Israel planning re-entry, mass detention camps in Gaza?
By Helena Cobban | Just World News | May 20, 2010
Amir Buhbut reported in the Israeli daily Ma’ariv on Tuesday that,
the IDF and Military Police forces are training for the possibility that the IDF would stage an offensive on the entire Gaza Strip, including Gaza City and other Palestinian cities, and would be compelled to govern them for an extended period.
The translation comes from INN.
Buhbut quoted an un-named military source as saying that an officer has already been chosen to be the military governor of Gaza under this scenario.
And this:
The contingency plan also calls for setting up detention facilities that will be able to hold thousands of Palestinian detainees who are suspected of terrorist activity. “In order to hold them for a lengthy period of time, and under acceptable conditions, the preparations must be made in a clear and careful way,” the military source added.The Military Police intend to make use of an advanced biometric system that the IDF and Defense Ministry operated prior to Hamas’s rise to power in the Gaza Strip, in order to enable the entry of Palestinians to work in Israel, and to examine those who returned through the border terminals.“The biometric documentation process began a long time ago, but it will soon be renewed in order to ease matter for the Palestinian population that reaches Israel along with monitoring the population registry, and if we are called upon to classify the detainees or the population that is not involved in terror, we will do so successfully,” explained a military official who is involved in the training series, in preparation for the possibility of a deterioration in the Gaza Strip.
The mass detention operation, the “monitoring” of the population registry, and the “classifying” of the detainees or the population in general are all highly coercive steps, reminiscent of some of the most abusive moments in world colonial history like the “Pipeline” system that the British deployed against Kenyan nationalists (including Pres. Obama’s own grandfather) back in the 1950s.
Or, reminiscent of the steps the U.S. military took in Iraq in general, or in Fallujah or Tel Afar in particular.
Of course, Israel has its own long record of running mass detention operations. Today it holds some 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners, many of them for long periods and without charge or trial. Those thus detained include more than tree dozen members of the Palestinian parliament elected (in an election held with U.S. and Israeli approval) in January 2006.
The many different detention operations Israel ran in Lebanon during its 22-year occupation of the country, 1978-2000, were also notable. The prison it ran along with its proxy forces in Khiam was particularly notorious for the tortures enacted therein. In addition, in the aftermath of Israel’s large-scale 1982 aggression in Lebanon, it established three major detention camps, including the notorious Ansar I camp, in which it held thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese detainees.
(None of those detention/torture operations in Lebanon helped Israel to consolidate its rule in Lebanon. Instead, they further fueled the will of the Lebanese to resist the occupation, which coalesced in particular into the establishment of Hizbullah, which had not even existed prior to 1982. Now, 28 years later, Hizbullah holds a respected position in Lebanon’s parliament and government. Next week marks the tenth anniversary of the last Israeli ground forces slinking out of Lebanon in some disarray, back in May 2000.)
I do have a question, regarding this latest report from Buhbut, as to both why the military/sources “leaked” this information to him, and why the report was “allowed” to pass through Israel’s all-pervasive military censorship system.
Was it leaked, in fact, as a way of trying to scare Gaza’s population and the elected Hamas government in Gaza into making some concessions in, for example, the on-again-off-again negotiations over a prisoner release? If so, I doubt if it will have much effect.
But it does seem that some people in the Israeli military are still so frustrated and angry over the fact that the assault they waged against Gaza 18 months ago that they’re trying to figure out how to plan and launch another version of that assault that will actually succeed in dismantling Hamas’s structures in the Strip completely.
Ain’t gonna happen. (See Lebanon, above.)
Israel Expels Palestinian Legislator From Jerusalem
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 21, 2010
The Israeli Police decided, Thursday, to expel Palestinian Legislator, Mohammad Abu Teir, from occupied East Jerusalem and claimed that he lost his residency right in the city after he decided to run for the Palestinian Legislative Elections in 2006.
Abu Teir is an elected legislator of the Hamas movement. He was informed that he has until June 19 to implement the order and leave the city.
The decision also poses a threat on legislators Mohammad Totah and Ahmad Attoun and former Jerusalem Affairs Minister, Khaled Abu Arab.
