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Assange: Forget Russia,The Real Threat to America comes from Israel and the Israel Lobby

AWD News | September 22, 2017

From his refuge in the Ecuador Embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addressed a press conference of his supporters in Berlin on Tuesday, amid speculation that he planned to reveal potential threats to America.

But early into his speech, Assange said that while more revelations were to come, he would not be making any major announcements, asserting that there would be no point in making such revelations at a time when most Americans would be sleeping.

“Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not in fact threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does Moscow threaten the U.S. through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a threat in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media, the Democratic and Republican National Committees and by the White House. Candidate Donald Trump appeared to recognize that fact before he began listening to Michael Flynn, who has a rather different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail, there is, however, another country that has interfered in U.S. elections, has endangered Americans living or working overseas and has corrupted America’s legislative and executive branches. It has exploited that corruption to initiate legislation favorable to itself, has promoted unnecessary and unwinnable wars and has stolen American technology and military secrets. Its ready access to the mainstream media to spread its own propaganda provides it with cover for its actions and it accomplishes all that and more through the agency of a powerful and well-funded domestic lobby that oddly is not subject to the accountability afforded by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 even though it manifestly works on behalf of a foreign government. That country is, of course, Israel” said Assange.

The assessment of Israel and what damage it does regarding what most Americans would regard as genuine national interests is most definitely not reported, revealing once again that what is not written is every bit as important as what is. I would note how what has recently happened right in front of us relating to Israel is apparently not considered fit to print and will never appear on any disapproving editorial page. Just this week the Senate unanimously passed an Anti-Semitism Awareness bill and also by a 99 to zero vote renewed and strengthened sanctions against Iran, which could wreck the one year old anti-nuclear weapon proliferation agreement with that country.

The Anti-Semitism bill makes Jews and Jewish interests a legally protected class, immune from any criticism. “Free speech” means in practice that you can burn an American flag, sell pornography, attack Christianity in the vilest terms or castigate the government in Washington all you want but criticizing Israel is off limits if you want to avoid falling into the clutches of the legal system. The Act is a major step forward in effectively making any expressed opposition to Israeli actions a hate crime.

And it is similar to punitive legislation that has been enacted in twenty-two states as well as in Canada. It is strongly supported by the Israel Lobby, which quite likely drafted it, and is seeking to use legal challenges to delegitimize and eliminate any opposition to the policies of the state of Israel.

As the Act is clearly intended to restrict First Amendment rights if they are perceived as impacting on broadly defined Jewish sensitivities, it should be opposed on that basis alone, but it is very popular in Congress, which is de facto owned by the Israel Lobby. That the legislation is not being condemned or even discussed in the generally liberal media tells you everything you need to know about the amazing power of one particular unelected and unaccountable lobby in the U.S.

October 2, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump, Syriza & Brexit prove voting is only small part of the battle

By Neil Clark | RT | October 1, 2017

If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it. That might sound a bit glib but consider these recent events.

In January 2015, the Greek people, sick and tired of austerity and rapidly plummeting living standards, voted for Syriza, a radical anti-austerity party. The Coalition of the Left, which had only been formed eleven years earlier, won 36.3 percent of the vote and 149 out of the Hellenic Parliament‘s 300 seats. The Greek people had reasonable hopes their austerity nightmare would end. The victory of Syriza was hailed by progressives across Europe.

But what happened?

Pressure was applied on Greece by ‘The Troika’ to accept onerous terms for a new bailout. Syriza went to the people in June 2015 to ask them directly in a national referendum if they should accept the terms.

“On Sunday, we are not simply deciding to remain in Europe, we are deciding to live with dignity in Europe,” Alexis Tsipras, the leader of Syriza, declared. The Greek people duly gave Tsipras the mandate he asked for, and rejected the bailout terms with 61.3 percent voting ‘No.’

Yet, just over two weeks after the referendum, Syriza accepted a bailout package that contained larger cuts in pensions and higher tax increases than the one on offer earlier.
The Greek people may as well have stayed at home on 27th June for all the difference their vote made.

Many supporters of Donald Trump in the US are no doubt thinking the same.

Trump won the election by attracting working-class ‘rust belt’ voters away from the Democrats and for offering the prospect of an end to a ‘liberal interventionist’ foreign policy. Yet just nine months into his Presidency the belief that Trump would mark a ‘clean break’ with what had gone before is in tatters. National conservative members of his team have been purged, while Trump has proved himself as much of a war hawk as his predecessors. Rather than ‘draining the swamp,’ The Donald has waded right into it.

The events of 2017 plainly prove as I argued here that the US is a regime and not a genuine democracy, and that whoever gets to the White House – sooner or later – will be forced to toe the War Party/Wall Street/Deep State line, regardless of what they promise on the election trail.

Brits too have had a lesson in the way ‘democracy’ works when people don’t vote the way the most powerful people in the establishment want them to. On June 23, 2016, rightly or wrongly, 52 percent voted to leave the EU. But 15 months on, the view that Britain will either never leave the EU or stay in it in all but name is growing. The government only sent off Article 50 in March, after the courts held that Brexit had to be initiated by Parliament.

Last week, Prime Minister Theresa May asked the EU for a two-year ‘transition’ period after Britain is due to leave in 2019. It’s not hard to imagine the transition period will be indefinitely extended. “I’ve been voicing that fear since long before the prime minister’s dismal speech in Florence, and I see nothing to reassure me that the referendum result will be honored,” says Peter Hill, former editor of the Daily Express.

The odds of Britain still being in the EU in 2022 are now about 3-1. And they’re shortening all the time.

Again, is that what the people who voted for Brexit in 2016 wanted to happen? The issue here is not whether we think leaving the EU is a good idea, but how the referendum vote has not led to the results that people expected.

These are not the only examples of people not getting what they thought they had voted for. In 2008, the citizens of Ireland voted to reject the EU’s Lisbon treaty. Was that the end of the matter? Not at all. They were asked to vote again – a year later – and this time the EU got the desired outcome.

In May 2012, the Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande won a decisive victory in France’s Presidential elections. Like Syriza, he pledged to end austerity.

“I’m sure in a lot of European countries there is relief, hope that at last austerity is no longer inevitable.” He declared. But guess what. Hollande didn’t end austerity. Just a year later he was pushing through a fresh round of cuts.

Proving once again the truth of the old adage: Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes.

This wouldn’t have surprised French students of Hungarian politics as the same thing happened in Hungary in the mid-1990s. In the 1994 election Gyula Horn’s Socialist Party swept the right-wing Hungarian Democratic Forum from power, by promising to preserve the best elements of the old ’goulash communist’ system. Horn attacked energy privatization and pledged to put the interests of ordinary working Hungarians first. But the forces of Western capital had no intention of allowing any vestiges of socialism to survive in the former Eastern bloc country.

