Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism

Netanyahu’s Iran Speech in Context: Irony, Hypocrisy and the Undeclared Hijacking of U.S. Foreign Policy

By Adeyinka Makinde | May 3, 2018

The recent presentation made by Binyamin Netanyahu purportedly detailing a secret Iranian programme aimed at acquiring a nuclear weapons capability is the latest in a long-term effort on his part to obtain United States assistance in destroying Iran. But the actions of the Israeli prime minister are not only ironic and hypocritical: they bring into focus the connection between the purposeful destructions of Iraq and Libya on the one hand and the attempt to destroy Syria, foment conflict in Lebanon and neutralise Iranian military power on the other. Few Americans are aware of this two decade-long grand strategy followed by successive United States administrations because the compartmentalization of events, short-term memory of the public and government propaganda have all served to murky the fundamental picture, that is, one in which the United States continues to follow a policy of taking down countries which pose a threat to the state of Israel. It is a policy which was adopted without recourse to public debate despite the serious ramifications it has had in terms of the cost to American prestige and an ever increasing national debt.

Most of the world’s major national intelligence services have long concluded that Iran has no nuclear weapons development programme. This includes the intelligence community of the United States and up until recently -if Binyamin Netanyahu is to be believed- Israel’s Mossad. A debate within Iran’s political, military and intelligence circles apparently ended with the nation’s supreme leader ruling against the development of nuclear weapons.

The irony is not lost in the scenario of the leader of Israel decrying the acquisition of nuclear technology by another nation, one that is a signatory state to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and subject to the stringent conditions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reached between Iran and the ‘Five Plus One’ countries, when Israel is in possession of an undeclared arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Israel’s own nuclear weapons programme, which began with the express disapproval of President John F. Kennedy who felt that it would create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, involved the practice of a grand deception by David Ben Gurion who insisted that the Dimona reactor was for research purposes only and not for the production of plutonium.

A pungent whiff of hypocrisy pervades Netanyahu’s presentation. Israel’s nuclear arms programme has not only been shrouded in secrecy but has involved acts of criminality which according to FBI documents declassified in June 2012 allegedly involved Netanyahu himself. Netanyahu later issued a gagging order directing the unindicted ringleader of a nuclear smuggling ring to refrain from discussing an operation known as ‘Project Pinto’. Israel spied on nuclear installations inside the United States and in the 1960s and it stole bomb-grade uranium from a US nuclear fuel-processing plant.

Netanyahu’s speech is the latest in a campaign by Israel to ignite a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran, a plan which is intimately linked to the effort to destroy Syria over the past seven years.

The war in Syria represents the combined efforts of the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia to destroy the so-called ‘Shia Crescent’ of Iran, Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah). The centrality of Israel in this effort was made clear by Roland Dumas, a former foreign minister of France in 2013. But Israel, along with the United States and Saudi Arabia, has been enraged by the fact that Bashar al-Assad’s secular government with the help of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, has practically defeated the Islamic fanatics who were introduced into Syria for the purpose of overthrowing Assad in order to balkanise the country and stop Iranian arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The reason why Israel wants Iranian aid to Hezbollah cut off and the organisation destroyed is not hard to fathom. Hezbollah is the only armed force within the Arab world willing and capable of taking on the Israeli military. Israel has for long coveted southern Lebanon up to the River Litani. But Hezbollah has twice inflicted humiliating defeats on Israel: first in 2000 when Israel was forced to withdraw after an 18-year occupation of the southern part of Lebanon which had commenced with a bloody invasion, and secondly in 2006 when Israel was forced to withdraw after sustaining heavy losses during a 34-day conflict.

Apart from the aforementioned goal of breaking the conduit between Iran and Hezbollah, the balkanisation of Syria would mean that any of the successor states would find it difficult to make a claim for the Golan Heights which Israel conquered in 1967 and which it illegally annexed in 1981. Israel is also supportive of the idea of a Kurdish state being created out of Syria as a means through which the transfer of oil and gas could be facilitated.

Much evidence exists of a pre-existing Israeli plan to destroy Syria. The Yinon Plan of 1982 and a series of position papers produced by Israel-friendly neoconservative ideologues in the United States (the Project for the New American Century’s ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses – Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century’ in 2000) as well as for the Israeli government (‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’ in 1996) bear this out. Each document clearly calls for the neutralising or the “rolling back” of several states including Syria.

The Yinon Plan, the name given to a paper entitled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s’ which was published in February 1982 in Kivunim (Directions), a journal written in Hebrew, set out Israel’s enduring aim of balkanising the surrounding Arab and Muslim world into ethnic and sectarian mini-states. Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq were prime candidates.

It was not a unique or suddenly arrived at policy, but simply set out in detail an overarching policy pursued by Israel’s leaders since the founding of the state. For instance, the diaries of Moshe Sharett, an early prime minister of Israel, laid bare David Ben Gurion and Moshe Dayan’s aim of weakening Lebanon by exacerbating tensions between its Muslim and Christian population in the course of which Dayan hoped that a Christian military officer would declare a Christian state out of which the region south of the River Litani would be ceded to Israel.

A crucial point to mention is that the policy of the United States towards Syria and others is congruent with that of Israel. In fact, America has been pursuing a two-decade long strategy aimed at destabilisation and balkanisation regardless of the political stripe of the president in office. After the attack of 9/11, the United States set in motion a plan, in the words of retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, “to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.

The secular nations of Iraq, Syria and Libya had no links to the Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda cell which purportedly carried out the attacks on 9/11. Neither did Shia Iran. Yet, America foreign policy has been geared towards destroying nations who happen to oppose Israel and who are supportive of the Palestinian cause.

To quote General Clark again, American foreign policy was “hijacked” without a public debate.

While the adoption of this policy remains officially unacknowledged, the modus operandi by which the United States has sought to destroy these countries is clear. A succession of position papers as well as the intended effect of United States and NATO interventions point to the exploiting of ethnic and sectarian conflicts as well as the use of Islamist proxy armies as the standard tactic utilised to bring down governments.

For instance, a Pentagon-funded report by the RAND Corporation in 2008 entitled ‘Unfolding the Future of the Long War: Motivations, Prospects and Implications for the U.S. Army’ explicitly refers to the need to foment conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims as a means to the end of controlling the resources of the Middle East.

Another tactic alluded to by a 2012 document created by the Defense Intelligence Agency is that of declaring ‘Safe Havens’ -a term synonymous with the often used ‘No-Fly Zones’- ostensibly as a humanitarian policy, but which is a technique used to shield and preserve areas controlled by Islamist insurgents. It was utilised by NATO forces as a means of protecting the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group during its campaign to overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi, and an attempt was made to implement this prior to the fall of the al-Nusra-controlled city of Aleppo.

