UN Rapporteur: Canada’s trade agreement with Israel violates international law
![Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied Michael Lynk [Alhadath24/Facebook]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017_3_21-Michael-Lynk.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied Michael Lynk [Alhadath24/Facebook]
MEMO | May 31, 2019
Canada’s updated trade agreement with Israel violates international law, the UN Special Rapporteur for the [occupied] Palestinian territories, Professor S. Michael Lynk, has said in an article published by the Australian news site, The Conversation.
Commenting on legislation known as Bill C-85 — the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act — which received royal assent on Monday, Lynk said that it lacks “a human rights provision, which would commit both parties to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law.” The Act also allows goods and services originating on illegal Israeli settlements to enter Canada without any tariffs. These “glaring” omissions, said Lynk, not only violate international law but also Canadian law.
The article, which was co-written with Alex Neve, the Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, explained that Canadian foreign policy and Ottawa’s own legislation “has long recognised the Israeli settlements as illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
According to the authors, “The 1957 Geneva Conventions Act commits Canada to respect the strict obligations of the convention, including the prohibition against civilian settlements in occupied territory. And the 2000 Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act designates civilian settlements in occupied territory as a war crime.”
Clarifying their position further, they cite the UN Human Rights Council, which in 2016 urged all states to ensure that: “They are not taking actions that either recognise or assist the expansion of [Israeli] settlements… in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, including with regard to the issue of trading with settlements, consistent with their obligations under international law.”
They also cite a number of UN Resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 2334 which states that the Israeli settlements are “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of a two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
Lynk pointed out that while Israel denies that it is an occupying power, there is in fact “a virtual wall-to-wall consensus among the international community — including the United Nations, the European Union, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Canada — that the laws of occupation, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, apply in full to the Palestinian territory.”
The authors state that the Bill “makes no distinction between Israel and its illegal settlements in the Palestinian territory and it provides encouragement to the economic growth of the settlements by allowing their goods and services to enter Canada tariff-free.”
In conclusion, Lynk and Neve say that the Bill “entangles Canada in the serious violations of both international human rights and humanitarian law that are part and parcel of the Israeli occupation.”
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Nahida Izzat, The Master of Poetic Resistance
Nahida Izzat interviewed by Gilad Atzmon | May 30, 2019
The outspoken Palestinian poet Nahida Izzat has been an inspiration for a growing number of people. This fact has been a great concern for both Zionists and the so-called ‘anti.’ I have been witnessing the campaign against Nahida for over 10 years. In recent days the desperate attempts to silence Nahida have intensified. I spoke with Nahida about her life and her battle for truth. I urge you to listen to the spectacularly lucid voice of an heroic exiled poet.
Gilad Atzmon: Recently FB has both suspended you at least once a day and then lifted your suspension a few hours later after reviewing your appeal. It seems that someone is desperate to silence you. What are your feelings about this, and why do you think it’s happening?
Nahida Izzat: That is true, Gilad. In the past, my account was suspended and my posts/comments deleted. To have my account reinstated, FB asked me to provide documentation (A copy of 2 of these items: Passport, Birth Certificate, Driver’s License, or Bank Account) to prove my identity and that my account is not a fake.
This time around, I have been subjected to harassment on an almost daily basis, receiving notice that a post of mine “goes against FB Community Standards” of “Hate Speech”. I have protested immediately each time and requested a review, a few hours later I receive an apology from FB for their mistake in suspending my account and they have lifted the ban.
Whoever is reporting me recently has been trying desperately to find an excuse to silence me for being one of the most outspoken Palestinian voices in the West, daring to step outside the red line and break the “boundaries” as defined to us by the self-appointed gatekeepers in the Palestinian support movement.
Some years ago, and like yourself, I experienced some real harassment and attempted censorship by no other than the Jewish anti-Zionist ‘supporters’ in the movement, those to whom I had given my trust after working closely with them for many years. They did this to me because I dared delve into the ‘forbidden’ topics they deemed taboo, and I stepped out of the boundaries they set as they claimed that anything beyond their boundaries was not ‘permissible’ in the discourse of the Palestinian struggle. They used the same accusation they use now of “antisemitism” to stop me from writing and to stop my writing from being published online.
Some years ago, I identified some of the subjects they deem impermissible, including:
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The doctrine of Jewish supremacy, (chosenness) and its role in Palestine Struggle and the ramifications it has had on Palestinian lives and on their destruction;
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The global Jewish Zionist network which functions as the international blood line that has enabled the continuous survival of the Jewish state;
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The veneration of the holocaust as an article of faith rather than a chapter in history, and the implications of that for the Palestinian struggle for liberation; and
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The concealment of False Flag operations perpetrated by Mossad and the intentions and role of both the concealment and the operations themselves in the destruction of much of the Middle East.
