Siemens wins huge defense contract at notorious US Guantanamo base in Cuba
RT | July 26, 2019
A unit of German multinational Siemens has been awarded an $829 million contract from the Pentagon “for energy savings and performance measures” at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
According to a statement by the US Department of Defense, the work to be performed provides for the construction, operations and maintenance of energy conservation measures to improve energy efficiency and reliability.
That includes heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades, lighting upgrades, commercial refrigeration upgrades, distributed generation, renewable energy photovoltaic for both demand and supply sides, energy storage, power control, supervisory control and data acquisition, water retrofits and wastewater.
Work is expected to be completed by April 2043, the Pentagon said.
“No funds will be obligated with this award, as private financing obtained by the contractor will be used for the 31-month construction (i.e. implementation) phase of the project.”
According to the report, eight proposals were received for the task order. It specified that the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center, Port Hueneme, California, is the contracting activity for the task order.
The Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Golden, Colorado, is the contracting activity for the basic contract.
The US naval base in Guantanamo Bay is also known for its notorious prison, which has been widely criticized for violations of human rights. Established in 2002, it is known for indefinite detention without trial and numerous tortures which have led to scores of suicides and unsuccessful suicide attempts by detainees.
Palestinian capital in Jerusalem is ‘aspiration not a right’, US’ Greenblatt says
MEMO | July 24, 2019
US Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, has said that the creation of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem is an “aspiration not a right”.
Speaking at the United Nations Security Council yesterday, Greenblatt said that while “it is true that the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organisation] and the Palestinian Authority [PA] continue to assert that East Jerusalem must be a capital for the Palestinians, […] let’s remember, an aspiration is not a right.”
Greenblatt also shunned international law as the foundation of any future peace agreement: “We have all heard cogent arguments claiming international law says one thing or another about this or that aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some of those arguments are persuasive, at least to certain audiences. But none of them are conclusive.”
“There is no judge, jury, or court in the world [to which] that the parties involved have agreed to give jurisdiction in order to decide whose interpretations are correct,” he added.
International law considers East Jerusalem occupied territory after it was captured by Israel during the 1967 War; it likewise does not recognised Israel’s annexation of the city in 1980.
The top US envoy also appeared to rule out international consensus, which has long worked on the premise of dividing or sharing Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state.
“If a so-called international consensus had been able to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it would have done so decades ago. It didn’t,” he quipped.
Greenblatt’s comments will be seen as yet more evidence that the administration of US President Donald Trump does not intend to fulfil Palestinian rights in Jerusalem.
Since President Trump announced his recognition of the Holy City as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and moved the US embassy there in May 2018, any such prospect has grown increasingly distant.
This was compounded by rumours surrounding the so-called “deal of the century”, which Greenblatt has spearheaded alongside Senior Advisor to the President and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Last month a senior Israeli source told Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon that under the “deal of the century” Abu Dis – a neighbourhood of Jerusalem located beyond Israel’s Separation Wall in the occupied West Bank – would be the Palestinian capital.
Other leaks have suggested that, under the deal, Jerusalem is to be shared by Israel and “New Palestine”, a new state created in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip (minus the vast swathes of land on which Israel’s illegal settlements now sit, which would become part of Israel). Under this alleged agreement, Israel would maintain general control of “shared” Jerusalem.
Exactly when the political elements of the “deal of the century” will be revealed is not yet clear. Though the economic aspects were unveiled at the “Peace to Prosperity” conference in Bahraini capital Manama last month, the second half of the deal has been repeatedly delayed; a number of excuses have been provided, including “political instability” in Israel as a result of repeat elections and religious holidays.
Questions have been raised as to whether the political part of the deal will be unveiled at all, given the proximity of the 2020 US elections in which President Trump will seek re-election. Greenblatt told the Security Council yesterday that the president has still not decided when to release the plans’ political portion, adding only that “we hope to make that decision soon”.
The broad rejection of the deal both by Palestinian factions and Israel, as well a lack of support from key figures in the US – most notably Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – is suspected to be a key factor behind the repeated delays.
