Remapping of Palestine: Why Israel’s erasure of Palestinian culture will not succeed
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | March 1, 2019
“Everything Palestinian in Jerusalem is targeted by Israeli occupation,” said Palestinian Archbishop of Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Church, Atallah Hanna, on 29 January during a meeting with a delegation from the medical aid organisation Doctors without Borders.
“The Islamic and Christian holy sites and endowments are targeted in order to change our city, hide its identity and marginalising our Arabic and Palestinian existence,” the archbishop added.
Hanna, who has been at the forefront of the Palestinian Muslim and Christian struggle against Israel’s Judaisation schemes, is, of course, correct in his assertion that Jerusalem is targeted. But the truth is that there is a systematic campaign to strip not just the holy city of its Palestinian character, but also the whole of Palestine.
A few days after the Palestinian Christian leader made his comments, Israeli authorities carried out excavations in the historic Al-Bahr Mosque in the city of Tiberias, on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee. In its place, Israel aims to establish a museum, a practice it has used many times in the past in order to erase historic symbols of Palestinian existence.
Israel’s disregard for the historical rights of Palestinians is deeply rooted in Zionist ideology. Indeed, from the very start, Zionist ideologues promoted the idea that Palestine was a place bereft of culture or heritage – an arid desert, waiting for Zionist pioneers to make it “bloom”.
For those claims to acquire a degree of plausibility and for the myth of Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” to be solidified, the Zionist movement needed to erase the very existence of the Palestinian people.
After the establishment of the Israeli state, its leaders never made it a secret that this is indeed their intention. “It is not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist,” Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969-74) said in an interview with the Sunday Times in June 1969.
The notion that Palestinians are not a people with a collective sense of nationhood has remained a defining concept of Zionism until this day and has spread well beyond Israel’s borders. American Christian evangelicals are particularly avid supporters of the idea, which has led some American politicians to also publicly embrace it. In 2011, for example, then US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told the Jewish Channel that the Palestinians were an “invented people“.
Disappearing Palestine map
The practical application of this idea has meant that the construction of anything Jewish Israeli – whether it is cities, settlements, bypass-roads or numerous edifices of art, culture, religion and so on – has had to take place in parallel to the demolition and erasure of Palestinian cities, villages, streets, homes, cultural and religious sites.
On 19 July 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed the “Nation-State Bill“, practically making apartheid official by defining Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and marginalising Palestinians, their history and language. However, that bill was the mere culmination of decades-long efforts.
During the British mandate, the colonial authorities, for example, were using predominantly Arabic names of localities, towns and villages; there were some about 3,700 of them. By contrast, there were just 200 Hebrew toponyms, most of them being names of Jewish settlements, including new ones that were being built under the patronage of the Zionist movement. This was quite indicative of the demographic distribution and land ownership in Palestine at the time (at the beginning of the British mandate in the 1920s, the Jews, including newly arrived settlers, were just 11 per cent of the total population).
However, as soon as the Israeli state was created against the will of the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab population of the Middle East, a vicious campaign to “remap” Palestine was launched.
A 1948 letter sent to first Israeli Interior Minister Yitzhak Gruenbaum read: “The conventional names should be replaced by new ones … since, in an anticipation of renewing our days as of old and living the life of a healthy people that is rooted in the soil of our country, we must begin in the fundamental Hebraicization of our country’s map.”
Soon after, a government commission was created and tasked with renaming everything Palestinian so the new state can lay its claim on towns, villages and various other geographical areas.
Another letter written in August 1957 by an Israeli foreign ministry official urged the Israeli Department of Antiquities to speed up the destruction of Palestinian homes conquered during the Nakba. “The ruins from the Arab villages and Arab neighbourhoods, or the blocs of buildings that have stood empty since 1948, arouse harsh associations that cause considerable political damage,” he wrote. “They should be cleared away.”
Early Zionists were wrong. Destroying Palestinian villages, changing street names and demolishing mosques and churches cannot succeed in erasing a nation’s sense of identity.
“UK Decision to Blacklist Hezbollah Indicates London’s Servile Obedience to US”
Al-Manar | March 1, 2019
Hezbollah on Friday lashed out at UK over its decision to blacklist the Lebanese resistance group, stressing that the move indicates London’s “servile obedience” to the US.
In a statement released by the group’s Media Relations Office, Hezbollah stressed that it is a resistance group against the Israeli occupation, and that “any state which embraces, fund and support terrorism has no right to accuse Hezbollah or any other resistance group of being terrorist.”
The decision indicates that the “UK government is not but a subordinate that serves the American master,” Hezbollah said, noting that London, through this decision, antagonizes the people of the region in a bid to please Washington.
“Terrorism accusations fabricated by the UK government won’t deceive the free people across the world,” the statement said.
