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UN Agency Unveils Action Plan To Regulate Speech on Social Media Platforms

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2023

Yet another United Nations agency – this time the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – has joined the contentious efforts to use UN resources in the “war on misinformation.”

UNESCO is not lagging behind some of the veterans of this “war” regarding the kind of alarmist language its leadership is choosing to use to justify the policy.

Thus, Director-General Audrey Azoulay presented an action plan, saying that online disinformation is “a major threat to stability and social cohesion.”

A press release announcing the plan referred to the phenomenon of misinformation as “a scourge” and one that is intensifying. Those behind all this must hope that this is enough to explain what UNESCO – formerly known mostly for protection of world heritage sites and raising funds for underprivileged children – is even doing “fighting disinformation.”

But here’s the plan: to somehow not harm freedom of speech, and yet push for social media companies to hire more “moderators” that speak all the major languages and whose job would be “effective control of content.”

A lot of attention seems to be given to strengthening censorship capacities in languages other than English; that could explain why, according to UNESCO’s statement, the plan has received support particularly from some countries in Latin America and Africa.

Over the past number of years, the whole world could see how efficiently the notion of “misinformation” and the tools to counter it can be turned into proper weapons of censorship; there is likely no shortage of governments that would like to replicate what has been happening in English speaking countries.

“Electoral integrity” also crops up in the press release announcing the UNESCO initiative, and here the proposed solution is “risk assessment” as well as flagging content, more “transparency” around political ads – and who they are meant to target.

Finally, UNESCO somehow manages to work its core task and purpose into the whole thing – namely, culture. And that’s done by calling for “highlighting the risks faced by artists and the need for online access to ‘diverse cultural content’ (quotation marks here are UNESCO’s) as a fundamental human right.”

As for who needs any of this from UNESCO, and why – the agency justified its involvement by mentioning an opinion poll it commissioned, involving 8,000 respondents in 16 countries.

And because “85% of citizens are worried about the impact of online disinformation (on elections)” – we now have this “action plan.”

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

The Israel Exception to Free Speech

Israel’s stranglehold on American foreign policy must be identified and eliminated

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Last Tuesday there took place a disgraceful display of visceral malignancy in the United States House of Representatives Chamber in the south wing of the Capitol building. The House, long characterized by its aversion to truth, justice and what was once the American way, has been corrupted by special interests who have effectively bought an overwhelming majority of legislators, to include the leadership of the two major political parties. In the area of foreign policy, as well as a spill-over into many domestic and constitutional issues, there is no more powerful lobby than that of the state of Israel, and its power was on full display on Tuesday afternoon when Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured for the crime of being of Palestinian ancestry and speaking up against the ongoing genocide of her people by the Jewish state. Nearly all Republicans voted to condemn her together with a considerable number of her fellow Democrats.

On the following day, the White House added its own condemnation of Tlaib, referring specifically to the phrase “from the river to the sea” used by her, a slogan conveniently regarded by some like the fanatical Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an Arab rallying cry for the eradication of Israel. ADL’s ghastly director Jonathan Greenblatt inevitably equates use of the phrase with “antisemitism” and ADL insists that “’From the River to the Sea’ is a Hamas call to annihilate Israel” while also “claiming [that] it is a rally of coexistence [which] gives cover to terror.” Tlaib, for her part, was resurrecting a memory of the Palestine that once was, and she has asserted that the slogan is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate.” Pro-Palestinian protesters do also use the slogan as a plea for their long-delayed nationhood, but groups like ADL prefer to claim that the activity provides “material support for Hamas,” and, as Hamas is a US listed terrorist group, that equates to aiding terrorists. Tlaib had also particularly angered the White House through her recently posted online video that accused President Biden of supporting genocide in the Gaza Strip, a seemingly undisputable assertion.

One might argue that even Congressmen are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Bill of Rights does not apply when Israel is concerned, either in the halls of Congress or on college campuses, where Palestinian groups are being harassed and banned. The Tlaib censure vote can be seen as part of the bipartisan effort to protect the state of Israel from any and all criticism. Rashida Tlaib broke no law, did not threaten anyone, nor did she call for the destruction of any nation, yet she was excoriated by a series of her comrade-speakers in the House for something akin to a crime against humanity due to her turning against what was repeatedly described as one of America’s closest allies, a best friend and the only democracy in the Middle East, all of which are lies. Israel is no ally, which would require a certain reciprocity, a word that apparently does not exist in Hebrew. And in the current crisis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated that he will not be moved by US interests to mitigate the slaughter no matter how much Blinken-Biden suck up to him to make him budge. And as for the claim of democracy, Israel only grants citizenship with full rights to Jews, hardly a democratic measure. Apparently, cutting off the massive amounts of US aid, including the current $14.5 billion to pay for exterminating the Palestinians, is not even on the table. Israel will always get its pound of flesh and will call all the shots in its relationship with Washington.

