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Israeli support for Kurdish statehood is a poisoned chalice

By Mahan Abedin | MEMO | September 12, 2107

With the referendum on proposed Kurdish independence just two weeks away, the stage is being set for the gravest political and potential military crisis in post-Baathist Iraq. Months of intense lobbying by Iranian, Turkish and even American officials and interlocutors has failed to dissuade the Iraqi Kurdish leadership from staging this catastrophically divisive referendum.

In his combative interview with the BBC, the president of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region, Masoud Barzani, left no doubt that the referendum is the first formal step in the march toward full independence. More ominously, Barzani appeared to acknowledge that plans to officially annex Kirkuk may well spark a major war.

Every regional and extra-regional power, including the United States, is opposed to Kurdish statehood, with one exception. Israel. Whilst sections of the Iraqi Kurdish media are jubilant at this rhetorical support, Kurdish leaders will have to carefully weigh up the pros and cons of Israeli support before they formally declare statehood.

While Israel will undoubtedly prove a strong ally of an independent Kurdish state, it is the support it is willing to offer in the run-up to independence that will prove decisive. Even rhetorical Israeli support will drastically inflame the situation and bring the Kurds into armed conflict with the pro-Iranian Shia militias massed to the south of Kirkuk.

A peripheral policy

Israel’s support for nationalist Kurdish movements is strong and long-standing, dating back to the early 1960s. This policy is part of Israel’s “Alliance of the Periphery” doctrine, which in short amounts to developing strong ties to non-Arab states on the periphery of the Middle East with a view to combating the Arab boycott of the Jewish state.

Whilst the periphery doctrine was originally aimed at Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia, with time it expanded to incorporate non-state actors, principally the Kurds, whose quest for statehood Israel has consistently supported for decades.

Analysis centred on the putative “collapse” of the periphery doctrine is likely to prove premature. Whilst it is true that Turkey can no longer be regarded as a reliable Israeli partner, this will motivate Israeli strategists and operatives to seek out and develop new peripheral partners. Moreover, the peripheral policy survived its biggest crisis nearly forty years ago when almost overnight Iran went from an informal Israeli ally to the most vociferous enemy of the Jewish state.

Given this chequered history of missteps and strategic miscalculations, analysts are right to be wary of how useful this periphery doctrine is. However, as long as Israel’s occupation of Palestine continues to draw strong Arab, Muslim and broader international opposition, Israel will seek to identify and develop stealthy means by which to undermine, isolate and eventually exhaust this opposition.

It is in this context that leading Israeli strategists, including former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, push the case for Kurdish independence, primarily by trying to align Kurdish statehood with the interests of the United States and the West in general. This devious perspective is entirely in keeping with the perennial Israeli policy of equating its own core interests with that of the West. In this instance, Israeli diplomacy and wider lobbying efforts will try to sell Kurdish independence to policymakers in Washington, by presenting it as the best long-term strategy to contain Iranian influence in Iraq.

The road to war

Apart from strong rhetorical support, what practical steps can Israel take to support the Iraqi Kurdish quest for statehood? This is a vexing question, as on the face of it Israeli influence in Iraqi Kurdistan is practically non-existent. This author spent the first half of 2009 in Iraqi Kurdistan working as a journalist and despite widespread rumours didn’t uncover any evidence of Israeli involvement in Kurdish affairs.

Yet this influence surely exists, particularly at the security and intelligence level. It is in part due to the Israeli connection that the Kurdish intelligence agency, the Asayish, has developed into one of the most capable intelligence agencies in the Middle East. In keeping with Kurdish national aspirations, the Asayish has grown in reach and capability, not only spying on regional countries, but even managing to run modest operations as far afield as the United Kingdom.

Indeed, qualified Kurdish independence in Iraq now seems all but inevitable. This appears to be the assessment of US intelligence services, Washington’s stated opposition to the issue notwithstanding. Qualified independence in this context implies highly contested statehood, lacking widespread international support and drawing immediate internal and external opposition.

The most immediate opponents to Kurdish statehood in Iraq are the Shia paramilitary forces, who alongside their political patrons in Baghdad, have deep-seated interests in Kirkuk, which is home to a sizeable Shia Turkmen population. The collapse of the Iraqi army in the face of Daesh’s sweeping advance in June 2014 has significantly changed the military security landscape in Kirkuk and the immediate areas to the south, bringing the Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia paramilitaries into dangerously close proximity.

The Shia paramilitaries, organised as Popular Mobilisation Units, reportedly maintain six military bases close to Kirkuk and are poised to engage the Peshmerga militarily should the need arise. From a purely speculative point of view, limited military engagements may follow the independence referendum as a means of deterring the Kurdish leadership from taking further steps toward formal independence.

From a broader strategic perspective, Israeli support for the Kurdish cause is a poisoned chalice for Kurdish nationalists in so far as it makes a sustainable Kurdish state unacceptable to Iran and by extension to its Shia allies in Iraq. But judging from Masoud Barzani’s combative rhetoric, he appears to be willing to take the risk.

Read: Israeli flag will be raised in independent Kurdistan, claims prominent Likud member

September 12, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Concerning Free Speech Zones

By John Rohn Hall | Dissident Voice | September 11, 2017

They say 9-11 changed everything. Although the U.S. Government has, from the very beginning, done everything within its power to stifle and quarantine free speech, the Bush era really kicked the practice into high gear.  It’s been nearly fifteen years ago that I first heard the phrase “Free Speech Zone”. At the time, I co-habitated Jackson, Wyoming with Empire’s most successful war criminal and profiteer, Vice President Dick Cheney. The wet dream of worldwide military domination he shared with his criminal organization known as The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), was about to get a giant kick start and grow to fruition with the impending, made for television, Shock and Awe of The Iraq War; the sequel to the spectacular World Trade Center/Pentagon production of 9-11-2001.

Back in those days, shortly before U.S. Military bombs had begun turning Biblical Babylon into rubble, and Saddam Hussein still possessed a pulse and a head, a small group of Jackson Hole activists got together and planned a protest against the unstoppable, runaway train of The Iraq War.  Our efforts were doomed from the start to fail. The Jackson P.D. had anticipated our soiree.  After closing my small restaurant, I showed up late for the demonstration, scheduled to be held in front of God and everybody, under the famous, elk-antler-arched Town Square, only to discover that the local law-enforcement authorities had declared The Town Square off limits, and moved our little event to the seclusion of St. John’s Episcopal Church, a few blocks to the northwest, and out of earshot of the general public. A Designated Free Speech Zone, designed for the purpose of eliminating all effectiveness of protest and dissent. Trees falling in Free Speech Zones make no noise.