America’s Founding Fathers warned against getting involved in foreign entanglements, yet it devotedly follows a Middle East policy that clearly benefits the interests of another nation state. It is a policy which risks setting off a major regional war based on sectarian lines as well as embroiling it in a conflict with nuclear armed Russia.

For Israel, the goal remains the establishment of its undisputed hegemony in the Middle East. However, while an economic rationale predicated on relieving Europe of its dependency on Russian gas via a pipeline from the gulf is occasionally referenced, there has never been a comprehensive articulation of what America’s fundamental interests are in destroying Syria and Iran.

Pursuing such a policy without having had a full and thorough public debate tends to confirm key areas of dysfunction in the American system of governance. First it highlights the power and influence of those lobbies associated with Israeli interests and the Military Industry, and secondly, the unchanging nature of this policy which has been followed by the respective administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump provide evidence that what Michael J. Glennon terms the ‘Madisonian’ institutions of state are no longer accountable in the manner which people still think they are. Instead power in regard to crucial issues on American national security rests with an unelected group of people outside of the separated organs of government: what Glennon, a professor of law at Tufts University, refers to as ‘Trumanite’ institutions.

The implications for the health of American democracy are all too apparent.

The pursuit of a strategy which has served to diminish American esteem among the global community as well as adding to the increasing national debt represents a catastrophic failure not only on the part of the political class, but also on the part of the mainstream media, which has consistently presented a narrative devoid of its true context. The intellectual community comprised of university academics and scholars working for think tanks must accept a large share of the blame.

Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech, a shameless attempt at goading the United States into breaking its obligations under an international agreement as a prelude to fighting a war which would serve Israel’s interests, ought to ignite a full and transparent debate on American national security policy in the Middle East.

A failure to do this risks future costly disasters which would dwarf the debacles of Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2018)

May 4, 2018 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Sanctions against Iran, Syria, Zionism | Leave a comment

Ex-Israel chief military prosecutor lives in home built on privately-owned Palestinian land

MEMO | May 3, 2018

A former chief Israeli military prosecutor lives in a house in the West Bank settlement of Efrat “which was illegally constructed on private Palestinian land”, it has been revealed.

According to anti-occupation NGO Kerem Navot, Lieutenant Colonel Morris Hirsch served as the chief military prosecutor in the West Bank until about a year and a half ago, “and was responsible for legal proceedings against thousands of Palestinians each year”.

In addition, “since his release, he has been employed as a ‘military consultant’ by the right-wing organisation NGO Monitor”.

Kerem Navot has now revealed that Hirsch not only lives in a West Bank settlement, but his house is located on privately-owned Palestinian land.

An Israeli company says it bought the land “from some Arabs”, but have no evidence to prove the claim. This did not prevent Israeli authorities “from allowing the company to advance a master plan on site and to authorise the two illegally constructed housing units, in one of which Hirsch resides”.

Kerem Navot said it is “ironic” that an individual “who was responsible for the rotten prosecution system that Israel runs in the West Bank for several years, currently lives in a house that was built solely due to the very same rottenness that pervades the law enforcement system in its entirety”.

May 3, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Israel, Israeli settlement, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

10 of the Most Sociopathic Washington Post Columns

By Adam Johnson | FAIR | May 2, 2018

For casually threatening economic ruin, inciting violence against entire populations, pushing for bombing faceless Muslims, or downplaying racism and child rape, there’s no better outlet than long-time echo chamber of power-serving conventional wisdom, the Washington Post. In the pages of the Post opinion section, you can say the most sociopathic things and get away with it, because you are, by definition, Serious People offering Serious Solutions in a Serious Paper.

The human cost of these extreme, reactionary opinions is of little matter; what matters is packaging calls for violence, sexism and racism in a nice, official-sounding tone. Here, in no particular order, are ten of the most sociopathic columns published under the Washington Post banner:

If You Really Want to Bomb Iran, Take the Deal: Austin Long (4/3/15)

In a too-cute-by-half spin, Austin Long, assistant professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, set out to convince hawkish liberals that the Iran deal was good— not because it prevented war but because it could serve to launch one, something Long had been pushing for for years in other publications (Tablet, 11/18/11; International Security, Spring/07). Supposedly, the Iran deal concentrates Iran’s nuclear activity, which means any airstrikes would need to be launched at far fewer sites. The agreement is good not because it makes nuclear conflict less likely, but only insofar as it makes Iran a more vulnerable target, something Long calls “a rare win for both Iran hawks and doves.” Softening up countries for future bombing campaigns: a total “win.”

Closing the Door on Crime: Richard Cohen (9/7/86)

In his now-infamous 1986 column, long-time blowhard Richard Cohen defended, without qualification or irony, racist store owners for refusing to let black men into their stores. He then went on to praise Bernhard Goetz, the so-called “subway vigilante” who shot four black men for asking for money on the subway, something Cohen insisted with confidence was “boilerplate precede to a mugging.” The casual racism and matter-of-fact assertion that black males are a menace makes it a shoe-in for this list:

But then white assailants are rather hard to find in urban America. Especially in cities like Washington and New York, the menace comes from young black males. Both blacks and whites believe those young black males are the ones most likely to bop them over the head.

“A black colleague of mine thinks” it’s not racism, Cohen insisted. “He, too, would turn away young blacks if he owned a jewelry store.” Cohen’s mysterious black friend agrees that discriminating against black people is totally fine and understandable.

Trump Shouldn’t Forget Iran’s Big Achilles’ Heel: Its Economy: Zalmay Khalilzad (4/25/18)

When Post columnists aren’t plotting war, they’re plotting the slightly more socially acceptable, liberal “alternative” to war: starving other countries’ economies into submission. Calling for “crippling sanctions” is a common enough occurrence in the Post’s editorial space that it would not otherwise merit a mention. But to add the unique sociopathic flavor needed to get on this elite list, Khalilzad discusses wrecking Iran’s economy like Mel Kiper Jr. would break down the San Francisco 49ers’ offensive strategy:

The debate over the Iranian nuclear deal has so far largely neglected a factor that potentially gives the United States leverage: the deteriorating economic and political situation in Iran. The Trump administration should integrate this factor into its strategy….

The Trump administration could, of course, opt to maintain the nuclear deal. But that would forfeit the chance to capitalize on Iran’s crisis by threatening draconian new US sanctions.

