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UN overwhelmingly demands Israel end occupation of Palestinian territories

Press TV – September 18, 2024

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution that demands Israel end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory within a year.

A total of 124 countries voted in favor, while 14, including the US, opposed the resolution. Britain, Switzerland, Ukraine, India and Germany were among the 43 countries to abstain.

The resolution welcomes a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and should be withdrawn.

The advisory opinion – by the highest United Nations court said this should be done “as rapidly as possible.”

The measure calls for Israel to pay reparations to Palestinians “for the damage caused to all the natural and legal persons concerned in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

The resolution also demands sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel.

The 193-member Assembly also calls on states to “take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel … where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s UN ambassador, who opened the assembly meeting on Tuesday, said that no occupying power can have a veto right over the inalienable rights of the people under its occupation.

“Those who think the Palestinian people will accept a life of servitude, a life of apartheid, are the ones who are not being realistic,” Mansour said.

“Those who imagine the Palestinian people will disappear or surrender are the ones who are not being realistic. Those who claim that peace is possible in our region without a just resolution for the question of Palestine are the ones who are not being realistic.

“Each country has a vote, and the world is watching us,” Mansour said. “Please stand on the right side of history. With international law. With freedom. With peace.”

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged countries to vote no on Wednesday. Washington, an arms supplier to and ally of Israel, has long opposed any resolution at the world body in favor of Palestine.

Unlike in the Security Council, no country in the General Assembly has veto power.

The action isolates Israel days before world leaders travel to New York for their annual UN gathering.

In May, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of reconsidering Palestine’s full membership. It is now recognized by 145 of 193 UN member states.

Several countries, including Spain, Norway, and Ireland, recognized Palestine as a state in late May amid mounting criticism of Israel’s genocidal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.

While the 15-member council is largely paralyzed on the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign in Gaza, with the United States repeatedly vetoing censures of its ally Israel, the General Assembly has adopted several texts in support of Palestinian civilians.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The US has allowed Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and now war may follow

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | September 18, 2024

On Tuesday, Israel was accused of detonating hundreds of wireless communication devices that were primarily being used in a civilian capacity, injuring upwards of 4,000 people. Although the details are still being ironed out, this attack will now force Hezbollah to make major decisions in retaliation.

Less than a day after the Israeli security cabinet officially adopted a new war goal of returning their displaced residents to areas close to the Lebanese border, an indiscriminate attack was carried out throughout Lebanon. This indicates that the war in Gaza has now expanded in the eyes of the Israeli political and military leadership to include Lebanon. However, there are question marks surrounding how such an escalation will take shape.

The US role

Commenting on the issue to reporters, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information.” He then even went as far as suggesting that the US government was gathering information just as journalists around the world are.

While this was Washington distancing itself from the incident, it is almost comical for an American official to inform the media that the Biden administration has no special information from its ally on the incident. Taking this at face value, it is an embarrassing admission that the ally to which the US has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid over the past 11 months does not even have channels of dialogue to discuss an attack which could lead to a regional war.

Even if we are to assume that the US had no idea about the attack, which is doubtful, the mere fact that American bipartisan support for Israel throughout the course of its war on Gaza has not buckled under immense international condemnation is telling. Every single organ of the United Nations has been ringing the alarm bells, accusing Israel of committing war crimes, and even the United Kingdom has decided to cancel 30 of some 350 weapons-licensing contracts over violations of international law.

While the US has continually stated that it seeks to de-escalate tensions and that it disapproves of an Israel-Lebanon war, at best it is doing nothing to stop it. If the US government were truly so out of the loop with Israel’s escalatory steps and really wanted to stop a regional war, the wake-up call should have come at the end of July.

When Israel bombed a civilian apartment building in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, then only hours later assassinated the leader of Hamas, Ismail Hanniyeh, in Tehran, this would have been the time when the Americans put pressure on the Israelis to stop. Instead, the US government decided to do the very opposite. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session called to discuss the issue, they condemned Iran. On top of this, just under two weeks later, the US decided to approve a $20-billion weapons package for Israel.

Israeli terrorism 

There can be no doubt that the act of sabotage carried out on Tuesday was done using terrorist tactics and its intended goals are important to analyze. While all the precise details remain hidden as to how Israel managed to detonate hundreds of pagers, the impacts are crystal clear and we have enough information to render a judgment.

Firstly, the fact that this occurred across Lebanon and its victims were not just confined to those in the rank-and-file of Hezbollah has now left a lingering feeling of anxiety among the general public. The question cannot help but be posed: If the Israelis can blow up pagers, can they also detonate phones, laptops and other devices, and how many other plots of this nature do they have up their sleeves? This also impacts Hezbollah itself, because there has been a clear breach in the group’s security on one level or another, which directly caused a temporary issue with the means of communication used by the group’s military personnel.

