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Zionist Terror in London

Why I have withdrawn from my commitment to play at the Great 606 Jazz Club this Saturday night

By Gilad Atzmon | January 31, 2020

They destroyed the Labour Party, now they have launched a campaign against the British arts scene. Will they successfully abuse the moniker of anti-Semitism to destroy any place, person or organization where they sense opposition?

The 606 Jazz Club and its owner, Steve Rubie, have been subjected to a constant barrage of pressure and threats for hosting my concert. In a familiar first act,  a Jewish “member of the public” asked the 606 to explain why the club gives a [music] platform to me, whom he duplicitously  calls ‘an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier.’  The UK Jewish press avidly repeated the lies about me.  Ludicrous accusations were made. The club was told that I advocate the ‘burning of synagogues.’ I was accused of suggesting that “Hitler was right after all.” The accusations are false and, of course, unsourced as they cannot be found anywhere in my work. If I were a Hitler supporter who urged burning synagogues, certainly these campaigners would have used Britain’s strict hate speech laws to have me spend some time behind bars.

I have played in the 606 club for many years and Steve and I have spent many hours discussing Israel and its politics. Steve has no doubts that the accusations against me are unfounded. Yesterday  he wrote a moving  statement explaining why I am invited to play at his club on a regular basis despite the constant pressure he endures. Amazingly, Steve had to point out that The 606 is  “a music venue first and foremost. We are here to promote the best in UK music and Gilad falls in that category…” This is without regard to Steve’s disagreement with most of my political views.

Steve’s explained the basic core western value that political disagreement is no reason to stop the music. Are we to live in a land where Tories and Labour block each other’s arts events? Ridiculous. But apparently kosher in the case of supporters of Israel and its critics. The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA)  were not persuaded by the simple truth of Steve’s letter. Last night, the CAA launched its new strategy, to threaten and then harass the Jazz community, the club, that artists and the jazz audience whenever it so decides.  A few hours ago the CAA posted the this Tweet:

“Campaign Against Antisemitism will be selecting a number of future dates on which to picket the @606Club over its decision to provide notorious antisemite Gilad Atzmon with a platform.”

This should horrify every Brit, Jew and Gentile, as it horrifies me.  In 2017 a similar CAA campaign ended in a vicious attack on an audience member who suffered a serious eye injury.

This morning I decided that in the light of the CAA’s threats, I am withdrawing from the gig. I do not want to see the art scene obliterated by an insane Zionist pressure group. I certainly don’t want British artists and audiences subjected to violence. I did this despite my concerns about the consequences of bowing to anti-cultural bullies and my obligation to the British artists who have played with me for decades and whose livelihoods depends on such gigs.

Of far larger concern is that a pressure group that tweets its call for volunteers to destroy our art scene enjoys such impunity in Britain. How is it that British tax benefits granted charitable status to the benefit of the CAA that openly threatens to harass the Jazz community, its audience, venues and artists?

I deeply believe that  Britain must reinstate its liberal and universal values of tolerance and diversity, and as a first step, I intend to file a complaint against  the CAA with the Charity Commission. I ask you to examine their rules and decide if you want to do the same.

January 31, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ won’t bring peace – that was the plan

The proposal deliberately includes a host of unrealisable preconditions before what remains of Palestine can be recognised

By Jonathon Cook | The National | January 2, 2020

Much of Donald Trump’s long-trailed “deal of the century” came as no surprise. Over the past 18 months, Israeli officials had leaked many of its details.

The so-called “Vision for Peace” unveiled on Tuesday simply confirmed that the US government has publicly adopted the long-running consensus in Israel: that it is entitled to keep permanently the swaths of territory it seized illegally over the past half-century that deny the Palestinians any hope of a state.

The White House has discarded the traditional US pose as an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinian leaders were not invited to the ceremony, and would not have come had they been. This was a deal designed in Tel Aviv more than in Washington – and its point was to ensure there would be no Palestinian partner.

Importantly for Israel, it will get Washington’s permission to annex all of its illegal settlements, now littered across the West Bank, as well as the vast agricultural basin of the Jordan Valley. Israel will continue to have military control over the entire West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced his intention to bring just such an annexation plan before his cabinet as soon as possible. It will doubtless provide the central plank in his efforts to win a hotly contested general election due on March 2.

The Trump deal also approves Israel’s existing annexation of East Jerusalem. The Palestinians will be expected to pretend that a West Bank village outside the city is their capital of “Al Quds”. There are incendiary indications that Israel will be allowed to forcibly divide the Al Aqsa mosque compound to create a prayer space for extremist Jews, as has occurred in Hebron.

Further, the Trump administration appears to be considering giving a green light to the Israeli right’s long-held hopes of redrawing the current borders in such a way as to transfer potentially hundreds of thousands of Palestinians currently living in Israel as citizens into the West Bank. That would almost certainly amount to a war crime.

The plan envisages no right of return, and it seems the Arab world will be expected to foot the bill for compensating millions of Palestinian refugees.

A US map handed out on Tuesday showed Palestinian enclaves connected by a warren of bridges and tunnels, including one between the West Bank and Gaza. The only leavening accorded to the Palestinians are US pledges to strengthen their economy. Given the Palestinians’ parlous finances after decades of resource theft by Israel, that is not much of a promise.

All of this has been dressed up as a “realistic two-state solution”, offering the Palestinians nearly 70 per cent of the occupied territories – which in turn comprise 22 per cent of their original homeland. Put another way, the Palestinians are being required to accept a state on 15 per cent of historic Palestine after Israel has seized all the best agricultural land and the water sources.

Like all one-time deals, this patchwork “state” – lacking an army, and where Israel controls its security, borders, coastal waters and airspace – has an expiry date. It needs to be accepted within four years. Otherwise, Israel will have a free hand to start plundering yet more Palestinian territory. But the truth is that neither Israel nor the US expects or wants the Palestinians to play ball.

That is why the plan includes – as well as annexation of the settlements – a host of unrealisable preconditions before what remains of Palestine can be recognised: the Palestinian factions must disarm, with Hamas dismantled; the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas must strip the families of political prisoners of their stipends; and the Palestinian territories must be reinvented as the Middle East’s Switzerland, a flourishing democracy and open society, all while under Israel’s boot.

Instead, the Trump plan kills the charade that the 26-year-old Oslo process aimed for anything other than Palestinian capitulation. It fully aligns the US with Israeli efforts – pursued by all its main political parties over many decades – to lay the groundwork for permanent apartheid in the occupied territories.