Tlaib’s comments are in the context of a White House that believes it is free to send bombs to Israel to slaughter Palestinian children — without even revealing how many plane loads of weapons have been delivered or are on their way. And then there are members of Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who are free to advocate a “total war” against what he calls “the most extremist population on Earth,” i.e. the Palestinians. But verbal criticism of what is clearly a genocide and a massive violation of international law that has the US government as an accessory in a war crime is impermissible and there are even concerns that the Tlaib censure could become the foundation for a criminalization of any criticism of Israel under the assumption that all critics are ipso facto antisemites and the comments themselves amount to a “hate crime.”

Consider for a moment the precedents to Tlaib’s disgrace who are still in office untouched by any procedural steps to define what are acceptable rights of legislators. Beyond Senator Lindsey Graham’s unchallenged invitation to a mass murder, there is Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey whose apparent tendency to accept bribes has been a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. Both men are still walking around free of censure!

Israel’s love of the United States is only skin deep, if it is as much as that. Recall for a moment the comments by Israeli prime ministers on the nature of the relationship. Consider Ariel Sharon’s 2001 comment: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it… I don’t care what the American people think, I own the congress!” Or Netanyahu’s famous quip also in 2001: “America is a thing you can move very easily!” So that is what “America’s best friend’s” leadership actually thinks about the United States and its people! It is a cash cow to be milked and otherwise exploited for political cover before being disposed of when its usefulness is gone.

Sharon also famously said “I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian, I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.” It squares the circle on why the Gazans erupted in rage on October 7th. Palestine was one nation from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea when Israel was founded in 1948. Since that time, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinians for three quarters of a century, has stolen and plundered their land, has replaced or eradicated hundreds of villages, has besieged Gaza for nearly 2 decades, and has engaged in mass starvation and now in genocidal mass killing. In the fighting preceding Israel’s independence, three quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes and sent into refugee camps by Israeli militias, together with tens of thousands who were killed outright. Now the refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed together with churches, hospitals, schools and apartment blocks and we have only just learned that some Israeli officials are considering using one of their nuclear bombs to completely wipe out Gaza. It is surprising that the Palestinians have shown as much restraint as they have.

Given the damage that a corrupting Israel has done to America’s political system, it is important to ask what good the relationship with Israel has done for the average American whose tax dollars support the Zionist enterprise together with its plan to remove the Palestinians. The answer is that nothing good has come out of the so-called alliance, which has cost the US $260 billion in direct aid adjusted for inflation since 1946. Plus there is the large sum of $14.5 billion more recently approved and pending currently as some kind of war fund to enable Netanyahu to crush the Palestinians. Israel regularly gets $3.8 billion yearly in direct aid from the US Treasury, a gift from Barack Obama, that is more than what goes to all other countries combined. And there is also more-or-less “off the books” considerable additional money from special and joint military projects, dubious charities and state level development boards that bring the total up to roughly $10 billion per year, which does not include the billions in financial aid that are in reality bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan to maintain peace with the Jewish state. The handout from Uncle Sam helps make Israel a very wealthy country which can afford to give its Jewish citizens free health care and college education as well as subsidized housing.

And being joined at the hip to the Jewish state has a considerable downside, requiring the use of the US United Nations veto at regular intervals to protect the client state as well as involvement in unneeded wars in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Libya with Iran coming up next. Nor has Israel hesitated to kill Americans when it felt that the US was not fully supportive of its interests and the White House is so constrained by its “alliance” that it has essentially covered up the crimes against its own citizens. Last year’s sniper killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which produced only a whimper from the Jewish dominated State Department, plus acceptance of Israeli lies about the incident, is a prime example. And then there is the killing of 34 sailors and the injuring of 172 more on the USS Liberty in international waters on June 8th 1967. The US Navy largely unarmed intelligence ship was monitoring the ongoing fighting with Egypt when it was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Efforts to send US aircraft carrier warplanes to assist the ship were called back by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also orchestrated a cover-up exonerating Israel from blame. One hopes he and his Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara are now burning in hell.

The US government is so averse to challenging Israel that many believe that there are other unrevealed influences at play, possibly to include the Jeffrey Epstein/Mossad pedophile sex trafficking caper. It has long been true that candidates for high office in the US are approached by agents of the Zionist lobby and coerced into signing a pledge to support Israel. In return, the candidates who accept receive substantial political contributions and positive media. If they say “no” they are frequently targeted for defeat and go the way of Cynthia McKinney, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley.