Under pressure from Western financial institutions, Horn did a spectacular U-turn, sacking genuinely progressive ministers- and appointing a neoliberal economic professor called Lajos Bokros to impose a brutal austerity program, which was far worse than anything the previous government had introduced. He also stepped up privatization.

See the pattern?

What the above examples illustrate is that regardless of how we vote, the people behind the scenes – the money men, the embedded bureaucrats, those who want to see no end to neoliberal globalization because they do so well out of it – won’t meekly accept the verdict of the people. If the ‘great unwashed’ vote the ‘wrong way,’ i.e., for Trump, for Syriza, for Brexit or for Hollande or Horn, then ways will be found to make sure that normal service is soon resumed.

There are important lessons I think here for the British Labour Party, who could be on the brink of power. Like many this week, I was hugely impressed by the speech to the conference made by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn pledged to develop “a new model of economic management to replace the failed dogmas of neo-liberalism,” and linked the rise in terrorism to neocon/liberal interventionist foreign policies.

This is heresy as far as the pro-war neoliberal elites are concerned.

Opinion polls show that Labour, which registered its biggest increase in vote share in any election since 1945 earlier this year, has a consistent lead. Establishment attack dogs have been snapping at Corbyn’s heels since day one, and it’s utterly naïve to think that it’ll all stop if he does get the keys to Number 10, Downing Street. In fact, the war against Jez and his closest comrades will only intensify. The good news is that Labour is already planning for capital flight and a run on the pound if it’s elected. Paul Mason, a pro-Labour commentator, has said the first six months of a Corbyn government would be like ‘Stalingrad.’

Of course, you could argue that the likes of Trump, Hollande, Horn, and Tsipras were never totally committed to the program they stood on, and they said the ‘right things’ to the people just to get elected. But even if politicians are 100 percent genuine as the veteran anti-war activist Jeremy Corbyn appears to be, the pressures on them to cave in to the powerful forces behind the curtain will be immense, especially if they are putting forward policies which the elites don’t favor.

It’s clear from recent history that in modern Western ‘democracies’ voting in itself doesn’t determine outcomes. It’s what comes afterward that’s the most important.

Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66

October 1, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Erasing academic freedom in America by Congressional legislation

By William Cook | MEMO | October 1, 2017

Senator Chuck Schumer’s plaintive lament before the US Senate decrying the supposedly despicable practice of criticising Israel under the guise of anti-Zionism moves inexorably closer to fulfilment. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act has passed through the Senate unanimously. Shumer’s presentation of his case is classic Hasbara; propaganda disguised as empathy. His emotional appeal casts the Jews as victims of anti-Semitism even when critics of Israel target Zionism and not Jews per se. “Anti-Semitism… has been used throughout history when Jewish people are judged and measured by one standard and the rest by another,” he explains.

As an example of historic anti-Semitism, Schumer claims that Jews could not farm “when everyone else was allowed to.” When, though, were the Jews not allowed to farm? According to Steven Landsburg, “… for well over a millennium … Jews had not been farmers – not in Palestine, not in the Muslim empire, not in Western Europe, not in Eastern Europe, not anywhere in the world.” Indeed, the economist pointed out in a 2003 article (“Why Jews don’t farm”) that you have to go back almost 2,000 years to find a time when Jews, like virtually every other identifiable group, were primarily an agricultural people. “Around AD 200, Jews began to quit the land. By the seventh century, Jews had left their farms in large numbers to become craftsmen, artisans, merchants and moneylenders—the only group to have given up on agriculture. Jewish participation in farming fell to about 10 per cent through most of the world; even in Palestine it was only about 25 per cent. Everyone else stayed on the farms.”

That Jews don’t farm has nothing to do with anti-Semitism yet it becomes an emotionally charged condemnation of those who criticise the state of Israel by citing the truth about its founding ideology, Zionism. From its founding in the late 1800s to the present day, political Zionism has been an ideology determined to bring into existence a nation state for the Jewish people. Prior to World War One, the Zionists argued their right to a homeland, but until the opportunity arose to edge their way into an agreement with a failing Britain for fiscal support through the Balfour Declaration, the possibility of creating that state in Palestine did not exist. (See The Balfour Declaration 1917—2017: 100 years of Deceit, Devastation and Genocide, AHT, 30 March 2017, William A. Cook)

Ralph Schoenman provides a detailed analysis of Zionism in his classic work The Four Myths. Chapter 2 outlines the Zionist Objectives. Nothing so epitomises the reality of Zionism as Vladimir Jabotinsky’s writings on what it asserts and how it must achieve its goals. “We cannot give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to other Arabs,” insisted the revisionist Zionist leader. “Therefore, a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonisation, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy… To the hackneyed reproach that this point of view is unethical, I answer, absolutely untrue. This is our ethic. There is no other ethic.”

This is Zionism, raw and vicious. Today, Zionism is still racist, militaristic and unethical. It is inherently anti-democratic yet proclaims to be democratic; it proclaims victimhood yet it is merciless in its occupation and oppression of the Palestinians; and it proclaims friendship with the people of the United States yet continues to take billions of dollars from its ally caring nothing for the people of America who must shoulder $20 trillion of debt, even though Israel is one of the wealthiest nations in the world.

How can the US Congress justify protecting Israel and Zionism by erasing the first amendment to the Constitution regarding freedom of speech, with the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act”? How can Senators justify silencing critics of this racist, Zionist state when it is clear to the people of the world at large that its ideology openly defies international law, damns as irrelevant the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and claims an ethical code that supersedes the law? That is what Senators are about to do by “criminalising critics of Israel”. (see “Congress Considers Sweeping Bills to Fine and Jail Backers of BDS”. Democracy Now!, July 17, 2017).

Since the US Congress and Israel have been unable to find a solution, it seems logical to look elsewhere. Consider this fifteen-month collaborative study from South Africa which set out to examine legally the following question: Do Israel’s practices in occupied Palestinian territory, namely the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, amount to the crimes of colonialism and apartheid under international law?

Apartheid is defined as an institutionalised form of racism in which states enact laws which function as the apparatus to commit inhuman acts for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them. Apartheid regimes rely on three “Pillars of Apartheid” to maintain their domination:

  1. The state codifies into law a preferred identity: (See full report for evidence)
  2. The state segregates the population into geographic areas based on their identity.
  3. The state establishes security laws and policies designed to suppress any opposition to the regime.

Using these criteria, the May 2009 South African study found that, “Israel, since 1967, is the belligerent Occupying Power in occupied Palestinian territory, and that its occupation of these territories has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid.”

Despite claims to being a democracy, in practice, Israel’s preferred identity is Jewish, and its separate system gives Jews privileges over non-Jewish citizens. Israel’s domestic law establishes that collective rights extend to Jews only. All other people lack the right to a national life anywhere in Israel proper or in occupied Palestinian territory.

