US aid is tied to Palestinian acquiescence to the two-state illusion
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 30, 2021
The US has reversed one aspect of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in Palestine; humanitarian aid will be resumed with a $15 million grant for vulnerable Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. “Our engagements all have the same aim: to build support for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the US Representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, declared. Given that Washington used to give $350 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) before Trump stopped the support in 2018, this is a very limited “engagement”.
And it’s very selective support. Moreover, it comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is opposing the Palestinian Authority’s recourse to the International Criminal Court for justice over Israel’s war crimes. Such crimes, and the context of occupation in which they are carried out, contribute to humanitarian aid for the Palestinian being a necessity.
More importantly, humanitarian aid remains tied to the two-state compromise. Now that the US has returned to international consensus over the defunct paradigm, restoring humanitarian aid may be considered the next, logical step, only there is nothing logical about pursuing a strand of diplomacy that spells loss unless it results in a gain for Israel.
PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh welcomed the resumption of humanitarian aid as “an important step in the right direction.” However, Palestinians still have no political direction and the PA is merely speaking about its standing in the diplomatic arena. Following restored humanitarian aid, the next step will most likely be renewed diplomatic relations. The PA will then feed upon the illusion that it is an important negotiating partner. Perhaps it is, in terms of “negotiating” the sell-out of what remains of Palestine to the Zionist colonial project.
For ordinary Palestinians, of course, it is a different story. The resumption of humanitarian aid within the context of the two-state compromise only sustains Israeli colonialism, while allowing the Palestinian people the necessary means for daily survival. Resuming the two-state cycle of humanitarian aid in return for acquiescence to the two-state illusion is not a better option than the so-called “deal of the century”. Both have generated loss, and the PA is merely favouring one form of loss over another.
To what extent can such a move be welcomed? Humanitarian aid to promote peace is a recipe for failure, given its reinforcement of the power dynamic bolstered by the billions of dollars that Israel gets each year from the US. It would be understandable if the PA spoke of humanitarian aid in terms of alleviation, but not as an “important step in the right direction” when Israel is not facing any punitive measures for advancing its illegal settlement expansion, for example.
It is to be expected that the US selectively lauds its meager support for Palestine, especially when, in contrast to the Trump administration, US President Joe Biden is yet to face significant scrutiny. For the PA to emulate the US rhetoric, however, is a different story. It seems as if the Ramallah authority is far more interested in asserting its earlier and premature, overtures to Biden even before the new foreign policy was revealed, despite the fact that the politics of humanitarian aid are a mere convenience for the international community in its process of aiding Israel to colonise what is left of Palestine.
FBI Prepares Massive TV and Movie Propaganda Blitz to Rehabilitate Its Image and Viciously Smear Its Political Targets
By Eric Striker | National Justice | March 27, 2021
It is broadly assumed that TV and movie production in the United States is generally free of government meddling, but this is not true in the case of America’s secret police.
A little known law passed in 1954 at the urging of then FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover makes it illegal to display the FBI seal, the FBI initials, and the words “Federal Bureau of Investigation” in commercial popular culture without expressed permission from the Bureau’s propaganda office, the Investigative Publicity and Public Affairs Unit (IPPAU).
In order to obtain permission to portray the FBI on film, writers and producers must give propaganda agents full veto power over their content.
A cache of documents obtained in 2017 by journalists under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) found that the FBI uses this power liberally to sanitize its image. Various other federal agencies like the CIA and ICE do not have this power.
In 2010 terrorism thriller Unthinkable, the IPPAU forced producers to cut a scene showing FBI and CIA agents torturing a man together. In the “revised” version, the CIA agent still tortures the man, but laughably, the FBI agent present protests against the action the entire time, even citing the Geneva Convention as reason for refusing to participate.
The FBI sends “advisors” to rewrite scripts in all productions about them, often cutting out instances of them violating people’s civil rights, talking down to local cops, or engaging in various heinous activities. The result is preferential media treatment most law enforcement groups do not enjoy: the popular portrayal of every single FBI agent as a hero saving the world while we sleep without ever needing to break any rules is deliberately constructed fantasy.