Congressman James Traficant of Ohio was perhaps the most aggressive voice in Congress in the 1980s and 1990s in expressing a critique of Israel’s power. He was inevitably controversial and was eventually imprisoned for seven years on a corruption charge that many subsequently considered to be a government set up. He had argued, among other things, that “Israel has a powerful stranglehold on the American government” explaining how Israel was “controlling much of our foreign policy” and “influencing much of our domestic policy.” He claimed quite plausibly that former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz, working for Israel, had “manipulated” President George W. Bush into the disastrous invasion of Iraq.

Traficant maintained in the 1990s that “We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody’s afraid to say it. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress. They own the Congress.” If Traficant were still with us, he would be astonished to see how Jewish influence has actually increased, with 35 states having some rules or legislation punishing advocates of boycotts of Israel and bills currently before congress authorizing automatic war against Iran and even the expulsion of Palestinians from the US. The State Department has an ambassador who monitors so-called antisemitism and the White House has recently declared a war against what it describes as “surging antisemitism.”

Currently, everyone opposing the US engagement with Israel in its extermination of the Arab population in the area it controls is being labeled an anti-semite and speaking up for the Palestinians is becoming a good way to get kicked out of university and unemployed. Israel’s friends are busy compiling lists of students who support the Palestinians and are working on schemes to circulate their names to deny them jobs once they graduate. Rashida Tlaib is only the latest affront to the dignity and common sense of the US Constitution but she is certainly not going to be the last victim of the Jewish lobby, which must be labeled for what it is, made to register as the agent of the Israeli apartheid state, and excluded from unilaterally making the policies that all of us Americans have to pay the price for in the Middle East.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden regime moves to clamp down on pro-Palestine student groups in US

By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | November 8, 2023

Since the onset of the Al Aqsa Storm Operation more than a month ago, the US has seen an unprecedented level of support and solidarity for the Palestinian people and resistance.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets in different US cities, not only condemning the Zionist regime for its horrific war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip and the ongoing occupation but for the US government’s direct role in supporting such crimes.

A particular note has to be made regarding the role of young people – specifically university student groups and coalitions – who have organized marches, rallies, speakouts, walkouts, and more.

Organizations such as the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Muslim Students Association (MSA), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and others have not only devoted much of their time and energy championing the Palestinian cause on campuses – but have done so with tremendous bravery.

These demonstrators have been braving great risks and threats from pro-Israel lobbies.

Anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are conflated in the political mechanisms of the United States. These political tendencies, which are really just Zionist propaganda points, are also disseminated into college campuses through special interest organizations and the academic curriculum itself.

Pro-Palestine organizers put themselves at great risk with their activities – groups like the “Anti-Defamation League” or other Zionist groups often target activists to smear or doxx them.

Despite this, the Palestinian cause has become unshakable on campuses. From prestigious universities like Harvard to the small-town community college, the Palestinian struggle is making itself known – and it has turned heads. So much so that the federal government is now taking action to clamp down on it.

The Joe Biden administration, revising Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, asserted a new, egregious clarification to the 1964 law – insisting it prohibits “certain forms of antisemitic, Islamophobic, and related forms of discrimination in federally funded programs and activities.”

It is worth noting that the update to the civil rights legislation is being done directly through the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

Clearly, the ongoing struggle for Palestinian freedom has struck a nerve with the Biden administration.

Adding this clarification would threaten universities with having federal funding pulled – which many universities cannot exist without – if the federal government deems the university is breeding “anti-semitism.”

Anti-Semitism, under the Biden administration’s official definition, conflates criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.

Through this egregious conflation, Zionist groups can play the victim as they notoriously do and claim that cases of anti-semitism are on the rise when that is simply not the case. Calls for Palestinian liberation is on the rise, which the state – through its legal definition – deems as “anti-Semitic.”

The definition lays the groundwork for enforcing a total ban on all pro-Palestine student activity as the very nationhood of Palestine is under direct threat by the US-backed Israeli occupation regime.

Every and any act of solidarity with Palestine on university campuses could mean arrest or expulsion.

Through bureaucratic measures, the Biden administration – and those that would follow after – could crack down on Pro-Palestine groups within universities by forcing the university to either comply with its new definition of anti-semitism – or face all of its federal funding being revoked.

Universities would then be the ones forced to stop Palestine solidarity demonstrations – and not an arm of the state, which would likely invite different legal hassles and challenges.

The Biden administration is moving fast to enforce this unpopular measure – more than 200 security experts at the Department of Homeland Security have now been deployed to schools to “monitor antisemitism” according to a White House official.

The state is acknowledging that it is devoting a significant amount of resources to prevent the spread of the Palestinian freedom movement.

And as such, some universities are already caving in to Zionist and state pressure.

Brandeis University, in Massachusetts, has completely banned the Students for Justice in Palestine organization. The local SJP chapter was then forced to cancel a vigil they had planned for Monday night to honor the 10,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza by US-funded bombs used by the Zionist regime.

