Mossad False Flag Attacks on Jews
Is anti-Semitism really increasing?
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 14, 2020
Even though distracted by the havoc resulting from the coronavirus, the United States and much of Europe is engaged in a frenzied search for anti-Semitism and anti-Semites so that what the media and chattering class are regarding as the greatest of all crimes and criminals can finally be extirpated completely. To be sure, there have recently been some horrific instances of ethnically or religiously motivated attacks on synagogues and individual Jews, but, as is often the case, however, quite a lot of the story is either pure spin or politically motivated. A Jewish student walking on a college campus who walks by protesters objecting to Israel’s behavior can claim to feel threatened and the incident is recorded as anti-Semitism, for example, and slurs written on the sides of buildings or grave stones, not necessarily the work of Jew-haters, are similarly categorized. In one case in Israel in 2017, the two street swastika artists were Jews.
Weaponizing one point of view inevitably limits the ability of contrary views to be heard. The downside is, of course, that the frenzy that has resulted in the criminalization of free expression relating in any but a positive way to the activity of Jewish groups. It has also included the acceptance of the dishonest definition that any criticism of Israel is ipso facto anti-Semitism, giving that nation a carte blanche in terms of its brutal treatment of its neighbors and even of its non-Jewish citizens.
Jewish dominated Hollywood and the entertainment media have helped to create the anti-Semitism frenzy and continue to give the public regular doses of the holocaust story. Currently there are a number of television shows that depict in one form or another the persecution of Jews. Hunters on Amazon is about Jewish Americans tracking and killing suspected former Nazis living in New York City in the 1970s. The Plot to Destroy America on HBO is a retro history tale about how a Charles Lindbergh/Henry Ford regime installs a fascist government in the 1930s. One critic describes the televisual revenge feast “as one paranoid Jewish fantasy after another advocating murder as the solution to what they perceive as the problem of anti-Semitism.”
But, as always, nothing is quite so simple as such a black and white portrayal where there are evil Nazis and Jewish victims who are always justified when they seek revenge. First of all, as has been demonstrated, many recent so-called anti-Semitic attacks on Jews involve easily recognizable Hasidic Jews and are actually based on community tensions as established neighborhoods are experiencing dramatic changes with the newcomers using pressure tactics to force out existing residents. And after the Hasidim take over a town or neighborhood, they defund local schools to support their own private academies and frequently engage in large scale welfare and other social services fraud to permit them to spend all their days studying the Talmud, which, inter alia teaches that gentiles are no better than beasts fit only to serve Jews.
The recent concentration of coronavirus in Orthodox neighborhoods in New York as well as the eruption of measles cases last year have been attributed to the unwillingness of some conservative Jews to submit to vaccinations and normal hygienic practices. They also have persisted in illegal large gatherings at weddings and religious ceremonies, spreading the coronavirus within their own communities and also to outsiders with whom they have contact.
Regularly exposing anti-Semitism is regarded as a good thing by many Jewish groups because the state of perpetual victimization that it supports enables them to obtain special benefits that might otherwise be considered excessive in a pluralistic democracy. Holocaust education in schools is now mandatory in many jurisdictions and more than 90% of discretionary Department of Homeland Security funding goes to Jewish organizations. Jewish organizations are now lining up to get what they choose to believe is their share of Coronavirus emergency funding.
Claims of increasing anti-Semitism, and the citation of the so-called holocaust, are like having a perpetual money machine that regularly disgorges reparations from the Europeans as well as billions of dollars per year from the U.S. Treasury. Holocaust and anti-Semitism manufactured guilt are undoubtedly contributing factors to the subservient relationship that the United States enjoys with the state of Israel, most recently manifested in the U.S. Department of Defense’s gift of one million surgical masks to the Israel Defense Force in spite of there being a shortage of the masks in the United States (note how the story was edited after it first appeared by the Jerusalem Post to conceal the U.S. role but it still has the original email address and the photo cites the Department of Defense).
And then there is the issue of Jewish power, which is discussed regularly by Jews themselves but is verboten to gentiles. Jews wield hugely disproportionate power in all the Anglophone states as well as in France and parts of Eastern Europe and even in Latin America. If anti-Semitism is as rampant as has often been claimed it is odd that there are so many Jews prominent in politics and the professions, most especially financial services and the media. Either anti-Semitism is not really “surging” or the actual anti-Semities have proven to be particularly incompetent in making their case.
Further muddying the waters, there have been a number of instances in which Jews have themselves been responsible for what have been claimed to be anti-Semitic incidents. There has also been credible speculation that some of the incidents have been false flags staged by the Israeli government itself, presumably acting through its intelligence services. The objective would be to create sympathy among the public in Europe and the U.S. for Israel and to encourage diaspora emigration to the Jewish state. The recent tale of Israeli-American Michael Kadar, who has been credited with many of early 2017’s nearly two thousand bomb scares targeting Jewish community centers and synagogues worldwide, is illustrative.
