As the crisis involving the Israelis and Palestinians deepens after the October 7 Hamas attack, we might pause to examine how the state of Israel was created in the first place. At the current juncture, as World War III looms on the horizon, as massacres are currently being perpetrated by Israel against the civilian population of Gaza, with a death toll exceeding 9,000, of which over 4,000 are children, and as a Western armada is gathering in the eastern Mediterranean, it is befitting to review journalist Alison Weir’s book Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. The book was published in 2014, is packed with often hard-to-access details, and is masterfully documented. Alison Weir is also head of a group she has founded: If Americans Knew.
Alison Weir’s book is crucially important in considering ways to gain a broader perspective in order to defuse the situation. It is also of keen interest with respect to the larger potential conflict, where U.S. political leaders are again trotting out the phrase, “Axis of Evil,” this time to describe the nations of Russia, China, and Iran. (Sometimes North Korea is tossed in for good measure.) It’s Iran, of course, that U.S. leaders are identifying as an alleged sponsor of the resistance groups in and around Palestine, including Hamas.
Following are what I view as the main points from Alison Weir’s book. My own interspersed editorial comments are in italics. Page numbers are given in parentheses only for quotations from the book.
Origin of Zionism in the U.S.Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel begins by explaining that support for Zionism, defined as the desire for creation of a Jewish national state somewhere in the world, goes back in U.S. history to the late 1880s, around the time that the Zionist Movement was becoming prominent in Europe. By the 1910s, there were thousands of U.S. adherents, though many Jews opposed Zionism as not in the interests of the Jewish people and certain to result in antagonism toward them. Probably a majority of Jews in the U.S. had never even heard of Zionism and/or were happy to have assimilated into American society. In fact, there was nothing that could even be viewed remotely as an “anti-Semitism problem” in the U.S. at this time.
Role of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Louis Brandeis and Creation of the Parushim. Still, some very powerful people became Zionists, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, whose main disciple was future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Brandeis formed a secret organization called the Parushim, whose sole purpose was to bring about the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. This Zionist organization required an oath that appeared to give life and death power over its sworn members.
“Parushim,” also spelled “Purushim,” is the Hebrew word from which the name “Pharisees” is derived, meaning “separatists.” From the Pharisees came Rabbinical Judaism and the idea that, “We should not assimilate or acculturate at all.” (prezi.com) I would note that Alison Weir’s book did not aim at giving an account of the deeper motivations of the Zionist movement, other than its claim to be a reaction to European “anti-Semitism.” For more depth, I would recommend a careful reading of the classic The Controversy of Zion by British journalist Douglas Reed (1895-1976).
Justice Louis Brandeis was close to Wall Street banker Jacob Schiff. Brandeis was also closely involved with the creation of the Federal Reserve System, as was Schiff, though Brandeis’s involvement in political issues was largely behind the scenes.
The Federal Reserve, I would add, was largely a project of the U.S. Money Trust and the British/European Rothschilds. The Rothschilds were also heavily involved in Zionism and in the creation and support of the Zionist state. The fact that Zionism was sponsored by some incredibly rich people might cause us to ask to what extent financial rewards played a role in the rapid conversion of many Jews and non-Jews to Zionism during this period. For information on creation of the Federal Reserve, see my own book, Our Country, Then and Now (Clarity Press, 2023).
Collaboration Between the Parushim and Great Britain. Justice Louis Brandeis’s Parushim worked closely with Zionists in Great Britain, including travel back and forth, to persuade the British government to designate Palestine as a future Jewish homeland. This was after Zionist leaders had rejected such locations as Kenya. Thus was created a “contract” between Britain and the Parushim that if the British would generate what became the Balfour Declaration, the U.S. Zionists would endeavor to assure U.S. entrance into World War I against Germany on the side of Britain. This contract was fulfilled by both parties, though, as in the U.S., many British Jews opposed Zionism for similar reasons—as a threat to Jewish assimilation.
The Balfour Declaration specified that it should be “clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” (p.97) At the time, non-Jewish communities made up 92 percent of the population of Palestine.
Zionism and the Failure to Make Peace with the Ottoman Empire. World War I begin in 1914. By 1915-1916, the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with Germany but not at war against the U.S., offered to make a separate peace with the U.S. The Ottomans had also offered to allow the Jews of Europe to live at peace anywhere in their empire. The U.S. sent a delegation to negotiate this separate peace, but Brandeis informed the British Zionists that the delegation was on its way. The British Zionists then send their leader, Chaim Weizmann, to intercept the U.S. delegation at Gibraltar, where he prevailed on it to call off the negotiations. The reason was that the British were going to lay claim to Palestine after the war as a homeland for the Jews, so they wanted to assure that Palestine was going to be available for British control. The British design was to break up the Ottoman Empire, not leave it intact through a separate U.S.-instigated peace.
Warnings Against the Zionist Project. Diplomats within the U.S. State Department both in Washington, D.C., and in the Middle East were aware of and warned against the Zionist project, arguing that a million Palestinians would be displaced or made virtual servants/slaves of the invaders.
World War I. In 1917 the U.S. entered the war on the side of Britain, per the Zionist agreement, and Germany was defeated, along with the Ottomans. Britain also signed a secret agreement with France by which it would get control of Palestine after the war. Control was implemented through the vehicle of a British Mandate approved by the League of Nations.