Fast forward to Santa Fe, New Mexico, early September, 2017.  A few miles from my current home, on the historic Plaza de Santa Fe, The Entrada is underway. Few of the thousands of spectators understand exactly what is being celebrated, but who doesn’t love a good excuse to celebrate? Even if it’s the most extensive GENOCIDE ever to darken the sordid human history of planet earth. In order to properly explain, some background information is in order:

It is unknown exactly how long The Pueblo People have called Northern New Mexico home. The main structures at Taos have been continuously occupied for more than a millennium. Before the Spanish invaders arrived upon the scene in 1598, armed with unimagined weapons and The Vatican’s Doctrine of Discovery, a gentle culture which grew corn, beans, and squash occupied 98 interrelated pueblos or villages. After two decades of brutal assault, only 21 pueblos remained. The survivors of the occupation were enslaved, their gods and celebrations were outlawed, while Christianity and the one true God were shoved firmly up their asses.

82 years later, in 1680, The Pueblos organized a revolution.  With the aid of neighboring Apaches, Hopis, Navajos, and Utes, they routed the Spanish occupiers out of Santa Fe, driving them hundreds of miles south, and into what is now Chihuahua.  A dozen years of peace then fell upon The Pueblo People. The Spanish, however, did not accept defeat, nor take it in stride. They returned to their Capital City of Santa Fe with a vengeance in 1692. Led by Don Diego De Vargas, they brutally punished those who had formerly defeated them.  Among countless other atrocities, De Vargas ordered a mass hanging of 70 Pueblo braves, on the Plaza de Santa Fe. The Pueblos would remain under Spanish occupation and subjugation for the next 130 years, until Mexico’s War of Independence sent the Spanish back to Europe, where they belong.

The Santa Fe Entrada is a three day celebration of genocide.  It takes place on the very location of De Vargas’ mass-hanging of 70 Pueblo braves. They put on a little skit each year, with some prominent citizen playing the part of Don Diego De Vargas. A few years ago, it was our current mayor.  Not sure why they leave out the part about the hanging. Maybe they can’t get 70 young Indigenous men to volunteer for that sort of humiliation. As I write this, the third and final day of festivities is in progress.  Pueblo protests have been increasing in size, intensity, and enthusiasm over the last few years. On the first day, without announcing it, and hoping to fool the protesters, the organizers started their venue two hours early. But two hundred Pueblo People arrived in force, armed with chants, signs, and anger.

With Santa Fe SWAT snipers guarding the event from rooftops, the protesters were instructed, then forced by an intimidating and armed army of police, to take their disruptive voices a few blocks away to… wait for it… that’s right, a Designated Free Speech Zone. This heavily-guarded police barricade was far enough away from the Plaza, that the Pueblo voices would be guaranteed to fall silently upon deaf ears in an unoccupied forest. Police-induced chaos ensued  Eight (or twelve, depending upon your source) were arrested and hauled off to jail.  Activist leader and San Ildefonso Pueblo member Jennifer Marley was obviously singled out, as video of the event proves, forced to the ground, handcuffed, and paraded through The Entrada Fiasco like a war trophy. Apparently the next best thing to an actual hanging. At this time, all of those arrested, except Jennifer, have been released. She remains incarcerated, facing five charges, including battery of a police officer, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.

Jennifer Marley, activist leader arrested (Photo by Red Nation)

The First Amendment of The Constitution is just a pretty little accumulation of hollow words.  Empire’s fairy tales must be protected from the caustic power of Truth at all cost. Those who speak it loud enough to be heard will be silenced. Those who convince others to follow them in protest will be incarcerated.  Public hangings have not yet experienced a resurgence of acceptance. The Pueblo Nations have been under enemy occupation for over 400 years. Spanish, Mexican, U.S.A., and even The Confederacy for a short time. The celebration of The Entrada is a celebration of genocide. But what a great opportunity for tourists to watch the little production, then go out for Margaritas and chile-intensive New Mexican food. And what a wonderful time for Santa Fe’s Hispanic/Spanish/Chicano-identifying population to celebrate the lies of their heritage.

Finishing up this sordid little piece as the sun rises on 9-11-2017.  Sixteen years ago, but it seems like yesterday. The red, white, and blue is out in force. 9-11 changed nothing, save the intensity of the erosion of freedom.  My government’s thoughtful, spectacular, made for television production simply gave bigger teeth to the Police State. To the best of my knowledge, Jennifer Marley remains locked up. Out of earshot.  Soon to disappear from memory. Makes me proud to be an Amerikan. Free speech, once again, stifled, quarantined, muffled, and muted.  Next year, Santa Fe will once again celebrate The Great American Holocaust, but with increased police presence. Perhaps with a gallows.

John currently resides, writes, and protests injustice in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and walks among the spirits of those who once occupied the 79 Disappeared Pueblos. He can be reached via email at: halls245@msn.com.

September 12, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

NY Times op-ed: Mainstream 9/11 narrative “totally false, literally from the first minutes”

By Kevin Barrett | Veterans Today | September 11, 2017

Today, on the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 neocon coup d’état, the New York Times editorial page has published a column by economist Paul Krugman calling the official narrative “totally false” – and accusing the Bush-Cheney Administration of “rejoicing” at the successful attack on America.

Here is Krugman’s key passage:

In the weeks and months after the atrocity, news media had a narrative about what it meant – basically, that it was a Pearl Harbor moment that brought America together with a new seriousness and resolve. This was comforting and reassuring. It was also totally false, literally from the first minutes.

The truth, as we now know, is that Bush administration officials rejoiced, even as the fires were still burning, at the opportunity they now had to fight the unrelated war they always wanted.”

Krugman does not come right out and say that the Bush-Cheney gang “rejoiced” because they were celebrating a successful covert operation. Nor does he mention the many Israelis who were even more blatantly celebrating their New Pearl Harbor deception:

*The “dancing Israelis,” Mossad agents all, who according to the NYPD had been pre-positioned to film the attacks, and who photographed themselves cheering wildly and flicking cigarette lighters in front of the burning and exploding Twin Towers.

*Benjamin Netanyahu, whose first reaction was that the attacks were “very good,” and who reaffirmed that years later by saying “We are benefitting from one thing” – 9/11.

*Mike Harrari, the legendary Mossad chief, who threw a celebratory party and openly claimed credit for 9/11, according to self-proclaimed eyewitness Dmitri Khalezov.

From ex-Chief Harrari to its agents on the ground in New York, the Mossad wildly and openly celebrated 9/11. The CIA’s reaction was somewhat more ambivalent. According to CIA Iraq Desk asset Susan Lindauer, her Case Officer, Richard Fuisz —who had known ahead of time that a big terror attack would be hitting Lower Manhattan — was on the phone with her on the morning of 9/11 as live television showed the Towers burning and then, suddenly, exploding. Lindauer says that as the Towers exploded, Fuisz’s reaction was an anguished scream: “The goddamn Israelis!”

