Prominent Chefs Urge Colleagues to Withdraw From Tel Aviv “Culinary Propaganda” Festival
IMEMC | October 12, 2017
In an open letter, prominent chefs from Palestine and nine other countries called on their colleagues to withdraw from the upcoming Round Tables culinary festival in Tel Aviv. This festival is sponsored by the Israeli government and is in partnership with Dan Hotels, which has a hotel built in an illegal settlement on stolen Palestinian land in occupied East Jerusalem.
Between October 29 and November 17, fourteen world-renowned head-chefs will spend a week cooking in Tel Aviv as part of the Israeli government’s public relations effort to use this international event to distract attention from its military occupation and apartheid policies.
The letter states:
Round Tables — dubbed “gastro-diplomacy” — is part of the Israeli government’s “Brand Israel” propaganda campaign, launched in 2005 to distract the world’s attention from Israel’s oppression and denial of Palestinian human rights through the use of culture and arts.
The chefs added that their work is about “creating inspiring, beautiful culinary experiences for people,” pointing out that the “Round Tables festival is no place for chefs who care about indigenous peoples’ having access to their farm lands and traditional food ways.”
Thaer Shaheen, a Palestinian chef at Darna, one of Ramallah’s most well-known restaurants, said:
This year’s edition of the Round Tables festival features farm-to-table food. Whose farms, and whose tables? Israel has systematically destroyed Palestinian farms and farming as a whole and continues to deny farmers access to their lands. This is evident in Israel’s persistent attacks on the annual olive harvest which is taking place now. We, the indigenous people of the land, cannot access our lands and farms. If the chefs really care about the values of the farm-to-table movement, including Palestinian farms and tables, they will withdraw from this event.
Ora Wise, a New York-based chef at Harvest & Revel and signatory of the letter, added:
As a chef, I hope for the day that my colleagues join me in valuing Palestinian life and culture as much as we value hummus, za’atar, and falafel. Round Tables by American Express claims to be introducing international chefs to “the multicultural and ethnic culinary heritage of Israel” while Palestinians are not only excluded from the table, they also continue to be violently denied access to their homes and farmlands.
Wise made a personal appeal to the chef of Pok Pok Ny restaurant from her home city:
Nobody can produce or enjoy good food within an apartheid system that destroys the very things any respectable chef believes in — celebration of distinct cultures, sustainable agriculture, preservation of local food traditions, and fair and dignified labor conditions. If Andy Ricker truly values any of this, he will refuse to participate in this Israeli government-sponsored PR stunt and would be a better chef and food entrepreneur because of it.
Over 180 civil society groups also signed a letter urging chefs to cancel their participation in this culinary propaganda festival that serves to whitewash Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.
Following appeals from concerned members of the public, Irish chef JP McMahon announced he has withdrawn his participation from this year’s Round Tables festival.
The full letter can be found here.
The backdrop of Palestinian reconciliation
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 13, 2017
With a deal for political reconciliation having been reached by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, attention should shift to the humanitarian impact of Mahmoud Abbas’s collective punishment of the people in the Gaza Strip. The punitive measures, blatantly visible, were primarily an exercise in deprivation for political gain.
On Wednesday, Wafa and Alray reported that re-establishing adequate electricity supply to Gaza is dependent on whether “the Palestinian Government of National Consensus can assume its duties and responsibilities in the Strip.” The statement is open to several interpretations, the most dangerous for Palestinian civilians being additional delays beyond the signing of the reconciliation agreement.
According to the Palestinian Energy Authority’s acting director, Thafer Milhem, electricity was one of the issues discussed during the reconciliation talks in Cairo. While describing the process through which electricity supply for Gaza would be restored gradually, Milhem asserted that there is no timeframe for implementation, thus once again demanding that the civilians should remain as pawns in the political game designed by Abbas. It should be recalled that the precondition imposed upon Hamas by Abbas in return for lifting the collective punishment was the dissolution of the administrative committee of Gaza; this was duly done by the Islamic Resistance Movement.