Hezbollah also said that the free people in the UK “know very well who created terrorism in our region, and who funded, supported and covered crimes committed in Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” referring to the US and its “international and regional tools.”
The UK decision is an “insult to the feelings, sympathies and will of the Lebanese people that consider Hezbollah a major political and popular force represented in the Lebanese parliament and cabinet,” the statement added.
Hezbollah concluded the statement as stressing that nothing will prevent the Lebanese resistance group – who have confronted both Israeli aggression and the Takfiri terror- from going ahead with defending Lebanon, its freedom and independence.
Four Young Palestinian Lives Snuffed Out Every Month for The Past Year at The Hands of Israeli Soldiers
By CJ Werleman | American Herald Tribune | February 28, 2019
Last Friday, Yousef a-Dava, a 15-year old Palestinian boy was shot and killed by Israeli snipers, becoming the 48th child slain in Gaza by Israeli security forces since the Great Return March began nearly 12 months ago.
“He was peacefully protesting for a better future, raising the Palestinian flag, is the Palestinian flag a weapon?” asked his grief-stricken sister, Nariman al-Daya, in an interview with Middle East Eye.
His death was every bit as gruesome as it was unjustifiably atrocious, with eyewitnesses explaining how he “tried to stand up, walk a couple more steps” before falling to the ground again, after the bullet fired by an Israeli sniper “entered Yousef’s body, exploded hear his heart, exited from his back” and injured another man who was standing behind him.
Less than one hour later he was pronounced dead at al-Shifa Hospital after an emergency operation failed to revive him.
What other democratic ally do we allow 48 unarmed children to be shot and killed for flying a flag or kite in an open field, one that is ring-fenced by high-voltage electric currents, spot-and-strike machine gun posts, armored tanks and dozens of the world’s most lethal military marksmen?
If this were happening in Poland, Spain, or Portugal, both the United States and United Nations would’ve moved quickly to impose economic sanctions, while calls to invade and bomb would be heard far louder than a mere whisper, but this is Israel, the “Middle East’s only democracy,” so the entirely erroneous propaganda tagline goes.
48 murdered children equates to four young lives snuffed out every month for the past year at the hands of Israeli soldiers, who in no way felt threatened by these now slain youngsters. Unless, of course, you think children throwing rocks from inside a cage at armored vehicles positioned hundreds of meters away on the other side fortified fences and barricades is a threat to anyone or anything, which it clearly it isn’t!
Thus these deaths are to be identified for what they truly are: the cold-blooded murder of innocent and non-threatening children.
Of course, nowhere in the Western media is this reality framed in this accurate way. Instead we are fed headlines, or rather footnotes from the likes of The New York Times that read, “15-year-old boy killed in Gaza today,” without identifying the benign circumstances that led to his death, with newspaper editors doing their very best to falsely portray flag waving and rock-throwing protesters to be on equal footing to the most sophisticated military force in the Middle East.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that if a population of 2 million predominately Jews or Christians were held in an open-air prison, which is precisely what Gaza is, and then bombed, strafed, droned, and shelled periodically, with children shot dead by snipers wearing the flag of a Muslim majority country, then there’d be no other issue the Western media would be talking about.
On Thursday, the United Nations published a report concluding, “Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law,” adding that “some of those violations may constitute war crimes of crimes against humanity.”
“Many young person’s lives have been altered forever,” contends the United Nations Human Rights Council. “122 people have had a limb amputated since March 30 last year. Twenty of these amputees are children.”
Moreover, these deaths scratch only the surface of Israel’s savage war on Palestinian children. When Israel invaded Gaza in the summer of 2014, Palestinian children represented 25% of all civilians killed, with human rights groups documenting the deaths of 504 are under the age of 18.
Then there are the 500-700 Palestinian children who are detained each year in the Israeli military court system, some indefinitely, with most held and prosecuted on the charge of stone throwing.
It is in these Israeli military detention centers where some of the most egregious crimes against Palestinian children take place, with two-thirds reporting Israeli soldiers subjected them to violence and physical abuse.
Several years ago, UNICEF published a report that documented Israel’s systematic and systemic abuse of detained Palestinian children, concluding that “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest to indictment of the child, the conviction and issuing of the verdict.”
The authors of the report also observed how child detainees were often arrested in the middle of the night, denied access to a lawyer or parents prior or during interrogation, denied right to remain silent, alongside credible claims Palestinian children were raped or threatened with rape or execution.
Ultimately Israel gets away with these atrocities because its violence and crimes against the Palestinian people takes place inside a media vacuum, with mainstream networks and publications giving a head glance towards the occupation and conflict only in moments where Palestinians, who are denied the right to resist Israel’s violence and illegalities peacefully, respond with violence of their own.
Until such time the world’s media and international community holds Israel accountable for its violations of international law and denial of human rights to the Palestinian people, it’ll continue to murder children as young as 2 years of age with total and complete impunity.