Abu Teir was handed the order at the al-Maskobiyya police station in Jerusalem, and as he was leaving the station, a number of fundamentalist settlers of the Eretz Yisrael Shelano (Our Land Israel) fundamentalist group, tried to attack him and shouted “terrorist” at him and that “he would have been hanged in a normal country”.
He was imprisoned by Israel for 43 months and was approached by police only a few hours after he was released.
Abu Teir was interrogated at the al-Maskobiyya before he was handed the illegal order.
The Hamas movement and its government in Gaza said that Israel is pushing the area towards further escalation by targeting and expelling the Palestinians in Jerusalem and their elected leaders.
Israel Obstructs Entry Of Medicine, Medical Equipment To Gaza
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 20, 2010
Despite Israeli guarantees to the International Community, the Israeli Authorities are still obstructing the entry of medicine and medical equipment to the besieged Gaza Strip. The last time medicine was allowed into Gaza was mid October 2009.
Raed Fattouh, who heads a committee in charge of the entry of good into the Gaza Strip, stated that since mid October 2009 until this day, Israel has been obstructing the entry of all medical equipment and medications transferred from the West Bank to Gaza.
Some of the urgently needed equipment are CT scan machines, incubators and their equipment, heart machines, dialysis machines and other urgently needed equipment.
Fattouh held Israel responsible for the lives of the patients in the Gaza Strip as the siege has already led to the death of hundreds of patients, including children and infants.
Israel claims that the equipment and the medicines are undergoing “security check” as they “can be used in a counterproductive way.”
Fattouh said that the Palestinian Authority asked the World Health Organization and other international groups to intervene and pressure Israel into allowing the needed medical equipment.
Assad: Peres Offered Us ‘Golan for Iran and Resistance Movements’
Al-Manar TV – 18/05/2010
Syrian President Bashar Assad says his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, relayed a message from Israeli President Shimon Peres last week that the Zionist entity was willing to withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for Syria cutting its ties with Iran and the “resistance movements”.
Assad made the remark in an interview published Tuesday in Lebanese daily as-Safir.
Last week, Peres took part in ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in Moscow. He asked Medvedev to relay a message to Assad, with whom the Russian leader met two days later.
On the backdrop of the recent tensions and the calming messages, Assad replied: “Our answer is clear. Reality proves that Israel is not working for peace, so talks will not help.”
Peres told Medvedev, “We are reaching our hand out for peace with Syria, but peace cannot exist without a basic condition: You cannot reach a hand out for peace while continuing to support terror groups.”
He explained that “Israel has no other interpretation for the transfer of arms from Syria to Hezbollah. The transfer of long-range, precise missiles to the organization is an incitement to war.”
Assad was asked in the interview whether Syria would join a war in the event of an Israeli attack on Lebanon.
“I believe that the Israelis hope to hear the answer to this question, but I won’t fulfill their wish,” the Syrian president replied. “These are military matters which we shall not reveal. We shall not reveal our cards or plans.”
He also addressed claims that his country transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah. “All the public sights of war and peace are imaginary. I say we must worry if the Israelis are silent, not if they talk. The threats you hear and the Scud missiles they talk about have nothing to do with the conditions of war and the possibility that it will take place, just like all the calm attempts which follow do not mean that the chances of peace have grown stronger.”
“We don’t believe the Israelis,” Assad added. “We act based on the assumption that we must be prepared for war and peace at any minute. There are those who made a mistake and erased the resistance option, becoming hostage to the peace option. We must be prepared for both options at the same time.”
The Israeli president’s associates said that a situation in which the Syrians have the Golan but continue to maintain relations with Iran is inconceivable.
Israel to Europe: Stop your citizens from sailing to Gaza with aid
By Jack Khoury and Barak Ravid | Haaretz | May 17, 2010
Israel warned a number of European states that it would not permit leftist-organizations planning to sail to the Gaza Strip with international aid to complete their mission.
The director of European affairs for the Foreign Ministry, Naor Gilon, met separately with envoys from Turkey, Greece, Ireland and Sweden to convey the message that any of their citizens intending to set sail for Gaza would be stopped before they could reach the coastal territory.
Describing such mission as provocative and in violation of Israeli law, Gilon told the diplomats: “Israel has not intention of allowing these sailboats in Gaza.”