During this period, antagonism against Jews had begun to grow within U.S. society, partly in reaction to perceptions that Jews controlled the banks and other financial institutions. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” had also appeared. While claimed to be a forgery from Czarist Russia, the Protocols received credence and publicity from Henry Ford and others.
Germany was aware that the Zionists had contributed to the defeat of Germany in WWI. This contributed to the anti-Jewish attitudes of Germans after the war and was a factor in the later Nazi anti-Jewish policies.
During WWI, the Parushim gave the FBI a list of Americans who were opponents to Zionism or the war. Many of these people were arrested and sent to prison. Through all of this, Brandeis was directing matters from behind the scenes. He was arguably the most powerful person in the U.S., but his political activities were secret or carried out through proxies.
At the end of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson sent a commission to Palestine to investigate the situation. Known as the King-Crane Commission, its report “recommended against the Zionist position of unlimited immigration of Jews to make Palestine a distinctly Jewish state.” The report stated that “the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine,” that “armed force would be required to accomplish this,” and that “the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.” The report of the King-Crane Commission “was suppressed.” (p.25)
Zionism After World War I. Between the two world wars, a growing number of U.S. Zionists worked to further the project for the creation of Israel. In Germany, the Zionists supported the rise of the Nazis, as this would lead to German Jews wanting to emigrate to Palestine. In Iraq, where the Jewish leaders did not support Zionism, Iraqi Jews were attacked, even murdered, to force them to emigrate to Palestine. Without arousing the anxiety of Jews around the world that they were unsafe in their homelands, Zionist planners believed there would not be enough Jewish settlers to create a Zionist state and force the Palestinians out.
Opponents of Zionism in the U.S. diplomatic service were threatened with having their careers destroyed if they did not support the claims that Jews in foreign countries were suffering discrimination so should want to move to Palestine. The Zionists worked to limit immigration opportunities for Jews elsewhere than Palestine, including the U.S. The Zionists opposed measures by the British government to limit the number of Jews who could enter Palestine.
Collaboration Between the Zionists and Nazis. Building on work by author Hannah Arendt, Edwin Black wrote The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine. Click Here According to author Tom Segev, “Arendt stated that many Jews would have survived ‘had their leaders not helped the Nazis organize the concentration of Jews in the ghettos, their deportation to the east, and their transport to the death camps.’” (p.146) This was called the “Haavara Agreement.”
The famous 1930s Jewish boycott of German products may have been instigated by Zionists to promote anti-Jewish sentiment leading to more desire among Jews to emigrate to Palestine. Other Zionists made claims that persecuted Jews were prone to becoming revolutionary communists for the same purpose.
Zionist Activities Between the World Wars. In the U.S. during the 1920s and 1930s, Zionist leaders muffled talk of a Jewish state in Palestine and focused on creating new institutions there as altruistic enterprises. An example was Hebrew University, opening in Jerusalem in 1925. Zionist leaders complained that most U.S. Jews saw themselves first and foremost as American citizens. Organizations like the American Zionist Emergency Council and the United Jewish Appeal were founded to generate funding and support. Donations to the United Jewish Appeal in 1948 was four times that of the American Red Cross. Pro-Zionist publicity and lobbying efforts were unleashed across the U.S. Some Jews, like the American Council for Judaism, still opposed Zionism as inimical to real Jewish interests. The ACJ opposed the Zionists’ “anti-Semitic racialist lie that Jews the world over were a separate, national body.” (p.152)
Zionist advocacy in the U.S. had powerful political adherents. New York Congressman Emanuel Celler told President Harry Truman, “We’ll run you out of town,” if he did not support the program. Senator Jacob Javits said, “We’ll fight to the death and make a Jewish state in Palestine if it’s the last thing that we do.” (p.38) Zionist propaganda included funding of best-selling pro-Zionist books by non-Jews. Zionists such as wealthy Wall Street lawyer Samuel Untermyer began to interject “dispensationalist” ideas of “Christian Zionism” into the discourse through sponsorship of the “Scofield Reference Bible.” (Untermyer was also a leading backer of the Federal Reserve and advocate of the worldwide Jewish boycott of Germany.)
Today, as we all know, “Christian Zionism” among “evangelicals” is part of the bedrock support of the Israel Lobby. Leading evangelical ministers like Jerry Falwell received large donations from Zionist supporters. An entire “dispensationalist” mythology involving the “Rapture,” etc., has been constructed and promoted to justify the political union between this group of American religionists and the most extreme factions of Israeli politics led today by such figures as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though Netanyahu has surfaced this mad mythology to cover Israeli genocide in Gaza, the topic is not covered in detail in Alison Weir’s book, so will not be dealt with further here.
Protestant Support of Zionism. By the 1930s, U.S. Zionists were trying to organize American Protestants in their support. By the end of WWII the Christian Council on Palestine had grown to 3,000 members and the American Palestine Committee to 6,500. The appeal to Protestants was based on generating sympathy for refugees, though no mention was made of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians becoming refugees due to the Zionist takeover. During the Israeli war of independence in 1947-1949, Christian churches and institutions in Palestine were assaulted by the Zionists along with the Palestinians.
Beginnings of Terrorism and U.N. Partition of Palestine. In Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s, the Zionists tried to buy Palestinian land but few inhabitants wished to sell. The Zionists then began to organize terrorist forces to drive them out. These terrorist groups also targeted British government officials, as Palestine was still a British Mandate. Author Alison Weir cites a statement by David ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, that suggests this was at least part of what started today’s worldwide phenomenon of terrorism.
