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Candace Owens and Briahna Joy Gray reveal media ‘red line’ on Israel

If Americans Knew | June 16, 2024

Conservative Candace Owens interviews progressive Briahna Joy Gray about their experiences getting fired because of their criticism of Israel. This clip is from the Candace Show on June 14, 2024.

Background information:

Krystal Ball, Saagar Enjeti, Glenn Greenwald reveal details of the campaign against her:

June 17, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

War on Gaza failed, war with Hezbollah ‘catastrophic’: Ex-Israeli Gen

Al Mayadeen | June 16, 2024

The war on Gaza has “lost its purpose” and its continuation for the past months has caused “Israel” losses on multiple fronts, Reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik underlined.

Brik has become a prominent critic of both the Israeli government and the military command’s performances, pointing to their failure in several sectors.

During an interview for 103 FM Radio, an affiliate of Israeli news outlet Maariv, Brik emphasized that the war on Gaza continues solely for the benefit of the occupation’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

As for the ongoing operation in the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, Rafah, the former commander said that “Israeli objectives have not been achieved in the city, as in all of Gaza.”

He noted that the Israeli military is yet to reach or discover many of the Palestinian Resistance’s strategic tunnels. Moreover, Brik described the current proceedings in Rafah as “shameful”, explaining that Israeli occupation forces are not actually fighting Palestinian Resistance fighters, rather “they [Resistance fighters] are booby-trapping the roads and we [Israeli occupation forces] are being killed.”

“We have reduced the army’s capability over 20 years to the point where it cannot defeat Hamas,” he said in reference to the Palestinian Resistance.

War with Hezbollah to be catastrophic

As for the northern front with Lebanon, Brik stressed that any decision by the current Israeli government under the leadership of Netanyahu “will bring catastrophe to Israel.”

He said that the Israeli military cannot currently intercept Hezbollah’s missiles and drones. He then went on to question what would happen in occupied territories if thousands rather than dozens of rockets, drones, and missiles were fired at Israeli positions.

The Israeli occupation is currently suffering the ails of losses on multiple fronts, as its Brigades fail to contain Hezbollah’s responses and attacks in support of Palestine. At the same time, the Israeli occupation continues to admit to increasing losses across the Gaza Strip, where it was revealed that 10 officers and soldiers were killed in the Strip on Saturday.

With no plans for the day after the war being discussed within the coalition government, Israeli military defeat, inept attempts to replace the Resistance in the Gaza Strip, and the uncertainty of success on the Northern Front Israelis have once again slipped into anti-government protests.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Resistance and supporting factions across West Asia seem more united than ever in their fight against the Israeli occupiers.

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

How Hamas Defeated Israel

By Ted Rall – Sputnik – 16.06.2024

When residents of the Middle East woke up on the morning of October 7, 2023, the Palestinian cause was in a sorry state.

700,000 radical Israeli settler-colonists and sealed-off “military zones” occupied 60% of the occupied West Bank, which was blockaded by a Berlin-style border wall, so much that the United Nations human rights chief no longer believed that Palestinian sovereignty was even theoretically possible. The occupied Gaza Strip was subject to an Israeli blockade that destroyed the economy and drove the unemployment rate to 80%. President Donald Trump had moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem—a strong signal to Palestinians that the world would never allow them their own State—and Joe Biden had let it stay there. Muslim nations that had previously supported the Palestinian struggle (Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco and Sudan) normalized diplomatic relations with the hard-right government of Israel; Oman, Indonesia, Somalia and Saudi Arabia were expected to follow.

The world, including numerous Arab governments, had forgotten the Palestinians.

By the end of the day, everyone remembered them.

It had been necessary, Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership told The New York Times two weeks after the attack, to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash. We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”

Whether you call it terrorism, asymmetric warfare, guerrilla warfare or resistance, an action like the October 7th raid on an Israeli music festival and nearby kibbutzim is a disadvantaged, underarmed and poorly-situated group’s attempt to flip the game table, catch an adversary by surprise and scramble the positions of the players in order to create a different situation.

It’s also a test of their adversary. More about that below.

Hamas has accomplished its objectives. Israel’s saturation bombing and starvation campaign launched after October 7th, which military analysts call the most brutal and systemic assault against a civilian population since World War II, shocked Muslims (and many other people) around the world. Under pressure from their subjects, the Saudis now say they will only consider a normalization deal that explicitly guarantees Palestinian statehood—something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to consider. Biden, a self-declared Zionist and faithful supporter of the Jewish state throughout his career, now says he wants a two-state solution. He has also threatened to withhold arms, though using weasel words to justify redefining his “red line.” 61% of voters in the United States, to which Israel owes its creation and its closest military ally by far, now say the U.S. should stop supplying all weapons to Israel.

The long-ignored Palestinian issue is so “back on the table” that Democrats worry that they might lose the battleground state of Michigan and the presidency due to the state’s substantial Arab population.

