Israel Keeps Killing Civilians and Rejects Any Sovereignty for Palestinians
Benjamin Netanyahu shows Joe Biden who’s boss
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 1, 2024
Over the past ten days there have been several interesting developments in the continuing ethnic cleansing of Gaza, as well as increasingly on the West Bank, by the Israeli military supplemented by armed settlers. In one particularly grotesque killing, Israeli commandos disguised as medical staff and Arab civilians burst into a hospital room in Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank and shot dead three Palestinians. The Israeli military said one of the victims belonged to Hamas and was planning an imminent attack “inspired by the events of October 7” but provided no evidence in support of the claim. Palestinian hospital staff reported afterwards how “They raided one of the patients’ rooms and killed him, and the people who were in the room with him, his brother and friend. He was a patient, paralyzed and using a wheelchair.” One might observe that Israel, like the White House, lies about everything.
To be sure, Israel and the United States deservedly continue to be subjected to legal challenges, both internationally and in the United States, over their carrying out of a policy in Gaza that many, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, might eventually consider to be a full scale and active genocide, the most notorious crime against humanity. The court’s Order last Friday to Israel “to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and punish incitement for genocide accepts the possibility of Israel being a perpetrator of genocide” and not just a perpetual historical victim, as it chooses to depict itself. As the court continues to pursue the completely plausible claim of genocide submitted by South Africa and to come to a final ruling, which could easily take months to complete, it has “already made history.” But in the meanwhile, manipulation of both the judicial and constitutional processes by the United States to support Israel has enabled the Jewish state to keep bombing and killing an average of 300 Palestinians each day while also controlling and cutting off relief supplies desperately needed by the starving and dying two million nearly all civilians physically imprisoned by the barriers erected by Israel surrounding Gaza.
In the latest act of undoubted collusion staged to kill even more Palestinians, Israel claimed that 12 members of the United Nations Gaza Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in the Hamas October 7th attack on Israel. The UN has fired some of those accused out of its 13,000 employees in the organization and it is investigating further but that did not prevent the US from immediately cutting its funding to UNRWA in spite of the fact that Israel had produced no evidence to back up its claim and there was no explanation provided why such a report was not issued until more than 100 days after the alleged incident. Timing is everything. Clearly the moves were preplanned by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to help counter the negative impact of the ICJ report, which was released several days before, and it will accomplish nothing except to increase the misery of the Palestinians.
The international focus on Israel and the United States regarding Gaza is because of the widely held and absolutely correct perception that Israel keeps getting away with murder, literally, and Washington is the accomplice in the crime, using its power and United Nations veto to avoid holding the Jewish state accountable for its misdeeds. Ironically, Israeli behavior often negatively impacts on the actual interests of the United States to include killing American citizens without there being and consequences for the perpetrators. This recklessness has recently been on display not only in Gaza but also on the occupied West Bank where just last week another Palestinian-American has been shot dead in what appears to be something like a vigilante killing.
According to witnesses, the completely unprovoked recent killing consisted of the fatal shooting of American-Palestinian teen Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, 17, a Louisiana native, who was driving a pickup truck near his village Al-Mazra’a Ash-Sharquiya on the Israeli occupied West Bank. Without any warning, a volley of Israeli gunfire struck the back of the truck, hitting Tawfik in the head and killing him, resulting in the out-of-control vehicle turning over several times on a dirt road. Family members who rushed to the scene were confronted by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint, who blocked their access to the truck. In an initial statement, Israeli police admitted that the shooting targeted Tawfic, but claimed the victim was “purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities.” Police would not identify who fired the shots but did describe the incident as “ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian.” That suggests an armed settler was involved. The US Embassy has demanded an explanation but Israel never convicts Jews who kill Palestinians. That is what is expected in this case, which recalls the May 2022 killing by an army sniper of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh at a demonstration which she was covering at the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli occupied West Bank. She was wearing a clearly identifiable journalist’s jacket. No one was ever held accountable and even the Zionist dominated US State Department eventually believed she had been targeted and deliberately executed. Indeed, there is currently a law pending in the Knesset that blocks prosecution of any Israeli soldier or policeman who kills an Arab.