According to the information we have so far, it appears that Israeli intelligence operatives managed to rig a batch of pagers with small amounts of highly explosive material. While the scale is unique in history, this tactic is nothing new. In fact, in 1996, Mossad assassinated a leader of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades named Yahya Ayyash, by planting explosive material inside his phone and detonating it remotely. In the 1980s the Israelis even operated a group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) to carry out acts of terrorism while posing as a Christian fascist organization, one of its operations attempted to assassinate the US former ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean.  

If this action was carried out as a means of impacting Hezbollah’s communications, prior to Israel launching a larger-scale military operation, then it would have made sense as a tactic that would on some level degrade the capabilities of the group and force them to find alternative means of issuing orders to certain cadres. Yet, this is not what happened, they gave the Lebanese group the time to recover from this blow and so it must be seen within a different context, one of point scoring.

It now puts Lebanese Hezbollah in a tough position. The group must mount some kind of response to this attack, one that is designed to deter the Israelis from carrying out similar attacks in the future. However, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has made clear that, while his party is prepared for war, it is only interested in continuing to maintain a support front for the Palestinian groups fighting Israel from Gaza. 

Since October 8, Hezbollah has carried out thousands of targeted attacks against Israeli military facilities, primarily targeting surveillance, air defense and espionage equipment, but also striking army personnel too. On top of this, the Lebanese armed group has also been targeting specific populated areas that are located along the border region, with rocket barrages, forcing around 100,000 Israelis to flee.

On the other hand, roughly 110,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes in southern Lebanon due to Israeli bombing attacks that have been much more devastating on the nation’s civilian infrastructure than Hezbollah’s has been on Israel’s. In fact, while Hezbollah attacks have only resulted in a handful of Israeli civilian deaths, nearly 200 civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon. This being said, there can be no denying the success of Hezbollah’s operations in conducting a war of attrition that is burdening Israel psychologically, militarily, and economically.

What comes next

Israel has carried out this operation in an attempt to score points against Hezbollah, primarily in the propaganda war, and the alternative goal is to drag the group into opening up a shooting war. The Israelis do not want to be seen as starting the war against Lebanon, both because they seek the support of the collective West and know that the conflict will result in a stalemate at best.

If Hezbollah does not mount a considerable defensive counter operation, it will signal weakness to the Israelis and likely encourage them to continue carrying out similar offensive operations throughout Lebanon. While, on the other hand, if the Hezbollah response is too severe, it may give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect excuse to launch the war that he has been threatening to wage for months now.

This moment requires Hezbollah to step up and take risks militarily, at a time when they now have a popular mandate inside Lebanon to respond in self defense. It is clear that the strategy of the Lebanese group has been to continue its daily operations in support of the Gaza Strip, and Israel is determined to end this, which is why it is now attempting to transform the nature of the war and expand it outwards. Unfortunately, due to the US providing full and unconditional support to the Israeli government as it expands the war, we are no longer looking at a war which is isolated to Gaza. Unless there is a ceasefire deal signed with Hamas soon, it appears inevitable that we are heading towards a Lebanon-Israel war that will drag in the entire region.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Orders Demolition of 37 Homes, Commercial Structures in Silwan

IMEMC | September 17, 2024

On Monday, Israeli soldiers and City Council personnel invaded Silwan town, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied capital, Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and handed out demolition orders for 37 homes and commercial structures.

Media sources reported that the soldiers notified the town’s citizens of the demolition orders, and added that the demolitions are part of the municipality’s plans to remove Palestinian buildings to pave a road, dubbed the “American Road,” and infrastructure for the illegal colonizers.

The number of demolitions in the Jerusalem Governorate from the first of September until the eighth has now reached 307.

The Israeli occupation authorities generally justify the demolition of homes on the pretext of building without permits, despite the rarity of granting the necessary permits for building homes for Jerusalemites.

The “American Road” project, constructed over the ruins of Palestinian homes, demolished residences, and confiscated lands, stretches about 12 kilometers, devouring everything in its path to facilitate the lives of illegal colonizers and create segregated roads between the colonies.

While Israel continues to build and expand its illegal colonies, Palestinian communities and towns in occupied Jerusalem and various areas in the occupied West Bank continue to be denied the right to build homes and property under various allegations meant to prevent the expansion of Palestinian towns and neighborhoods.

All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention, in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”

September 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

With no coherent war plan, Netanyahu’s regime is using any excuse to derail ceasefire talks

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | September 17, 2024

At this point, it should be clear that Hamas is not and never has been the obstacle to securing a prisoner swap and ceasefire in Gaza. Yet, it doesn’t matter how willing Hamas truly is with the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using every tool he can to create excuses as to why the war can’t come to an end, which is important to understand.

