Britain will maintain sanctions to ensure war-affected Russians cannot receive aid
By Ahmed Adel | June 20, 2023
The UK has passed legislation that will allow sanctions against Russia to remain in effect until Moscow pays compensation to Ukraine, the British Foreign Office said on June 19. The British Foreign Office also stated that the European country’s law allows sanctioned Russians to transfer their frozen assets for Ukrainian reconstruction.
“The Government is taking powers to maintain Russian sanctions until compensation is paid to Ukraine and is introducing a route for frozen Russian assets to be donated for Ukrainian reconstruction, under new legislation announced by Foreign Secretary James Cleverly today,” the British Foreign Office announced.
In addition, the ministry pointed out that the UK will create a fund that will allow sanctioned Russians to transfer their frozen assets to the reconstruction of Ukraine.
“This will be a voluntary process whereby sanctioned individuals may apply for funds to be released for the express purpose of supporting Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction. There will be no coercion of individuals to encourage them to transfer funds, nor any offer of sanctions relief in return for making a donation,” the Office audaciously added, although it does highlight the British entitlement of wanting Russians to release their funds for a purpose but without guarantees.
On June 18, the Daily Mail reported that the UK government and Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, who owned the English Premier League football club Chelsea until 2022 when he was forced to sell it due to the British sanctions campaign against Russia, could not agree on the distribution of funds received from the sale of the club as the billionaire wanted the funds to be sent not only to Ukrainians but also to Russians affected by the conflict. The UK government and the European Commission opposed Abramovich’s desire to send funds to Russians.
At the time of the forced sale, Abramovich’s press office said he “wanted the proceeds to be transferred to a charitable foundation for the needs of the victims on both sides of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.”
This latest provocation by Britain comes as the country’s Ministry of Defence released a video on June 14 revealing the advanced long-range drones that will be sent to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The video shows several types of drones, including one firing a torpedo over water and another being catapulted from the deck of a vessel.
“We announced a £92m air defence package, to be provided through the second procurement round,” the video’s caption said.
Despite the publication of the video, the British authorities did not provide details about the equipment. However, it is speculated that autonomous aircraft with a range of more than 200 kilometres will be sent to Kiev. It is worth noting that the UK recently supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine with a range of over 250 kilometres.
Western countries imposed comprehensive sanctions on Russia after it started a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, and provided constant support packages to Kiev in the conflict. However, it has been their economies, especially the British, that have suffered from these sanctions.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was warned that the UK could be in recession next year as high inflation pushes interest rates to more than 5% before the next general election. With rising borrowing costs on mortgages and loans for millions of households, economists believe the Bank of England could be forced to drive Britain’s economy into a recession to deal with inflation.
Former IMF deputy director Mohamed El-Erian said the Bank of England would be forced to raise interest rates for longer, leading to a recession or near zero growth.
“The risk we now have, you put all that together – sticky inflation, the Bank having to go higher, borrowing costs going up – all that translates into a higher threat of stagflation. I use stag as shorthand for insufficient economic growth. It can be recession, it can be zero growth. This is not about abstract numbers; it’s about something that hits the poor particularly hard,” El-Erian said.
Yet, despite these significant economic problems, the UK establishment continues its centuries-long policy of opposing and challenging Russia, this time in the context of Ukraine. Already having imposed self-detrimental sanctions and funded Ukraine with billions of pounds, the UK will now roll out a major expansion to its cyber defence programme in Ukraine. It will be boosted by an injection of up to £25 million and a two-year expansion.
As demonstrated, London is concocting all sorts of methods, with endless money streams, to challenge Russia despite British citizens facing a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis. Not only does this prolong the war and suffering, but it also shows Britain’s obsession with challenging Russia, so much so that it cannot even tolerate Russians affected by the war being supported with the frozen funds of Russian billionaires.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Israeli raid in Jenin escalates into full-scale battle
One of the Israeli Apaches which launched airstrikes on Jenin, pictured firing flares over the West Bank city during a battle between the Israeli army and resistance fighters. 19 June, 2023. (Photo credit: AFP)
The Cradle | June 19, 2023
Israeli troops launched a massive raid into the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on the morning of 19 June, resulting in the death of five Palestinians and the injury of at least 66, Palestinian media outlets reported.
The four killed have been identified as 21-year-old Khaled Assasa, 21-year-old Qais Jabareen, Ahmad Daraghmeh, 19-year-old Qassam Sariya, and 15-year-old Ahmad Saqr.
The raid began as usual, with the Israeli army storming Jenin to make arrests and facing heavy gunfire from resistance fighters.
Confrontations escalated significantly after members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) West Bank-based Jenin Brigade managed to ambush Israeli troops and detonate explosive devices targeting their military vehicles. Members of the Jenin Brigade opened fire at the vehicles following the explosions.
The Jenin Brigade named the operation “Fury of the Free.”
Israeli media outlets confirmed that seven Israeli soldiers were injured in one of the blasts, with unconfirmed reports suggesting deaths among the troops.
In a brief statement, the Jenin Brigade said: “We still have more surprises … we warn the occupation against continuing their aggression.”
As violence continued to escalate, Israeli helicopters launched airstrikes on Jenin, targeting the West Bank in an aerial attack for the first time in over 20 years.
The airstrikes were launched in order to secure the evacuation of the Israeli soldiers wounded in the resistance’s explosive attack, Israeli media said. Resistance fighters reportedly attempted to target Israeli helicopters with gunfire.