Trump invited both Netanyahu, Israel’s caretaker prime minister, and his chief political rival, former general Benny Gantz, for the launch. Both were keen to express their unbridled support.

Between them, they represent four-fifths of Israel’s parliament. The chief battleground in the March election will be which one can claim to be better placed to implement the plan and thereby deal a death blow to Palestinian dreams of statehood.

On the Israeli right, there were voices of dissent. Settler groups described the plan as “far from perfect” – a view almost certainly shared privately by Netanyahu. Israel’s extreme right objects to any talk of Palestinian statehood, however illusory.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition will happily seize the goodies offered by the Trump administration. Meanwhile the plan’s inevitable rejection by the Palestinian leadership will serve down the road as justification for Israel to grab yet more land.

There are other, more immediate bonuses from the “deal of the century”.

By allowing Israel to keep its ill-gotten gains from its 1967 conquest of Palestinian territories, Washington has officially endorsed one of the modern era’s great colonial aggressions. The US administration has thereby declared open war on the already feeble constraints imposed by international law.

Trump benefits personally, too. This will provide a distraction from his impeachment hearings as well as offering a potent bribe to his Israel-obsessed evangelical base and major funders such as US casino magnate Sheldon Adelson in the run-up to a presidential election.

And the US president is coming to the aid of a useful political ally. Netanyahu hopes this boost from the White House will propel his ultra-nationalist coalition into power in March, and cow the Israeli courts as they weigh criminal charges against him.

How he plans to extract personal gains from the Trump plan were evident on Tuesday. He scolded Israel’s attorney-general over the filing of the corruption indictments, claiming a “historic moment” for the state of Israel was being endangered.

Meanwhile, Abbas greeted the plan with “a thousand nos”. Trump has left him completely exposed. Either the PA abandons its security contractor role on behalf of Israel and dissolves itself, or it carries on as before but now explicitly deprived of the illusion that statehood is being pursued.

Abbas will try to cling on, hoping that Trump is ousted in this year’s election and a new US administration reverts to the pretence of advancing the long-expired Oslo peace process. But if Trump wins, the PA’s difficulties will rapidly mount.

No one, least of all the Trump administration, believes that this plan will lead to peace. A more realistic concern is how quickly it will pave the way to greater bloodshed.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s UN Envoy Blasts ‘Deal of the Century’ Map Which Shows Golan Heights as Part of Israel

Sputnik – 30.01.2020

Israel took over part of Syria’s Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing the area in 1981. The UN denounced Tel Aviv’s decision as “null and void and without international legal effect.” Last March, Washington formally recognised the occupied area as Israeli territory. Damascus blasted the move and vowed to regain its lands someday.

The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vaily Nebenzya has called on the architects of the so-called ‘deal of the century’ Israeli-Palestinian peace plan to remember that the Golan Heights belong to Syria.

“Yesterday, Washington published its vision for a settlement in the Middle East. We could not help but notice that the maps included in the plan defined the Golan Heights as Israeli territory,” Nebenzya said, referring to a pair of maps tweeted out by President Trump showing the proposed Israeli and Palestinian states which clearly show the Golan Heights northeast of the Sea of Galilee as part of Israel.

“In this connection, we would like to remind the ‘geographer’ who created this map that we and Security Council Resolution 497 do not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan,” Nebenzya added.

“The Golan Heights are illegally occupied Syrian territory,” the ambassador stressed.

In 1981, after Tel Aviv moved to annex the occupied areas of the Golan Heights, the United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution saying that Israeli claims to the Golan Heights were “null and void and without international legal effect.” In 1982, 86 other countries in the General Assembly adopted a second resolution calling for a general boycott of Israel over its occupation of Syrian territory, but the US and its European allies rejected the initiative. Israel gained control of the Golan Heights in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, a brief conflict which took place in June 1967 which began when Israel launched preemptive airstrikes against an Arab coalition led by Egypt.

US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognising Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights in March 2019 after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Dozens of countries including the US’s European allies rejected Washington’s change in position, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov characterised the decision as a “conscious, deliberate demonstration of lawlessness.”

Syria warned that it would never give up its claims to the Golan Heights territories, and indicated that it has the legal right to regain the Golan Heights by any means possible, alleging that force was “the only language which Israel understands.” Skirmishes have been reported in the area in the months since, with Israel occasionally reporting the destruction of projectiles launched from the Syrian side of the border, while Syrian air defences have reported the shootdown of Israeli missiles.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited ‘Deal of the Century’ Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. The proposal envisions a two-state solution, recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and grants the Palestinian Authority several neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. It also offers the Palestinian side $50 billion in investments. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the proposal outright, telling Trump Jerusalem was “not for sale,” and vowing that the deal would “not go through” under his watch.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. in the Middle-East: Preparing for Disaster

By The Saker • Unz Review • January 30, 2020

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Turns out that Trump and the Pentagon were lying. Again. This time about the true impact of the Iranian counter-strike on US forces in Syria. First they claimed that there were no injured U.S. personnel, only to eventually have to fess up that 34 soldiers had suffered traumatic brain injury (which Trump “re-classified” as a “headache”). Then they had to admit that it was not really 34, but actually 50!

According to some sources, not all U.S. personnel were hiding in bunkers and some were deployed to defend the base perimeter. Whatever may be the case, this adds yet another indication that the Iranian counter-strike was much more robust than originally reported by the Empire. In fact, Iranian sources indicate that following the strike, a number of wounded casualties were flown to Israel, Kuwait and Germany. Again, we will probably never find out the full truth about what happened that night, but two things are now certain:

  1. The Iranian attack was extremely effective and it is undeniable that all the US/NATO/Israeli forces in the region are now exposed like sitting ducks waiting for the next Iranian strike.
  2. Uncle Shmuel has had to dramatically under-report the real extent and nature of the Iranian counter-strike.

Now, let’s be clear about the quality of the warning the U.S. personnel had. We now know at the very least the following warnings were received:

  1. Warning through the Iraqi government (whom the Iranians did brief about their intentions).
  2. Warning through the Swiss authorities (who represent U.S. interests in Iran and whom the Iranian did brief about their intentions).
  3. Warning through the US reconnaissance/intelligence capabilities on the ground, air and space.

And yet, in spite of these almost ideal conditions (from the point of view of defense), we now see that not a single Iranian missile was intercepted, that the missiles all landed with very high accuracy, that the U.S. base itself suffered extensive damage (including destroyed helicopters and drones) and that there were scores of injured personnel (see this article for a detailed discussion of the post-attack imagery).