When the United States and their Israeli partners talk about the need for Hamas to sit at the table, calling on the Palestinian Resistance to accept a ceasefire deal, it is all nonsense. The analysis pieces, leaked conversations, and update articles that we see regularly published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Axios, and other outlets are all adding to a work of fiction that has been crafted for domestic US and Israeli consumption.

There are no current negotiations, just discussions between the Israelis and Americans, which then are forwarded to the negotiating teams of Egypt and Qatar, before the conversation ultimately ends the exact same way it began, as useless ramblings that only give cover for further Israeli war crimes. This is the case as Hamas sits by and waits for the circus to end so that it can actually talk business.

The framework for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange has already been proposed by the United States and ratified by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and Hamas has agreed to it. Meanwhile, the Zionist entity does not speak for itself on what it has or hasn’t exactly accepted; instead, it allows the likes of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to tell the world that the UNSC-endorsed Biden proposal was actually an Israeli proposal before later changing his story to that the Israelis had accepted Biden’s proposal. Even at this level, the contradictions prove how unserious the Zionist regime is.

On May 6, when Hamas announced that they had accepted a ceasefire proposal – that was almost identical to the one that Antony Blinken had spent two weeks lauding – the Israeli response was immediate rejection, followed by the invasion of the Rafah crossing.

The Israeli PM has continually argued that the war must continue until Hamas is defeated in Gaza, an objective that even the Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari has said is impossible. Moreover, Netanyahu’s insistence on destroying Hamas is indicative of his outright rejection of a ceasefire. You can either defeat Hamas or do a ceasefire deal with them, you can’t have both, it simply makes no sense.

Another important point to understand is that despite the change in US President Joe Biden’s rhetoric and that of his administration, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”, you will notice that when Israeli officials comment on the issue of a ceasefire, they do so with a focus on the prisoner exchange aspect and often follow this up by stating that they must still retain the right to attack Hamas. In other words, the only ceasefire that the Zionist entity entertains is a temporary one that will ensure the release of their captives, after which they seek the “right” to continue the war. This is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu argues, which, in essence, means that he’s openly telling Hamas to give up its bargaining chips for no reason.

The issue of Israeli forces remaining in both the Philadelphia and Netzarim corridors is a new addition to the ceasefire talks and directly violates the framework outlined in UNSC Resolution 2735 that was adopted on June 10. The resolution states explicitly that in phase 2 of the ceasefire agreement “upon agreement of the parties, a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” adding that it “rejects any attempt at demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza.”

The evidence that “Israel” outright rejects what is quoted above from the Security Council resolution is not just limited to these new additions to the non-existent ceasefire negotiations. When Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress in July, he swore that his regime was going to secure “total victory” and argued for occupying Gaza internally for a limited period of time instead of permanently. If we look at all the polling data on the opinion of Israelis, the majority of the public also agree with these ideas too.

On top of this, the Israeli military has been creating a “buffer zone” around the perimeter of the Gaza Strip, blowing up and burning every single structure in an area that constitutes 32 percent of the besieged coastal territory. Furthermore, the new addition to the Zionist entity’s war plan which is agreed upon by the majority of the Israeli cabinet is the idea of seizing the entirety of northern Gaza for a “security zone” and expelling the hundreds of thousands of residents who live there.

As occurred in Rafah, where around a million people were completely uprooted and pushed into the ever-changing so-called “safe zone” area of al-Mawasi, the Zionist entity appears to be trying to concentrate the entire Palestinian civilian population into this zone. When the civilians arrive there, they are then repeatedly forced to move on foot and their tents are bombed, burying their bodies beneath mounds of sand.

The Zionist regime is engaged in what is clearly an “endless war”, or a war of attrition, which the United States government is fully backing with tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons. The end goal here is not actually clear, but what is certain is that Benjamin Netanyahu is not about to give up. If we follow the trajectory of the war so far, it is completely dependent upon Israeli domestic politics. The war has worked as follows:

Stage 1: “Israel” launches an unprecedented air attack that decimates civilian infrastructure, while commanding the civilian population to head south, where they are also bombed.

Stage 2: “Israel” invades the Gaza Strip, focusing on the northern part of the territory and claiming that Hamas is operating its HQ out of Al-Shifa Hospital and bases out of other hospitals. It then fails to find any headquarters.

Stage 3: A prisoner exchange is concluded, during which time the Israeli regime is changing its narrative.

Stage 4: “Israel” invades Khan Younis and central Gaza, claiming that the “real Hamas headquarters is in Khan Younis,” ultimately failing to inflict any real blow on the Palestinian Resistance.

Stage 5: “Israel” winds down the clock with more brief military incursions into areas they have already invaded, inflicting countless more civilian massacres and holding off on what they now began arguing was the true headquarters for Hamas in Rafah. During this period, Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the tunnels were being used to transfer weapons and that the war could not be won without a Rafah invasion.