Kadar, who holds both Israeli and American nationality, was arrested in Ashkelon Israel on March 2017 by Israeli police in response to the investigation carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kadar’s American address was in New Lenox Illinois but he actually resided in Israel. Kadar’s defense was that he had a brain tumor that caused autism and was not responsible for his actions, but he was found to be fit for trial and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June 2017. He was apparently subsequently quietly released from prison and returned to Illinois in mid-2018. In August 2019 he was arrested for violation of parole on a firearms and drugs offense.
The court in Tel Aviv convicted Kadar on counts including “extortion, disseminating hoaxes in order to spread panic, money laundering and computer hacking over bomb and shooting threats against community centers, schools, shopping malls, police stations, airlines, and airports in North America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark.” It claimed that “As a result of 142 telephone calls to airports and airlines, in which he said bombs had been planted in passenger planes or they would come under attack, aircraft were forced to make emergency landings and fighter planes were scrambled.”
It was also claimed by the court that Kadar had gotten involved with the so-called restricted access “dark web” to make threats for money. He reportedly earned $240,000 equivalent worth of the digital currency Bitcoin. Kadar has reportedly refused to reveal the password to his Bitcoin wallet and its value is believed to have increased to more than $1 million.
The tale borders on the bizarre and right from the beginning there were many inconsistencies in both the Department of Justice case and in terms of Kadar’s biography and vital statistics. After his arrest and conviction, many of his public, private and social networking records were either deleted or changed, suggesting that a high-level cover-up was underway.
Most significant, the criminal complaint against Kadar included details of the phone calls that were not at all consistent with the case that he had acted alone. The threats were made using what is referred to as spoofing telephone services, used by marketers to hide the caller’s true number and identify, but the three cell phone numbers identified by the Department of Justice to make the spoofed calls were all U.S.-based and one of them was linked to a Jewish Chabad religious leader and one to the Church of Scientology’s counter-intelligence chief in California. In addition, some of the calls were made when Kadar was in transit between Illinois and Israel, suggesting that he had not initiated the calls.
DOJ’s criminal complaint also included information that the threat caller was a woman who had “a distinct speech impediment.” Michael Kadar’s mother has a distinct speech impediment. Oddly enough she has not been identified in any public documents and the Israelis claimed that Michael was disguising his voice, but she is believed to be Dr. Tamar Kadar, who resided in Ashkelon at the same address as Michael. Dr. Kadar is a chemical weapons researcher at the Mossad-linked Israel Institute for Biological Research (“IIBR”).
Michael appears to have U.S. birthright citizenship because he was born in Bethesda in 1990 while his mother was a visiting researcher at the U.S. Army Military Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). While Dr. Kadar was at USAMRIID, anthrax went missing from the Army’s lab and may have been subsequently used in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks inside the U.S., which resulted in the deaths of five people. The FBI subsequently accused two USAMRIID researchers of the theft, but one was exonerated and the other committed suicide, closing the investigation.
So, there are some interesting issues raised by the Michael Kadar case. First of all, he appears to have been the fall guy for what may have been a Mossad directed false-flag operation actually run by his mother, who is herself an expert on biological weapons and works at an Israeli intelligence lab. Second, the objective of the operation may have been to create an impression that anti-Semitism is dramatically increasing, which ipso facto generates a positive perception of Israel and encourages foreign Jews to emigrate to the Jewish state. And third, there appears to have been a cover-up orchestrated by the Israeli and U.S. governments, evident in the disappearance of both official and non-official records, while Michael has been quietly released from prison and is enjoying his payoff of one million dollars in bitcoins. As always, whenever something involves promoting the interests of the state of Israel, the deeper one digs the more sordid the tale becomes.
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.
If Coronavirus Overwhelms Gaza, Israel Alone will be to Blame
What is already a crisis in the territory barely needs a nudge from Covid-19 in order to be tipped into a health disaster
By Jonathan Cook | The National | April 14, 2020
The Palestinians of Gaza know all about lockdowns. For the past 13 years, some two million of them have endured a closure by Israel more extreme than anything experienced by almost any other society – including even now, as the world hunkers down to try to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
Israel has been carrying out an unprecedented experiment in Gaza, using the latest military hardware and surveillance technology to blockade this tiny coastal enclave by land, air and sea.
Nothing moves in or out without Israel’s say-so – until three weeks ago, when the virus smuggled itself into Gaza inside two Palestinians returning from Pakistan. It is known to have spread to more than a dozen people so far, though doctors have no idea of the true extent. Testing equipment ran out days ago.
Unless Gaza enjoys a miraculous escape, an epidemic is only a matter of time. The consequences hardly bear contemplating.
Countries around the world are wondering what to do with their prison populations, aware that, once it takes hold, Covid-19 is certain to spread rapidly in crowded, enclosed spaces, leaving havoc in its wake.
Gaza is often compared to an open-air prison. But even this analogy is not quite right. This is a prison that the United Nations has warned is on the brink of being “uninhabitable”.