For example, Israel’s state resources, including land in occupied Palestinian territory which Israel has declared “state land”, are specified as being for the exclusive benefit of Jews, administered under the World Zionist Organisation, Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund. Since 1967, when Israel completed its occupation of historical Palestine, it supplanted existing laws governing Palestinian territory with two separate sets of law: Israeli domestic law applies to Jewish settlers and Israeli military law applies to Palestinians.

Israel denies Palestinians the right to an education through indirect measures such as creating obstacles to movement so Palestinian students cannot get to their schools and universities; repeated closure of Palestinian schools; military attacks on schools and students; destroying educational infrastructure; and denying Palestinian students exit permits preventing them from studying abroad.

What Israel does to the Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip is cruel and inhumane. From 2000 to 2004, Israel demolished over 2,500 homes in the Gaza Strip leaving 16,000 Palestinians homeless. According to the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions (ICAHD), an estimated 24,813 “Palestinian structures” have been demolished in the occupied territories since 1967. This excludes the destruction caused by Israel’s frequent military offensives.

Under international law, the State of Israel has the duty to:

  1. Cease its unlawful activity.
  2. Dismantle the structures of colonialism and apartheid.
  3. Promote full rights and expression of the Palestinian people.
  4. Pay reparations and damages to the Palestinians people.

Furthermore, third party states are obligated to:

  1. Not recognise the illegal situation as lawful.
  2. Not render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation.
  3. Cooperate to bring the illegal situation to an end.
  4. Not become complicit in the crimes by failing to fulfil the first three obligations.

As a next step the report recommends that states take action to meet their legal obligations under international law and urgently request the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on the question of Israel’s practices in occupied Palestinian territory.

I am a Professor Emeritus at an American university; a scholar and researcher; a mentor of a Fulbright Scholar from Morocco; a professional academic administrator at four institutions in four different states, public and private; and a full-time tenured professor at a private university for the past 14 years. I also have an aggregate of 52 years of experience from Instructor to Vice President for Academic Affairs. I believe, therefore, that I can speak with some authority relative to academic freedom, tenure, ethics and values appropriate to this profession.

The action threatened by Representatives Peter Roskam and Dan Lipinski through their HR 4009 proposal seeks to curtail not only freedom of expression voiced against a political entity, the state of Israel, for perceived crimes against humanity in its destructive actions against Palestinian educational institutions and their students, but also presents the American people, most particularly the faculty and administrators at American institutions, with obligations to support a state that has been found guilty of apartheid actions that require international legal action. This could, at some time in the future, result in a finding that convicts this nation and its people themselves of crimes against humanity. The evidence presented in truncated form in this article damns the state of Israel for crimes that are intolerable by any intellectual measure, crimes that cannot be supported by those committed to justice, human dignity and respect for the rights inherent in all humans under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Accords, most especially the definition of genocide as expressed in the UN charter.

Israeli forces brutally arresting a Palestinian youth [File photo]

Israeli forces brutally arresting a Palestinian youth [File photo]

It would be better for these two Congressmen and their peers to offer the American people a gift of peace. They could begin with the withholding of the $8 million per day provided to Israel so that it can maintain the horrendous conditions it imposes on those living under its military occupation. They could also suggest that Israel’s institutions of higher learning demand of their government a commitment to open the gates of the walled-in State of Israel to all people of goodwill, beginning with an interscholastic dialogue on equity for all – the citizens of Israel as well as the citizens entrusted to their care under international law as occupiers – that all may share the gifts of thoughtful interchange as citizens of the world.

After all, the purpose of higher education is to enhance the intellect and promote the expansion of its capabilities; to recognise that all things, both living and non-living, infuse the possibilities of life by providing richness in artistic expression; to nurture compassion in the understanding of differences and creativity in technical advancement for the benefit of all; to seek, in the realm of the unknown, what enriches us and lifts us beyond our limited selves, because we see the joy of fulfilment in the multitude of faces among whom we live, play, work and pray. The great wonder of higher education is in its freedom of thought and expression; its openness to ideas and explorations of the mind; its quest to know, to seek answers, to thrive on speculation, to entertain paradoxes, mystery, fantasy and intuition, and yet know that all accept that journey of the mind and do so without threat to another, without fear of another, without anxiety or anger or hate.

There is no place in that purpose to criticise with vitriol; to lash out at perceived ignorance; to mock others; to devise weapons of destruction whether of the military kind or mental; or to hate and create “exceptionalism” which blossoms against and excludes others to enhance a few. All of these are anathema to learning. We must all learn from this exercise that the criminals in the US Congress should not be the ones responsible for dictating how academia responds to its purpose.

Read also: Opposing Zionism is not racism

October 1, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

British Labour is also a victim of the Zionist lobby

British Prime minister Theresa May (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) on the steps of No.10 Downing street, London, UK on Feb. 6, 2017. ( Kate Green – Anadolu )
By Hanin Zoabi | Arab48 | September 29, 2017

It seems that the international meetings I am participating in for the 30th time and the ninth series of lectures in Britain specifically are taking up the lion’s share of my visits. This is due to the fact that solidarity campaigns with the Palestinian people in Britain are considered to be the strongest and most active in the world. Time after time, we try to expand the discourse related to solidarity with the Palestinians in order for it to go beyond confronting the occupation and blockade, i.e. “bad Israel” and to including the concept of “good Israel” that Israel is trying to convince the world exists. Does “good Israel” really exist? Could the “Zionist dream” with its ideal conditions and without being subject to resistance from the victim or any international opposition, constitute a normal human life?

The answer to this question is not derived from the reality of the conflict, but the reality of the state, i.e. the routine practices of the Zionist project, not only from its bloody crimes. The basic routine produced by this project is the Jewish State itself, as well as its institutions, its legal system, and the values it produces and raises its generations with on a daily basis. This is the routine that embodies the “Zionist dream”, and this routine is what produces one violation after another and one crime after another.

This is the main claim we can present to the international solidarity movements, and by doing so we can confirm that the problem is with the dream (the Jewish state) and that the crimes committed by this state are the same tools it uses to define itself as a Jewish state. This also confirms that the state cannot exist, even within its basic daily routine, without committing ethnic cleansing, uprooting and the physical and symbolic liquidation of the Palestinian presence, i.e. the crimes are not outside of the Israeli routine, but rather are what form the routing within the system itself. It translates the plans for uprooting, liquidation and ethnic cleansing into legal tools and local administration systems.

We cannot continue to talk about a solution that is merely a “Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel”, a motto even some of our own central political forces still promote. Those who want to combat Israel’s crimes cannot be satisfied with removing Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip alone. They must remove Zionism from the legal and political system of the state, because the plans for uprooting, displacement and liquidation are plans that govern Israel’s relationship with the Palestinian presence in all its forms. Citizenship was never protection for the Palestinians from Zionism and its plans, but it has always been a tool of control and a means to implement its plans against us.