Hassan Nasrallah Warns Israel: All Options Are on the Table
Interview of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Secretary General, with Ghassan Ben Jeddou, founder of the pan-Arab and anti-imperialist Al-Mayadeen channel, January 26, 2019.
This live interview, much expected in Israel and the Arab world, lasted for more than 3 hours.
Transcript:
Journalist: […] Eminent Sayed, you often promised the Israeli enemy that if he invades or attacks (Lebanon), your retaliation will be overwhelming. And during your last speech, on November 10, you confirmed this, but you used a specific formula: “We will retaliate and you will regret it.” What did you mean by that?
Hassan Nasrallah: When this happens, everyone will clearly see the cause of these regrets. It is better (not to be precise) and let the Israelis think about it.
Journalist: Once again, Eminent Sayed, I do not ask you to reveal your military plans, but what do you mean when you say that Israel will regret it if he attacks, and that he will be struck as by lightning with an overwhelming retaliation?
Hassan Nasrallah: He will know that he must not repeat such aggression, because the price he will pay for this attack will be much larger than what he expected.
One of my remarks tonight will be precisely to call on Netanyahu and the new Chief of staff, and also on those around them within the enemy entity, not to make mistakes in their assessment as to what is happening in the region, especially on the issue of Syria.
But let us first finish with the issue of tunnels, and then we will discuss this point.
Journalist: Please, about the fact that Israel will regret it: will it be a global regret, a regret limited to some cities, to their companies, their institutions, their infrastructure… ? Or do you mean that Israel will regret their attack (in all respects) from Galilee to their southernmost border with Gaza?
Hassan Nasrallah: On this matter, you can let your imagination go as far as it can.
Journalist: Yes, but I’m not a military expert, so I can’t know how far your response can go.
Hassan Nasrallah: Ultimately, all options are open to us. The United States and Israel, in their arrogance and hubris, often use the formula “All options are on the table.” Today, the Resistance Axis, on all fronts, is in a position where it clearly says that “All options are on the table.” All options remain open for us.
Everything that is necessary, with reason, wisdom and also courage, because sometimes some try to hide their cowardice behind (so-called) wisdom. With reason, wisdom and also courage, all that is required for us to be steadfast, victorious and strengthen our deterrence capacity in this battle, we will do it without hesitation.
Journalist: With your permission, when you talk of steadfastness and victory, does steadfastness mean to deter the enemy from achieving his objectives, at least to evict you (from Syria) and to dissuade you definitively (from returning there)? And does victory mean that Israel stops all attacks (against the Resistance Axis)?
Hassan Nasrallah: We get lost in details. You speak sometimes of total aggression, of war, and you ask us what would be our goals faced with such a war (waged against us); and other times you do not speak of total war, but (Israeli) attempts to modify the rules of engagement, specific and limited strikes to amend the rules of engagement.
We will not allow… The first point (war) is a major issue that deserves to be treated apart at length, but as regards the second point, we will not allow the enemy to change the rules of engagement, nor impose on us (new) rules of engagement. The successive achievements of the Resistance have allowed us to establish a certain level of deterrence that we must at least maintain or even strengthen in our favor, whenever the enemy is trying to change the rules of engagement.
Journalist: How is it possible…
Hassan Nasrallah: I speak here about the Lebanese front. As for Gaza, it concerns our brothers in the Resistance, and as regards Syria, we will talk about it in detail when we get to this point. […]
Translation: unz.com/sayedhasan
War on Al-Aqsa: What price for Netanyahu’s victory
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | February 26, 2019
On 18 February, members of extremist Jewish groups raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem). They clashed with Palestinian worshippers, as the settlers attempted to shut down the gate of Al-Aqsa itself.
The clashes involved the Israeli army and police as well, who opened fire and brutally assaulted Palestinians, leading to scores of injuries.
On February 19, the Israeli army carried out the unusual step of shutting down Al-Rahma Gate, which leads to a section of the Al-Aqsa compound that has, itself, been shut down by the Israeli army since 2003.
The provocative decision to seal the gate was made in advance, and the lock and key have the fingerprints of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
It is quite typical for Israeli politicians to carry out confrontational measures against Palestinians shortly before general elections are due. The nature of these measures is determined by the kind of political constituency that Israeli leaders aim to appease.
However, a war on Gaza, at least for now, is too risky an option for Netanyahu as it would take place too close to the April 9 elections date. Moreover, a botched Israeli attack on the Strip on November 11 caused Netanyahu a major embarrassment, forcing him to shelve the Gaza option for now.
That said, if the Israeli Prime Minister’s political standing grows too desperate in the coming weeks, a Gaza war may, once again, be placed on the table.
Indeed, the political union between Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, which was declared on February 21, has certainly upped the ante for Netanyahu who has assumed that his election victory is a foretold conclusion.