According to Palestinian media reports, the wounded Israeli soldiers remain trapped within one of the vehicles targeted in the blast.
In another brief statement, the Jenin Brigade claimed that the Israeli army was attempting to withdraw from Jenin, but the resistance was obstructing their escape from the area.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted as saying, in response to the events in Jenin, that “the time has come” for Israel to launch a full-scale military operation against the resistance in the occupied West Bank, which has grown beyond unprecedented levels in the last two years.
“I will request an emergency meeting of the Security and Political Security Council,” Smotrich said.
For months, Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have been calling for a wide-scale West Bank operation to root out ‘terrorism’ in the area.
However, the military establishment has been mulling over the idea and is conflicted, as some believe that a cost of such an operation would be too high.
HHS is Still Wasting Money Fighting Online Covid “Disinformation”
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | June 17, 2023
Apparently, Covid discussions are still a thing worth cracking down on. That’s at least according to The Biden administration, which is injecting $500,000 into Texas Woman’s University as part of a grant program aimed at curbing COVID-19 “misinformation” and “disinformation” allegedly aimed at Hispanics, according to funding records reviewed by the Washington Examiner. The grant aims “to expand research on mitigating the effect of misinformation and disinformation” regarding “COVID-19 prevention and treatment initiatives among Hispanics.”
Timeline: Kicking off on May 10 and set to wrap up in April 2024, this grant is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s Food and Drug Administration’s portfolio. It’s part of Biden’s broader push to censor alleged disinformation by joining forces with social media platforms on content moderation – a move likened to “censorship” by some Republicans.
What GOP says: This funding allocation may prod GOP lawmakers to probe deeper into the Biden administration’s methods in countering certain types of speech. House Republicans, according to the Washington Examiner, are considering wielding the appropriations process as a tool to block federal agencies from pumping money into domestic initiatives tagged as combating “disinformation.”
What HHS did before: In 2021, HHS, spearheaded by Secretary Xavier Becerra, allegedly dabbled in misinformation tracking, by offering guidance to Twitter and Facebook on handling virus-related content. The US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy admitted in an August 2021 call with education groups, that the government was “working to combat misinformation in many ways, one being working with tech companies.”
Skeptical voices: Brian Harrison, a former HHS chief of staff under Trump and a current GOP Texas state House member, communicated his skepticism to the Washington Examiner: “I have no confidence this is anything more than Biden’s HHS spending money we don’t have on government censorship efforts.”
Inside the project: Texas Woman’s University’s venture consists of crafting a “social network analysis” to scrutinize “misinformation consumed by the Hispanic community.” It involves conducting focus groups, creating “an economic impact analysis of proposed informational strategies for Hispanics,” and establishing a “longitudinal misinformation/disinformation index.” The study, set in El Paso, Texas, is also sifting through social media content in both English and Spanish.
Deja vu?: The aforementioned “index” has set off alarm bells due to its echo of a tool from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which previously backed the Global Disinformation Index, a British entity that faced criticism for supposedly operating blacklists of conservative media outlets.
HHS’s stance: In response, HHS spokeswoman Anne Feldman said: “HHS does not censor speech.”
Europe is shielding Israel under guise of combating anti-Semitism, new report finds
By Nasim Ahmed | MEMO | June 16, 2023
The chilling repercussions of the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism have been revealed in a recent report by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC). Titled “Suppressing Palestinian Rights Advocacy through the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism”, the report by the independent Dutch-based organisation uncovered shocking examples of the IHRA’s weaponisation against critics of Israel and the suppression of free speech under the guise of combatting anti-Semitism.
Using dozens of case studies from across Europe, ELSC showed that the endorsement, adoption and implementation of the IHRA in the European Union, its member states and the UK, has led to widespread restrictions of the right of assembly and freedom of expression. Despite strong opposition and warning against its adoption by Jewish groups, experts on anti-Semitism, academics and activists, the controversial definition has been implemented by public and private bodies as if the IHRA is legally binding. Despite qualification by advocates of the IHRA that it is “non-legally binding”, a definition of anti-Semitism which conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish racism has been placed at the centre of regulatory frameworks across Europe.
Some of the shocking findings include the following: Advocates of Palestinian rights who are targeted using the IHRA suffer a range of unjust and harmful consequences, including loss of employment and reputational damage; advocates of Israel routinely weaponise the IHRA to intimidate and silence people defending Palestinian rights; allegations of anti-Semitism that invoke the IHRA within the documented cases uncovered by the ELSC found that they are overwhelmingly used to target Palestinians and Jewish people opposed to Israel’s brutal occupation.
In one of the many remarkable findings, ELSC discovered that, not only was there a failure to carry out a risk assessment prior to IHRA’s adoption, the EU appeared to lie about the checks it had conducted. When asked if the Commission had conducted a risk assessment of the implications of the IHRA on fundamental rights, the EU Commissioner on anti-Semitism, Katharina von Schnurbein, affirmed that an assessment of the consequences had indeed been carried out. “Yes, we assessed“, said Schnurbein in a tweet on 23 November 2022, in response to critics who accused the Commission of failing to carry out basic due diligence.
However, responding on 9 December 2022 to a Freedom of Information request, the European Commission acknowledged it “has not conducted ‘any fundamental rights assessment or scrutiny (…) into the human rights implications of its endorsement and/or promotion of the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism.” Details of the misleading information by the Commissioner on anti-Semitism were covered at length by the advocacy group, Law for Palestine.