Ratcheting up sanctions, Khalilzad wrote, “could further exacerbate Iran’s internal problems and generate additional leverage,” and “would give the United States the greatest opportunity to impose costs on Iran and exploit its economic and political difficulties.”

The suffering of millions—which is what the bloodless word “costs” means in human terms—is viewed as “leverage” to be “exploited,” a “crisis” in urgent need of “capitalizing on” by Trump. Not, as most normal, morally healthy humans would view it, a tragedy to be avoided.

Snowden Case Highlights Ecuador’s Double Standard: Editorial Board (6/24/13)

Sometimes the sociopathy is not the primary frame and is instead buried under a lot of Serious Policy recommendations, like this editorial from the summer of 2013, at the beginning of the Snowden affair. The piece begins with the casual racism and imperial arrogance one has come to expect from the Post:

When it comes to anti-American chutzpah, there’s no beating Rafael Correa, the autocratic leader of tiny, impoverished Ecuador. Mr. Correa and his foreign minister said Monday that they were considering an asylum request by Mr. Snowden.

It’s unclear how the freely elected Rafael Correa was “autocratic” (meaning “having absolute power”), but one can assume that any leader who challenges US hegemony in any meaningful way just becomes one through sheer assertion:

Some might find it awkward to be granting sanctuary to one country’s self-proclaimed whistleblower while stifling their own. Not Mr. Correa, who for years has been campaigning against the United States while depending on it to prop up his economy with trade preferences. Thanks to the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Protection Act, Ecuador — which uses the dollar as its currency — is able to export many goods to the United States duty-free, supporting roughly 400,000 jobs in a country of 14 million people.

As it happens, the preferences will expire next month unless renewed by Congress. If Mr. Correa welcomes Mr. Snowden, there will be an easy way to demonstrate that Yanqui-baiting has its price.

Here Post editors casually suggest wrecking a small and very poor country’s economy for the crime of standing up to the United States. Not only does the Post internalize the needs of the most ruthless and largest empire on earth, it nudges it to be even more ruthless in defense of its already massive surveillance powers. Keeping with this theme, the Post editorial board would later argue against pardoning Edward Snowden (FAIR.org, 5/25/17), despite the paper using him as a source on more than one occasion. Democracy dies in darkness.

Truman Was Right to Use the Bomb on Japan: Richard Cohen (8/17/15)

This piece (a response to a Nation article by Christian Appy) recycles a series of long-discredited talking points (Extra!, 4/95) about Japanese irrationality and the inevitability of using the bomb, but the real kicker is when not-at-all-racist Cohen says Japan had it coming because it lived up to racist stereotypes:

What about racism? “American wartime culture had for years drawn on a long history of ‘yellow peril’ racism to paint the Japanese not just as inhuman, but as subhuman,” Appy writes. Yes, indeed. But at the same time, the Japanese were doing their level best to prove that the bigots were right.

See, we were animated by anti-Asian racism (just like we manifestly were in Korea and Vietnam), but it’s okay because we guessed correctly and it turns out our cartoon depictions of Japanese evil were spot on. Oh well then, I guess evaporating a quarter of a million people in an instant was the right call.

War With Iran Is Probably Our Best Option: Joshua Muravchik (3/13/15)

If there’s one thing Post opinion editors love, it’s columns threatening, plotting and advocating war against Iran. It’s the little black dress of foreign policy punditry—never goes out of style.

Joshua Muravchik, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, argued nonchalantly that launching a war of aggression against Iran was “probably” “our” best “option.” He doesn’t explain who “our” refers to, or why a military attack was even an “option” to begin with. (Wars of aggression, it’s worth remembering, were called “the central crime in this pattern of crimes, the kingpin which holds all [war crimes] together,” by US Attorney General Robert Jackson in his closing arguments at the Nuremberg trials.) But never mind that—we have a massive act of unprovoked mechanized violence to undertake.

Muravichick asserts that Iran is uniquely irrational and cannot be compelled with material needs, asserting that “ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime” and concluding, as if he were settling on a Thai food order, that a bombing campaign that would kill tens of thousands is the “best option.”

Post editors even allowed Muravchik to casually throw out a material falsehood, one the Post’s own editors have corrected before (FAIR.org, 3/21/14): the idea that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. “Sanctions may have induced Iran to enter negotiations,” Muravchik writes, “but they have not persuaded it to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.”

This is editorially not the position of the Washington Post, or the CIA, Mossad or the whole of US intelligence (FAIR.org, 10/17/17), but it’s the entire basis of the preemptive war being lobbied for, so who cares if it’s factually true or not?

Time for an Israeli Strike?: John Bolton (7/2/09)

More bombing of Iran, you say? This time it was cartoonishly hawkish and once-fringe but now National Security Advisor John Bolton, who is so radical in his lobbying for the use of military force, he was denounced by self-identified neoconservatives and major Iraq War boosters Max Boot and William Kristol as too extreme.

Bolton—who has received large, undisclosed sums of money from the pro-regime change, Mossad-linked, fringe cult MEK—took to the pages of the Washington Post to argue the “likelihood” that diplomacy won’t “make any real difference” and that there was for Obama “no point waiting for negotiations to play out.” “Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” Bolton asserted, “are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities.”

Almost 10 years later, with neither bombing of Iran nor Iranian nuclear weapons in evidence, one might be shocked to hear that this prediction was totally incorrect.

Hamas Could Have Chosen Peace. Instead, It Made Gaza Suffer: Dennis Ross (8/8/14)

When the columnist pages of the Post aren’t used to incite violence against Iran, they can be a useful venue for victim-blaming Palestinians for Israeli bombings and sieges. This was the case when Dennis Ross of the AIPAC spinoff Washington Institute for Near East Policy held Hamas responsible for Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, which killed over 1,500 Palestinian civilians. (As a point of reference, Israel lost a total of six civilians to Palestinian rockets fired in response to the Israeli bombing.)

Staring at this entirely one-sided bombing campaign, one would think Ross would set aside even a little blame for the massive body count on the party that actually did the bombing. No, he pins the blame entirely on Hamas, insisting Israel had little choice but to bomb “schools and hospitals” because that’s where the militant group stores its weapons caches. The conflict is entirely decontextualized; Ross reinforces the myth the Israelis “pulled out of Gaza,” which is an odd way to describe Israel’s continuing control of Gaza’s airspace, ports and land entrances in what is effectively a large open-air prison.

Ross peppers his piece—the ultimate purpose of which is to pin the horrific images of bloody corpses and maimed children then coming out of Gaza on the Palestinians themselves–in decades-old gaslighting cliches about “choosing arms over civilian investment and development,” while painting the image of a stubborn Palestinian population rejecting “peace” and embracing some masochistic death force. Palestinians are expected to be the only population on earth to unilaterally disarm and accept their own subjection in exchange for the right to have cement and basic supplies. Somehow, 70 years on, Palestinians are always responsible for their own occupation, humiliation and bombing.