And when it comes to other dead Americans, there is the still uninvestigated killing of 34 crewmen on the USS Liberty in June 1967 by Israeli warplanes and gunboats, the killing of activist Rachel Corrie by being run over by an Israeli army bulldozer in 2003, and the killing of Turkish-American boy Furkan Dogan and eight others in international waters on the Mavi Marmara ferry in 2010. If Israel decides to kill Americans it does not hesitate and the US never does anything but whine after the fact, if that. In that case of the Liberty the White House and Pentagon actually participated in the cover-up, such is the power of the Israel Lobby.
So once again the gloves are off in terms of the abuse that the United States has to take at the hands of “best friend” Israel, particularly now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a group of fascist ultra-nationalists have formed a war cabinet that is intent on driving out or exterminating the Palestinians. Both in Gaza and on the West Bank any living Palestinian is little more than target practice for the Israel Defense Force half trained thugs in uniform.
And Netanyahu is not even trying to hide what he wants to do to Palestine, even though he is now running into concern from President Joe Biden who apparently is afraid that all the bloodshed in Gaza being endorsed and enabled by Washington will damage his re-election prospects. Netanyahu has not budged however and has made some significant comments over the past two weeks, one of which directly rejects a Biden call to look at options for reviving the so-called Two States plan that would give the Palestinians a mini-state that has actual sovereignty at some level, unlike the almost total military and police occupation by Israel that prevails currently.
Speaking at a press conference on January 22nd, Netanyahu insisted that “I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of the Jordan River”. His statement also prefigures an assault on the West Bank and the seizure of all Palestinian-held territory. War would “continue until the end, until the victory, until the elimination of Hamas” and “nothing will stop us.” Ending the war prematurely “would harm Israel’s security for generations,” he said, suggesting this could mean military action continuing until next year.
Netanyahu has said that there will be no Palestinian state with actual sovereignty and that Israel will control all of the former historic Palestine “From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” Yes, Netanyahu is using the very words that Israel’s friends have condemned as “antisemitic” when used by Palestinian demonstrators in the US objecting to the slaughter in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a number of Israeli cabinet and other senior officials have indicated clearly that achieving the goal of an Israeli state incorporating the whole area into what will legally be defined as a Jewish state will be achieved no matter what will have to be done to the Palestinians. This will all start with the ethnic cleansing and resettlement of Gaza by Jews, no matter how long it takes to accomplish, and then will proceed to the West Bank. The displacement of the Palestinians is being justified by claiming that that population is not redeemable as they are nothing but “terrorists,” to include incitement from government officials with comments like “We kill the children otherwise they will grow up to kill Jews.”
To be sure, there has been some pushback against the Netanyahu revelation, coming from many dissatisfied Israelis and even originating within the normally massively pro-Israel US Congress. Calls have come for a cease fire and 15 Jewish Democratic congressmen have supported a two-state solution with a Palestine state having true sovereignty. They issued a brief statement saying “We strongly disagree with prime minister [Netanyahu]. A two-state solution is the path forward.” And there also has been something of a rebellion from the civil service in Washington, where there was a walkout of employees rejecting the Biden Administration’s Gaza policy.
Senator Bernie Sanders and some others in Congress have repeated calls to stop funding what Israel is doing, particularly as the war is already spilling over to Yemen and Iraq and Syria where illegal US military bases are under attack producing most recently three deaths by drone fired from an Iraqi shi’ite militia, allegedly hitting a base in Jordan, and causing more than thirty injuries. The incident will possibly lead to further escalation as Joe Biden has said there will be some retaliation against the militia group that staged the attack and its sponsors. Predictably, Joe and others in Washington are actually blaming the attack on Iran though there is no evidence supporting that claim. Several Congressmen and presidential candidate Nikki Haley have nevertheless already called for an attack on Iranian military and economic installations and CBS news is now reporting that preparations are underway for the US to hit “Iranian targets” in Syria and Iraq. The Iranian government has said it was not involved in the incident and has already announced that it would retaliate if attacked. A better policy would be a withdrawal from those illegal bases, reportedly under consideration by the Pentagon, but it has been denied by the inimitable Victoria Nuland at the State Department.