Misinformation about risk assessment is just one of the many examples of underhanded practices revealed by the ELSC report. The European Commission also failed to address and reflect the diversity of positions regarding definitions of anti-Semitism. The EC not only ignored that the IHRA is highly controversial and contested, it completely ignored less controversial definitions of anti-Semitism such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism, and the Nexus Document. In contrast to the EU, the US has referenced other controversial definitions of anti-Semitism.
In sharp contrast to the IHRA definition, the Jerusalem Declaration states that, “Even if contentious, it is not anti-Semitic, in and of itself, to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid.” The Nexus Document is equally explicit. It states that “Paying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of anti-Semitism.”
The US also appears to favour a less politicised definition that is not centred on shielding Israel and the political ideology of Zionism. In detailing its plan to combat the rise of anti-Jewish racism, the White House opted for the following definition: “Anti-Semitism is a stereotypical and negative perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred of Jews” said the strategy document, without mentioning Israel once. “It is prejudice, bias, hostility, discrimination or violence against Jews for being Jews or Jewish institutions or property for being Jewish or perceived as Jewish. Anti-Semitism can manifest as a form of racial, religious, national origin, and/or ethnic discrimination, bias, or hatred; or, a combination thereof. However, anti-Semitism is not simply a form of prejudice or hate. It is also a pernicious conspiracy theory that often features myths about Jewish power and control.”
Questions were also raised over why the EU adopted a definition that had been discarded because of its threat to fundamental rights to free expression. In 2004-2005, the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) published a “Working Definition of Anti-Semitism”. This definition, according to the ELSC report, featured “contemporary examples of anti-Semitism”, including examples relating to the State of Israel. The examples were criticised due to its conflation between opposition to Israel and anti-Semitism. The definition was abandoned by the EUMC’s successor body, the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), which removed it from its website in 2013. In its explanation for discarding the IHRA, FRA explained that it had “never been viewed as a valid definition of anti-Semitism; that the Agency was not aware of any official EU definition of anti-Semitism; and that the document was removed in a clear-out of non-official documents.”
The most serious bad-faith attempt to mislead the public in order to roll out the IHRA is the claim that the definition is “non-legally binding”. Despite promoting the IHRA as “non-legally binding”, most of the EU Member States have endorsed the IHRA as the authoritative instrument for addressing anti-Semitism which, according to the ELSC, has given the definition centred on shielding Israel and Zionism “soft law power”. EU statements and policies through which the IHRA is being applied, is said to show that it has gained law like force and impact.
“Hard-core advocates of the IHRA always intended it to have binding legal status and force” said ELSC. “The ‘non-legally binding’ provision was only added to secure its adoption by the IHRA Plenary in May 2016. Efforts have been made since, in some Member States to introduce the IHRA as a basis for legislation.
The real-life impact has been devastating for critics of Israel. The IHRA has been implemented in the UK, Austria and Germany by public and private bodies in ways that have led to widespread infringement of the fundamental rights to freedom of expression and assembly, ELSC found. Advocates of Palestinian rights, who are targeted, are said to suffer a range of unjust and harmful consequences, including loss of employment and reputational damage. IHRA is often found to be weaponised by pro-Israel advocates to intimidate and silence those advocating for Palestinian rights.
The good news is that, when challenged in court, most of the allegations of anti-Semitism based on the IHRA are found to be unsubstantiated and thrown out. Though this is a silver lining, the adoption of the IHRA has created a perverse situation which undermines democracy and the principal of “innocent until proven guilty”. In this toxic culture, some sections of the population are having to go to court to protect basic freedoms, like the right to free speech. According to the ELSC report, even though most challenges to the implementation of the IHRA were successful, the disciplinary procedures and litigation resulting from false allegations of anti-Semitism have produced a “chilling effect” on the freedom of expression and assembly.
Kiev intends to kill as many Russians as possible – top Zelensky aide
RT | June 15, 2023
Ukraine currently has only one plan, which is a campaign to kill the maximum number of Russians, Mikhail Podoliak, an advisor to the chief of President Vladimir Zelensky’s office, said on the air during a telemarathon on Thursday.
“There is only one plan: the most brutal advance with the maximum killing of Russians on this route,” he said, noting that Kiev “can’t just stop somewhere and say ‘alright, let’s think and talk about something now.’“
“The only possible scenario for Ukraine is to reach its 1991 borders,” he said.
Back in May, Podoliak also proclaimed that his country hates Russia and those who represent it and vowed to “persecute” Russians “always and everywhere.” That followed comments by Kirill Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, who boasted that his agents had murdered Russian public figures and pledged that Kiev will “keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world.”
Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov revealed that Kiev had been instructed by its Western backers in the early days of the conflict to “kill as many Russians” as it could before surrendering.
“We asked, ‘can we have stingers?’” Reznikov told Foreign Policy magazine in an interview published on Tuesday. “We were told, ‘No, dig trenches and kill as many Russians as you can before it’s over.’”
The minister boasted that since then Ukraine’s forces have received a large number of Western weapons and heavy arms and stated that Kiev will also soon be equipped with F-16 fighter jets.
The West has continued to provide billions of dollars worth of military aid to Kiev, with the stated intention of helping Ukrainian forces score as many battlefield successes as possible before the conflict is eventually settled at the negotiating table.