By the start of the 1947-1949 war, Jews made up 30 percent of the Palestinian population but owned only 6-7 percent of the land. In 1947, Britain turned its Palestine Mandate over to the U.N. A General Assembly resolution to partition gave the Zionists 55 percent of the land of Palestine. The U.S. State Department opposed the partition plan as against the wishes of local people and in violation of U.S. interests and of democratic principles. Officials warned that partition “would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future.” (p.45) Officials said the proposal was for “a theocratic racial state” that discriminated “on grounds of religion and race.” (p.45) The leading anti-Zionist Department of State official, Loy Henderson, was exiled by his superiors to a post as ambassador to Nepal.
U.S. Government Opposition to Zionism. Nevertheless, virtually the entire U.S. executive branch was opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. Statements and reports were made by a 1946 commission headed by Ambassador Henry F. Grady, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson. A 1948 report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that, “The Zionist strategy will seek to involve [the U.S.] in a continuously widening and deepening series of operations intended to secure maximum Jewish objectives.” (p.47)
Jewish leaders were well aware that U.N. partitioning of Palestine was temporary and that over time, the Jewish state would expand to absorb the entire region. The concept of “Eretz Israel” was formulated, whereby the Zionist state would encompass Transjordan, as well as parts of Lebanon and Syria. Zionists also had begun using U.S. antagonism toward the Soviet Union as an argument for creation of a pro-Western Jewish state. This hearkened back to the early days of Zionism, when Zionist leaders characterized their proposed state as a bulwark of British influence in the Middle East; i.e., as an extension of British colonialism and geopolitics.
Today, pro-Zionists make the argument that Israel is an outpost of benign “Judeo-Christian” influence in the Middle East, as they try to arouse antagonism toward the one billion Muslims in the world in a purported “clash of civilizations.” Such attitudes became prominent in U.S. politics during the “War on Terror” of the Bush/Cheney administration that continues today through U.S. labeling of anti-Zionist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorist” organizations. This is despite the historical fact cited above that it was the Zionists who introduced terrorism into the Middle East.
U.S. Recognition of Israel and the Role of President Truman. The U.S. was the first country to recognize Israel as an independent state when on May 14, 1948, President Harry Truman issued a statement of recognition following Israel’s proclamation of independence on the same date. Truman’s main motivation was believed at the time, and still is today, the winning of Jewish support in the presidential election that year. His decision was strongly opposed by Secretary of State George Marshall, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, the CIA and National Security Council, and top State Department official George Kennan. Intelligence agent Kermit Roosevelt wrote: “The present course of world crisis will increasingly force upon Americans the realization that their national interests and those of the proposed Jewish state in Palestine are going to conflict.” (p.51) Contrary to the belief that U.S. oil interests promoted the Zionist project, officials argued that U.S. ability to access Middle Eastern resources would be adversely affected. Truman also had pro-Zionist insiders at high levels of his administration.
Author Alison Weir points out that bribery also played a part. “Gore Vidal wrote: ‘Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.’” (p.167) Jewish businessman Abraham Feinberg explained his raising of cash for Truman in an oral history interview published by the Truman Library in 1973. The CIA also discovered Feinberg’s illegal gun-running to Zionist groups.
I may be the first writer to point out that Truman’s action in accepting bribes, if discovered, could have been seen and treated as an impeachable offense.
Zionist Takeover of Palestine. At the time of Israel’s proclamation of independence and immediate U.S. recognition, the U.N. resolution of partition had been passed, with war ensuing between Zionist and Arab forces. The U.N. General Assembly adopted the partition plan by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions, with many nations subjected to intense Zionist lobbying and threats. For instance, “Financier and longtime presidential adviser Bernard Baruch told France it would lose U.S. aid if it voted against partition.” (p.55) A Swedish U.N. mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was killed by Zionist assassins. To this day, no accepted legal authority for the U.N. in its partitioning of Palestine has ever been demonstrated. In other words, it was likely an extra-legal action in response to Zionist lobbying.
Though sporadic violence between Jews and Palestinian Arabs had taken place over the previous two decades, the Zionists committed wholesale massacres of Palestinians after the U.N. resolution for partition. By the end of Israel’s war of independence in 1948, over 750,000 Palestinians had been expelled from Zionist-controlled territory. Israeli historian Tom Segev wrote: “Israel was born of terror, war, and revolution, and its creation required a measure of fanaticism and cruelty.” (p.58) Today this is called in Arabic the “Nakba”—“catastrophe.”
The most well-known massacre took place at the village of Deir Yessin in April 1948, before any Arab armies had joined the fight. There, 254 villagers were murdered in cold blood. The heads of two militias present at Deir Yessin, Irgun and the Stern Gang, were Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, both of whom later became prime ministers of Israel. The Irgun bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1947, killing 86. The Stern Gang also solicited aid from the Axis powers during WWII.