The Foreign Ministry message essentially entails that anybody who tries to sail to Gaza with aid, or who tries to transfer goods into the Hamas-ruled territory, must do so in accordance with procedure.
The diplomats promised to pass the message along to the appropriate sources, said the Foreign Ministry, with some even offering to help prevent their citizens from attempting the mission.
Earlier Monday, Israeli security forces released a Turkish national arrested this month for allegedly belonging to an outlawed Islamic group, and were set to deport him later in the day.
Izzet Shahin, a volunteer for the Turkish NGO Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), was arrested in the West Bank by the Israel Defense Forces and was then transferred to the Shin Bet for investigation.
IHH, who had been organizing a Gaza aid boat planned to depart at the end of the month, was outlawed in Israel a few years ago.
According to the IHH website, the organization had been organizing a “major initiative…to deliver aid via the sea to the Gaza Strip, which has been under an embargo for over three years.”
“Hundreds of concerned people will set out on 10 ships in May to take over 5,000 tons of relief aid and materials to Gaza,” the website statement said,
Grapes withering on the vine
International Solidarity Movement | 17 May 2010
Souad has lost access to the land that provides her livelihood
Souad lives in the beautiful village of Safa, south west of Bethlehem, close by the path of the apartheid wall. From her house in the village it is only a short walk to her land – an entire, rolling hillside, the summit of which has been stolen by the Israeli colony/settlement of Bat Eyn. No fence separates her fields and terraces from the settlement: Bat Ayn is one of only two colonies without such a fence in the entire West Bank, designed to make it easier, without a defining border, to make future land grabs.
The title deeds to Souad’s hillside have been in her family for over 100 years. Not that it does her any good – she cannot even graze her sheep without risking being fired upon by the settlers. She can only watch from a nearby hill while her peaches and grapes, soon ready for harvest, wither and rot on the vines and trees, or are stolen by settlers. She needs to work the land, to ensure the proof of continuing ownership and to keep the soil in good condition, but fears for her life if she was to venture there. She has watched helplessly as hundreds of fruit trees, replanted with help from international donors after the original trees were torched by settlers, were dug up and taken back to the settlement to be planted there.
Our presence on this nearby hill was soon noticed by Israeli soldiers patrolling nearby roads and we decided to move back to the village, lest the soldiers enter and fire tear-gas into the village as punishment for the presence of international observers. As we left Souad ruefully remarked, “My hill is gone. Where we are standing may be next.”
It is difficult to see how villagers such as Souad can carry on. She may say, “With God’s help we will survive”, but, dependent wholly for her livelihood on what her land produces, her future is precarious in the extreme. From these hillsides it is possible, on a clear day, to see well beyond the Green Line and, they say, to Tel Aviv. Such a beautiful land. The Stolen Land. And the disappearing land.
Jewish Settler Flees Scene After Ramming Vehicle Into Mother with Two Little Girls
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 16, 2010
Palestinian medical sources in Bethlehem reported Saturday at night that a Jewish settler rammed his vehicle into a mother and her two girls in Al Jab’a village near Bethlehem, and fled the scene.
The sources identified the woman as Aneesa Hasan Al Tous, 35, and her two daughters Ro’a, 2 years old, and Nagham, 5. They were moved to Al Ahli Hospital In Hebron; the mom and one of her children are in moderate conditions while the second child is in a serious condition.
Eyewitnesses reported that the mother and her children were walking at the entrance of the village when the settler rammed his vehicle into them and fled the scene.
The Israeli army managed to apprehend the settler later on.
Al Jab’a is located south of Bethlehem and is under full Israeli security and military control and its residents are facing constant violations and attacks carried out by the settlers.
In a separate incident, resident Ahmad Al Alami, 22, from Beit Ummar town near Hebron, was also wounded after a settler rammed his vehicle into him. He was moved to Hadassah Israeli hospital in Jerusalem. His condition was described as moderate but stable. This time, the settler reportedly did not leave the scene and called an Israeli ambulance.