Last month, however, US Senator Lindsey Graham hinted at Washington’s true intentions in continuing to fuel the conflict. During a meeting with Zelensky in Kiev, Graham expressed glee at the fact that “the Russians are dying” and said later in the meeting that the billions of dollars that the US has poured into Ukraine was “the best money we’ve ever spent.”
Israeli Soldiers Shoot Dead Palestinian Two-Year-Old
While Blinken tells AIPAC of Team Biden’s “iron clad” support for Israel
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 13, 2023
There would appear to be no limit to Israeli bestiality towards the Palestinians and likewise no limit to how much that brutality has been enabled by the positions taken by successive US governments and the national media. Indeed, the self-defined Jewish state, which ironically claims to be a democracy, is perhaps the leading human rights violator in all the world due to its officially condoned genocide directed against the Palestinian people and its bombing and killing of neighboring Syrians and Lebanese without providing any convincing evidence that it is being threatened by them.
That apartheid Israel is essentially a criminal state that blithely goes about killing and stealing from the original inhabitants of the Middle East region might well be accepted as substantially true by most observers. But even given all of that, there is sometimes a story that emerges that is so shocking and disturbing that it becomes difficult to contemplate why the rest of the world has not risen-up and demanded an end to Israeli atrocities.
One such story is the recent murder by Israeli soldiers of a two-year-old boy Mohammad al-Tamimi. Unfortunately, heavily armed Israelis illegally occupying the West Bank and killing Palestinian children is not a rare occurrence. Fully 27 children have suffered that fate in the past six months, including some children being killed by Israeli bombing and rockets in Gaza. And the stories are often the same, with the Israeli government claiming that there were “terrorist threats,” often deliberately contrived provocations that rapidly develop into shooting ranges with the unarmed Palestinians as targets.
In this case, Mohammad al-Tamini was with his father, Haytam al-Tamimi, and had just been buckled into the back seat of the family car to go on a short trip to visit an uncle in a nearby village to celebrate an aunt’s birthday. The al-Tamimis live in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, located twelve miles northwest of Ramallah, which passes for the capital of what fragments of land the Palestinians have been able to preserve as a symbol of their national identity. The Israelis de facto are occupiers of nearly all of the West Bank and have military outposts scattered through the region to protect the armed and illegal Jewish settlers who are constantly harassing the remaining Palestinians and destroying their crops to force them to emigrate. The remaining Palestinians in their villages and towns are constantly under siege and are subject to checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, and even murder at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces. One observer notes how the remaining Arab “communities are actually Palestinian enclaves that are prisons” with heavily armed 18 year old Israeli conscript soldiers free to run amok as they see fit. And when a Palestinian is killed, the Israeli soldiers know well that they will not in any way be punished. An Israeli peace group has calculated that between 2017 and 2021 a soldier who murdered a civilian faced only a 0.87% probability that he would be investigated and indicted. There were only 11 such indictments in those years and the punishments eventually meted out were slaps on the wrist.
On June 1st, Mohammad was the victim of a band of Israeli soldiers, who later claimed to be chasing a car from which shots had allegedly been fired at a nearby illegal Jewish settlement Neveh Tzuf. The problem with the tale is that no one heard any shots until the Israeli soldiers blocked the village entrance before arriving in the center of Nabi Saleh in their jeeps and starting shooting in all directions. They then settled in for a few hours to engage in a bit of tormenting of the local residents by beating them and even firing at them at close range. Haytam Tamimi and his son Muhammad were among five Palestinians injured during the raid.
Seated in their vehicle, Mohammad was shot through the head and his father was wounded in the shoulder, apparently by fire from a sniper. Taken to a hospital, Mohammad lingered for four days before dying on Monday June 5th. His body was returned to his village for burial, which took place on the following day, but even then the Israelis chose not to avoid interfering in what was a tragic ceremony. Before and during the funeral, the Israeli military had surrounded the village and later that afternoon, while mourners were gathered at the al-Tamimi grandparents’ home, they entered into it for the third time since Mohammad was shot, beating and shooting villagers, injuring six people. One man sustained a gunshot wound in the pelvis, with the bullet entering his intestines. A woman was struck in her face with a rifle butt while another mourner was hit in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Ironically, on same day that Mohammad died the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at its annual policy summit in Washington. AIPAC, it might be observed, exists to promote Israeli interests, which should make it subject to registry under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) but no one in the White House seems interested in enforcing that particular law or any other existing legislation pertaining to secret nuclear arsenals when Israel is involved. The last president who tried to register AIPAC’s predecessor organization the American Zionist Council was John F. Kennedy, and consider what happened to him possibly as a result.
Blinken, is himself a Jew and an avowed Zionist in an Administration awash with Jews and Zionists to include President Joe Biden, a supermarket Catholic, who calls himself a Zionist and effectively swears fealty to the Jewish state. Blinken is not really very good at blaming Israel for anything and when he is with a hardline Jewish gathering like the AIPAC Summit he is fully energized while he is making the audience feel good about its love for Israel. He enthused how the US-Israel partnership “touches on every aspect of our lives, from security to business, from energy to public health. And the depth and breadth of that partnership between our governments are matched only by the strength of the ties between our peoples. This partnership between the United States and Israel is indispensable.”