If we look at this strike as primarily a “proof of concept” operation, then it becomes pretty clear that on the Iranian side what was proven was a superb degree of accuracy and robust ballistic missile capability, whereas on the U.S. side the only thing this strike did was to prove that the U.S. forces in the region are all extremely vulnerable to Iranian missile attack. Just imagine if the Iranians had wanted to maximize U.S. casualties and if they had given no warning of any kind – what would the tally be then?! What if the Iranians had targeted, say, fuel and ammo dumps, buildings where U.S. personnel lived, industrial facilities (including CENTCOM’s key logistic nodes), ports or even airfields? Can you imagine the kind of hell the Iranians would have unleashed against basically unprotected facilities?!

Still dubious?

Then ask yourself why Trump & Co. had to lie and minimize the real scope of the Iranian attack. It is pretty obvious that the White House decided to lie and to present the strike as almost without impact because if it had admitted the magnitude of the strike, then it would also have had to admit to the total powerlessness to stop or even to meaningfully degrade it. Not only that, but an outraged U.S. public (most Americans still believe the traditional propaganda line about “The Greatest Military Force in the History of the Galaxy”!) would have demanded a retaliatory counter-counter-strike against Iran, which would have triggered an immediate Iranian attack on Israel which, in turn, would have plunged the entire region into a massive war which the U.S. had no stomach for.

Contrast that with the Iranian claims which, if anything, possibly exaggerated the impact of the strike and claimed that 80 servicemen were injured (I would add here that, at least so far, the Iranian government has been far more candid and less inclined to resort to crude lies than the U.S. has). Clearly the Iranians were ready for exactly the kind of further escalation that the U.S. wanted to avoid at almost any cost.

So what really took place?

There are two basic ways to defend against an attack: denial and punishment. Denial is what the Syrians have been doing against the U.S. and Israel every time they shoot down incoming missiles. Denial is ideal because it minimizes your own casualties while not necessarily going up the “escalation scale”. In contrast, punishment is when you don’t prevent an attack, but when you inflict retaliatory counter-strike on the attacking side, but only after being attacked yourself. That is what the US could do against Iran, at pretty much any time (yes, contrary to some wholly unrealistic claims, Iranian air defenses cannot prevent the US armed forces from inflicting immense damage upon Iran, its population and infrastructure).

The problem with punishing Iran is you are dealing with an enemy who is actually willing to absorb immense losses as long as these losses eventually lead to victory. How do you deter somebody who is willing to die for his country, people or faith?

There is no doubt in my mind that the Iranians, who are superb analysts, are fully aware of the damage that the U.S. can inflict. The key factor here is that they also realize that once the U.S. unleashes its missiles and bombers and once they destroy many (if not all) of their targets, they will have nothing else left to try to contain Iran with.

Here is how you can think of the Iranian strategy:

  • If the U.S. does nothing or only engages in symbolic strikes (say, like Israel’s strikes in Syria), the Iranians can simply ignore these attacks because while they are very effective in giving the Americans (or the Israelis) an illusion of power, they really fail to achieve anything militarily significant.
  • If the U.S. finally decides to strike Iran hard, it will exhaust its “punishment card” in that counter-attack, and will have no further options to deter Iran.
  • If the U.S. (or Israel) decides to use nuclear weapons, then such an attack will simply give a “political joker card” to Iran saying in essence “now you are justified in whatever retaliation you can think of.” And you can be darn sure that the Iranian will come up with all sorts of most painful forms of retaliation!

You can think of the current US posture as “binary”: it is either “all off” or “all on.” Not by choice, of course, but these conditions are the result of the geostrategic realities of the Middle-East and from the many asymmetries between the two sides:

Country US Iran
Air superiority yes no
Combat capable ground forces no yes
Willingness to incur major losses no yes
Short and secure supply lines no yes
Prepared for major defensive operations no yes

The above is, of course, a simplification, yet it is also fundamentally true. And the reason for these asymmetries lies in a very simple yet crucial difference: Americans have been brainwashed into believing that major wars can be won on the cheap. Iranians have no such illusions (most certainly not after Iraq, backed by the US, the USSR and Europe, attacked Iran and inflicted immense destruction on the Iranian society). But the era of “wars on the cheap” is now long over.

Furthermore, Iranians also know that U.S. air superiority alone will not magically result in a U.S. victory. Finally, the Iranians have had 40 years to prepare for a U.S. attack. The U.S. has only really been put on notice since January 8th of this year.

Again, for the US, it is “all in” or “all out”. We saw the “all out” in the days following the Iranian counter-strike and we can get an idea of what the “all in” would look like by recalling the Israeli operations against Hezbollah in 2006.

The Iranians, however, have a much more gradual escalatory capability, which they just demonstrated with their attack on the U.S. forces in Iraq: they can launch only a few missiles, or they can launch hundreds of them. They can try to maximize U.S. casualties, or they can decide to go after CENTCOM’s infrastructure. They can chose to strike Uncle Shmuel directly, or they can decide to strike his allies (KSA) and bosses (Israel). They can chose to take credit for any action, or they can hide behind what the CIA calls plausible deniability.

So while the U.S. and the AngloZionist Empire as a whole are much more powerful than Iran, Iran has skillfully developed methods and means which allow it to be in control of what military analysts call the “escalation dominance”.

Has Iran just “Ledeened” the almighty US?

Remember Michael Ledeen? He is the Neocon who came up with this historical aphorism: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business“.

Is it not ironic that Iran did exactly that, they took the US and “threw it against a wall, just to show that they meant business”, did they not?

And what does this all tell us?

For one thing, the U.S. military is in real trouble. It is pretty obvious that U.S. air defenses are hopelessly ineffective: we saw their “performance” in Saudi Arabia against the Houthi strikes. The truth is that the Patriot missiles never performed adequately, not in the first Gulf War, nor today. The big difference is that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not have any high-precision missiles and that its attempts to strike at the U.S. (or Israel, for that matter) where not very effective. Thus, it was easy for the Pentagon to fudge the real performance (or lack thereof!) of its weapon systems. Now that Iran has been able to pinpoint some buildings while carefully ignoring others shows that the entire Middle-East has entered a radically new era.