Many Israelis and their supporters fail to grasp the reality of the current situation. How can Hamas be winning? they ask. Israelis support the war effort and the IDF has only lost a few hundred troops, a fifth of them to friendly fire and accidents. Gaza, on the other hand, has been flattened. The IDF has killed at least 37,000 Palestinians, though Ralph Nader is surely closer to the truth when he estimates the total number, including the bodies buried under tens of millions of tons of rubble, at 200,000. Israel’s obvious objective, the expulsion of the surviving population and annexation of Gaza into Israel, appears tantalizingly close.

Yet, the Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar was right when he told his close associates recently: “We have the Israelis right where we want them.”

The Israelis have committed the cardinal error of warfare: underestimating the intelligence of your enemy. Of course Hamas’ leaders knew exactly what Israel would do in response to October 7th. They have studied Israel’s behavior repeatedly over decades: when attacked, Israel always responds with overpowering force, much of it directed against civilians. And they don’t care how it looks. “Hamas knew Israel would strike back hard. That was the point,” Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group told The Washington Post. “To Hamas, Palestinian suffering is a critical component in bringing about the instability and global outrage it seeks to exploit.”

The IDF always tortures civilians and demolishes homes and other infrastructure at an extravagant scale. So, like a chess player, Hamas goaded its aggressive adversary into a fierce attack because it was willing to make sacrifices—Hamas fighters, Palestinian civilians, Gazan infrastructure—in order to obtain something even more valuable.

As we’ve seen recently in northern Gaza, Hamas remains a potent military force able to engage the IDF in street combat. But survival isn’t Hamas’ primary objective. Making Israel look evil is—and Israel has fallen into their trap.

The test Israel faced on October 7th was: can we exercise restraint? Like the United States, which faced a similar test on 9/11, Israel failed miserably. Israel’s over-the-top craziness has fulfilled Hamas’ main goal, which was to expose the Israeli government as bloodthirsty, oppressive monsters unworthy of the support of the world upon which it depends.

As a result, most of the world now recognizes Palestinian sovereignty. The International Criminal Court has ordered Israel to stop its military actions in southern Gaza. The International Court of Justice is preparing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. And the United Nations expressly states that Israel is morally and ethically the same as Hamas, a terrorist organization guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Never mind the two-state solution — it’s dead, and not only because of Netanyahu. The globe is moving toward a new consensus: an end to the Israeli ethnostate from a bygone colonial era, replaced by a one person-one vote post-apartheid democracy.

Looking back to October, the only way Israel could have won at war with Hamas was to learn the lesson of the classic 1980s movie “War Games”: don’t play. Imagine, if you can, how Hamas’ leadership would have felt had Israel refused to take the bait on October 7th, responding only with pinpoint raids to try to rescue hostages, or negotiating for them, while playing the weeping victim for the cameras. It would have been a devastating moral and political defeat and the beginning of the end for the cause of Palestinian liberation.

Israel wanted Gaza. They may not even keep Israel.

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

Pentagon blows $1bn in ‘unsustainable’ naval campaign against Yemen

The Cradle | June 15, 2024

The US military says it has spent about $1 billion in an unsustainable campaign to fight the Ansarallah-led Yemeni armed forces in the Red Sea, the Wall Street Journal reported on 15 June.

Since November, Yemeni forces have attacked Israeli-linked commercial ships traveling through the Red Sea, the world’s most important commercial sea route, in response to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

After US and UK naval warships began carrying out attacks on the Yemeni navy and sites in the capital, Sanaa, Yemeni forces began attacking the warships as well.

To defend against Yemeni attacks, the US Navy has conducted more than 450 strikes and intercepted 200 drones and missiles in a campaign that US officials worry is not sustainable.

“Their supply of weapons from Iran is cheap and highly sustainable, but ours is expensive, our supply chains are crunched, and our logistics tails are long,” said Emily Harding of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “We are playing whack-a-mole, and they are playing a long game.”

The Wall Street Journal provided details of a Yemeni attack on a US naval destroyer on 9 January, one of 80 attacks overall, which illustrated the difficulties US personnel face.

“It was just after 9 p.m. when radar operators aboard this U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea spotted a tiny arrow on their screens: a missile hurtling toward them at five times the speed of sound,” The Journal reported.

“The crew of the warship with 300 sailors aboard had just seconds to shoot it down. As the projectile closed in, the Laboon launched an interceptor from silos beneath its deck, destroying the incoming missile in flight.”

Yemeni forces launched 18 drones and cruise missiles, along with the ballistic missile, at four American destroyers, a US aircraft carrier, and a UK warship throughout the 12-hour battle that day.

“These things are telephone pole-sized, you get three minutes of flight time, you detect it for 45 seconds, you get like 10 seconds to determine whether you’re going to shoot at it or not,” said Capt. David Wroe of the US carrier strike group in the Red Sea.

The longer the Yemeni attacks continue, the more likely it is that a US warship could be hit, Frank McKenzie, a retired Marine general, told The Journal. “There’s always a chance that something happens and one of our ships could be struck, and that chance only increases the longer we allow the situation to continue,” he added.