All efforts to silence my roaring Palestinian voice have come to naught. In fact, such efforts had the opposite effect. Instead of my having a voice that faintly echoes from a small city in the UK, their attempts to silence me have helped me raise the volume, so that my voice is propelled far and wide.
I see what is happening on FB now as deja vu, once again one or more people are out there desperately trying to smother an authentic, free and untamed Palestinian voice and to incarcerate an independent thinking mind by clutching a straw, building a castle on quicksand or throwing a handkerchief in people’s eyes to stop daylight from breaking through.
GA: While in the early days it seemed as if it was Zionists and Israeli stooges who were interfering with our intellectual work, now it is established that Anti Zionist Jews are way more active on that front. What is your explanation?
NI: Zionist hawks are not interested in playing in a mind field, they prefer to play with bombs, bullets and minefields. Their interest is in totally eliminating their enemy. By contrast, anti-Zionist ‘doves’ wave the banners of morality and universal values, it isn’t befitting to their moralist role to play with guns, so they focus on the mind field. But their arguments are feeble and cannot stand the heat of truth, the goals of their game evolve into working to spin and conceal truth for as long as possible, hoping that in their end game they can bury truth forever in the dungeon of “hate speech” locking it with the “antisemitism” and “holocaust denial” keys.
What these poor souls fail to see is that truth has an innate irrepressible light that can never be extinguished by their blows.
GA: What should be the role of anti Zionist Jews?
NI: If anti Zionist Jews are to be truthful with Palestinians, with our supporters and with themselves, all their energy, all their sincerity and all their might must turn inside out. They will have to turn over and look within. They should focus on diagnosing the root causes of the problem not, as they have insisted upon, merely describing the symptoms. Looking within is a huge undertaking, it requires a long and agonising journey within the self. I dare to suggest as a first step in this monumental task, that they approach it with honesty and sincerity not the avoidance and concealment we have seen.
The heart of the problem and the root cause of the Palestinian Nakba lies in the demon of ‘chosenness’, i.e ideological Jewish supremacy as manifested in their innumerable texts that separate Jews from ‘gentiles’ and puts them not merely miles apart, over and above the rest of mankind, but places them within a totally different paradigm, with different histories, terminology and perception of the world, themselves, and the outside world. Without an end to this separation there can never be a true solution in which we achieve a workable, egalitarian, fair and humanistic world with universal values that apply to all.
In order for their self-chosen, self imposed separation to end, they must take a hard and honest look at the core issue, the elephant in the room, that which no one dares to name, ‘chosenness.’
They must examine why they feel the need to conceal this issue.
They need to discover why they ‘freak out’ and behave irrationally at the mention of this word.
They need to ask themselves the difficult questions:
Why do they feel entitled to control the terminology that defines what is good for mankind and why do they believe no one else can?
Why do they feel that their narrative is the one and only possible narrative?
Why do they believe that their own suffering supersedes that of others?
What is it that terrifies them when they feel they have no control in making the rules?
How do they demand that Palestinians be thoughtful of Jewish sensitivities, Jewish security and the Jewish future all while the Palestinians are being maimed, tortured and slaughtered?
Why do they expect Palestinians to consider the welfare, security and future well being of the Jewish ‘Israelis’ who are slaughtering them and bombing their society to smithereens?
What is it that makes them feel entitled to expect Palestinians to give up on their inalienable rights of liberation, land ownership and sovereignty for the sake of the same people who have been robbing and destroying these rights for seven decades?
If they are able to manage a mile or two of honestly exploring these questions then they can move on to scrutinize and dissect the four boundaries that they have set for themselves and others that are listed above.
GA: Three days ago we were shocked to see an abusive and patronising post by the pro Palestinian Israeli activist Abigail Abarbanel. She has accused you of antisemitism and racism for publishing primary sources of Judaic texts. Abarbanel wrote of you that you “can be clumsy”, “bitterness has always been there in Nahida’s poetry,” “she posted blatantly racist comments,” “Nahida does not have good emotional regulation. She can be out of control and expresses incredibly racist views against Jews,” “she seems unable to differentiate between her anger with the state of Israel/Zionism and what it has been doing to her people, and maligning the entire Jewish people for it”, she “expresses racist views against Jews in general, not just share specific examples of Jewish racism.” etc. How does it feel when an Israeli who claims to be a supporter of your cause refers to you as ‘clumsy’ and ‘racist’?
NI: Ok, how it feels! Even though she has published some nasty stuff about me, I do not feel anger, hostility or hate toward her. I’ve never met her personally, and on a human level I feel sorry for her, for her inability to empathise with others when her sensitivities are rubbed. I feel sorry for her inability to see beyond the bubble of tribalism she has chosen to dwell within. I feel sorry for her belief that she has mastered all there is to morality and humanity; when she goes out of her way to smear a fellow human being for the ‘sin’ of relying upon and quoting Jewish sources to provide evidence of ideological racism and supremacy and for asking her to challenge her own belief in supremacy.
