Palestinians refuse to terminate social welfare for victims of Israeli aggression
MEMO | June 12, 2018
The Palestinian Authority has sent a defiant message to Israel over Tel Aviv’s attempt to freeze tax money used by the PA to pay victims of Israeli violence.
“There is no force in the world that can cause us to renounce our prisoners and the martyrs”, Yusuf Al-Mahmoud, spokesman for the PA government said, regarding Israel’s attempt to freeze Palestinian tax revenue.
Al-Mahmoud claimed that Israel bore full responsibility for violence in the region and said that it was “stealing their [Palestinian] money on the pretext of offsetting tax revenues”.
His comments follow repeated attempts by the Israeli government to use Palestinian tax revenue to gain political concession. The tax collection regime in the occupied territory, which grants Israel the right to collect tax on behalf of the Palestinians and then distribute it, is one of the many oddities to come out of the Oslo Accords.
The Knesset is currently discussing a bill to impound tax revenue that would have been handed to families and victims of violence perpetrated by the Israeli army. Protesters killed and injured in Gaza would be eligible for these payments, which Netanyahu is trying to block.
Israeli sources reported that last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Meir Shabbat, chief of Israel’s National Security Council, to deduct money from the taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in order to pay for the damage from fires caused by “rioter-terrorists” in Gaza sending kites attached to firebombs into Israeli territory.
“The martyr’s fund”, as it is known, has become a highly contentious issue. While Palestinians feel they have every right to use their own funds to provide welfare and social security to families of injured or deceased protesters resisting Israel’s brutal occupation, Israel feels it can exploit the tax situation to pile further pressure on the PA.
In addition to the bill discussed at the Knesset, senior members of the Israeli government have conditioned future negotiations on the PA suspending its welfare programme. Commentators have pointed out that this was another crude attempt to blame the victims. Insisting on the PA conceding on an issue that is a red line in the eyes of Palestinians is an attempt to shift the blame for the ongoing conflict away from Israel, and possibly stymie any future negotiations.
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The international community should not stand by as Israel abuses Palestinians
North Korea foreign minister calls Netanyahu “stinking Zionist”
Palestine Information Center – June 12, 2018
PYONGYANG – North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-Ho has described Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu as a “stinking Zionist” and bashed his offer to provide the citizens of Iran with water purification technology while Gaza faces a severe water crisis.
“Stinking Zionist Netanyahu offer water to Iran; he’s criminal/liar so wouldn’t deliver. Meanwhile, he can’t be bothered giving water to Gaza; he kills them instead,” Yong-Ho said on his Twitter page.
Yong-Ho’s Twitter remarks came as North Korea was gearing up for a landmark meeting to be held soon in Singapore between its leader Kim Jong Un and US president Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel.
A second Tweet from the foreign minister said that while officials were preparing for the summit, “[North Korea] can’t fail to note stinking Zionist warmonger Netanyahu in Europe seeking to isolate Iran.”
It further accused Netanyahu of “working overtime to make the Singapore Summit fail; he hates DPRK,” it added, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The North Korean remarks were apparently prompted in part by a video published at Netanyahu’s official social media channels with an offer to Iran to provide its citizens with Israeli water technologies to combat persistent drought in the country.
The international community should not stand by as Israel abuses Palestinians
Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East including the Question of Palestine at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States on 1 June, 2018
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2018
What is taking place in Palestine is not a ‘conflict’. We readily utilise the term but, in fact, the word ‘conflict’ is misleading. It equates oppressed Palestinians with Israel, a military power that stands in violation of numerous United Nations Resolutions.
It is these ambiguous terminologies that allow the likes of United States UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, to champion Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’, as if the militarily occupied and colonised Palestinians are the ones threatening the security of their occupier and tormentor.
In fact, this is precisely what Haley has done to counter a draft UN Security Council Resolution presented by Kuwait to provide a minimum degree of protection for Palestinians. Haley vetoed the draft, thus continuing a grim legacy of US defence of Israel, despite the latter’s ongoing violence against Palestinians.
It is no surprise that out of the 80 vetoes exercised by the US at the UNSC, the majority were unleashed to protect Israel. The first such veto for Israel’s sake was in September 1972 and the latest, used by Haley, was on 1 June.
Before it was put to the vote, the Kuwaiti draft was revised three times in order to ‘water it down’. Initially, it called for the protection of the Palestinian people from Israeli violence.
The final draft merely called for “The consideration of measures to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in the Gaza Strip”.
Still, Haley found the language “grossly one-sided”.
The near consensus in support of Kuwait’s draft was met with complete rejection of Haley’s own draft resolution which demanded Palestinian groups cease “all violent provocative actions” in Gaza.
The ‘provocative actions’ being referred to in Haley’s draft is the mass mobilisation by tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, who have been peacefully protesting for weeks, hoping that their protests will place the Israeli siege on Gaza back on the UN agenda.