The Trump-era and the Coming Propaganda Offensive
The thuggish and corrupt behavior of the FBI after the 2016 election has, naturally, caused it to suffer an enormous credibility crisis that is only getting worse.
In an attempt to mitigate this, then FBI Director James Comey solicited Jewish television mogul Dick Wolf to create a series of programs to help manufacture public opinion in their favor.
In an interview on the 2017 reality TV show in question, Inside The FBI: New York, Wolf told reporters: “(Comey) feels strongly that this type of positive programming about the Bureau will help educate people about the multitude of areas the Bureau covers and the diversity of its agents and operations. The opportunity to work together was too good to resist.”
The show was co-produced by special agent Anne C. Beagan, who in her capacity as an IPPAU operative went on to supervise Wolf’s fictionalized FBI crime drama, FBI , which began airing in 2018, as well as its spinoff FBI: Most Wanted which began in January 2020.
As if three FBI public relations projects masquerading as TV shows weren’t enough, CBS announced this week that yet another spinoff is in the works: FBI: International.
These shows were all greenlit for new seasons in 2021-2022, meaning that audiences will be inundated without pause with realistic looking fiction glorifying federal agents.
Agent Beagan, who retired last year after a decade of covertly and overtly influencing the media, has also founded her own production company, Anne Beagan Productions, which promises to help create scores of new FBI themed shows and films.
Inverting Reality Through Hyperreality
In FBI, by far the most popular in the young franchise, comical narratives are spun showing FBI agents thwarting villainized portrayals of, you guessed it, white men. “White supremacists” and far-right boogeymen are the most recurring bad guys in the series.
In case you thought the IPPAU would intervene out of inter-agency solidarity, multiple episodes of FBI show an ethnic stew of female-led enlightened agents checking the excesses of caricatured Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, who are shown as a gang of ignorant, racist, murderous thugs out to hurt brown people.
In FBI’s pilot, a bomb goes off in a non-white neighborhood, which investigators initially believe to be part of a gang war between blacks and MS-13. As the story progresses, shrewd agents discover that the culprit is a suit and tie paleo-conservative who planted the bombs in a conspiracy to frame non-whites as violent and dangerous.
In “Crossfire,” a white veteran from Staten Island brainwashes a young Somali Muslim into helping him assassinate state officials. “This Land Is Your Land” features militia members working with a Russian to create biological weapons.
ICE gets special interest. In “Most Wanted,” a federal deportation officer is shown massacring his family and then going on the run. Season 2’s “American Dreams” features a white supremacist hijacking a school bus, with a side plot featuring ICE racially profiling an FBI agent’s daughter and trying to deport her.
While critics have given the show mixed ratings, it is popular with liberal audiences, garnering 8-10 million views per episode.
FBI, in conjunction with mass media, undoubtedly plays a role in manipulating public perception, particularly in Blue America. Last February, 47% of Democrats said “white nationalists” were America’s number one national security threat, compared with just 3% of Republicans and 29% of the population overall.
In a May 2019 survey, only 48% of Republicans said the FBI was doing a good job, with 28% rating them poorly. This number has probably eroded further following the selective and mass prosecution of Capitol protesters compared to the total lack of consequences for murderous violent Antifa rioters over the summer.
The FBI, Hollywood and television corporations seem to think the solution to this is to keep doing exactly what has made them such a polarizing institution while drowning the country with their egoistic sense of themselves.
They are vicious and cowardly tyrants. When this dark moment in America is finally over, they will be categorized alongside the KGB and Stasi, where they belong.
Israel detains 3 prominent Hamas leaders in West Bank
MEMO | March 26, 2021
The Israeli army detained three prominent Hamas leaders the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that an Israeli soldier detained Hatem Qaffeisha, 58, a top Hamas leader in Hebron and a Palestinian lawmaker.
Former Local Governance Minister Isa Al-Jabari, 55, and top Hamas figure Mazen Al-Natsha, 49, were also detained.
The three figures have been jailed several times by the Israeli army.
Hamas has warned of Israeli plans to stage a mass arrest campaign against its members ahead of the Palestinian elections slated for May.