Stage 6: Hamas accepts a ceasefire proposal after the US had been placing pressure on the Israelis to steer clear from a major invasion of Rafah. Netanyahu decides that same day to invade Rafah but not to wage the sort of campaign he was hoping for.

Stage 7: After having invaded every area in Gaza, the Israelis are out of excuses and are throwing out random ideas, hoping they will stick and convince their own population. This has led to reviving the idea of seizing northern Gaza, which was initially proposed at the beginning of the war, yet a large portion of the Israeli public is now demanding the return of the captives, which presents a major issue. So, they are looking for anything new to buy time before the inevitable next steps must be taken.

This brings us to today.

The Zionist regime doesn’t want a ceasefire and the US pressure simply is not there to force it to change its mind. The only thing that is now applying real pressure is the relentless fire from Hezbollah on the northern front, which has grown to the point that it cannot be ignored. In order to stop the Lebanese Resistance, they have two options: End the war on Gaza or start another war with Lebanon. If the Zionist entity will not give up on its genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, then war with Lebanon is inevitable and will likely end up taking place inside Syrian territory also.

September 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s true objectives in Gaza and why it will fail

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | September 17, 2024

Never in its history of war and military occupation has Israel been so incapable of developing a coherent plan for its future and the future of its victims.

Even a quick glance at headlines in international media reveals the depth of the Israeli dilemma. While Tel Aviv continues to carry out a genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, it seems to have no idea what to do beyond simply destroying the Strip and its people.

Even the country’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, who could soon be officially wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), indicated on multiple occasions that Israel has no post-war plan in Gaza.

“Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the Cabinet, and have received no response,” Gallant said in the clearest possible language in May.

Others suggest that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government might have a plan but, in the language of the Washington Post, it is a “no workable plan” or, according to Vox, “is no plan at all”.

Netanyahu’s “not workable” plan, or “no plan at all”, is inconsistent with the wishes of the US administration.

True, both Israel and the US are in full agreement regarding the war itself. Even after Washington had finally begun shifting its position from wanting the war to continue, to asking Netanyahu to conclude his bloody task, American weapons have continued to flow at the same rate.

The Americans, however, are not convinced that destroying Hamas, fully demilitarising Gaza, taking control of the Gaza-Egypt border, shutting down the UNRWA refugees’ agency and the ‘de-radicalisation’ of the besieged Palestinian population is the right approach.

But Netanyahu himself must have already known this, if not at the very start of the war, at least nearly a year into the genocide. His exhausted army kept moving from one phase to another, declaring “tactical victories” without achieving a single strategic goal in Gaza.

The most optimistic estimation of the Israeli army is that their war, which has practically destroyed all of Gaza, has resulted in a stalemate. A more sober reading of the war, according to former Prime Minister, General Ehud Barak, is that Israel must end it before “sinking into its moral abyss”.

Yet, more delusional plans, pertaining to both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, continue to be leaked to the media.

The first major leak was a taped recording of a speech by extremist and very influential Israeli minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich.

“I am telling, it is mega-dramatic. Such changes change a system’s DNA,” Smotrich told a group of Israeli Jewish settlers in June, according to the New York Times.

The minister’s “carefully orchestrated programme” hinges on transferring the authority of the West Bank from the occupation army to a group of civilians under the leadership of Smotrich himself. The goal is to seize more Palestinian land, expand the illegal settlements and prevent any possible continuity of a viable Palestinian State.

In fact, the plan is already underway. On 29 May, Israel appointed Hillel Roth, a close ally of Smotrich, as the deputy in the West Bank Civil Administration.

The plan for Gaza is another episode of cruelty, but also delusional. It was revealed in an article by the editor of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on 9 September.

Aluf Benn wrote that Netanyahu’s plan also consists of the hiring of an Israeli “governor of Gaza”, Brigadier General Elad Goren, who became the ‘Head of Humanitarian-Civilian effort’ in the Strip on 28 August.

Using a combination of tactics, including starvation, military pressure and the like, Netanyahu wants to drive the population of northern Gaza to the south in preparation of formally annexing the region and bringing back Jewish settlers.

These are not the only plans that have been leaked or, at times, communicated openly by Israeli officials.

At the start of the war, such ideas as ethnically cleansing the Gaza population into Sinai were advocated openly by Israeli officials, and were also the main topic of discussion in Israeli evening news programmes.

Some Israeli officials spoke of fully occupying Gaza, while others, like Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, floated the idea of dropping a nuclear bomb.

The plan of totally evacuating Gaza did not work simply because Palestinians would not leave, and Egypt had rejected the very insinuation that ethnically cleansing Gazans was an option. Additionally, the total depopulation of northern Gaza also did not work, partly because Israel was massacring civilians in both north and south at comparable rates.

Israel’s new plans will not succeed in achieving what the original plans have failed to achieve, simply because Israel continues to face the same obstacle: the steadfastness of the Palestinian people.