Second, it is equally obvious that U.S. bases in the Middle-East are very vulnerable to ballistic and cruise missile attacks. Air defenses are a very complicated and high-tech branch of the military and it often takes years, if not decades, to develop a truly effective air defense system. Due in part to its tendency to only attack weak and lightly-defended countries, and also due to the very real deterrent might the U.S. armed forces used to deliver in the past, the U.S. never had to really worry much about air defenses. The “little guys” had no missiles, while the “big guys” would never dare to openly strike at Uncle Shmuel’s forces.

Until recently.

Now, it is the previously almighty World Hegemon which has been tossed against a wall by a much weaker Iran and thus found itself being treated like a “small crappy little country”.

Sweet irony!

But there is much more to this story.

The real Iranian goal: to get the U.S. out of the Middle-East

The Iranians (and many Iranian allies in the region) have made it clear that the real retaliation for the murder of General Soleimani would be to bring about a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and Syria primarily, followed by a complete withdrawal from the entire Middle-East.

How likely is such an outcome?

Right now, I would say that the chances of that truly happening are microscopically small. After all, who could seriously imagine the U.S. leaving either Saudi Arabia or Israel? Ain’t gonna happen short of a true cataclysm.

What about countries like Turkey or Pakistan which are formally allies of the US but which are also showing clear signs of being mighty fed-up with the kind of “patronage” the US likes to mete out to its “allies”? Do we have any reason to believe that these countries will ever officially demand that Uncle Shmuel’s mercenaries (because that is what U.S. forces are, paid invaders) get the hell out?

And then there are countries like Iraq or Afghanistan which have hosted a very successful and active anti-U.S. insurgency which has kept U.S. forces hunkered down in heavily fortified bases. I don’t think there is anybody mentally sane out there who could offer a even semi-credible scenario of what a U.S. “victory” would look like in these countries. The fact that the U.S. stayed in Afghanistan even longer than the Soviets did shows not only that the Soviet forces were far more effective (and popular) than their U.S. counterparts, but also that Gorbachev’s Politburo was more in touch with reality than Trump’s NSC.

Whatever may be the case, I believe it is undeniable that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are lost and than no amount of grandstanding will change this outcome. The same goes for Syria where the U.S. is basically holding on out of sheer stubbornness and a total inability to admit defeat.

Uncle Shmuel’s “vision of peace” for the Middle-East

I just listened to the Idiot-in-Chief proudly present “his” Middle-East “peace” plan to Bibi Netanyahu and the world. This latest stunt shows two crucial things about the mind-set in Washington, D.C.:

  1. There is nothing which the U.S. ruling classes will not do to try to get the favor and support of the Israel Lobby.
  2. The US does not care, not even marginally, what the people of the Middle-East think.

This dynamic, which is not anything new, but which received a qualitative “shot of steroids” under Trump, will only further contribute to the inevitable collapse of Empire in the Middle-East. For one thing, all the so-called “U.S. allies” in the region understand that the only country which matters to the US is Israel, and that all the others count for almost nothing. Furthermore, all the rulers of the Middle-East now also know that being allied to the US also means being a cheap prostitute for Israel which, in turn, is guaranteed political suicide for any politician not wise enough to smell the trap. Finally, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria have shown that the “Axis of Kindness” is long on hyperbole and hubris, but very short in terms of actual combat capability.

The simple truth is that the abject brown-nosing of the Israel Lobby that Trump has been engaged in from Day 1 of his term only serves to further isolate and weaken the U.S. in the Middle-East (and beyond, really!).

In this context, how realistic is the Iranian goal of kicking Uncle Shmuel out of the region?

As I said, not realistic at all, if seen solely in the short term. But I hasten to add that it is very realistic in the mid-term if we look at some, but not all, the countries of the region. Finally, in the long term, it is not only realistic, it is inevitable, even if the Iranians themselves don’t do much, or anything at all, to make that happen.

These grinning ignoramuses are doing more than anyone else to bring down the Empire, even if they don’t understand this!

Conclusion: “Israel’s” days are numbered

The Israelis have been feeding us all a steady diet about this or that country or politician being a “new Hitler’ who will either gas 6M Jews “again”, or wants to wipe Israel “off the map” or even engage in a new Holocaust. Gilad Atzmon brilliantly calls this mental disorder “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” and he is spot on. The Israelis mostly used this “preemptive geschrei*” as a way to squeeze out as many concessions (and money) from the western goyim as possible. But in a deep sense, it is possibly that the Israelis are at least dimly aware that their entire project is simply not viable, that you cannot ensure the survival of any state by terrorizing all of your neighbors. Violence, especially vicious, rabid, violence can, indeed, terrorize people, but only for so long. Sooner or later, the human soul will outgrow any fear, no matter how visceral, and will replace that fear by a new and immensely powerful sense of determination.

Here is what Robert Fisk said in distant 2006, 14 years ago:

You heard Sharon, before he suffered his massive stroke, he used this phrase in the Knesset, you know, “The Palestinians must feel pain.” This was during one of the intifadas. The idea that if you continue to beat and beat and beat the Arabs, they will submit, that eventually they’ll go on their knees and give you what you want. And this is totally, utterly self-delusional, because it doesn’t apply anymore. It used to apply 30 years ago, when I first arrived in the Middle East. If the Israelis crossed the Lebanese border, the Palestinians jumped in their cars and drove to Beirut and went to the cinema. Now when the Israelis cross the Lebanese border, the Hezbollah jump in their cars in Beirut and race to the south to join battle with them. But the key thing now is that Arabs are not afraid any more. Their leaders are afraid, the Mubaraks of this world, the president of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan. They’re afraid. They shake and tremble in their golden mosques, because they were supported by us. But the people are no longer afraid.

What was true only for some Arabs in 2006, has now become true for most (maybe even all?) Arabs in 2020. As for the Iranians, they have never had any fear of Uncle Shmuel, they are the ones who “injected” the newly created Hezbollah with this qualitatively new kind of “special courage” (which is the Shia ethos, really!) when this movement was founded.

Empires can survive many things, but once they are not feared anymore, then their end is near. The Iranian strike proved a fundamental new reality to the rest of the world: the US is much more afraid of Iran than Iran is afraid of the US. U.S. rulers and politicians will, of course, claim otherwise. But that futile effort to re-shape reality is now doomed to failure, if only because even the Houthis can now openly and successfully defy the combined might of the “Axis of Kindness”.

You can think of U.S. and Israeli leaders as the orchestra on the Titanic: they play well, but they will still get wet and then die.