I feel sorry for her for thinking she has healed the wounds of childhood abuse inflicted upon her by her family members and by her tribe even as they indulged in mass scale abuse of an entire people, although she is incapable of touching the infected core of the problem.
I am sorry to witness her fall as she swims out of her depth and lashes out at a concerned ‘outsider’ who has put a finger where it really hurts in the hope that if a correct diagnosis and attention to a cure is given, healing may occur.
On the collective humanist non-personal level, I experience deep pain from the ugliness of her betrayal of a people she claims to support. I grieve as a witness to her failure, watching as she faced a choice between blind loyalty to a tribe and the truth and made the wrong choice.
GA: Years ago both of us were portrayed as lone voices with marginal followings, nowadays things have turned around. All over Europe people are expressing fatigue with Zionist power over Western politics, culture, media, etc. We are facing a shift in mass consciousness. Does this change translate into hope?
NI: Absolutely.
As a witness to so many changes in the short time over the past decade, and as an observer of the grave upheaval raging all around, destabilising major political systems, shifting and shoveling global powers, one cannot fail to see the meaning of “everything is in flux!” Change is a law of the universe.
And watching Zionists and anti-Zionists alike, of all shades, colours and persuasions stuck in an ever shrinking narrowing field in the battle of ideas, with no weapons in their hands other than ad hominem attacks and laughable accusations of ‘antisemitism’, I have no doubt that they are slowly but surely losing the battles of the mind and the soul.
As witness to all this, I feel resolve, confidence and resilience from within, filling me with all the hope, energy and fortitude needed to persist. As a person of faith, a believer in the existence of a Supreme Intelligence with Most High Principles, Ultimate Justice and Sublime Love, I feel this energy invigorating me and giving me even more power and the determination to continue roaring with passion for the sake of truth, justice and humanity.
Iran: Regional Peace Rests on Restoration of Palestinians’ Rights
Al-Manar | May 30, 2019
In a statement on the occasion of the International Quds Day, Iran’s Foreign Ministry emphasized that sustainable peace in the region will materialize only with restoration of Palestinians’ rights, which entails repatriation of displaced Palestinians and holding a referendum.
In the statement, released on Thursday, the Foreign Ministry described the issue of Palestine as the Islamic world’s pivotal subject, stressing the need to counter the Zionist regime’s policy of occupation.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran… believes that establishment of sustainable peace and calm in the region would not come true unless with the full restoration of rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation through the return of displaced Palestinians and holding a referendum in Palestine’s occupied territories with the participation of all main inhabitants of that land,” the statement said.
Stressing the need for Muslim unity and solidarity in the face of Israel, it said the usurping Zionist regime’s existence over the past 70 years has brought about nothing but displacement of millions of people, imprisonment and torture of thousands of innocent people, making thousands of Palestinian children orphans, and causing insecurity and instability in the region.
“The litany of the Zionist regime’s crimes and anti-human rights measures throughout the past 7 decades includes organized occupation of Palestine, systematic efforts to fully Judaize al-Quds, destroying the historical and civilizational identity of noble al-Quds, expansion of settler homes in the West Bank, forced relocation of al-Quds’ non-Jewish residents, depriving Palestinians of access to holy sites of al-Quds, illegal confiscation of their estate and demolishing their lands, and finally imposing inhumane redoubled pressures on people of Gaza and denying their access to basic foodstuff and pharmaceutical and medical commodities,” the statement deplored.
The Foreign Ministry called on the Muslim nations to stand against Israel’s divisive plots aimed at consigning the issue of Palestine to oblivion in order to prevent the implementation of the so-called deal of century and defy an upcoming “conference of deception and ruse” in Bahrain.
While the Muslim world is geared up to mark the International Quds Day on coming Friday, Bahrain is going to host a conference in June to encourage investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of US President Donald Trump’s Israel-Palestinian peace plan.
The so-called “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop, to be held on June 25-26 in cooperation with Washington, has already been rebuffed by Palestinian officials and business leaders.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas have called for an Arab boycott of the meeting.
However, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have announced they will participate in the conference.
Top IDF lawyer tells The Hague to back off, says Israel can probe own alleged war crimes
RT | May 29, 2019
The Israeli military wants the International Criminal Court to butt out of its affairs, its top military prosecutor has declared in response to efforts to hold it to account for its use of live fire against Palestinian protesters.