However, much can still be learned from the nature of the Israeli schemes, old and new, mainly the fact that Israel regards the Palestinian people as the enemy.

This conclusion is not only gleaned through statements by top Israeli officials, including President Isaac Herzog himself, when he said that “an entire nation out there (..) is responsible”.

Almost every Israeli scheme seems to involve killing Palestinians in large numbers, starving them or displacing them en masse.

This means that the Israeli war has always been a war against the Palestinian people. The Palestinians themselves know it. Shouldn’t the rest of the world also know it by now?

September 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

“No One Preaches to Me” – Netanyahu defies the U.S. while getting billions of Americans’ tax dollars

If Americans Knew | September 14, 2024

Excerpts from the show “Daniel Davis/Deep Dive – Defiant Netanyahu – No One Preaches to Me w/Matt Hoh” which first aired on September 4, 2024.

DEEP DIVE’s tagline is “Analyzing War, Foreign Policy & Politics. 4x Combat Deployer. Unintimidated & Uncompromised. Deep love for America.”

DANIEL L. DAVIS is a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities. Davis retired from the U.S. Army as a Lt. Col. after 21 years of active service. He was deployed into combat zones four times in his career, beginning with Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and then to Iraq in 2009 and Afghanistan twice (2005, 2011). He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Valor at the Battle of 73 Easting in 1991, and awarded a Bronze Star Medal in Afghanistan in 2011. He is the author of The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.

His work on defense and foreign affairs has been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, USA TODAY, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, TIME, POLITICO, and other publications. Davis was also the recipient of the 2012 Ridenhour Prize for Truth-telling. He is a frequent guest on Fox News, Fox Business News, NBC News, BBC, CNN, and other television networks. He lives in the Washington, DC, area.

The show’s guest is Matthew Hoh:

MATTHEW HOH has been a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy since 2010. In 2009, Matthew resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department over the American escalation of the war. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew took part in the American occupation of Iraq; first in 2004-5 in Salah ad Din Province with a State Department reconstruction and governance team and then in 2006-7 in Anbar Province as a Marine Corps company commander. When not deployed, Matthew worked on Afghanistan and Iraq war policy and operations issues at the Pentagon and State Department from 2002-8.

Hoh’s writings have appeared in online and print periodicals such as the Atlanta Journal Constitution, CounterPunch, CNN, Defense News, the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Mother Jones, the Raleigh News & Observer, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He has been a guest on hundreds of news programs on radio and television networks including the BBC, CBS, CNN, CSPAN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, NPR, Pacifica and PBS. The Council on Foreign Relations has cited Matthew’s resignation letter from his post in Afghanistan as an Essential Document.

In 2010, Hoh was named the Ridenhour Prize Recipient for Truth Telling and, in 2021, he was awarded as a Defender of Liberty by the Committee for the Republic. Matthew is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Public Accuracy, an Advisory Board Member for the Committee to Defend Julian Assange and Civil Liberties, Expose Facts, North Carolina Committee to Investigate Torture, The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice, Veterans For Peace, and World Beyond War, and he is an Associate Member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He is a 100% disabled veteran and was certified by North Carolina as a Peer Support Specialist for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder.

Congress currently gives Israel $38 million per day of Americans’ tax money – see https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/usai…

The complete episode can be seen here:    • Defiant Netanyahu – No One Preaches t…  

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinian school in West Bank

Al Mayadeen | September 16, 2024

Illegal Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian school on Monday in the Mu’arrajat area, in the city of Ariha in the West Bank, a local activist stated.

The settlers assaulted students and teachers at the Arab al-Ka’abneh Primary School, wounding several people and besieging the premises, according to a statement issued by Hassan Mleihat, a member of the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights.

Three people were injured during the attack and were being treated by medics, the Palestinian Red Cresent Society reported.

The Palestinian Education Ministry condemned the attack, accusing settlers and the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) of obstructing education and terrorizing Palestinian children.

The ministry said the attack was a “recurring violation that reveals the ugly face of the Israeli occupation and its disregard for children’s rights.”

702 Palestinians killed by IOF, settlers in West Bank since Oct. 7

702 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and settlers in the West Bank since October 7, the Palestinian Health Ministry revealed Wednesday.

The ministry’s statement highlighted that over 5,700 Palestinians have been wounded by the ongoing Israeli aggression in the occupied land, with 10,500 others detained over the last 11 months.

The death toll included at least eight Palestinians killed during Israeli airstrikes carried out on Wednesday in the city of Tabus, the nearby town of Tamun, and the West Bank’s northern city of Tulkarm.

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

17 cases filed against pro-Palestine protesters across 7 states in India: Report

MEMO | September 16, 2024

At least 17 cases have been filed against 51 people in India for supporting Palestine through protests or social media posts, according to a report published Monday, Anadolu Agency reports.