US President Joe Biden also followed up on the recent Netanyahu statements with what was reportedly his first phone call with Netanyahu for a month, after which he suggested that the Israeli leader might consider some “type” of two-state solution. But Netanyahu’s spokesman dismissed Biden’s claim on the following day, saying that “In his conversation with President Biden, prime minister Netanyahu reiterated his policy that, after Hamas is destroyed, Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.”
Netanyahu then personally expanded on the message, saying how “I emphasized to President Biden our determination to achieve all the goals of the war, and to ensure that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israel.” Under his leadership, Netanyahu pledged that Israel would go beyond that to wage a far wider regional war “on all fronts and in all sectors. We are not giving immunity to any terrorist: not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, not in Syria, and not anywhere.”
Netanyahu and his generals have repeatedly stated that Israel is waging war not just on the Palestinians but also against Iran and its allies, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant explaining that Israel is confronted by a war on seven fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. Replying to a question from a reporter asking why Israel is not attacking Iran directly, Netanyahu responded, “Who says we aren’t attacking Iran? We are attacking Iran.” Indeed, Israeli forces have repeatedly bombed Syria’s capital, Damascus, targeting Iranian forces allied to the Syrian government. In the most recent incident, Israeli missiles fired from the occupied Golan Heights killed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Syria intelligence chief and four more IRGC members.
As a final observation, Netanyahu and his supporters appear to be using the prospect of a Donald Trump victory in the US presidential elections in November to put more pressure on Biden to make him back off from supporting any concessions over Gaza and a Palestinian state. Bibi is also intent on extending the war until the end of 2024 to make his domestic opponents who are demanding his resignation appear unpatriotic, many of whom believe that the Israeli actions vis-à-vis Gaza have been motivated by Netanyahu’s own political and personal interests. As Netanyahu might well otherwise be in jail currently due to corruption charges, many critics now support the theory that Gaza may have been a false flag setup with the Prime Minister himself giving the green light to an operation that would open the door to keeping himself in power while also destroying Gaza and ridding Israel of the Palestinians forever. If Netanyahu plays his cards right with the clueless Biden he might also be able to convince the United States to attack Iran very soon, something that he has been seeking for more than twenty years. That may be what is coming next.
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.
Israel Fails to Produce Evidence to Justify Widespread Cemetery Destruction in Gaza
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 30, 2024
The Israeli military granted CNN a three-hour tour inside the Gaza Strip to view the destruction of Palestinian cemeteries. The outlet explained that the evidence presented by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not confirm Tel Aviv’s claims about tunnels under the graveyard. Across Gaza, Israel has damaged over a dozen cemeteries.
An IDF general gave CNN’s Jeremy Diamond a guided tour of the Bani Suheila cemetery. Israel claimed it needed to dig up the bodies buried at the graveyard because a Hamas tunnel ran under it. However, the IDF was not able to show CNN evidence supporting that claim.
Diamond explained the evidence presented by the IDF actually suggested that there was no tunnel beneath the cemetery. The IDF invited Diamond into Gaza after he reported that the Israeli military operations in Gaza had damaged 16 Gazan cemeteries. Palestinian officials report that 2,000 graves in the Strip have been damaged or destroyed by the Israeli military.
Janina Dill, co-director at Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, told CNN that the desecration of burial sites could be evidence of genocide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled last week it was plausible that Israel was committing a genocide against Palestinians.
Throughout the Israeli war on Gaza, Tel Aviv has attempted to justify destroying civilian infrastructure by claiming below the buildings, Hamas has dug tunnels. Similar to the Bani Suheila cemetery, the IDF has been unable to produce conclusive evidence that the tunnel networks existed.
Still, Washington has not condemned the destruction of hospitals, cemeteries, and universities. The White House has even repeated Israel’s unproven claims regarding the tunnels. President Joe Biden backed the assertion that the Shifa Hospital was above a Hamas headquarters. Additionally, State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller suggested the IDF conducted a controlled demolition of Israa University in Gaza because a tunnel was under the building.