Zionist Front Organizations in the U.S. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Zionists created a number of front organizations to raise money used to finance militant activities in Palestine. After WWII, the U.S. maintained an arms embargo against Israel and the Middle East. Foremost among the sponsors of the front organizations intended to skirt the embargo was Irgun. One group, the Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinians Jews, claimed it was formed to fight the Nazis in Europe, but was intended instead to fight the British and Arabs in Palestine. These groups espoused such radical ideologies as the idea that “non-Jews are the embodiment of Satan, and that the world was created solely for Jews.” (p.67) Another group, headed by Orthodox Rabbi Baruch Korff, hatched a plot to blow up the British foreign office in London that was exposed in the New York Herald Tribune. Through political influence, U.S. charges against Korff were dropped. Later he “became a close friend and fervent supporter of President Richard Nixon, who called him ‘my rabbi.’” (p.71) Nixon’s support for Israel manifested in the gigantic airlift of military supplies that helped save Israel from defeat in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Another major organization raising money for sending arms to the Zionists in Palestine was the Sonneborn Institute. Between 1939 and May 1948, the Jewish Agency for Israel was also active, raising the equivalent today of $3.5 billion.
Zionism and Organized Crime. Financial backers of Israeli independence included members of organized crime, including Meyer Lansky, head of the Jewish Mafia in the U.S. In an April 19, 2018 article in Tablet (tabletmag.com) entitled “Gangsters for Zion: Yom Ha’atzmaut: How Jewish mobsters helped Israel gain its independence. Robert Rockaway wrote: “In 1945, the Jewish Agency, the pre-state Israeli government headed by David Ben-Gurion, created a vast clandestine arms-purchasing-and-smuggling network throughout the United States. The operation was placed under the aegis of the Haganah, the underground forerunner of the Israel Defense Forces, and involved hundreds of Americans from every walk of life. They included millionaires, rabbinical students, scrap-metal merchants, ex-GIs, college students, longshoremen, industrialists, chemists, engineers, Protestants and Catholics, as well as Jews. One group, who remained anonymous and rarely talked about, were men who were tough, streetwise, unafraid, and had access to ready cash: Jewish gangsters.” Rockaway, a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, also wrote that through their control of U.S. ports, the Jewish mob arranged for arms deliveries to Israel aboard vessels flying the flag of Panama.
Recruiting Jews to Relocate to Palestine. “Zionist cadres infiltrated displaced persons’ camps that had been set up to house refugees displaced during WWII. These infiltrators tried secretly to funnel people to Palestine. When it turned out that most didn’t want to go to Palestine, they worked to convince them—sometimes by force.” (p.74) Another recruiting source was Jewish foster children in Christian homes. The Zionists claimed to be the sole representative of all the world’s Jews in order to legitimize efforts to divert war survivors to Israel, not to countries like the U.S. to which many preferred to go. “After a voluntary recruitment drive netted less than 0.3 percent of the DP [displaced persons] population, a compulsory draft was implemented.” (p.79) Some draftees were required to fight in Palestine in the Zionist war of independence. Meanwhile, the secretive Sieff group was formed in Washington, D.C., to carry out back channel lobbying for the Zionist project. The group was protected by such powerful individuals as Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and the aforementioned financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch.
Fate of the Palestinian Refugees. Three-quarters of a million Palestinian refugees fled to neighboring regions in a gigantic humanitarian disaster. A 1948 State Department report stated “The total direct relief offered…by the Israeli government to date consists of 500 cases of oranges.” (p.83) The value of land confiscated by the Zionists amounted to $5.2 trillion in today’s dollars. Christians also suffered as “numerous convents, hospices, seminaries, and churches were either destroyed or cleared of their Christian owners and custodians.” (p.83) Efforts by U.S. government officials to withhold aid to the Israeli government due to the refugee crisis were overruled by President Truman.
Zionism and the media. Even as early as WWI, the Zionists exerted almost complete control over the U.S. press. This included placing pro-Zionist articles in prestigious newspapers like The New York Times. In 1953, author Alfred Lilienthal wrote: “The capture of the American press by Jewish nationalism was, in fact, incredibly complete. Magazines as well as newspapers, in news stories as well as editorial columns, gave primarily the Zionist views of events before, during, and after partition.” (p.86) Zionist coercion extended to withdrawal of advertising, cancellation of subscriptions, and blacklisting of journalists and authors, even those offering a mere trace of sympathy toward the displaced Palestinians. Particularly emotional in their support of Zionism were the journals the Nation and the New Republic. An example of how the Zionists could destroy an author’s career was the attack on then-famous journalist Dorothy Thompson after “she began to speak about Palestinian refugees, narrated a documentary about their plight, and condemned Jewish terrorism. (p.92)
We all know that the complete slanting of U.S. media coverage toward Zionism and Israel dominates news reporting at all levels and across the ideological spectrum, from the top newspapers and networks to what is left of small town journalism. This includes so-called “independent” outlets like Breitbart. The start of this bias began, perhaps not coincidentally, during the time before WWI when the newsrooms of U.S. newspapers were taken over by propagandists sympathetic to the Federal Reserve System and the Money Trust. Today, of course, we have the internet, which has begun to make inroads into the control of the news by pro-establishment media corporations and Deep State censors. Internet outlets also must be cautious, however, so are often reduced to the role of “limited hangouts,” reporting only selected stories that protest particularly egregious Israeli offenses, but never the “big picture.”
In conclusion we can say that, as Alison Weir’s book makes clear, it was largely American Zionists who financed and enabled the violent takeover of Palestine and who thereby share responsibility over the past three-quarters of a century for the atrocities committed against a diverse population whose forebears had been living in peace and rooted in the region for millenniums. This population also inhabited the holy city of Jerusalem, sacred to the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions.