Gantz and Lapid merged their two parties into one election list called Kahol Lavan (“Blue and White”), the single most serious electoral challenge for Netanyahu in years.
For the time being, Netanyahu has decided to appeal to the most messianic religious segments of Israeli society to keep his challengers at bay. This should come as no surprise as the religious, ultra-national far right has been the backbone of the Israeli leader’s coalitions for a decade.
Weeks before the Gantz and Lapid union, Netanyahu had taken several measures to show signs of goodwill towards his religious constituency.
One such overture was made on January 28, when Netanyahu ordered the UN unarmed international observers to leave the Occupied Palestinian city of Al-Khalil, where a few hundred armed Jewish settlers have been a constant source of violence. The Jewish settlers of Qiryat Arba’a live under the protection of a massive Israeli army contingent. Both groups have worked together to terrorise the Palestinian inhabitants of the city for many years.
Israeli soldier fires at Palestinian protesters in Hebron, Sept. 2016 [Anadolu]
A joint statement issued by several humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and Save the Children warned of the terrible fate awaiting the Palestinian community as a result of Netanyahu’s decision in Al-Khalil.
“Hundreds of civilians, including children, will see their safety put at risk by the withdrawal of international observers deployed in the city of Hebron,” the statement read.
True to form, attacks by Jewish settlers followed, as media and rights group reports point to a surge of violence against Palestinian civilians in the city.
By unleashing the wrath of Jewish settlers in Al-Khalil, Netanyahu wanted to communicate to his supporters that he remains committed to their settlement project, an unworthy cause that violates international law and comes at the price of protracted human suffering.
Similarly, the Israeli decision to shut down Al-Rahma Gate on February 19 was a pre-calculated move, aimed at uniting the entirety of the Israeli right, including the most extremist of all religious and settler groups behind Netanyahu’s leadership in the coming elections.
A trend began a few weeks earlier. On January 9, the Palestinian Ministry of Endowment documented a sharp increase of Israeli violations, involving the Israeli army and Jewish settlers at holy Palestinian sites throughout December. According to the Organization, over 100 such violations were reported, including 30 different incursions into Al-Aqsa itself.
A raid on Al-Aqsa on January 7 involved more than the usual suspects but was led by Israeli Agriculture Minister and a strong ally of Netanyahu, Uri Ariel.
This type of politically-motivated and highly militarised ‘visits’ to Al-Aqsa are reminiscent of the infamous ‘visit’ by late Israeli right-wing leader, Ariel Sharon in September 2000. At the time, Sharon wanted to increase his chances of becoming Israel’s next prime minister, and to ensure that his arch-rival (then, interestingly enough, the very Benjamin Netanyahu) did not win the Likud Party nomination. The gambit worked. Sharon sparked the Second Palestinian Uprising (2000-05), leading to the deaths of thousands and, of course, securing his seat at the helm of Israeli politics for years.
Netanyahu, ever studious and resourceful, has, indeed, mastered the art of political manipulation as his mentor and, once again, Al-Aqsa is the platform for this sinister Israeli politicking.
Netanyahu’s decision to strike an alliance with Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) – the rebranded party of the extremist late Meir Kahane – further demonstrates how the current surge of violence around the holy Palestinian sites is a pre-calculated political move by Netanyahu and his government.
The fact that Netanyahu would bring into his future coalition groups that are the ideological mutation of the Jewish Defense League – which is classified as ‘terrorist organisation’’ by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) speaks volumes about the changing relationship between the US and Israel. Thanks to Washington’s blind support of Israel, Netanyahu feels politically triumphant and invincible, even above US’ laws.
However, to achieve his pathetic dream of being Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister, Netanyahu should be wary of the bloody consequences that his reckless action is sure to yield. Indeed, Netanyahu may be provoking the kind of violence that is much bigger than his ability to contain.
Al-Aqsa Mosque has served not only as a religious symbol for Palestinians but a national symbol as well, representing their coveted freedom and serving as a source of hope and unity throughout generations.
While the blood of Palestinians is irrelevant in Netanyahu’s quest for political dominance, the international community should take immediate measures to prevent what could become an Israeli-induced bloodbath in the coming weeks.
The Denial of Taxes to the PA is an Ominous Sign of Netanyahu’s Grand Plan
By Jonathan Cook | The National | February 25, 2019
Israel’s decision to withhold part of the taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and plunge it deeper into crisis starkly illustrates the hypocrisies and deceptions at the core of the two governments’ relationship.
Under the terms of what are now the quarter century-old Oslo accords, Israel is responsible for collecting about $200 million each month in taxes, which it is supposed to pass on to the PA, the Palestinian government-in-waiting in the West Bank.