However, the initial requirement turned out to be the first step in bringing about a situation whereby Hamas would agree to relinquish control of Gaza in the name of political unity. It remains to be seen how much this gesture, which entails a considerable measure of compromise, will reflect upon both Hamas and the civilian population of the enclave.
It could be argued that necessity, on several levels, constituted a form of political, social and ecoomic coercion. Gaza has navigated a fine line in attempting to retain the connection between the three sectors. Although different, each struggle reflected anti-colonial resistance. Necessity diluted this framework, and resistance was thwarted into survival, courtesy of collaborative efforts by Israel, the PA and the international community under various guises. For the people, it became a matter of successfully staying alive despite the harsh conditions.
Hamas, on the other hand, has fluctuated between resistance and diplomacy, the latter mired in a lack of clarity, particularly as the movement’s political statements appeared to be in conflict with its aims of liberation. This is not to say that the PA and Hamas have identical aims. However, it is the latter that has been required to compromise, despite the former’s irregular governance.
While the focus is now on the reconciliation agreement, there is a backdrop against which this is taking place; people who have suffered the humanitarian consequences of political contempt. For the PA to continue playing the bureaucratic game is unacceptable. By not providing a timeline for the resumption of adequate services with regard to electricity, or establishing access as a priority, Palestinians are once again expected to sacrifice health, education and life for a political gamble concocted by the PA. The least that could have been done was the immediate lifting of Abbas’s punitive measures, unless the plan is to expand authority in the name of reconciliation, with the aim of having better access to the exploitation of a precarious humanitarian situation.
Israel opposed to any Palestinian reconciliation with Hamas ‘mass murderers’ – Netanyahu
RT | October 13, 2017
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out against the reconciliation deal reached between rival Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, claiming that peace between Israelis and Palestinians will now be “much harder to achieve.”
“There is nothing we want more than peace with all our neighbors, but reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas makes this peace much more difficult to achieve,” Netanyahu said in a statement published on his official Hebrew and English Facebook accounts.
Palestine’s civil discord started in 2007 when Hamas won the elections and obtained power in Gaza while the West Bank territories fell under Fatah’s control. Since then, all attempts to reconcile the two groups and form a Palestinian power-sharing government have stalled.
In 2014, the rival faction managed to briefly negotiate a deal, which also angered Tel Aviv. Israel swiftly suspended US-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians, refusing to deal with Hamas, which Tel Aviv considers a terrorist organization with the sole aim of destroying the State of Israel.
On Thursday, after intense negotiations, Hamas and Fatah reached a new reconciliation deal, which Israel once again immediately rejected.
“Israel is opposed to any form of reconciliation in which the terrorist organization of Hamas does not disarm and does not stop fighting for the destruction of Israel,” Netanyahu said.
Tel Aviv, the Israeli PM said, will never accept Hamas’ strive to destroy Israel and will not deal with an organization that “advocates genocide” and launches “thousands” of rockets and tunnel incursions into Israel.
Netanyahu also accused Hamas of murdering children, oppressing the LGBT community and holding Israelis hostage. He believes Hamas is also guilty of “mourning” the death of former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, as well as “torturing” the opposition.
“Reconciliation with mass murderers makes you part of the problem and not the solution,” Netanyahu wrote. “Say yes to peace and not to collaboration with Hamas.”
While the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas reached a preliminary reconciliation agreement that the parties hope to implement in stages, they still seek to work out differences.
According to the agreement, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to assume all governing rolls in Gaza no later than December 1. The PA will also take over the responsibility for Gaza’s border crossings no later than November 1. Yet the key issues such as the fate of Hamas’ military wing and wider political strategies are to be discussed at a later date, Haaretz reported.
Palestinian unity is necessary in order to have meaningful discussions with Israel on a two-state solution. Yet Israel refuses to have militant Hamas be part of the government. Before any two-state solution negotiations can resume, Tel Aviv advised the Palestinians to disarm Hamas and force the organization to honor international law.