In February, key Hamas members were detained including Mustafa Al-Shannar, Adnan Asfour, Yaser Mansour, Khalid El-Haj, Abdel-Basit El-Haj, Omar Al-Hanbali and Faze’ Sawafteh.
Hamas says the Israeli authorities aim to disrupt the Palestinian elections and affect the results.
Hamas also accused the Israeli authorities of threatening its members with imprisonment if they run in the upcoming elections.
Palestinians are scheduled to vote in the legislative elections on 22 May, presidential polls are to be held on 31 July and the National Council elections on 31 August.
The last legislative elections were held in 2006, with Hamas coming out on top.
The Nakba of Sheikh Jarrah: How Israel uses ‘the law’ to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | March 23, 2021
A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on 19 March during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, this news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where the shooting and killing of unarmed protesters is part of the daily reality. That reality, though, is part of a wider, more sinister development.
Since right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced in September 2019 his intention to formally and illegally annex nearly a third of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, tensions have remained high. The killing of Hanaysha is only the tip of the iceberg. In occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a massive battle is already underway. On one side, Israeli soldiers, army bulldozers, and illegal armed Jewish settlers are carrying out daily missions to evict Palestinian families, displace farmers, burn orchards, demolish homes and confiscate land. On the other side, Palestinian civilians, often unorganised, unprotected and leaderless, are fighting back.
The territorial boundaries of this battle are largely located in occupied East Jerusalem and in so-called “Area C” of the West Bank — which covers nearly 60 per cent of the total area of the occupied territory — which is under complete and direct Israeli military control. No other place represents the perfect microcosm of this uneven war than the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem.
On 10 March, fourteen Palestinian and Arab organisations issued a “joint urgent appeal to the United Nations Special Procedures on forced evictions in East Jerusalem” to stop the Israeli evictions in the area. Successive decisions by Israeli courts have paved the way for the Israeli army and police to evict fifteen Palestinian families — 37 households of around 195 people — in the Karm Al-Ja’ouni area in Sheikh Jarrah as well as Batn Al-Hawa neighbourhood in the town of Silwan.
These imminent evictions are not the first, nor will they be the last. Israel occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem in June 1967 and formally, though illegally, annexed it in 1980. Since then, the Israeli government has vehemently rejected international criticism of the occupation, declaring instead that Jerusalem is the “eternal and undivided capital of Israel”.
To ensure that its annexation of the city is irreversible, the Israeli government approved the Master Plan 2000, a massive scheme that was undertaken to rearrange the boundaries of the city in such a way that it would ensure the permanent demographic majority of Israeli Jews at the expense of the city’s indigenous inhabitants. The Master Plan was no more than a blueprint for state-sponsored ethnic cleansing, which saw the destruction of thousands of Palestinian homes and the subsequent eviction of numerous families.
While news headlines occasionally present the habitual evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and other parts of East Jerusalem as if it is simply a matter of counterclaims between Palestinian residents and Jewish settlers, the story is, in fact, a wider representation of Palestine’s modern history. Indeed, the innocent families which are now facing “the imminent risk of forced eviction” are re-living their ancestral nightmare of the Nakba, the very deliberate ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine in 1948.
Two years after the native inhabitants of historic Palestine were dispossessed of their homes and lands and ethnically cleansed, Israel enacted the so-called Absentees’ Property Law of 1950. The law, which has no legal or moral validity, simply granted to the State the properties of Palestinians who were driven out or fled from the war, to do with it as it pleases. Since those “absentee” Palestinians have never been allowed to exercise their legitimate right of return, as enshrined in international law, the Israeli law was state-sanctioned theft on a grand scale. It aimed ultimately to achieve two objectives: to ensure that Palestinian refugees do not return or attempt to claim their stolen properties in Palestine; and to give Israel a legal fig leaf for permanently confiscating Palestinian land and homes.
The Israeli military occupation of the remainder of historic Palestine in 1967 necessitated, from an Israeli colonial perspective, the creation of fresh laws that would allow the State and the illegal settlement enterprise to claim yet more Palestinian properties. This took place in 1970 in the form of the Legal and Administrative Matters Law. According to the new legal framework, only Israeli Jews were allowed to claim lost land and property in Palestinian areas.