Israel refuses to provide information about Gaza detainees, rights group says
MEMO | January 31, 2024
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said the Israeli occupation refuses to disclose any information about detainees taken from Gaza, Quds Press reported.
In a statement issued yesterday, the rights group said the Israeli occupation is carrying out “the crime of enforced disappearance” against Gaza detainees, following a number of military orders and laws specifically enacted for them.
The Israeli Knesset has recently ratified regulations depriving “Gaza detainees” of meeting with a lawyer for another four months.
Images from Gaza show Palestinian men being rounded up from shelters, stripped to their underwear and made to wait in the cold while naked and blindfolded. They are later seen being taken away on trucks to undisclosed locations.
Those who have been released bear signs of torture, exhaustion and malnourishment.
Iraqi Resistance announces ‘suspension’ of anti-American operations
Press TV – January 31, 2024
The Islamic Resistance, an umbrella group of Iraqi anti-terror groups, has announced a pause in its operations against American targets across the region.
The group announced the decision through a statement by Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades), one of its major members, on Tuesday.
“We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces,” Hezbollah Brigades’ Secretary-General, Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said in the statement.
Hamidawi cited “consideration for the Iraqi government” as the reason for the decision, without elaborating.
Over the past years, the resistance has been launching countless attacks against bases housing the US occupation forces across the Arab country and neighboring Syria.
Before announcing the pause, it had escalated its attacks against the targets, citing the United States’ complicity in an October 7, 2023-present war of genocide that has been launched by the Israeli regime against the Gaza Strip.
The statement, however, asserted “we will continue to defend our people in Gaza through other means.”
“We advise the brave fighters of the Hezbollah Brigades to adopt temporary passive defense measures in case of any aggressive American actions…”
The statement, meanwhile, rejected claims made by US officials alleging existence of affiliation between the umbrella group and any foreign party.
“The Islamic Resistance, represented by the Hezbollah Brigades, has resolved to support our oppressed people in Gaza with its own will, without interference from others,” it stated.
Israeli forces raid, attack courtyards of PRCS building and Al-Amal hospital in Gaza, demand evacuation at gunpoint
WAFA | January 30, 2024
GAZA – Israeli occupation forces this evening stormed the courtyards of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Strip, amid heavy shelling and shooting.
Israeli forces demanded at gunpoint displaced persons and PRCS teams to evacuate, said PRCS.
PRCS teams and the displaced are currently in severe danger, warned the Society in a post on the “X” platform.
The Society reported that forces destroyed the external wall of the PRCS headquarters and targeted with gunfire and smoke bombs the displaced people, its crews, and the front door of its building and the hospital, causing fire to break out in several makeshift tents where the displaced are taking shelter.
Earlier today, a woman was killed and others were injured in the ongoing Israeli targeting of the vicinity of Al-Amal Hospital. The occupation’s armored tanks shelled areas near the Al-Amal hospital and the PRCS headquarters in Khan Yunis, where thousands of displaced persons are seeking refuge, killing a woman and injuring nine others, reported the Society.
Western Media’s Blackout of Israeli’s “Hannibal Directive”
By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | January 30, 2024
In the time since the October 7 invasion of Israel there have been suggestions both from within Israel and from alternative media elsewhere that Israel used a version of a military protocol known as “The Hannibal Directive” that day, and perhaps has continued to operate upon that protocol since.
The “Hannibal Directive” is a military order which was created in 1986 in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli Defense Forces soldier in Lebanon. The premise of the original order is that in this circumstance, the IDF can prioritize stopping the kidnappers even if it endangers the hostage. The example that those within the Israeli government like to give is sniping the tires of the escape car knowing it may cause an accident which endangers the hostage, while ruling out an airstrike on the car. This highly controversial protocol was repealed in 2016 and replaced with an order whose text has remained secret. However, there is a growing body of evidence that on October 7 Israel issued a sort of “mass Hannibal Directive on steroids,” where an unknown number of Israeli civilians were killed by the IDF to prevent their becoming hostages. While there has been much discussion of this topic within Israel media, there is a near-total blackout on the topic in corporate media in the United States and United Kingdom.