“Any reconciliation between [Hamas and Fatah] must include honoring [international] agreements [and] Quartet conditions, firstly [by] recognizing Israel [and] disarming Hamas,” spokesperson to the Arab media in the Israel Prime Minister’s Office, Ofir Gendelman, tweeted. He added that digging tunnels, manufacturing missiles and initiating terror attacks are “incompatible” Quartet conditions and US efforts to renew the Middle East peace process.
The Israeli spokesman called on Fatah to assume responsibility for any militant action in Gaza, after a PA takeover of the region in December.
“The PA mustn’t allow any base whatsoever for Hamas terrorist actions from PA areas or from Gaza,” Ofir tweeted. “As long as Hamas does not disarm [and] continues to call for our destruction, Israel holds it responsible for all terrorism originating in Gaza.”
Hamas’ original charter in 1988 called for the reclaiming of all of Mandatory Palestine, which includes present-day Israel. The PA instead has been trying to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
Reconciliation efforts between Palestinians and the Israelis have been supervised by the so-called Middle East Quartet – comprising the UN, Russia, the United States and the European Union – which advocates a two-state solution along the 1967 divide.
As long as the reconciliation process between the rival Palestinian faction proceeds, Israel will do all in its power to sabotage the process, political commentator Doctor Asa’ad Abusharekh from Gaza has told RT.
“Israel wants to see the Palestinian people all the time divided. I think Israel will try to torpedo and sabotage this reconciliation,” Abusharekh said. “We do not expect Israel to lift the siege of Gaza. Israel will probably put more obstacles simply because Israel is wary about this agreement.”
‘Major impediment’: PACE says Ukraine education law violates ethnic minority rights
Schoolchildren at the celebratory assembly dedicated to the Day of Knowledge in Lviv. © Pavel Palamarchuk / Sputnik
RT | October 12, 2017
A new Ukrainian education law fails to “strike a balance” between the official language and those of minorities, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said in a resolution, adding that it is not conducive to “living together.”
PACE expressed its concerns over the articles relating to education in minority languages in the law recently adopted by Kiev. It “entails a heavy reduction in the rights previously recognized to ‘national minorities’ concerning their own language of education,” according to the document.
“The new legislation does not appear to strike an appropriate balance between the official language and the languages of national minorities,” the resolution adopted by PACE on Thursday says. The document was supported by 82 members of the 110 who took part in the vote, RIA Novosti reports. Only 11 parliamentarians opposed it while 17 others abstained.
The resolution further says that the Ukrainian education act “is not conducive to ‘living together,’” which particularly encompasses the principle of non-discrimination. PACE noted that any country’s measures aimed at promoting its official language must “go hand in hand with measures to protect and promote the languages of national minorities.”
The assembly said it “deplored” the fact that no consultations with the national minorities in Ukraine were held ahead of the adoption of the law. It further “expressed dissatisfaction” that the text of the legislation was submitted to the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) for an opinion only after it was approved by the Ukrainian parliament – the Supreme Rada – and signed by the president, Petro Poroshenko.
The resolution called on Kiev to ensure that there is enough “flexibility” in the planning and implementation of the educational reform to “avoid hasty changes prejudicing the quality of education provided to pupils and students belonging to national minorities.”
It also asked the Ukrainian authorities “to fully implement” the recommendations of the Venice Commission, which it is expected to deliver by the end of 2017. The controversial legislation adopted by the Supreme Rada on September 5, and signed by Poroshenko on September 27, is still causing concern in neighboring European countries.
The head of the Hungarian delegation at PACE, Zsolt Nemeth, accused Kiev of being at odds with European values and said that the newly adopted law could lead to instability in the western Ukrainian regions. He also called on European countries to “continue to exert pressure” on Ukraine to make it “stay within the framework of European values,” as reported by TASS.
Moldovan MP and also PACE member, Vlad Batrincea, said that Kiev is cherry-picking European values. Ukraine acts as if it had a “menu in a restaurant,” the MP said, adding that Kiev adopts some European norms but pretends it is unaware of others.
Following the adoption of the law, Romania cancelled a state visit to Ukraine by President Klaus Werner Iohannis and refused to host a parliamentary delegation from Ukraine in protest.