As for the “diplomatic” significance of this claim, along with its political significance, it refutes Israel’s defence discourse to the Europeans, which is based on Israel’s spilt personality. There is good/real Israel, which, if left alone by the world, would prove its moral superiority, and there is Israel that is dragged into war, which if forced, possibly, may commit some unintentional or forced violations but only in self-defence.

The importance of stating that liquidations, displacement and cleansing are crimes established in Israel’s routine and are at the core of the Zionist project, is that it refutes Israel’s claims of moral superiority and legitimacy which it is trying to rely on.

If Israel can silence the world with claims of “Islamic terrorism” in Gaza or “defence of its democracy” in the West Bank, then what will its answer be if asked about the reason for prohibiting Arabs from living in over 500 towns, the law of Jewish neighbourhoods receiving larger budgets, the Prawer Plan, the citizenship law, the law to withdraw parliamentary representation, the law prohibiting the commemoration of the Nakba, the law to reduce the sound of the call to prayer, or the law restricting participation in political parties? What will Israel say about physical, political and symbolic liquidation laws? Especially since its typical answer of “self-defence” won’t hold up here. What will it say if the claims of “some violations it was forced to commit” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were legitimate in order to protect Israel, the democratic state that promotes the West’s democratic values are not accepted?

What would happen if we reveal that the “good” that Israel willingly chooses is no less evil than the evil that it is forced to commit in the West Bank and Gaza?

Such exposure is exactly what Israel fears. It is afraid that the world will discover that the “perfect” Jewish state has committed crimes that are no less of a crime than the war crimes it “forcibly” committed because people have not yet understood the pureness and morality of what Israel wants. They fear that the world will realise the problem isn’t only the brutal crimes but also lies in the daily routine. They are afraid the world will realise that the main problem is not in the missiles and siege that will end if the Palestinians surrender, nor is it in the confiscation of the land, which will stop if the Palestinians voluntarily surrender their land, but the problem is what Israel wants, even if we do not resist. The problem is the laws, culture and intellect that considers your existence terrorism.

Perhaps it is because of Israel’s fear of this that the Zionist lobby is forced to tighten its control in order keep up with the growing solidarity with the Palestinians that not only stems from the ugliness of Israel’s crimes but from a deeper understanding of the concept of the Jewish state itself.

Confronting the nature of the Jewish state requires the Europeans to first liberate themselves from the continuous oppression and extortion that they are constantly subjected to, that undeniably succeeds in controlling the political scene they are living in. It isn’t only the Palestinians who have lost control of their reality, but the Brits as well, or more accurately, those who want to express their views on the Palestinian cause freely. Although they are in remission, their inability to express their opinions freely enough regarding the Palestinian cause indicates their sense of losing control or helplessness. If an embassy and lobby are controlling the freedom of thousands in a certain country, it is not a typical scene and cause for surprise, followed by resentment and anger.

Perhaps the anger felt by dozens of these activists at the fact that a foreign lobby is controlling them is greater than the anger provoked by the violation of Palestinians’ freedom and dignity by the Zionist project, not because the latter’s suffering is less, as the suffering of Palestinians is too deep to compare, but because of Zionism’s success in oppressing British citizens. This gives it more confidence and reassurance in oppressing the Palestinians; is it possible for Israel to succeed in Britain but fail with the Palestinians?

The answer is yes, it is possible for Israel to succeed in suppressing the freedom of expression of activists in solidarity with Palestine who are from strong and sovereign nations and fail with the victim. This is because it has already taken over all means of its victims’ material and symbolic life, leaving them with very little to lose. Sometimes, strength is one’s weakness, while confinement within narrow limits means you will only lose narrowness.

In the past two years, the British have voiced their resentment, their fear of the Zionist lobby and, most importantly, its success in silencing them more than ever. The Zionist lobby has intensified its campaigns, relations and means of pressure, this time in coordination with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli ambassador in London. Everyone will attest to his unprecedented means of intimidation, which no other ambassador has ever used. This is despite the fact that the British, and other countries’ laws do not permit local lobbies to receive guidance, instructions or funding from any foreign embassy in the country in which it operates, as this constitutes an interference in the internal affairs of the state, which is prohibited by the norms and rules of international diplomacy.

Al Jazeera’s investigation revealed how the Zionist lobby infiltrated and penetrated not only the corridors of British politics, but also the corridors of the personal life of British officials. They even went as far as trying fabricate a scandal for one of the conservative ministers as punishment for his rejection of settlements. Despite the discovery of such actions and plots, no punishment or measure have been taken in accordance with the diplomatic standards.

The peak Zionist lobby’s success is embodied by the British government’s adoption of the new definition of anti-Semitism, which considers any unconventional criticism against Israel anti-Semitic. This new change must not be underestimated. This change occurred in late 2016 when British Prime Minister Theresa May promised to issue a government resolution to adopt a definition recently formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, known as the IHRA, which stated that “anti-Semitism could include criticism of Israel as a Jewish state”. This means anyone who dares to criticise Israel will “put themselves at risk” of being labelled as anti-Semitic.

Not only did the Zionist lobby succeed in making Theresa May adopt this definition, but the harshest blow came in the form of Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, known for his unprecedented support in the British political arena for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians and his full awareness of the essence of the Zionist project, agreeing to adopt this new definition of anti-Semitism.

Hence, it seems that the Zionist lobby in Britain pre-empted the “benefits” the Palestinians would gain from electing their “friend” Corbyn as head of the Labour party by adding new restrictions to the British political scene. They have made the Zionist definition of anti-Semitism most in control of the limits of what is permissible and prohibited in terms of supporting Palestinians and opposing colonialism, settlement, apartheid and Israeli oppression in the British political scene.

This may suggest that supporting Zionism is a condition for the freedom of expression in Britain (similar procedures and laws were approved recently in other European countries including France and Spain), in a clear example of McCarthyism that puts anyone who criticises Israel on a blacklist.

Dozens of members of the Labour party have revealed their membership has been frozen for months after the Zionist lobby filed complaints against them, accusing them of anti-Semitism. They all noted that the number of those who believe they were punished for this accusation by freezing their membership reached thousands, while others said the number is tens of thousands of people. In some cases, people’s memberships were frozen without their knowledge, and without any formal procedure or without allowing them to air their side of the story.

Some of us overlook the fact that the efforts to eliminate thousands of Labour party activists is not only a personal attack on these individuals, but also reflect attempts by the Zionist lobby to manipulate the internal influence of the Labour party, known for its member’s support for Corbyn’s left-wing pro-Palestinian positions, but not known to support the official bodies in the party and the senior officials who are known for their hostility toward Corbyn and their relentless fight against his influence. This indicates some mechanisms of the Zionist lobby in combatting Corbyn and influencing the internal elections of the British parties.