See also:
US’ Greenblatt: ‘Israel is victim in conflict with Palestinians’
US’ Greenblatt: ‘Israel is victim in conflict with Palestinians’
MEMO | July 18, 2019
The US Special Representative for International Negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, has said that Israel is the “victim” in its conflict with the Palestinians and that he “cannot think of single instances” when Israel made a mistake.
In an interview aired yesterday by US broadcaster PBS, Greenblatt was asked what responsibility Israel bears for its now 71-year-old conflict with the Palestinians. The US envoy replied:
I think that Israel is actually more the victim than the party that’s responsible. From the moment of its formation, they were attacked multiple times. They continue to be attacked with terrorism. So — I’m not sure I understand the premise of the question.
He added that he “cannot think of single instances” in which Israel made a mistake or overstepped its authority, saying: “I think that they’re trying their best to succeed. They have actually succeeded in many ways, especially economically, under very, very trying circumstances.”
Greenblatt also doubled down on previous comments in which he argued Israel’s illegal settlements should be referred to as “neighbourhoods and cities”, saying that the term “settlements” is “pejorative”.
On the occupied West Bank – where over 500 illegal settlements are located – and the besieged Gaza Strip, the envoy said: “I would argue that the land is disputed. It needs to be resolved in the context of direct negotiations between the parties. Calling it occupied territory does not help resolve the conflict.”
Under international law, both the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain classified as occupied territories.
Greenblatt’s comments are the latest in a series of controversial remarks that have drawn fierce criticism and rebuke of the US envoy.
Earlier this month, Greenblatt came under fire after criticising the Palestinian Authority (PA) for failing to provide adequate funds for a Palestinian child’s blood cancer medication. This came after Gaza-based Palestinian journalist Fathi Sabbah accused PA Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, and Ahmed Abu Houli, a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), of reneging on promises to assist with his daughter Rima’s treatment.
This prompted Greenblatt to write on Twitter: “Mr. Shtayyeh, how about keeping your word & paying for Rima’s treatment? The PA has the funds and it would be a wise and compassionate use of them. Mr. Sabbah, my thoughts are with you and your family. I pray Rima will have a full and speedy recovery.”
Twitter users – including Sabbah – were quick to point out the irony of Greenblatt blaming the PA for the family’s plight while ignoring Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip, regular refusal to grant exit visas for medical treatment, and the US’ almost-unconditional support for Israel.
The US envoy – who is one of the chief architects of the US’ long-awaited “deal of the century” – has also made a number of provocative claims about Israel’s policy in the occupied West Bank.
In June, Greenblatt stood behind comments made by US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, in which the latter stated Israel has “the right” to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
Friedman told the New York Times that “under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank”, provoking international outcry and prompting the Palestinian Foreign Ministry to consider filing a complaint against the ambassador at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Greenblatt backed Friedman’s stance, saying: “I will let David’s comments stand for themselves. I think he said them elegantly and I support his comments.” For his part, Friedman has also refused to back down, since claiming he does “not understand why this issue was faced with such criticism. There is no scenario in which Israel is leaving the whole West Bank.”
His comments have been interpreted as an effort to normalise discussion of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed ahead of the country’s April general election that he would annex the territory if he were re-elected.
Though the political elements of the “deal of the century” have not yet been unveiled, the plan is not expected to demand that Israel dismantle its West Bank settlements. Though the US has not yet changed its policy on annexation, the precedent set by President Donald Trump’s recognition of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as Israeli could pave the way for a similar move in the West Bank.
Mossad-linked group seeks seizure of Iranian oil tanker
Press TV – July 17, 2019
An Israeli group with links to the regime’s secret service Mossad is seeking to seize an Iranian oil tanker and its cargo held by British troops off Gibraltar.
The supertanker tanker Grace I, capable of carrying two million barrels of oil, was seized on July 4 by a detachment of British Royal Marines, in what has been denounced as “piracy” by Iran.
Shurat Hadin, which wages “legal battles” on behalf of Israelis claiming victim to Palestinian attacks, is asking the supreme court of Gibraltar to grant an injunction to seize the vessel and its cargo, the UK’s Daily Express reported.
The group claims to be a “civil rights” organization, but its intimate links with Mossad were first exposed in 2013, when a US embassy cable was published by WikiLeaks.
In that classified document, the group’s director Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told US embassy staff that the group “took direction” from Israeli spy agencies, including Mossad.