In the prison of Gaza, many inmates are undernourished, and physically and emotionally scarred by a decade of military assaults. They lack essentials such as clean water and electricity after repeated Israeli attacks on basic infrastructure. And the 13-year blockade means there is only rudimentary medical care if they get sick.
Social distancing is impossible in one of the most crowded places on earth. In Jabaliya, one of eight refugee camps in the enclave, there are 115,000 people packed together in little more than a square kilometre. Comparable population density nearby in Israel is typically measured in the hundreds.
There are few clinics and hospitals to cope. According to human rights groups, Gaza has approximately 60 ventilators – most of them already in use. Israel has 15 times as many ventilators per head of population.
There is little in the way of protective gear. And medicines are already in short supply or unavailable, even before the virus hits. Gaza’s infant mortality – an important measure of medical and social conditions – is more than seven times higher than Israel’s. Life expectancy is 10 years lower.
Unlike a normal prison, Gaza’s warden – Israel – denies responsibility for the inmates’ welfare. Since it carried out a so-called “disengagement” 15 years ago, dismantling illegal settlements there, Israel has argued – against all evidence – that it is no longer the occupying power.
That should have been proved an obvious lie when Palestinians, choking on their isolation and deprivation, began rallying in protest two years ago at the perimeter fence that acts as a cage locking them in. Demonstrators were greeted with live fire from Israeli snipers.
Around 200 people were killed, and many thousands left with horrific injuries, mostly to their legs. Medical services are still overwhelmed by the need for long-term surgery, amputations and rehabilitation for the disabled protesters.
What is already a crisis barely needs a nudge from the coronavirus to be tipped into a health disaster.
And with most of the population already below the poverty line, after Israel’s blockade destroyed Gaza’s textile, construction and agricultural industries, the economy is no shape to withstand an epidemic either.
Most governments, including Israel’s, maintain a degree of control even in the face of this most unexpected emergency. They could prepare for it, even if many were slow to do so. They can marshall factories to produce ventilators and protective equipment. And they have the resources to rebuild their health services and economies afterwards.
If they fail in these tasks, it will be their failure.
But Gaza is entirely dependent on Israel and an international community preoccupied with its own troubles. Even if health authorities can secure ventilators and protective equipment in the current, highly competitive global market, Israel will decide whether to let them in. Equally, it could choose to seize them for its own use, in order to placate growing domestic criticism that it is short of vital equipment.
The blame for Gaza’s plight – now and in the future – lands squarely at Israel’s door.
Israel should be helping Gaza, but it is doing the precise opposite. Last week, Israeli planes sprayed herbicide to destroy the crops of Gaza’s farmers – part of a policy to keep clear sight-lines for Israeli military forces.
Moreover, in this time of crisis, Gaza’s food insecurity is only set to deepen. For the past year, Israel has been starving both Gaza and the rival Palestinian Authority in the West Bank of the taxes and duties it collects on their behalf and that rightfully belong to the Palestinian people. Many families have no money for food.
The US has aggravated this financial crisis by cutting funds to the United Nations refugee agency, UNRWA, which cares for many of Gaza’s families expelled by Israel from their homes decades ago and forcibly crowded into the enclave.
The little influence retained by Hamas relates to the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners held illegally in Israel. Hamas wants them out, especially the most vulnerable, aware of the danger the virus poses to them in Israel, where the contagion is more advanced.
It is reported to be trying to negotiate a release of prisoners, offering to return the corpses of two soldiers it seized during Israel’s infamous attack on Gaza in 2014 that killed more than 500 Palestinian children.
If Israel refuses to trade, as seems likely, or denies entry to much-needed medical supplies, Gaza’s only other practical leverage will be to fire missiles into Israel, as Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has threatened. That is the one time western states can be expected to notice Gaza and voice their condemnation – though not of Israel.
But if plague does overwhelm Gaza, the truth about who is really responsible will be hard to conceal.
Modelling the horrifying conditions in Gaza, Israeli experts warned last year of an epidemic like cholera sweeping the enclave. They predicted hundreds of thousands of Palestinians storming the fence to escape contagion and death.
It is the Israeli army’s nightmare scenario. It admits it has no response other than – as with the fence protests – to gun down those pleading for help.
For decades Israel has pursued a policy of treating Palestinians as less than human. It has minutely controlled their lives while denying any meaningful responsibility for their welfare. That deeply unethical and inhumane stance could soon face the ultimate test.
New Document Reveals How Jews Manufactured Corbyn “Anti-Semitism” Hysteria In Quest for Power
By Eric Striker – National Justice – April 12, 2020
UK Labour’s election of Keir Starmer, a self-described Zionist with close familial ties to Jewry, is a drastic establishment repudiation of Corbynism.