Japanese form human chain at US base
Press TV – May 16, 2010
Thousands of people have formed a human chain around the Futenma airbase on the island of Okinawa to protest the US military presence in Japan
Some 17,000 protesters called on Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Sunday to move the controversial facility out of Okinawa, Kyodo news agency reported. The rally comes just days ahead of a visit to Japan by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
The relocation of the Futenma airbase is at the center of a dispute between Washington and Tokyo. Hatoyama had promised to move the base off Okinawa by the end of this month. However, local media say the government has abandoned the deadline and is now seeking to settle the feud by November.
The islanders have suggested that the Futenma base should be moved off the island of Okinawa or even outside of Japan altogether.
The Futenma airbase has been used by the US since the final days of World War II. Some 47,000 US troops are currently based in Japan, with more than half of the soldiers stationed in Okinawa.
Hatoyama’s failure to move the base will endanger his weakening ruling coalition. The issue has threatened the political future of Hatoyama with both Washington and his political allies putting him under pressure to find a solution to the deadlock.
US funds Israel’s apartheid roads plan
Settlers benefit from Israeli-only routes
By Jonathan Cook in Jerusalem | 16 May 2010
The construction of sections of a controversial segregated road network in the West Bank planned by Israel for Palestinians – leaving the main roads for exclusive use by Jewish settlers – is being financed by a US government aid agency, a map prepared by Palestinian researchers has revealed.
USAid, which funds development projects in Palestinian areas, is reported to have helped to build 114 killometres of Israeli-proposed roads, despite a pledge from Washington six years ago that it would not assist in implementing what has been widely described as Israel’s “apartheid road” plan.
To date the agency has paid for the construction of nearly a quarter of the segregated road network put forward by Israel in 2004, said the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ).
The roads are designed to provide alternative routes to connect Palestinian communities, often by upgrading circuitous dirt tracks or by building tunnels under existing routes.
Meanwhile, according to human rights groups, Israel has reserved an increasing number of main roads in the West Bank for Israelis so that Jewish settlers can drive more easily and quickly into Israel, making their illegal communities more attractive places to live.
The US agency’s involvement in building a segregated West Bank road infrastructure would run counter to Washington’s oft-stated goal, including as it launched “proximity talks” last week, to establish a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity.
“The displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank’s main roads improves the appeal of the settlements by better integrating them into Israel,” said Suheil Khalilieh, the head of settlement monitoring at ARIJ. “Conversely, creating an inferior, alternative network of local roads makes travel between the main regions of the West Bank difficult and time-consuming for Palestinians.”
Israel proposed the creation of two separate road systems in 2004, after many of the West Bank’s main roads had been sealed off to Palestinians following the outbreak of the second intifada.
Ariel Sharon, the then-prime minister, argued that segregated infrastructure would create “contiguity of transportation” for Palestinians and help to alleviate economic hardship resulting from hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints that restrict Palestinian movement.
The international community was asked to finance 500 km of roads for the Palestinians, later termed “fabric of life” roads, including upgrading agricultural tracks and constructing many underpasses and bridges, at a cost of 200 million US dollars.
The Palestinian Authority, however, objected, saying the plan would further entrench the illegal settlements in the West Bank and justify confiscating yet more Palestinian land for the new roads.
That position was backed by international donors, including the US, which declared it would not finance any road projects against the PA’s will.
Despite the US promise, however, a map of the West Bank recently published by ARIJ shows that 23 per cent of the “alternative” road network Israel proposed has been built with USAid money.
Many of these roads are located in so-called Areas B and C, more than 80 per cent of the West Bank that was assigned to Israeli security control by the Oslo accords. Israel oversees all road projects in these areas.
Mr Khalilieh said the PA was being effectively bullied into conceding the road infrastructure wanted by Israel.
“What happens is that USAid presents a package deal of donations for infrastructure projects in the West Bank and the Palestinians are faced with a choice of take it or leave it. That way the PA is cornered into accepting roads it does not want.”
He said some roads were also being approved because of a lack of oversight by the PA. An inter-ministerial committee to vet proposed roads to ensure they did not contribute to the Israeli plan had been inactive since 2006, he said, following the split between Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian elections.
After PA officials were presented with ARIJ’s map, Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, issued a statement last weekend denying that the PA had contributed to the Israeli-proposed road network.
However, in a sign that such reassurances were unlikely to dampen concerns, he reconvened the inter-ministerial committee to conduct field visits to check on road projects that had been carried out or were in progress.