The book also makes it clear that people can oppose Zionism—the forceful establishment of a Jewish national state in Palestine—without being anti-Jewish or “anti-Semitic.” Of course, most of the indigenous people of Palestine are “Semites” in ethnicity and language. Also, the most forceful opponents of the original Zionist movement in Great Britain, the U.S., and possibly other nations, have been, and still are, Jews themselves who had successfully assimilated into their host cultures. Examples are the Hassidic Jews of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Jews in Iran who refuse to support Israel.
Many more volumes could or should be written about U.S. enabling of Israel and Zionism and about Israel’s and Zionism’s interference in internal U.S. affairs. I would include an examination of Israel’s possible participation in the JFK/RFK assassinations and the 9/11 attacks, U.S. acquiescence in Israel’s nuclear weapons program, Israel’s links with the Neocons who control today’s U.S. foreign policy, and today’s courting of World War III against more than half the world’s countries, starting with Israel’s nemesis, Iran. Will the U.S. stumble into WWIII because of its pro-Zionist captivity?
Copyright 2023 by Richard C. Cook. Comments are welcome and will be read at monetaryreform@gmail.com.
Richard C. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst who served with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he broke the story of the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Shuttle. After serving at Treasury, he exposed the disastrous flaws of a monetary system controlled by private finance in his book We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform. As an adviser to the American Monetary Institute and while working with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, he advocated the replacement of the Federal Reserve System with a genuine national currency. His latest book is Our Country, Then and Now (Clarity Press, 2023).
“Every human enterprise must serve life, must seek to enrich existence on earth, lest man become enslaved where he seeks to establish his dominion!” Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943), Translation by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014.
A trio of South American countries, along with Jordan, have cut ties with Israel over the onslaught in Gaza. According to Palestinian sources, the Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed nearly 9,000 people, half of which are women and children.
On Tuesday, Bolivia took the most extreme step and cut all ties with Israel. Deputy Foreign Minister Freddy Mamani explained that Bolivia “decided to break diplomatic relations with the Israeli state in repudiation and condemnation of the aggressive and disproportionate Israeli military offensive taking place in the Gaza Strip.”
The next day, Tel Aviv responded by saying Sucre’s move was “capitulation to terrorism and to the ayatollah regime in Iran.”
Colombia and Chile announced they would recall their ambassadors to Israel. Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on X, “I have decided to call our ambassador in Israel for consultation. If Israel does not stop the massacre of the Palestinian people we cannot be there.”
Chile posted a press release saying Santiago would also recall its diplomat.
“Given the unacceptable violations of International Humanitarian Law that Israel has incurred in the Gaza Strip, the Government of Chile has decided to recall the Chilean ambassador to Israel, Jorge Carvajal, to Santiago for consultations. …”
“Chile strongly condemns and observes with great concern that these military operations – which at this point in their development entail collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza – do not respect fundamental norms of International Law, as demonstrated by the more than eight thousand civilian victims, mostly women and children.”
Jordan joined the South American nations in downgrading ties with Israel. The Foreign Ministry announced it was recalling its ambassador. “Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi decided to immediately recall Jordan’s ambassador to Israel,” a statement said. The move is to reflect Amman’s condemnation of the “Israeli war that is killing innocent people in Gaza.”
While Tel Aviv receives near unconditional backing from Washington, Israel lacks the international community’s support for its war. On Monday, the UN General Assembly voted 120-14 for a ceasefire in Gaza.
After a Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, Tel Aviv launched a military operation. The bombing campaign and ground invasion have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, including over 3,600 children.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently said, “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” The Israeli Ambassador responded that Guterres’ comments were “shocking”, “unfathomable” and “disconnected from reality”. He called for the Secretary General’s resignation. Below are some facts about Gaza to evaluate whether Guterres was accurate or not.
Gaza is a tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean coast with the 5,000 year old Gaza City in the north. The entire strip is only 5 miles wide by 25 miles in length with 2.3 million Palestinians locked in this territory by Israel. It is the size of a small US city.
In 1996 Israeli journalist Amira Haas published the book Drinking the Sea at Gaza. After living and researching in Gaza, she described the history, conditions, religion and politics. The subtitle was “Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege”. Gaza has been under siege for decades.
About 80% of the people in Gaza are descendants of refugees who were expelled from their villages in what is now southern Israel in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe). Most Gazans have never been able to set foot outside the territory. They are born, live their lives and die in this concentration camp.
At least 50% of Gaza’s work force is unemployed. Israel restricts nearly all aspects of their economy. For example, Gaza’s fishermen are prevented from going into deeper waters to fish. If they try, they are fired on by Israeli naval boats. Farmers and shepherds are also fired on as they try to eke out a living.
From December 1998 to February 2001, there was an airport in Gaza until Israel bombed the control tower and destroyed the runways to make it unusable.
Gaza has a port but foreign boats are prevented from landing. In 2010, six civilian ships including the Turkish Mavi Marmara tried to bring humanitarian relief to Gaza. Israeli paratroopers attacked the ships, killing 9 passengers including one American.
Israel routinely demolishes the homes of Palestinians. In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to prevent the destruction of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist in Gaza.
Israel routinely denies exit permits to outstanding youth who have received scholarships to study abroad.