The elements of the Judeo-Left who did everything in their power to betray their own party and cause Jeremy Corbyn to lose through their bully pulpits at publications like The Guardian are licking their lips at the certain prospect of a sweeping party purge of those labeled “anti-Semitic.” The goal is to solidify Jewish control over a party Jews abandoned in the 1970s and 80s for the Tories, but still distrust.
A gargantuan internal party dossier detailing the conspiracy to undermine and destroy Corbyn goes back to 2016, with the founding of a group called “Labour Against Anti-Semitism” (LAAS). The LAAS uses the “International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance” definition of anti-Semitism, which includes any and all criticism of Israel, once again demonstrating the power of the pernicious myth to give moral leverage to immoral causes like non-stop global war and ethnic cleansing.
LAAS is led by a figure named Euan Philipps, who is described in the investigation (pg 401) as being rude and insulting as he filed loads of discrimination complaints described by staff as “spurious.” Some discourse that Philipps reported as anti-Semitic included party members attacking Blairites (fans of the Zionist warmonger Tony Blair), expressing support for George Galloway (a veteran radical who in recent years has bucked his party to become pro-Brexit, criticize Zionism and push back against anti-white sentiment), criticizing finance-capitalism, and of course, criticism of Israel of any kind.
The large number of anti-Semitism complaints, despite being non-sense, were reported uncritically in British media. This put pressure on Corbyn to purge some of his most fervent supporters and cause infighting as the party campaigned for election.
According to the report, in 2019 half of all “anti-Semitism” complaints came from one person (pg 843). The investigation remarks that none of the claims had any evidence, and were largely just people expressing non-racial political views Jews don’t like. Thanks to the political correctness of the left-wing organization, the powerful and connected Jews in question sought to sow division and waste resources by causing Labour hierarchs to “investigate” and sometimes suspend opponents of Zionism or neo-liberalism. After a while, some involved in the “Dignity at Work” anti-harassment program realized it was a subversive strategy and began to take these complaints less seriously.
Corbyn’s supporters, rather than simply booting all the interlopers, decided upon the limp strategy of calling the other side anti-Semitic for assuming all Jews support Israel (95% of American Jews — among the most “liberal” — support Israel) or going out of their way to prove innocence while being barraged by thunderstriking calumnies. The problem is that the “controversy” was always in bad faith and specifically a rejection of some of Corbyn’s views on economics and foreign policy.
One of the most shocking vignettes from the Jewish conspiracy against Corbyn was when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with British Jews at a secret meeting and promised American intervention in the immediate aftermath of a Corbyn victory. What this intervention would’ve looked like is left up to our imagination as Boris Johnson won in a landslide in December 2019.
Corbyn’s experience is by no means exclusive to the left. Right-wing groups are also subjected to similar strategies by Jews who seek to weaken their ability to advance the interests of their voters.
Jews have utilized similar tactics to cause internal havoc and trigger purges in conservative-populist parties like Alternativ Fur Deutschland (AfD), Vox, and of course the famous “de-demonization” of Front National.
William F. Buckley’s draconian crackdown at the behest of Norman Podhoretz completely neutered the American right. This was so effective that only recently has it started to recover, and even that’s up for debate.
Any organization that expresses a strong and principled alternative to the plutocratic status quo, never-ending wars, globalization or mass immigration will be labeled anti-Semitic by Jews, whether that is their intent or not.
Jewish elites see political consensus on these issues as vital to retaining dominance in Western nations. Whether left or right, those who present opposition to these policies will be dragged into an open confrontation with Jewish power, which usually ends in the target getting in the fetal position and enduring a beat down.
The question going forward is: who is willing to fight back?
The Arrogance of Zionist Power: Openly Demonstrating that the Tribe Always Comes First

Image credit: Democratic Majority for Israel/ Facebook
By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | April 12, 2020
There are two recent stories that involve the arrogance of the Jewish community in the United States. The first involves a lobbying group in Washington and the second concerns a hospital in New York City. It has often been observed that some Jews of the Alan Dershowitz persuasion boast about how powerful Jews are in the U.S. When challenged, they would argue that the Judaization of American culture and politics has been a good thing, bringing with it liberal values that have particularly benefited other minority groups in particular. What is not discussed much is the quid pro quo, whereby Jews reward themselves for their goodness by allocating to the tribe top positions in high profile and richly remunerated professions where they are hugely over-represented.
Much of the Jewish self-congratulation takes place behind the scenes, at events that are for Jews only or in discussions inside the Jewish media, but of late the empowering of Zionist and Jewish interests by President Donald Trump and the success in shutting down criticism of Israel has served to embolden those who like to boast of the tribe’s accomplishments. The latest bit of bragging rights in respect to Jewish power in the U.S. belongs to a group called the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI). The DMFI is a registered political action committee (PAC) that lobbies on behalf of the Jewish state. It was organized in 2019 by Democratic Party activists to counter what was perceived to be pro-Palestinian sentiment within the party’s progressive wing.