Other states are experiencing more heavy-handed repression. Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has issued a complete ban on Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

Of course, legal action is always an option on the table. But the process can be lengthy, and full of different obstacles – such as money, time, and ongoing threats from the state and Zionist lobby.

This is by design – slowing down the rapidly growing march of the Palestinian cause on universities is pivotal for the Biden administration as it brazenly defends Israeli war crimes.

So even if the student groups could win a legal case, this critical moment in US politics would be something the student organizations could not legally pursue through campus mechanisms.

The binding false definition that ties anti-Semitism to anti-Zionism will be the primary legal hurdle, and not just in universities.

By using this standard on campuses, it is plausible to extend it to cities too – threatening to cut federal funding for city projects if local authorities do not crack down on Palestinian groups and their activities.

It is a dangerous precedent being set and lays bare the hypocritical nature of freedom of speech and assembly in the United States.

The silver lining here is perhaps tied to that exactly – never before has the Palestinian cause been so powerful in the United States as it is today.

With Biden’s tanking numbers in the polls ahead of an election year, complimented by hundreds of thousands attending Palestine marches in the streets, this legislation has the potential to backfire against not only Biden but the US political apparatus as a whole.

Only time will tell what legal battles will arise from this political fiasco. But one thing is for certain: the road ahead is long, and the state should expect a fierce fight from activists who are already willing to risk their lives for Palestine.

Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.

November 8, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

US House Panel Says Disinformation ‘Pseudo-Experts’ Targeted Political Speech Online

Sputnik – 07.11.2023

WASHINGTON – US government officials used a government-linked group of disinformation pseudo-experts to launder the censorship of political speech online, the US House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government said in an interim report.

The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) – a group of purported disinformation academics led by the Stanford Internet Observatory – worked with US government officials to monitor and censor online speech ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the report, released Monday, said.

“This interim staff report details the federal government’s heavy-handed involvement in the creation and operation of the EIP, which facilitated the censorship of Americans’ political speech in the weeks and months leading up to the 2020 election,” the report said. “This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefited one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”

The House Weaponization Subcommittee released the report in conjunction with the House Judiciary Committee.

The EIP worked with the US Department of Homeland Security and other US government agencies to bypass First Amendment protections for speech through the consortium of disinformation “pseudo-experts,” the report said.

The EIP was created at the request of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the report said. US government officials would submit misinformation reports to EIP analysts, who would then recommend censorship actions to tech companies, the report added.

An “untold number” of US citizens across the political spectrum were impacted by the censorship of true information, jokes and opinions, the report said.

The House committees’ investigations into the weaponization of the federal government and violations of civil liberties remain ongoing, the report said. There is “more to come,” Judiciary and Weaponization panel chair Jim Jordan also said in a statement via social media platform X.

The American people deserve to know whether they were targeted by the US government and affiliated disinformation pseudo-experts, Jordan added.

November 7, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Soldiers Detain German Journalists in West Bank

Sputnik – 06.11.2023

The Israeli military detained a film crew from German broadcaster ARD in the West Bank and threatened journalists with weapons, the Tagesschau broadcaster, part of the ARD media group, reported on Sunday.

The journalists were detained after they filmed violence against Palestinians by radical Jewish settlers, the report said, adding that ARD in Tel Aviv sees this as a clear attack on press freedom.

“Soldiers threatened us with guns and asked if we were Jews. Our colleague was called a traitor … Journalists who want to cover events taking place in the West Bank in the shadow of the war in the Gaza Strip are apparently not allowed to do so,” ARD correspondent Jan-Christoph Kitzler said.

The situation was resolved only an hour later, after the arrival of additional Israeli military and police forces, the report added. ARD in Tel Aviv promised to hire a lawyer to determine the legal consequences of the incident.

Christian Limpert, the head of ARD-Studios Tel Aviv, said it was the second such incident this week. “For us it is the second incident within a week. Our team has clearly identified itself as an accredited press representative and was far away from military security areas. We cannot accept the actions of the Israeli military,” he said.

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Why tell the inconvenient truth?

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | November 6, 2023

There are a number of reasons people do not tell the truth. They might look to those around them and think they all believe something different and they do not want to become an outlier. They might fear they are wrong and will be humiliated. They might fear it will upset someone in power who might cause deliberate harm to them as a consequence.

Let’s take each of those in turn and show how weak and dangerous those arguments are.

Fear of becoming an outlier

The idea of the wisdom of crowds is a myth. In reality, groupthink goes terribly wrong where there are no correction mechanisms in place. Each of us is part of that correction mechanism. A crowd can only hope to be wise when it is listening to all voices. Examples of where groupthink led to very dark places is not hard to come by: the Salem witch trials, frontal lobotomies, the Stanford prison experiment. It is utter cowardice to not speak the truth simply because you want to blend in.