But just a few weeks later, Bush called a celebratory party at the CIA, broke out the champagne all around, reassured everyone that their jobs were safe, and called 9/11 “just a memory” amidst an atmosphere of relief and rejoicing. (T.H. Meyer, Reality, Truth, and Evil.)

What does “liberal with a conscience” Paul Krugman know about the Bush Administration’s (and Israel’s) celebrations of 9/11? Presumably more than he’s telling us.

Why won’t Krugman just come right out and tell us what he really thinks? Presumably because he knows the New York Times would never publish it.

So Krugman’s breakthrough op-ed — the most truthful assessment of 9/11 ever published in a leading American newspaper — uses the kind of double-speak championed by neoconservative guru Leo Strauss. According to Strauss, ordinary people cannot handle the truth, so “philosophers” (i.e. neocons) should feed them comforting lies…while at the same time letting the truth slip through, from between the lines, in such a way that the philosophers, who are careful readers alert to multiple meanings, will understand the half-hidden message.

Krugman passes the buck for his, and the rest of the liberal media’s, failure to report 9/11 honestly:

The thing was, people just didn’t want to hear about this reality.

Maybe they didn’t want to hear it. But if the New York Times had published screaming headline after screaming headline from 9/12/2001 onward about…

*the controlled demolitions

*the bizarre “failure” of America’s air defenses

*the Israeli celebrations (and huge pre-9/11 operation in America)

*the Secret Service’s behavior in the Florida school where Bush was reading about pet goats

*the absurdity of the “hijackings” narrative

*the grotesquely un-Islamic behavior of the “Islamic extremist” alleged hijackers

*the complete lack of evidence of a plane crash at the Shanksville “Flight 93 crash site”

*the fact that at least nine alleged hijackers turned up alive afterwards

… the American people would have listened, risen up, and overthrown an evil regime that was bent on shredding the Constitution, doubling the military budget, and bankrupting America with wars aimed primarily at genocidally destroying the Middle East for the benefit of expansionist Israel.

The biggest and worst failure after 9/11 was the failure of the media to report the facts. Krugman and the rest of his liberal media colleagues who dropped the ball are complicit in the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated: The murder of 32 million Muslims in a genocidal war aimed at utterly destroying the Middle East, the annihilation of American Constitutional democracy, the bankrupting of the US and global economies, and the wholesale shifting of scarce resources away from taking care of people and building sustainable infrastructure, towards ever-escalating technologies and practices of wholesale destruction and mass murder.

The CONSCIENCE of a liberal?! I suspect that Krugman is suffering from bad conscience, and the disguised doublespeak version of 9/11 truth that he is telling in the NY Times op-ed pages is the rather pathetic result.

I hope and pray that Krugman and others in similar positions will follow the lead of those who, like leading Islamic Studies expert Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, have been driven by their consciences to speak more forthrightly about 9/11.

September 11, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

BDS – Expressing Solidarity while Conducting Trade with Israel Is Hypocrisy

By Miko Peled | American Herald Tribune | September 11, 2017

Israel is all geared up for war against all for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and the de-legitimization of the Zionist state. The ministry of strategic affairs headed by Gil’ad Erdan – which is charged with this task – is now equipped with a budget, a former Israeli army general, retired Brig. General Sima Vakini-Gil who acts as the ministry’s General Director and a new assistant to the General Director, Tsahi Gavrieli who has brought a new wind to the sails of the anti-BDS ship. Gavrieli brought in a team that includes legal experts, economists and media people and according to a story recently published in Hebrew on Ynet they call on the Israeli public to take part in the campaign. According to the story, some parts of the campaign are overt and some covert, and the ministry will no longer be on the defensive but take an active, offensive position. Israelis are now encouraged to join this campaign with apps like ACT.IL which shows how to take the fight on social media and combat the “slurs” against Israel.

According to Gavrieli the BDS movement is losing ground in the US, and he brings as examples recent laws passed by over twenty states that criminalize the call to boycott Israel. Among those states are California, New York and New Jersey, to name a few. Currently there is a bill being proposed in the United States Senate that proposed to make the call to boycott Israel a federal offense that will carry a twenty-year prison sentence and a one million dollar fine. This bill was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU in a letter that was sent to members of the United States Senate. Gavrieli also claims that the BDS call is a “masked attempt to de-legitimize Israel by calling for Palestinian rights.” He said that the claim made by the BDS movement that Israel is an apartheid regime “is insulting to South Africans” and that it is “baseless.” “I call on every Israeli,” says Gavrieli “to take part in this.”

The aims of the BDS movement could not be more clearly stated, and all one needs to do is read them to see that the lies being spread by the State of Israel and its supporters, are unfounded. The call for BDS calls to impose Boycott, divestment and sanctions on the state of Israel until such time that the military occupation is ended, Palestinian citizens of Israel enjoy equal rights, and Palestinian refugees are permitted to return to their homes and their land. There is no racism, no hate and no discrimination of any kind is suggested or implied. It is an unequivocal demand to bring the Zionist State to do what is needed to achieve these goals. We must remember that negotiations with consecutive Israeli governments have all have failed and Israel has made it clear that it has no intention to end its policies of occupation, killing, dispossession and racist discrimination and its demand that the Palestinians capitulate.

It is worth reviewing and replying to remarks made by Senator Chuck Schumer regarding BDS at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum on June 5, 2017. “Sometimes anti-Semitism is cloaked, hidden by certain movements that profess no bias but suspiciously hold Israel—and, by extension, the Jewish people—to a different standard than others.” This is in fact a very dangerous statement that could very well be misconstrued. Is the Senator implying that that all Jews should be held accountable for the acts of the government of Israel?

“There is no greater example than this insidious effort to harm the Jewish state than through the boycotts, divestment and sanctions” Schumer continued, and the question that begs to be asked here is, was South Africa harmed by the call to boycott the Apartheid regime? Certainly not the Black South Africans. “The global BDS movement is a deeply biased campaign aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish state,” Schumer says, yet nothing in the demands of the BDS call or the actions of the BDS movement speak of destroying or getting rid of the Jewish State. Rather, the demands call to improve the conditions in which Palestinians live, conditions that were created by Israel and for which Israel is responsible. The demands of the BDS call seek to repair the inequities within which Palestinians live, like the military occupation and lack of rights. “And” Schumer adds, “its supporters, sometimes wittingly, sometimes unwittingly, but all of them practice a modern form of anti-Semitism.” Indeed, is it wise to refer to calls for justice and equality anti-Semitism. What modern form of anti-Semitism is it which does not incite against Jews, does not call for the killing of or discrimination against Jews but rather demands inclusion of all people so that they all may enjoy the same privileges. Is Senator Schumer saying that the call for justice and freedom is antithetical to Judaism?