The money belongs to the Palestinians but Israel has temporarily withheld it on several occasions in the past as a stick with which to beat the Palestinian leadership into line.
On this occasion, however, the stakes are far higher.
Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu belatedly implemented a law passed last summer that requires his officials to retain part of the taxes owed to the Palestinians – those that the PA transfers to political prisoners’ families as a monthly stipend.
It echoes the Taylor Force Act, a law passed by the US Congress in 2016, that denies American economic aid to the PA until it stops sending those same stipends to 35,000 families of prisoners and those killed and maimed by the Israeli army.
The PA has tried to avert that threat by channelling the payments through a separate body, the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Israel and Washington regard the prisoners simply as terrorists. But most Palestinians view them as heroes, those who have paid the highest price in the struggle for national liberation.
The Palestinian public no more believes the families should be abandoned for their sacrifices than Irish republicans turned their backs on those who fought British rule or black South Africans forsook those who battled apartheid.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called Israel’s actions “robbery” and said he would rather cut funding for health and education than for the prisoners and their families. “They are the most respected and appreciated part of the Palestinian people,” he declared.
Then he played his ace card. He said he would refuse all tax money from Israel until the full sum was reinstated.
That risks plunging the PA into financial meltdown and – most importantly for Israel – might ultimately lead to the disbanding of the Palestinian security services. Their job has long been to act as a security contractor, keeping order on Israel’s behalf in the West Bank.
The security forces hoovered up a massive 20 per cent of the PA’s $5.8 billion state budget last year.
The PA is already reeling from a series of hammer blows to the Palestinian economy. They include Donald Trump’s decision to cut all funding to UNRWA, the refugee agency for Palestinians, and to hospitals in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
In addition, Mr Abbas reportedly declined $60m in annual US aid for his security services last month for fear of exposing the PA to legal action. A new congressional measure makes aid recipients like the PA subject to American anti-terrorism laws.
But the current stand-off between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas lays bare the duplicity of the situation for all to see.
The PA leader may say the prisoners are the most cherished Palestinian constituency but he also describes his security services’ co-ordination with Israel as “sacred”.
The security services’ role is to assist the Israeli army in foiling Palestinian attacks and in arresting the very Palestinians he extols. Mr Abbas cannot realistically hold true to both positions at the same time.
Mr Netanyahu, on the other hand, has nothing to gain from harming the Palestinian security services, which the Israeli army relies on.
The decision to withhold taxes was taken chiefly to boost his popularity as rival right-wing parties compete for who appears the most hawkish before April’s general election.
Paradoxically, in withholding the PA’s tax money, Mr Netanyahu is punishing Mr Abbas, his supposed peace partner, while showing a preference for Hamas, Mr Abbas’s arch rival in Gaza.
Although Israel categorises Hamas as a terror organisation, Mr Netanyahu has been allowing extra funds into Gaza from Qatar to alleviate the enclave’s dire conditions.
Further, there is something richly ironic about Mr Netanyahu rebuking the PA for rewarding Palestinian “terrorists” in the same week he negotiated a deal to assist bringing Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power party, into the Israeli parliament.
The party is Israel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan, disciples of the late rabbi Meir Kahane, whose virulently anti-Arab Kach party was outlawed 25 years ago as a terror organisation.
So appalling is the prospect of this unholy alliance that even pro-Israel lobbies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Committee felt compelled to issue statements condemning Jewish Power as “racist and reprehensible”.
Mr Netanyahu believes the extra votes Jewish Power will attract to the right in the election will ensure he has the support necessary to build a coalition that can keep him in power.
But there is another glaring flaw in Mr Netanyahu’s tax grab.
If Mr Abbas’s coffers run low, he will simply send even less money to Gaza, which is already being choked by Israel’s lengthy blockade.
That would intensify the unrest in Gaza, which could lead to rocket attacks into Israel and even larger mass protests by Palestinians at the perimeter fence encaging them.
At the same time, if things remain unresolved, an already fragile PA will move closer to collapse and Hamas might then be poised to fill the void left in the West Bank.
Loss of power for Mr Abbas, combined with loss of a security contractor for Mr Netanyahu, appear to make this confrontation mutually self-destructive – unless Mr Netanyahu and the right have another card up their sleeve.
Hani Al Masri, a Palestinian policy analyst, has wondered whether Mr Netanyahu is setting the stage for US President Donald Trump to introduce his long-awaited “peace deal” after the election.
Much of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition is keen to annex Palestinian areas outside the main West Bank cities, destroying any hope of a Palestinian state ever emerging. Mr Trump might be amenable.
In this scenario, argues Mr Al Masri, Israel would aim to “end what remains of the PA’s political role, preserving only its administrative and security role”. It would be reduced to bin collections and law enforcement.
Should the PA reject the process of being hollowed out, Israel and the US would then look for an alternative, such as rule by local warlords in each Palestinian city and expanded powers for Israeli military rulers in the West Bank.