In 2014 Israel bombed Gaza’s water reservoir and sanitation treatment facilities, escalating the shortage of drinking water while sewage ran in the streets. Since then, as documented by Oxfam, Israel has prevented the importation of equipment necessary to rebuild sanitation and water treatment.
In spring 2018 Gazans demonstrated against their imprisonment. They called it the Great March of Return. The two year report documents that 217 Palestinians were killed and over 19,000 injured by Israeli soldiers.
In 2020 the UN issued a report saying that Gaza is not liveable. “The primary cause of this ‘unliveable environment is a highly restrictive Israeli blockade … which has reduced Gaza to the point of ‘systematic collapse.’”
Conclusion
Clearly, the Secretary General was accurate in his statement that Palestinians have endured decades of “suffocating occupation”. It is a measure of the Israeli Ambassador’s sense of impunity that he attacks the top UN official who dares to mention this.
The diplomatic conflict will increase in the coming days and weeks as Israel’s genocidal campaign continues.
The facts about Gaza and Palestine are clear: Israel is violating international law and Western states that support this are complicit. It is up to the people all over the world to speak out.
In 2003, the United States built a military prison at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, known as Gitmo. Prisoners captured from the American invasion of Afghanistan and the Middle East were flown there. American President George W. Bush deemed these men terrorists not protected by international law. He authorized a secret torture program to extract information. Some American soldiers objected, so were abused too.
“Meet the Muslim Army Chaplain Who Condemned Torture of Guantánamo Prisoners & Then Was Jailed Himself” (interview with former US Army Captain James Yee); Democracy Now; PBS; January 11, 2022; https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/1…
“Guantanamo guard: ‘CIA killed prisoners and made it look like suicide’”; Emma Reynolds; news.com.au; January 15, 2015; https://www.news.com.au/entertainment…
“I opened the detention facility at Guantanamo. It’s time to close it”; Michael Lehnert; Miami Herald; January 17, 2023; https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/o…
Algeria and Tunisia condemned on Wednesday evening French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for an international coalition against the Palestinian resistance. Their joint statement also stressed the legitimacy of resistance against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The statement on the situation in Palestine was issued by the People’s National Assembly (the lower house of the Algerian Parliament) and Tunisia’s Assembly of the People’s Representatives during the visit of its head, Ibrahim Bouderbala, to Algeria.
“We condemn the calls to form an international coalition to eliminate the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinian struggle to resist the occupation is legitimate, as is the right of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital,” they said. “We also strongly denounce the positions of countries and bodies that support the Israeli war government and deplore the double standards being applied in clear violation of international law and human rights, especially with regard to the rights of civilians during war.”
The Algerians and Tunisians also rejected Israeli immunity from accountability, monitoring or sanctions. “This gives it the green light to target innocent and defenceless Palestinians, including women and children, and to carry out its crimes against humanity.”
The Zionist occupation state bears “full responsibility” for this escalation, the two sides announced. “This has arisen as a result of its continued crimes against the Palestinian people and its policies aimed at displacing them from their land, in light of the international disregard for UN Security Council resolutions related to the Palestinian issue and the rights of the Palestinian people in accordance with UN resolutions.”
The two parties called for an immediate ceasefire and efforts to produce a “just and comprehensive” solution to the Palestinian issue.
Washington is preparing contingencies for a “worst-case scenario” of being forced to evacuate hundreds of thousands of US citizens from West Asia, according to several US officials who spoke with the Washington Post on 23 October.
“[US citizens] living in Israel and neighboring Lebanon are of particular concern,” the officials said. According to State Department data, about 600,000 US citizens were in Israel and another 86,000 in Lebanon when Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched.
The contingency plan is being prepared in response to widespread anger over Washington’s blind support for Israel’s genocide campaign of Palestinians in Gaza.
As of 24 October, over 5,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli jets in the coastal enclave – nearly half of them children.
Since the start of the genocide in Gaza, US and Israeli embassies have been targeted by furious protesters across the region demanding an end to the bloodshed. In response, the State Department issued a worldwide travel advisory for US citizens last week, citing “increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, [and] demonstrations or violent actions against US citizens and interests.”
Furthermore, over the past several days, US military bases in Iraq and Syria have been targeted near-daily by resistance factions, forcing the Pentagon to deploy more air defense systems to protect their troops.
These systems will come on top of already-deployed warships carrying thousands of troops and dozens of warplanes to the Eastern Mediterranean, as Washington is warning that a “broader escalation” is possible “in the days ahead.”
Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan demanded Secretary-General Antonio Guterres step down on Tuesday, accusing him of showing “compassion” for terrorists and murderers in a speech to the Security Council.
“The UN Secretary-General, who shows understanding for the campaign of mass murder of children, women, and the elderly, is not fit to lead the UN. I call on him to resign immediately,” Erdan said on X, formerly Twitter. “There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people.”
The “shocking” speech by Guterres is evidence that the secretary-general “is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner,” Erdan argued.
“His statement that, ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder. It’s really unfathomable. It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views. A tragedy!” he posted.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen reacted to Guterres’ speech in the Security Council by pointing his finger and yelling at the secretary-general. He then announced he would refuse to meet with him again.
“After October 7th there is no room for a balanced approach. Hamas must be wiped out from the world!” Cohen declared on X.