Many of the evictions in East Jerusalem take place within the context of these three interconnected and strange legal arguments: the Absentees’ Property Law, the Legal and Administrative Matters Law, and the Master Plan 2000. Understood together, we can easily decipher the nature of the Israeli colonial scheme in East Jerusalem, where Israeli Jewish individuals, in coordination with settler organisations, work together to fulfil the vision of the State.
In their joint appeal, Palestinian human rights organisations describe how the flow of eviction orders issued by Israeli courts culminate in the construction of illegal Jewish settlements. Confiscated Palestinian properties are usually transferred to a branch within the Israeli Ministry of Justice called the Israeli Custodian General. The latter holds on to these properties until they are claimed by Israeli Jews, in accordance with the 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law. Once Israeli courts honour Jewish individuals’ legal claims to the confiscated Palestinian lands, these individuals often transfer their ownership rights or management to settler organisations. In no time, the latter utilise the newly-acquired property to expand existing settlements or to start new ones. All settlements are, of course, illegal under international law.
While the Israeli State claims to play an impartial role in this scheme, it is actually the facilitator of the entire process. The final outcome manifests in the ever-predictable scene, where an Israeli flag is triumphantly hoisted over a Palestinian home and a Palestinian family is assigned a tent from the UN and a few blankets.
While the above picture can thus be dismissed by some as another routine, common occurrence, the situation in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has become extremely volatile. Palestinians feel that they have nothing more to lose and Netanyahu’s government is more emboldened than ever. The killing of Atef Hanaysha, and others like him, is only the beginning of an imminent and widespread confrontation.
Pro-Palestine activist stands trial after leading boycott against Israeli pharmaceutical company
Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement march in Marseille, southern France. (Photo via Twitter)
Press TV – March 22, 2021
French activist Olivia Zemor has gone on trial in Lyon after making an online appeal in 2016 for a boycott of Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva company.
She appeared in court on March 16 over publishing a call by Collectif Palestine 69 on EuroPalestine website, urging readers to boycott Teva, the largest Israeli pharmaceutical corporation by market value.
Zemor, an active advocate of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, was sued for “defamation” by Teva after she accused the company of complicity in apartheid and occupation.
In comments to French newspaper Le Courrier de l’Atlas, she said, “Through its financial contribution to Israel, this pharmaceutical giant contributes to the financing of military operations in Gaza and to the development of colonization in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in defiance of the rights of the Palestinian people and of international resolutions.”
Therefore, she added, it is necessary to call for the company’s boycott.
Pro-Palestine activist Olivia Zemor is going on trial in France after leading a boycott campaign against Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva pic.twitter.com/ENtpjlLG2I
However, Frédéric Jeannin, lawyer for the pharmaceutical company, denied the accusation, claiming that “Teva is not involved in a geopolitical, ethnic or religious conflict, and these actions hamper its economic activity.”
On the day of Zemor’s trial, activists gathered outside the courtroom to condemn the French government’s attempts to silence criticism of Israel and those who speak out against the oppression of Palestinians.
They argue that the European Court of Human Rights last year affirmed the right to boycott Israel and that this ruling invalidates the French prosecution of Zemor, who is the president of the EuroPalestine solidarity group.
French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti is accused of “a blatant violation of the decision” by distributing a circular to prosecutors urging them to take action against activists supporting the BDS campaign.
Teva, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of generic drugs, provides millions of pounds in tax revenue to the Israeli regime and its military.
The company is accused of “joining hands with the French state to aggressively seek to shut down and silence international voices of conscience for exposing corporate complicity and profiteering from the Israeli occupation regime.”
People have been asked to show solidarity with Zemor by writing to French embassies and consulates and holding protests outside them.
Palestinians have for decades called on civil campaigns against Israel, organized under the BDS umbrella.
The BDS movement was initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations, unions, as well as cultural and rights groups, including all major political parties, trade and academic unions that were pushing for “various forms of boycott against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law.”
Thousands of volunteers worldwide have since then joined the nonviolent campaign, which calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural and academic ties to Tel Aviv, to help promote the Palestinian cause.