Psychological experiments have shown that individuals often conform to the behaviour of the majority, even if that behaviour seems obviously wrong or harmful. A classic example is the ‘bystander effect,’ where individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim when others are present. In experiments where a person appears to collapse in a public space, many bystanders often hesitate to help, waiting for someone else to take the lead. Yet, once one person steps forward, it acts as a trigger for others to spring into action. This is a clear demonstration of the power of the individual in breaking the chains of groupthink. It underscores the importance of taking initiative, being the first to stand up for what’s right, and not waiting for others to lead the way. In reality, where that is the main issue, someone who speaks truth first may well find allies readily appearing, who had been just waiting for someone else to take the first step.

Fear of humiliation

There is an easy excuse of saying I cannot speak the truth because I might be wrong, I do not know everything for certain. Of course you don’t! No one is omniscient! If everyone thought like that the only people who would speak would be the psychopaths who are not afraid of lying and then where would we be?

Yes, you might be wrong. Yes, some people might take great pleasure in that. Your ego is less important than telling the truth. If everyone set ego aside and spoke, the truth would reveal itself rapidly. All of us would be wrong along the way but at least we would start travelling towards the truth together.

Cancel Culture

Inconvenient truths upset people in powerful positions. There might indeed be consequences of speaking and you might well show me examples where the consequences for others have been severe. Silencing people through fear in this way is authoritarianism. The only antidote to that is to have the multitude speak the truth. You are a part of us getting to the point where the truth cannot be repressed through fear. The dam is about to break, the risk from speaking now is far smaller than it was earlier on. Take the risk for the sake of your children’s future.

Start small

Creating a social media profile and broadcasting to the world is not for everyone. Speaking the truth to your family, your friends and your colleagues is a fine place to start. In fact those conversations are worth many times more than communication through any screen.

If you’re uncomfortable going too far too fast then start with questions, express uncertainty, seed some doubt.

Don’t leave it too late.

The truth will set you free.

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

I was tortured, evicted from home for my media, rights work: West Bank activist

By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | November 6, 2023

There is “an announced and official war” on the besieged Gaza Strip and “an unannounced and unofficial war” on the occupied West Bank, says a Palestinian human rights activist.

Issa Amro, a prominent human rights activist based in the occupied West Bank, in an interview with the Press TV website on Monday, said the Israeli military has laid crippling siege around the territory.

He said all checkpoints have been closed in the occupied West Bank, most of the roads have also been shut, and the majority of communities are not allowed to leave their respective areas.

The Israeli regime launched an indiscriminate aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip early last month, which was followed by attacks and military raids in the occupied West Bank.

One more Palestinian man was killed by the Israeli army fire in the West Bank on Monday, taking the death toll to 154 since October 7, the Palestinian Authority-run health ministry said.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, at least 2,150 Palestinians have been detained in arbitrary military raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in the past four weeks.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, the death toll has risen to over 9,500, most of them children and women.

Amro described the detention of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as “random and arbitrary”, saying over 2,000 people have been held under the controversial “administrative detention” policy.

The West Bank-based human rights activist who has been attacked by Israeli forces on multiple occasions said Israeli settlers dressed as soldiers have been “harassing” local Palestinians and carrying out “organized violence” towards Palestinians in different villages of the occupied region.

Israeli settlers, he maintained, have been on the rampage, warning Palestinian residents, attacking them, burning their houses, and beating them up despite any provocations.

In his village, Amro said, a strict lockdown has been imposed and local inhabitants are allowed to leave their homes only on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday “for one hour each to get food and return.”

“It is not a normal life, it’s a very very bad life, and it’s a really scary life,” he told the Press TV website, adding that he was ruthlessly beaten on October 7 “for ten hours continuously” and later evicted from his home as well.

“I returned home only yesterday (Sunday) after my lawyer intervened.”

On the relentless targeting of journalists in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Amro said journalists are not even allowed to film Israeli soldiers, cover their stories, or write anything on social media.

“Journalists here are afraid of their lives, about their freedom. Many journalists have been arrested in the West Bank in last month, they were beaten up and their cameras were broken.”

Amro is a prolific writer and contributes his articles to many reputed international publications.

He told the Press TV website that he is scared for his life, like other Palestinians, including journalists – “to be shot, to be arrested, to be tortured.”

“I was myself tortured (by the Israeli military) as I shot films and spoke to media on October 7. It was due to my journalism and human rights work,” he asserted.

Amro said the Israeli regime used the Hamas operation on October 7, ‘Al-Aqsa Storm’ operation’, “to announce a war, to end what they started in 1948, the Nakba, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”

“Without a real intervention of the international community and stopping the support for Israel, it will go on killing the civilians and targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza,” he remarked.