Guterres had condemned the “appalling” and inexcusable violence by Hamas, but noted that Gaza had been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation” and that the Israeli response to October 7 attacks has amounted to collective punishment of Palestinians.
“I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law,” Guterres told the Security Council. He also urged an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas, deliver aid to civilians and “ease epic suffering” in the Palestinian territory.
Speaking at the same meeting, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” noting that no member of the Security Council “could or would tolerate the slaughter of its people.”
Blinken also questioned what he described as lack of international outrage, “revulsion” and explicit condemnation of the Hamas attacks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday that Russia agrees with US President Joe Biden’s comment made last week that the current global order has lost steam. However, he added that the outcome may not align with the White House’s expectations.
“The world indeed needs a new order, based on absolutely new principles,” the Russian official claimed.
According to Peskov, the new arrangement should be based on “international laws, not [arbitrary] rules” and devoid of attempts “to concentrate all mechanisms of global governance in the hands of a single nation.” He believes that Moscow differs significantly on this point.
“Whatever new world order the US envisions, it means an American-centric world order. A world revolving around the US. This will not be anymore,” Peskov added.
Biden delivered his comments about an impending shift during a speech at a fundraising event in Washington last Friday. The US president highlighted his successful effort in uniting Japan and South Korea to support Ukraine against Russia as an exemplar of his administration’s unifying endeavors.
Tokyo and Seoul agreed to do this “because they understand if they remain silent, they may be next,” Biden claimed, suggesting that Washington can “unite the world in ways that it never has been” if it is “bold enough.”
“We were in a post-war period for 50 years where it worked pretty damn well, but that’s sort of run out of steam,” Biden mused. “It needs … a new world order in a sense.”
This reality can be achieved, the president said, because “we’re the United States of America, for God’s sake” and there has “never been a thing we’ve set our mind to [that] we haven’t been able to accomplish.”
“Name me one crisis we ever got into where we haven’t come out stronger in America. Name me one. Name me one where we went in and didn’t come out stronger,” he challenged the audience.
During Biden’s term in office, the US ended a two-decade military engagement in Afghanistan, the longest in its history. Among other things, the campaign cost the lives of 2,448 US military service members and 3,846 US contractors, according to the Brown University Costs of War project.
The US had spent hundreds of billions of dollars on security and reconstruction efforts, which were mired with graft and waste, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The Taliban militant group toppled the US-backed government in Kabul before the pullout was completed.
US President Joe Biden says that the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Flood carried out by resistance factions in Gaza aimed to disrupt a potential normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
“One of the reasons why they acted like they did, why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said on 20 October at a campaign fundraiser in Washington. “Because the Saudis wanted to recognize Israel, and that would in fact unite [West Asia].”
His comments came five days after he told CBS’ 60 Minutes that the prospect of normalization was still alive.
“Look, it’s just going to take time to get done,” Biden said. “It’s going to take time. But the direction, moving into the normalization makes sense for the Arab nations as well as Israel.”
In the weeks leading up to 7 October – the day Hamas and other Gaza resistance factions successfully stormed Israel’s southern settlements – the White House had been working around the clock to seal a “megadeal” with Saudi Arabia that would have seen the kingdom normalize ties with Israel in exchange for a US-sponsored civilian nuclear program, access to more advanced US weapons, and a firm defense pact with Washington that would have forced the US to come to the kingdom’s aid in case of attack.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia publicly demanded concessions for the Palestinians in exchange for signing a normalization deal, insisting on establishing a Palestinian State along the lines of the 2002 Saudi Peace Initiative to garner any possible support from the Islamic world.
“Every day we get closer [to a deal with Israel],” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) told Fox News in late September.
“For us, the Palestinian issue is very important. We need to solve that part,” MbS added. “And we have a good negotiations strategy til now.”
However, in the wake of Israel’s campaign of genocide against the civilian population of Gaza, the kingdom was forced to “freeze” normalization talks and has thrown its support behind the plight of the Palestinians.
On Friday, the Saudi leader stressed the need “to stop military operations against civilians and infrastructure that affect their daily lives” and “create conditions to achieve lasting peace that ensures the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
The Saudi government has also refused to condemn the actions of the Gaza resistance, instead reminding Tel Aviv that Riyadh had issued repeated warnings of a possible escalation in light of “the ongoing occupation and the deprivation of the Palestinian people of their legitimate rights, as well as the repeated deliberate provocations against their sanctities.”
Israel has begun evacuating the settlement of Kiryat Shmona, the military said on 20 October, coming as part of previously announced plans to empty out the settlements on the northern Israeli border with Lebanon.
“The National Emergency Authority (NAE) in the Ministry of Defense and the IDF announce the activation of a plan to evacuate the residents of Kiryat Shmona to state-funded guest houses,” the Israeli army said.
“The implementation of the program was approved by the Minister of Defense, Yoav Galant. The Northern Command informed the mayor of the decision a short time ago,” the statement added.
Kiryat Shmona has around 22,000 settlers residing in it.
Four days ago, Tel Aviv announced plans to evacuate around two dozen settlements on the border with Lebanon over fears that a new front could open up against it. Intense crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah continues to escalate, with the resistance group having carried out numerous successful strikes against Israeli forces since 7 October.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said during a meeting with his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, on 19 October that “Israel is not interested in another military operation in the north, but it will know how to deal on any front in order to protect its citizens.”