Israel claims that the movement is a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism – a claim that activists firmly deny, calling it an attempt to discredit them.
The BDS, which adheres to peaceful resistance, intends to exert pressure on the Israeli regime to adhere to international law and human rights by lobbying various states, institutions and individuals to understand its oppression of Palestinians and take action as a result.
Israel seizes Palestinian foreign minister’s travel permit after visit to International Criminal Court over war crimes probe
RT | March 21, 2021
Palestinian Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, who was returning to the West Bank from a meeting at the International Criminal Court (ICC), was held up at a border crossing and got his VIP travel permit revoked by Israel.
Senior Palestinian official, Ahmed al-Deek, said that agents of Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence service have questioned al-Maliki for around 30 minutes at the Allenby crossing from Jordan into the West Bank on Sunday. Members of the FM’s entourage were questioned for around an hour, he added.
Al-Maliki’s special travel permit has been revoked and he left the border crossing without it. The VIP pass allows top Palestinian officials to move freely through the Israeli-operated checkpoints. It was unclear if the FM will be getting the papers back, al-Deek added.
An Israeli official has confirmed the development to the Times of Israel, but declined to name the reason for the cancellation of the minister’s pass. However, al-Deek insisted that the move by the Israeli authorities was retaliation for Maliki’s visit to the ICC in The Hague earlier this week.
“Israel is unable to solve cases through the law, but instead resorts to a policy of intimidation, sanctions and threats,” he told Palestinian WAFA news agency.
Al-Maliki, who was on European tour, met with ICC lead prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, on Thursday. Earlier this month, Bensouda announced a probe into war crimes carried out in the Palestinian Territories since June 13, 2014.
According to al-Maliki’s office, he spoke to the prosecutor about “the importance of expediting investigations into the crimes committed in the territory of the State of Palestine, in a manner that ensures justice for the victims and their families among the Palestinian people.”
On Friday, Israeli and Palestinian administrations both received notifications from the ICC of the opening of a war crimes probe against them.
While welcomed by the Palestinians, the investigation has angered the Israeli authorities, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeling it “the epitome of anti-Semitism and hypocrisy.”
Rights group slams exclusion of Israel, Saudi-led coalition from UN’s children-in-conflict blacklist
Press TV – March 19, 2021
A group of child rights experts has strongly criticized the UN secretary-general for excluding eight parties, including the Israeli regime and the Saudi-led coalition, from a global blacklist of parties accountable for harming children during conflicts.
In a report, experts from Watchlist on Children, an international child rights group, said at least eight parties to conflicts were found responsible for killing and maiming more than 100 children in a single year but were excluded from the blacklist.
There were “numerous discrepancies and omissions in listing decisions, as well as unwarranted delisting decisions,” the report said, noting that the UN Security Council’s 2001 resolution establishing the list to protect children from the horrors of war “is being seriously undermined” and could result in “putting children at even greater risk.”
“The secretary-general’s 2015 annual report acknowledges that the number of children killed by Israel in 2014 was the third highest in the world and the number of schools damaged or destroyed was the highest anywhere in the world that year, and yet Israel has not been listed in the report’s annexes,” the report said.
It added that at the time the news media reported that Israel and the United States conducted intense lobbying to prevent the regime’s blacklisting.
The child rights experts also cited annual reports that have repeatedly found Israeli forces responsible for high levels of Palestinian child casualties, including over 1,525 killed and maimed in 2020 alone.
“Yet Israeli forces have yet to be included in the annexed list of violators,” they added.
According to the AP, co-author Yanghee Lee, former chair of the committee that monitors implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, said: “We are calling on the secretary-general to urgently address these problems and commit to hold all countries and groups responsible for violations against children accountable without fear or favor.”
In response to the report, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stands by the report’s conclusions, expressing willingness to engage with relevant partners in how to improve the system.
Benyam Dawit Mezmur, another co-author of the report urged the UN to ensure that the list of perpetrators it issues is “more credible, accurate, complete, and evidence-based, or risk pulling apart this unique tool for the protection of children caught in war.”
The report also said the Saudi-led war coalition against Yemen was delisted in 2020 for killing and maiming children in the Arab country, despite being responsible for a documented 222 child casualties during the reporting period.