Racism vs. Reality: Richard Cohen (7/15/13)

Another barn-burner from Cohen, this widely criticized piece begins with his usual “I’m not racist but…” defense of racism:

I don’t like what George Zimmerman did, and I hate that Trayvon Martin is dead. But I also can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize. I don’t know whether Zimmerman is a racist. But I’m tired of politicians and others who have donned hoodies in solidarity with Martin and who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist. The hoodie blinds them as much as it did Zimmerman.

People who don’t think unarmed African-American teenagers should be killed for the crime of wearing a hoodie are just as bad as those who think they should! It’s two sides of the same coin: opposing extrajudicial racist murder and supporting it. The piece is chock-full of this type of false equivalency, the summation of which is—like so many of Cohen’s other columns throughout the years—that racism is good and necessary.

The Outrageous Arrest of Roman Polanski: Anne Applebaum (9/27/09) / Thank You, Switzerland, for Freeing Polanski: Richard Cohen (7/13/10) [tied]

In the annals of terrible takes, few have aged more poorly than Anne Applebaum and Richard Cohen’s breathless, self-righteous defense of Roman Polanski, c. 2009. The sociopathy of these arguments was shocking and direded in certain circles at the time, but in today’s #MeToo era, it reads like something from 17th century Jamestown, Virginia.

Applebaum, who waxes frequently about the necessity of “rule of law” against the threat of “populism,” thought Switzerland’s decision to respect the US extradition treaty was “bizarre” and hinted vaguely at conspiracy, insisting there “must be some deeper story here.” Arresting fleeing child rapist is such an extraordinary deviation from Western norms, clearly this is evidence of a plot of some kind.

“He did commit a crime,” she handwaves. “But he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers’ fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.” Oh no, lawyers’ fees! Applebaum, as many noted at the time, also failed to disclose the fact that her husband, then–Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, was lobbying the US government on behalf of Polanski, a Polish native.

Cohen, making his first non-racist appearance on this list, was even more callous in his reasoning, writing one of the grossest and most heartless opening paragraphs in the history of any paper:

The Swiss got it right. Their refusal to extradite film director Roman Polanski to the United States on a 33-year-old sex charge is the proper dénouement for this mess of a case. There is no doubt that Polanski did what he did, which is have sex with a 13-year-old after plying her with booze. There is no doubt also that after all these years there is something stale about the case, not to mention a “victim,” Samantha Geimer, who has long ago forgiven her assailant and dearly wishes the whole thing would go away. So do I.

It’s hard to say which is worse: Cohen putting “victim” in irony quotes, or referring to the rape and forcible sodomy of a 13-year-old as “sex.”

May 3, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Dennis Ross, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Cohen, United States, Washington Post | Leave a comment

Living in an Orwellian Dystopia

By Gilad Atzmon | May 3, 2018

It is puzzling to witness the speed and ferocity with which Britain is deteriorating into an Orwellian nightmare.

The Evening Standard reported yesterday that “a London council worker has been suspended after being caught claiming Zionists ‘collaborated’ with the Nazis.”

Apparently Stan Keable was removed from his duties as an environmental enforcement officer for Hammersmith & Fulham Council after saying, “The Nazis were anti-Semitic. The problem I’ve got is the Zionist government at the time collaborated with them. They accepted the ideas that Jews are not acceptable here.”

Keable made the comments, shared in a clip on Twitter, at a pro-Corbyn demonstration outside the Parliament. I guess that in Britain 2018 you can lose your job simply for expressing an opinion.

It seems that some British Jews are disturbed by parts of their history. They try to suppress any speech about the Haavara Agreement. Former London mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour Party for mentioning that collaboration between Hitler and Zionism. And disturbingly, in the Labour Party’s discussion of Livingstone’s case the party general secretary, Iain McNicol, “made it clear in a letter to the former mayor that the case against him was not about the historical facts, but whether his conduct was ‘grossly detrimental’ to the party…” *

The Transfer (Haavara) Agreement between the Nazi regime and the Palestine Zionist leadership is an accepted historical fact. In his superb book, Final Solution, the British Jewish Historian David Cesarani examines the agreement and he quotes German Zionist voices that approved of the Nazi regime and even welcomed the Nuremberg Racial Laws because they pushed for segregation. But evidentiary truth is not a defence in Britain 2018. I guess this disregard for truth is just another symptom of our removal from the Athenian ethos.

Conservative MP for Chelsea & Fulham, Greg Hands, said: “I am shocked someone expressing hateful opinions could have a job meeting vulnerable tenants. The council leader should launch an inquiry into whether there are others of his ilk in the council.”

I can’t see a drop of hatefulness in Keable’s comment. But I would like to advise the conservative MP and other ignorant Tories that while the Haavara Agreement was signed as an attempt to save German Jews, the Conservative Government here in Britain did little for German Jews and other Jewish refugees.

Mike Katz, of the Jewish Labour Movement, said: “To try to twist the history of the Nazis to fit an anti-Zionist narrative is offensive.” It may be offensive but the Haavara Agreement and the collaboration between Zionist organisations and Nazi officials from 1933 till the end of the war are part of Jewish history and political terrorism will not wipe out that history.

When contacted by the Standard, Mr Keable said: “I am sorry for any offence I may have caused. But the Nazi regime and the Zionist Federation of Germany collaborated, through the Haavara agreement, in the emigration of some 60,000 Jews to Palestine between 1933 and 1939.” He said he did not insinuate that Jews collaborated with the Nazis.

May 3, 2018 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK, Zionism | Leave a comment

Egypt presidential decree allows Bahrain King to own villas in Sinai

MEMO | May 2, 2018

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has issued a presidential decree permitting the King of Bahrain, Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, to own two villas located in the South Sinai province of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt’s state’s official Gazette reported on Monday.

In accordance to the Sinai Development Law No.14/2012, any land on the peninsula can only be owned by Egyptian nationals.

However, a statement released on the State Information Service website claims that Al-Sisi issued a presidential decree approving treating Bahraini King Al Khalifa as an Egyptian citizen in 2016.

“The decree is also applicable to the possession of lands and villas in Naama Bay of Sharm El-Shiekh city for the purpose of residence,” the statement concluded.

The news comes just days after the announcement of a $15 billion project to develop the restive Sinai Peninsula that should be completed by 2022, with a presidential aide describing the scheme as “a project for national security”.