These new developments are what allow us to confirm that there are motives for the Brits’ solidarity with the Palestinian that go beyond their support for their just cause. They are also standing in solidarity against the Zionist lobby’s attempts at political intimidation and with their right to think, express and speak freely in their country. The Zionist lobby’s success in oppressing the freedom of expression of other nations would be the greatest indicator of the credibility of the Palestinians’ claims, not to mention the fact that the Zionist lobby is forced to exaggerate its means of pressure and repression in an attempt to keep up with the increased solidarity with the Palestinians.

In the past two years, Britain has been criticising the Zionist lobby, not in defence of the Palestinians’ rights but in defence of the British people’s rights. Petitions signed by 200 lawyers and academics confirmed that the restrictions imposed by British policy against the international boycott of Israel, in addition to the government’s adoption of the Zionist definition of anti-Semitism are a violation of human rights in Britain.

The suppression against British citizens by foreign parties in their own country does not stop at the suppression of freedom of expression. Just as the Palestinians experience this, the Zionist lobby in all European countries threaten those who rent out their halls for conferences and forums organised by solidarity campaigns. The surrender of many is not because they are afraid of punishment, but most of the time it is to reduce harassment and headache they are subjected to. Other fears faced by the British people causing them to surrender to the pressure of the lobby are related to their fear of losing sources of funding or defamation in the media and social networking sites under the control and influence of the Zionist lobby.

Despite all this, I must note that although the Palestinian cause has lost some of its international political presence due to the Arab revolutions and their consequences, as well as the fact that the cause has been liquidated as a liberation cause and is being dealt with as a diplomatic issue by the PA, it has not lost its moral presence globally, and is still a symbol of justice and the fight against domination.

The Palestinians still do not require much effort to convince any European of the justice of their cause, and the Zionist lobby is still forced to redouble its efforts, funds and intimidation to keep pace with the popular support given instinctively to the Palestinians without much effort. However, this requires us to focus our efforts and to emphasise that the definition, principles and laws of the Jewish state itself eliminate any possibility of the existence of an “innocent Israel” and that Israel’s daily practices represented by its legal, political and educational system should be subject to international scrutiny and accountability, and not only its crimes in the West Bank and Gaza. The former carries as much crime as the latter. The second thing we must emphasise is the extent to which Zionism has become an international movement against freedom in the world.

Translation by MEMO

September 30, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Provides Military Aid To More Than 70 Percent Of World’s Dictatorships

By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | September 27, 2017

About three-quarters of the world’s dictatorships currently receive military assistance from the United States. This is a strange record for a nation that consistently justifies its sweeping foreign interventions as aimed at “promoting democracy” and “thwarting evil dictatorships.”

In the Cold War it was “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Current analysis shows the U.S. militarily assisting dictators the world over, calling it “promoting democracy,” and disingenuously wondering why it’s all going so badly.

For much of its history, the United States government has explained or defended its intervention in the affairs of other nations by framing such behavior as necessary to “promote democracy” abroad and to thwart the advance of “evil dictators.” While the use of those phrases has hardly dwindled over the years, establishment figures have been forced to admit in recent years that the U.S.’ democracy promotion efforts haven’t gone quite as planned.

For instance, last year, Foreign Policy published an article headlined “Why is America So Bad at Promoting Democracy in Other Countries?” There, Harvard professor Stephen M. Walt noted that most of the U.S.’ democracy promotion efforts abroad end in failure, with nearly a quarter of the world’s democracies having been degraded in the past 30 years. Though Walt blames the U.S.’ muddled history of military interventions for failing to spread democracy, a new analysis suggests that the reason for this troubling trend is not that democracy wasn’t promoted the “right” way, but rather that democracy was never meant to be promoted at all.

By the numbers: U.S. backs three of every four dictators

Rich Whitney, an attorney and writer, sought to compare Freedom House’s rating system of political rights for 2015 to the U.S. government’s provision of military assistance – military training, military aid and weapons sales – to foreign nations that same year. Whitney’s stated goal was to determine whether the U.S. government actually opposes dictatorships and champions democracy at a global level, as is often claimed. His independent analysis found that the U.S. has actually manifested the opposite of its stated intention, by providing military assistance to 36 of the world’s 49 dictatorships. In other words, more than 73% of the world’s dictatorships currently receive military assistance from the United States.

For his analysis, Whitney used a commonly accepted definition of dictatorship: “a system of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute state power, thereby directing all national policies and major acts — leaving the people powerless to alter those decisions or replace those in power by any method short of revolution or coup.” He chose Freedom House’s Freedom in the World annual reports, citing it as the best source for a comprehensive list of dictatorships and “free” societies. Whitney, however, noted that the ostensibly independent organization has a “decidedly pro-US-ruling-class bias.”

Freedom House’s bias makes the results of Whitney’s analysis even more damning. The organization is funded by a combination of Western government and nongovernmental-organization sources, including the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations. Thus, its categorization of nations as dictatorships or as free societies is largely analogous to how the U.S. State Department classifies such nations — meaning that U.S. monetary support of such dictatorships is a knowing and willful repudiation of democracy promotion abroad.

Furthermore, many of the nations labeled as dictatorships by Freedom House are rivals of the United States, and thus tended to be labeled dictatorships even though they are not. For example, both Iran and Syria were labeled dictatorships even though Iran held democratic elections earlier this year and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was re-elected in 2014 with 88.7% of the vote. Russia, the eternal rival of the United States, is also considered a dictatorship according to Freedom House despite the fact that elections regularly occur there. If these three nations were removed from list, the U.S. would then support upwards of 78% of the world’s dictatorships.

In addition, other decidedly undemocratic nations that receive large amounts of U.S. military aid were not included as dictatorships in the Freedom House report and thus in Whitney’s analysis. For instance, Israel receives over $10 million in U.S. military aid every day despite the fact that all Palestinians living within its borders are disenfranchised and subject to either concentration-camp conditions or imposed military rule.

Circumstances change but justification remains the same

President Barack Obama greets one time ally of the United States, deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, during the G8/G5 summit in L’Aquila, Italy, July 9, 2009. (AP/Michael Gottschalk)

Though this analysis of the government’s own data and data from a pro-Western think tank has revealed the U.S.’ far-reaching support for dictatorships around the world, such a revelation is unlikely to change anything about the U.S.’ long-standing modus operandi. For of course U.S. support for dictators is nothing new: many Cold War-era dictators, particularly in Latin America and Asia, were installed and backed with full U.S. government support despite their despotism, in order to allow the U.S. to “contain” communism and Soviet influence.