(*geschrei: the Yiddish word for yelling, crying out, to shriek)

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Sham Palestine Plan Is the Kind of One-Sided Peace the Empire Would Impose on Rebel Donbass…If It Could

By Paul Robinson | Anti-Empire | January 30, 2020

War, said Clausewitz, is an ‘interaction’, ‘not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass but always the collision of two living forces.’ This is one of the things which makes it so difficult to manage. You can’t just do x, and expect y to happen, even if y happened last time you did x, because there are always others involved, with wills of their own.

If war is an interaction, so too is peace. Short of one party’s total destruction, war ends because both sides choose for it to end, either because they’re both exhausted and choose to negotiate, or because one side realizes that it’s defeated and gives up. In the latter case, it’s not the winner who decides exactly when the war ends, it’s the loser. Or, as Fred Ikle put it in his book ‘Every War Must End’, ‘peace is made by the loser’.

In short, even when you’re on top, you don’t get to unilaterally decide when and how to stop a conflict. The key is getting your opponents to agree to stop. This can be done through a combination of negative and positive inducements, or by negotiation. But at the end of the day, the other side always has to agree (even if reluctantly).

Unilaterally-imposed take it or leave it solutions which involve the humiliation or total submission of one party are a bad way of getting this agreement. Given the loss of honour (at best), or of independence or even life (at worst), which such solutions involve, people won’t agree to them unless the negative inducements are extremely powerful (think Germany in 1945, for instance). Consequently, if you’re not prepared to put such extreme negative inducements into effect, you don’t really have any choice, if you truly want peace, but to talk with the other side. You have to get them to agree.

Somewhere along the line, sadly, we seem to have forgotten this (if we ever actually understood it). There’s this sense that great powers can draw up a peace plan for somebody else’s conflict and then force it down their throats without even bothering to consult them. It’s odd, for the most part decidedly unrealistic, and more than a little arrogant.

And so it is that Donald Trump rolled out his ‘deal of the century’ to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Notionally, this is an American plan, but it seems clear that the Israelis were consulted about it before it was unveiled, and they obviously don’t have any objections to it. The problem is that neither the Israelis nor the Americans bothered consulting the other party to the conflict – the Palestinians. Unsurprisingly, the latter have wasted no time in rejecting the plan, as well they might given that the map released by the White House shows that the planned Palestinian state would look like this:

The Palestinian response is hardly surprising. Short of extreme negative inducements, it’s hard to see why anybody would accept a state divided up into lots of little pieces which doesn’t even have access to water. The whole thing seems to have been designed entirely to keep one side happy, while not bothering at all about what the other side wants (the hope apparently being that they can be bought off with a lot of money). One shouldn’t be too shocked if it all turns out to be dead at birth.

Sadly, though, this isn’t a unique case. The American approach to the war in Ukraine has been rather similar. The official line has been to put pressure on the Russian Federation so that it will abandon Donbass, which will then be forced to accept whatever terms Ukraine chooses to give it.

More moderate analysts instead propose cutting some sort of deal with Russia (e.g. recognition of the annexation of Crimea in return for the abandonment of Donbass). But either way, talking to the people of Donbass, let alone their notional leaders, is out of the question. However peace comes, it isn’t to be by means of agreement with the people doing the fighting. Peace must be unilateral, or there won’t be peace at all.

Which, of course, is nuts. As I said, it takes two make war. It takes two to make peace as well.

January 30, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | | Leave a comment

International Community Must Condemn US Mideast Peace Plan – Syria Foreign Ministry

Sputnik – January 29, 2020

Syria demands that the international community condemn the US peace plan on the Middle East and ensure that the legitimate land rights of Palestinians be protected, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

“Syria demands that the international community condemns the United States’ dismissive position in regard to international law and to confirm [previously adopted] resolutions to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and to ensure the legitimate rights of the Palestinians,” the foreign ministry said.

The ministry also said that Damascus strongly condemned and rejected the “deal of the century,” describing it as a call to surrender to the Israeli occupation of West Bank territories.

“The US plan demonstrates again that the US policy in the region benefits only Israel and its expansionistic plans at the expense of the Arabs’ rights and interests,” it added.

In addition, Damascus called on the international community to condemn the US’ stance toward international law and confirm resolutions on ending the occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel and ensuring rights of the Palestinian people.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump presented his so-called deal of the century that proposes a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Earlier in the day, the Arab League said that the plan violated Palestinians’ legitimate land rights.

The so-called deal of the century was revealed by Trump during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the peace plan, the Palestinians would be able to have a state of their own with the capital in East Jerusalem, while Washington would, in turn, recognise Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The United States and Israel will form a joint committee to monitor the deal implementation.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has rejected Trump’s initiative, saying the Palestinians would only negotiate with the Middle East Quartet rather than with the United States or under the terms of the US peace plan.

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN rejects US deal of the century

MEMO | January 29, 2020

The United Nations has rejected US President Donald Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ and reiterated that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be solved based on UN resolutions and international law.

In a statement, a copy of which was sent to MEMO, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, said: “The position of the United Nations on the two-State solution has been defined, throughout the years, by relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions by which the Secretariat is bound.”

He added: “The United Nations remains committed to supporting Palestinians and Israelis in resolving the conflict on the basis of United Nations resolutions, international law, and bilateral agreements and realizing the vision of two States – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace and security within recognized borders, on the basis of the pre-1967 lines.”

It is worth noting that Trump has ignored the two-state solution adopted by the UN and the international community and proposed his own view of the two-state solution, which ignores the 1967 borders and has all of Jerusalem under full Israeli sovereignty.

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nakhale: “Deal of Century” Conspiracy that Represents New Challenge

Deputy chief of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement Ziyad Nakhala
Al-Manar | January 29, 2020

Secretary General of Islamic Jihad Palestinian Resistance movement Ziad Nakhale stressed that the so-called “Deal of the Century” target the Palestinian people and the entire nation.

In a statement released a day after the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “peace plan”, Nakhale described the plan as a conspiracy “that represents a great challenge to our nation and unprecedented bullying.”

Trump started his plan by blaming Arab and Muslim world for not recognizing Israel,” Nakhale added.

He noted that Washington “wants to make our people slaves to Israelis after a long history of struggle, resistance and sacrifices.”

“They (US administration and occupation authorities) think they can simply change the history… They think they can wipe out our culture.”

“This stage is different and needs more forms of resistance,” Nakhale said, lashing out at Arab states’ stances towards the “Deal of the Century.”