The project includes plans for a comprehensive network of roads, residential and industrial developments, four water desalination plants, hospitals and sewage networks. Funding sources for the initiative remain unclear.

Egypt is reportedly preparing to launch a significant military attack in upcoming days in the area bordering Gaza and Israel, with Egyptian forces amassing near the Rafah crossing.

However, last week, New York based watchdog Human Rights Watch expressed concern over the risk of a looming humanitarian crisis in North Sinai as a result of the Egyptian army’s military operation. Nearly 420,000 residents in four north-eastern cities are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance due to the ongoing battle.

According to the report, security forces have also imposed strict restrictions on the movement of goods and people throughout the governorate.

The report quoted local residents as saying that “the authorities have also banned the sale or use of gasoline for vehicle use in the area and cut telecommunication services for several days at a time. The government has cut water and electricity almost entirely in the most eastern areas of North Sinai, including Rafah and Sheikh Zuwayed.

Egypt has been facing a Daesh insurgency in the remote North Sinai region that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen in recent years.

Human rights organisations have, however, accused Egypt of using the fight against terror in Sinai as a ruse to cover up the extrajudicial killing of opponents and critics.

May 2, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Bahrain, Egypt, Human rights | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Accuses Palestinian Leader Abbas of Holocaust Denial

RT | May 2, 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken to Twitter to slam Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who, during a Monday speech, suggested that through their “social role” Jews brought persecution upon themselves.

Netanyahu accused the Palestinian leader of both Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. “Apparently the Holocaust denier is still a Holocaust denier. I call on the international community to condemn his severe anti-Semitism; the time has come for it to pass from the world,” he wrote.

The embattled Israeli PM was making reference to controversial remarks made by Abbas at a rare meeting of the Palestinian National Council in Ramallah on Monday. During a 90-minute televised speech, Abbas claimed that the historic persecution of European Jews throughout the centuries was due to their “social role related to usury and banks.”

“From the 11th century until the Holocaust that took place in Germany, the Jews – who moved to Western and Eastern Europe – were subjected to a massacre every 10 to 15 years. But why did this happen?” the Jerusalem Post quotes Abbas as saying.

“The Jewish issue that was widespread in all European countries… was not because of their religion, but rather their social role related to usury and banks,” he reportedly added.

Abbas attributed these claims to books written by various Jewish scholars and also said that “such pogroms did not take place in Arab countries, which had Jewish populations.”

Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s special envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, took to Twitter to respond to the remarks, saying: “They are very unfortunate, very distressing and terribly disheartening. Peace cannot be built on this kind of foundation.”

While US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that the comments represent a “new low.”

Abbas has been accused of Holocaust denial for decades stemming from his 1982 doctorate dissertation entitled“The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement.”

May 2, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

South Carolina’s New Hate Speech Law Outlaws Criticism of the Israeli Occupation

Discussing the military occupation of the West Bank, a reality recognized even by Israel’s Supreme Court, would be considered anti-Semitic under the new South Carolina law.

By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | May 1, 2018

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — The state of South Carolina will become the first state in the nation to legislate a definition of anti-Semitism that considers certain criticisms of the Israeli government to be hate speech. The language, which was inserted into the state’s recently passed $8 billion budget, offers a much more vague definition of anti-Semitism that some suggest specifically targets the presence of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, movement on state college campuses. The law requires that all state institutions, including state universities, apply the revised definition when deciding whether an act violates anti-discrimination policies.

Once it is reconciled with an appropriations bill previously passed by the state House, the measure will become law and take effect this July. However, the law will last only until the next budget is passed, meaning that the new legal definition of anti-Semitism must be renewed on a yearly basis unless new legislation making the language permanent is passed in the future.

The new definition uses the State Department’s current definition of anti-Semitism as its template — defining speech that “demonizes” or applies “double standards” to Israel “by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” as anti-Semitic.

However, the State Department’s definition was never intended to be used as an enforcement tool, and concern has subsequently been raised that South Carolina colleges may now move to criminalize conventional and factual criticism of Israel under the new, vague definition of anti-Semitism.

Such concern is well-founded, in part because the bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R-Myrtle Beach), previously called the pro-Israel lobby J-Street “anti-Semitic” for referring to Israel’s presence in Palestine’s West Bank as an “occupation.” Thus, in Clemmons’ view, discussing the military occupation of the West Bank, a reality recognized even by Israel’s Supreme Court, would be considered anti-Semitic under the new South Carolina law.

Clemmons, a Mormon who has previously hosted state delegations to Israel, also considers the non-violent Palestinian rights movement Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) to be motivated by anti-Semitism and has been called “Israel’s biggest supporter in a U.S. state legislature.”

Honored to have visited with @realDonaldTrump @FLOTUS @netanyahu & @sara_netanyahu. #USA & #Israel are partners of light in a dark world! pic.twitter.com/SbWKEnJVVB

— Alan Clemmons (@RepAlanClemmons) June 28, 2017

In addition to the views of the bill’s sponsor, Kenneth Stern, the author of the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism upon which the new South Carolina law is based, has vehemently opposed codifying into law the definition he wrote, asserting that applying that definition to colleges “is a direct affront to academic freedom” as well as “unconstitutional and unwise.”

In regards to the South Carolina Law, Stern stated that it “is really an attempt to create a speech code about Israel,” adding that it is also “an unnecessary law that will hurt Jewish students and the academy.”

Other groups, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, have raised similar concerns, stating that “this vague and overbroad re-definition conflates political criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, infringing on constitutionally protected speech.”

Pro-Israel groups, in contrast, praised the law’s wording. The Brandeis Center, for instance, stated:

This bill gives South Carolina the tools to protect Jewish students’ and all South Carolina students’ right to a learning environment free of unlawful discrimination. We are hoping this momentous step will result in another national wave to, once and for all, begin defeating rising anti-Semitism.”

First clashes in a coming national battle?

The Brandeis Center’s allusion to a “national wave” aimed at legally conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism may be closer to reality than previously thought. Indeed, if Kenneth Marcus, Trump’s nominee to serve as the next Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, is confirmed in the coming months, the newly passed South Carolina law is likely to be repeated across the country.

Marcus, who once boasted of instilling “fear” into BDS activists and considers any demonstration of solidarity with Palestine as anti-Semitic, has long desired the post, as he sees it as a way to shut down BDS at the national level. As Marcus himself has noted, changing the legal definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of the Israeli state is a critical part of silencing BDS groups on U.S. college campuses.