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Thoughtcrime Arrests In Israel: “People Have Been Arrested For Saying Their Heart Was With The Children of Gaza”

It’s all following the algorithm—same as Canada, same as US—you MUST agree with your STATE

By Celia Farber | The Truth Barrier | November 5, 2023

“The police say that any slogans in favor of Gaza or against the war mean supporting terrorism… even if you say that you are, of course, against people being murdered,” Abeer Baker, a human rights lawyer representing some of the people who have been arrested, told CNN.

“The Israel Police said that as of October 25, it had arrested 110 people since the start of the war for allegedly inciting violence and terrorism, mostly on social media. Of these arrests, only 17 resulted in indictments. Most people were released without further charges, usually after a few days.

“Baker said the low number of indictments suggested that people were being arrested for making statements that are not illegal.

“People have been arrested for saying their heart was with the children in Gaza,” Baker told CNN, pointing to a widely-reported case of a comedian from northern Israel who was arrested after posting that phrase on his social media.

‘Not talking about the law’

“The Israel Police says it is acting under Israel’s Counter Terrorism Law. Article 24 of this legislation states that anyone who does anything to “empathize with a terror group” whether that’s by “publishing praises, support or encouraging, waving a flag, showing or publishing a symbol” can be arrested and jailed for up to three years.

“However, Adalah, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that advocates for Arab rights in Israel said in a statement that these arrests are arbitrary and target Palestinians only. It said that many are carried out with brutal force in the middle of the night, and without proper legal justification.

“The criteria is not whether it’s legal or not, the criteria is whether it makes people angry or whether it’s something that is against the mainstream, we are not talking about the law. We are talking about atmosphere,” Baker said, adding that discussing the context of the October 7 attacks is “forbidden.”

Article here.

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

A new law is about to kill free speech and democracy in Australia

By Augusto Zimmermann | RT | November 5, 2023

The Australian Government has recently introduced in Parliament a new law proposal to ban officially unapproved online content. Digital companies are expected to adopt a code of conduct which will see them censor speech based on broad, vague and far-reaching directives.

The Communications Legislation Amendment (Combating Misinformation and Disinformation) Bill 2023 foreshadows the imposition of a legal obligation on digital platforms to police alleged ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’. If that does not work, the law proposal provides for the full empowerment of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to directly intervene for the purpose of preventing ‘harm’.

Section 2 of the proposed legislation defines ‘harm’ as follows:

  • (a) hatred against a group in Australian society on the basis of ethnicity, nationality, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion or physical or mental disability;

  • (b) disruption of public order or society in Australia;

  • (c) harm to the integrity of Australian democratic processes or of Commonwealth, State, Territory or local government institutions;

  • (d) harm to the health of Australians;

  • (e) harm to the Australian environment;

  • (f) economic or financial harm to Australians, the Australian economy or a sector of the Australian economy.

The concept of ‘harm’ peddled by the bill is illusory, and its content would be subjectively determined by a powerful government agency. The definition of what is and what isn’t harm is malleable and can expand and contract depending on ACMA’s prevailing views. Ultimately, any type of speech with which the government is uncomfortable could be deemed ‘harmful’. For example, describing “disrupting social order” as serious harm could be interpreted to stop the organization of legitimate political protests. This could certainly be used to suppress legitimate political speech that should be part of a functioning democracy.

Above all, ACMA would gain sweeping powers to require any person to appear at a time and place of its choosing to answer questions about misinformation or disinformation. These powers include infringement notices, remedial directions, injunctions and civil penalties, including fines of up to AU$550,000 (US$358,000) for individuals and AU$2.75 million for corporations. Criminal penalties, including imprisonment, may also apply in cases of alleged “extreme harm.”

The provisions found in this law proposal put the communications and lives of free-thinkers, human rights defenders, independent journalists, and ordinary citizens under constant risk. They go in direct opposition to international human rights experts’ advice that “general prohibitions on the dissemination of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas, including ‘false news’ or ‘non-objective information’, are incompatible with international standards for restrictions on freedom of expression… and should be abolished.”

It is noteworthy that the Australian Government is exempted from the proposed legislation. Hence, the content issued by the government is never to be considered ‘misinformation’ but criticisms of the government by ordinary citizens can. It is certainly ironic that views incompatible with the government’s preferred narrative could be deemed to ‘harm’ the integrity of Australia’s democracy since it would disallow speech and expressive conduct that is integral to the maintenance of democratic processes.

In its 12-page submission to the Law Council, the Victorian Bar Association explains that this proposed legislation effectively creates an “unlevel playing field between governments and other speakers” that disadvantages government critics in comparison to government supporters. “The bill’s interference with the self-fulfilment of free expression will occur primarily by the chilling self-censorship it will inevitably bring about in the individual users of the relevant services,” says the Victorian Bar.

Above all, ACMA’s enforcement of the proposed legislation will inevitably stymie discussion of controversial topics, especially if they involve criticism of government policy and actions. This scenario is likely to unfold when the impugned speech is incompatible with the government’s official narrative. Thus, the proposed legislation targets those who, merely exercising their right to free speech, critically assess the desirability of government decisions and actions.