In 2016 the Democratic Party dodged the bullet on Israel by a cheap maneuver which included not permitting a floor vote on a proposed platform plank that would have expressed support for Palestinian statehood. Opinion polls do indeed suggest that half of Democrats who are aware of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement approve of it. Criminalizing BDS has been a principal target of Jewish groups in the U.S., to include both AIPAC and DMFI.
The DMFI has particularly chosen to go after Senator Bernie Sanders who, more than anyone running for the nomination to run for president, has emphasized the suffering of the Palestinians and has suggested withholding money from Israel until its behavior improves. On the morning after Sanders withdrew from the race DMFI president Mark Mellman sent out an email to supporters expressing his pleasure over the result. He also took some credit for the outcome “Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign for president. That’s a big victory — one you helped bring about.”
Mellman also reminded his associates that the victory was only a first step in making sure that the Democratic Party platform continues to be pro-Israel, writing that “Extreme groups aligned with Sanders, as well as some of his top surrogates — including Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar — have publicly declared an effort to make the platform anti-Israel. As a career political professional, I will tell you that if Democrats adopt an anti-Israel platform this year, the vocabulary, views, and votes of politicians will shift against us dramatically. We simply can’t afford to lose this battle.”
The destruction of Bernie Sanders by the Democratic Party establishment, to include DMFI, is eerily reminiscent of what was done to Jeremy Corbyn by similar pro-Israel groups in Britain. Mellman in effect admits that he has interfered with the electoral process of the Democratic Party on behalf of a foreign government, but no one is disturbed by it. That he is actively engaged in politicking from inside the Democratic tent to destroy one candidate purely because he is mistrusted by a foreign government appears to bother no one in the mainstream media, nor on the Democratic National Committee. Nor has the Treasury Department required Mellman to register under the terms of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) of 1938. In fact, no pro-Israel organization has ever been required to register under FARA in spite of the fact that they are clearly visible and quite open in their advocacy.
The other story is somewhat more bizarre and it involves Jews in Brooklyn receiving priority treatment at a taxpayer funded hospital. Maimonides Medical Center is Brooklyn’s largest hospital, and, in spite of the name, it is non-sectarian. Brooklyn is one of the epicenters of coronavirus and many of the patients are Hasidic Jews who refuse to comply with the government orders to stay at home and not attend large gatherings. A number of recent weddings and other celebrations have been attended by hundreds of people in New York and New Jersey, leading to sharp jumps in positive tests among the participants as well as among other local residents. According to Deborah Lipstadt, Jews are unwilling to forego large gatherings that endanger them and the people around them due to the “Holocaust.”

Hatzalah ambulances in New York. Credit: Chris Sampson/ Flickr
New York City has an ultra-orthodox Jewish volunteer ambulance service called Hatzalah which is in part taxpayer funded and was founded due to “cultural differences” between extreme orthodox Jews and gentiles. Hatzalah has somehow managed to obtain 50 ventilators, which are used in the extreme cases of coronavirus to assist the patient’s breathing. It is projected that ventilators will be in short supply as the number of sick patients increases.
At Maimonides, Hatzalah has given the ventilators to the hospital but only under the condition that Jews will get first access to them. In cases where an elderly Jewish patient is dying and a gentile child might be able to recover using a ventilator, the Jew has to be allowed to retain his ventilator until he dies.
Jewish power is the real deal in the United States. It is well known in political circles that Israel interferes in U.S. politics more than any other country, though it is not considered safe to mention that fact if one is running for office. And it is also true that American Jewish organizations are active in that process, in this case working to eliminate a candidate for office solely because his views on Israel are considered to be suspect. And if you should happen to live in Brooklyn and become ill enough with coronavirus to need a ventilator, pray you don’t wind up in Maimonides Medical Center. Ventilators are Jewish-only.
Ashrawi: While the world works on saving lives, US and Israel working on killing peace
WAFA – April 12, 2020
RAMALLAH – Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hanan Ashrawi, said today that Israel was “cynically exploiting” the international community’s focus on protecting humanity from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to implement its extraterritorial and expansionist colonial agenda.
She said the Israeli politicians “are busy negotiating a coalition agreement centered on permanent colonization and annexation at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and rights.”
“While the world is preoccupied with combating COVID-19, the joint Israeli-US committee set up to implement the US administration’s disastrous so-called plan has found the time and energy to work on annexation and prioritize it over saving lives,” Ashrawi said in a statement.
“The clear support and sponsorship of the US administration of these dangerous plans is further proof of the disruptive and irresponsible role of the Trump administration at all levels.”
She blamed the US administration’s “partnership with Israel on the issues of annexation and permanent occupation for making the situation on the ground completely untenable.”
Following is the full text of Ashrawi’s statement:
Israel is cynically exploiting the international community’s focus on protecting humanity and the world economy from the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic to implement its extraterritorial and expansionist colonial agenda.
Israeli politicians are busy negotiating a coalition agreement centered on permanent colonization and annexation at the expense of Palestinian lives, land, and rights.