Tsahi Gavrieli says that there is something even more serious than the BDS movement, it is the de-legitimization of the Jewish state particularly within Jewish communities. He is right, this is a serious issue because from its very inception there was no way in which the state of Israel could be legitimized except by fraud and deception. It is a state that was established by a settler colonial movement, which means that like all settler colonial movements, it was founded on racism and the use of violence against indigenous people. Israel has been engaged in genocide, a claim easily proven by reading the Geneva Convention on the crime of Genocide: particularly article 2, a, b, and c and article 3. Furthermore, the state of Israel has been engaged in ethnic cleansing and has a legal system in which Palestinians are denied rights that are provided to Jews. Legitimizing such a state is indeed a serious if not an impossible task.

The Jerusalem Post recently published an article by Adnan Oktar who claims that BDS “serves the continuity if not the escalation of the conflict.” Indeed all resistance movements may be accused of “escalating” conflicts. According to this argument the French should not have fought the Germans during WW-2; the Algerians should not have fought the French; the Vietnamese should not have insisted on fighting the French and then the Americans. Certainly the Lebanese should not have fought the Israelis to end the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. Indeed, an entire movement that we know today as Hezbollah was created by the Lebanese for that purpose and it was successful. According to Mr. Oktar’s argument had all oppressed people been willing to die in silence the world would be a peaceful place. But would it indeed? The oppressed are always to blame for their unwillingness to remain oppressed – but resistance is a response to violence, it is never the cause of violence.

What is clear from the many articles written, conferences held, strategies contrived and laws passed regarding BDS is the following: there is nothing in this world that can stop the Palestinian struggle for justice. The call for BDS and the movement which was created because of it cannot be defeated. Boycotting Israel is the right thing to do, indeed the demands listed by the BDS call are just, reasonable and measured and every person of conscience and every government must heed this call. One would want to remind governments that claim to support the Palestinian cause, that expressing solidarity while conducting trade with Israel is hypocrisy.

September 11, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Syrian conflict is ending but US stays put

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | September 11, 2017

The Syrian government forces have broken through the ISIS’ 3-year long siege of the air base in the eastern city of Dier Ezzor. The dramatic developments in the weekend signifies for all purposes the end of the conflict in Syria. The capture of the city itself is now a forgone conclusion and with that ISIS becomes a spent force in Syria.

The covert US operation to evacuate by helicopter the ISIS commanders in Dier Ezzor last week suggests that the Pentagon accepts that the ISIS saga is ending in Syria, finally. Presumably, the ISIS and its “advisors” will now be reassigned to new theatres – such as Afghanistan. The lingering question will be: Is the US winding up business in Syria? A Russian commentary seems to think so.

On the other hand, there are reports that the rebel forces supported by the US Special Forces (with air cover) are making a dash from northern Syria to take a piece of Dier Ezzor, leaving behind the unfinished business of capturing Raqqa, ISIS’ “capital”. This risks a potential flashpoint involving them and the Russia-supported government forces in a struggle for supremacy in eastern Syria. (Reuters )

At stake are two things – one, seizure of the vast oil fields that lie to the east and north of Dier Ezzor that are the jewel in the crown of the Syrian economy; two, control of the Syrian-Iraqi border along the Euphrates and down south across which a “land bridge” could potentially connect Damascus with Tehran via Baghdad. Thus, both in economic terms as well as for geopolitical reasons, the US (encouraged by Israel) is racing against time in the final phase of the conflict to establish a military presence in the eastern and south-eastern regions of Syria.

The geopolitical reasons are three-fold: a) US would seek a “say” in any Syrian settlement; b) US hopes to challenge Iran’s cascading influence in Syria and Lebanon; and, c) US feels obliged to be a provider of security for Israel. All three factors are inter-connected. The point is, as a report in the Times of Israel underscores, Israel understands its limitations in taking on the Iranian militarily on its own steam. Gen. Yair Golan, former deputy chief of staff in the Israeli military has been quoted as saying in a stunning speech at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy last Thursday,

  • We (Israel) live in a world where we cannot operate alone not just because we have no expeditionary forces in Israel… And while we can achieve decisive victory over Hezbollah… and while we can defeat any Shia militia in Syria … we cannot fight Iran alone…  So, all right, they could affect us, we could affect them. But it’s all about attrition… If you want to gain something which is deeper, we cannot do it alone. And this is a fact of life. It’s better to admit that. We need to know our limitations.

Suffice to say, Israel will not allow the Trump administration to countenance a total US troop withdrawal from Syria. Put differently, some sort of US presence along the eastern banks of the Euphrates is on the cards on Israel’s insistence. Read an opinion piece titled Trump’s Big Decision in Syria by David Ignatius in the Washington Post last week on the debate in Washington.

Will Russia accept such an outcome? Arguably, it may suit Russia if the US is present in the region in some token form, necessitating, in turn, some sort of continued engagement with Russia, which has always been Moscow’s strategic priority. What about Turkey? Indeed, continued US alliance with the Syria Kurdish militia can only lead to the eventual consolidation of a Kurdistan in northern Syria, which Ankara abhors. But on the other hand, Turkey takes care not to collide with the US in Syria. Equally, Iran’s approach also may not be to simply “sidestep” the token American presence of a few hundred soldiers from the Special Forces and concentrate instead on the serious business of expanding its regional influence in Syria and Lebanon. Indeed, the US is unlikely to directly challenge Russia or Iran in eastern Syria, either.

What matters will be the new facts on the ground. The Syrian government forces (backed by Iranian and Hezbollah militia and Russian air power) have an edge over the US-led thrust from the north of Dier Ezzor. The highway connecting Damascus with Dier Ezzor is open for the first time in years. The Syrian forces are occupying the strategic heights in the region. On the contrary, the US has no reliable local ally other than the Syrian Kurdish militia, who from now onward will be fighting in regions inhabited by Sunni Arab tribes that are even further beyond the borders of their traditional homeland in northern Syria.

In the final analysis, therefore, at some point wisdom will dawn on the Pentagon that it is foolhardy to dream about carving out a “zone of influence” within Syria. With Saudi Arabia Qatar closing shop in Syria, and Jordan coming to terms with the Syrian regime, the US is finding that it is pretty much alone in that desolate region in the middle of nowhere. Some Iranian reports suggest that even the British bulldog is pulling out.