June 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Control Over America Grows Ever Stronger

US foreign policy is based on appeasing the Jewish state

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 14, 2024

Back in September 2017 I wrote an article for the Unz Review site entitled “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” with the subtitle “Shouldn’t they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?” The article focused on the fact that most of the individuals and groups in the US that were agitating for war with Iran in particular were Jewish and most did not hide their loyalty to Israel, headed then as now by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I argued that it was a mistake to have Jews managing America’s relationships in the Middle East in particular as some of them certainly would experience a conflict of interest that would inevitably not be beneficial to the United States. And, one might add, that in spite of that tie that binds with a foreign government, no pro-Israel group has ever been compelled to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 which would provide some transparency on finances and concerning direct contacts with the Israeli government or its Embassy in Washington. The end result of all that is to make it extremely easy to use money, which the Zionist billionaires have in abundance, to corrupt the US government process on behalf of an apartheid state that is no ally in reality and does not have values that fit well with what was once American democracy.

If measured by comments received on it on the Unz site, the article on the ethnic advocacy promoting America’s Wars turned out to be the most popular that I have ever written and it was picked up widely online and in various publications both in the US and abroad. Inevitably, however, it produced a backlash from Israel’s many friends and within 24 hours there was added an update to the original online posting. It read “On the morning of September 21st Phil Giraldi was fired over the phone by The American Conservative, where he had been a regular contributor for fourteen years. He was told that ‘America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars’ was unacceptable. The TAC management and board appear to have forgotten that the magazine was launched with an article by founder Pat Buchanan entitled “Whose War?” which largely made the same claims that Giraldi made about the Jewish push for another war, in that case with Iraq. Buchanan was vilified and denounced as an anti-Semite by many of the same people who are now similarly attacking Giraldi.”

The TAC malignancy who did the actual firing was particularly miffed by my assertion in the article that prominent Jews, like Bill Kristol, who appear regularly on television to advocate hardlines against Iran and others while articulating a “threat to America” when they are actually acting on behalf of Israel should appear above a label that reads something like “Jewish and an outspoken supporter of the state of Israel.” I added that it would be kind-of-like a warning label on a bottle of rat poison – translating roughly as “ingest even the tiniest little dosage of the nonsense spewed by Bill Kristol at your own peril.”

Indeed, it is the wealthy and influential beyond belief Jewish diaspora and its non-stop lying and corruption that sustains the fictitious narrative of Israel as a “land without people for a people without a land.” Australian journalist Caitlin Johnstone observes that “Everything about Israel is fake. It’s a completely synthetic nation created without any regard for the organic sociopolitical movements of the land and its people, slapped rootless atop an ancient pre-existing civilization with deep roots. That’s why it cannot exist without being artificially propped up by nonstop propaganda, lobbying, online influence operations, and mass military violence.”

My point in revisiting the past is that seven years ago one would never have imagined the control that the Jewish Lobby has since obtained over the US foreign policy as well as over many domestic policies largely thanks to the alarmingly pro-Israel measures that have been advanced by an ignorant and reckless Donald Trump followed by the totally mindless and heedless Joe Biden. Biden has a majority of Jews occupying senior positions in his administration and it is fair to say that Jews are at the controls for Middle Eastern policy as well as what is playing out in Ukraine. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is little more than a spokesman and advocate for Israel as he made clear when he arrived in Israel after the Hamas attack and announced that “I come before you as a Jew…” and followed that up with his family holocaust history, though he failed to mention that his stepfather worked for Robert Maxwell, a leading Israeli spy. And let’s not forget about Congress, where pro-Israel fanatics have taken complete control (with the sole exception of Tom Massie) of the Republican Party. This control is exercised through over the top political donations and favorable media coverage dependent on one’s supportive view of Israel. A story is currently circulating indicating that Miriam Adelson, Israel-born heiress to the Sheldon Adelson multi-billion dollar casino fortune, has offered Trump $100 million as a political campaign contribution if he will promise to enable Israeli annexation of all of historic Palestine after he wins the November election.

Some congressmen have revealed that when they first surfaced as political candidates a representative of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) would casually drop by and determine their viewpoint on the Middle East. In some cases, would-be legislators would be asked to sign a statement pledging full and uncritical support of Israel no matter what it does. And we have recently learned that Israel runs major secret intelligence operations using fake personas on social media spreading pro-Israeli stories to influence decision making and maintain control of the US government. Beyond that, according to Massie, who told Tucker Carlson, every Republican in Congress besides himself “has an AIPAC person” assigned to them with whom they are in constant communication, whom he describes as functioning “like your babysitter” to make sure that no one hesitates when it comes to policies impacting on Israel. One assumes that this consists of AIPAC or Anti-Defamation League (ADL) provided interns who spy on the officials lest they deviate from their pledged loyalty to the Jewish state. I would call such activity foreign espionage connected to incitement to commit treason that should be exposed like the rat poison metaphor cited above. These monsters promoting a foreign country’s interests are not really our friends and are not out to do anything beneficial for the American people.