Many who were already aware of the Hannibal Directive became suspicious of Israel’s actions quickly, most of all because of one particularly egregious instance which brought friendly fire casualties to light. At the Kibbutz Be’eri in what is known as “Pesi’s House,” after the owner, Hamas had taken fifteen Israelis hostage. One Hamas member ran out of the house releasing a hostage, who informed them that there were fourteen Israelis remaining in the house. A commander made the decision to fire two “light” tank shells at the house regardless, killing all but one of the hostages. The released hostage and the survivor both confirmed the same story, so it came out rapidly that Israel had knowingly shelled the house. This got a lot of press within Israel because it is such a horrible story, and people immediately referenced the Hannibal Directive. More recently, Israel’s leading news website Ynet released a large investigation which alleges that an IDF-wide Hannibal Directive-like order went out, and that Israel destroyed seventy cars returning to Gaza without regard to whether there may be hostages inside.
Some of Israel’s most prominent voices want to know if Benjamin Netanyahu’s government implemented a Hannibal Directive on October 7. The lead author of the IDF’s Code of Ethics, Asa Kasher, explained in Haaretz, Israel’s newspaper of record, that the incident at Kibbutz Be’eri needs to be investigated immediately. The Haaretz editorial board demanded an immediate investigation in an editorial published on January 8. These are among many other references to the issue within Israeli media. The Ynet investigation is extremely thorough and damning. The Hannibal Directive has also been mentioned by media sources throughout the Muslim world. However, despite the importance of this issue, and that discussion of the topic is readily available in Haaretz, there has not been any mention in any context in several major U.S. news sources since this new round of conflict began.
We are all used to the media lying and shaping narratives, but this is the most thorough campaign of ignoring news I have seen since the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by the New York Post, so at least one “mainstream” source in American media was trying to talk about it. I checked several major, diverse news sources for mentions of the Hannibal Directive and did not find any which presented the question of if Israel had used this protocol. The New York Times last mentioned it in 2016 when the original order was repealed. There has been no discussion of it in The Washington Post, USA Today, or the magazine Foreign Policy. The Guardian has a single reference from October 11, where a woman says the hostility of politicians to recovering the hostages reminds her of the Hannibal Directive, but it is a random opinion, not a suggestion they used it on October 7. Tablet Magazine, a prominent American Jewish periodical, shows no search results on its website, though by using Google’s advanced search functions one can find a single mention since October 7. A Google News search finds many foreign sources, but the only American reference is from Briahna Joy Gray at The Hill, a far-left host who has been constantly attacked as an anti-Semite and is far out of the mainstream, though she happens to work for a mainstream publication. I wrote a Twitter thread documenting my attempt to find references to the Hannibal Directive in American and British media.
Those who happen to have learned about the Hannibal Directive, either from reading Israeli media or from alternative media or social media in the West, can and will draw many conclusions about what happened on October 7. But the suppression of this topic is a story in and of itself. I doubt it is any sort of explicit conspiracy. Instead, people who come to be in prominent positions in corporate media get to where they are because they know which way the wind blows and have a good instinct for what they should or shouldn’t print. The culture within American media is one where no one wants to cover this story, and if asked they would probably tell you they fear it will “empower extremists” or “promote conspiracy theories.” Most Haaretz articles which mention it seem to spend as long hemming and hawing about that concern as they do discussing the issue, but they still cover the story (even if carefully framed). These revelations greatly change how a person understand the events of October 7, and since the American government continues to support Israel, Americans deserve to know—but they certainly won’t learn about it from the corporate media.
The Libertarian Institute’s Executive Director Scott Horton recently spoke with Brad Pearce about the subject of this article and Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Their interview can be found here.
Iran urges intl. condemnation of Israel’s ‘barbaric’ assassination of Palestinian patients in West Bank
Press TV – January 30, 2024
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has strongly condemned the assassination of Palestinian patients by Israeli forces in a hospital in the occupied West Bank, calling on the international community not to remain silent in the face of the “terrorist act.”