The report by Article 14, an Indian non-governmental organisation, investigated 17 First Information Reports (FIRs) filed in several Indian states since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Palestine on 7 October last year.

​​​​​​​The cases span Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

They found that charges range from organising rallies to displaying Palestinian flags and posting pro-Palestine content on social media. Most cases fall under the new Indian Penal Code, while one invokes the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, according to the report.

Notable cases include a 20-year-old shopkeeper charged for waving a Palestinian flag during a religious procession and students facing legal action for participating in a campus solidarity march.

Nine of the FIRs were registered in states governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its allies, with the remaining eight in opposition-controlled areas, the organisation reported.

In September, India’s Supreme Court dismissed a public interest litigation that had sought an order for the federal government to halt licenses to Indian firms exporting arms to Israel.

Earlier, a group of eminent citizens in India had written to the country’s Defence Minister, calling on him to halt the licensing process that enables exporters to send arms and ammunition to Israel.

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Yemeni forces shoot down another American spy drone, third in a week

Press TV – September 16, 2024

Yemeni Armed Forces have shot down another advanced American drone in support of Palestinians, who have come under a US-enabled Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip, and in protest at Washington’s aggression against Yemen.

The MQ-9 Reaper was struck in the airspace of Dhamar Province in western Yemen on Monday.

The heavy aircraft, which is used for dual combat and spying purposes, is worth around $35 million.

The drone was the third aircraft of the type to be brought down by the forces in the span of a week and the 10th one to face such a fate since October 7.
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The forces have been carrying out numerous strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories since that day, when the Israeli regime began the war on Gaza.

Their most daring pro-Palestinian strike of the type came on Sunday, when they attacked an Israeli military site in Tel Aviv with a new hypersonic ballistic missile.

Also on Sunday, leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement once again underscored the country’s support for Palestinians in the face of the Israeli genocide, saying the operations would continue until the regime ended the war and the siege.

At least 41,206 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed so far during the brutal Israeli onslaught, which enjoys unquestioning political, military, and intelligence support on the part of the United States.

The forces have also been targeting Israeli ships and vessels heading towards or away from the occupied territories as means of trying to force the regime into stopping the war and a siege that it has been simultaneously imposing on Gaza.

The United States has, on the other hand, been staging attacks against Yemen as means of trying to stop these operations.

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian fighter from Shatila refugee camp dies after 38 years in Austrian prison

By Dieter Reinisch | Press TV | September 15, 2024

On Friday, September 13, 2024, Tawfiq Chaovali, alias Imad Omran, a Palestinian resistance figure, passed away in Stein prison in Krems, Austria, after almost 40 years of incarceration.

Chaovali joined the Palestinian resistance at a young age and was actively involved in the fight against the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982 as a Palestinian refugee in the country.

Following the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut in September 1982, he participated in a retaliatory operation targeting the Israeli airline El Al at Vienna-Schwechat Airport in 1985.

Born in 1960, Chaovali grew up in the Shatila refugee camp, established in southern Lebanon in 1949 for Palestinian refugees. At the young age of 16, in 1975, he joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

His father was killed in an Israeli air raid near Sidon, a city in southern Lebanon.

In the summer of 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Chaovali fled to Tunisia. However, he returned to Lebanon a year later. Upon his return, he joined the Abu Nidal Organization, a Fatah-affiliated resistance group, to fight against the Israeli regime.

In late 1985, Chaovali traveled to Austria via Hungary. Just days after his arrival, on December 27, 1985, an operation was carried out at Vienna-Schwechat Airport, which coincided with a similar operation at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.

At around 9:00 AM, three attackers stormed a section of the departure hall at the Vienna airport, throwing a smoke grenade and three hand grenades toward the check-in counter for El Al and opening fire with machine guns.

Four people, including one of the attackers, were immediately killed, and 45 others were injured, 18 of them critically. Two victims were en route to Tel Aviv to permanently settle in the occupied territories.

Some reports claimed that passengers on board included Israeli military pilots involved in the Lebanon invasion. This claim, however, was later refuted by the PLO.

The Abu Nidal group fighters had entered Austria using Tunisian passports obtained in Libya. Two of the attackers were wounded and captured after a lengthy car chase, while Abdel Aziz Merzoughi, one of the gunmen, died after their vehicle was stopped on a road near the Slovak capital, Bratislava.

Chaovali and Mongi Ben Saadaoui, the other two attackers, were subsequently arrested by Austrian police with severe injuries.

Initially, both men refused to provide statements. “They had no ID cards. When asked if they were Palestinians, they answered, ‘I speak English,’” reported the Austrian newspaper Die Presse on December 28, 1985.

It later emerged that both of them were Palestinian refugees from the Sabra and Shatila camps, and Chaovali had witnessed the horrible massacre firsthand.