Support for Israel in the media is also contrived and essentially phony, going beyond slanting stories and ignoring the Palestinians. It is so generally and imposed from the top down. Since October outlets like The New York Times, CNN and CBC have been denounced through staff leaks regarding demands from their top executives, who are often Jewish, that they slant their Gaza coverage to support the narratives favored by Israel. There have been resignations in government over the Israeli genocide being supported by Biden and Briahna Joy Gray has just been fired by The Hill for mildly criticizing Israel while co-hosting the show “Rising”, a fate that every media employees must understand lest they share Gray’s fate if they are insufficiently supportive of the Zionist entity. Israel’s support from Hollywood and other celebrities is similarly forced. A Hollywood marketing firm has had to explain a newly leaked email that instructed the firm’s employees to “pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.”

Other new developments on the Israel front that have emerged in the past seven years include the attacks on freedom of speech and association, the development of pro-Israel legislation at state and local levels which deny government benefits and jobs to citizens who support peaceful boycotts of Israel, and the ultimate abomination the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is seeking to criminalize any criticism of the Jewish state. The Act is just one aspect of how the power of organized Jewish groups over the government and media is shaping the kind of society that Americans will be living in in the near future. It will be a society devoid of several fundamental constitutional rights, like free speech, due to deference to the preferences of one tiny demographic.

Upcoming elections have also been targeted by the “Lobby,” with Jewish groups raising hundreds of millions of dollars to carry out attacks on candidates considered to be anti-Israeli. The Zionist inspired heavy hand of government and of America’s educational institutions has also been observed recently in the arrests and other punishments to include blocking of employment opportunities and canceling degrees to students protesting against the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. Jewish counter-protesters, sometimes violent as in the recent case of UCLA, are as a rule not punished and their student groups are untouched while pro-Palestinians groups are banned from campus.

Sometimes the leaning over backwards to please the Israelis is completely ridiculous. Congress is currently seeking to pass a bill that would punish the Maldives for blocking travel to the islands for Israeli passport holders while the war in Gaza continues. US Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey is leading efforts to pressure the government of the Indian Ocean tourist hotspot. Gottheimer, known to be one of Congress’s most aggressive Israel firsters, is seeking bipartisan support in developing the legislation which will be called the Protecting Allied Travel Here (PATH) Act. The legislation could block any US aid or assistance to the Maldives until Israelis again have permission to visit the country. Gottheimer argued that “taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be sent to a foreign nation that has banned all Israeli citizens – one of our greatest democratic allies.” He also added predictably that the Maldivean move was “antisemitic”.

So, in my humble opinion we have been increasingly getting screwed relentlessly by Israel in spite of much of the punishment taking place out in the open, but the hapless wretches in Congress are too weak and terrified by the Jewish lobby to do anything about it. And now we have war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu showing up at the end of July for another round of pandering and groveling plus cheering and bowing by the Joint Session of that very same Congress that has done so much to give Bibi and tools and money enabling him to kill 35,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and counting. It is a disgrace and when the world sits back and reckons what has happened and determines who is to blame the chickens will inevitably come home to roost. America the Pariah. It almost rhymes.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

June 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Over 2,000 academics demand resignation of German Education Minister over repression

German Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger, April 21, 2024 [JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]
MEMO | June 14, 2024

More than 2,000 academics have signed a letter demanding the resignation of Germany’s Education Minister over her attempt to sanction scholars who supported pro-Palestinian students’ right to protest, Anadolu Agency reports.

Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger has come under growing criticism after media reports revealed that her Ministry initiated a legal review last month to examine the open letter released by these scholars, and the possibility of dropping funding for their studies.

“Academics in Germany are experiencing an unprecedented attack on their fundamental rights, on the 75th anniversary of the Basic Law,” the scholars said in a statement on Friday, and underlined that recent actions taken by the Ministry make Stark-Watzinger’s position as Minister untenable.

“The withdrawal of funding ad personam on the basis of political statements made by researchers is contrary to the Basic Law: teaching and research are free. The internal order to examine such political sanctions is a sign of constitutional ignorance and political abuse of power,” the scholars said.

“It illustrates an increasing rift between decision-makers in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and those who support the academic system through their research and teaching. Through its intimidating effect alone, the Minister’s actions risk permanently damaging the hard-won right of academic freedom against political and state interference,” they added.

On 8 May, more than 300 academics from Berlin universities expressed their support for pro-Palestine protest camps on the campus of the Free University of Berlin, and defended the students’ right to demonstrate.

“Regardless of whether we agree with the specific demands of the protest camp, we stand up for our students, and defend their right to peaceful protest, which also includes the occupation of university grounds,” they said.

The academics accused the university’s management of subjecting the demonstrators to “police violence”.

Media reports have revealed that, a few days after this open letter, Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger’s office initiated a legal review to examine the possibility of sanctions under civil service law and criminal law against these academics, including the option to revoke funding for their studies.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Gaza ceasefire push is a road to fatal escalation

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | June 14, 2024

US President Joe Biden’s ceasefire push has so far led to further violence in Gaza and threatens to spill over into a war with Lebanon. Washington is either asleep at the wheel or is willing to push the entire region off a cliff in order to avoid ditching its “unconditional support” for Israel.