Blinken chose not to acknowledge that the “indispensable ties” between the US and the Jewish state is attributable to the large scale corruption of America’s political system by Israel and its Lobby to achieve such a status. And inevitably, Blinken made sure his friends in AIPAC understood that the Biden Administration sees the “blame” for the unrest in the Middle East just as does the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran and Palestinian “terrorists” are largely at fault and Israel is the perpetual victim. He recalled how “Over the past several years, we’ve seen a rising tide of horrific violence that’s tragically and senselessly resulted in the loss of life of scores of civilians on both sides. That violence must end; its perpetrators must face equal justice under the law. The recent acts of terrorism – including nearly 1,000 rocket attacks launched toward Israel over just three days, some of them targeting Jerusalem – demonstrate the daily threat under which Israelis are forced to live. The fatal event at the border with Egypt – which resulted in the deaths of three Israeli soldiers – is another tragic reminder of these daily dangers.”
Blinken did not seem interested in the dead Palestinian children nor in the murder of Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli soldiers back in May 2022. He is more enthusiastic when he is telling AIPAC how much US Treasury money and other goodies are flowing to a wealthy Israel from the American taxpayer, describing how “Now, we have to start from this. The US-Israel relationship is underwritten by the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security. That commitment is non-negotiable; it is ironclad. We are – we are providing $3.3 billion in foreign military financing to Israel each year. On top of that, Israel receives $500 million in funding for missile defense. Tens of millions more for new counter-drone and anti-tunneling technologies. That is in keeping with the 2016 memorandum of understanding negotiated by the Obama-Biden administration – and it is more than at any point in the history of our relationship. We’re also delivering an additional $1 billion in funding to replenish supplies for Israel’s Iron Dome, the missile defense system that we developed together and that has saved countless lives. All of this – all of this has been secured in partnership with our Congress, with bipartisan support. We’re also expanding our joint military exercises that improve how our forces work together seamlessly. This year, we have more joint exercises scheduled than at any point in our history. We’re also conducting joint research and development on advanced military capabilities, working together on cutting-edge defense systems, including Israel’s new laser-focused Iron Beam. This robust support continues to be critical in [my emphasis] maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, buttressing its ability to defend itself, and to advancing our national interests. America is more secure when Israel is strong.” [My emphasis]
It is interesting how Blinken concludes his argument supporting throwing bushels of money to Israel based on serving an American “national interest” and making us “more secure,” which is a complete lie, similar to what is being promoted to explain why we are in Ukraine. Maybe the Administration might consider some new talking points as the lies are getting ever more preposterous and the deficit spending of trillions of dollars has reached the point of no return. Blinken also lies big time when he attempts to resurrect the totally dead two state solution to Israel-Palestine, saying “Israel was founded — our partnership was built — on democratic values which include equal access by all people to their rights. And a two-state solution is vital to preserving Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Blinken should perhaps be someday reincarnated as a Palestinian who has just lost his livelihood and home to an “equal access” Jewish settler and who every day experiences the Israeli organized increasing state violence that is directed against him. That might provide a different perspective. And it is interesting to note that the threat to Blinken’s imaginary two-state solution is also framed as coming from the Palestinians rather than from Israel. He denounced in his speech to AIPAC “any actions taken by any party that undermine the prospects of a two-state solution. That includes acts of terrorism, payments to terrorists in prison, violence against civilians, incitement to violence.” Take note that bombing and shooting children is not included, which is an Israeli speciality.
And, by the way Mr. Blinken, Israel was not founded on “democratic values.” It engaged in a massive program of ethnic cleansing that defined its creation — the Nakba for Palestinians, which killed thousands and drove at least 650,000 civilians from their homes. For the first 19 years of Israel’s existence, its Arab “citizens” were ruled under martial law and since then Palestinians have been legally discriminated against with Jewish supremacy and entitlement serving as the defining characteristics of the state.
Interestingly, in contrast to Blinken and Biden, at least one US Senator appears to have a conscience regarding dead people and he is surprisingly enough a Democrat! Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on the Joe Biden administration to “publicly release its findings” into the shooting death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Van Hollen believes that a report compiled by the US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority shortly after the fact provides important information about the “the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in that operation as well as other IDF units operating in the West Bank.” He commented “I strongly believe that its public release is vital to ensuring transparency and accountability in the shooting death of American citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and to avoiding future preventable and wrongful deaths – goals we should all support.” Van Hollen has been denied access to the classified State Department report over the past eleven months, which has been attributed to Biden Administration desire to block any demands for accountability on the part of Israel.
Van Hollen obviously was not briefed on the fact that Israel has a White House approved license to kill Americans and just about anyone else due to its “chosen” status. He should check out what happened to the death by Israeli army bulldozer of Rachel Corrie in 2003 and to the 34 sailors murdered and another 172 wounded by an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8th, 1967. When the Liberty was struggling to stay afloat President Lyndon Johnson ordered a cover-up which has led to Washington de facto taking orders from Tel Aviv and paying what amounts to an annual tribute to Israel as outlined in some detail by Blinken in his AIPAC speech. So, there you have it. We have on one hand a militarized ethno-religious state that rules over a suppressed minority with terror and killing that is being coddled by both US Republican and Democratic administrations because of Jewish power and, more to the point, the corruption obtainable by money and knowing how to use it for political advantage.