In 2017, Shurat Hadin won a $178.5 million US court judgment against Iran and Syria in 2017 over the death of an American in Jerusalem al-Quds.
Darshan-Leitner told AFP that the vessel’s sale would not raise more than a fraction of the court’s award, but it could pave the way for the seizure of other Iranian assets.
Those assets have already been subject to a witch hunt by the Americans who have used US animosity toward the Islamic Republic to easily win lawsuits against Tehran in courts.
In 2016, the US Supreme Court ruled that about $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to American families of people killed in the 1983 bombing of a US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks.
Iran has denounced US attempts to expropriate its frozen assets as “highway robbery”.
A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in London, quoted by the Express, denounced the latest attempt against Iran’s supertanker.
“The position is clear. The tanker has been seized illegally and should be released as soon as possible,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Tuesday Iran would respond to Britain’s “piracy” as he called on London to immediately release the oil tanker.
“The malicious Britain commits piracy and steals our ship. They perpetrate a crime and give it a legal appearance,” the Leader said.
“The Islamic Republic and faithful elements of the establishment will not leave this evil deed unanswered and will respond to them at an appropriate time and place,” he added.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Saturday that Britain would facilitate the release the ship if Iran provided guarantees the vessel would not go to Syria.
Iranian officials have repeatedly denied the vessel is bound for Syria.
Israel’s machinery of dispossession has crushed the hopes of an inspirational family
The struggle of Jawad Siyam perfectly illustrates the relentless oppression faced by all Palestinians
By Jonathon Cook | The National | July 14, 2019
Israeli police forced out the Siyam family from their home in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem last week, the final chapter in their 25-year legal battle against a powerful settler organisation.
The family’s defeat represented much more than just another eviction. It was intended to land a crushing blow against the hopes of some 20,000 Palestinians living in the shadow of the Old City walls and Al Aqsa mosque.
Dozens of families in the Silwan neighbourhood have endured the same fate as the Siyams, and the Israeli courts have approved the imminent eviction of many hundreds more Palestinians from the area.
But, unlike those families, the Siyams’ predicament briefly caught public attention. That was because one of them, Jawad Siyam, has become a figurehead of Silwan’s resistance efforts.
Mr Siyam, a social worker, has led the fight against Elad, a wealthy settler group that since the early 1990s has been slowly erasing Silwan’s Palestinian identity, in order to remake it as the City of David archeological park.
Mr Siyam has served as a spokesman, drawing attention to Silwan’s plight. He has also helped to organise the community, setting up youth and cultural centres to fortify Silwan’s identity and sense of purpose in the face of Israel’s relentless oppression.
However, the settlers of Elad want Silwan dismembered, not strengthened.
Elad’s mission is to strip away the Palestinian community to reveal crumbling relics beneath, which it claims are proof that King David founded his Israelite kingdom there 3,000 years ago.
The history and archeological rationalisations may be murky, but the political vision is clear. The Palestinians of Silwan are to be forced out like unwelcome squatters.
An Israeli human rights group, Peace Now, refers to plans for the City of David as “the transformation of Silwan into a Disneyland of the messianic extreme right wing”.
It is the most unequal fight imaginable – a story of David and Goliath, in which the giant fools the world into believing he is the underdog.
It has pitted Mr Siyam and other residents against not only the settlers, but the US and Israeli governments, the police and courts, archaeologists, planning authorities, national parks officials and unwitting tourists.
And, adding to their woes, Silwan’s residents are being forced to fight both above and below ground at the same time.
The walls and foundations of dozens of houses are cracking and sinking because the Israeli authorities have licensed Elad to flout normal safety regulations and excavate immediately below the community’s homes. Several families have had to be evacuated.
Late last month Elad flexed its muscles again, this time as it put the finishing touches to its latest touristic project: a tunnel under Silwan that reaches to the foot of Al Aqsa.
On Elad’s behalf, the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, wielded a sledgehammer to smash down a symbolic wall inaugurating the tunnel, which has been renamed the Pilgrimage Road.
Elad claims – though many archaeologists doubt it – that in Roman times the tunnel was a street used by Jews to ascend to a temple on the site where today stands the Islamic holy site of Al Aqsa.