The speech delivered by Joe Biden on May 31, in which he presented an Israeli ceasefire proposal, urging both Hamas and the Israeli government to accept it, provided a glimpse of hope that finally the US was putting its foot down. The US President gave what seemed to be a reasonable roadmap to secure a lasting cessation of hostilities in Gaza and a prisoner exchange.

The immediate Hamas response was to view the speech “positively,” while still maintaining that it required an Israeli withdrawal of its forces from Gaza and a complete end to the war, in order to agree to any proposal. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stuck with his previous rhetoric about the need to destroy Hamas, was indicating that he was not going to agree to a ceasefire.

Netanyahu took things even further by asserting that Joe Biden’s description of the Israeli ceasefire proposal was ”not accurate,” also making it clear that there would be no ceasefire until his war goals were achieved. Giving legitimacy to the Israeli PM’s assertions was an article published in The Economist that revealed details of the proposal, in which it became clear that the three-phase ceasefire would be more difficult to conclude, beyond its first phase, than Biden had let on.

Although a series of articles have been released in the Western media, including a Reuters interview with an anonymous Biden administration official, portraying the president’s actions as a bold attempt to pressure Israel to agree to its own proposal, it appears that this move is failing. As the daily death toll rises in besieged Gaza, the Israeli government continues to declare its intention to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian Party that it is supposedly about to conclude a deal with. This as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is being sent on yet another Middle East trip to try and help conclude a ceasefire deal as the effort nears collapse.

Israel, meanwhile, continues to escalate its assault on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, while renewing incursions and aerial assaults throughout the strip. All of this flies in the face of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s recent ruling that ordered Israel to halt its military operation in Rafah. On top of this, the tit-for-tat battles that have been going on since October between Hezbollah and the Israeli military along the Lebanese border, have also escalated to what many consider to be a point of no return; making a new Israel-Lebanon war nearly inevitable.

All of this is very reminiscent of what happened before, when Hamas announced, on May 6, that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal. The proposal was admitted to be almost identical to the one that was repeatedly lauded by Antony Blinken as a ”strong” deal during his last visit to the region.

On that same day, the Israeli military immediately launched its long-threatened offensive in southern Gaza, seizing the Rafah Crossing between the Palestinian territory and Egypt. At that time, the Israeli PM reiterated what he had been consistently saying beforehand about pursuing the destruction of Hamas and his government decided to signal their refusal to agree to the ceasefire.

Again, with the US now bringing forward Israel’s own ceasefire proposal, the predicament does not seem to have changed much. Benjamin Netanyahu is in a difficult position domestically, after failing to achieve any of his war goals in Gaza, he faces the prospect of his governing coalition collapsing if he accepts a ceasefire agreement with nothing to show for eight months of war. The Israeli people also heavily favor re-occupying the strip, with 0% of Israeli Jews polled saying they would like to see Hamas continuing to govern the besieged coastal enclave after the war.

Therefore, Netanyahu knows the political repercussions for him and others in the Israeli ruling class if he accepts a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. However, he also knows that, despite US pressure on his government to bring the war in Gaza to an end, the American government has no teeth behind its forceful statements and will indefinitely continue its “unconditional support” for Israel.

Not only that, when the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, called for the issuance of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, the US government threatened the court. US lawmakers immediately began to draft legislation to sanction the ICC. When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its provisional rulings, as a result of the so-far successful South African genocide case against Israel, the US announced it disagreed with the conclusions.

Even though the US abstained from a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vote that called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza until the end of Muslim Holy month of Ramadan, the Biden administration illogically called the resolution ”non-binding” and gave the Israelis the greenlight to violate it. American lawmakers have even just drafted legislation to condition aid to the Maldives, after that nation made an independent decision to stop Israeli citizens from entering their country due to war crimes committed in Gaza. Now the UN has added Israel to its infamous blacklist for killing Palestinian children, and the US has implemented another double-standard in continuing to provide weapons to a nation added to this list.

Despite the mountains of reports of war crimes from international human rights groups, the decisions made by the UNSC, UN general assembly, the ICC and ICJ, the United States government works to protect the Israeli government at all costs. This has to be kept in mind when we look at the American approach to implementing “red lines” with their Israeli allies, which the Biden administration still cannot find the words to actually define. Even when it comes to the invasion of Rafah, which Washington openly said would be a “disaster,” it was simultaneously preparing another military aid package worth 14 billion dollars.

Understanding all of this, Benjamin Netanyahu was still invited to Washington to address the US Congress and faced with some pressure to conclude a deal. He can rest assured that the Americans will stand by his side no matter what he chooses to do. So, if you are Netanyahu, what incentive is there to stop the war at this point? The Biden administration is filled to the brim with empty and vacuous strategies, which have led to public calls for ending the war, while privately refusing to ever hold Israel accountable.

The big problem this time around is that the continuation of the war will not only mean an escalation of the horrors in Gaza, but is heading towards a massive conflagration with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah possesses the missile capabilities to respond to Israeli airstrikes with devastating effect that could lead to the deaths of hundreds, even thousands, of Israelis. Under great domestic pressure to launch an assault on Lebanese territory, Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be closer to opening a catastrophic conflict with Lebanon, instead of concluding a ceasefire and prisoner exchange with Gaza. In his eyes, a war with Lebanon could even provide the perfect lethal distraction that would enable him to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, but at the expense of triggering a much larger and deadlier war.