Ultimately, the bill comes at a critical time for pro-Israel partisans seeking to curb the recent success of BDS at universities across the U.S. Indeed, just a week after the new South Carolina law was passed, the students at one of the country’s most Jewish colleges – Barnard College in New York – overwhelmingly supported a referendum asking its school’s administration to boycott, divest and sanction Israel for its violations of international law in Palestine. Such victories are apparently considered so dangerous by Israel’s right-wing and its U.S. equivalents that they have sought to restrict freedom of speech on college campuses nationwide in order to prevent them in the future.

In 2015, South Carolina became the first of at least 22 states to prohibit state agencies or institutions from contracting with any vendor participating in a boycott of Israel. A hub of the slaveholding South in the U.S., South Carolina is a deeply conservative state with strong ties to Christian evangelicals, but a relatively small Jewish population of roughly 20,000 — dwarfed by a state like Illinois with more than 300,000 Jews.

Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

May 1, 2018 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, South Carolina, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Gazan Gandhis: Gaza bleeds alone as ‘Liberals’ and ‘Progressives’ go mute

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | May 1, 2018

Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border.

Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing – nearly 45 dead and over 5,500 wounded – the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long chastised Palestinians for using armed resistance against the Israeli occupation are nowhere to be found, while children, journalists, women and men are all targeted by hundreds of Israeli snipers who dot the Gaza border.

Israeli officials are adamant. The likes of Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, perceives his war against the unarmed protesters as a war on terrorists. He believes that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” While the Israeli mindset is not in the least surprising, it is emboldened by the lack of meaningful action, or outright international silence to the atrocities taking place at the border.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), aside from frequent statements laced with ambiguous legal jargon, has been quite useless thus far. Its Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, derided Israel’s killings in a recent statement, but also distorted facts in her attempt at ‘even-handed language’, to the delight of Israeli media.

“Violence against civilians – in a situation such as the one prevailing in Gaza – could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court … as could the use of civilian presence for the purpose of shielding military activities,” she said.

Encouraged by Bensouda’s statement, Israel is exploiting the opportunity to deflect from its own crimes. On April 25, an Israeli law group, Shurat Hadin, is seeking to indict three Hamas leaders at the ICC, accusing Hamas of using children as human shields at the border protests.

It is tragic that many still find it difficult to grasp the notion that the Palestinian people are capable of mobilizing, resisting and making decisions independent from Palestinian factions.

Indeed, for the nearly decade-long Hamas-Fatah feud, the Israeli siege on Gaza and throughout the various destructive wars, Gazans have been sidelined, often seen as hapless victims of war and factionalism, and lacking any human agency.

Shurat Hadin, like Bensouda, are all feeding into that dehumanizing discourse.

By insisting that Palestinians are not capable of operating outside the confines of political factions, few feel the sense of political responsibility or moral accountability to come to the aid of the Palestinians.

This is reminiscent of former US President Barack Obama’s unsolicited lecture to Palestinians during his Cairo speech to the Muslim world in 2009.

“Palestinians must abandon violence,” he said. “Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed.”

He then offered his own questionable version of history of how all nations, including ‘black people in America’, the nations of South Africa, South East Asia, Eastern Europe and Indonesia fought and won their freedom by peaceful means only.

This demeaning approach – of comparing supposed Palestinian failures to others’ successes – is always meant to highlight that Palestinians are different, lesser beings who are incapable of being like the rest of humanity. Interestingly, this is very much the core of the Zionist narrative about the Palestinians.

That very notion is often presented in the question “where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” The inquiry, often asked by so-called liberals and progressives, is not an inquiry at all, but is a judgement – and an unfair one at that.

Addressing the question soon after the last Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, Jeff Stein wrote in Newsweek, “The answer has been blown away in the smoke and rubble of Gaza, where the idea of non-violent protest seems as quaint as Peter, Paul and Mary. The Palestinians who preached non-violence and led peaceful marches, boycotts, mass sit-downs and the like are mostly dead, in jail, marginalized or in exile.”

Yet, astonishingly, it is being resurrected again, despite the numerous odds, the unfathomable anger and unrelenting pain.

Tens of thousands of protesters, raising Palestinian flags continue to hold their massive rallies across the Gaza border. Despite the high death toll and the thousands maimed, they return everyday with the same commitment to popular resistance that is predicated on collective unity, beyond factionalism and politics.

But why are they still being largely ignored?

Why isn’t Obama tweeting in solidarity with Gazans? Why isn’t Hillary Clinton taking the podium to address the unremitting Israeli violence?

It is politically convenient to criticize Palestinians as a matter of course, and utterly inconvenient to credit them, even when they display such courage, prowess and commitment to peaceful change.

The likes of famed author, J.K. Rowling, had much to stay in criticism of the peaceful Palestinian boycott movement, which aims at holding Israel accountable for its military occupation and violations of human rights. But she became mute when Israeli snipers killed children in Gaza, while cheering whenever a child falls.

The singer Bono of the band U2 dedicated a song to the late Israeli President Shimon Peres, accused of numerous war crimes, but his voice seems to have grown hoarse as the Gaza boy, Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub, 15 was shot by an Israeli sniper while protesting peacefully at the border.

However, there is a lesson in all of this. The Palestinian people should have no expectations of those who have constantly failed them. Chastising Palestinians for failing at this or that is an old habit, meant to simply hold Palestinians responsible for their own suffering, and to absolve Israel from any wrong doing. Not even Israel’s ‘incremental genocide‘ in Gaza will change that paradigm.

Instead, Palestinians must continue to count on themselves; to stay focused on formulating a proper strategy that will serve their own interests in the long run, the kind of strategy that transcends factionalism and offer all Palestinians a true roadmap to the coveted freedom.

The popular resistance in Gaza is just the beginning; it must serve as a foundation for a new outlook, a vision that will ensure that the blood of Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub is not spilled in vain.

May 1, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Only IAEA can assess any claim on Iranian nuclear program: Mogherini

Press TV – May 1, 2018

The EU foreign policy chief says what the Israeli premier tried to present as documents on Iran’s “secret” nuclear work fails to question Tehran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal, and that any such claims should solely be assessed by the UN nuclear watchdog.

“What I have seen from the first reports is that Prime Minister Netanyahu has not put into question Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) commitments, meaning post-2015 nuclear commitments,” Federica Mogherini said Monday.

The remarks came hours after Netanyahu unveiled what he claimed to be “conclusive proof of the secret” Iranian nuclear program during a televised address from Israel’s ministry for military affairs.

Standing in front of a big screen and using large visual aids, the prime minister claimed that “Iran is brazenly lying” about its nuclear activities, presenting 55,000 pages of documents and 55,000 files on CDs as alleged evidence.