Related | Reagan Documents Shed Light On CIA ‘Meddling’ Abroad

Ultimately, “democracy promotion” was never the true intent, but instead the disguise to mask the imperial conquest of nations that refused to acquiesce to U.S. government demands. For that reason, the notable military interventions of recent decades — particularly Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya — were sold to the U.S. public as being born out of the need to “restore” democracy and wrest control from “evil dictators.” That narrative continues to be used to justify pushes for regime change abroad, even though the U.S.’ self-image as the world’s greatest democracy hangs in tatters.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Israeli embassy accused of pressuring UK university to censor free speech

MEMO | September 29, 2017

A UK university has been accused by students of bowing to Israeli pressure and censoring free speech following revelations of a meeting between university officials and the Israeli ambassador days before an event during Israel Apartheid Week.

Email correspondence obtained through a freedom of information request, seen by MEMO, reveals details of a meeting between Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev and senior staff at the University of Manchester (UoM) prior to an event during Israel Apartheid Week last March.

The documents were obtained from UoM after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – the body regulating data protection in the UK – found UoM to be in breach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by not disclosing information requested by a student activist over its relations with controversial Israeli institutions.

Manchester University student, Huda Ammori, lodged the complaint against UoM after an unsuccessful bid to obtain details about the nature of the university’s relations with Israeli organisations. In August, the ICO stepped in and instructed UoM to provide a response to the request within 35 days, in accordance with its obligations under the FOIA.

In one correspondence obtained by Ammori, the Israeli embassy thanked Dr Tim Westlake, director of student experience at UoM, for “hosting” the Israeli ambassador and “discussing openly some of the difficult issues that [we] face”. The embassy also discussed ways to “increase take up of the Erasmus Programme”, which is a European Union student exchange programme.

The email correspondence includes details of the meeting between UoM and the Israeli embassy, in particular, their concerns over two events organised by the university’s Action Palestine and BDS societies, during Israeli Apartheid Week. In its email the embassy said: “These are just two events of many that they are running in their so called and offensively titled ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’.”

Israeli embassy staff accused the speakers, including Holocaust survivor and historian Marika Sherwood, of anti-Semitism. They said that the speakers had “cross[ed] the line into hate speech” and that their talk was not “legitimate criticism” of Israel. The officials were especially keen to stress their disapproval of the talk by Sherwood, which was going to compare her experience as a child surviving Nazi brutality and the injustices committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians.

In her response to the accusations, Sherwood told MEMO:

I am not an anti-Semitic Jew! I am an anti-Israeli Jew! The two are not the same. And yes, to me the way Israelis behave towards the Palestinians, whose land/property they have claimed/confiscated/overtaken is as the Nazis behaved towards me and my fellow Jews in Hungary WWII.

“We cant all go back to where our ancestors lived thousands, even hundreds, of years ago,” Sherwood reasoned. “Can you imagine all the Brits who settled in the Americas, in Australia, NZ, South Africa, coming back to claim the UK?”

Organisers, unaware that senior UoM officials had met with the Israeli embassy days before the event, were pressured to meet a number of demands before the university granted permission to hold the event: Academics chosen to chair the meetings were replaced by university appointees, publicity was limited to students and staff, the organisers were told talks would be recorded and the title of Sherwood’s talk had to be changed because “of its unduly provocative nature”.

MEMO contacted UoM over the allegation that they censored free speech, their reasons for putting pressure on the students and if it was in the habit of senior staff to host foreign embassy delegations to discuss internal university matters.

In response, UoM spokesperson said: “Events held on campus are reviewed under the University’s Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech if they concern potentially controversial topics and whenever they involve external speakers. This includes events organised through and in the University of Manchester Students’ Union. In deciding whether or not an event should go ahead, the University pays due regard to all relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010.”

“However, such legislation does not act to prohibit completely the expression of controversial views. In this case the University allowed the events to proceed in line with the requirements of the Act and our commitment to principles of freedom of speech and expression.”

While the university refuses to admit any outside coercion, the Israeli embassy has previously been found to have exerted undue influence on British institutions. Earlier this year an Al Jazeera documentary made the sensational revelation concerning a senior Israeli diplomat, Shai Masot, who was captured on video conspiring to “take down” certain UK government ministers such as Sir Alan Duncan for speaking out against Israeli policy and sympathising with the plight of the Palestinians.

The scoop also revealed that the Israeli embassy was providing covert assistance to supposedly independent groups within the Labour party; jobs at the embassy were being offered to groom young Labour activists; and how concerned the embassy was with removing not just Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, but also Crispin Blunt MP, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (both of whom are Conservative MPs), as well as Jeremy Corbyn MP, the leader of the Labour party.

Read also: Manchester University must reveal its relations with Israeli institutions

September 29, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pressure on Russian Media Abroad Unacceptable – Putin

Sputnik – September 29, 2017

According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the current pressure on Russia-based media abroad unacceptable.

During Putin’s meeting with the Russian Security Council, both the president and the council declared pressure on the Russian media abroad unacceptable, underlining that it has increased recently.

“The issue of continuing and sometimes increasing pressure on Russian media in some foreign countries was also touched upon during the meeting,” Peskov said.

“It was noted that such actions against our media are unacceptable,” Peskov stressed.

The day before, Margarita Simonyan, the RT editor-in-chief stated that RT broadcaster was asked to register as a foreign agent. Otherwise, it might face restrictions that would make it unable to continue work in the United States.

The Russian Foreign Ministry commented on the US Department of Justice’s demands to register RT America channel’s services provider as a foreign agent under FARA, saying that every move in relation to a Russian media will have a relevant response.

Earlier in September, the US Department of Justice asked a RT contractor in the United States to register under Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), while in June US congressmen introduced the Foreign Agents Registration Modernization and Enforcement Act bill, which would broaden the scope of FARA to include RT, by expanding DoJ authority to investigate attempts to “unlawfully influence the political process.”

On September 11, RT America channel’s service provider in the US received a letter from the US Department of Justice demanding that the company should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The letter was received amid discussions on a bill in the US lower house aimed at amending requirements for registration of foreign agents under FARA.

The bill, among other things, empowers the US DOJ, including the Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI), to identify and prosecute organizations that “illegally” try to influence the political processes in the United States.

The same day it was reported that the FBI had questioned former Sputnik employee Andrew Feinberg as part of the investigation of reports that the news outlet allegedly acted as a Russian propaganda agency in violation of FARA.

It was claimed that the FBI had access to Sputnik’s working correspondence from Feinberg and another former employee of Sputnik’s Washington bureau, Joseph John Fionda. The FBI itself has not responded to Sputnik’s inquiry on whether it was conducting an investigation into the news agency.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the move as contradicting pluralism and freedom of the press, while Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted that Moscow “reserves the right to respond to the outrageous actions of the American side.”