Moldovan President Igor Dodon warned that Ukraine’s Moldovan and Romanian minorities risked “denationalization” under the new law, while Hungary called it a “stab in the back.”
Later, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto threatened to block Ukraine’s EU integration under the Eastern Partnership program in response to the adoption of the law.
The legislation is expected to affect at least 400,000 children studying in 735 Ukrainian schools which offer instruction in minority languages. The majority of these children are ethnic Russians, but other minorities in Ukraine include Romanians, Hungarians, Moldovans and Poles.
Under the newly adopted law, only children in grades 1-4 would be allowed to learn the curriculum in their native tongues in Ukraine starting from 2018, and by 2020 even that will no longer be legal.
Read more:
UN: Myanmar’s ‘systematic’ crackdown on Rohingya aimed at permanent expulsion
Press TV – October 11, 2017
The United Nations says Myanmar’s “systematic” crackdown on the persecuted Rohingya Muslim community is aimed at permanently expelling them from their home in Rakhine state.
A report published by the UN on Wednesday detailed a campaign by Myanmar’s military to terrorize the Rohingya through atrocities that range from indiscriminate killings to rape.
“Brutal attacks against Rohingya in northern Rakhine State have been well-organized, coordinated and systematic, with the intent of not only driving the population out of Myanmar but preventing them from returning to their homes,” the UN report said.
Myanmar’s troops often operate “in concert with armed Rakhine Buddhist individuals,” the report added.
“In some cases, before and during the attacks, megaphones were used to announce: ‘You do not belong here, go to Bangladesh. If you do not leave, we will torch your houses and kill you’,” it said.
The investigative report also contradicts claims by Myanmar’s government that the crackdown was a response to militant attacks on security posts on August 25. The probe found that the latest wave of military “clearance operations” in Rakhine actually began before that date, possibly in early August.
The investigation outlines an army-led campaign to erase the Rohingya connection to their homeland in the majority Buddhist country.
Teachers, as well as cultural, religious and community leaders have also been targeted in the latest crackdown “in an effort to diminish Rohingya history, culture and knowledge,” the report said.
“Efforts were taken to effectively erase signs of memorable landmarks in the geography of the Rohingya landscape and memory in such a way that a return to their lands would yield nothing but a desolate and unrecognizable terrain.”
The latest UN report is based on interviews with refugees who have fled to Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area since August 25. The UN team spoke to hundreds of people in a series of 65 interviews, some with individuals and some with groups of up to 40 people.
UN figures show more than half a million people have fled the ongoing violence.
The researchers also found evidence of abuses designed to “instill deep and widespread fear” among the Rohingya. This included accounts of soldiers surrounding homes and firing indiscriminately as residents ran for their lives as well as uniformed men gang-raping women and girls, some as young as five. One statement, “received by an extremely credible source, referred to a (pregnant) woman whose stomach was slit open after she was raped.”
Speaking to reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva, researcher Thomas Hunecke said the UN had “very credible information” that Myanmar’s military had planted landmines along the Bangladesh border. “It is highly likely that these mines have been planted in order to prevent the Rohingya population from returning.”
The United Nations believes the government of Myanmar might have committed ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in its crackdown. The Rohingya are considered by the UN the “most persecuted minority group in the world.”
Bangladeshi army personnel direct Rohingya volunteers carrying ice boxes with cholera vaccines at the Thangkhali refugee camp in Ukhia district, October 10, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
EU to cut ties with Myanmar military chiefs
The European Union is to cut ties with senior Myanmar military chiefs to protest the “disproportionate use of force” against the Rohingya, according to an agreement approved by EU ambassadors and set to be signed off at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday.
The agreement said the rapid flight of so many people from Rakhine “strongly indicates a deliberate action to expel a minority.”
“In the light of the disproportionate use of force carried out by the security forces, the EU and its member states will suspend invitations to the commander-in-chief of the Myanmar/Burma armed forces and senior military officers and review all practical defense cooperation,” the agreement says.
