminal evidence, and more problems were discovered.
Some data linked phones to the wrong cellphone towers, potentially placing innocent people at crime scenes, while other towers were registered in the wrong locations entirely. Another bug incorrectly pinpointed the origin of text messages. Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup has set up a steering group to monitor the legal fallout of the reviews of the thousands of affected cases, starting with cases currently before the courts, verdicts on cases where the perpetrator is currently in prison, and cases brought forth by defense lawyers. Lawyers will receive a report on the review of their clients’ cases, which may be retried if necessary.
The revelation has upended how lawyers look at evidence once considered to be infallible. “Until now cellphone data has had a high significance and value in courtrooms, because this kind of evidence has been considered almost objective,” Karoline Normann, head of the criminal law committee of the Danish Bar and Law Society told AFP, adding that she hopes a client of hers convicted solely on cellphone location data will have his case reopened.
But cellphone location data was never meant to be used for criminal justice purposes, noted Denmark’s Telecommunications Industry Association director Jakob Willer, who pointed out that the mistakes were not in the data itself, but in its interpretation.
“We should remember that the data is created to deliver telecom services, not to control citizens or for surveillance.”
Denmark isn’t the only country whose citizens have been affected by the use of flawed cellphone data in policing. In 2016, two American families in Kansas and Georgia found themselves targeted repeatedly by police led astray by data glitches, while a similar fate befell a home in Pretoria, South Africa in 2013.
Massive 30 State, Real-Time ALPR Database Revealed
MassPrivateI | September 10, 2019
Our worst fears about automatic license plate readers (ALPR) are much worse than we could have imagined.
Two months ago, I warned everyone that police in Arizona were using ALPR’s to “grid” entire neighborhoods. But this story brings public surveillance to a whole new level.
Last month, Rekor Systems announced that they had launched the Rekor Public Safety Network (RPSN) which gives law enforcement real-time access to license plates.
“Any state or local law enforcement agency participating in the RPSN will be able to access real-time data from any part of the network at no cost. The Company is initially launching the network by aggregating vehicle data from customers in over 30 states. With thousands of automatic license plate reading cameras currently in service that capture approximately 150 million plate reads per month, the network is expected to be live by the first quarter of 2020.”
RPSN is a 30 state real-time law enforcement license plate database of more than 150 million people.
And the scary thing about it is; it is free.
“We don’t think our participants should be charged for accessing information from a network they contribute to, especially when it provides information that has proven its value in solving crimes and closing cases quickly,” said Robert A. Berman, President and CEO, Rekor.
Want to encourage law enforcement to spy on everyone? Give them free access to a massive license plate database.
RPSN’s AI software uses machine learning to predict when and where a hotlisted person or a person of interest will be.
“Rekor’s software, powered by artificial intelligence (“AI”) and machine learning, can also be added to existing law enforcement security camera networks to search for law enforcement related hotlists as well as Amber Alerts and registered sex offender motor vehicles.”
Rekor admits that police in thirty states are probably spying on more than 150 million license plates each month.
The Westchester County New York Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center alone, collects “more than 25 million license plates each month.”
An article in Traffic Technology Today revealed that Rekor will go to great lengths to convince police departments to track millions of motorists.
“In 2020, the RPSN will be fully compliant with the federal 2019 NDAA law, which bans the use of certain foreign manufactured cameras used in critical infrastructure.”
Rekor’s 2019 NDAA sales pitch, is both disturbing and despicable. It reveals just where they and law enforcement stand when it comes to using ALPR’s to spy on millions of motorists.
Police use license plate readers to track motorists in real-time
An article in The Newspaper revealed how police in Louisiana use license plate readers to track motorists in real-time.
Eric J. Richard had been driving his white Buick LaCrosse on Interstate 10, when he was stopped by Louisiana State Police Trooper Luke Leger for allegedly following a truck too closely. During the roadside interrogation, the trooper asked where Richard was coming from.
“I was coming from my job right there in Vinton,” Richard replied. The trooper had already looked up the travel records for Richard’s car and already knew it had crossed into Louisiana from Texas earlier in the day. Based on this “apparent lie,” the trooper extended the traffic stop by asking more questions and calling in a drug dog.
The article goes on to say that police had no reason to track Mr. Richard, but they did so because they could. And that should frighten everyone.
Rekor lets law enforcement know where your friends and family are, where your doctor’s office is, where you worship and where you buy groceries.
How is that for Orwellian?
It is time to face the facts: ALPR’s are not about public safety, they are a massive surveillance system designed to let Big Brother track our every movement.
San Francisco Targets the NRA with Anti-BDS-Style Resolution
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | September 6, 2019
Condemning and even barring people who support, or refuse to oppose, boycotting, divesting from, or sanctioning Israel from being employees or contractors of state or local government entities has been the rage in American state legislatures over the last few years. Kentucky has become one of the latest states to impose one of these anti-boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) laws, with Governor Matt Blevin having signed such legislation last week.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that calls for treating people and businesses who have interacted financially with the National Rifle Association (NRA) much as states with anti-BDS laws treat people with particular ideas related to Israel. The resolution terms the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” and declares that “the City and County of San Francisco should take every reasonable step to assess the financial and contractual relationships our vendors and contractors have with this domestic terrorist organization” and “should take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization.”
The anti-NRA resolution in San Francisco is similar to the anti-BDS legislation in many states in that it seeks to punish people for their views on contentious issues.
In another way the two laws are nearly opposite. The states’ anti-BDS laws target for punishment refusing to engage in, or supporting the termination of, some acts of commerce. In contrast, San Francisco’s anti-NRA resolution targets for punishment engaging in commerce. In short, the San Francisco resolution is pushing for a boycott of and divestment from the NRA.
Many people and businesses who have no opinion in regard to the NRA’s goals, or even disagree with the organization’s goals, but have done business in some manner with the NRA could be affected by San Francisco’s new resolution. It is not just an individual or company that has paid a membership fee or made a financial contribution to the NRA who is affected. The net extends much wider, set to entangle many more people and businesses, including, for example, any hotel where the NRA held a meeting, any company that has provided internet communication services to the NRA, and any company that has printed NRA material. The resolution could even apply to a plumber who repairs a leaking sink in the bathroom of an NRA office or a cleaning company that mops floors and takes out trash from an NRA office along with other offices in a building. The scope is vast.
Yet, while San Francisco’s resolution calls for imposing punishment on many people and companies, it appears to rest on a faulty foundation. Michael Tennant, over at The New American, pokes holes in some of the shoddy arguments used in the resolution to support terming the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” and taking action against people and businesses that have had a financial or contractual interaction with the NRA.
As with the anti-BDS laws, anti-NRA laws soon could proliferate across the country. Indeed, the San Francisco government seems committed to helping ensure this happens, stating in its new resolution that “the City and County of San Francisco should encourage all other jurisdictions, including other cities, states, and the federal government, to adopt similar positions.”
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The myth of oil as a dwindling resource
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Aletho News- Col Douglas Macgregor: Iran TOO BIG TO INVADE
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- A Conservative’s View: Trump’s War on Iran Is Destroying America
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- Gaza investigation: A family’s fight to find their missing relatives
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- Israel earmarks $270M for Israeli-only roads (that’s apartheid) – Daily Update
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- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
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- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
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- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
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