“With this delisting, the Saudi-led coalition has been removed from the Secretary-General’s list altogether,” it noted.
Citing the Secretary-general’s reports that said the Saudi-led coalition was delisted due to a “sustained significant decrease” in the number of violations they committed, the rights experts said such argument runs counter to the established delisting criteria.
“This runs counter to the delisting criteria established in 2010 and the Security Council’s stated expectations that listing is based on whether or not grave violations against children took place in violation of international obligations,” they maintained.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Saudi war on Yemen has killed a quarter of a million people, including women and children, since it was launched in March 2015 with the aim of restoring the Riyadh-friendly government of former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
As Israel plans to evict up to 550 Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Biden regime remains silent
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | March 18, 2021
Igniting tensions in East Jerusalem, Israeli settler organisations are seeking to uproot up to 550 Palestinians from the city, to the complete silence of a Biden administration that claims to seek a two-State solution.
In what could become one of the largest expulsions of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Israeli settler organisations are working with the country’s legal system to evict 24 families from their homes.
During October, 2020, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ordered the expulsion of 12 families, out of the 24 living inside the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. In addition to their expulsion from their homes, the Palestinian families were also ordered by the court to pay $20,000 in legal fees.
The expulsion order, which is likely to be completed with the destruction of Palestinian property, after it is seized to make way for illegal Israeli settlers, is set to be enforced as early as May. As it stands, four Palestinian households – comprising 27 people – will be forced out onto the street no later than May 2, while three other families are set to be forced out in August.
Israeli settler organisations based in the Karm al-Jaouni area are behind the expulsion orders, claiming that the land on which Palestinians live, in Sheikh Jarrah, was once owned by Jews prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Despite Palestinian attempts to present their legal case that the settler organisations are lying about this and have no proof, Israeli courts refuse to see the evidence. It is also important to note that, while the Israeli legal system will recognise the claims of Jewish Israelis to land allegedly owned previously by Jews, this right is not granted to Palestinians.
On the issue of the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, Fadi al-Hidmi, Palestinian Authority Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, stated that the international community is obligated to step in. “What is taking place is a systematic, programmed process of replacing the Palestinians expelled from their land and property with foreign settlers,” he said.
Last night, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement also released a statement, vowing a response to the actions of Israel in Sheikh Jarrah. The PIJ proclaimed that Israel “will pay the price for this aggression.”
In the 1970s, following the June 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, Israel began implementing a “demographic balance” policy. The aim for the Israeli authorities is to limit the percentage of Palestinians living in the city to 30% or less. While Israel claims that Jerusalem is its undivided capital, the Palestinian Authority only seeks to gain back East Jerusalem, which is considered under international law to be an illegally occupied territory.
Despite the Biden Administration having stated consistently that it seeks a two-State solution and that this is the only solution in the Palestine-Israel conflict, it continues to ignore the ongoing ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem. Not only does Biden not confront Israel on the issue of its illegal settlements and home demolitions in Jerusalem, but it has worked to attack the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is poised to investigate the settlement issue.
Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is a supporter of the notion of a two-State solution weighed in on the announcement from the ICC that it would investigate alleged Israeli War Crimes, stating “The United States firmly opposes an @IntlCrimCourt investigation into the Palestinian Situation. We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to Israel and its security, including by opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.”
If there is to be a two-State solution, the capital of the future Palestinian State will have to belong in currently occupied East Jerusalem. However, this is being made more and more impossible by the day, with the systematic expulsion of Palestinian residents from the city, along with the expansion of key settlements such as Atarot, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos, which divide the city from the West Bank.
Along with Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli Settler organisations are also heavily targeting the area of Silwan, from which at least 36 families have been expelled since the beginning of 2020, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now. In East Jerusalem as many as 200,000 Israeli settlers live, with about 2,500 hardline settlers residing in properties surrounding Palestinians in areas like Silwan.
Earlier this week, 11 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police forces, who reportedly raided the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab as a bulldozer made an opening in the wall surrounding the area. Local youths then acted to tear down the fences built around the construction site, for what has been described as a Judaization project in the area.