September 11, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Democrats Getting Ready to Lose in 2020

By Daniel Haiphong | American Herald Tribune | September 10, 2017

The New York Times reported on Labor Day weekend that top Democrats are already preparing for the 2020 election. Countless Democratic Party officials have been busy on the fundraising trail, making visits to wealthy donors in their popular vacation destinations. This includes popular names such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. The Times notes that the Democratic Party’s preparations are unprecedented this early into Donald Trump’s presidency. What the preparations reveal is both desperation and opportunism as the Democrats seek to position themselves for the next election campaign.

Democratic Party efforts to develop a campaign strategy for 2020 have focused primarily on fundraising rather than the issues affecting poor and working people. The Times article describes in great detail the excursions to Martha’s Vineyard taken by potential Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Warren has lamented in the past about the Democratic Party’s reliance on Wall Street money yet has spent much of the summer courting wealthy donors. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has emulated Warren and has spent ample time studying the online fundraising methods used by Bernie Sanders.

Some of the wealthy donors seeking to line Harris and Warren’s pockets include Boston real estate developer Richard Friedman and Oakland Athletics owner Guy Saperstein. The courtship of wealthy, capitalist donors places the Democratic Party on a losing path. Even as figures such as Harris try to learn how to appeal to Sanders voters, their fundraising activities repeat the very mistake Hillary Clinton made in her 2016 campaign. It was Clinton’s ties to Wall Street that made Bernie Sanders attractive to Democratic Party voters who found themselves in Wall Street-facilitated debt and poverty. WikiLeaks struck the final blow to Clinton’s campaign when it revealed that Hillary Clinton had used her influence over the Democratic National Committee to rig the primaries against Sanders.

The fact that Warren and Harris have not learned from Clinton’s mistakes should come as no surprise. It really isn’t up to them. The Democratic Party has long been a wholly owned political subsidiary of the corporate oligarchy. During the 2016 campaign, Bernie Sanders criticized Hillary Clinton’s financial ties to Wall Street hedge funds, military contractors, and energy conglomerates through the Clinton Foundation. However, the corporate ownership of the Democratic Party didn’t start with Hillary Clinton. This has been a decades long trend that reached its pinnacle under the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

A quick look into the Democratic Party’s top donors gives a clear picture as to why its top brass cannot break from the corporate oligarchy. Top Democratic Party donor Tom Steyer is a billionaire hedge fund investor who owns stock in the Corrections Corporation of America. Other top donors include Hedge Fund magnate Donald Sussman and co-owner of Facebook Dustin Moskovitz. These elements of the ruling class only skim the surface of the corporate patronage involved in the numerous PACs that donate to the Democratic Party in exchange for favorable political policy.  Under these conditions, trips to Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons are just part of the job of being a prospective Democratic Party presidential nominee.

But business as usual will be the death of the Democratic Party. The Clinton-Obama wing of the party remains dominant. That means opposition to universal healthcare remains the consensus in the party despite over eighty percent of Democratic voters supporting the measure. It also means that the Democratic Party will continue to support policies that simply make life harder for poor and working people. This is not to mention how establishment Democrats have taken the lead in waging endless war around the planet at the expense of all of humanity.

The Democratic Party elite hope that figureheads such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren can hide these inconvenient truths. For all of their branding as guardians of a mythical “middle class,” neither Harris or Warren possess a clean record. Warren is a staunch defender of Israel even when it conducts genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. She is also a strong supporter of sanctions against Iran. So while she gives lip service to reducing military spending and student loan debt, Warren has been historically unwilling to challenge the military machinery that contradicts her domestic policy positions.

Then there is Kamala Harris. Harris was once called the “best looking” Attorney General by none other than Barack Obama. But looks can be deceiving. Harris has defended both banks and prisons from punishment. She failed to prosecute OneWest Bank in 2013 despite ample evidence that it violated the law in over 1,000 foreclosures. The year before, Harris defended the right of prisons to inflict cruel and unusual punishment by fighting federal court supervision in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown V. Plata.

So even in the midst of Trump’s chaotic Presidency, his opponents fare little better. The system of US capitalism and empire is in crisis. Neither political party has any solutions. The broad masses of poor and working people in the US will have to look toward independent forms of political organization to achieve their interests. In the meantime, it appears the Democratic Party is preparing for another losing corporate campaign in 2020.

September 10, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Thousands of Palestinians march in mass funeral for slain imprisoned youth Raed Salhi

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – September 9, 2017

Thousands of Palestinians participated in a mass funeral on Saturday, 9 September for Raed Salhi, the Palestinian youth killed by Israeli occupation forces outside his home when they invaded Dheisheh refugee camp on 9 August in an “arrest raid.” They shot the unarmed youth nine times, left him to bleed in the streets of the camp and then imprisoned him under armed guard in the hospital for nearly a month until his death from his injuries on 3 September. The date of his funeral would have been Salhi’s 22nd birthday.

His body continued to be imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces until Karim Ajwa, Salhi’s lawyer who had been advocating for his release, filed an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court. Raed’s body was finally turned over to his family on Friday evening, 8 September, before the mass funeral on Saturday afternoon following noon prayers. The funeral was led by a group of Salhi’s young comrades from the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, carrying his body wrapped in a Palestinian flag and a PFLP banner, and all Palestinian political organizations – as well as masses of Palestinians – participated in the funeral.

His relatives, friends and comrades joined the massive procession from the Beit Jala Government Hospital to the family home in the camp to the boys’ school to the martyrs’ cemetery. The funeral was accompanied by a commercial and general strike in the city of Bethlehem which lasted until 3:00 pm. Salhi’s brother, Bassam, has also been imprisoned by occupation forces; they seized him in the camp one week after shooting Raed. He was ordered to four months in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.

The return of Salhi’s body was accompanied by the return of the body of Qutaiba Zahran, whose body had been held captive by the Israeli occupation since last month, when he was shot and killed by occupation forces at the Zaatara checkpoint south of Nablus, accused of attempting to stab occupation soldiers at the checkpoint. Qutaiba, 17, was also buried on Saturday in a funeral procession in Tulkarem.

When Salhi’s body was returned, it was met with hundreds of Palestinians who marched demanding justice and accountability for the assassination and extrajudicial killing of Salhi. Following Salhi’s funeral, intense protests broke out against occupation forces as Palestinian youth confronted occupation forces at checkpoints and military occupation sites around the city of Bethlehem.

Raed Salhi was remembered as a beloved and active member of his community. In an interview published in Middle East Eye, his brother Khaled spoke about both his love for animals and his political commitment. “Raed, whom his brother Khaled described as a cat lover who would rescue stray kittens from the street, much to his family’s displeasure, was described by several Dheisheh residents as loved by the community….Raed had also been a committed member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the main Palestinian leftist political party, since he was 15…and was imprisoned by Israel for around four months in 2014. ‘He was a good-hearted guy, he was always smiling and joking,’ Khaled said.”