While the world is preoccupied with combating COVID-19, the joint Israeli-US committee set up to implement the US administration´s disastrous so-called plan has found the time and energy to work on annexation and prioritize it over saving lives. The clear support and sponsorship of the US administration of these dangerous plans is further proof of the disruptive and irresponsible role of the Trump administration at all levels.
Israeli annexation is not a possibility the world should be worried about. It is a reality unfolding on the ground to the grave detriment of future generations in the region and at the expense of the standing and relevance of multilateral efforts and international law. Israel is taking practical steps to permanently and irreversibly undercut the realization of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights to freedom and independence, thus ensuring permanent conflict in the region.
Israel has scaled up land grab, settlement and Wall construction, nightly raids and other illegal measures and crimes to satisfy the insatiable appetite of colonial expansion. This agenda is now the common ground on which unity government discussions are based, dissolving any pretension that main Israeli political actors have differences on the policies of ensuring permanent colonization, enacting annexation, and enforcing apartheid-like policies. This dangerous agenda is neither new nor surprising.
It is what the Palestinian leadership has warned from for years. Regrettably, the international community has abdicated its responsibilities to hold Israel accountable for its pervasive illegal actions and shameful impunity. This inaction has emboldened and empowered the Israeli political establishment to abandon all pretense of commitment to the internationally agreed-on solution of two states on the basis of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.
The current US administration’s ideological and practical partnership with Israel on the issues of annexation and permanent occupation has made the situation completely untenable.
Despite its focus on combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the international community is well aware of what is transpiring on the ground, including Israel’s obstruction of Palestinian efforts to combat the virus effectively.
This was evident in the recent European Union statement announcing increased assistance to Palestine to help fight the virus. However, rhetorical diagnosis of the threat to peace and international obligations will not be enough to avert the complete breakdown of the world agenda for peace. Serious and deterrent international action is required to stop Israeli actions and plans. Time has run out on complacency and platitudes.
World Vision Gaza Director Detained in Israel is in Serious Health Condition Due to Torture

Palestine Chronicle | April 11, 2020
Palestinian humanitarian worker Mohammad al-Halabi, who worked with the American World Vision organization, is in serious health condition due to torture by his Israeli interrogators, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission.
Al-Halabi, 42, from Jabalya refugee camp, was in charge of the Gaza Strip office of World Vision and is now suffering from serious headaches. After losing hearing, he may also lose sight in his eyes due to the torture he underwent after his arrest in Israel.
On June 15, 2016, Al-Halabi was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at the Beit Hanoun (Eretz) Crossing which separates besieged Gaza from Israel, in a joint operation carried out by the Shin Bet security service, the Israeli army and Israeli police.
Since then, he appeared in Israeli courts 135 times in what the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs refers to as “one of the longest trials in the history of the Palestinian captive movement”.
“Now, Mohammed has been transferred, once again, this time to Rimon Prison, where he is being held under extremely harsh conditions, still experiencing all sorts of torture and degradation,” wrote his father, Khalil, in a recent article.
“Israel has no evidence to indict my son. Thus, it resorts to physically and psychologically tormenting him to get exactly what it wants to hear,” Khalil added.
“By charging Mohammed, the Israeli government intends to indict all international charities so that they suffocate Gaza and its heroic people entirely.”
Israel threatens Hezbollah in Syria days after assassinating member in Lebanon
Press TV – April 10, 2020
The Israeli military has threatened to strike the positions in Syria of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, days after assassinating a senior member of the group in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military on Friday posted grainy footage on Twitter purporting to show the head of the Syrian Armed Forces 1st Corps, Luau Ali Ahmad Assad, “visiting Hezbollah positions in Syria.”
The footage, which was filmed from a distance, showed individuals wearing military fatigues greeting a man with military salutes and shaking hands with him in an open area.
The text accompanying the footage on the Israeli post read, “See the man with white hair? That’s the head of the Syrian Armed Forces 1st Corps, Luau Ali Ahmad Assad. He’s visiting Hezbollah positions in #Syria.”
“Our message: We see you. Consider this a warning,” the caption further read. “We won’t allow Hezbollah to entrench itself militarily in Syria.”
It was unclear who had captured the footage, or whether it was of Assad visiting Hezbollah members in Syria.
Syria has been fighting foreign-backed militants since 2011. While that fight has been winding down, the country has also had to combat Daesh terrorists in Syrian territory, including near the Lebanese border. Hezbollah has dispatched fighters to help the Syrian military eradicate the terrorists and has prevented the spillover of terrorist activity into Lebanon.
The Israeli regime has, meanwhile, frequently conducted airstrikes against positions in Syria. While the Tel Aviv regime has often refused to confirm or deny specific strikes, it has claimed that it has been hitting Hezbollah forces in Syria.
The latest threat comes a few days after a Hezbollah commander in charge of tracking collaborators with Israel, Ali Mohammed Younes, was killed in southern Lebanon apparently by agents working for Israel’s Mossad spy organization.