According to the agreement, the EU “may consider additional measures” if the crisis does not improve. The bloc currently bans the export of arms and equipment that can be used for “internal repression.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs: Stoking Islamophobia and Defending Racism
By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | October 10, 2017
Would a farmer ask a fox to help design a security system for her free-range chickens?
A group that stokes Islamophobia and defends an explicitly supremacist organization shouldn’t be part of a Public Consultation on Systemic Discrimination and Racism in Québec. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) should be removed from the “list of selected organizations” for this important initiative.
While groups participating in the just launched consultation are supposed to “develop concrete proposals to combat systemic discrimination and racism”, last summer CIJA campaigned aggressively against a Green Party of Canada resolution calling on the Canada Revenue Agency to revoke the charitable status of an explicitly racist organization. The Green’s motion described the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) “discrimination against non-Jews in Israel through its bylaws which prohibit the lease or sale of its lands to non-Jews.” Owner of 13 percent of Israel’s land – mostly seized from Palestinians in 1948 – the JNF systematically discriminates against the 20% of non-Jewish Israeli citizens. JNF racism is not the all too common ‘personal’ or even ‘structural’ variety, rather a legalistic discrimination outlawed in Canada six decades ago.
CIJA and the JNF Canada often work together and sponsor each other’s events. Additionally, JNF Canada CEO Lance Davis previously worked as CIJA’s National Jewish Campus Life director.
Beyond defending racist land-use policies in Israel, CIJA has stigmatized marginalized Canadians by hyping “Islamic terror” and targeting Arab and Muslim community representatives, papers, organizations, etc. In response to a truck attack in Nice, France, last year CIJA declared “Canada is not immune to … Islamist terror” and in February they highlighted, “those strains of Islam that pose a real and imminent threat to Jews around the world.”
In a bid to deter organizations from associating with the Palestinian cause or opposing Israeli belligerence in the region, CIJA demonizes Canadian Arabs and Muslims by constantly accusing them of supporting “terror”. Last week the lobbying arm of Canada’s Jewish Federations said it was “shocked” Ottawa failed to rescind the charitable status of the Islamic Society of British Columbia. CIJA alleges that the Vancouver area mosque supports Hamas, which the federal government considers a terrorist organization but Palestinians (and most of the world) consider a political/resistance organization.
In 2014 CIJA pushed to proscribe as a terrorist entity Mississauga-based IRFAN (International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy). The Jewish group’s press release about the first Canadian-based group ever designated a terrorist organization boasted that “current CIJA board member, the Honourable Stockwell Day … called attention to IRFAN-Canada’s disturbing activities nearly a decade ago.”
In the early 2000s pro-Israel groups and the Conservative Party accused a charity that supported thousands of orphans in a dozen countries of working for Hamas. But, a Canada Revenue Agency audit failed to substantiate the claim. As the two-year audit was about to wrap up at the end of 2004, Stockwell Day and the Canadian Coalition of Democracies (CCD) held a press conference where they accused IRFAN of being a front for Hamas, which prompted a defamation suit (CCD eventually retracted the allegation while Day was protected by parliamentary privilege).
When Day’s Conservatives later took power the CRA renewed their investigation of IRFAN in what appeared to be an effort to prove that Muslim Canadians financed “Hamas terror”. In 2011 the CRA revoked the group’s charitable status, claiming “IRFAN-Canada is an integral part of an international fundraising effort to support Hamas.” A big part of the CRA’s supporting evidence was that IRFAN worked with the Gaza Ministry of Health and Ministry of Telecommunications, which came under Hamas’ direction after they won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. The Canadian organization tried to send a dialysis machine to Gaza and continued to support orphans in the impoverished territory with the money channelled through the Post Office controlled by the Telecommunications Ministry.
This author cannot claim any detailed knowledge of the charity, but on the surface of it the charge that IRFAN was a front for Hamas makes little sense. First of all, the group was registered with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank when the Fatah-controlled PA was waging war against Hamas. Are we to believe that CRA officials in Ottawa had a better sense of who supported Hamas then the PA in Ramallah? Additionally, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) viewed the Canadian charity as a legitimate partner. In 2009 IRFAN gave UNRWA $1.2 million to build a school for girls in Battir, a West Bank village.