Netanyahu’s new anti-Iran show comes just ahead of a May 12 deadline for US President Donald Trump to decide whether Washington would keep its side of the multilateral deal with Iran. Trump has given the European parties to the JCPOA until that date to fix the so-called “flaws” in the accord or face a US exit.

The Israeli leader’s fresh claims contradict numerous reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying Iran’s full commitment to its side of the bargain.

Mogherini further said the JCPOA “is not based on assumptions of good faith or trust – it is based on concrete commitments, verification mechanisms and a very strict monitoring of facts, done by the IAEA. The IAEA has published 10 reports, certifying that Iran has fully complied with its commitments.”

“And in any case, if any party and if any country has information of non-compliance, of any kind, it can and should address and channel this information to the proper, legitimate, recognized mechanisms, the IAEA and the Joint Commission [of the JCPOA] for the monitoring of the nuclear deal that I chair and that I convened just a couple of months ago. We have mechanisms in place to address eventual concerns,” she said.

“IAEA is the only impartial international organisation in charge of monitoring Iran’s nuclear commitments. If any country has information of non-compliance of any kind should address this information to the proper legitimate and recognised mechanism”

The top EU diplomat further reiterated that she had not seen from “Netanyahu arguments for the moment on non-compliance, meaning violation by Iran of its nuclear commitments under the deal.”

France says Netanyahu claims strengthen Iran deal

France’s Foreign Ministry said that the Israeli data underscored the need to ensure that the Iran nuclear deal and UN inspections remained.

“This information should be studied and evaluated in detail,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said in a statement.

“The new information presented by Israel could also confirm the need for longer-term assurances on the Iranian program, as the president has proposed,” the statement added.

The statement further said “it is essential that the IAEA can continue to verify Iran’s respect for JCPOA and the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”

All sides must abide by JCPOA: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with the Israeli premier on the phone, reaffirming Moscow’s support for the Iran deal.

“Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia’s position that the JCPOA, which has a paramount importance in terms of international stability and security, must be strictly observed by all its signatories,” the Kremlin press service quoted the Russian president as saying.

UK, Germany defend Iran deal

A British government spokesman also defended the Iran nuclear pact, saying the IAEA inspection regime “is one of the most extensive and robust in the history of international nuclear accords.”

“It remains a vitally important way of independently verifying that Iran is adhering to the deal and that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful,” he said in a statement.

Furthermore, a German government spokesman said Berlin will analyze the Israeli documents on Iran’s nuclear program, but independent inspections must be maintained.

He emphasized that “the nuclear accord was signed in 2015, including the implementation of an unprecedented, thorough and robust surveillance system by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

Israeli data ‘mostly recycled material’

Meanwhile, a former deputy director for sanctions at the US State Department said he had not seen anything in Netanyahu’s presentation that would change the accord, BBC reported.

“I think, frankly, this was a political statement meant to try to influence President Trump’s decision on whether to pull out of the deal,” John Hughes said, noting, “I think it’s mostly recycled material.”

May 1, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | European Union, Iran, Israel, JCPOA, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israel revokes residency of 4 Jerusalemite officials

Palestine Information Center – April 30, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Palestinian human rights sources said that Israel decided on Sunday to strip four Jerusalemite officials of their permanent residency under the pretext of not being loyal to Israel.

Lawyer Fadi al-Qawasmi said that Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri decided to revoke the residency of MPs Mohammed Abu Tir, Ahmad Attoun, and Mohammed Toutah as well as former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Khaled Abu Arafa.

Al-Qawasmi said in press statements that the decision came after the Knesset approved a new bill earlier in March that allows the Interior Minister to strip any Jerusalemite of his residency rights if he is involved in “terrorism” or “anti-Israel acts”.

According to al-Qawasmi, the Israeli Supreme Court in mid-September 2017 overturned a decision to revoke the residency of the Jerusalemite MPs. However, it decided to give the Israeli government a time limit to enact a law that gives the Interior Ministry the authority to strip any Jerusalemite of his residency.

The Palestinian lawyer described the bill as “unfair” and “illegal”, saying that it was applied retroactively. He affirmed that he will return to Israeli courts to oppose the decision.

The Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the Druze in the Syrian Golan Heights are considered residents not citizens by the Israeli authorities. Revoking their residency, according to the new bill, means expelling them permanently from these territories.

In 2006 the Israeli authorities confiscated the ID cards of the four Jerusalemite MPs after arresting them following their participation in a protest in Occupied Jerusalem. They spent several months in Israeli jails before they were deported to the West Bank.

April 30, 2018 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Human rights, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Corbyn should learn his lesson: compromise with the devil is not an option

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | April 30, 2018

There are two kinds of compromise: the strong compromise, and the weak.

The former is where you cede an interest to uphold a principle, the latter when you ignore your principles to further your interests.

The first is an important tool in all aspects of life, the second should almost always be avoided. Jeremy Corbyn should learn that lesson.

Twice in recent weeks Corbyn’s leadership has faced an opportunity to cede a point of principle in order to further – as they apparently see it – the interests of their party. Both times they have done so, both times were a huge mistake.

Antisemitism

The first question is: What does “Antisemitism in the Labour party” actually mean?

Let’s start by acknowledging what it isn’t. Criticising the government of Israel is not antisemitic. Supporting Palestine in its struggle for emancipation and justice is not antisemitic. Opposing George Soros’s neoliberal crusade through his various NGOs is not antisemitic. Accusing a Blairite MP (who happens to be Jewish) of working hand in hand with the right-wing press to undermine Corbyn is not antisemitic. Claiming Hitler was a “Zionist” may or may not be accurate, but it is not antisemitic. Even supporting the freedom of expression for a painter who makes a mural about the 1% that some third parties allege might appear to represent unflattering images of Jewish people (even though the artist denies it completely) is not antisemitic, unless specific intents can be established.

When we remove all these non-antisemitic incidents from the list of alleged “antisemitism” in the Labour Party, how much real antisemitism remains?

Very little to none would seem to be the answer. You might even argue there is less antisemitism within the Labour party than within the general population. Certainly there’s little evidence of any more. Ken Livingstone shows no signs of being antisemitic. Nor does the latest victim of the latest purge – Marc Wadsworth.

Wadsworth – a veteran anti-racism campaigner – has been expelled from the party for notionally being racist (it was actually “bringing the party into disrepute”, the evidence of racism was so little they couldn’t even officially call it that). He has been effectively sacrificed to appease the state-sponsored and state-supporting media in the UK.