Younes was found by his car and had been stabbed twice and shot four times.
According to Sputnik, Younis was a “close associate” of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who was himself assassinated in a United States drone strike in Baghdad back in January.
The Syrian army has managed to drive the terrorists out of most parts of the country and end Daesh’s territorial rule with help from Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia.
See also:
US gives 1 million masks to Israel as American troops have to make their own amid COVID-19 outbreak
Press TV – April 8, 2020
The US Department of Defense has reportedly supplied 1 million surgical masks to the Israeli regime for distribution among soldiers, despite the fact that the Pentagon has recently introduced a measure requiring U.S. personnel to make their own masks to combat the spread of the new coronavirus.
The Israeli English-language Jerusalem Post reported that the masks were procured from China, and a plane carrying the medical equipment intended for Israeli soldiers landed in Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday night.
“In the past two weeks, we have purchased and flown to Israel tens of thousands of swabs, masks, protective suits for medical staff and more,” Limor Kolishevsky, head of the New York Purchasing and Logistics Division, said.
“A million masks, procured in China, were quickly flown to Israel with the intention that the Israeli military will be using them within the next few days,” he added.
The Jerusalem Post had initially published the article headlined “US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use,” and this is still visible in the article’s hyperlink on Twitter posts.
The newspaper, however, changed the headline shortly afterwards to read, “Israel brings 1 million masks from China for IDF soldiers,” in a possible attempt at downplaying the role of Washington in spite of shortages in protective equipment, including face masks, in the United States.
An Israeli military reporter even published on his Twitter page images of the shipment of masks as they arrived in the occupied lands.
On April 5, American weekly news magazine Newsweek reported that the US military had told its personnel to make their own masks to fight coronavirus.
“As an interim measure, all individuals are encouraged to fashion face coverings from household items or common materials, such as clean T-shirts or other clean cloths that can cover the nose and mouth area,” it added. “Medical personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators or surgical masks will not be issued for this purpose as these will be reserved for appropriate personnel.”
The decision to implement such guidance has already drawn criticism.
“While I applaud DoD for taking the initiative to order this action, you can’t help but wonder how the most powerful military in the world seems to be making up a response to this pandemic as they go each day,” Fred Wellman, a retired US Army officer who serves as CEO of veteran and military-focused research firm ScoutComms, told Newsweek.
“We have plans on the shelf for every possible thing on Earth. How was there not one for this and if there is, why aren’t we following it?” he added.
1,800 Israeli travelers stranded across the world
Meanwhile, there are reports that over 1,800 Israeli travelers are still stranded in countries around the world amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Monday said 1,863 travelers from the occupied territories were stranded mostly in Thailand, New Zealand and Australia, due to the virus pandemic and seeking to return.
According to the ministry, 200 people were in Thailand, 179 in Australia, 164 in New Zealand, 144 in Argentina, 74 in Ukraine, 63 each in Mexico and Jordan, 55 in the Philippines, 51 in India, 31 in Colombia and 18 in Brazil.
The developments come after the head of Mossad’s technology department, identified only as “Het,” revealed that the Israeli spy agency has been running clandestine operations to sneak the medical supplies ordered by countries fighting the coronavirus outbreak into the occupied territories.
Het said last week that Tel Aviv had ordered Mossad to procure up to 130,000 objects related to fight the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel, ranging from protective gear to test kits, medicine, and ventilators.
“I have overseen many operations in my life, and I’ve never dealt with such a complex operation,” the Mossad officer remarked.
He claimed that countries are locked in a covert battle to take control of a limited supply of ventilators needed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The number of Israelis infected with the coronavirus rose to 9,404 on Wednesday as health authorities confirmed 156 new cases. Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 72, as another seven people died from complications related to coronavirus.
Globally, approximately 1.5 million people are known to have been confirmed infected with the virus and more than 83,000 have died, according to figures from the www.worldometers.info website, which collates data from around the world.
International Solidarity Movement statement on reported FBI probe
International Solidarity Movement | April 7, 2020
Recently, the Intercept published a report of a surveillance investigation conducted by the FBI on the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The highly invasive investigation targeted ISM activists, their associates, and other organizations ISM worked with, from 2004 – 2006, using informants as well as physical and telecommunications surveillance.
We, at the International Solidarity Movement, denounce this shameless abuse of power and misuse of public funds in an attempt to criminalize Palestinian solidarity and anti-occupation activism, as well as the current ongoing campaign in some American states to criminalize the BDS movement. ISM activists have been secretly spied on and targeted by various intelligence services, including British, Israeli, and U.S., for over 19 years, merely for standing up for the rights of Palestinians.
We call on those who believe that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity to take action and raise awareness about local, state, and national attempts to criminalize nonviolent resistance such as BDS and Palestinian advocacy, and boycott those profiting off the Occupation of Palestine.