Nasser Kan’ani made the remarks in a statement on Tuesday, after a unit of undercover Israeli special forces fatally shot three young Palestinians inside Ibn Sina Hospital in the west of Jenin earlier in the day.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman went on to say that such brutal action can pave the way for normalization of “organized terrorism” in the world, urging the international community not to remain silent and condemn the Israeli regime’s “barbaric behavior.”
Kan’ani further noted it is regrettable that the Israeli regime’s supporters are silent in the face of such obvious crimes in medical centers and the continued activity of the Zionist genocide machine.
Palestinian media outlets reported on Tuesday that members of the Israeli hit squad dressed as doctors, nurses, and even civilians went up to the third floor of the Ibn Sina Hospital and shot three young Palestinians dead with guns equipped with silencers before escaping the building.
“This morning three young men were martyred by the bullets of the occupation [Israeli] forces who stormed the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin and shot them,” the Ministry of Health in Ramallah said.
One of the slain Palestinians was undergoing treatment in the hospital for some three months since he was injured by the Israeli army.
There was no apparent attempt to arrest the Israeli assailants.
The Israeli military later claimed that the three Palestinians were members of a team affiliated to the Hamas resistance movement planning to carry out attacks against the regime.
Hamas said in a statement that Israel’s “crimes will not go unanswered,” adding that the killings are a “continuation of the occupation’s ongoing crimes against our people from Gaza to Jenin.”
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemned “in the strongest terms the occupation forces’ assassination of the three young men.”
Israel has ramped up its aggression in the West Bank since its genocidal war on Gaza began in early October.
Nearly 350 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 7, when Israel waged the war on Gaza after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli aggression has so far killed at least 26,637 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 65,387 others in Gaza. The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
Europe exposed: Is the EU a direct partner in the Israeli genocide in Gaza?
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 29, 2024
Iraqi resistance is quietly but effectively hitting the Israeli regime where it hurts
By Wesam Bahrani | Press TV | January 2024
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced a drone attack on Sunday deep inside the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, marking another significant development amid the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
What makes it a major development is the location of the target. The Israeli Zevulun naval facility near Haifa Port was struck as part of a “new phase” of operations against the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine as well as the illegal American occupation of Iraq and Syria.
A pattern is emerging of the Iraqi resistance attacking Zionist targets in the Mediterranean while the Yemeni military continues its operations against Zionist and US targets in the Red and Arabian seas.
In a statement on Sunday, the Iraqi resistance said it struck “four enemy targets”, which included three illegal American bases in Syria and “the Israeli Zevulun naval facility”.
In a sign of how quickly these operations are occurring, by Sunday afternoon the Iraqi resistance published another statement announcing an attack on another illegal US base in Erbil, northern Iraq.
The attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq near Haifa followed a successful operation against the Israeli port of Ashdod just two days before that, which followed two other operations against Haifa itself as well as drone attacks on the Israeli Karish gas rig.
All these military operations against the Zionist entity have one thing in common: strategically all these targets sit on the Mediterranean Sea.
Last month, the Iraqi resistance pledged a new phase in its operations against the Zionist entity and its American patrons, declaring that “more is to come” and in “solidarity with “our people in Gaza”.
The commander of Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada, Abu Ala’a al-Walai, one of the senior officials in the Hashd al-Sha’abi (Popular Mobilization Units), recently spoke about the beginning of a new phase and said “This stage includes preventing Zionist shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and disabling the ports of the Zionist regime”.
In response to the now almost daily attacks on the illegal US bases in Iraq and Syria by the Iraqi resistance as well as targeting vital Israeli targets, America’s military response has seen deadly airstrikes on buildings belonging to Harakat al-Nujaba and Kataib Hezbollah.
These are the two prominent anti-terror groups belonging to the Hashd al-Sha’abi, which is an integral part of the Iraqi National Armed Forces.
The Commander of the Hashd al-Sha’abi for the Central Euphrates Operations in Iraq, Major General Ali al-Hamdani on Sunday declared that “The Americans only understand the language of the force and will not leave Iraq through dialogue”.