June 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU’s top court hits Hungary with massive €200 million fine for blocking migrants, plus €1 million every day

By John Cody | Remix News | June 13, 2024

The EU’s top court, the European Court of Justice, has hit Hungary with a massive fine for refusing to comply with a 2020 ruling that the country was blocking migrants at its border using illegal policies.

The ruling has sparked a strong reaction from the Hungarian government, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán writing on X that the “ECJ’s decision to fine Hungary with 200M euros plus 1m euros daily for defending the borders of the European Union is outrageous and unacceptable. It seems that illegal migrants are more important to the Brussels bureaucrats than their own European citizens.”

The European Court of Justice published the decision on X, noting it referred to Hungary’s “failure to comply with the Court of Justice’s judgment of 17 December 2020.”

The court had initially ruled in 2020 that Hungary had illegally detained and blocked migrants from entering its territory and then illegally held asylum seekers at the Röszke transit zone on Serbian territory, thereby allowing them to be deported before they could appeal their asylum application rejection. The court ordered Hungarian authorities to reconsider the practice of detaining such migrants.

The top court has now ruled that Hungary has ignored this judgment. The ruling comes at a time when not only Hungarians reject mass immigration, but polling across Europe shows the vast majority of Europeans want an end to mass immigration and immigration from non-European countries. In fact, a new poll found that 7 out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many migrants, while only 39 percent of respondents say Europe “needs immigration today.”

Original case backed by Soros NGO

In 2020, the government of Hungary maintained that it cannot be considered detention when the migrants are not allowed to enter Hungary but are still permitted to turn around and return via the route they came. A previous decision on the same case, handed down by the European Court of Human Rights, also found that the procedure did not constitute detention.

As Remix News previously reported, the case came about due to the backing of an NGO funded by billionaire oligarch George Soros.

The ECJ case was originally filed by two Iranian and two Afghani nationals stuck in the Röszke transit zone on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia. They entered the transit zone seeking asylum in Hungary, but the Hungarian authorities refused to process their case, arguing that they came from Serbia, a country deemed to be safe.

Represented by a Soros-funded NGO, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, they filed their case with the Szeged district public administration and labor court, which in turn forwarded it to the ECJ.

The Hungarian government maintained that migrants could not apply for asylum on Hungarian territory, but intead must apply for asylum at a Hungarian embassy in neighboring countries, such as Belgrade in Serbia.

Hungary contended that asylum applicants have no right to enter Hungary, as they cross several safe countries on their way to Hungary.

“Hungary is surrounded by safe countries,” said the Hungarian government’s international spokesman Zoltán Kovács in 2020. “The Geneva Conventions stipulate refugees must apply for asylum in the first safe country. Nothing guarantees the right to choose where to apply while breaking the law as an illegal migrant to boot.”

June 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

Massie: Politicians have an “AIPAC guy” (who tells them what to do)

If Americans Knew | June 12, 2024

More info at https://israelpalestinenews.org/massi…

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Has Israel considered a loss to Hezbollah?

By Ali Rizk | The Cradle | June 11, 2024

As the war in Gaza lags on, cross-border exchanges on the Lebanese–Israeli front have intensified. Fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli military has taken a heavy toll on both sides. The Lebanese resistance movement has lost over 300 fighters, with Israeli shelling resulting in the displacement of tens of thousands of Lebanese residents of the country’s southern villages.

Israel has not fared much better, with at least sixty thousand northern settlers forced to flee their homes. While the occupation army has confirmed the death of around a dozen of its soldiers in the exchanges with Hezbollah, the real number is estimated to be much higher.

In March, The Cradle gained intel that over 230 Israeli troops had been killed in combat since 8 October 2023.

The rising threat of a large-scale war

While the northern conflict currently remains within the boundaries of ‘controlled escalation,’ the prospects of a full-blown war between Hezbollah and Israel may be steadily increasing. Far-right members of the Israeli government, who are key to keeping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition intact, have become noticeably more vocal in supporting escalation on the Lebanese front.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for launching an attack on Beirut, describing it as “the capital of terrorism.” Given these stances, it cannot be entirely dismissed that Netanyahu may opt to escalate against Lebanon.

Indeed, recent statements by the Israeli prime minister suggest that some form of wider escalation on the northern front may be in the making.

Speaking during a visit to the headquarters of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, Netanyahu referred to “surprising plans” being devised to deal with Hezbollah, aiming to “restore security to the north and to restore residents safely to their homes” without going into further detail.

Amid these developments, the Israeli military recently completed a drill that simulated a ground incursion into Lebanon.

A large-scale Israeli offensive on Lebanon in the near future would also be consistent with earlier assessments made by US officials, who, in late February, predicted a possible ground incursion into Lebanon by the late spring or early summer.