In a sign of how the campaign against IRFAN stigmatized a marginalized group, the CRA’s findings were used to smear the 2012 edition of the Reviving the Islamic Spirit conference in Toronto because IRFAN was one of 17 sponsors of one of the largest Muslim gatherings in North America.
While quick to attack Arabs and Muslims’ support for “terror” or “anti-Semitism”, CIJA clams up when explicit Jewish Islamophobia is brought to their attention. In 2012 the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) asked for CIJA’s help with an aggressively anti-Muslim textbook used at Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School in Toronto. It described Muslims as “rabid fanatics” with “savage beginnings”, but CIJA refused to respond.
In a more recent example of the group stoking anti-Muslim sentiment, CIJA aligned itself with the backlash against the term “Islamophobia” in bill M-103, which called for collecting data on hate crimes and studying the issue of “eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia.” CEO Shimon Fogel said the “wording of M-103 is flawed. Specifically, we are concerned with the word ‘Islamophobia’ because it is misleading, ambiguous, and politically charged.” It takes chutzpah for a Jewish community leader to make this argument since, as Rick Salutin points out, anti-Semitism is a more ambiguous term. But, Fogel would no doubt label as anti-Jewish someone who objected to the term anti-Semitism as “misleading, ambiguous, and politically charged”.
An initiative promoted by committed anti-racist campaigners, the Public Consultation on Systemic Discrimination and Racism in Québec is important. It should not include a group that stokes Islamophobia and defends an explicitly supremacist organization.
Yves Engler is the author of A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.
Israeli-led “Women’s Peace March” Criticized as Normalization
By Celine Hagbard – IMEMC – October 11, 2017
A two-week march led by Israeli women calling for peace culminated in a rally in Jerusalem Sunday, although the march was largely boycotted by Palestinians who called it a part of the ‘normalization’ of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
The organizers of the march called for a return to the failed negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority – negotiations that were harshly criticized by most Palestinians for the power imbalance they maintained between the occupier and occupied.
‘Normalization’ is a term used by Palestinians to refer to efforts that claim to promote ‘peace’ without recognizing or addressing the extreme injustice of the Israeli military occupation. Some have criticized the ‘Women Wage Peace’ movement for its failure to advocate for Palestinian equal rights, instead issuing a vague call for ‘peace’.
Many of the participants in the march voiced a desire to have reconciliation with Palestinians, and said they hoped to meet with Palestinian women, with organizer Anat Negev saying that, “We all want a safe future for our children.” But Palestinian women’s organizations and civil society leaders said that the march was naive in issuing a call for peace without a clear call for justice, and for the end to the Israeli military occupation.
Some women marched for two weeks, in different parts of the West Bank, Israel and Jerusalem – but most of the locations of the march were closed to Palestinians who did not obtain special permits months in advance to be able to enter.
In response to the march and rally, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees issued a statement opposing the event, saying that Palestinian women were being used as props and tokenized by the Israeli women organizing it. The statement also said, “This activity is a shameless fraud that seeks to forcibly impose normalization with the occupier upon Palestinian women, in clear violation of the sacrifices of our women martyrs, prisoners, wounded and strugglers to liberate our people from that occupier. Our position as a Palestinian women’s movement in occupied Palestine against normalization is very clear, as is our demand for the boycott of occupation in all forms, including economic, cultural, academic and all other forms of boycott.”
US offers $12 mln bounty on two Hezbollah leaders, cites ‘homeland’ threat
RT | October 10, 2017
The US has offered a total of $12 million in rewards for the capture of two senior Hezbollah officials, saying the Iranian-backed group is plotting attacks inside the US. The announcement comes as Washington mulls canceling the Iran nuclear deal.
A $7 million bounty applies to Talal Hamiyah, head of Hezbollah’s external operations. Another $5 million is being offered for Fuad Shukr, the group’s senior military official, accused of masterminding the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 US Marines.