As Washington continues to violate Iraqi sovereignty by attacking and killing members of its armed forces and continues to violate Yemeni sovereignty by attacking Yemeni military positions (as the US claims) or redecorating the sand in the desert, one thing is clear: both parties targeted are undeterred.
American and British warships are trying their best to prevent Ansarullah from attacking Israeli vessels or ships heading to the occupied Palestinian territories, but it is simply not working.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is now seeking to target the other side of the Israeli occupation’s waters in the Mediterranean, which explains the strikes on Haifa, Ashdod and the Israeli regime’s natural reserves in the Mediterranean Sea.
Ansarullah-led Yemeni military and Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi are with surgical precision targeting the Zionist entity’s naval and maritime interests, which the Israeli regime depends on for a significant amount of its trade.
Haifa Port itself (on the Mediterranean) is believed to handle up to 90 percent of vital commodities entering the occupied Palestinian territories.
These operations are causing notable damage to the Israeli economy amid a sizeable drop in shipping activity in the regime’s ports with Israeli officials speaking about workers being furloughed.
The threat posed to the regime’s economy, at the moment, is bigger in the port of Eilat (on the Red Sea), which has been targeted on various occasions by the Yemeni military in recent weeks, who have also imposed an embargo on ships docking at the Israeli occupied Palestinian ports.
As much as the US and its now “poodle” vassal, Britain, insist that the resistance operations from Yemen and Iraq have nothing to do with the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, the writing is on the wall.
Every statement put out by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq or the Yemeni armed forces mentions “our brothers in Gaza” and “our occupied land in Palestine”.
These resistance operations in solidarity with the oppressed people of Gaza, targeting the infrastructure of the illegitimate Zionist entity and American military assets in the region will continue unless three conditions are met.
An unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, humanitarian aid entering the besieged territory and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from the blockaded strip where the death toll now tops 26,500.
There is no coordination between the Yemeni military (Ansarullah) and the Hashd al-Sha’abi, this is simply strategic thinking by both sides, something Washington and Tel Aviv are lacking.
On October 8, when the Palestinian resistance launched an unprecedented operation, the United States lacked a coherent strategy for West Asia, choosing to focus on Russia and China instead.
More than 115 days later, as the ripple effects of the faith, determination, and power of the Axis of Resistance is slowly being digested in the White House, Washington’s strategy remains incoherent.
It has and can only resort to “precision strikes” as putting boots on the ground in Yemen or allowing those boots to leave their bases in Iraq will rubber stamp the end of Biden’s presidency.
It would be like Vietnam and Afghanistan put together but on steroids.
The attacks by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against the Israeli occupation and the American occupation will not only persist but expand as the genocidal war on Gaza rages on.
The Zionists will feel this in their ports, vital naval sites and trade in the Mediterranean for as long as their indiscriminate attacks against the women and children of Gaza continue.
Does Hamas need help in defending Gaza?
The Palestinian resistance doesn’t have the air defense systems to protect Palestinian women and children from Israeli attacks. But still, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups have been inflicting heavy losses on the regime’s military on ground zero.
Up to 80 percent of Hamas tunnels in Gaza are still intact despite months of Israeli attacks aimed at destroying them, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal, citing Israeli officials.
All that the Zionist regime has done is kill civilians and allow 2.3 million people to starve while the West, with the US in particular, has looked the other way.
That has prompted the resistance groups in the region to step up and help the oppressed Palestinians.
For Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi, Yemen’s Ansarullah, Lebanon’s Hezbollah or the Islamic Republic of Iran, support for Gaza and the people of Gaza is not a matter of public relations or goodwill. They consider it a moral and religious duty.
Wesam Bahrani is an Iraqi journalist and commentator.
‘Black Hawk Down’ For Biden in the Red Sea
By Dan McAdams | Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity | January 26, 2024
The breaking news that Ansar Allah (Houthi) fighters have fired on the USS Carney in the Red Sea today [Friday, January 26] underscores the shocking failure of the Biden Administration, which initiated airstrikes on the Houthis this month with no plan for “victory” beyond hoping that the mere presence of U.S. warships would intimidate them into surrendering.