Haley’s counter draft resolution did not garner a single vote in favor, save that of Haley’s own. But such humiliation on the international stage is hardly of essence to the US, which has wagered its international reputation and foreign policy to protect Israel at any cost, even from unarmed observers whose job is merely to report on what they see on the ground.
The last such ‘force’ was that of 60 – later increased to 90 – members of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH).
TIPH was established in May 1996 and has filed many reports on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian city, especially in Area H-2, a small part of the city that is controlled by the Israeli army to protect some of the most violent illegal Jewish settlers.
Jan Kristensen, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Norwegian army who headed TIPH had these words to say following the completion of his one-year mission in Hebron in 2004:
“The activity of the settlers and the army in the H-2 area of Hebron is creating an irreversible situation. In a sense, cleansing is being carried out. In other words, if the situation continues for another few years, the result will be that no Palestinians will remain there.”
One can only imagine what has befallen Hebron since then. The army and Jewish settlers have become so emboldened to the extent that they execute Palestinians in cold blood with little or no consequence.
One such episode became particularly famous, for it was caught on camera. On 24 March 2015 an Israeli soldier carried out a routine operation by shooting in the head an incapacitated Palestinian.
The execution of Abd Al-Fattah Al-Sharif, 21, was filmed by Imad Abushamsiya. The viral video caused Israel massive embarrassment, forcing it to hold a sham trial in which the Israeli soldier who killed Al-Sharif received a light sentence; he was later released to a reception fit for heroes.
Abushamsiya, who filmed the murder, however, was harassed by both the Israeli army and police and received numerous death threats.
The Israeli practice of punishing the messenger is not new. The mother of Ahed Tamimi, Nariman, who filmed her teenage daughter confronting armed Israeli soldiers was also detained and sentenced.
Israel has practically punished Palestinians for recording their own subjugation by Israeli troops while, at the same time, empowering these very soldiers to do as they please; it is now in the process of turning this everyday reality into actual law.
A bill at the Israeli Knesset was put forward late May that prohibits “photographing and documenting (Israeli occupation) soldiers”, and criminalising “anyone who filmed, photographed and/or recorded soldiers in the course of their duty”.
The bill, which is supported by Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, demands a five-year imprisonment term for violators.
The bill practically means that any form of monitoring Israeli soldiers is a criminal act. If this is not a call for perpetual war crimes, what is?
Just to be sure, a second bill is proposing to give immunity to soldiers suspected of criminal activities during military operations.
The bill is promoted by deputy Defence Minister, Eli Ben Dahan, and is garnering support at the Knesset.
“The truth is that Ben Dahan’s bill is entirely redundant”, wrote Orly Noy in the Israeli +972 website.
Noy cited a recent report by the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din which shows that “soldiers who allegedly commit crimes against the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories enjoy near-full immunity”.
Now, Palestinians are more vulnerable than ever before, and Israel, with the help of its American enablers, is more brazen than ever.
This tragedy cannot continue. The international community and civil society organisations – independent of the US government and its shameful vetoes – must undertake the legal and moral responsibility to monitor Israeli action and to provide meaningful protection for Palestinians.
Israel should not have free reign to abuse Palestinians at will, and the international community should not stand by and watch the bloody spectacle as it continues to unfold.
[Photo credit – Atılgan Özdil/Anadolu Agency]
Understanding Jewish Power
Who has helped create a war-addicted America?
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • June 12, 2018
I recently was asked to speak at an online conference entitled Deep Truth: Encountering Deep State Lies. My panel addressed Understanding Zionism: Deconstructing the Power Paradigm and my own topic was How Jewish Power Sustains the Israel Narrative. Working on my presentation, I was forced to confront the evolution of my own views on both the corruption of government in the United States and the ability of powerful domestic lobbies to deliberately distort the perception of national interests to benefit foreign countries even when that activity does terrible damage to the U.S.
My personal journey began half a century ago. I became part of the U.S. national security state after being drafted for the Vietnam War when I graduated from college in 1968. I was at the time, vaguely pro-war, having bought into the media argument that international communism was mounting a major threat in southeast Asia. I also found the anti-war student movement distasteful because I was acquainted with many of its spokesmen and knew that they were chiefly motivated by a desire to avoid the draft, not due to any perception that the war itself was wrong or misguided. I knew a lot about the Punic Wars but precious little about former French Indochina and I suspect that those chanting “Ho-ho-Ho Chi Minh” might have known even less that I did.
Because I spoke some Russian, I wound up in an army intelligence collection unit in West Berlin for three years where I and my fifty or so comrades did absolutely nothing but drink and party. It was my introduction to how government really works when it was not working at all and it did provide me with GI Bill money to go to grad school. After my PhD came a relatively easy transition to CIA given the fact that my degree was so obscure that no one but the government would hire me.