“Israel is a law-abiding country, with an independent and strong judicial system, and there is no reason for its actions to be scrutinized by the ICC,” Brig. Gen. Sharon Afek, Israel’s military advocate, declared at an international conference on warfare laws in Herzliya. “The position of Israel is that the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction to discuss the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The ICC is weighing investigating Israel over its use of live ammunition against Palestinian protesters demonstrating at the Gaza border. Since March 2018, IDF soldiers have killed at least 251 people participating in the Great March of Return, a movement calling for Palestinians expelled from their land during the establishment of Israel to be allowed to return, and injured at least 26,797 more, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Earlier this year, a United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding mission on the protests submitted to the ICC a list of Israeli officials it suspects of serious crimes, including IDF snipers, their commanders, and the military legal advisers who outlined their rules of engagement.
Afek’s objections to the ICC’s involvement center on the body’s charter, which permits it to investigate crimes only when there is no reasonable assumption that the country in which they have been committed will prosecute them adequately. Israel, he claims, will take care of its own business.
But as of March, only 11 of the protesters’ deaths were being investigated as possible criminal acts. Israel has insisted that even the journalists and medics killed by snipers – a war crime under any jurisdiction – were actually working for Hamas and therefore fair game.
Israel’s judicial system has refused to pursue investigations of alleged war crimes committed by the IDF against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza before, and the ICC has long sought to prosecute Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. Before the Great March of Return began last year, the court was looking into whether Israel had committed war crimes during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, the seven-week bombardment of Gaza that killed 2,000 Palestinians and injured over 10,000, deliberately targeting civilians and landmark buildings according to Amnesty International. Settlement-building and the eviction of Palestinians from West Bank and East Jerusalem were also scrutinized.
Negotiation with US ‘total loss’: Ayatollah Khamenei
Press TV – May 29, 2019
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has ruled out the possibility of talks between Tehran and Washington, saying such negotiations will be “fruitless”, “harmful”, and “a total loss”.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will absolutely not sit for talks with America … because first, it bears no fruit and second, it is harmful,” the Leader said in a meeting with a number of university professors, elites and researchers in Tehran on Wednesday.
The Leader referred to negotiation as a tactic used by Americans to complement their strategy of pressure. “This is actually not negotiation; it’s rather a means for picking the fruits of pressure.”
The only way to counter this trick, he said, is to utilize the means of pressure available for use against Americans. “If they are used properly, the Americans will either stop or decrease pressures.”
However, the Leader warned against being deceived by the US plot, saying that the Islamic Republic must use the leverage at its disposal to counter the US’ pressures; otherwise, being deceived into negotiation would be a “total loss”.
The Leader said Iran’s leverage is not military unlike what the anti-Iran propaganda says, even though that option is not off the table in case of necessity.
He referred to the recent decision by the Supreme National Security Council to reduce some of Iran’s commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with the world, and described it as one of the means that Iran can use against the US’ pressures.
“The leverage Iran has used for now is the recent SNSC decision, but we won’t remain at this level forever, and in the next phase, if necessary, we’ll use other means of pressure,” the Leader warned.
Back on May 8, 2019, on the anniversary of the US’ withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran said that it will halt implementing some terms of the nuclear deal until parties to the deal other than US take action to mitigate the negative impacts of US decision in May 2018 to withdraw from the agreement.
The Islamic Republic says other parties to the JCPOA, particularly the E3 – France, Britain, and Germany – have failed so far to compensate for the US withdrawal and help Iran reap the economic dividends of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has set a two-month deadline for the parties to either do the necessary actions to save the JCPOA or face Iran resuming a nuclear enrichment program which had been suspended as part of the deal in return for lifting of international sanctions on Tehran.
Ayatollah Khamenei also noted that the Islamic Republic has no problem with holding negotiation with the Europeans and others, but it won’t sit for talks on “core” issues of the 1979 Revolution, including its defensive capabilities.
‘US will fail to impose deal of century on Palestinians’
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei referred to US President Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan for the Middle East, saying that the US and its cronies will fail to impose the so-called “deal of the century” on Palestinians.
US President Donald Trump has set forth his so-called “deal of the century” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The plan is to be revealed at an undetermined date sometime after the Israeli parliamentary elections.
Since Trump took office a trio composed of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, long-time confidant and chief legal officer to Trump’s business empire, and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman have been working on such a plan.
In his Wednesday comments, the Leader said that defending Palestinians was both a humanitarian and a religious duty and thus participation in this year’s International Quds Day rallies was more important than before given the ongoing sensitive developments in the region.
The International Quds Day is an annual event held on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
It was initiated by the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini to express support for the Palestinians and oppose the Zionist regime.