Hezbollah’s increasing capabilities

Hezbollah’s challenge to Israel appears to be on the rise, reflecting a failure of Tel Aviv’s current strategy of relying on precision surgical strikes. According to the Israeli institute Alma, which monitors developments on the Lebanese–Israeli front, 325 cross-border attacks were carried out by Hezbollah in May, the highest number of monthly attacks on this front since 7 October.

The resistance movement’s operations have also become more sophisticated, revealing capabilities it has introduced for the first time. Hezbollah managed to destroy an advanced surveillance balloon used to detect incoming attacks in an operation conducted via a kamikaze drone.

It has also upgraded its drone capabilities, recently launching a twin-kamikaze drone attack on the northern town of Hurfeish and conducting its first-ever air raid through an armed UAV equipped with S5 rockets. The operation targeted Israeli soldiers in the settlement of Metula and was the first time in which an Arab force had launched an airstrike on Israel.

Most recently, Hezbollah released footage on 6 June showing a guided missile attack on an Iron Dome platform in Israel’s Ramot Naftali barracks in the Galilee.

What to expect in a full-scale war

The increased sophistication of Hezbollah’s operations can also be seen as fueling Tel Aviv’s urgency to take decisive action against the resistance group. This was expressed by former Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who described the Lebanese front as the most significant and pressing operative front in the current conflict, warning that the “moment of truth” was now close.

However, what the Lebanese movement has demonstrated since 7 October also serves as a warning of what awaits the occupation state if an all-out war were to erupt.

The Israeli military is expected to employ methods similar to 2006 in that it would carry out destructive air raids on ‘Hezbollah strongholds’ in southern Lebanon, Beirut, and the Bekaa region.

Speaking to The Cradle, retired Lebanese Brigadier General Elias Farhat explains:

There is no such thing as a limited full-scale war. A full-scale war will have to include all of Hezbollah’s strongholds.

However, any Israeli onslaught on par or exceeding what happened in 2006 is almost certainly going to be met, this time, with a much harsher response from Hezbollah.

The Lebanese movement has amassed a far larger rocket and missile arsenal, with estimates pointing to over 150,000 of these weapons now in its possession. Given this military build-up, Hezbollah is widely recognized today as the world’s heaviest armed non-state actor.

Perhaps even more importantly, its arsenal includes precision missiles such as the Fateh 110, enabling it to aim at strategic Israeli installations that could cause immense damage. Against this backdrop, Israeli experts have warned of a MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scenario in the event of a full-scale war with Hezbollah.

It is also possible the Lebanese movement possesses military capabilities that could undermine Israel’s air power advantage. The group has already demonstrated its air defense capability against Israeli drones, having succeeded in shooting down several ‘Hermes’ UAVs in the current round of hostilities.

The bigger danger to Israel, however, would be Hezbollah’s possession of air defenses capable of shooting down not only drones but Israeli warplanes. Given the strengthening of military ties between Russia and Iran, the possibility of Hezbollah accessing Moscow’s enhanced anti-aircraft technology is increased.

The resistance movement has already announced that it launched surface-to-air missiles at Israeli warplanes that had broken the sound barrier and had hence forced the aircraft to retreat.

This marks the first development of its kind in the history of warfare between Hezbollah and Israel and could merely be a warning shot for what could transpire in the event of an all-out war.

That Hezbollah would unveil such weapons in a full-scale conflict is consistent with its strategy of saving its best for such confrontations. In 2006, it surprised the Israeli military by striking a warship in a missile attack.

Israel would also likely face superior offensive ground operations in a full-scale war with Hezbollah. The Lebanese movement gained valuable experience in such operations while fighting extremist groups in Syria.

As Hussein Ibish of the Arab Gulf States Institute recounts to The Cradle:

“The combination of Hezbollah ground fighters and Russian air and signals intelligence dominance was the ‘A-Team’ on behalf of the Assad [government] in the Syrian war.”

Given this experience and its ability to launch airstrikes via UAVs, Hezbollah likely retains the capacity to launch offensive infantry operations – importantly, with air cover.

Manpower and tactical advantages

Hezbollah will also likely enjoy an advantage in terms of reliable, tested, and highly motivated manpower. Due to its close ties with allied resistance factions in Iraq and Yemen, fighters from these countries are likely to come to Hezbollah’s aid in a full-scale conflict with Israel.

The Lebanese movement’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah alluded to this factor in a 2017 speech. Israel, by contrast, appears to be suffering from a shortage of manpower in its military ranks, not to mention tanking troop and commander morale, highlighted on Sunday by yet another high-level military resignation, this time Gaza Division Commander Brigadier-General Avi Rosenfeld.

Israeli defenses are also unlikely to succeed when facing large barrages of Hezbollah missiles and drones. Unlike Iran’s retaliatory attack on 13 April, where the US and allies shot down a large fraction of the incoming drones and missiles, similar-style attacks launched by Hezbollah would be far more difficult to deal with.

The closer geographical distance means much less time to intercept and shoot down such attacks. Hezbollah, which relies heavily on the element of surprise in its military tactics, will also certainly not telegraph its attacks beforehand as Iran did. As a result, Israel would likely remain exposed to immense attacks through surface-to-surface missiles, kamikaze drones, and airstrikes via UAVs.