The journey from an army unit that was asleep at the wheel to the CIA, which was in full downsizing crisis mode post-Vietnam, was educational. Whereas the army was too bloated and complacent even to fake it, the Agency was fully capable of creating crises and then acting like the defender of American interests as it worked to resolve the various situations that it had invented. The war against Eurocommunism, which I was engaged in, was hyped and billed as the next great threat against the American way of life after the Vietnam blunder, swallowing up resources pointlessly as neither France, nor Spain nor Italy ever came close to entering the Red orbit.
As I climbed up the CIA ladder I also noticed something else. There was the equivalent of a worldwide conspiracy to promote threats to keep big national security-based government well-funded and in place. When I was in Turkey I began to note considerable intelligence liaison reporting coming from the Israelis and others promoting their own agendas. The material was frequently fictional in nature, but the danger was that it was being mixed in with more credible reporting which gave it traction. U.S. government consumers of the reporting would inevitably absorb the dubious viewpoint being promoted that Arabs and Iranians were fundamentally untrustworthy and were in bed with the Soviets.
There was considerable negative reporting on Saddam Hussein also coming out of Israel and motivated by his support of the Palestinians. Some of this ultimately surfaced in the Pentagon’s Paul Wolfowitz-Doug Feith assessments of “intelligence that had been missed” which eventually became pretexts for the catastrophic Iraq War. I later learned that both Feith and Wolfowitz had a virtually revolving door of Israeli intelligence officials and diplomats running through their Pentagon offices in the lead-up to that war.
It did not take much to connect the dots and realize that Israel, far from being a friend and ally, was the principal catalyst for the many missteps that the United States has made in the Middle East. U.S. policy in the region was being deliberately shaped around Israeli concerns by American Jews ensconced in the Pentagon and White House who certainly knew exactly what they were doing. No one should blame the Israelis for acting in their own self-interest, but every loyal American should blame the Libbys, Feiths and Wolfowitzes for their willingness to place Israeli interests ahead of those of their own country.
After my departure from government in part over my disagreement with the Iraq War, this willingness to place the United States in peril to serve the interests of a foreign country began to bother me, and there is no country that manipulates the U.S. government better or more persistently than Israel. I gradually became involved with those who were pushing back against the Israel Lobby, though it was not generally referred to in those terms before Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer produced their seminal work The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy in 2006.
It does not take a genius to figure out that the United States is deeply involved in a series of seemingly endless wars pitting it against predominantly Muslim nations even though Washington has no vital interests at stake in places like Syria, Libya and Iraq. Who is driving the process and benefiting? Israel is clearly the intended beneficiary of a coordinated effort mounted by more than 600 Jewish organizations in the U.S. that have at least as part of their programs the promotion and protection of Israel. Ironically, organizations that promote the interests of a foreign government are supposed to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) but not a single pro-Israel organization has ever done so nor even been seriously challenged on the issue, a tribute to their power in dealing with the federal government.
Those who are in the drivers’ seat of the Israel promotion process are what some would describe as the Israel Lobby but which I would prefer to call a subset of the Jewish Lobby, which in itself is supported by something I would designate Jewish Power, an aggregate of Jewish money, control over key aspects of the media and entertainment industries plus easy access to corrupted politicians desirous of positive press and campaign donations. This penetration and control of the public discourse has resulted in the creation of what I would refer to as the official “Israel narrative,” in which Israel, which claims perpetual victimhood, is reflexively referred to as “the only democracy in the Middle East” and “Washington’s closest ally and friend,” assertions that are completely false but which have been aggressively and successfully promoted to shape how Americans view the Israeli-Arab conflict. Palestinians resisting the Israeli occupation are invariably described as “terrorists” both in the U.S. and Israel.
Jewish Power is a funny thing. If you read the Jewish media or the Israeli press, to include Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Haaretz or the Jerusalem Post, you will find frequent references to it, nearly always seen as completely laudable. Bottom feeder Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard recently boasted that “Jews should not apologize for being so rich, controlling the media or influencing public debate…they have earned it… never apologize for using your strength…”
For many Jews like Dershowitz, Jewish power is something to be proud of, but they also believe that it should never be noticed or examined by non-Jews. Gentile criticism of Jewish collective behavior is something that must continue to be forbidden, just as the expression “Israeli Lobby” was largely taboo before Walt and Mearsheimer. Israeli partisans regularly engage in the defamation of individuals, including myself, who do not conform to the taboos as anti-Semites or holocaust deniers, labels deliberately used as weapons to end discussion and silence critics whenever necessary.
So why do I think that we have to start talking about Jewish Power as opposed to the euphemism Israel Lobby? It is because the wars in the Middle East, which have done so much to damage the United States and were at least in part arranged to benefit Israel, have been largely driven by wealthy and powerful Jews. If America goes to war with Iran, as is increasingly likely, it will be all about Israel and it will be arranged by the political and financial services Washington-Wall Street axis, make no mistake.