Far from solving the Palestine-Israel conflict, the US ‘deal’ will take it to an unimagined level
![Centre staff and people with disabilities inspect the damaged building of Confederation of Disabled People, which was the only centre to serve people with disabilities in Rafah, after Israel's attacks on Gaza in Rafah, Gaza on 7 May, 2019 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/201920190509_2_36372097_44314527.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Centre staff and people with disabilities inspect the damaged building of Confederation of Disabled People, which was the only centre to serve people with disabilities in Rafah, after Israel’s attacks on Gaza in Rafah, Gaza on 7 May, 2019.[Ali Jadall ah/Anadolu Agency]
Dr Mohammad Makram Balawi | MEMO | May 28, 2019
One thing caught my attention during the latest Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, which left dozens of Palestinians dead. It was a video message, in Arabic, by Israeli parliamentarian Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet. Dichter spent a life time torturing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and assassinating many others, but used the video to offer “sincere” advice to the people of Gaza to rebel against Hamas rule and stop firing rockets at Israel.
In an attempt to blame the victims, he said that whatever misery the Palestinians are suffering from is the result of choosing war against Israel. According to him, in 1947, the UN offered them a partition plan, but they refused it and they chose to fight, and as a result they are now stifled in this tiny piece of land, the Gaza Strip. In his warped logic, they have only themselves to blame for their predicament; they gambled against the Zionist movement and lost.
In an attempt to intimidate the Palestinians, Dichter says that they should learn a lesson from Syria, where almost half-a-million people have been killed and around ten million have been displaced. Only Israel, claims the Knesset member, has helped the Syrian people; he ignores the fact that millions of Syrian refugees stay in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Not only does he demand that the Palestinians should stop firing rockets, but he also tells them that they will not gain anything by gathering near the Israeli-erected “border” fence for the Great March of Return protests because they have to forget about returning to their land. The only way to stop their suffering, insists Dichter, is to topple Hamas.
This video did not surprise me; Dichter was merely regurgitating decades-old Israeli propaganda. What was a surprise, though, was how similar it was in content to an article in the New York Times on 22 April — “Care about Gaza? Blame Hamas: The world wants to help. The terrorists won’t allow it” — written by US President Donald Trump’s Israel Envoy, Jason Greenblatt. The only real difference resulted from Dichter’s use of Arabic to address the Palestinians in Gaza directly, while Greenblatt chose a prestigious newspaper to speak largely to the American people and the West.
The envoy described Hamas as undemocratic, although it won the majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the last free and fair democratic elections held in 2006. For him, “the world”, which actually means the United States, wants to help the Palestinians but they are not working in their own best interest. As far as Greenblatt is concerned, the cause of Palestinian suffering is not Zionist settler-colonialism with the West’s support; nor is it the 12-year-old Israeli-imposed siege on the Gaza Strip; nor Israel’s three military offensives which destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure and economy; nor the US efforts to close UNRWA, the UN agency which helps millions of Palestinian refugees with basic essentials, including education and healthcare; nor the US and Israeli attempts to break the will of the Palestinian people and all those who might think of supporting them. None of those things are to blame, in his view.
In essence, the US envoy has simply reproduced Israeli propaganda. Washington and Tel Aviv alike believe that those they can’t buy they can simply break. If the Palestinians accept America’s definition of peace — that they should deny their own legitimate rights and existence by acknowledging Israel’s colonial occupation of their homeland, and accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in Palestine — then they will get massive financial assistance from the rich Gulf States. This is what the “deal of the century” really entails.
According to the Times of Israel, quoting official sources, the 25-26 June conference in Bahrain brokered by the Americans will not include the core political issues of the conflict: the final borders, the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and Israeli security demands. Yet Greenblatt seems surprised that the Palestinian Authority has already refused to attend. The rejection did not come from Hamas; it came from PA-Fatah Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh: “Any solution to the conflict in Palestine must be political… and based on ending the occupation. We will not succumb to blackmail and extortion and will not trade our national rights for money.”
I believe that the Palestinians should attend the Manama conference masterminded by Jared Kushner and Greenblatt, even though it will eventually legitimise the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, end the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homeland, and practically undermine any chance of having a state of their own on the land of their forefathers. If they do not attend, then the US “deal” will go ahead in their absence, leaving them to starve to death or be bombed to death, whichever carries the least cost for Israel.
There is a bright side to this tragedy, though; we no longer have to believe in the myth of the left-wing coloniser and the liberal Zionist. According to Professor Ilan Pappé, it is such people who have shielded Israel for the past seven decades and convinced many in the Western world that you can colonise someone else’s land and be good at the same time.
Now we hear no more talk about the “two-state-solution”, and that there is such a thing as a “peace process” which is yet to deliver a miraculous solution that is going to please everyone. From now on it will be crystal clear to Arabs, Muslims and everyone else who cares, who their enemy is and who is cooperating with it in order to facilitate its plans in our region. It is those Arab and Muslim regimes who have thus far used lame excuses to evade their responsibility towards the Holy Land and the Palestinian people which will, shamefully, be exposed.