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Rogue Regime Cuts Medical Lifeline to Remote Villagers – Again

UK Gov’t not bothered. ‘Israel is our friend, has an unquestionable right to exist, shares our values, has a right to defend herself, mustn’t be punished even for war crimes…’

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | January 29, 2020

When Israel confiscated a Palestinian medical jeep it may not have sounded like a big deal. But it was, and still is, a matter of life and death to hundreds of oppressed people and the Israelis know it.

Haaretz reported earlier this month that Israel had impounded the only vehicle available to a medical team that provides assistance to 1,500 Palestinians living inside an Israeli military firing zone in the Palestinian West Bank. It’s the second time in a year that the vehicle serving residents of Masafer Yatta in the south Hebron hills has been confiscated, cutting off healthcare to an isolated and impoverished population.

The jeep and medical team belong to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry. They visit small villages in the area, accessible only by dirt roads, every week. The excuse for this outrage was that the team weren’t allowed there without prior co-ordination, since the area was inside a firing zone. The team’s doctor said medical assistance was necessary for these villages because of their long distance from a city and lack of financial resources. “We come here with all the medications we can administer outside a hospital to treat the villagers.”

When the jeep was previously confiscated it was returned after 6 months on payment of a 3000 shekel fine. All that time the team were unable to provide basic medical care as it was the only vehicle capable of traveling those roads.

The firing zone covers 7,400 acres and Israel declared it a closed military zone in the 1980s. In 1999, the army expelled the residents, arguing that they were living there illegally. But a temporary injunction by the Israeli Supreme Court let them return when they provided evidence that they had lived in the area long before Israel’s occupation in 1967.

The story is symptomatic of the evil permeating the Holy Land under Israel’s military occupation for 70+ years.

Last week Baroness Jenny Tonge, in a parliamentary question, asked what representations the UK Government intended making to the Israeli government. On 24 January Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister for the Commonwealth, UN and South Asia, replied: “We have made clear to the Israeli authorities the importance of medical assistance being available to Palestinians, most recently on 30 October 2019.” And that was it.

Tariq Ahmad is a Muslim of Pakistani origin. Since his elevation to the Lords he seems to have joined the ranks of those anxious to downplay Israel’s crimes and guarantee the rogue state’s impunity.

For example, in a debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict last March he said: “Any party that believes in the destruction of Israel of course cannot be party to a peace process. The UK Government have made it clear that, before taking part in any peaceful negotiations on the two-state solution, any party at the negotiating table needs to agree the right of Israel to exist.”

He didn’t mention the equal need to agree the Palestinians’ right to exist and the UK Government still refuses to recognize Palestinian statehood. Doesn’t that bar Britain from the peace table? And once again we’re fed nonsense about a ‘two state solution’. Given the many irreversible facts on the ground that the Israelis have been allowed to create with impunity, what would it look like? Yeah, too messy and ridiculous to even begin to describe. Netanyahu has said repeatedly that there will be no Palestinian state during his tenure as Israel’s prime minister. He declared: “We will not withdraw from one inch…. There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel…. This is the inheritance of our ancestors. This is our land…. We are here to stay forever.”

And that from somebody who, like most of his vile comrades, has no ancestral links whatever to the ancient land of Israel and therefore no claim to it.

So that disqualifies the Israeli government too from any peace process. As for the US administration, it is so overloaded with Zionist pimps, has fouled up so many peace moves, is so discredited by its past and present performances, and is so contemptuous of international law that it too has no place at the peace table.

The Montevideo Convention of 1933 on Statehood sets out the criteria for becoming a state and these include a defined territory. So when it comes to “agreeing Israel’s right to exist”, Lord Ahmad surely knows that Israel has always refused to declare its borders. So which Israel would he like us all to recognize? Israel behind the borders drawn by the UN Partition Plan? Israel behind the 1967 armistice borders? Israel with its boot on every Palestinians’s neck and illegally occupying the entire Palestinian territory? Or Israel seen by many as a brazen ‘racist endeavor’ that has just passed laws declaring itself “the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”?

Or will he and the rest of Boris Johnson’s ministerial stooges now insist on Israel according to the preposterous ‘deal’ put forward by Trump and his son-in-law?

Let’s not forget that the new state of Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949 was conditional upon honoring the UN Charter and implementing UN General Assembly Resolutions 181 and 194. It has failed to meet these obligations and to this day repeatedly violates provisions and principles of the Charter.

Israel doesn’t even comply with the rules of the EU-Israel Association Agreement of 1995 which require adherence to the principles of the UN Charter and “respect for human rights and democratic principle (which) constitute an essential element of this agreement” in return for trading privileges. Here too Israel grabs the privileges without delivering on the obligations.

Should everyone be expected to accept Israel’s right to exist while Palestinians are denied the right to their state?

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Trump Can’t Save Israel

By Tim Anderson | American Herald Tribune | January 29, 2020

Despite Trump’s apparent show of strength in the cynical ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan, he is actually helping Netanyahu destroy Israel, the European colony in Palestine.

Palestinian envoy to Britain Husam Zomlot said the announcement was a “piece of political theatre” and will push the situation “over the cliff and into apartheid”. Hamas rejected the plan as “nonsense” (RT 2020). Netanyahu, who has always been focussed on the expansion of ‘Greater Israel’, said that the Zionist state owes both Kushner and Trump “an eternal debt of gratitude”.

Trump’s ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan (“A vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people”) is a revised version of the 2019 Kushner plan (the so-called “deal of the century”), which offered an illusory promise of long term money (mostly Gulf Arab money) in exchange for political surrender. The new version speaks of a “realistic two state solution” – because “Israel has now agreed to terms for a future Palestinian State” – with a tiny Palestinian statelet cramming the majority Arab population of historic Palestine into 15% of the land. Israel would control the vast majority of the West Bank (White House 2020). With no sovereign powers for the statelet, this deliberately enhances the status quo of a single state.

Trump’s latest plan follows a series of initiatives hostile to Palestinian and Syrian interests: breaching international law to recognize Jerusalem as a Zionist possession, breaching international law to annex the Syrian Golan, trying to legitimize the multiple Israeli colonies on the West Bank, demanding (in the Kushner plan) an effective Palestinian surrender on statehood and adopting the IHRA claim that any anti-Israel criticism is ‘racist’ and so illegitimate (IHRA 2016).

At this stage in the history of the colony, the 72 year old illusion of a ‘two state solution’ remains the main obstacle to a democratic Palestine. Trump’s plan seems an ‘advance’ on the Kushner Plan, in trying to keep that illusion alive. A majority of liberal Jews in the USA, for example, still hold to the two state illusion. But Netanyahu and his colleagues have always wanted it all.