Killing a two-year-old little boy sitting in a car with his father is only the most recent of Israel’s war and human rights crimes, but it is particularly heinous and no one in the White House or State Department dares say squat. The murders in Palestine and the fantasy denial of Israeli culpability for anything by Blinken and Biden as well as by Donald Trump when he was in office speak for themselves. Who really rules the United States? What kind of monsters have we become under neocon/Zionist control? Is the bell that is tolling ringing for the demise of us as a nation? Ask about all those things now, because when Biden’s War on Antisemitism really goes into high gear one will likely be facing a jail sentence just for daring to pose those questions.
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.
Permanent Apartheid in Palestine: This is why Israel wants to reactivate E1 Plan
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2023
The Israeli government is at it again, actively discussing the construction of thousands of illegal settlement units as part of a massive settlement expansion scheme known as E1.
Though Israeli construction in the East Jerusalem area has supposedly been halted under international pressure, the Israeli government has found ways to keep the plan alive.
It did so through constant expansion of the various settlements in the name of ‘natural expansion’, confiscation of Palestinian land and the ruthless yet routine demolition of Palestinian homes.
But why does Washington, Israel’s main defender and benefactor, oppose, at least verbally, the construction in E1, while turning a blind eye to illegal construction throughout the West Bank?
The answer lies in the fact that E1 will further expand the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, minimise any Palestinian demographic presence in the city (from the current 42 per cent to about 20 per cent), and prejudice any political solution that includes East Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem is a Palestinian city, occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war. It is recognized by the United Nations and international law as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel should have neither legal rights nor jurisdiction there.
Washington, which rarely cares about the rights of Palestinians, is concerned that, without East Jerusalem as part of the political equation, any discussion of a ‘two-state solution’ will become forever obsolete.
In other words, the US is more worried about the political, not territorial consequences of the Israeli decision. Indeed, the US’s entire political program in Palestine and Israel is situated within the two-state solution template. Without it, Washington’s role would cease to serve any purpose.
This is precisely why US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, criticized Israeli settlements during his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on 5 June.
Though he covered the habitual US commitment to Israel’s security, describing it as “non-negotiable” and “ironclad”, he also warned against “any move toward annexation of the West Bank … disruption of the historic status quo at holy sites (and) the continuing demolitions of homes.”
These steps, and more, will “damage prospects for two states”, the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Israel, on the other hand, is neither interested in a two-state, one-state nor any ‘solution’ to its military occupation and apartheid in Palestine. Instead, Tel Aviv is working towards a specific end, a formula of permanent domination, one that would satisfy its quest for ‘security’, demographic superiority and ‘defensible’ borders.
It matters little that Israel’s vision for its own border lines is largely inconsistent with international law. All that matters to the current, in fact, all Israeli governments, are the ‘national interests’ of the country’s Jewish population, whose future has been linked to the crushing of political aspirations and civil rights of the country’s native Arab, Palestinian inhabitants.
Jerusalem’s particular significance stems from two factors: one, its historical, spiritual, economic and administrative centrality to all Palestinians and, two, the fact that it has been the Holy Grail of Israel’s settler colonialism in Palestine for the last 75 years.
A quick look at the map of Occupied East Jerusalem is enough to explain Israel’s ultimate motive in the Palestinian city: Maximum land with an absolute Jewish majority.
For this to take place, much work has to be done, namely ensuring the territorial continuity between the massive illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem.
Israel’s motives are not a secret. A long report by the Zionist Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs champions and illustrates Tel Aviv’s objectives in detail. The report warns against allowing “security and urban discontinuity between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, or the reversion of Jerusalem to a border-town status … that would preclude the city’s eastward development.”
The reference to ‘eastward development’ is particularly dangerous, as many illegal Jewish settlements have purposely been planted in various parts of the West Bank, all the way to the Jordan Valley for the sole purpose of linking them all up, thus dividing the West Bank into two main regions, south and north.
Considering the current administration and ‘security’ divisions of the Occupied West Bank, a major territorial division will deny Palestinians any sense of physical continuity, let alone statehood. In other words, apartheid will become permanent and, from Israel’s perspective, also sustainable.
As for the westward expansion, connecting Ma’ale Adumim to the so-called “metropolitan Jerusalem” through construction in E1 will help Israel resolve a fundamental component of its expansionist strategy. According to the Zionist Jerusalem Centre, such a merger will “incorporate both settlement and security as two vital, complementary components of Israel’s national interest.”
And, wherever there is Israeli construction in Occupied Palestine, there is always the destruction of Palestinian properties and confiscation of land.
According to the European Union Office in Palestine, in 2022, 28,208 illegal settlement units “were advanced” in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, compared to 22,030 in 2021. A higher number is expected in 2023.
As for Palestinian home demolition, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) paints a grim picture: in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 290 Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were demolished or seized. This represents an increase of 46 per cent, compared to the same period of the previous year.
East Jerusalem has had a major share of this destruction, specifically 95 homes and other structures between 1 January and 28 March, according to the World Council of Churches. The outcome has been the displacement of 149 Palestinians. Among them, 88 children have been rendered homeless.
The price of Israel’s major plans in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is not just humanitarian. It is essentially political, aimed at cutting off Palestinian communities from one another, isolating Jerusalem completely, and ensuring a Jewish demographic majority for generations to come.
Though Secretary Blinken tries to emphasise the danger of such actions to the two-state solution, the real danger lies in the fact that such measures threaten the very fabric of Palestinian society and the political future of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s quest to reactivate its E1 plan requires not just mere condemnation, but tangible and decisive action, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government is more unhinged than ever before.