This is a terrible mistake. By conceding this point of principle in order to gain a perceived strategic advantage Corbyn’s team have in fact conceded both principle and strategy to a force that has no interest in compromising with them and simply wants them gone. The result is this:

1. Labour’s right-wing, (who DO, demonstrably, work “hand in hand” with the anti-Corbyn press), have been allowed to define what “antisemitism” means, and they are going to take full advantage of this. From now on, any Labour MP or even grassroots member who criticises Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians – or who simply disagrees with another Labour member who happens to be Jewish – can look forward to being shamed and expelled. How does Corbyn see this as furthering the cause of freedom and democracy?

2. They have accepted the lie as truth. A man has been expelled for antisemitism. Even though the grounds are spurious, it will in future be cited as evidence that the left does indeed have a problem with antisemitism.

Corbyn’s team decided to play soft and weak, in the hopes that letting a little blood would sate the thirst of the media. But you don’t abate a feeding frenzy by chumming the water. You don’t compromise with the devil by selling a piece of your soul. They have made it immeasurably worse. Livingstone and Walker will follow, and slowly Corbyn’s allies in the party will be chipped away.

Russia

The same exact process is playing out with the “Russian interference” situation. When the first accusations of being “soft on Putin” were thrown around, the strong principled position to take would be to dismiss the smears as racist and stupid. Argue the issues, ignore the white noise of smear and innuendo.

Corbyn’s principles, and those of the Labour party, dictate that they should stand against prejudice, abuse, censorship and summary justice.

They COULD have made statements that RT is just as valid a medium to be interviewed on as the BBC or CNN. They could have pointed out that Russian money in London is fleeing Putin’s crackdown on the oligarchs. They could have stood by the truth, and to hell with what the press say.

Instead Corbyn’s camp saw a chance to score some easy points in the media. McDonnell decided to publicly denounce RT, whilst the “leftwing” press tried to attack the Tories for their “dirty” Russian donors. Instead of saying “this campaign of demonising Russians is degraded & offensive”, they said effectively “Yes, Russians are demons, but they like the Tories more than us!”

This is potentially a more egregious mistake than the antisemitism issue. Firstly, it endorses the quasi-racist idea that all things Russian are inherently tainted with evil. Secondly, it undermines RT, an important voice for alternative politicians in the UK. And it opens the gates to this:

Headline in the Sunday Times, April 29 2018

This is the most predictable headline I have ever seen. It’s more predictable than sunrise or the tides or the waning moon. It was destined from the moment of his first leadership victory. And Corbyn has no one to blame but himself.

By allowing the “Russiagate” hysteria to blossom without challenge, by allowing the memes of “dirty Russian money” in London, and the “Russian influence” of the Brexit vote to go unchecked, Corbyn has encouraged the climate where people can be “denounced” in true McCarthyite fashion. And now he is paying the price.

Corbyn seems to think a few little compromises will get him accepted in the mainstream media. It pains me to say it, but this is fundamentally untrue. You can’t compromise with someone who wants nothing but your total destruction. Hopefully Corbyn has learned this lesson by now.

And truth in politics is important, it has power, not simply through its rarity. Corbyn’s power came from telling truths we all knew and no one else was saying, and he has undermined it by allowing convenient lies to stand.

You can’t build a greater truth on a foundation of small, convenient lies. When a person tells a lie, it is an act of weakness to allow it to stand. Responding “Yes, but”, does nothing but reinforce the initial dishonesty.

You cannot allow the deep state to use their tools in the media to set the narrative. You cannot try to meet them in the middle, because they’ll just use that leverage to pull you further over to their side. A half-truth is just a lie that lacks conviction, and by letting them slide you allow the media to set the width of the Overton window.

Jeremy Corbyn is a good man, his entire career – apparently his entire outlook on life – is built around principle. It’s those principles that got him elected leader and made him so popular. He should not compromise them now, in order to appease people who will never be appeased.

April 30, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Palestine, UK, Zionism | Leave a comment

EU Sanctions Have ‘Disastrous’ Effects on Syria’s Civilian Population – AfD MP

By Suliman Mulhem | Sputnik | April 30, 2018

Earlier this year, a delegation from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party visited Syria to gain a better understanding of the situation in government-held areas of the war-torn country. The delegation’s leader Christian Blex, a member of the Bundestag, spoke to Sputnik reporter and columnist Suliman Mulhem about his findings.

Dr. Blex said the delegation “felt safe” throughout their tour of Syria – which included the cities of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo – while noting the presence of checkpoints manned by troops from the Syrian Army to clamp down on terrorists and smugglers attempting to transport armaments to militant-held parts of the country.

“The people on the streets looked completely normal and relaxed. The security situation seemed to me very good, at least beyond the reach of the artillery of the ‘moderate’ terrorists. But East Ghouta is fortunately free now, so Damascus cannot be targeted by mortars and rockets anymore as it is out of range,” Dr. Blex said in an interview with Sputnik on April 30.

On the topic of the repatriation of Syrian refugees in Europe, he said that the religious leaders of the Arab state, in addition to representatives of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) in Aleppo, called for the return of externally displaced Syrians.

“During our stay, we found no doubt that the return of Syrians of any religious affiliation is eagerly awaited.

When asked for his thoughts on the EU’s sanctions against Syria, Dr. Blex cited a 2016 report from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) which described the sanctions as “some of the most complicated and far-reaching sanctions ever imposed” and warned that they “punish ordinary Syrians and make the work of aid agencies almost impossible.”

The German lawmaker said his delegation saw the adverse implications of the sanctions on civilians during their visit to Syria.

“We were able to convince ourselves of the disastrous effect of the sanctions on the civilian population. In particular, the head of the University Hospital of Aleppo drew out attention to their devastating impact on the health system. Medicines and medical equipment, such as x-ray equipment, are no longer available. A spokesman for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid organization lamented that barely any more baby milk or child prostheses exist,” Dr. Blex told Sputnik.

“Extending the suffering of the Syrian people to topple President Bashar al-Assad is incompatible with my humanitarian principles and certainly not in German interests. The inhibiting effect of the sanctions on the Syrian economy also increases the pressure for migration to Germany. The sanctions will deliberately hinder the reconstruction of the country,” the lawmaker added.

Dr. Blex went on to outline how lifting the anti-Syria sanctions and providing economic assistance in the reconstruction phase will serve Germany’s interests.

“Every year, Germany pays 40 to 50 billion euros for the accommodation of the so-called refugees. These people will for the most part be permanently dependent on social benefits. Of course, therefore, it makes more sense to support the reconstruction in Syria in order to offer these people the opportunity to return to their homeland and earn a living there,” he concluded.

April 30, 2018 Posted by aletho | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | European Union, Germany, Syria | Leave a comment

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