The problem for the more ambitious Zionists is two-fold: (1) Palestinians have resisted, by guerrilla warfare and by not going away, and now slightly outnumber Jewish Israelis in historic Palestine; (2) destruction of the two state myth, and widespread recognition that there is only a single apartheid state, will bring a dramatic collapse in Israeli legitimacy across the world.

The more astute Zionist leaders know this. Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert recognized that “if the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights … the State of Israel is finished” (Olmert 2007).

Historically, Israel as a sectarian European colony, has always relied on substantial ethnic cleansing. On 3 December 1947, as the campaign intensified, Zionist leader David Ben Gurion told his party faithful that the “40% non-Jews in the areas allocated to the Jewish state” was “not a solid basis for a Jewish state .. only a state with at least 80% Jews is a solid and viable state” (Pappe 2006: 76).

For that reason, Ben Gurion’s ‘Plan Dalet’ of March 1948 called for operations “destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their debris) and especially of those population centers which are difficult to control … [the operations required are] encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resistance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state” (Pappe 2006: 68; Vidal 1997).

That plan was carried out and featured the Deir Yassin massacre of 9 April, where 107 villagers were killed, and a series of expulsions in which 531 villages and eleven urban neighborhoods were destroyed and 800,000 became refugees (Pappe 2006: xiii; Vidal 1997).

Yet despite this ethnic cleansing, military domination and annexations, Israeli agencies confirm that the current Arab population of historic Palestine (Arab Israelis plus those on the West Bank and in Gaza) is roughly equal to the population of Jewish Israelis.

A report from Jerusalem in 2011 showed that the Palestinian population of that city had risen from 25.5% in 1967 to 38% in 2009 (AIC 2011: 10, 12). The Jewish Virtual Library shows that the Jews of Israel / 1948 Palestine have declined from a peak of 88.9% in 1960 to 74.7% in 2017 (JVL 2017). In parallel, officials from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and the military run civil administration of the Occupied Territories (COGAT) say that the Arab population of Gaza, the West Bank and Arab [second class] citizens of Israel, along with residents of the annexed East Jerusalem municipality, add up to 6.5 million, about the same number as “Jews living between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean” (Heller 2018).

For all the apparent advances of Israeli power, Palestinian resistance has enhanced both the ‘demographic threat’ to Israel and the colony’s illegitimacy, in the international sphere.

In that context, Trump and Netanyahu are building an even more extreme illegitimacy, by consolidating a more openly apartheid state. In a report commissioned for the UN several years back, legal scholars Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley (2017), made it clear that Israel had already become an ‘apartheid state’, which is a crime against humanity. The international community had a responsibility to dismantle such a regime, they said.

Richard Falk, who had been a Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine for the UN, said that Palestine was wining the legitimacy battle: “Palestine is winning what in the end is the more important war, the struggle for legitimacy, which is most likely to determine the political outcome”. In the context of anti-colonial struggles, he continues, citing Vietnam, Algeria and Iraq, “the side with the greater perseverance and resilience, not the side that controlled the battlefield, won in the end” (Falk 2014).

Ironically it is the Palestinian Authority (PA), paid and contracted by the US and the Israeli regime, that helps keeps alive the illusion of two states. The PA blocks a clear and unified Palestinian strategy to dismantle apartheid Israel in favor of a single democratic state.

But where the PA has failed, Netanyahu and Trump are succeeding. While Israeli expansion has been blocked by the Lebanese resistance in the north and the resistance of Gaza in the south, Netanyahu has persisted with a steady colonization of the West Bank, undermining any viable Palestinian state.

Now Trump has added to this drive, offering only the fig leaf of a powerless ghetto on a small part of the West Bank and in Gaza. Israel’s contempt for the people of Gaza is plain. This is reminiscent of the failed Bantustan Homelands solution offered by apartheid South Africa, just before that regime collapsed (SAHO 2020). More open apartheid in Palestine will mean the death of Israel. Thank you Trump and  Netanyahu.

References

AIC (2011) ‘Jerusalem: facts and figures’, Alternative Information Center, December, Jerusalem and Beit Sahour, Palestine

Anderson, Tim (2008) The Future of Palestine, Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies, 7 August, online: https://counter-hegemonic-studies.net/future-palestine-1/

Falk, Richard (2014) ‘On ‘Lost Causes’ and the Future of Palestine’, The Nation, 16 December, online: https://www.thenation.com/article/lost-causes-and-future-palestine/

Falk, Richard and Virginia Tilley (2017) Palestine – Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture; East Jerusalem Vol. 22, Issue 2/3, 191-196; also available here: https://counter-hegemonic-studies.net/israeli-apartheid/

Heller, Jeffrey (2018) ‘Jews, Arabs nearing population parity in Holy Land: Israeli officials’, Reuters, 27 march, online: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-population/jews-arabs-nearing-population-parity-in-holy-land-israeli-officials-idUSKBN1H222T

IHRA (2016) ‘Working Definition of Antisemitism’, online: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/working-definition-antisemitism

JVL (2017) ‘Demographics of Israel: Jewish & Non-Jewish Population of Israel/Palestine (1517 – Present), Jewish Virtual Library, online: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-and-non-jewish-population-of-israel-palestine-1517-present

Olmert, Ehud (2007) ‘Olmert to Haaretz: Two-state Solution, or Israel Is Done For’, Haaretz, 29 November, online: https://www.haaretz.com/1.4961269

Pappe, Ilan (2006) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, London

Pappe, Ilan (2014) ‘Israel’s incremental genocide in the Gaza ghetto’, Electronic Intifada, 13 July, online: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-incremental-genocide-gaza-ghetto/13562

RT (2020) ‘Trump proposes a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine in ‘win-win opportunity’ for both sides’, 28 January, online: https://www.rt.com/news/479412-trump-two-state-solution-israel/

SAHO (2020) ‘The Homelands’, South African History Online, online: https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands

Vidal, Dominique (1997) ‘The expulsion of the Palestinians re-examined’, le Monde Diplomatique, December, online: https://mondediplo.com/1997/12/palestine

White House (2020) ‘President Donald J. Trump’s Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and a Brighter Future for Israel and the Palestinian People’, 28 January, online: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trumps-vision-peace-prosperity-brighter-future-israel-palestinian-people/

Dr. Tim Anderson is Director of the Sydney-based Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies. He has worked at Australian universities for more than 30 years, teaching, researching and publishing on development, human rights and self-determination in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East. In 2014 he was awarded Cuba’s medal of friendship. He is Australia and Pacific representative for the Latin America based Network in Defence of Humanity. His most recent books are: Land and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea (2015), The Dirty War on Syria (2016), now published in ten languages; Countering War Propaganda of the Dirty War on Syria (2017) and Axis of Resistance: towards an independent Middle East (2019).