Just when the Americans think that they have liquidated the Palestinian cause and its legitimacy, they are actually taking the conflict into a new era. Far from solving the Palestine-Israel issue, the US “deal of the century” will take it to an unimagined level, with consequences that Washington never even thought could exist.
Israel’s Mossad liaising with UAE ahead of Dubai Expo
MEMO | May 28, 2019
The director of Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad is liaising with high profile officials from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to arrange Israel’s participation in the Dubai Expo 2020.
Israel’s public broadcaster Kan yesterday reported that Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is in “direct contact” with Emirati officials to arrange the visit, which will see an Israeli delegation visit the Emirati city in October next year. Kan’s political correspondent, Gili Cohen, noted that “the Mossad chief discussed all the arrangements with the UAE side, including technical matters relating to the arrival of the Israeli mission and its place of residence in Dubai.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced in April that it would participate in the event, saying it “welcomed the opportunity to share our spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship and to present Israeli innovations and trailblazing technology in various fields such as water, medicine and information technology.”
“Expos are meeting places where people all over the world come together and take advantage of each other’s talents to face joint challenges and advance society,” the ministry added.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the announcement, writing on Twitter that Israel’s participation represented “another expression of Israel’s rising status in the world and the region”.
That Cohen has been working with high profile Emirati ministers will be seen as yet further evidence of the close cooperation between Mossad and the Gulf state.
These relations were thrust into the spotlight following the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in the UAE in 2010. Al-Mabhouh had been staying in Dubai’s Al-Bustan hotel when, on 20 January, a hit squad seemingly waited for its victim in his hotel room. It is thought that this assassination squad was overseen by Mossad and used European passports to enter the UAE.
![Normalisation with Israel -Cartoon [Arabi21News]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Normalisation-e1550487985834-500x300.jpg?resize=500%2C300&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Normalisation with Israel -Cartoon [Arabi21News]
Israeli journalist Edy Cohen has since accused Dubai’s Deputy Chairman of Police and Public Security, General Dhahi Khalfan, of being complicit in Al-Mabhouh’s murder. Al-Mahbouh’s family have echoed these suspicions, submitting a complaint to the UK-based Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) in which they argued the Emirati authorities had covered up their alleged involvement in the assassination.
The family argued that “the recordings of the assassination broadcast by Dubai Police Chief Dhahi Khalfan resemble a movie designed to absolve the authorities and deny rumours regarding the UAE’s involvement in the assassination”. They added: “Then the case was buried and the UAE authorities did not take any serious action to arrest the accused or bring those who were arrested to justice. This is what is suspicious about their behaviour.”
Since Al-Mahbouh’s assassination, relations between Israel and the UAE have increasingly been conducted in the open as part of Israel’s normalisation drive.
This has taken many forms, including the visit of high profile Israeli officials to the UAE and visits by Emirati military delegations to Israel. In addition, last week human rights organisation Amnesty International released a report detailing Israeli arms sales to the UAE. This has included the purchase of Israeli spyware firm NSO Group’s Pegasus software, a tool which has been used to hack into the iPhones of prominent activists, journalists and Amnesty International staff.
In January it emerged that the UAE had used Pegasus spyware to spy on the Emir of Qatar, Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, and Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani. Head of NSO Group, Shalev Hulio, explained that the Israeli Defence Export Control Agency (DECA) had authorised three deals with the UAE for the sale of NSO software, which were allegedly mediated by former Israeli defence officials with close ties to a senior Emirati official. The deals are thought to have been worth $80 million.
This was not the first time the UAE was found to have used Israeli spyware. In 2016, Canada-based research institute Citizen Lab and Apple revealed there were attempts to infect an iPhone owned by the Emirati human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor. Mansoor had raised the alarm after receiving suspicious text intended to “bait to get him to click on a link, which would have led to the infection of his Apple iPhone 6 and control of the device through a spy software created by the NSO Group”.
The EU should be calling out Israeli colonialism for its violence and incitement
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | May 28, 2019
Palestinian school textbooks are once again under public scrutiny, this time after a report published by Israel’s Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) claimed that material was “more radical than previously published”. The EU has since confirmed that it will be funding an assessment to be carried out “by an independent and internationally recognised research institute.”
According to IMPACT-se, “This new curriculum deliberately omits any discussion of peace education or reference to any Jewish presence in Palestine before 1948.” EU Foreign Affairs Representative Federica Mogherini said that the study will identify “possible incitement to hatred and violence and any possible lack of compliance with UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance in education.”
Once again, the Palestinians are being coerced into adopting standards determined by the political actors that have normalised Israel’s colonial presence in Palestine. The question is not whether there is any reference to Jewish presence in Palestine, but why there is such concentrated opposition to Palestinians asserting their own history and identity, both bludgeoned by Israel in the ongoing Nakba.