The denial of taxes to the PA may not yet presage its demise. But it points to a future in which Palestinian self-rule is likely to become an ever-more distant prospect.
Israel Burying ‘Nuclear Waste With Radioactive Content’ in Golan – UN Report
Sputnik – 25.02.2019
The UN has been adopting resolutions condemning the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights for decades; however Tel Aviv hasn’t changed its policies and is continuing to exercise sovereignty over the disputed territory, including holding municipal elections.
Secretary-General of the UN Antonio Guterres has presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council based on Syrian accusations against Israel’s action in the Golan Heights, saying that Israel has been burying “nuclear waste with radioactive content in 20 different areas populated by Syrian citizens” in the occupied territory. Most of the waste has allegedly been dumped in the area near Al-Sheikh Mountain.
According to the report, this puts “the lives and health of Syrians in the occupied Syrian Golan in jeopardy” and violates the 4th Geneva Convention.
Israel is suspected of possessing nuclear weapons, but no evidence proving or disproving the suspicion has been presented so far. Tel Aviv has neither confirmed, nor denied possessing nuclear weapons.
The Golan Heights was seized by Israel from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1981, Tel Aviv decided to extend its laws to the occupied territory and established a civil administration in a move that drew condemnation from the UN Security Council and was labelled illegal in terms of international law. Israel justified the decision by saying that it was aimed at safeguarding its borders from aggressive military acts by its neighbours.
In 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging Israel to immediately withdraw its forces from the Golan Heights after Tel Aviv organised local elections in the Golan Heights on 30 October.
Has the Elite’s Slavish pro-Israel Agenda Finally Gone Too Far?
By Craig Murray | February 25, 2019
Hezbollah’s defeat of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the July war of 2006 was heroic and an essential redress to the Middle East power balance. I supported Hezbollah’s entirely defensive action then and I continue to applaud it now. That, beyond any shadow of a doubt, makes me guilty of the criminal offence of “glorifying terrorism”, now that Sajid Javid has proscribed Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. I am unrepentant and look forward to the prosecution.
A large majority of the public, and certainly almost everyone who remembers that 2006 invasion, would revolt from my being prosecuted on those grounds. The very absurdity of it is a sure measure that Sajid Javid has simply gone too far in naming Hezbollah – the legitimate political party representing in parliament the majority rural population in Southern Lebanon – as a terrorist organisation.
Together with the largely manufactured “Corbyn anti-semitism” row, Javid’s move is aimed at achieving in the UK the delegitimisation of political opposition to Israeli aggression and absorption of the occupied territories and the Golan Heights, in the way that has been achieved in the USA. However, there is a much better educated population in the UK and a great deal of popular awareness of decades of Israeli crimes. In fact, the continuing resilience of the Labour vote shows that at least over a third of the British population does not buy the “anti-semitism” tag applied to all those concerned at the continued plight of the Palestinians.
Hezbollah has never been implicated in any terrorist attack on the UK. Its military posture in Southern Lebanon vis a vis Israel is entirely defensive; it evolved as a military force in reaction to wave after wave of Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in which the Israeli “Defence” Force casually decimated Shia communities en route to attacking Palestinian refugee camps. Hezbollah has never invaded Israel. Hezbolla has played an effective and laudable role in assisting the defeat of Isis and their Jihadist allies in Syria.
Oh look, I just “glorified terrorism” again.
Javid’s move is primarily aimed at pleasing Israel and looking to score political points over Jeremy Corbyn, whose past contacts with Hezbollah can now be deemed terrorist. But it is also a move to please the UK elite’s other paymaster, Mohammed Bin Salman, by further forwarding his attempt to delegitimise and to subjugate Arab Shia communities. Coupled with the irony of announcing DFID support of £200 million for Yemeni victims of our very own bombs and “military support”, this is a shameful week for British foreign policy.
I first became devoted to the Palestinian cause as a first year student at Dundee University, when I watched a film about Israeli destruction of Palestinian olive trees in the occupied territories, to devastate their economic base and force families to leave. That film made me cry.
It is a matter of despair that, 42 years later, this practice continues, and indeed has been ongoing for that entire time. I find this almost as heinous as the continuing killing and imprisonment of Palestinian children. I find it a useful exercise every morning to ask yourself this question:
How many children has the Israeli “Defence” Force killed since the MSM last reported one?
Britons who fight for Israel must also be held to account when they return to the UK
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | February 25, 2019
The thorny issue of foreign soldiers serving in the Israeli military is back in the headlines, triggered by the debate over the future of Shamima Begum, the British schoolgirl who ran away from home to join terror group Daesh in Syria. Thousands of young men and women from around the world, including Britain, Canada and America, volunteer to fight in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which faces regular accusations of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and human rights abuses. The IDF’s treatment of Palestinians is brutal, even for an occupation army.