Moreover, the Lebanese resistance has spent many months tirelessly disabling Israel’s “eyes and ears” in the north, reportedly destroying over 1,650 pieces of intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition (ISR) equipment since the conflict’s onset.

Israel is increasingly operating blindly in that vital northern theater, allowing Hezbollah to repeatedly and successfully strike at qualitative targets, penetrate more deeply into the occupation state, and employ more advanced weaponry.

The US response

While it is likely that the US will rush to defend its Israeli ally, the bigger question is how far it is willing to go. As indicated above, defensive measures are unlikely to significantly undermine the severity of Hezbollah’s cross-border missile and drone operations.

Judging from its approach following the Iranian attack on Israel, Washington is unlikely to go beyond defensive support. Following Operation True Promise, the White House reportedly informed Tel Aviv that it would have no part in any offensive action against Tehran, effectively leaving its Israeli ally with little choice but to settle for a far less proportionate response to Iran’s significant military operation.

Given how that situation unfolded, it would be a risky gamble for Israel to pin its hopes on its US security guarantor assuming an offensive role in a major war with Hezbollah. Tensions are also rising between the US and rival superpowers, reinforcing this dynamic.

Speaking to The Cradle, Steven Simon, Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa in the US National Security Council during the Obama administration, emphasizes that “a direct combat role beyond air defenses (in a full-scale war between Hezbollah and Israel) is highly unlikely.” This is especially the case, he adds, “given tensions with Russia and China.”

Nawaf al-Musawi, Hezbollah’s Resource and Border Affairs official and one of the movement’s strategic thinkers, offers this prediction:

The Israeli occupation needs weapons from Washington for any war it wishes to wage against Lebanon. After any war with Lebanon, the region will not be the same as it was before. The next war with Israel will be the final war.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Palestine Irish MEP loses seat, blames ‘establishment’

Al Mayadeen | June 12, 2024

Clare Daly, an Irish leftwing MEP and advocate for Palestine, has lost her seat in the European Parliament. A harsh critic of the Israeli occupation, as well as a frequent critic of Western militarism, Daly slipped behind her opponents in Dublin’s district, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

According to the article, throughout her tenure in the European Parliament, Daly blasted the West for “militarism” and gained a big social media following. She was featured in state media outlets in China and Russia, which her opponents used as a card to accuse her of supporting “authoritarian regimes”.

Furthermore, The Guardian reported that Daly lost her seat despite support from luminaries such as Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox and actress Susan Sarandon. Sarandon is a well-known pro-Palestine campaigner who has been constantly accused of anti-semitism for her sheer support for Palestine.

Daly was one of “Israel’s” toughest opponents in the European Parliament, Israeli public radio KAN said on Wednesday. Daly posted on X in April that the “whole world” knew “Israel” was destabilizing the Middle East and accused the occupation of genocide.

She also accused the European Parliament of “telling a fairytale in which Iran’s the aggressor.”

Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, Daly responded to “unelected” EU President Ursula von der Leyen, stating that the latter’s stance does not reflect the true voice of the European Union and in no way reflects the bloc’s peaceful approach in terms of foreign policy.

“Today, Hamas terrorists have struck at the heart of Israel capturing and killing innocent women and children. Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel,” von der Leyen tweeted on X on Saturday.

“Who do you think you are? You’re unelected and have no authority to determine EU foreign policy, which is set by the EU Council. Europe does NOT “stand with Israel.” We stand for peace. You do not speak for us. If you’ve nothing constructive to say, and you clearly don’t – shut up,” Daly wrote in response.

Following the announcement of her loss at the elections, Daly thanked those who voted for her and expressed that “it is testament to the success and reach of the work we’ve done that the establishment came out in such force to harm my chances of reelection.

Daly could have been the victim of Israeli lobbying to oust her from her position for her tough stance on “Israel” and her unapologetic support of Palestine.

Daly turned down an interview with an RTÉ reporter as she left the count facility in south Dublin expressing, “You had no interest in talking to me for five years, so I’ve no interest in talking to you.”

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Dozens of Gazan detainees released by Israel show ‘signs of torture’

MEMO | June 12, 2024

Israel released dozens of Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip yesterday, according to a local source, with many showing signs of torture and abuse.

“Around 50 detainees from Gaza City and northern Gaza were freed,” a Palestinian source told Anadolu.

The source said some 33 freed Gazans were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza for medical attention “due to difficult health conditions.”

“Some of the detainees had signs of torture on their bodies,” he added.

There are no available estimates about the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in Gaza, but human rights groups estimate that thousands have been arrested.

In videos circulating on social media, released detainees are seen to be visibly weak, explaining that they were not allowed to sleep and were not provided food or clean water.

“No food, no water and no toilet. I swear we pooped on ourselves and they’d make us drink sewage water,” one of the men tells gathered reporters as he is reunited with his daughter. He had been held by occupation forces for eight months, reporters said.

Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since October.

Nearly 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and nearly 85,000 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Those who survive the bombing are struggling as a result of a “man-made famine” which Israel is imposing by blocking the entry of humanitarian aid.

June 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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