The participation of the two US envoys in the ceremony offered further proof that Washington is tearing up the peacemaking rulebook, destroying any hope the Palestinians might once have had of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Mr Friedman called the City of David complex – at the core of occupied Palestinian Jerusalem – “an essential component of the national heritage of the State of Israel”. Ending the occupation there would be “akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty”.
While Israel, backed by the US, smashes Silwan’s foundations, it is also dominating the sky above it.
Last month Israel’s highest planning body approved a cable car from Israeli territory in West Jerusalem into the centre of Silwan.
It will connect with the City of David and a network of boardwalks, coffee shops and touristic tunnels, such as like the Pilgrimage Road, all run by Elad settlers, to slice apart Silwan.
And to signal how the neighbourhood is being reinvented, the Israeli municipality enforcing the occupation in East Jerusalem recently named several of Silwan’s main streets after famous Jewish rabbis.
Former mayor Nir Barkat has said the goal of all this development is to bring 10 million tourists a year to Silwan, so that they “understand who is really the landlord in this city”.
Few outsiders appear to object. This month, the tourism website TripAdvisor was taken to task by Amnesty International for recommending the City of David as a top attraction in Jerusalem.
And now, Elad has felled the family of Jawad Siyam in a bid to crush the community’s spirits and remaining sense of defiance.
As it has with so many of Silwan’s homeowners, Elad waged a decades-long legal battle against the family to drain them of funds and stamina.
The Siyams’ fate was finally sealed last month when the Israeli courts extended the use of a 70-year-old, draconian piece of legislation, the Absentee Property Law, to Silwan.
The law was crafted specifically to steal the lands and homes of 750,000 Palestinian refugees expelled in 1948 by the new state of Israel.
Ownership of the Siyams’ home is shared between Jawad’s uncles and aunts, some of them classified by Israel as “absentees” because they now live abroad.
As a result, an Israeli official with the title Custodian of Absentee Property claimed ownership of sections of the house belonging to these relatives, and then, in violation of his obligations under international law, sold them on to Elad. Police strong-armed the family out last week.
To add insult to injury, the court also approved Elad seizing money raised via crowdfunding by more than 200 Israeli peace activists, with the aim of helping the Siyams with their legal costs.
Palestinians such as Jawad Siyam exist all over the occupied territories – men and women who have given Palestinians a sense of hope, commitment and steadfastness in the face of Israel’s machinery of dispossession.
When Israel targets Jawad Siyam, crushes his spirits, it sends an unmistakeable message not only to other Palestinians, but to the international community itself, that peace is not on its agenda.
Russia: Economic part of deal of the century contradicts UNSC resolutions
MEMO | July 4, 2019
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said yesterday that the economic part of the US deal of the century contradicts UN Security Council resolutions, TASS reported.
Following a meeting with the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Yousef Al-Othaimeen, he said: “Without seeing the comprehensive US vision of the settlement, it is very difficult to draw any conclusions.”
“But on a preliminary basis, I can say that the economic part proposes investing about $50 billion, half of the amount in Palestine, and the remaining $25 billion in the infrastructure of the countries where Palestinian refugees have lived for many years now.”
“If this is targeted at the refugees staying there for good and the countries will receive these financial injections to this end, then this alone contradicts the decisions of the UN Security Council, which among other things stipulate [establishing] such a Palestinian state.”
Lavrov stressed that the future Palestinian state “will be competent and will welcome refugees from the countries where they are hosted now, primarily, Lebanon, Egypt and a number of others.”
He concluded: “Therefore, we would like our American colleagues to finally explain their plan completely, instead of revealing their ideas piece by piece.”
Trump Admin Dangles $50Bn Bribe for Palestinian Surrender
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 3, 2019
President Trump’s senior aide on Mideast affairs Jared Kushner tried last week to sell his much-vaunted “deal of the century” for a Palestinian-Israeli peace settlement. The core of it was a purported foreign investment plan worth $50 billion.
The sales pitch made at a conference in Bahrain amounted to a $50Bn bribe dangled at the Palestinians to accept permanent illegal occupation of their ancestral lands in exchange for foreign investment. Kushner rebranded it as the “opportunity of the century”.