“Raed was from one of the very poorest families in the camp… but he wanted to help the people as much as he could, and to educate them more,” said Naji Owdah, the director of Laylac Community Center in Dheisheh, to Middle East Eye.  Salhi was involved in a number of volunteer projects, including voluntary health days and a campaign to set up small libraries around the camp.

Salhi had been held under high security guard within Hadassah hospital, despite being unconscious and in a coma. His impoverished family members, including his mother, were denied family visits or the ability to see him, while his detention was extended several times by the Ofer military court as he lay in a coma, dying.

Before the raid in which Raed was fatally shot by invading occupation forces, he had been theatened by occupation forces, including the infamous “Captain Nidal,” the pseudonym used by the local Israeli occupation military official in charge of Dheisheh – specifically, that “Nidal” would “shoot [Raed] in front of [his] mother.”  Palestinian NGO Badil reported that Captain Nidal had threatened to “make all the youth of (Deheisha) camp disabled,” saying “I will have all of you walking with crutches and in wheelchairs.”

September 10, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Jake Wallis Simons v Craig Murray

By Craig Murray | September 9, 2017

I have been given legal advice that I am permitted to publish the formal claim and defence documents. These are much less informative than the witness statements, which I am not allowed to publish, but at least it gives you some idea what is going on.

Over 3,000 people have now contributed to my defence fund. I can not tell you how touched I am by this overwhelming support. I should add that the letters and communications from those sending good wishes but financially unable to assist are equally valuable in maintaining my morale.

This is the original Claim (view here).

This interview with Mark Lewis, the lawyer suing me, is headlined “UK’s Foremost Libel Lawyer Sets His Sights on Israel’s Enemies.” It characterises opponents of Israel as “Nazis” and opines “I am quite happy to take their homes off them… at least they can be a homeless Nazi.” I sincerely hope he does not consider me a Nazi, though plainly this case is started by my falsely being smeared as an anti-Semite. But no matter how objectionable somebody may find my views on Israel/Palestine, how does it serve justice that “at least my” wife and 8 year old son “can be homeless.” That is however precisely what Mr Lewis seeks to achieve and to be plain, he has threatened me in person with bankruptcy. The money, of course, would go to Mr Lewis and his team still more than to Mr Wallis Simons.

English libel law is recognised throughout the world as a draconian affront to democracy. Its survival is due not only to the fact that it is an invaluable tool for the wealthy to use against poor radicals, but also to the fact that libel is a very wealthy industry, feeding money to rich and influential individuals, including of course not only the libel lawyers but also the judges and court system which are all part of this massive vested interest, which is extremely well represented in the Westminster parliament.

All of which I am afraid leads me to renew my appeal for funds for my defence, which despite the extremely generous response so far, do not yet match the scale of the threat. I should say that I was extremely depressed and humiliated a few days ago in having to ask for money in this way, but the response has been so overwhelming and so kind, and accompanied by so many warm words for my work over the years, that the feelings of deep shame have been completely displaced by gratitude, friendship and affection.

Contributions toward defense at bottom of page here.

September 9, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Illinois governor candidate ditches running mate in Israel boycott row

RT | September 8, 2017

Illinois governor candidate Daniel Bliss has dropped Carlos Ramirez-Rosa as his running mate following Rosa’s alleged support of a Palestinian group calling to boycott Israel.

Rosa’s support for the Palestinian-led ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ (BDS) movement was the reason he was dropped from the ticket, Biss said in a statement.

BDS calls for companies to stop doing business with Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories.

The Democratic state senator wrote that Rosa told him he opposed the group prior to being chosen. Rosa’s position on the issue then changed, Biss claimed.

“I strongly support a two-state solution. I support Israel’s right to exist, and I support Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. I also care deeply about justice for Palestinians, and believe that a vision for the Middle East must include political and economic freedom for Palestinians,” Biss wrote, adding “That’s why I oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, as I believe it moves us further away from a peaceful solution.”

In a Facebook post, Rosa wrote that while he and Biss “both oppose pursuing BDS at the state level, the difference of opinion we have on the role the BDS movement plays at the federal level would make it impossible to continue moving forward as a ticket.”

Rosa did not immediately respond to RT’s request for comment.

Before Biss made his decision to drop Rosa, he lost the endorsement of Democratic Congressman Brad Schneider, who cited Rosa’s “past comments about the United States support of our ally Israel, and his affiliation with a group that is an outspoken supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.”

Schneider was referring to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a political organization, which passed a resolution supporting BDS.

Rosa joined DSA in March.

“I said, if someone could run for president of the United States and say ‘I’m a democratic socialist,’ then, hell, I can come out of the closet. I’ve come out of the closet before,” Rosa told the Chicago Reader, referring to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Rosa, 28, is the first openly gay Latino to serve on Chicago’s City Council. He is also the youngest current alderman.

“I was asked to join the ticket to even more strongly advocate for the critical issues facing this state, such as medicare for all, a $15 living wage today, affordable childcare, and free college tuition,” Rose wrote in his statement.

On Friday, Biss announced his new running mate – Democratic State Congresswoman Litesa Wallace.

“As a woman of color, she understands that justice and opportunity are not equally distributed and in fact are not available to many. As a champion for social and economic justice, she’s a proven fighter for the issues and people that Illinois government so often forgets about,” Biss said of Wallace in a video statement.

Wallace’s views on BDS were not immediately clear.

The international community has long called for a two-state solution in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians where the two peoples would eventually live in separate states. Israel had formally agreed to the two-state solution but has yet to take any practical steps to make it happen.

In August, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Israel’s continued construction of settlements on what the UN recognizes as Palestinian territories was illegal and a “major obstacle” to achieving a two-state solution and peace with the Palestinians.

Read more

Israel is ‘key driver’ of Palestinian hardships in occupied territories – UN report

Israel Army stages mock war against Hezbollah, biggest exercise in 20yrs

September 8, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Randi Weingarten Continues AFT Presidents’ Practice Of Co-opting The Union For Israel

IRmep | September 5, 2107

In this short documentary,  Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), speaks to J Street about her support for Israel.

As she sees it, there are people on one side of a chasm who support Israel unconditionally – “never mind the occupation or democracy” – and people on the other side of the chasm who think Israel is evil and doesn’t have a right to exist, which “justifies BDS, or worse, violence and terrorism.”

The question is posed: does this position represent the teachers?

Under past AFT presidents as well as Weingarten, the union has passed a startling number of pro-Israel resolutions. She is following in their footsteps.

In a C-SPAN interview, Weingarten explained her efforts to overcome bigotry and hate among students by enlisting help from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The legitimacy of the ADL is brought into question: viewers are provided with a long list of shady dealings in which ADL has participated in the past.