Lest anyone forgets, the entire international community has, in one way or another, endorsed the Zionist narrative when it comes to Palestine. This narrative leaves no space for Palestinians to assert their indigenous presence in Palestine before 1948; the “land without a people for a people without a land” myth and subsequent variations of it were used by the Zionists to justify their intent to colonise Palestine, as well as its implementation. It is the Zionist narrative that has eliminated Palestinians. In escaping from that premise, it is clear that Palestinians have an obligation towards their own people, history and memory if they are to fight against the complete disappearance of their own identity as a distinct people under Israeli oppression supported by the international community.
![Image of Israel supporters rally in London against UN resolution [ Zionist Federation/Facebook]](https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/2016_1_7-pro-Israel-activists-demostrate-against-UN-Council-Vote.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
Israel supporters rally in London against UN resolution [ Zionist Federation/Facebook]
It is imperative that Palestinians set their own agenda by their own standards. Israel has done so in contempt of human rights violations and its actions are now normalised as “security concerns” and “self-defence” by the international community. Palestinians have legitimate reasons to pursue their own liberation trajectory – a right granted by international law – yet they are constantly expected to abide by international norms which do not address the specifics of Israel’s ongoing colonial expansion and violence.
UNESCO describes peace education as “promoting peace-building through education in situations of both conflict and peace.” The terminology used is ideal for the international community, which has spent decades reinventing Israel’s colonialism in Palestine as the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” that can purportedly be solved through “peace negotiations”. There couldn’t have been a better combination for the EU to promote its diplomacy. UNESCO’s promotion of normalised discourse to alter the possibilities of education is a harmful agenda for Palestinians and an opportunity for the EU to portray itself as abiding by international norms.
Since there is no collective criticism of these accepted norms, any action that shows the slightest hint of legitimate repudiation in favour of a stance that clearly speaks for the oppressed – in this case, the Palestinian people – the EU can continue to recruit individuals and institutions to reinforce what is accepted at an international level. Palestinian textbooks and their content, however, have not emerged from a vacuum. The EU should not be funding studies that impede Palestinians from asserting their right to historic Palestine in their own educational curriculum. On the contrary, it should be calling out Israel’s presence in Palestine as a permanent form of colonial violence and incitement.
Settler filmed starting fire in West Bank field is Israeli soldier
MEMO | May 27, 2019
One of the two Jewish settlers recently caught on video starting a fire in the occupied West Bank is an Israeli soldier, it has been revealed.
According to reports in the Israeli media, “the army knows the identity of the settler”, and “two security sources confirmed the details, saying that the soldier was on leave when the arson took place”.
The military said that “the Israel Police are expected to handle the incident”, while “the police said that they have yet to arrest the soldier”.
The incident took place on Friday, 17 May, when settlers attacked Palestinians and their properties in three West Bank villages.
While the Israeli military initially blamed Palestinians for starting the fires, the army was forced to change its story after a video clip published by human rights NGO B’Tselem clearly showed settlers lighting fires in fields.
In a separate video taken by local Palestinians that day, settlers are seen throwing rocks at villagers’ homes, while Israeli soldiers “can be seen standing among the settlers and doing nothing to stop them”.
To date, no one has been arrested for any of these attacks.
Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank routinely assault Palestinians and vandalise their property, attacks which are almost never investigated or prosecuted by Israeli occupation authorities.
All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.
Ex-Israeli official admits 2015 assassination of Kuntar after tip-off from Syria militants
Press TV – May 27, 2019
A former Israeli army officer has admitted that Israel’s military, with the help of militants in Syria, assassinated Samir Kuntar, a commander of Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, during air raids in 2015.
According to UK-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the ex-army officer Marco Morno said the operation was carried out with information from “one of the leaders of the Syrian opposition factions.”
The attack was conducted by two warplanes that bombed a building with four long-range missiles in Jaramana, near Damascus, in late 2015.
Back then, Kuntar was in Syria helping government forces and Hezbollah fight back foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in the Arab country.
“Samir Kuntar, the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israeli jails, was killed in a terrorist rocket attack targeting a building in the southern parts of Jaramana, Damascus countryside,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported at the time.
He had spent about 30 years in Israeli prisons and was released in 2008 as part of a swap deal between Tel Aviv and Hezbollah in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during the 2006 war.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-militant monitoring group, Kuntar had been the target of various failed Israeli assassination attempts in Syria.
Morno, who was responsible for communicating with militants in Syria, revealed the details of Kuntar’s assassination during an interview with an Israeli news site on Thursday. The information he disclosed was allowed to be published under military censorship.
Hezbollah has been effectively helping the Syrian government in its fight against terrorists.
In May 2016, Mustafa Badr al-Deen, another Hezbollah commander, was killed in an Israeli air raid on the Syrian-Lebanese border.