According to the Intercept report, an FBI investigation was launched after an American volunteer with ISM was shot and wounded by Israeli forces at a protest in Occupied Palestine. Instead of investigating the foreign army that injured an American citizen exercising his First Amendment-protected right to peaceful protest, the FBI’s response was to probe the survivor. While the 2 primary investigations were launched by the Los Angeles and St. Louis FBI Field Offices, agents from at least 11 cities were involved in spying on various ISM activists and related organizations. Using far right and extremist news sources, the investigation attempted to link ISM to international terrorism.
After two years of investigation, multiple rights and privacy violations, hundreds of pages of reports and tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted, the investigation only proved what we have always maintained: ISM is a non-violent movement committed to ending the Occupation of Palestine through non-violent means.
Notably, the investigation began in March 2004, shortly after the murder of American Rachel Corrie and Briton Tom Hurndall (2003) by the Israeli army. The probe coincided with an Israeli government campaign to de-legitimize ISM and discredit Palestinian rights activists. It also reflects the increase in recent years of FBI investigations into non-violent activist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antiwar.com. Today, lobby groups, politicians, and leaders in the United States continue to violate First Amendment-protected rights to free speech through criminalizing non-violent Palestinian activism, such as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“The fact that ISM was under this kind of extensive investigation is ridiculous and a complete waste of taxpayer money. ISM has always been open and transparent about who we are, what we do, and what we stand for, which is purportedly what this country stands for — freedom and human rights.” — ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf
“In Dr. King’s time, surveillance was justified in terms of alleged Communist influence; in recent years, surveillance has been justified by alleged association with terrorists. In both cases, U.S. citizens were employing nonviolent action to confront injustice and oppression.” — ISM activist spied on by the FBI, Mark Chmiel
Israel settlements turn Palestinian house into cage
![The Gharibs' house in Beit Ijza, caged by a fence and surrounded by the Israeli settlement of Givon Hahadasha, as seen here in a 2018 sattelite image, west of Jerusalem [screen grab from Geomolg]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200404_Satellite_Image_Givon-Hahadasha.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
The Gharibs’ house in Beit Ijza, caged by a fence and surrounded by the Israeli settlement of Givon Hahadasha, as seen here in a 2018 satellite image. [screen grab from Geomolg]
MEMO | April 4, 2020
Palestinian Saadat Sabri Gharib, 38, had never imagined that his house, which was built by his father in 1979, would be turned into a very narrow cage surrounded by barbed wire and surveillance cameras.
Gharib’s house is located in the Biet Ijza neighbourhood, west of occupied Jerusalem. It was surrounded by about 100 dunams of land owned by Gharib’s father. However, the Israeli settlers stole all of this land and kept the house, which is only 500-metres square.
Gharib told Anadolu Agency, that since 2008, his house has been turned into a very small cage surrounded with concrete walls and located in the middle of an Israeli settlement. It has only a very narrow passage with 12 cameras monitoring it.
Gharib, his mother, his wife and three children live in this house. “Our house is a real prison,” he explains, adding: “It is surrounded with wires from all sides. It was built in the middle of a wide area of land, but today it is a small prison in the middle of Giv’on Hahadasha settlement.”
“We are subjected to stone throwing, live bullet shooting, insulting and burning,” Gharib, who owns all the documents that prove the ownership of the land, revealed.
“However, we had seven demolition orders, but I fought in the Israeli courts and stopped them,” stating that 40 dunams were stolen by the Israeli occupation authorities in 1979 and 60 dunams were isolated from his house by the apartheid wall in 2007. “We do not access them except once a year with permission from the Israeli occupation,” Gharib explains, noting that his house is monitored 24/7.
In 1979, the settlers offered his father a large amount of money for the land, but he refused and said: “If you give me all of Israel’s money, I would never concede an inch of my land.”
Later on, the Israeli occupation stole it with its settlement power.
Putting pressure on Gharib in order to leave his house, the Israeli occupation prevents him from planting any trees near his house, from carrying out any renovation works or from making any repairs.
Gharib points out:
“A few months ago, the water tank was damaged and I wanted to change it, but Israel refused. They want to push us to leave our house. But if the house was demolished, I would live in a tent. I will never leave my family’s house to the settlers.
“We live a very difficult life. The gate of the passage leading to my house is controlled by the Israeli occupation and could be closed any time. In 2008, it was closed for three consecutive months, but we fought until it was opened 24 hours a day.”
Around 900 Palestinians live in Beit Ijza, which was part of Jerusalem before the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Since the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1993, Beit Ijza became part of the Palestinian Governorate of Jerusalem Suburbs.
This neighbourhood is one of many others which were isolated from Jerusalem by the apartheid wall, so they were connected with the occupied West Bank through tunnels or bridges.
According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, more than 50,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem’s ID cards were isolated by the apartheid wall and deprived from living in Jerusalem.
In 2002, Israel decided to build a 710-kilometre wall to separate the occupied West Bank from Israel and the illegal Israeli settlements in the depths of the occupied territories.