To my mind, Israel is America’s number one foreign policy problem in that it is able and willing to start potentially catastrophic wars with countries that it has demonized but that do not threaten the U.S. And those doing the manipulating are bipartisan Jewish oligarchs with deep pockets that support the multitude of pro-Israel organizations, think tanks and media outlets that have done so much to corrupt America’s political process. Hollywood producer Haim Saban, a principal Democratic Party supporter, has said that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel. Principal GOP funder casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who served in the U.S. Army in World War 2, has said that he regrets that service and would have preferred to be in the Israel Defense Forces. They as well as others, including fund manager Paul Singer and Home Depot’s Bernard Marcus, are Jews laboring on behalf of the self-proclaimed Jewish State while the neoconservatives, fiercely protective of Israel, are also nearly all Jewish. Asserting that the fact that they are Jews acting for a Jewish state should be irrelevant as they are also doing what is good for America, as is commonly done by their apologists, is logically inconsistent and borders on absurdity. As for the frequently cited Bible belt Christian-Zionists who support Israel, they are, to be sure, numerous, but they do not have the access to real power in the United States that Jews have.
Jewish Power is also what has in part driven the United States into a moral cesspit. Israeli snipers shoot dead scores of unarmed Gazan demonstrators and hardly anyone in Washington has anything to say about it. America’s Ambassador to Israel, an Orthodox Jewish lawyer named David Friedman who has multiple ties to Israel’s illegal settlements, uses his position to defend Israel, ignoring U.S. interests. Last week he held a press conference in which he told reporters to “shut their mouths” in their criticism of Israel’s slaughter of Gazans.
When a young Palestinian nurse is deliberately targeted and killed while treating a wounded man, it hardly appears in the U.S. media. Arab teenagers are shot in the back while running away from Israeli gunmen while a young woman is sentenced to prison for slapping an Israel soldier who had just shot her cousin and was invading her home. Heavily armed Israeli settlers run amok on the West Bank, beating and killing Arabs and destroying their livelihoods. That is what Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are all about and that is precisely the kind of a nation that America should not want to become, but unfortunately the role of Washington as Israel’s obedient poodle has our once great country moving in the wrong direction. This has all been brought about by Jewish Power and it is time to wake up to that fact and address it squarely.
Israel closes Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron
A view of Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, West Bank on 8 July 2017 [Issam Rimawi/ Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | June 11, 2018
The Israeli occupation forces yesterday closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron to Muslim worshippers without prior notice.
Israel’s 0404 website claimed that an explosive device was found in the vicinity of the mosque earlier in the day.
Israel forces intensified their presence in the area and closed the mosque following the incident, the sources added.
No further details were given, nor is it known when the mosque would be reopened.
Muslims are observing the fast during the holy month of Ramadan which is due to come to an end this weekend. Additional prayers are held in the mosque on a daily basis during this period.
Palestinian residents of Hebron’s Old City face a large Israeli military presence on a daily basis, with at least 20 checkpoints set up at the entrances of many streets, as well as the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque itself.
They are also not permitted to drive on Al-Shuhada Street, have had their homes and shops on the street welded shut, and are not allowed to walk on some roads in the Old City.
Meanwhile, some 800 notoriously violent Israeli settlers in Hebron move freely on the street, drive cars, and carry machine guns.
Rebuffed parliamentary bills foil efforts to end Israeli apartheid
As Israel’s belligerent rule in the occupied territories is under ever greater scrutiny, so too is its claim to be a democracy conferring equal rights on all citizens
By Jonathon Cook | The National | June 10, 2010
For most of the seven decades after its establishment, Israel went to extraordinary lengths to craft an image of itself as a “light unto the nations”.
It claimed to have “made the desert bloom” by planting forests over the razed houses of 750,000 Palestinians it exiled in 1948. Soldiers in the “most moral army in the world” reputedly cried as they were compelled to shoot Palestinian “infiltrators” trying to return home. And all this occurred in what Israelis claimed was the Middle East’s “only democracy”.
An industry known as hasbara – a euphemism for propaganda – recruited Jews in Israel and abroad to a campaign to persuade the world that the Palestinians’ dispossession was for the good of mankind. Israel’s achievements in science, agriculture and medicine were extolled.
But in a more interconnected world, that propaganda campaign is swiftly unravelling. Phone cameras now record “moral” soldiers executing unarmed Palestinians in Gaza or beating up children in Hebron.
The backlash, including a growing international boycott movement, has driven Israel’s right wing into even greater defiance and self-righteousness. It no longer conceals its goal to aggressively realise a longed-for “Greater Israel”.
A parallel process is overtaking Israel’s traditional left but has been far less noticed. It too is stubbornly committed to its ideological legacy – the creation of a supposed “Jewish and democratic state” after 1948.
And just as the immorality of Israel’s belligerent rule in the occupied territories is under ever greater scrutiny, so too is its claim to be a democracy conferring equal rights on all citizens.
Israel includes a large minority of 1.8 million Palestinian citizens, the remnants of those who survived the expulsions required for its creation. Although Palestinian citizens have the vote, it was an easy generosity after Israel gerrymandered the electoral constituency in 1948 to ensure Palestinians remained a permanent and decisive minority.