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian government spokesman and a former planning minister, said the PA was taking the issue “very seriously” and was doing everything possible to resist the emergence of an “apartheid system” in the West Bank.
He added that, if roads were being built that served the settlers’ interests, “that is not supposed to happen”.
According to USAid’s figures, it has financed 235 km of roads in the West Bank in the past decade, and is preparing to add another 120km by the end of this year.
Critics add that in some cases the upgrading by USAid of minor roads, even those not included in the Israeli plan, has worked to the same end of keeping Palestinians off the West Bank’s main highways.
USAid officials were unavailable for comment.
Among roads for Palestinians funded by USAid are several projects south of Bethlehem that appear to be providing an “alternative” to Road 60, a busy highway that has traditionally linked Jerusalem with the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Hebron in the southern West Bank.
Israel has increasingly restricted Palestinian access to Road 60 because it also serves as a fast direct route for Jewish settlers in the Gush Etzion bloc driving to and from Jerusalem.
As a result, residents of several nearby Palestinian villages, including Batir, Wadi Fuqeen, Al-Walaja and Husan, have been forced off Road 60 and on to USAid-funded side roads and underpasses to connect them to Bethlehem and other neighbouring communities.
Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said 170 km of roads in the West Bank were either off-limits to Palestinians or highly restricted, creating what the organization has called “forbidden roads”.
B’Tselem noted that, after the 2004 scheme for complete separation was rejected by donors, Israel adapted the plan, using bridges, tunnels and interchanges to create partial separation, with Israelis “traveling on the fast upper levels, and Palestinians on the lower levels”. It concluded: “The plan allows Palestinian vehicles to travel on only 20 per cent of the [West Bank] roads on which Israeli vehicles travel.”
Ms Michaeli added that the growing dependence of Palestinian traffic on underpasses meant that Israel was in a position to control or even sever connections between Palestinian areas with only one military jeep.
Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, the director of Badil, a Bethlehem-based organization that has lobbied against road segregation in the southern West Bank, said there was considerable domestic and international pressure on the PA to agree to roads dictated by Israel, if only because they often eased the existing restrictions on Palestinian movement.
“Sadly, the PA is helping to build its own Bantustans,” she said. “Palestinian towns and villages connected by back roads and tunnels while the settlers control the main highways is what the US appears to mean when it talks about a viable Palestinian state.”
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
Hebron: Israeli occupation forces evict man from home
Ma’an – 15/05/2010
Hebron – Israeli forces reportedly evicted a man from his home in Ash-Shuhada Street, central Hebron, on Friday. Anas Zuheir Al-Bayed, 21, said soldiers broke into his home and forced him out “under the pretext that it was owned by the Israeli army.”
He said he had not received any documentation declaring that the home was owned by the army, adding that “they expelled me from the house, threatening to use weapons.”
Al-Bayed added that he had rented the home from Nayef Abu Menshar two months ago. An Israeli military spokesman said he would look into the report.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army detained two residents on Friday after stopping their vehicle at a military checkpoint near Yatta, southern Hebron. The car was searched and the two were detained for allegedly possessing knives. Witnesses said they were beaten and taken to an unknown location.
An Israeli military representative said the detentions were after a security inspection found the men in possession of two 12cm knives, adding that both were taken for security questioning. The spokesman added that Israeli forces detained a driver and two other suspects following a security inspection near Yatta after an axe was discovered in the car they were traveling in. All three suspects were transferred tot he custody of the Israeli police, the spokesman said.
Israel OKs super-settlement in West Bank
Press TV – May 13, 2010
The Islamic Christian Commission for Support of Jerusalem and Holy Places says Israel has approved plans for the construction of a new settlement near al-Quds.
Hasan Khatir, the commission’s secretary general, revealed the Israeli officials’ green light for the new settlement of Givat Yael during a Wednesday news conference in Ramallah, the Saudi English-language daily Arab News said on its website.
The complex planned to be built on 741 acres of land in the West Bank village of Walaja — lying east of the 1967 armistice line and inside the West Bank — will include 12,000 settlement units and will provide accommodation for 40,000 Israeli settlers.