Hezbollah is “focused on US interests, including here in the homeland,” National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas J. Rasmussen told reporters at the State Department Tuesday.
While he declined to comment on any specific, credible or imminent threats, Rasmussen said the US intelligence community continues to see “activity on behalf of Hezbollah here inside the homeland.”
“It’s our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook,” he added.
The FBI arrested two Hezbollah operatives in June, one in New York and another in Michigan, said Counterterrorism Coordinator Nathan A. Sales.
Asked whether this would affect Washington’s financial support to the government of Lebanon, which includes several Hezbollah members, Sales replied that it will not. He added that the US does not recognize any distinctions within the group.
“Hezbollah has no political wing. It is a single organization, a terrorist organization, and it is rotten to its core,” Sales said, pointing to Iran as the group’s chief sponsor.
The State Department designated Hezbollah – or Hizballah, as the US government spells it – as a foreign terrorist organization in October 8, 1997. In February this year, the US offered a $5 million bounty for Mohammed Ali Hamadei, a Hezbollah member who allegedly took part in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in which US sailor Robert Stethem was killed.
Although the bounties were officially announced Tuesday, news of their existence was reported Monday by the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv. … Full article
Al Jazeera ‘vindicated’, as Ofcom rejects all complaints about ‘The Lobby’
MEMO | October 9, 2017
Al Jazeera has declared itself “vindicated”, after British regulatory body Ofcom rejected all complaints made against the channel’s undercover series ‘The Lobby’, broadcast in January.
The four-episode investigation looked at efforts by the Israeli embassy in London and a number of pro-Israel lobby groups to influence British political debate, including by smearing critics of Israeli policies and supporters of Palestinian rights.
After ‘The Lobby’ was broadcast, Ofcom received a number of complaints, some of which prompted investigations. The results of these rulings were published today in the body’s regular bulletin.
In its lengthy rulings, Ofcom notes that the complaints received “raised a range of issues about the programme including that they were anti-Semitic and were not duly impartial”. Other complaints “considered that the programme was materially misleading”.
According to Ofcom, this latter allegation was dismissed without further investigation, following information received from Al Jazeera. With respect to the other complaints, Ofcom found Al Jazeera not in breach of the obligation to “due impartiality”, and similarly rejected claims of antisemitism.
“We considered that the allegations in the programme were not made on the grounds that any of the particular individuals concerned were Jewish and noted that no claims were made relating to their faith”, Ofcom states. “We did not consider that the programme portrayed any negative stereotypes of Jewish people as controlling or seeking to control the media or governments”.
It continues: “Rather, it was our view that these individuals featured in the programme in the context of its investigation into the alleged activities of a foreign state (the State of Israel acting through its UK Embassy) and their association with it”.
“We also noted that a number of the organisations featured in the programme, such as Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel, are not defined by any adherence to Judaism or having a predominantly Jewish membership”.
In what some will see as an ironic twist, Ofcom made reference to a controversial definition of antisemitism that Israel advocacy groups have used in seeking to undermine Palestine solidarity activism and attack critics of Israel.
Citing this definition, Ofcom rejected claims that “critical analysis of the actions of a foreign state constituted anti-Semitism”, since “the overall focus of the programme was to examine whether the State of Israel was acting in a manner that would be expected of other democratic nations”.
Ofcom also rejected complaints made by three individuals who featured in the documentary: Ella Rose, Jewish Labour Movement director; Russell Langer, now at the Jewish Leadership Council, and Luke Akehurst, head of BICOM’s ‘We Believe in Israel’ project and a Labour Party activist.
Ofcom rejected Rose’s claim that she had been “treated unjustly or unfairly in the programme as broadcast”. Ofcom said it did not accept Rose’s claim that to reject her complaint “risks creating a precedent for the infringement of the privacy of any Jewish person involved in public life”.
Each privacy complaint we receive is considered on its facts, and must always be assessed in light of the particular circumstances of each case”
Ofcom similarly failed to uphold a complaint made of “unjust or unfair treatment and unwarranted infringement of privacy” made by Kingsley Napley LLP on behalf of Russell Langer, and a separate complaint on the same grounds by Kingsley Napley LLP on behalf of Luke Akehurst.