Following the announcement on Friday, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that evacuating Kiryat Shmona, which lies around five kilometers south of Israel’s border with Lebanon, “allows the expansion of operational work against Hezbollah.”
The exchange of fire between Israeli forces and the Lebanese resistance has been a daily occurrence since the start of Israel’s ongoing war against the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah announced on Friday that it targeted several sites in two Israeli-occupied Lebanese border areas, the Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shuba hills.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army continued its shelling of Lebanese border villages. It also announced targeting Hezbollah’s infrastructure the night before.
On 19 October, a barrage of rockets was fired from Lebanon into the northern Israeli settlements, damaging a building and causing injuries in Kiryat Shmona.
Israeli media said the rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona “appeared to be the most serious assault on the city since 2006,” when Hezbollah defeated Israeli forces after a 33-day war.
It remains unclear who launched the rockets, as Palestinian groups also operate in the south of Lebanon, and have fired rockets towards Israel’s north since the fighting erupted.
The tense border situation has raised concerns that Hezbollah may fully enter the war between the Gaza resistance and Israel. Observers believe that a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip and an Israeli attempt to dismantle the resistance completely may instigate the full involvement of the Lebanese resistance and the rest of the Resistance Axis.
Two military bases, used by American troops and their military advisors, in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr and near the Baghdad International Airport in the Iraqi capital have been hit by a series of large explosions amid rising anti-US sentiment in the two neighboring Arab countries.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that two separate missile attacks targeted the al-Omar oil field and the gas line connecting to the Conoco gas field in Dayr al-Zawr province early on Friday.
The sources added that a strike hit the transmission pipeline, used by US occupation forces and allied Kurdish-led militants affiliated with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to steal natural gas from the Conoco field, in the Abu Khashab desert area.
American occupation forces and allied SDF militants were subsequently put on high alert, and many military aircraft were seen hovering in the skies over the area, according to the report.
The sources added that another missile attack targeted the al-Omar oil field. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.
Moreover, explosions were heard near the US-run Victoria military base, which is adjacent to Baghdad airport.
Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television news network reported that three rockets were launched at the base early on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, a US military base in southern Syria was targeted in a drone attack. The al-Tanf base, located in Homs province, was targeted by three drones, according to al-Mayadeen.
Sabereen News, a Telegram news channel associated with Iraqi anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units, also reported the incident.
US military contractor dies of heart attack during al-Asad airbase attack
Meanwhile, a US military contractor, whose identity has not been disclosed, lost his life during the recent attack on the al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq.
Brigadier General Patrick S. Ryder, the US Department of Defense Press Secretary, stated that the contractor, whose identity has not been disclosed, suffered a heart attack while attempting to seek shelter.
He added that Americans are “investigating the recent attacks and the party behind them.”
On Thursday, Iraq’s Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba movement claimed responsibility for the missile strike against the Ain al-Asad base.
Firas al-Yasser, a member of the political council of the movement, told al-Mayadeen that the attack was in line with the “fight on one front” doctrine.
Yasser highlighted that Islamic resistance groups in Iraq are gearing up to prepare surprises against American interests as Israeli aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip is poised to escalate.
The US is fuelling wars and massacres, while the BRICS nations’ quest for mutual peace and prosperity, peace activist and writer KJ Noh said.
Visiting Israel on Wedneday, US President Joe Biden pledged unqualified support to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s operation in the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, in revenge for attacks launched by the Hamas movement and others on October 7.
Biden even endorsed Netanyahu’s claim that Palestinian guerrillas were to blame for the bombing of the al-Ahli Baptist Baptist hospital in Gaza on Wednesday evening that killed some 500 men, women and children.
Peace activist and writer KJ Noh told Sputnik that the “optics are very, very striking” — comparing Washington’s handouts of arms to its client states to China’s building of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) tri-continental transport and trade network.
“Right at the very moment that China is building infrastructure and saving lives all over the world through the BRI, the US is planning to assist Israel in destroying infrastructure and cause death,” Noh said. “The contrast could not be more clear.”
“[Russian President Valdimir] Putin goes to the BRI and Biden goes to Israel. I think that it’s very, very clear,” he added.
The activist said “the writing is on the wall” for the West’s vision of a unipolar world — and had been for a long time.
“All you had to do was just look at the correlation of forces to see that this was not going to shift or change,” Noh said. “And clearly Russia is now on the offensive.”
He also drew a sharp contrast between the “lack of civilian casualties” in Russia’s 20-month military operation to de-nazify Ukraine and the 3,500 Palestinians killed in Israel’s “massive shelling, bombing, murder of children that has happened in recent days in Gaza.”
“That, too, is another contrast, just the kind of the difference between [a special military operation] and wanton slaughter of people who are encaged in the world’s largest open air prison.”
The US shows hits hypocrisy by painting Russia and China as authoritarian dictatorships and threats to its self-defined “rules-based international order” while giving free reign to Israel to flout the United Nations charter, he said.
“International law says that the occupation is illegal, and certainly international law says that war of aggression against civilians is illegal,” Noh said. “Turning Gaza into a free fire zone is a crime against humanity… and the fact that China is coming out against that somehow goes against global norms, that it’s authoritarian — this is the world upside down.”
“Gaza is a real mask-off moment where you see the ‘rules-based international order’ for the unmitigated and naked violence and injustice that it really is,” he added.
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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