The new project — the largest outside al-Quds municipal boundaries since the construction of Pisgat Ze’ev, Gilo and Har Homa settlements — has raised warnings of Israeli attempts toward the construction of a “Greater Jerusalem.”
The new Israeli plan will “lay the foundation for the appropriation of the land between al-Quds and Gush Etzion settlement,” Khatir warned, describing the plan as “a dangerous development toward settlement construction and judaization of al-Quds, Ma’an news agency reported.
Israeli authorities earlier disqualified building plans submitted by Walaja residents, and decided to demolish 90 of their houses, labeling the buildings as illegal.
The approval of the super-settlement project comes despite US warnings to both Israelis and Palestinians against any provocations undermining the ongoing indirect talks between the foe sides.
Israel’s Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch on Wednesday announced plans to raze a number of Palestinian homes in East al-Quds. He said the demolitions orders were previously delayed in the light of US efforts to renew the so-called peace process.
Afghans angry at ‘civilian deaths’
Al-Jazeera | May 14, 2010
One person has been shot dead by police as hundreds of protesters took to the streets in eastern Afghanistan, accusing Nato-led forces of killing civilians during an overnight raid near the city of Jalalabad.
Angry Afghans set fire to tyres and blocked roads in the Surkh Road district of Nangahar province on Friday, demanding an explanation for the deaths.
Witnesses told Al Jazeera that between nine and 15 civilians had been killed in the Nato attack. Mohammed Arish, a government administrator in Surkh Rod, said a father and his four sons and four members of another family were among the dead.
“They are farmers. They are innocent. They are not insurgents or militants,” Arish told The Associated Press by phone.
Arish said the protesters had tried to march toward the provincial capital of Jalalabad before being turned back by police. The Nangahar governor’s office said at least three people were injured during a clash with police.
‘Taliban firefight’
A Nato spokesman confirmed foreign and Afghan forces had conducted some operations in the area but said he was not aware of any civilian deaths and the alliance was checking the incident.
Colonel Wayne Shanks said eight Taliban fighters were killed in a firefight, adding that fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades at Nato forces. Two other people were captured during the operation, and weapons and communications gear were confiscated at the targeted compound, Shanks said.
Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid reporting from Kabul said international forces and Afghan troops were flown to the area by helicopters overnight and carried out the raid.
“According to a Nato and Isaf [International Security Assistance Force] statement they were targeting Taliban sub-commanders and some fighters which their intelligence said were hiding in a compound outside a village.
“But the villagers said none of those killed had anything to do with the Taliban, that all of them were innocent civilians and members of two different families.” … Full article
Featured Video
Trita Parsi: Iran War Ends Today? Threats of Deporting Trita Parsi
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The 12 Screenings That Manufacture the Patients They Claim to Find
- Iran deputy FM says MoU with US finalized, to be signed in Geneva on Friday
- With one strike, Netanyahu tries to kill two peace deals
- Iran warns ‘no point’ in deal with US if Israel remains unrestrained
- Ukraine as a laboratory of ‘techno-fascism’
- Desperate Starmer choosing piracy as distraction over UK crime crisis – Putin envoy
- The Crusades – colliding narratives
- Trita Parsi: Iran War Ends Today? Threats of Deporting Trita Parsi
- What Is SIDS?
- DHS docs: Govt bracing for nationwide anti-AI riots, preparing to crack down on dissent
- If Americans Knew
- Did Trump just threaten a nuclear attack on Iran? Another merger for Israel-Firster David Ellison –Daily Update
- Israeli Firm Accused of Launching Smear Campaigns During US, European Elections
- As World Cup kicks off, Gaza amputee girls chase football dreams
- Oxfam: More Palestinians killed by Israel across West Bank in last 3 years than previous 17 years combined
- US-Iran ceasefire may be imminent, but will Israel blow it up? – Daily Update
- The Issue of Israel Is Ending Democracy In Michigan
- Israel is stealing homes, livelihoods, and lives in West Bank
- Gaza is not an aberration – Israel planned this genocide decades ago
- Israel is changing the face of Lebanon, mainstream media is normalizing it – 3 articles
- Genocide lobby benefits from EU anti-racist fund
- No Tricks Zone
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
Aletho News 