Even a junior Pentagon or State Department analyst could have advised the Administration that, based on everything we understand about the Houthis and their successful defeat of Saudi Arabia (and, by proxy, DC), lobbing a few missiles in their general direction was not going to result in an ocean of white flags raising over Aden.
In other words, it was the kind of doomed operation that, had cooler (i.e. non-political) Pentagon heads prevailed, would never in a million years have been launched. There was simply no possibility of success and 100 percent probability of failure.
How did it all start? In response to the ongoing Israeli attack on Gaza (codified as “potential genocide” in today’s International Court for Justice ruling), Ansar Allah announced last month that they would not allow international shipping to service any commerce to or from Israeli ports. They judged the killing of more than 25,000 Palestinian civilians to be a “genocide” and cited obligations under international law to take steps to end the killing.
Whatever one’s view on the legality of the Houthi decision to interdict Israeli shipping in the Red Sea, the fact is by virtue of their unique geography they have the ability to do so. It is also a fact that the Houthis did not explicitly target U.S. or U.S.-flagged shipping unless it was headed to or from Israeli ports.
In short, it was not our fight. Until [Joe] Biden made it our fight.
On January 11, Biden announced that he was ordering the U.S. military to launch airstrikes against Yemen, but very soon it became clear that far from being intimidated into surrender, Biden’s move was just what the Houthis wanted: a David’s slingshot chance at Goliath.
As it turns out, the Bidens were a Goliath intent on sacrificing the U.S. standing in the world, military deterrence, U.S. economy, and even U.S. servicemembers in its blind support of Israel.
And, as any of these junior analysts (or seasoned analysts) could have predicted, the hits just keep coming for Biden.
Yesterday, the U.S. Navy attempted to escort two Maersk tankers—the Maersk Detroit and the Maersk Chesapeake—through the Red Sea loaded with weapons for Israel. This after nine rounds of U.S. airstrikes on the Houthis. The U.S. show of force backfired into an unprecedented and “Black Hawk Down” kind of moment where after several missiles were launched the Maersk lines reversed course followed by the U.S. Naval warships. It was a massive defeat for the notion of U.S. military superiority—but don’t hold your breath for it to be reported in the mainstream media.
So today the Houthis again fired on U.S. military ships in the Red Sea and have again scored a massive success for “the resistance,” which is a truly global movement against the albatross that the Biden Administration has taken on its shoulder.
Here is the main point: an ill-advised U.S. policy of airstrikes against the Houthis has been an enormous gift to them while in no way diminishing their ability to fulfil their mission. What will you do next, Joe Biden? They are immune to your bombs. They have no military-industrial-complex. They just shoot your ships. Are you going to launch a ground invasion? In an election year? Dead Americans in Yemen for Israel? Really?
Even the most comatose U.S. [House] members and senators are starting to wake up to the fact that Joe Biden—who seems unable to even speak English—is taking the country to war without any authorization.
Attacks against Biden’s forces in Iraq, Syria, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean will escalate. And he is backed into a corner. What’s next?
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Clash of Civilization, Iran Part II
By Jamal Kanj – Intifada-Palestine.com – January 14, 2011
Israel’s survival kit is: perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalize collective hate and finally playing victim.
Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. Absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist.
From its inception, the house of Zion has mastered exploiting adversarial powers to advance Israel’s cause. For instance, their influence over the Democratic Party in the US began with President Truman’s bid for 2nd term election in 1948.
Responding to strong opposition from Secretary of State General George Marshall and Department experts urging against recognition of Israel, President Truman replied: “I’m sorry gentlemen but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands [Jewish voters] who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of [voting] Arabs among my constituents”
Zionists influence over liberal American politics was matched with the doctrinal school of Conservative theoreticians aligning the Republican Party’s platform with Israel’s objectives. The Neoconservative Zionists, coined Zioncons, invented the “Clash of Civilization” concept to fight Israel’s wars. … continue
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