In a system of residential apartheid, Palestinian citizens have been confined to ghettos on a tiny fraction of land while Israel has “nationalised” 93 per cent of its territory for Jews around the world.
But after decades of repression, including an initial 20 years living under military rule, the Palestinian minority has gradually grown more confident in highlighting Israel’s political deficiencies.
In recent days, Palestinian legislators have submitted three legislative measures before parliament to explode the illusion that Israel is a western-style liberal democracy.
None stood the faintest chance of being passed in a system rigged to keep Palestinian lawmakers out of any of Israel’s complex but entirely Zionist coalition governments.
The first measure sought to revoke the quasi-governmental status of major international Zionist organisations like the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Jewish Agency.
Although they are treated like state bodies, these organisations are obligated through their charters to discriminate in allocating state resources and rights to Jews around the world rather than to Israelis. The aim is to exclude Palestinian citizens from major state benefits.
The JNF bans access for non-Jews to most land in Israel and develops new communities exclusively for Jews, while the Jewish Agency restricts immigration and associated perks to Jews alone.
The bill – designed to end decades of explicit discrimination against one fifth of Israel’s citizenry – was defeated when all the Jewish parties voted against it. Zuheir Bahloul, the sole Palestinian legislator in Zionist Union, the centre-left party once called Labour, was furiously denounced by Jewish colleagues for breaking ranks and voting for the bill.
That was no surprise. The party’s previous leader, Isaac Herzog, is the frontrunner to become the next chair of the Jewish Agency. Israel’s left still venerates these organisations that promote ethnic privileges – for Jews – of a sort once familiar from apartheid South Africa.
Mr Bahloul also found himself in the firing line after he submitted a separate bill requiring that for the first time the principle of equality be enshrined in all 11 Basic Laws, Israel’s equivalent of a constitution. The proposal was roundly defeated, including by his own party.
The third measure was a bill demanding that Israel be reformed from a Jewish state into a state of all its citizens, representing all equally. In a highly irregular move, a committee dominated by Jewish legislators voted to disqualify the bill last week from even being allowed a hearing on the parliament floor.
The parliament’s legal adviser, Eyal Yinon, warned that the measure would alter Israel’s character by giving Jewish and Palestinian citizens “equal status”. Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein called the bill “preposterous”. “Any intelligent individual can see it must be blocked immediately,” he said.
Law professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, meanwhile, conceded that the bill exposed Israeli democracy as “fundamentally flawed”.
These three bills from Palestinian legislators might have redressed some of the inequities contained in nearly 70 Israeli laws that, according to Adalah, a legal rights group, explicitly discriminate based on ethnicity.
Paradoxically, the number of such laws has grown prolifically in recent years as Adalah and others have challenged Jewish privileges in the courts.
The Israeli left and right have joined forces to shore up these threatened racist practices through new legislation – secure that an intimidated supreme court will not dare revoke the will of parliament.
The reality is that left-wing Israelis – shown beyond doubt that their state is not the liberal democracy they imagined – have hurried to join the right in silencing critics and implementing harsher repression.
Palestinian citizens who peacefully protested against the massacre of demonstrators in Gaza by army snipers were assaulted in police custody last month. One arrested civil society leader had his knee broken. There have been barely any objections, even on the left.
Today, Israelis are hunkering down. Boycott activists from abroad are denied entry. Unarmed Palestinian demonstrators have been gunned down in Gaza. And critics inside Israel are silenced or beaten up.
All these responses have the same end in mind: to block anything that might burst the bubble of illusions and threaten Israelis’ sense of moral superiority.
Youngsters “Disabled for Life” by Israel’s Shoot-to-Cripple Policy in Gaza
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | June 10, 2018
Writing in the BMJ (British Medical Journal) the Head of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Gaza, Dr Nafiz Abu-Shaban, reports that the death and injury toll by sniper fire, as at 18 May, was 117 dead, including 13 children, and 12,271 injured, of whom 6,760 had been hospitalised, including 3,598 with bullet wounds. The numbers will be considerably higher by now.
Worse still, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who operate in Gaza, the Israelis have been using ammunition that causes fist-sized wounds of “unusual severity”.
In a press release dated 19 April MSF surgeons in Gaza report “devastating gunshot wounds among hundreds of people injured during the protests over recent weeks. The huge majority of patients – mainly young men, but also some women and children – have unusually severe wounds to the lower extremities. MSF medical teams note the injuries include an extreme level of destruction to bones and soft tissue, and large exit wounds that can be the size of a fist.
“Half of the more than 500 patients we have admitted in our clinics have injuries where the bullet has literally destroyed tissue after having pulverized the bone,” said Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, Head of Mission of MSF in Palestine. “These patients will need to have very complex surgical operations and most of them will have disabilities for life.”
She is reported saying that she hadn’t seen these kind of injuries before. The wounds appeared to be caused by ammunition with an expanding ‘butterfly’ effect.