Other concerns with the proposed ‘misinformation’ legislation include the possibility of suspending the activities of internet companies in Australia if they fail to comply with the obligations created, as well as increased criminal penalties for libel and defamation which are incompatible with international human rights standards.

As can be seen, the proposed legislation constitutes a serious attack on the democratic right of Australians to free speech. Digital platforms will be legally obliged to police commentators’ discussion of controversial topics. Under this ‘misinformation’ legislation, any honest and robust debate about government policies will be effectively outlawed.

To conclude, our freedom of political communication is under attack in Australia. If the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill is enacted, then the free expression of ideas will be basically outlawed by the Australian Government. In short, the enactment of this law proposal will spell the end of authentic democracy in Australia. Australians are basically witnessing the transformation of their system of representative government into nothing more than a less open, or more disguised, form of elective dictatorship.

Augusto Zimmermann, Professor and Head of Law at Sheridan Institute of Higher Education in Australia, President of WALTA – Legal Theory Association, and former Law Reform Commissioner with the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia

November 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Grooming our children, Part 1: Getting parents out of the picture

By Belinda Brown | TCW Defending Freedom | November 2, 2023

Are parents aware of what children from four years old are being taught about sex in our schools? Belinda Brown thinks not. In a series of articles she makes the case that, with the agreement of the Department for Education, our children are being exposed to what is tantamount to a national grooming programme. The first step of this successful sex educators’ coup, she explains today, was to get parents out of the picture, to take over their role, and then deny them any access to lessons. Miriam Cates is one MP who is fighting back.

IN JUNE Conservative MP Miriam Cates introduced the ‘sex education transparency’ Private Members’ Bill, putting Rishi Sunak under pressure to give schools a legal duty to publish materials used in sex education lessons. Backed by 70 Conservative MPs, the aim of the Bill is to secure parents’ rights to see their children’s Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lesson plans: rights which parents thought they had, only to find them being denied.

Cates had already called for an urgent Government review into what was being taught in RSE since this programme was rolled out in September 2020, of such concern were the materials and lessons parents gleaned from their children. RSE, it emerged, was the brainchild of the ‘progressive’ independent Sex Education Forum, a busy organisation with a stipend of £200,000 a year and a clear ‘beyond biology’ agenda. The Prime Minister responded to Cates’s call and ordered the review last March. Unaccountably, his Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan, refused to publish the findings and has no plans to do so.  Why, we do not know. MPs had claimed the Department for Education’s (DfE) most recent relationships and sex education guidance, produced in 2019 in consultation with the LGBT+ charity Stonewall, had allowed ‘activist groups’ to overly influence teaching materials. The guidance does not set age limits on what can be taught.

In the meanwhile, the position of parents has not changed. One story catalysed Cates’s most recent initiative. Two years ago, Clare Page found out that her daughter had been taught at school that ‘heteronormativity’ (preferring the opposite sex) was a bad thing and had been told that she should be ‘sex positive’. Like any decent mother, she wanted to know more. Her request to see the material used in her daughter’s classroom was turned down, first by the Information Commissioner’s Office and then by a first-tier tribunal. She was not even allowed to find out whether her daughter had been taught by the ‘master fetish trainer’ who worked for the School of Sexuality Education (SSE) employed by her daughter’s school.

Page’s case marks another step in the long march through the institutions whereby parents are being excluded from once personal and family-based aspects of their children’s upbringing, now inappropriately and dangerously taken over by schools.

Her experience is far from exceptional. In Wales, where children are being exposed to a mandatory diet of explicit and highly ideological sex education, parents are not allowed to remove their children from these classes.  Attempts to do so are repeatedly turned down.

Likewise, parents such as those trying to protect their children from sexual extremism in the London Borough of Redbridge are portrayed as religious fundamentalists and radical homophobic Islamists.

Some schools and local authorities even have a policy of not informing parents when a child expresses what the school categorises as ‘feelings of gender distress,’ a study found,  though this flies in the face of safeguarding rules. More recent research indicates that it could be that the school’s teaching that is the source of distress.

In theory, parents do have rights in law. Under the European Convention of Human Rights, ‘the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions’. The 2002 Education Act Guidance repeatedly emphasises the role of parents. ‘Teaching must be done with respect to the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils and parents . . . All schools should work closely with parents when planning and delivering these subjects. Schools should ensure that parents know what will be taught and when, and clearly communicate the fact.’

Yet this is not happening. Any criticism that teaching places insufficient emphasis on the value of traditional marriage between a man and a woman, for example, is ignored.