Responding to the published rulings, a statement by Al Jazeera said: “This goes to show that no matter what Al Jazeera’s critics say, its journalism meets and exceeds the highest standards of objectivity and balance. We feel vindicated by the rulings and evermore committed to exposing human rights violations by anyone—regardless of geography, religion, or the power of their lobbies”.
‘The Lobby’, made by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, made news in Britain and around the world, in particular for its covert footage of Shai Masot, the Israeli Embassy’s then Senior Political Officer, in discussion with a British civil servant plotting to “take down” government minister Sir Alan Duncan.
Masot was subsequently returned to Israel, and Ambassador Mark Regev formally apologised.
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The Lobby P2: The Training Session
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The Lobby P3: An Anti-Semitic Trope
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The Lobby P4: The Takedown
Shin Bet can reject or dismiss teachers in Israel’s Arab schools
MEMO | October 7, 2017
Israel’s Internal Security Agency, Shin Bet, has the power to reject the appointment of Arab teachers at the country’s Arab schools, Quds Press reported on Friday. The agency can also dismiss such staff for political reasons, it is claimed. A former official at the Israeli Ministry of Education, Emmanuel Koplovich, told Ynet News that Shin Bet has rejected the appointment of many qualified teachers.
“Shin Bet was involved in everything regarding recruitment for education positions,” confirmed the former head of the agency, Knesset member Yacob Berri. “It is still active in Arab schools to this day.”
The news website revealed that Shin Bet targeted the Arab teachers in cooperation with the ministry. Teachers did not know why they were dismissed or not accepted for a position. It also revealed that some of the teachers were not involved in any political activities, but were rejected because of the political activities of one of their relatives.
According to the reports, information about Arab teachers and head teachers was circulated among different government institutions, mainly the education ministry and the Prime Minister’s office.
The Director of Adalah Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Hassan Jabareen, said that Shin Bet’s interference in the recruitment and dismissal of Arab teachers and head teachers has been known for a long time in the Arab community. This, Quds Press suggested, reiterates the hostility of the Israeli Education Ministry towards the country’s Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the population.
“The Shin Bet has an important role,” insisted the former Director General of the Ministry of Education, Samson Shoshani. “Its mission is to make sure than no oppression is practiced against anyone. We are not against extremist teachers, but against extremist people in regard to loyalty to the state.”
Read also: Education is a right being denied to Palestinian children, and Israel is the culprit
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- Iraqi resistance group urges Saudi leadership to admit defeat, lift Yemen siege
- Trump’s Retreat: How Al-Aqsa Flood Took Down the US Empire
- Israel’s Military Actions in Lebanon Grossly Violate International Law — Lavrov
- Seyed M. Marandi: US-Iran War Inevitable: Kuwait and Bahrain May Fall
- Leaders Condemn Ansarallah Attack on Saudi Arabia While Ignoring Illegal War Against Yemen
- Leaked: Britain’s Covert Iraqi Psyops Network
- Yemeni Armed Forces Warn Airlines Against Using Saudi Airports, Exempt Mecca and Medina
- If Americans Knew
- U.S. May Join Yet Another Middle Eastern War — TCN
- Yellow Line moves again as Israel closes in on trapped Gazans – Daily Update
- Israeli Attacks Kill Seven Palestinians in Gaza Including Six-year-old Girl
- Gaza: Ceasefire Anniversary Marks Year of Failed Promises
- The American Conservative: Mike Huckabee Should Resign
- A C-Section in Shackles: A Palestinian Woman’s Harrowing Birth in Israeli Detention
- ‘He’s Desperate’: AIPAC Begins Spending Against Abdul El-Sayed to Boost Mike Rogers:
- Trump, Hormuz, and the Looming Economic Catastrophe
- For three years, Israel has killed a child in Gaza every 71 minutes – Daily Update
- Israeli forces kill another child in Gaza – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