“Mass lifelong disability now the prospect for young Gazans who merely gathered in unarmed protest”
Abu-Shaban says the hundreds of high energy compound tibial fractures from Israeli live fire are the most difficult of all open fractures to treat. They may require between 5 and 7 surgical procedures, each operation taking 3-6 hours. “Even with state-of-the-art reconstruction, healing takes 1-2 years. Most of these patients will develop osteomyelitis. A steadily increasing toll of secondary amputations is inevitable. They will also need intensive rehabilitation, but the only rehabilitation hospital in Gaza was destroyed by Israeli bombing in 2014 and has not been re-built. Mass lifelong disability is now the prospect facing Gazan citizens, largely young, who were merely gathering in unarmed protest about Israeli occupation and siege that has rendered their political and social futures impossible.”
Reconstructing such injuries is far beyond the capabilities of Gazan medical services, now severely run down after 12 years of Israeli siege. Shifa is swamped and has no beds let alone the dedicated Limb Salvage Teams necessary for this work. Even London hospitals, which are fully resourced, would be stretched if confronted with mass casualties of this kind, says Abu-Shaban. “How are we here in Gaza to manage this situation? Why has no European government spoken out about events which if they had happened elsewhere would surely have been called an international outrage and probable war crime?”
Good question. The sniveling international community does nothing to stop the vile crimes perpetrated by the self-styled ‘most moral army in the world’.
“I understand there is now the question of an investigation by the International Criminal Court,” says the good doctor hopefully.
Well, not quite. The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has adopted a resolution to set up an independent, international Commission of Inquiry to investigate all violations of humanitarian and international human rights law in the occupied Palestinian territory, with a particular focus on recent events in Gaza.
The resolution passed with only two states opposing (the USA and another of Israel’s poodles, Australia), 29 in favour, and 14 abstentions. The UK was one of those abstaining, alongside the EU states of Croatia, Germany, Hungary, and Slovakia.
“Gazans did all the dying and the Israeli soldiers did all the killing”
Trying to explain its abstention, the UK Mission in Geneva called the resolution “partial and unhelpfully unbalanced” for not “explicitly call[ing] for an investigation into the action of non-state actors such as Hamas.” The UK Government then issued this feeble statement: “In addition to abstaining on today’s resolution, we call directly on Israel to make clear its intentions and carry out what must be a transparent inquiry into the IDF’s conduct at the border fence and to demonstrate how this will achieve a sufficient level of independence. This investigation should include international members. The death toll alone warrants such a comprehensive inquiry. We urge that the findings of such an investigation be made public, and if wrongdoing is found, that those responsible be held to account.”
Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem had called the already-announced internal Israeli military probe “part of the whitewashing toolkit”. And the British Government was sharply criticised in parliament for its limp-wristed attitude and reminded of Israel’s self-exoneration over the killing of four boys playing on a beach during the 2014 military offensive on Gaza.
Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, asked: “Given that Gazans did all the dying and the Israeli soldiers did all the killing, how does the Minister expect an internal Israeli inquiry…. to be less partial and less unhelpfully unbalanced than the inquiry mandated by the UN Human Rights Council?”
“Systematic failure by Israel to carry out genuine investigations”
The preamble to the UNHRC resolution states the reasons for action brilliantly and is worth highlighting here….
Convinced that the lack of accountability for violations of international law reinforces a culture of impunity, leading to a recurrence of violations and seriously endangering international peace,
Noting the systematic failure by Israel to carry out genuine investigations in an impartial, independent, prompt and effective way, as required by international law, into the violence and offences against Palestinians by the occupying forces, and to establish judicial accountability for its actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,
Emphasizing the obligations of Israel as the occupying Power to ensure the safety, well-being and protection of the Palestinian civilian population under its occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,
Emphasizing also that the intentional targeting of civilians and other protected persons in situations of armed conflict, including foreign occupation, constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and poses a threat to international peace and security,
Recognizing the importance of the right to life and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association to the full enjoyment of all human rights…
Despite all that, avid Israel admirer Theresa May, barmy Boris Johnson and the insufferably gutless spivs now populating the Foreign Office still couldn’t bring themselves to support the resolution.
“To live is to resist”
Another voice from Gaza, which I shall not name, reports:
“As you know we don’t have enough supply of electricity which means lots of hurdles and difficulties on all aspects of life. The conditions in Gaza are the most difficult ones in terms of the Zionist killings and aggression against the Great Marches of Return. I myself went there to the borders with my family three times and saw how their evil soldiers shooting innocent children and women. I heard some of the guys shouting that they have got nothing to loose. To live is to resist. That’s what we also teach to our students and young generations. The oppressed and occupied have got the right to resist by all means available.
“It is a pity and tragic as well that the injured could not find enough medical care and nursing due to the shortage of medical staff and equipment. Can you imagine? So many causalities were sent home after receiving only first aid and some sort of dressings to their wounds as there were no enough beds and treatment for them. That’s why many have lost their legs (amputations) where the enemies are using high velocity bullets.”