September 29, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Activist: Saudi’s 2030 Vision Coordinated by Washington, Tel Aviv

Al-Manar | September 28, 2017

Saudi activist Mujtahid said that the inclusive change in Saudi Arabia (political, social and economic change) is coming, noting that the authorities will arrest all those who stand against this change,

On his Twitter account, Mujtahid quoted a US advisor, who takes part in Saudi Arabia’s Vision for 2030 project, as saying that the change is coming.

This change requires Crown Prince Mohamamd Bin Salman’s monopolization of power on the political level, secularizing the kingdom on the social level, and selling Aramco firm on the economical level, Mujtahid said, citing the US advisor.

He revealed that such plan is being coordinated with the US, Zionist entity, Egypt and UAE, noting that all these sides share the same stance regarding the arrest campaign which will target all those who reject this change.

In this context, Mujtahid, who is believed to be a member of or have a well-connected source in the royal family, pointed out that the arrests which were made recently represents an early stage of this plan of change.

September 28, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

653,249 people were arrested in the US last year for breaking marijuana laws

By Mark Frauenfelder – Boing Boing – September 25, 2017

One person gets arrested for marijuana possession every 71 seconds in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Crime In the United States (CIUS) report. This is great news to drug cartels, police departments, racists, corrupt politicians, the prison industry, and the involuntary rehab clinic racket. It’s bad news for everybody else.

“Arresting and citing nearly half a million people a year for a substance that is objectively safer than alcohol is a travesty,” said Morgan Fox, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Despite a steady shift in public opinion away from marijuana prohibition, and the growing number of states that are regulating marijuana like alcohol, marijuana consumers continue to be treated like criminals throughout the country. This is a shameful waste of resources and can create lifelong consequences for the people arrested.”

There are currently eight states that regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol for adults, four of which voted to do so in November 2016. Marijuana possession is also legal for adults in the District of Columbia. Twenty-three states and D.C. considered legislation in 2017 to regulate marijuana, including in Vermont where the legislature approved such a measure before the governor vetoed it. “Regulating marijuana for adults creates jobs, generates tax revenue, protects consumers, and takes money away from criminals,” Fox continued. “It is time for the federal government and the rest of the states to stop ruining peoples’ lives and enact sensible marijuana policies.”

UPDATE: Data omitted from original analysis shows 653,249 marijuana arrests in 2016. Some reporting law enforcement agencies do not distinguish between types of drug arrests or possession and distribution violations.

September 26, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

No place for Ukraine in EU, Hungary says after Kiev outlaws education in minority languages

RT | September 26, 2017

Hungary has pledged to obstruct Ukraine’s EU integration at every step after Kiev adopted a new education law which bans teaching children in any language other than Ukrainian. Ukraine’s neighbors call it a form of persecution of minorities.

“Hungary will block all steps within the European Union that would represent a step forward in Ukraine’s European integration process in the spirit of the Eastern Partnership program,” Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a statement on Tuesday.

The statement came after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed into law a controversial bill which in essence bans state schools in Ukraine from teaching children in any language other than Ukrainian. Under the law, next year only children in grades 1-4 would be allowed to learn the curriculum in their native tongues in Ukraine, and by 2020 even that will no longer be legal.

The law is expected to affect at least 400,000 children studying in 735 state schools which offer instruction in minority languages. The majority of these children are ethnic Russians, but other minorities in Ukraine include Romanians, Hungarians, Moldovans, and Poles. The law provides minor concessions for “EU languages,” English, and some minorities that have no national states of their own.

Poroshenko claimed that the new law “strengthens the role of the Ukrainian language in education” while protecting the rights of all minorities. But some nations, like Hungary, do not seem to be convinced, with Budapest calling the move “a stab in the back” from Ukraine after the bill was adopted by the Ukrainian parliament earlier in September.

Romania made a similarly critical statement and cancelled a state visit to Ukraine by President Klaus Werner Iohannis in protest last week. Bucharest also refused to host a parliamentary delegation from Ukraine, saying the visit no longer had any purpose.

Moldova’s maverick President Igor Dodon said Ukraine’s Moldovan and Romanian minorities risked “denationalization” under the new law and called on Kiev to block it.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the new law is unconstitutional and violates the rights of millions of ethnic Russians living in the country.

The language issue is highly political in Ukraine. After a violent coup in Kiev replaced its elected government in 2014, one of the first acts of the new government was to scrap a law which allowed regions to adopt Russian as a second official language. The decision was later overturned, but by that time it had already triggered an uprising in the predominantly Russian eastern regions of Ukraine, leading to a bloody military crackdown by Kiev.

While the language provisions of the new law gained the most publicity, critics of the legislation complain about other parts, as well. The law reduces the number of obligatory subjects in Ukrainian state schools from 22 to 9. Among other things, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, and astronomy will be combined into one subject. Critics fear these changes will negatively affect the level of education in the country.

September 26, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Chief Stooge at Westminster Shames Us Again

PM Theresa May holds a reception at Downing Street to celebrate the upcoming Jewish New Year. Image credit: Number 10/ flickr
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | September 20, 2017

“As Prime Minister, I am proud to say that I support Israel. And it is absolutely right that we should mark the vital role that Britain played a century ago in helping to create a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Thus spoke Theresa May the other day as she welcomed members of the Jewish community to 10 Downing Street. But by focusing on creating a homeland for the Jewish people she’s also celebrating the hell that Balfour’s Declaration created for the gentle Palestinians and for the rest of the region. “Born of that letter, the pen of Balfour, and of the efforts of so many people, is a remarkable country,” said May, apparently blind to the reality.

Right now we’re on the run-up to the centenary of what is arguably the biggest foreign policy blunder in British history: the Balfour Declaration. In 1917 Arthur Balfour, foreign secretary, bowed to Zionist demands for a homeland for the Jews in Palestine and gave an undertaking that set the world on course for long-term turmoil and, for the native Palestinians, unspeakable misery, dispossession and displacement. It was a criminal conspiracy. And Balfour was an A-list idiot who bragged that he wasn’t even going to consult the local Arab population about this theft of their homes and lands.

Yet he remains a hero of the Conservative Party which, led by Theresa May, plans to celebrate this hundred-year “running sore” — as Lord Sydenham called it — in great style, inviting Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu to the festivities. That’s if the mad-dog warmonger isn’t under arrest by then on imminent charges of corruption back home.

“I will always do whatever it takes to keep our Jewish community safe,” May added. “Through our new definition of anti-Semitism we will call out anyone guilty of any language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews. We will actively encourage the use of this definition by the police, the legal profession, universities and other public bodies.”

She was referring to the  International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

BDS “unsucessful”? Really?

One of May’s Cabinet minsiters, Sajid Javid, told the World Jewish Congress that the UK would celebrate the upcoming anniversary with pride. “Someone said we should apologise for the Declaration, to say it was an error of judgment. Of course that’s not going to happen.” To apologise, he said, would be to apologise for the existence of Israel and to question its right to exist.