An Israeli NGO called Grassroots Jerusalem states that the presence of illegal Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem causes great agitation to Palestinian residents. The NGO claims that settlers have “been responsible for forced evictions and terrorism.”
Last year almost 1,000 Palestinians were made homeless due to Israeli house demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with over 10,000 settler units having been approved.
If the Biden Administration continues to remain silent and shield Israel from prosecution for its violations of International Law in East Jerusalem, the two-State solution that the US claims to seek will only become more difficult to achieve. In order for there to be a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, Israel’s illegal settlements have to halt further construction, evacuate all settlers and the annexation of the territory – since 1980 – has to be reversed. None of the steps necessary to facilitate a two-State solution includes shielding war crimes, and what we are seeing is exactly that.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist, and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News and Press TV. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.
Certain groups attempt to create civil war in Lebanon, Hezbollah chief warns
Press TV – March 18, 2021
The secretary-general of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has warned against attempts by certain groups to foment a civil war in the cash-strapped country on economic, racial, and religious grounds, emphasizing that the movement will not allow anyone to realize such a fiendish plot.
Those, who become frustrated in the face of the country’s resistance, could resort to the option of trying to ignite such an internal conflict, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech broadcast from the Lebanese capital city of Beirut on Thursday evening.
“I have information that there are outside forces and some internal ones that are pushing towards civil war … They are looking for the fuel to add to the fire,” he said.
“The chaos in Lebanon is aimed at driving Lebanon into a civil war and this is a red line,” he, however, added.
Lebanon is experiencing its worst economic crisis in decades, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prices are skyrocketing and more than half of the population is now living below the poverty line.
Nasrallah’s remarks came as the country’s major cities are hosting fresh protests at the situation afflicting the economy that is falling apart at the seams. He, therefore, entitled the high point of his address to the domestic woes.
“Lebanon is at the heart of a true and great national economic, livelihood, financial, and also political crisis,” he said, noting, “It can also be described as a crisis of the establishment.”
Nasrallah categorically dismissed that his movement harbored any intention to exacerbate the already explosive situation.
“Some say that Hezbollah is the party, which has weapons [and may start a civil war]. This rhetoric is wrong since the civil war can be waged by light arms and such arms are found everywhere in Lebanon and are in the hands of many people,” the Hezbollah chief said.
Hezbollah has no intention to resort to its weapons in a bid to form a government or to deal with the economic and financial crisis.
Since the Lebanese government formally resigned after a massive explosion in Beirut port last August, domestic political divisions and pressure by some Western states have hindered the formation of a formal cabinet.
‘US pressure main factor behind crisis’
Nasrallah pointed to the pressure that the United States was applying to Lebanon as a main principle driving the country’s crisis.
The United States wants for Lebanon to “be placed in the US-Israel axis” in the same way that such regional countries as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain did by normalizing their relations with the Israeli regime through Washington’s facilitation, he stated.
Nasrallah questions dependence on IMF
Without a formal cabinet, the country cannot resume negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for potential bailout packages.
Even if the country was to be thrown such a lifeline, it would be required by the IMF and the West to enact certain “reforms” in its political structure. The reforms entail introduction of stringent austerity measures, the biggest part of whose burden falls on the people.
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri alleged earlier that the only way to stop the country’s economy from total collapse was to re-engage with the IMF.
“The main priority of any government is to prevent the collapse that we are facing today… that we proceed to start halting the collapse with the IMF and regain the trust of the international community,” Hariri said at a press conference at the presidential palace in Baabda.
Nasrallah, however, asked whether the Lebanese nation could bear the burden of the IMF’s conditions, including subtraction of subsidies from staples.
He considered the country’s economic policies, including the policy of borrowing money from others, to be one of the reasons that Lebanon had ended up this way.
The American pressure, he added, was aimed at forcing Lebanon into “resorting to certain economic options.”
It was this very fear of Washington that was scaring some inside the country from strengthening its ties with China.
Hezbollah agrees to a technocratic-political government
The Hezbollah leader, meanwhile, signaled his movement’s approval of the formation of a government composed of technocrats and politically influential elements at the same time.