Tel Aviv to Announce Plans For Thousands of New Settlement Units in West Bank
By Connor Freeman | Libertarian Institute | June 12, 2023
Israel has informed the White House that it intends to announce the planning and building of thousands of new settlement units in the occupied West Bank later this month, according to US and Israeli officials speaking to Axios. One of the sources told the outlet, at a minimum, the plan includes 4,000 new housing units being built in existing West Bank settlements.
The Joe Biden administration is ostensibly opposed to these moves as the settlements are seen as undermining prospects for a two-state solution in Palestine. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition includes extremist settlers dead set on substantial colonial expansion, eyeing annexation of the West Bank, and this has not diminished US support.
According to the report, the White House wants Tel Aviv to either cancel its plans or at least tone down the announcement to draw as little attention as possible. This seems unlikely even though the US provides almost $4 billion per year to Israel in military aid.
Jewish only colonies, or settlements, which continue to be built inside these territories – militarily occupied for almost sixty years – are illegal per international law. This is a view shared by most of the world community, including in Middle Eastern capital cities like Riyadh where Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently urged Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers to normalize with the Israeli apartheid state.
The Israeli government is also facing criticism from its supporters for temporarily shelving a meeting to discuss a plan for settlement expansion in the West Bank’s E1 area. Located between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, the area is highly sensitive. If a Jewish-only settlement is built there it would remove any remaining territorial contiguity between the northern and southern West Bank. Thus, these additional “facts on the ground” would make a future Palestinian state even more unviable.
On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist leader of the Religious Zionism party, vowed “we will have big news for the settlements in the West Bank imminently.” Smotrich holds sweeping powers over the West Bank including the approval of new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes.
2022 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, according to the UN. Since taking power last December, the current regime in Israel has waged a brutal bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip which murdered 33 people, while Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 119 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem so far this year.
Muhammad Tamimi, a two-year old Palestinian boy from the Nabi Saleh village in the West Bank, succumbed to his wounds last Monday after he was shot in the head by the Israeli army.
Saudis snub US push on Tel Aviv ties, oil prices, Syria during Blinken’s high-profile visit
Press TV – June 8, 2023
Saudi officials have snubbed US Secretary of State’s latest push for the Kingdom’s normalization of relations with the Israeli regime and his bid to win further concessions on oil prices and Riyadh’s recent resumption of ties with Syria and Iran during his high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.
Speaking in a news conference alongside Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Riyadh on Thursday, the visiting Antony Blinken reiterated that Washington will continue to play an integral role in expanding normalization between the Tel Aviv regime and Saudi Arabia.
Blinken, who was in the kingdom as part of a US push to defuse rows that have touched on oil prices, and Riyadh’s opening to Iran, further insisted that normalizing relations between Israeli regime and its neighbors was a priority for Washington.
The Saudi foreign minister, however, rebuffed his American counterpart, saying that the kingdom believes “normalization of ties with Israel will have limited benefit without a pathway to peace for the Palestinians.”
“The Palestinian issue was and remains the central issue for Arab countries, and it is at the top of the kingdom’s priorities,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had also underlined during the Arab League summit in Jeddah on May 19.
“We will not delay in providing assistance to the Palestinian people in recovering their lands, restoring their legitimate rights and establishing an independent state on the 1967 borders with East al-Quds as its capital,” he further noted at the time.
Blinken also reiterated on Thursday that Washington will not normalize relations with Syria and does not support other nation’s normalization of ties with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
For his part, Prince Faisal defended the landmark decision to lift Syria’s Arab League suspension, which came shortly after the start of the country’s foreign-sponsored conflict 12 years ago.
“Syria made very clear commitments to address concerns of the international community,” the chief Saudi diplomat said.
“We have differences of opinion but we’re working on finding a mechanism for us to be able to work together,” the Saudi foreign minister also pointed out during the press conference with the US secretary of state.
The Saudi foreign minister also highlighted that China and Saudi Arabia are close and strategic allies and have been increasing cooperation in the energy and financial sectors, and that “cooperation is likely to grow.”
Saudi ties with US, China not a ‘Zero-sum game’
He said Saudi Arabia’s ties with the United States and China were not a “zero-sum game.”
“I don’t ascribe to this zero-sum game,” Prince Faisal said in Riyadh. “We are all capable of having multiple partnerships and multiple engagements and the US does the same in many instances.
“So I’m not caught up in this really negative view of this. I think we can actually build a partnership that crosses these borders,” the top Saudi diplomat said.
Riyadh’s strengthening its commercial and security ties with Beijing comes as US influence wanes in the Middle East region.
Blinken was the second top US official to visit Saudi Arabia in less than a month, following a May 7 trip by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
However, Blinken’s meetings with bin Salman and Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers were relegated to the inside pages of Al-Watan and Okaz, the two major newspapers in Saudi Arabia.
Blinken and the crown prince had “open, candid” talks for an hour and 40 minutes, a US official said, covering topics including the conflict in neighboring Yemen, the war in Sudan, Israel, and human rights.
Riyadh has also leveraged its growing relationships with Russia and China as the Biden administration has pushed back against some Saudi demands including lifting restrictions on arms sales and help with sensitive high-tech industries.
Riyadh has clashed repeatedly with US President Joe Biden on its supply of crude oil to global markets, its willingness to partner with Russia in OPEC+ and its decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Iran in a deal brokered by China.