When the School of Sexuality Education complained that the Department of Education’s guidance gave ‘problematic credence’ to long-term relationships and marriage, they had the government’s ear (p10).   These sex education activists ‘provide in-school workshops on consent, sexual health, porn and positive relationships’. Their approach, they say, is rights-based – whose rights they do not say. They proclaim themselves as ‘sex-positive, non-binary and trauma informed’.

When they criticised the guidance section that suggested that primary schools should only teach pupils about LGBT when it was ‘age appropriate’ rather than from reception, these phrases were obligingly removed by the DfE.

Gillian Keegan should ask herself who these sex education providers are and why they want the material they are pushing at our children to be unrestricted by age.

This contempt for parents was expressed early on in an ‘Educate and Celebrate’ guidebook foisted on schools. Their proposal was that rather than get parents’ permission for children to attend LGBT events, they would organise LGBT events in the school (p24). When parents tried to protect their children from all this, they were told they were breaking the law.

The result of the government’s inadequate guidance, Cates says, is ‘a permission slip for teaching almost anything that is loosely associated with gender, sexuality or sexual practice – often with an assumption of the earlier, the better’ (p71).

Without providing any apparent curriculum, and without parents able to monitor what was being taught, these so-called specialist sex ‘educators’, heavily funded by the government, with clearly articulated curricula and political agendas, have zealously filled the gap.

Foremost of these is the ideology of queer theory that asserts that ‘heteronormativity’ – the natural biological sex preference for the opposite sex, should be ‘smashed’. It rejects all ‘binaries’ including distinctions between homosexuality and heterosexuality, male and female, and even more disturbingly, between adult and child.

This is the ideology that’s the foundation of the RSE curriculum that a Conservative government has sanctioned. It will be explored in greater depth in the rest of the series. Parents have a right to know, reject it and protest.

To be continued.

November 3, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia | , | Leave a comment

Critics of Biden’s ‘Censorship Regime’ Say Government Dragging Its Feet on Lawsuit

By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | November 3, 2023

M.J. Koch over at the New York Sun has published a very good article on Missouri v. Biden and the Supreme Court’s decision to place a temporary stay on the injunction until they can rule on the case:

Next year’s presidential election may have something to do with the slow pace of Missouri v. Biden.

The Biden administration is said to be dragging its feet on an explosive free speech case against its alleged “Orwellian” censorship of social media platforms. Those leading the lawsuit say it’s because the government wants to continue its censorship regime as long as possible before the presidential election.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, Missouri v. Biden. In certifying it, the high court last week also approved the government’s request for a stay on a preliminary injunction from the Fifth Circuit. The injunction would’ve enjoined the government from continuing what two lower courts called a “coordinated campaign” by top federal officials and agencies to suppress undesirable opinions on public issues such as Covid lockdowns and election integrity.

The suspension of that injunction “is a green light for future censorship,” the founder of the civil rights group representing four of the plaintiffs in the case, Philip Hamburger, of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, tells the Sun. The high court appears to be siding with the executive branch in its latest legal action…. “Undoubtedly,” Mr. Hamburger says, “there’s deference, in the sense of political deference, to the government.”

Next year’s presidential election might have something to do with this “deference.” Oral arguments in Murthy will be heard in January or February, but the court won’t complete its review until late in the spring. Even if the ruling requires the government to immediately desist its behavior, several more months of the status quo will have passed as the contest for the U.S. presidency intensifies.

You can read the rest of the article, which includes my comments on this issue, here.

November 3, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Palestine TV correspondent killed in Israel’s strikes on Gaza

Palestinian correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab was killed in an Israeli strike on the besieged Gaza Strip on November 2, 2023
Press TV – November 3, 2023

A correspondent working for the Palestinian Authority’s television channel, Palestine TV, has been killed along with a number of his family members in an Israeli strike in the south of the Gaza Strip.

“Our colleague Mohammed Abu Hatab fell as a martyr along with members of his family in an Israeli bombardment against his home in Khan Yunis” on Thursday, broadcaster Palestine TV station said.

Palestinian media reports said the airstrike killed 11 of Abu Hatab’s family members, including his wife, son, and brother.

The Palestinian Official Media described the attack as “a deliberate assassination” of Abu Hatab, noting that his house was targeted shortly after he arrived home after covering Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

“It’s a message in blood to terrorize Palestinian journalists to prevent them from reporting on our people’s suffering and exposing Israel’s crimes.” the Palestinian Official Media said in a statement.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) States Broadcasting Union also mourned the death of Abu Hatab and his family members.

Amr Al-Laithi, the OSBU President, also denounced the “heinous crime” committed against Abu Hatab.

The union also urged civil society organizations and human rights groups to immediately intervene to stop Israel’s “barbaric, criminal and systematic attacks” against media workers.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

The regime has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the coastal sliver. However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south.

Israel’s aggression on Gaza has so far killed more than 9,061 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured about 32,000 others.

November 3, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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