Boys’ legs the target
The shoot-to-cripple policy by Israel is nothing new. Retired trauma surgeon David Halpin, who has often worked on a voluntary basis in Gaza hospitals, drew attention to it in January 2011: “The deliberate injury of the limbs of 23 boys by high velocity weapons has been logged and described by Defence for Children International Palestine Branch (DCI-P) since March 2010.”
He pointed to the extreme poverty of large extended families which had forced boys and men to scavenge for broken concrete (‘gravel’) in the evacuated Eli Sinai ‘settlement’ and in the industrial zone by the Erez border control post at the northern end of the Gaza Strip. “The factories of the industrial zone have been progressively demolished by Israeli shelling etc…. A donkey and cart, shovel, pick, sieve, muscles and courage are the tools. The rubble is used to make blocks and poured concrete with the cement that is imported largely through the tunnels. Many dozens of men and boys do this work for precious shekels in the shadow of manned watch towers and under ‘drones’ above.”
A leg was the target in most cases, says Halpin. And where the leg was not the target it is likely the sniper was ‘aiming up’ so the flank, elbow etc was hit instead. “No weapons were being borne by the gravel workers so they posed no threat to the Israeli Occupation Force personnel. Instead they were bending their backs to their menial work within their internment camp.” In many cases those hit were likely to have lifelong disability. That, it seems, continues to be the Israeli regime’s sickening aim.
And to think that its chief degenerate, Netanyahu, was allowed to set foot in London earlier this week in his never-ending quest to demonize those who stand in the way of Israel’s warmongering and expansionist ambition – namely Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
Israeli military attempts to smear slain Palestinian medic with inaccurate video
RT | June 8, 2018
The Israel Defense Forces’ attempt to smear medic Razan al-Najjar, the 21-year-old killed last week, backfired when a video it shared on social media was swiftly debunked.
The IDF shared an edited video of Najjar on both its English and Arabic spokesperson Twitter accounts on Thursday.
“Hamas’ use of human shields must stop.” it wrote in English. “Razan al-Najjar is not the angel of mercy that Hamas propaganda attempts to portray,” the Arabic spokesman Avichay Edraee’s tweet reads. The Arabic version of the video begins with an image of Najjar with angel wings and a halo. The video, which has an ominous soundtrack, claims Najjar was “incited by Hamas,” and it shows footage of Najjar throwing a gas canister.
Another clip shows an interview with Najjar – which has been carefully edited to exclude half of her sentence. “I am Razan al-Najjar. I am here on the frontlines and I act as a human shield,” the English subtitles read. The video then cuts to text reading, “Hamas uses paramedics as human shields,” before encouraging people to share.
Debunking
However, the video turned out to be made from a heavily edited original. The first scene, which reportedly shows Najjar throwing the gas canister, clearly shows her throw it away from the people she is standing with, and nowhere near the fence. The canister falls in the grass mere meters away from the woman. She is wearing a surgical mask at the time, although it has not been confirmed that Najjar is even the woman in the video.
The next clip featured in the video, the interview with Najjar, is also not as it seems. The IDF decided to cut mid-way through the interview with Al Mayadeen, so viewers have no idea what the second half of her sentence is. The full sentence was: “I am Razan al-Najjar. I am here on the frontlines and I act as a rescuing human shield to protect the and save the wounded at the frontlines.”
Najjar was shot in the chest while she was wearing her medical uniform last Friday. A preliminary probe by the Israeli army found soldiers did not mean to fire at Najjar, and that she was not a target.
However, two weeks ago, the IDF shot 19 medical personnel in Gaza in a single day, including Moussa Abu Hassanein, who was fatally shot in the chest. Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani was among the medics who were shot that day, and he maintains they were targeted by Israeli forces.
In her interview with Al Mayadeen, Najjar also said, “With all my strength and determination and whatever risks I will continue my career and I will save all the injured, so that they return and defend our land.” Her words suggest that she had no intention of dying as a human shield.”
Israel often accuses Palestinians of partaking in ‘Pallywood,’ which they claim are fake videos and images designed to gain attention from Western media. However, Israel has been caught doing the same thing it accuses the Palestinians of, only in their case, it is an effort to minimize their crimes against Palestinians. Israel has also been found to use Palestinians as humanshields themselves.
May welcomes Netanyahu despite atrocities against Palestinians
PressTVUK | Jun 8, 2018
“You shouldn’t be receiving this war criminal!”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is welcomed by EU leaders during European tour but condemned by protestors for crimes against Palestinians at every turn. Amina Taylor files this report.
Israel scores painful own goal in run-up to the World Cup
By James M. Dorsey | The Turbulent World of Mideast Soccer | June 6, 2018
Argentina’s cancellation of a friendly against Israel because of Israeli attempts to exploit the match politically is likely to reverberate far beyond the world of soccer and spotlights the risks of Israeli efforts to persuade the international community to recognize Jerusalem as its capital.