They had been trained for the mission in Lebanon and had met with the Rome attackers in Switzerland. The Abu Nidal Group, also known as the Fatah Revolutionary Council, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Vienna and Rome as retaliation for the massacres committed by Israeli forces and their allies in Lebanon.

Notably, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, carried out on September 16, 1982, by the Israeli occupation and the Phalangist militia, resulted in the rape, torture, and murder of between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians.

Chaovali and his comrades sought revenge for these atrocities, as well as for numerous other massacres carried out by Israeli forces and their proxies in Lebanon.

One of the attackers who survived the Rome assault had also lost his father in the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

On the evening of December 27, 1985, an anonymous caller contacted a Spanish radio station, claiming that the Abu Nidal Organization, or Fatah Revolutionary Council, was responsible for the attacks in Vienna and Rome. The group later officially claimed responsibility under the name “Cells of the Arab Fedayeen.”

This was not the first attack carried out by the Abu Nidal group in Vienna. On May 1, 1981, Heinz Nittal, head of the Austria-Israel Friendship Society, a Zionist lobby group, was killed in a similar operation.

Founded by Abu Nidal in 1974 after his split from the PLO, the Abu Nidal Organization operated out of training camps in Lebanon and Libya. British journalist Patrick Seale, in his book about Abu Nidal, recounts an incident in Vienna in 1988, where he met a woman who had survived the airport attack:

“I attended a party hosted by the Friends of Palestine and was struck by a woman who spoke passionately about the Palestinian cause. A former Austrian foreign minister, who was also present, told me that she had been a passenger at Vienna airport during the attack,” he stated.

“A grenade had landed at her feet but failed to explode. Despite this, she remained a fervent supporter of the Palestinians, saying, ‘They do these things out of despair. I support them even more now.’”

In 1987, Chaovali and Ben Saadaoui were sentenced to life imprisonment in Austria. Ben Saadaoui was released in 2008 after serving 22 years and was banned from re-entering Austria for ten years.

Chaovali, meanwhile, received an additional 19-year sentence for attempting to escape in 1995 and his involvement in a hostage-taking incident at Graz-Karlau prison in 1996.

Abu Nidal himself died under mysterious circumstances in Baghdad in 2002, with some reports suggesting he was killed by West-backed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s secret service.

After 38 years in Austrian prisons, Chaovali passed away at the age of 64 in Stein prison, Lower Austria, on the morning of Friday, September 13, 2024.

His friends and supporters told Press TV that Chaovali was known for his courage and steadfast commitment to the Palestinian cause. He died without ever giving up his claim for the freedom and liberation of Palestine from the Israeli occupation.

Dieter Reinisch is a Press TV correspondent based in Vienna, Austria.

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Yemen says hit south of Tel Aviv with new hypersonic ballistic missile

Press TV – September 15, 2024

The Yemeni armed forces have struck an Israeli target near Tel Aviv with a new hypersonic ballistic missile after the occupying regime failed to repel the attack and intercept the long-range advanced projectile.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the Yemeni army’s spokesman, announced in a brief televised statement on Sunday that the missile force in the military had carried out a qualitative operation striking a military target of the Israeli enemy in the Jaffa area, south of Tel Aviv, in occupied Palestine.

“The operation was carried out with a new hypersonic ballistic missile that managed to reach its target, and the enemy’s defense systems failed to intercept and confront it,” Saree said.

“It crossed a distance of 2040 km in 11 and a half minutes, and caused a state of fear and panic among the Zionists, as more than two million Zionists headed to shelters for the first time in the history of the Israeli enemy.”

The spokesman said the operation was part of the fifth phase of the battle against the Israeli enemy, and successfully reached its target by overcoming all obstacles, including American and Israeli interception systems on land and sea.

“The geographical challenges, the American-British aggression, and the monitoring, espionage and interception systems will not prevent beloved Yemen from performing its religious, moral and humanitarian duty in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Saree underlined.

“The Israeli enemy should expect more strikes and specific operations to come as we approach the first anniversary of the blessed October 7th Operation, including responding to its criminal aggression on the city of Hudaydah, and continuous supportive operations for the oppressed Palestinian people.”

Nasruddin Amer, a member of the political bureau of Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement, earlier said in a Hebrew-language post on X that the missile fired from Yemen reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept” it.

Amer also described the Yemeni attack as the “beginning.”

Leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement Abdul-Malik al-Houthi censured in a televised speech on Saturday the Israeli regime’s nearly year-old onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank with US-made lethal munitions.

The Ansarullah leader said the United States is definitely a partner in Israel’s crimes in Palestine, fully supporting the regime’s interests and willing to act against any Arab country.

He also warned that the Israeli enemy continues to impose a siege, torture prisoners, and engage in other brutal practices against Palestinians.

Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have said that they won’t stop their attacks until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza end.

So far, Israel has killed at least 41,182 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 95,280 others.