The documentary suggests that “the ADL is not an entity that should be allowed to infiltrate US law enforcement or serve as a resource within the American education system.

The big question is, “Have Randi Weingarten and past AFT presidents abused their positions as leaders to co-opt the largest US teachers union into advancing the interests of a foreign country?”

Related articles:

IMEMC Report: Israel Demolishes 3 Schools Days before Start of 2017 School Year

Israeli Soldiers Invade an Orphanage School in Jerusalem

Hedge fund billionaire creates charter schools that teach about Israel, “the Jewish miracle of the 20th century”

September 7, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Is “Jewish Supremacy” a Form of Racism? The Zionist Exception

By Rima Najjar | Global Research | September 3, 2017

Today, we hear a lot about White supremacy but very little about Jewish supremacy, as if the former stands for the latter.

It is true there are more similarities than differences between Jewish supremacy and White supremacy. Both are based on ethnic/nationalist bias and racism. They are both

“historically based, institutionally perpetuated system[s] of exploitation and oppression … a web of interlocking, reinforcing institutions: economic, military, legal, educational, religious, and cultural. As a system, racism affects every aspect of life in a country.”

Within Israel and militarily occupied Palestinian lands, Jewish supremacy is sometimes described as White supremacy, as in this headline:

“Israel’s White Supremacy Agenda Targets Other Jews, Arabs, Africans
Palestinians are not the only target for Israel’s animosity and ethno-centric policies.”

This is because, contrary to Zionist myth, Jews don’t all belong to one race. The Jews who created the racist ideology of Zionism and initially colonized Palestine between 1882 and 1903 (at least 25,000 Jews arrived in Palestine, financially backed by European Jewish philanthropists, such as Moses Montefiore and Edmond de Rothschild) are Ashkenazim, Jews of Eastern European origin. (see Palestine and the first Zionist Colony)

Ashkenazi Jews are the elite of Israel and they dominate and discriminate against, not only Palestinian Arabs, but also other Jews and ethnicities in Israel.

The situation in the West Bank settlement of Immanuel exposes the deeply complex ethno-religious relations between European Jews and Middle Eastern Jews in Israel. Middle Eastern Jews have for many decades lived as stigmatized citizens of Israel; their traditional Arabic culture and form of Jewish religiosity frequently objects of scorn and prejudice… In spite of the fact that Sephardim comprise a substantial percentage of the Israeli Jewish population, in socio-cultural terms they find themselves in a subservient position vis-à-vis the Ashkenazim.

However, there are two major differences between the two racist ideologies, White supremacy and Jewish supremacy:

1) In so-called “liberal” circles, White supremacy is uniformly reviled, whereas Jewish supremacy, as it manifests itself in Zionism, is not only accepted but fiercely defended even by those Middle Eastern or Arab Jews mentioned above, who have internalized Zionist racism.

2) Jewish supremacy is wrapped up, not only in a secular Zionist ideology, but in a religious one as well, attracting Jews and evangelical Christians from all kinds of backgrounds and ethnicities.

In the wake of Charlottesville, for example, the ADL — Anti-Defamation League reported that it saw 1,000% spike in donations. The ADL is a Jewish supremacist organization, but it can masquerade in the United States as an anti-racist organization. As If Americans Knew reports, the ADL

“works to maintain the racist status quo in Israel-Palestine, which keeps Palestinians in Israel as third-class citizens and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank & Gaza stateless and without basic civil rights.”

It also keeps Palestinian refugees and exiles from returning to their homes and land, an internationally recognized right.

In 1994, while eulogizing Baruch Goldstein, a Brooklyn born Jew who had emigrated to Israel and killed 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers at Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, New York Rabbi Yaacov Perrin said,

“One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.”

He was defining the essence of Jewish supremacy that now reigns supreme in all of historic Arab Palestine.

Accepting the concept of Jewish supremacy in Palestine, As Sari Nusseibeh wrote,

would be [among other things] to privilege Judaism above the religions of Christianity and Islam, whose adherents together comprise 55 per cent of the world’s population. Regrettably this is a narrative propagated even by renowned Jewish author and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who, on April 15, 2010, took out full page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post and claimed that Jerusalem “is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture — and not a single time in the Qur’an”. Now we do not propose to speak for native Palestinian Arab Christians — except to say that Jerusalem is quite obviously the city of Jesus Christ the Messiah — but as Muslims, we believe that Jerusalem is not the “third holiest city of Islam” as is sometimes claimed, but simply one of Islam’s three holy cities. And, of course, despite what Mr Wiesel seems to believe, Jerusalem is indeed clearly referred to in the Holy Qur’an in Surat al-Isra’ (17:1) …

Zionist Jews in and out of Israel must confront the reality that Jewish supremacy in Israel, as David Lloyd wrote about Americans and White supremacy in the U.S., “is an intrinsic if shameful element in their history and institutions whose consequences have yet to be overcome.”

The question then arises why so many Jewish liberal Zionists are blind to their own racism against Palestinian Arabs while condemning racism by other groups.

In addressing this conundrum related to the Palestine exception (or Zionist exception) — an exception that involves not only censorship of pro-Palestine speech but also bald-faced, legitimized racism against Palestinian Arabs that extends to Muslims generally – Philip Weiss writes:

I make it a point to hear Rabbi Yehuda Kurtzer speak at J Street and other Jewish spaces. He is a very smart guy and very positive. While he’s too Jewish-communitarian for my taste (the touchstones of his political judgments are Jewish values rather than universalist ones), he’s an idealist who addresses Israel’s crisis. So, I was disturbed to discover on his Facebook page from June a promotion of a visit to rightwing “hilltop” settlements in the Occupied West Bank to get to know those folks better, sponsored by the Shalom Hartman Institute, of which Kurtzer is an executive.

Weiss is justifiably disturbed to hear this from Rabbi Yehuda Kurtzer on three grounds. One is because “those settlements are illegal under international law”. The second is because they are “segregationist” communities, and the third is because of the schizophrenia involved in “condemning and exposing” White nationalism on the one hand, and seeking to understand “the settler movement” (meaning the spread of Jewish Zionist colonization of Palestine to the remaining territory that was partitioned in 1948) on the other.

To me, there is no mystery in the conundrum with which Weiss is concerned.

These liberal American Jews (both religious and secular) don’t know any better because they are committed to Israel as a Jewish state, just as Jews on the right of the political spectrum are.

They see no shame or contradiction in that position because they have swallowed whole the Zionist narrative that defines their identity as Jews, including the inability to see Palestinian Arabs as fellow human beings with fundamental human rights.

So, to me, the problem of Jewish supremacy or nationalism as it manifests itself in Palestine is the fundamental problem of Zionism — its immoral racialist and racist premise.