The Argentinian decision suggests that despite the fact several countries, including East European nations, are debating whether to follow US President Donald J. Trump’s decision earlier this year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state and move the US embassy to the city, Israel is likely to find it difficult to capitalize on the US move in ways that convincingly project widespread international support.
Even worse, the decision illustrates that efforts to force recognition could backfire.
The Argentinian move has buoyed the grassroots Boycott, Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign that seeks to isolate Israel in non-violent defense of Palestinian rights after Israel has made countering the movement one of its top foreign policy objectives.
“The cancellation of Israel’s ‘friendly’ match with Argentina is a boost to the Red Card Israel campaign, which has called on FIFA to expel Israel – as it expelled apartheid South Africa – due to its violations against Palestinian football and its disregard for FIFA statutes,” BDS said in a statement.
The cancellation is BDS’s greatest success to date. Before that, it had only persuaded a small number of artists and organizations to boycott Israel.
An online campaign late last year convinced New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde to cancel a planned concert in Israel. She followed other artists who have cancelled performances, including Elvis Costello, Lauryn Hill and Gorillaz.
The Argentinian decision has prompted concern that it could become the model for similar efforts in the future. One immediate target could be Israel’s scheduled hosting next year of the Eurovision song contest.
Argentina decided to cancel the match in the run-up to this month’s World Cup in Russia after Israel insisted on moving it from the Mediterranean port city of Haifa, home to Israel’s best stadium, to Jerusalem as part of the Jewish state’s 70th anniversary celebrations. Tickets for the Jerusalem match had sold out quickly.
The Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and Argentinian media said the decision was in response to a series of unidentified “threats and provocations” against star player Lionel Messi and his wife.
“Since they announced they would play against Israel, various terror groups have been sending messages and letters to players on the Argentina national team and their relatives, including clear threats to hurt them and their families. These included video clips of dead children,” said hard-line Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev, whom many hold responsible for Israel’s public relations fiasco.
Ms. Regev was referring to video clips that had been circulated by the Islamic State, including pictures of Mr. Messi in an orange jumpsuit and ones that insinuated his beheading. A Palestinian campaign against playing the match in Jerusalem involved images of Mr. Messi’s white and sky-blue striped jersey stained with red paint resembling blood and threats to burn Messi posters.
The Palestine Football Federation (PFF) had early called on its Argentinian counterpart to cancel the match because of the move to Jerusalem, which it described as a violation of world soccer body FIFA’s principle of a separation of sports and politics.
PFF president Jibril Rajoub also urged Palestinian fans to burn pictures of Messi and replicas of his shirt if he played in the match in Jerusalem.
“He’s a big symbol so we are going to target him personally, and we call on all to burn his picture and his shirt and to abandon him. We still hope that Messi will not come,” Mr Rajoub said after talks with Argentinian diplomats based in the West Bank city of Ramallah prior to the cancellation.
It was FIFA’s ban on political interference in soccer that persuaded Argentine President Mauricio Macri to reject a request by Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to pre-empt the cancellation of the match.
The Israeli failure to have the match played in Jerusalem strengthens not only the BDS movement.
It also boosts Mr. Rajoub’s so far unsuccessful effort to persuade FIFA and the International Olympic Committee to impose sanctions against Israel because of the Israeli settlements in occupied territory and travel restrictions on Palestinian players and other allegedly security-related measures that hinder the development of Palestinian soccer.
Mr. Rajoub and a liberal Israeli newspaper put responsibility for the soccer fiasco at the doorstep of Ms. Regev.
“She’s the main culprit for legitimizing Argentina’s decision not to come… Beyond squandering millions in taxpayer money, in forcing the game to move to Jerusalem, Regev displayed gross intervention… If the game had stayed in Haifa, it would have happened… There’s a saying that a thousand wise men can’t rescue a coin thrown into a well by a fool…. All it takes is one fool to burn down a forest,” said Haaretz reporter Uzi Dann in an article entitled, Who Needs BDS: Israel Scores Spectacular Own Goal in Argentina Soccer Fiasco.
“Instead of soccer, Miri Regev wanted politics and she got politics… It’s a great farce that gives immense momentum to the BDS campaign against Israel”, added Itzik Shmuli, a centre-left member of the Israeli parliament.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin appeared to echo the sentiment by saying that “the politicization of the Argentinean move worries me greatly” even if he blamed the Argentinians for involving politics by cancelling the match.
Assertions by Israeli officials that the Argentinian decision had handed a victory to terrorism may go down well with hard-line public opinion in Israel as well as supporters of Israel across the globe but is unlikely to help Israel forge bridges to opponents of its policies or facilitate its efforts to get a broader international buy-in of its insistence that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of the Jewish state.
Israeli opposition leader Avi Gabbay pinpointed the potential fall-out of the cancellation of the match when he warned on Twitter: “We just absorbed a shot in the face. This is not just sports. This, unfortunately, could start an international tsunami.”
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario, Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom
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From the Archives
The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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