Instead, he emphasised the UK government’s intolerance towards any kind of boycott of Israel. “I’ll be 100 per cent clear. I do not support calls for a boycott, my party does not support calls for a boycott. For all its bluster, the BDS campaign is most notable I think, for its lack of success….  As long as I’m in government, as long as I’m in politics, I will do everything in my power to fight back against those who seek to undermine Israel.” The UK, he said, has maintained close diplomatic, trade and security ties with Israel since its inception, and is counted upon by Israel to vote in its favour at the UN and other international institutions.

As Noam Chomsky has aptly observed: “People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.”

Israel lobby stooges like May and Javid continue trying to ram their pro-Zionist nonsense down our throats despite the fact that last time they attacked the successful BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, warning that her government would “have no truck with those who subscribe to it”, they came spectacularly unstuck. 200 legal scholars and practising lawyers from all over Europe put May in her place by pointing out that BDS is a lawful exercise of freedom of expression and outlawing it undermines a basic human right protected by international convention. Her efforts to repress it amounted to support for Israel’s violations of international law and failure to honour the solemn pledge by States to ‘strictly respect the aims and principles of the Charter of the United Nations’.

May needs a crash course in human rights

Top legal experts were recently asked for their views by Free Speech on Israel, Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Their verdict was that those in public life cannot behave in a manner inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of expression and applies not only to information or ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive, but also to those that “offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population”.

What’s more, there is an obligation to allow all concerned in public debate “to express their opinions and ideas without fear, even if these opinions and ideas are contrary to those defended by the official authorities or by a large part of public opinion, or even if those opinions and ideas are irritating or offensive to the public”. Article 10 says that everyone has the right to freedom of expression including “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says the same sort of thing, subject of course to the usual limitations required by law and respect for the rights of others.

Eminent human rights lawyer Hugh Tomlinson QC has sharply criticised the anti-Semitism definition touted by May. Firstly, it isn’t a legally binding definition so doesn’t have the force of a statutory one. And it cannot be considered a legal definition as it lacks clarity. Therefore any conduct contrary to the IHRA definition couldn’t necessarily be ruled illegal.

He says it was “most unsatisfactory for the Government to adopt a definition which lacks clarity and comprehensiveness” and suggests the Government’s decision to adopt the IHRA definition was simply a freestanding statement of policy — a mere suggestion as to a definition of anti-Semitism that public bodies might wish to use. But no public body was under an obligation to adopt or use it, or should be criticised for refusing to. He warned that if a public authority did decide to adopt the definition then it must interpret it in a way that’s consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights mentioned above.

A further obligation put on public authorities is “to create a favourable environment for participation in public debates for all concerned, allowing them to express their opinions and ideas without fear, even if these opinions and ideas are contrary to those defended by the official authorities or by a large part of public opinion, or even if those opinions and ideas are irritating or offensive to the public”.

According to Tomlinson, then, the IHRA definition doesn’t mean that calling Israel an apartheid state that practises settler colonialism, or urging BDS against Israel, can properly be characterized as anti-Semitic. Furthermore, a public authority seeking to apply the IHRA definition in order to prohibit or punish such activities “would be acting unlawfully.”

Retired Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Stephen Sedley, has weighed in bycriticising the IHRA definition for lack of legal force. “It is not neutral: it may well influence policy both domestically and internationally.” He added that the right of free expression, now part of our domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act, “places both negative and positive obligations on the state which may be put at risk if the IHRA definition is unthinkingly followed”. Moreover the 1986 Education Act established an individual right of free expression in all higher education institutions “which cannot be cut back by governmental policies”.

Sedley felt the IHRA definition was open to manipulation. “What is needed now is a principled retreat on the part of government from a stance which it has naively adopted.”

As for Javid’s crack about not having to apologise for Israel’s existence, he must have forgotten that in the wake of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which granted the Jews territory within defined borders, they declared statehood in 1948 without borders, grabbing as much extra land as they could by armed terror and ethnic cleansing.  The new state of Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949 was conditional upon honouring the UN Charter and implementing UN General Assembly Resolutions 181 and 194. It has failed to do so and to this day repeatedly violates provisions and principles of the Charter.

When the UK Conservative Government makes pronouncements on foreign affairs it pays to consider that 80 percent of its MPs are claimed to be signed-up members of Friends of Israel and this is a stepping-stone to higher office. Conservative Friends of Israel, according to their website, are active at every level of the party.

It is sad that so many of our politicians are so spineless and so insecure that they feel the need to herd together under the flag of what the UN has called a racist state.

September 20, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Manafort Demands Probe After Leak Revealed He Was Being Wiretapped

Sputnik – 20.09.2017

A legal representative of Paul Manafort, who at one time managed the successful 2016 presidential bid of Donald Trump, has demanded an investigation into the FBI after anonymous sources seemingly broke federal law by leaking classified information to the media regarding the investigation into Manafort.

On Tuesday, CNN broke the news that the FBI had secured a wiretap on Manafort’s phone under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA.) The investigation began in 2014 following allegations that Manafort was operating as a foreign agent in his capacity as a campaign adviser to Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. The wiretap paused in 2016, and resumed in 2017 under new allegations of Manafort’s ties to Russian intelligence. Eventually, the FBI ended the wiretapping for a lack of evidence.

If the reports are true, then a felony has been committed — but not by Manafort. According to Jason Maloni, a spokesman for the former lobbyist and Trump presidential campaign manager, “it is a felony to reveal the existence of a FISA warrant, regardless of the fact that no charges ever emerged. The US Department of Justice’s Inspector General should immediately conduct an investigation into these leaks and to examine the motivations behind a previous Administration’s effort to surveil a political opponent.”

“Mr. Manafort requests that the Department of Justice release any intercepts involving him and any non-Americans so interested parties can come to the same conclusion as the DOJ — there is nothing there.”

Manafort has denied the charges that he “knowingly” communicated with Russian intelligence operatives during the election. He denies any participation in efforts to “undermine the interests of the United States.”

FISA warrants aren’t easy to secure. As former FBI agent Asha Rangappa told Public Radio International, “what the FBI has to do is go into a secret FISA court and show the judge that there’s probable cause to believe that the person they are targeting is acting as what’s called ‘an agent of a foreign power,’ that they’re acting at the direction and control of a foreign intelligence service in this case.”

Robert Mueller, the Department of Justice Special Counsel in charge of investigating the alleged ties between Russia and the Trump campaign team, has been undertaking what the New York Times called a “shock and awe” strategy in his investigation, utilizing tactics like dramatic nighttime raids on Manafort’s residence and impaneling a grand jury to indict Manafort.

“Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them. One witness was called before the grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts. The special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that shields attorney-client discussions from scrutiny,” The Times reported.

“It’s important early on to strike terror in the hearts of people in Washington,” one attorney told the Times, in reference to Mueller’s probe.

September 19, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

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