He said if Hariri and President Michel Aoun reached an agreement on formation of such a ruling structure, Hezbollah would agree to it too.
US apparatuses freeing Daesh ringleaders in Iraq
Nasrallah also said there is evidence pointing to US intelligence and security apparatuses establishing contact with the Takfiri terrorist group Daesh’s ringleaders in Iraq’s prisons before enabling their release.
“With every day that goes by, the truth that lies behind the armed Takfiri terrorist groups and the nature of their handler and supporter comes further to light,” he said.
Nasrallah, however, announced, “We stand up to the terrorist groups that are shaped, run, supported, and armed by the American intelligence apparatuses.”
Israel to displace 1,550 Palestinians to build park in Jerusalem
MEMO | March 18, 2021
More than 100 Palestinian homes face demolition and about 1,550 residents, including more than 800 children, will be made homeless at the hands of Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality, Arab48 reported yesterday.
This comes as the Israeli municipality cancelled all agreements with the Palestinian residents of the Silwan neighbourhood.
According to Arab48, the Israeli municipality rejected plans it had requested as an alternative to the demolition of the Palestinian homes, instead it is set to demolish the Palestinian homes and turn the area into The King’s Garden, claiming that it was a garden for Israeli kings thousands of years ago.
The municipality had agreed to provide Palestinians with land in other areas to build new homes, but it suddenly backtracked on this decision.
The legal battle has cost the Palestinian community more than $500,000.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said in a statement that the “massive destruction and displacement operation against the population may amount to ethnic cleansing and a war crime.”
Saudi regime to displace 521 families, raze houses in Shia-majority Qatif
Press TV – March 16, 2021
The Saudi regime plans to displace hundreds of families in Saudi Arabia’s Shia-majority Qatif region and raze their houses as part of a crackdown on dissent.
Nashet Qatifi, a renowned Saudi human rights activist, said in a post on his Twitter account on Monday that the Riyadh government had announced plans for the eviction of more than 521 families from Qatif within 90 days as well as the destruction of their houses in retaliation for their children’s participation in a 2011 anti-regime uprising.
Local sources in the Shia-majority region confirmed the Saudi plan and said the regime intended to displace hundreds of families from al-Thawra (Revolution) Street in the city center.
Reports said the goal of the Saudi regime was to erase any signs and memories of the demonstrations in 2011, especially al-Thawra Street, which had become a symbol of the revolution and protests in Qatif.
A similar incident took place in the al-Masura district of Qatif in 2017, and many houses were destroyed by bulldozers. In November last year, Saudi officials also leveled to the ground a Shia Muslim mosque south of al-Awamiyah Town in Qatif.
Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province has been the scene of peaceful demonstrations since February 2011. Protesters have been demanding reforms, freedom of expression, the release of political prisoners, and an end to economic and religious discrimination against the oil-rich region.
The protests have been met with a heavy-handed crackdown by the regime, whose forces have ramped up measures across the province.
Ever since Mohammed bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader in 2017, the kingdom has ramped up arrests of activists, bloggers, intellectuals, and others perceived as political opponents, showing almost zero tolerance for dissent even in the face of international condemnations of the crackdown.
Muslim scholars have been executed, women’s rights campaigners have been put behind bars and tortured, and freedom of expression, association, and belief continue to be denied.
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Sanctions, War and the Policy of Dual Containment
By SASAN FAYAZMANESH | March 17, 2008
It is now nearly three decades since the Unites States adopted the policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq. While much has been written about the containment of Iraq, there has been very little in-depth analysis of this policy when it comes to Iran. In a book that is going to be released on March 31, 2008, entitled The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment (Routledge), I attempt to address this shortcoming by investigating when and why the US policy of containment of Iran came about, how it evolved, and where it stands today.[1] To the extent that Israel has been involved in US policy making, the study will also include the role that Israel has played in the containment of Iran. Also, since the fate of Iran has been inextricably linked to that of Iraq, occasionally the investigation will overlap with the containment of Iraq.
The policy of dual containment of Iran and Iraq originated during the Carter Administration, but it was not until the Clinton Administration that the expression “dual containment” became popular. … continue
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- If Americans Knew
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