A letter written by the Britain’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, back in 2014 to the then Home Secretary Theresa May has just resurfaced. “I am aware of the Government’s policy of detaining and prosecuting those British citizens travelling to fight in the current Middle East conflicts,” wrote the Labour MP. “Will you be warning any British citizens considering engagement with the IDF that, in line with established British Government practice (e.g. the deprivation of British citizenship from, to date, at least 40 UK passport holders who have been involved in the Syrian civil war), such engagement may put their British citizenship in jeopardy?”
McDonnell wrote to May given the seriousness of the then Israeli military offensive on the Palestinians in Gaza and the apparent escalation of Israeli attacks. “I urge you to address these questions promptly so that any British citizen currently participating or planning to participate in these attacks is warned of the potential consequences and thus may be deterred from acting in this way.” He demanded that action should be taken against British-Israeli dual nationals, pointing out that some may even be implicated in war crimes, at the height of the aerial bombardment on Gaza in which hundreds of innocent women, men and their children were killed.
Several years down the line, and now Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, once one of the most powerful Muslim women in the British government, has said that British citizens who volunteer for the Israeli army should be prosecuted like others who fight for foreign forces. The former Senior Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said that people should only be legally allowed to fight for the country where they are registered as a citizen. Warsi quit her role in the Foreign Office back in 2014 after calling the war in Gaza “morally indefensible”. Since then she appears to have been airbrushed from Conservative Party politics.
The British government’s current policy on the issue is, suggested Baroness Warsi, flawed and contains loopholes. “If you go out there and fight for any group,” she explained, “you will be subject to prosecution when you get back. If you go out and fight for [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, I presume, under our law, that is okay. That can’t be right.” She claimed that the only reason we allow the loophole to exist is because of the IDF. “We are not brave enough to say that if you hold British citizenship, you make a choice. You fight for our state only.” The Yorkshire-born baroness said that this message has to go out loud and clear. She has made her views known at a time when Muslims in Britain continue to face questions about their loyalty.
“We don’t talk about it in relation to other communities,” she added. “We accept that other communities hold multiple identities. Let’s just shut down this loophole. If you don’t fight for Britain, you do not fight.”
Mick Napier, a co-founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) pointed out that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations all consider the IDF to be guilty of the most egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity. “Clearly any British citizens serving in that army have questions to answer because they may have witnessed or been involved in war crimes. This must not be swept under the carpet.”
Indeed, he added, there is “well-documented evidence” of war crimes carried out by Israel on the Palestinian people and their children. “Those involved should be held to account under international law. Israel’s soldiers, regardless of nationality, like the misguided characters who joined Daesh, have to be held accountable for their actions.”
IDF recruits don’t necessarily have to be born in Israel or even hold dual citizenship. Anyone can join through the so-called “Mahal” programme if they meet specific background and age requirements. While British citizens fighting for some foreign forces have faced prosecution on their return to Britain, those who temporarily join up with the IDF have not. Nor have those fighting alongside Kurdish forces in Syria faced prosecution even though Britain’s NATO ally Turkey regards many of the Kurdish militia groups as terrorist organisations.
Israel’s Mahal initiative is for men under the age of 24 and women under 21. Applicants don’t have to hold Israeli citizenship or even be practising Jews. If they can prove that they have at least one Jewish grandparent they can sign up for 18 months in the IDF.
The whole question of loyalty and citizenship has been in the headlines a lot over the past few days. It can have serious implications. Last week, for example, an American appeal court ruled that a $1 billion lawsuit by Palestinians and Palestinian Americans against casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and other supporters of Israel for genocide and other war crimes can go forward. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court ruling dismissing the case because it felt that a court could not rule on political and foreign policy issues.
The lawsuit, reported MEMO, alleges a conspiracy by the pro-Israel defendants to expel non-Jews from the West Bank and Jerusalem, and accused them of committing or aiding in genocide and other war crimes. The other defendants named in the lawsuit include Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim; construction and support companies such as Hewlett Packard and Volvo; and 13 non-profit organisations. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson said that the court can decide whether the defendants named in the lawsuit conspired to remove non-Jews from the West Bank or committed war crimes “without touching the sovereignty question, if it concluded that Israeli settlers are committing genocide.”
Meanwhile, the British Government will this week ask MPs to outlaw membership or support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah in any form; those who ignore the new legislation will face up to 10 years’ in prison. The plan to extend the existing ban on Hezbollah’s military wing to the organisation as a whole, even though Hezbollah MPs serve in the government, in Beirut will be discussed on Friday.