Tel Aviv frequently attacks military targets inside Syria in what is considered as an attempt to prop up Takfiri terrorist outfits that have been suffering heavy defeats against Syrian government forces.
Numerous reports have also emerged of the discovery of Israeli-made weapons and military equipment during clean-up operations by the Syrian army.
The occupying regime has been providing medical treatment to extremist elements wounded in Syria.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies have been aiding the Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country.
Turkey is one of the main backers of anti-government militants in Syria.
On Saturday, senior militant sources said Turkey has equipped an array of terrorists with fresh supplies of weaponry to help them try to repel a major Syrian assault.
The delivery of dozens of armored vehicles, Grad rocket launchers, anti-tank guided missiles and so-called TOW missiles, helped roll back some army gains and retake the strategically located town of Kafr Nabudah, one senior militant figure said.
Syria’s SANA news agency reported on Sunday that Syrian army troops had established full control over Kafr Nabudah in Hama province after eliminating the last remnants of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorist group, formerly known as Nusra Front.
Why are we seeing such international apathy towards the Palestinians?
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | May 26, 2019
It is always refreshing to see the international community come together in emergencies when individual countries are blighted by man-made and natural disasters. Many European countries, for example, including Italy, Croatia, Greece and Cyprus, as well as Russia and Egypt, have responded with great urgency by sending firefighting aircraft and other equipment to help Israel battle ongoing wildfires in the central part of the country, which is in the grip of a major heatwave.
Why, though, do we not see a similar response to the humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes just a few short kilometres away in the Gaza Strip, where more than one million Palestinians face hunger and malnutrition thanks to a lack of basic foodstuffs and fresh water because of the cuts in funding and politicised restrictions imposed on traditional aid providers, including NGOs and charities? Their living conditions and general health and well-being are deteriorating daily under the brutal Israeli-led siege. Why are we seeing such international apathy towards the Palestinians?
Can anyone really explain why there was such an international response and concern for one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet there remains a blatant lack of compassion coupled with a callous disregard for the plight of the people living in neighbouring occupied Palestine? When it comes to human rights, it seems, there is clearly a different approach based on geographic location and — dare I say it — ethnicity. Arab lives aren’t worth saving, right?
Lest we forget, most of the Palestinians in Gaza are refugees; they had their lands stolen from them at gunpoint during the Nakba (Catastrophe) of the creation of the state of Israel. Despite having a legitimate right to return to their homes and lands, they are still living a hand-to-mouth existence as the world’s longest-suffering and neglected refugees, forced to sit back and watch as billions of US tax dollars and other generous aid packages have poured in since 1948 to support and expand the Zionist project.
The Palestinians living in Gaza can look forward to a lifetime of uncertainty, hardship and hunger, whereas those born on the other side of the nominal border — Israel has never declared where its borders lie — will never know what it is like to go without food, water and medical care. Nor will they face the daily uncertainty of facing armed incursions, missiles and bombs, and even artillery shells targeting children playing football on the beach, without one of the world’s strongest armed forces to protect them.
The wildfires are thought to have started on Thursday during the Lag B’Omer holiday in Israel; it is a Jewish festival which is usually celebrated with bonfires. Restrictions were put in place this year due to the weather warnings, fuelling speculation that bonfires which were allowed to burn out of control were the source of the crisis.
Dozens of homes have been destroyed in multiple locations around central Israel after forests caught fire, causing major damage to small towns along the highway connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Firefighters have battled fires along the boundary with Gaza, as well as near Ben Gurion International Airport and the Holy City.
Ignoring the Lag Ba’Omer bonfires, a government spokesman has blamed “incendiary balloons launched by Hamas” from the Gaza Strip. Once again, in the twisted world of Zionist propaganda, Israel has portrayed itself as the victim of Palestinian aggression, providing the right-wing government with an excuse, no doubt, for yet another military offensive in “self-defence” against the besieged and beleaguered people in the coastal enclave. To its eternal shame, the international community is more than willing to play along with that distorted narrative.
Don’t get me wrong. It is right and honourable that an international rescue team is fighting wildfires in Israel and responding to the crisis, but what I want to know is why the same spirit of a truly international community doesn’t apply with equal enthusiasm to the bigger, more devastating and, in human terms, much more costly crisis just a few miles down the road in Gaza? Don’t Palestinian lives matter anymore? Did they ever?
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New Book
The Garlic Book — 2026
Lies are Unbekoming | November 5, 2026
What The Garlic Book shows
The book is in four parts.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
Part Four, Garlic in Practice, is the working manual — the kitchen pharmacy, traditional uses by body system, a full chapter on safety and interactions, and a complaint-by-complaint practical guide. The book closes with The Trial That Was Never Run — a one-chapter reading of the whole evidential architecture.
At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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