It makes no difference which brand of Zionism got the upper hand in Palestine, whether it is the nationalism of Theodor Hertzl (i.e., as a response to external pressures that were impossible to avoid — meant for Jews “who do not wish or are unable to assimilate”) or the nationalism of Ahad Ha-Am, to whom the possibility of total assimilation of Jews into their host societies was unacceptable, because the Jewish people were morally superior to all other people.

Today we have a situation in which millions of Jews, whether “assimilated” into their countries of origin or not, believe that Israel has a “right” to exist as a Jewish state and that Palestine belongs to Jews worldwide and not to its indigenous inhabitants regardless of religion or ethnicity.

That, to me, is the disturbing element of all Zionists, including the liberal Zionists Weiss addresses. They want Israel to “exist” as a Jewish state on land forcefully usurped and stolen from under the feet of its true owner, the Palestinian people, who continue to suffer as refugees and in exile as well as in Palestine under military occupation and under Apartheid.

Israel’s existence as a Jewish state is disturbing. Jewish supremacy whether rearing its ugly head in West Bank settlements or embodying the very existence of Israel is the nightmare.

A recent survey has found that nearly half of Israeli Jews believe in ethnic cleansing. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin reportedly called the findings a ‘wake-up call for Israeli society’. But what is it that these people should wake up to? The Jewish state was founded on ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs and defends its “existence” by continuing to ethnicly cleanse Palestinians. That’s what they should wake up to — the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

The Jewish supremacist state of Israel must come to an end as such. The goal of exposing Israel’s crimes and the immorality of its supporters is to seek transformative justice in Palestine – to de-Zionize.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

Copyright © Rima Najjar, Global Research, 2017

September 7, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Why Israel is flexing muscles at Hezbollah

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | September 7, 2017

The Israeli armed forces began a massive fortnight-long military exercise on Tuesday, billed as the biggest in the past 19 years, simulating a war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The Jerusalem Post reported that “thousands of soldiers and reservists from all different branches of the IDF (cyber, intelligence, ground forces, the air force and the navy) are going to coordinate their operations as during wartime.”

Hezbollah has reacted with disdain, a top official taunting Israel, “we are ready for any attack or Israeli stupidity.” He added, “The Israelis won’t succeed in surprising us, because Israel knows full well [what] Hezbollah’s capabilities are after the loss it suffered in 2006 [in the Second Lebanon War], which deterred the IDF.”

Israel’s advantage will be that Hezbollah is embroiled in other conflicts, in particular the Syrian conflict. Hezbollah’s capability, on the other hand, has vastly increased since 2006 and there is some merit in its claim of being “the second largest military in the Middle East,” apart from having at least 100,000 rockets aimed at Israeli targets. Logically speaking, a war is improbable but then, nothing is beyond the realms of possibility in the Middle East region.

Israel will be sorely tempted to test Hezbollah’s increased capabilities now rather than later, because a point of no return may be reached soon and will have a hard time holding itself back. The fact of the matter is that Israel is coming face to face with a new security paradigm that would have seemed incredible even six months ago. The spectre that haunts Israel today is that for the first time since the 1967 war, the balance of forces is shifting adversely.

Sharmine Narwani, a seasoned Beirut-based analyst of Middle East politics (and a personal friend of mine) has written an insightful piece in the American Conservative connecting the dots and explaining how a once-favorable balance of power has suddenly shifted in a direction that clips Israel’s wings.” She analyses that for a start, Israel is failing spectacularly in its attempt to dictate the limits to Iran’s presence in post-conflict Syria.

Israel knocked on the doors of the Trump White House to get the US troops to take on the responsibility of the so-called de-escalation zone in southern Syria bordering Golan Heights. But the Pentagon cold-shouldered the idea. Thereafter, three weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travelled to Sochi to meet President Vladimir Putin to convey a veiled threat that Israel may choose to intervene if Russia did not rein in Iran’s influence in Syria. Putin, it seems, was also unimpressed.

In fact, the magnificent victory this week by the Syrian government forces in breaking the ISIS’ 840-day siege of the eastern Syrian city Dier Ezzor in the Euphrates Valley was possible only with the participation side-by-side by the Russian Special Forces, Iranian militia and Hezbollah. Moscow may have sent a strong signal to Netanyahu when RT, which is closely identified with the Kremlin, featured an unprecedented interview with the Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Kassem on Tuesday where he thoroughly denounced Israel’s “main part in Syria’s destruction” having been “an important supporter of the armed opposition, especially in the southern part of Syria.”

But there are other dimensions to the emergent security scenario as well that are worrying Israel. One, Hezbollah has successfully cleaned up the border regions separating Lebanon and Syria, where there was a big presence of the extremist Syrian opposition groups, including ISIS (some of which had enjoyed covert Israeli backing.) That has “freed up Hezbollah forces for deployment on other fronts – including its southern border with Israel.” It is a matter of time now before Hezbollah goes for the jugular veins of the extremist groups, especially the al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front, which are ensconced in the border of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (with Israeli support.) If and when that happens, Hezbollah (and Iran) would be Israel’s next-door neighbor in the Golan Heights.

Additionally, Jordan, which used to be Israel’s main staging post for operations in Syria, is showing signs of “defecting” to the Russian side. This is not surprising because Jordan sees the writing on the wall, especially after the Gulf Arab states began distancing themselves from the Syrian cauldron in the most recent months. Russia has been quietly cultivating Jordan. The Saudi establishment media organ Al-Arabiya carried a report on Monday to the effect that Jordan is edging toward re-opening relations with Syria and that Damascus is reciprocating the sentiment. It quoted a Syrian official as saying, “Hearts in Syria and Jordan still beat for each other and this reflects the Arab people’s longing for the project of reawakening and liberation.”

Meanwhile there are signs that Turkey may mediate a normalization between Jordan and Iran, too. What Israel is unlikely to overlook is that Hamas is also re-establishing links with Tehran. The new Hamas leader Yehiyeh Sinwar was quoted as saying on Monday that Iran is now “the largest backer financially and militarily” to Hamas’ armed wing. (Fox News)

So, we get here an interesting regional line-up of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Jordan, Iraq and Iran which have a shared antipathy toward Israel for one reason or the other. Paradoxically, the recent spat within the Gulf Cooperation Council has erased the sectarian divide in the regional politics, which of course has a multiplier effect on Iran’s regional influence. Equally, Israel is viewed as a key patron of the Kurdish separatist movement in Iraq, while Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran have congruent interest in preventing, no matter what it takes, the emergence of an independent Kurdistan on the regional map. All in all, therefore, the victory in the Syrian war greatly boosts Iran’s regional standing and gives it land access to the East Mediterranean coast.

Read Sharmine Narwani’s article Israel’s Geopolitical Gut Check, here.

September 7, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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