September 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

To stifle truth, Israelis threaten to decapitate Lebanese journalist

Al Mayadeen | September 14, 2024

Israeli attempts to silence the truth are relentless, with one method focusing on deliberately targeting journalists who cover the massacres committed by Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian and Lebanese people, which are crimes against humanity, to say the least.

The latest of such attempts was aimed at Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, of Al-Akhbar newspaper, who is tasked with covering the Israeli aggression on South Lebanon. Khalil came under a direct threat via WhatsApp, in which a number contacted her and said that “they will decapitate her if she does not leave Lebanon.”

Journalist Amal Khalil revealed that she received a message from the Israeli enemy threatening to kill her and demolish her home and calling on her to leave Lebanon. This prompted Khalil to inform the relevant authorities of this matter, “as the enemy has recently resorted to this method against a lot of people.”

Speaking to Al Mayadeen, journalist Khalil said that the threat she was subjected to is against every journalist who continues to stand strong in the South, documenting Israeli crimes in video and audio.

“I received a message from an Israeli number on my personal phone on August 25,” she recounted in the interview, noting that she contacted the relevant security services, which, in turn, confirmed that this threat was serious and that the number was from inside occupied Palestine.

Khalil recalled the Israeli attacks on journalists in southern Lebanon, which resulted in the martyrdom of Al Mayadeen’s correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabie Me’mari, as well as Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah, stressing that all Israeli attempts were to intimidate the press crews and force them to leave.

“After nearly a year of the Israeli aggression, many journalists in Palestine and South Lebanon continue to stand strong and remain steadfast,” stressing that “all credit for exposing the truth of the Israeli killing machine to the public opinion goes to these steadfast journalists.”

“All the bombing and raids will never frighten us,” she asserted.

Due process to take place

Commenting on the incident, the head of the Syndicate of Lebanese Press Editors, Joseph al-Qusaifi, denounced the Israeli threat against “our colleague Amal Khalil” and reported informing the Union of Arab Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, and the relevant UN bodies of the matter to apply due process.

Al-Qusaifi, who was informed of the incident against Khalil, said she was threatened with being killed and her house demolished via social media under an Israeli number.

The Israeli message calls on Khalil to leave not only South Lebanon, where she is stationed, but Lebanon entirely to Qatar “if you want your head to remain attached to your body.”

The message added, “We know where you are, and we will get to you when the time comes.”

Expressing solidarity with Khalil, Al-Qusaifi condemned “the insolent threat that violates all international charters, covenants, and laws of protecting journalists in times of war.” He warned the relevant journalist and UN bodies “to be aware of the Zionist scheme against every journalist and media professional doing their professional duty and exposing the deliberate crimes committed by the Israeli war machine against civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and South Lebanon,” vowing to follow up on the matter.

An enemy terrorized by the truth

Blue helmets and protective shields clearly marked with the word “Press” never protected journalists from Israeli attacks. Rather, the Israeli military deliberately attacks journalists to obscure the facts, through deliberate killing in cold blood, terrorizing and making arrests, and targeting family members, homes, and properties. According to the latest tally by the Government Media Office in Gaza, the number of journalists martyred since the beginning of the aggression and the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip has risen to 172, while hundreds remain detained in Israeli occupation prisons and detention centers, under the most heinous forms of abuse and torture.

In addition to targeting individual journalists and their families, Israeli occupation forces have bombed many foreign and local media HQs inside the Gaza Strip during the past period.

In Lebanon, the Israeli attacks targeted many journalists, including Al Mayadeen’s team, which led to the martyrdom of correspondent Farah Omar, cameraman Rabih Me’mari, and their colleague Hussein Aqil by a drone attack. Prior to this incident, Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah was martyred and several other journalists were injured, some in serious condition, by a shell from an Israeli tank while they were covering the situation on the border between Lebanon and occupied Palestine.

As a matter of fact, Israeli incitement against journalists and media outlets has extended to the West Bank, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his call in a government session to shut down the Al Mayadeen Media Network in the region.

“Why are orders against Al Mayadeen in the West Bank not being enforced?” Netanyahu questioned. In response, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said that this falls under the authority of Security Minister Yoav Gallant.

Even Israeli Channel 14 made a report on Al Mayadeen, in which it expressed its fear of the channel’s media activity in the West Bank, inciting the renewal of its ban, and expressing its particular displeasure with the meeting with the commander of the Tulkarm Battalion in the al-Quds Brigades, Abu Shujaa.

The far-right channel didn’t stop at mere incitement; it went further by demanding that Israeli Minister of Security Yoav Gallant issue the ban. Gallant, however, is already grappling with numerous complications and challenges, primarily the ongoing resistance his “army” faces in the Gaza Strip, the continued military operations on various fronts—especially in the north—and the mounting problems plaguing his exhausted forces after nearly 11 months of war.

September 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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