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas calls Trump’s Mideast plan ‘aggressive,’ Jerusalem proposal ‘nonsense’

RT | January 28, 2020

Hamas has brushed off US President Donald Trump’s proposal on Jerusalem as “nonsense.” The group rejected his peace plan altogether by calling his statement “aggressive,” adding that it would only spark “anger.”

“Trump’s statement is aggressive and it will spark a lot of anger,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. The member of the Hamas movement that has a political and a militant wing particularly slammed the US leader’s proposal on the future of Jerusalem, calling it “nonsense.”

He added that the city “will always be a land for the Palestinians”, and that they would oppose Trump’s deal.

Trump’s speech contained conflicting messages, with him first declaring that Jerusalem would be Israel’s “undivided” capital, only to then say that Eastern Jerusalem will be turned into the capital of a newly formed Palestinian state if Palestinians accept his deal. He even vowed to open a US embassy there.

Thousands of Palestinians turned up on the streets in Gaza and elsewhere on Tuesday to protest Trump’s Middle East peace plan even before the US president announced it. The protesters were waving Palestinian flags as well as burned pictures of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who attended the announcement ceremony.

The US has consistently promoted its peace plan as the “Deal of the Century” that will put an end to a decades-long conflict. Netanyahu also hailed it as a “once in a lifetime opportunity for Israel.” That never sat well with Palestinians, who even branded the proposed accord “a deal of the devil.”

January 28, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump deal: A prize for Israel at the expense of Palestine

Press TV – January 28, 2020

Just as US President Donald Trump is taking time off his controversial impeachment trial to unveil his much hyped-up peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a potentially explosive situation is unfolding in Palestinian territories where there is huge resentment among the leadership and the people towards the so-called ‘deal of the century.’

Palestinians argue that one primary flaw of Trump’s deal is that despite presumably offering a recipe for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it totally excludes and sidelines them, as one side of any mutual agreement.

Palestinians view the deal as Washington’s seal of approval for Israel’s long-desired annexation of their territories it has been illegally occupying for decades, in total disregard for UN Security Council resolutions and the opposition by the vast majority of the international community.

The timing for the unveiling of the deal has also drawn much attention as both President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are embroiled in major national scandals. The US president is in the midst of an impeachment trial, while the Israeli premier is facing three corruption indictments.

Palestinian leaders from different factions raised their voices on Monday against the US-devised deal and stressed the need for popular resistance in the face of the American scheme which Trump prepares to unveil in the presence of Israeli leaders at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday.

Palestine has already rejected the so-called peace plan as “the slap of the century.”

The scheme is reported to be hugely biased towards the Tel Aviv regime by extending Israel’s “sovereignty” over all settlements and annexing the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.

Washington released the economic portion of its initiative during a conference last June, which was boycotted by Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause against Israel’s decades-occupation.

I won’t become a traitor: Abbas

Speaking at a meeting with members of the Fatah Party’s central committee on Monday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was cited in media reports as saying that Trump “wants to impose something on us that we do not want.”

Fatah officials also quoted Abbas as saying that he “did not pick up the phone” after calls from Washington.

“I said no and I will continue to say no… We are going for difficult days and we are beginning to bear the consequences of the refusal. Resistance must be escalated at all points of friction. All young people must be encouraged,” he said.

Abbas said he had received threats over his firm opposition to Trump’s deal, but that he will not back down from his stance.

“I was told I’ll pay a heavy price for my foolish behavior. I do not have much longer to live and I will not go down as a traitor. It’s either dying like martyrs or flying the Palestinian flag on the walls of Jerusalem [al-Quds],” he added.

Abbas also instructed Palestinian security forces not to interfere with protests against the US scheme, according to the reports.

US deal will be another Nakba: Hamas

Fawzi Barhoum, spokesman for the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, said Trump’s deal represents another Nakba for the Palestinian nation.

The Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe) is commemorated every year on May 15 to mark the forcible eviction of Palestinians from their motherland by Israel in 1948.

Barhoum also stressed that confronting “the disgraceful deal of the century” requires declaring public mobilization and stepping up resistance in various forms throughout Palestine.

He further urged Abbas to take important decisions towards opposing the initiative, among them ending security cooperation with Israel.

‘Arab envoys should boycott unveiling ceremony’

Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh called on all ambassadors of Arab and Muslim countries invited to the unveiling ceremony of the US plan not to attend the event, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency.

The Palestinians consider the deal “a conspiracy aimed at undermining the rights of the Palestinian people and thwarting the establishment of the State of Palestine.”

Reports, however, suggest that Arab Persian Gulf states — which have long had secret contacts with Israel — are likely to voice general support for the contentious US scheme, but only if it does not allow Tel Aviv to immediately annex parts of the West Bank.

So far Jordan has openly opposed the deal.

Trump attempting to boost Netanyahu: Israeli MK

Ahmad Tibi, Israeli lawmaker from the Arab-majority Joint List political alliance, said that Trump was intervening in the Palestine issue in favor of scandal-hit Netanyahu, amid an election deadlock in the occupied territories, Al Mayadeen TV channel reported.

Anyone who supports Trump’s initiative is actually against Palestine, he added.

Islamic Jihad calls for new Intifada

Mohammed al-Hindi, a member of Gaza-based Islamic Jihad’s politburo, called on people to launch a new Intifada (uprising) in the occupied territories.

He further underlined the need for an emergency meeting between all Palestinian groups on how to counter the US plan.

Gazans to protest; Palestinian leaders to convene

Meanwhile, groups based in the Gaza Strip have called on Palestinians in the blockaded coastal enclave to protest against Trump’s deal in central Gaza on Tuesday.

Separately, Abbas has called for an emergency meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee and the Fatah central committee at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday, which coincides with the plan’s release.

Hamas, which governs Gaza, is also set take part in the meeting.

“We invited the Hamas movement to attend the emergency meeting of the leadership and they will take part in the meeting,” senior Palestinian official Azzam al-Ahmed said.

January 28, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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