Israel displaces more Palestinian families in occupied Jerusalem
MEMO | June 7, 2023
The Israeli occupation authorities demolished several Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday, displacing three extended families, Anadolu has reported.
Eyewitnesses told the news agency that Israeli police officers accompanied the team from the Jerusalem municipality that demolished the house owned by the Totah family in Wadi Al-Juz. The house was built 24 years ago. Yesterday’s demolition was the fourth for this family; three other homes were demolished in March because they didn’t have building licences. A stable near the house was also demolished.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation authorities forced the Burkan, Nassar and Al-Tawil families to demolish their own homes, which consisted of five apartments in Silwan’s Wadi Qaddoum. The families either had to demolish their homes or pay large fines to have the municipality do it. At least 30 people were rendered homeless by the demolitions, including children.
Earlier this week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that the Israeli occupation authorities have demolished, forced local people to demolish or seized 290 Palestinian-owned structures across the West Bank and Jerusalem in the first quarter of 2023.
“All but 19 of the structures were targeted for lacking building permits, which are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain,” explained OCHA. “As a result, 413 people, including 194 children, were displaced, and the livelihoods or access to services of over 11,000 others were affected.”
OCHA added that, “The number of structures targeted in the first quarter of 2023 has increased by 46 per cent compared with the same period in 2022, which already saw the highest number of demolitions recorded in the West Bank and Jerusalem since 2016.”
Israel simulates Iran war after Tehran cleared of nuclear allegations
The Cradle | June 5, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renewed his threats of military action against Iran and its nuclear facilities on 4 June while holding an underground mock assessment with the security cabinet in coordination with Israel’s ongoing military drill, dubbed Firm Hand.
The security cabinet meeting, held in a military command bunker in Tel Aviv, aims to “simulate decision-making by the political echelon during a potential multi-front war,” Times of Israel reported.
“We are committed to acting against Iran’s nuclear program, against missile attacks on Israel, and the possibility of these fronts joining up,” Netanyahu said in a video statement from the bunker.
“The reality in our region is changing rapidly. We are not stagnating. We are adjusting our war doctrine and our options of action in accordance with these changes, in accordance with our goals which do not change,” the prime minister said.
He went on to say that Israel is confident that “we can handle any threat on our own,” slamming efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Netanyahu’s comments come just days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) decided to shut down one of its major probes into Iran’s nuclear program, ruling that near-weapons grade uranium found in Iran was merely residual and cannot be used to build a nuclear bomb.
The IAEA’s decision has left Israel “on edge,” an unnamed official told Israeli media last week. The Israeli security cabinet meeting also comes as reports have been suggesting that Washington may be looking to restart nuclear talks.
In August last year, a deal was close to materializing, however, an Israeli pressure campaign and anti-Iran protests stalled efforts once again.
The ongoing drill program began at the end of last month, and aims to simulate the type of conflict which Israel has been concerned most about lately, a ‘multi-front war.’
These concerns were exacerbated in Israeli media in the past two days, after a lone Egyptian officer infiltrated Israel through the border and carried out a rare and daring operation, killing three Israeli soldiers.
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Fanatical Followers of the Covid Regime: A Jim Jones-Style Cult?
By Professor Roger Watson and Dr. Niall McCrae | The Daily Sceptic | November 15, 2021
As scholars at leading British universities over recent decades, we witnessed the replacement of critical thinking and debate by narrative: facts are discrimination and scientific method is imperialism; truth, instead, is derived from ‘progressive’ values. This educational trend may be a major contributory factor to the ease in which society has been inculcated to the Covid ‘new normal’ of masking, testing, and repeated doses of vaccines for a disease of similar risk to severe influenza.
One doesn’t need much critical reasoning to observe the flawed logic of some vaccination enthusiasts, such as people who respond to experiencing any side effects, however debilitating, by saying “at least I know it’s working”, or, after contracting the disease despite their promised inoculation (over 90% effective, according to initial drug company claims), “I’d have been worse off without the jab.” … continue
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Aletho News- EU Council Advances Chat Control 2.0 Scanning Proposal
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- ‘Grave, alarming’: Iran mission on Trump’s UNGA ‘annihilation’ threats
- Najaf airport to reopen to Iranian flights within 24 hours: Ambassador
- From ‘How Will This End For Iran’ to ‘When America Walks Away’: A tale of two Economist covers
- Tehran blasts ‘baseless’ speculation linking Iran to alleged bomb plot at UK air base
- The Rise And… Rise Of ‘Color Revolutions’
- The Coming GOP Bloodbath?
- Arctic Scare Stories Melt Away
- If Americans Knew
- Netanyahu Asked UAE Leader to Deny Report on Oct. 7 Warning in Secret Visit, Sources Say
- CNN Chief Int’l Correspondent Clarissa Ward on Journalists in Gaza
- Democratic Party Consultants Surround Troy Jackson with Pro-Israel Donors
- Christian Leader Responds To Netanyahu’s Claims Regarding Palestinian Christians
- In Gaza, ‘Whoever Survives the Bombing Won’t Survive the Rubble’
- Israel kills more Palestinians, amid push to resettle Gaza – Daily Update
- Israel forces Gazans to live in constant peril – Daily Update
- Deconstructing Netanyahu’s pants-on-fire UN rant – Daily Update
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