The British government announced that the group will be “proscribed” from this Friday as a terrorist organisation over its “attempts to destabilise the fragile situation in the Middle East”; ministers claim that they can no longer distinguish between Hezbollah the political party and its already-banned military wing.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who is embroiled in the citizenship row over runaway Daesh bride Shamima Begum, announced the move. “My priority is to protect the British people,” he claimed. “As part of this, we identify and ban any terrorist organisation which threatens our safety and security, whatever their motivations or ideology, which is why I am taking action against several organisations today.”
Other groups earmarked for British designation as terrorist organisations include Ansaroul Islam and JNIM, which operate in the Sahel region in Africa; and the Turkish Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front (DHKC), the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party (DHKP) and the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front/Armed Propaganda Units (DHKC/SPB), which are aliases of the Revolutionary Peoples’ Liberation Party—Front (Devrimci Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi) which is already proscribed. Organisations which are believed to be aliases of Daesh, including: Jaysh Khalid Bin Walid and Khalid Ibn Walid Army, are also scheduled to be banned by the British.
Will a strong stance be taken against British citizens who enlist in the Israel Defence Forces? It is unlikely, given the strong Zionist leanings of government ministers and MPs across the House of Commons. It is not that long ago, remember, that the British government changed the procedures governing universal jurisdiction to accommodate visits by Israeli politicians believed to be responsible for war crimes.
This is not about saying that those fighting for Daesh are the same as those in IDF uniforms. It is about having laws and applying the law to everyone. IDF members have, literally, got away with murder for many years. The British government must apply the same principles to everyone, so that Britons who fight for Israel will also be held to account when they return to the UK. Isn’t that what democracy and the rule of law is all about?
UK to impose full ban Lebanon’s Hezbollah as terrorist group, Israel urges EU to follow move
Press TV – February 25, 2019
The British government is to impose a full ban on activities of the Lebanese Resistance Movement Hezbollah as London becomes increasingly irritated by the group’s political and military success in the Middle East.
UK Home Secretary (interior minister) Sajid Javid said on Monday that the government will designate the entire Hezbollah organization as a terrorist entity as of Friday subject to the approval of the parliament.
Javid, an extreme right-wing politician of the Pakistani origin, said the UK government was no longer able to maintain a distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military activities and thus will include the group’s political unit in its blacklist.
“Hezbollah is continuing in its attempts to destabilize the fragile situation in the Middle East – and we are no longer able to distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party,” said Javid, adding, “Because of this, I have taken the decision to proscribe the group in its entirety,” he added in a statement.
Britain has become increasingly angered by Hezbollah’s role in an anti-militancy campaign in Syria, where London has for the past eight years supported terrorist groups opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Hezbollah has played a major role in helping Assad purge the Syrian territory from terrorist groups. The intervention, once criticized inside Lebanon, has helped the resistance movement increase its political clout as the group now controls three ministries, a first on the history of the Lebanese government.
The Israeli regime swiftly welcomed Javid’s announcement with Israeli Security Minister Gilad Erdan saying in a tweet that the European Union, which unlike the United States has opposed designation of Hezbollah as terrorist entity, should follow suit.
There was no official reaction from Hezbollah although lawmakers representing the group in the Lebanese parliament said UK decision was a “violation of sovereignty”.
UK’s move to outlaw Hezbollah in its entirety would mean that anyone expressing support for the religiously-oriented organization could end up in UK jail for up to 10 year.
UN chief launches global push against ‘hate’ speech
Press TV – February 25, 2019
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday launched a new global strategy to combat hate speech, a growing scourge he said has “poisoned” debate on crucial challenges like migration.
Guterres announced the effort, which will be led by his special adviser on genocide prevention Adama Dieng, at the UN Human Rights Council.
“Hate is moving into the mainstream – in liberal democracies and authoritarian systems alike,” he said in a speech at the opening of the council’s 40th session.
“Some major political parties and leaders are cutting and pasting ideas from the fringes into their own propaganda and electoral campaigns,” he added.
Governments across the world have watched with concern as racist and other hate speech have coarsened the political climate.
France and Germany have raised particular alarm in recent weeks over resurgent anti-Semitism.
Guterres targeted his rebuke at the vast campaign he said was mobilized against the UN’s Global Compact on Migration, a non-binding text that aimed to set out best practices for managing refugee and migrant flows.
“We have seen how the debate on human mobility, for example, has been poisoned with false narratives linking refugees and migrants to terrorism and scapegoating them for many of society’s ills,” Guterres said.
He condemned “an insidious campaign sought to drown the Global Compact on Migration in a flood of lies about the nature and scope of the agreement.”
The UN chief noted that the campaign “failed.”
But 17 countries either abstained or voted against the compact at the General Assembly in December and debate over the text fuelled bitter political debate especially in Europe.
Guterres said Dieng, a Senegalese lawyer and veteran UN diplomat, will “define a system-wide strategy and present a global plan of action” to combat hate speech.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
The ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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