He claimed that political peace depends on a viable economic plan. Others would see that formulation as back-to-front: economic development and prosperity depends on a political solution to decades of injustice against Palestinians.
American diplomacy has been an utter failure for decades with regard to settling this bitter dispute. It would therefore be impossibly naive to expect the Trump administration to succeed. More likely, its blundering and bias will only make this historic problem a whole lot worse.
That’s no doubt why so many regional players decided to give the Bahrain event this week a clunking big miss.
Like his father-in-law in the White House, Kushner comes from a real estate background before Trump appointed him as his top aide on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. For the past two years, Kushner has been working on a “master plan” to end the eight-decade-old conflict. That conflict has been at the center of most other disputes and tensions in the region. Trump has billed his son-in-law’s peace plan as the “deal of the century”.
In Bahrain, the Trump administration gave the first-ever preview of its peace plans. Skeptics of Kushner’s ability to deliver a realistic, workable framework were not to be surprised. The boyish-looking Kushner looked way out of his depth as he presented his vision of business and investment as the supposed key to peace. He invited the audience to “imagine” Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza bustling with enterprise and trade. That entrepreneurial “promised land” would arrive if the Palestinians accepted Kushner’s vision of a $50Bn foreign investor fund.
What that boils down to is Palestinians accepting the present status quo of illegal occupation by Israel and in effect surrendering their historic claims for sovereign statehood. Moreover, the $5oBn in investments that Kushner was swooning about are not existing funds. They are only promises of potential investment, which may never actually be delivered.
Nowhere in the Trump administration’s “deal of the century” is there any attempt to redress historical violations of Palestinian national rights. There is no mention of the right of return of millions of Palestinians displaced by the 1948 war that established the sate of Israel. Nor of returning land annexed during the 1967 war. Illegal occupation is merely a fact on the ground that needs to be officially recognized as Israeli territory, according to the Trump administration. In the same way that Trump earlier this year officially recognized the occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Kushner’s bias in a supposedly peace mediator role is flagrant. He is Jewish and a family friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Kushner’s wife, Ivanka, Trump’s daughter, is a convert to Judaism. Last year, she personally unveiled the controversial new American embassy in Jerusalem, which Trump had promised to Netanyahu on his election in 2016 in recognition of the city as the capital of Israel. That move was seen by Palestinians as a betrayal of their historic claim to East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
During the past two years, the Trump administration has cut off development aid and diplomatic links with Palestinian authorities. Respected Palestinian negotiators like veteran envoy Hanan Ashrawi have been denied travel visas to the US. The consultation conducted by Kushner with the Palestinian side in formulating his peace plan has been minimal.
During a recent interview in the US, Kushner revealed his colonial-type mindset when he asserted that the “Palestinians were not ready yet for self-government”. In other words, in this supposed mediator’s view, he is saying that there will be no foreseeable state of Palestine. That is, the Palestinians must accept their inferior status as an occupied people while the state of Israel is permitted to continue annexing more and more of their ancestral land. Indeed, Kushner is believed to have personal business investments in the construction of new Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
It’s no wonder then than his so-called “deal of the century” amounts to a shallow business plan bereft of any deep historical, political issues. Palestinians are expected to shut up and surrender their historic rights for statehood by accepting a quixotic vision of economic wonders descending on them while living under permanent marginalization and deprivation. A UN report last year found that Gaza will no longer be habitable in a few years due to water and power shortages.
The Trump-Kushner proposal is the sort of con job that real estate agents excel at. Everything is reduced to the value of money while prospects are talked up with the most ludicrous glamor. Unscrupulous real estate agents would have the temerity to sell a cardboard box as if it were a penthouse suite. Trump and his son-in-law would seem to be of that same wheeler-dealer ilk.
After two years of bragging about its big Middle East “vision”, what people saw this week was little more than a glossy brochure of hype over historical realities. Indeed, it would seem that the purpose of the hype is to bury the hard historical problems that underly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The excessive emphasis on billions of dollars of investment by Kushner is an attempt to seduce Palestinians into relinquishing their political and moral rights.
This week, however, while the Trump administration was making its sales pitch in Bahrain, it was notable that there was no Palestinian delegation present. All across the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians shut their businesses in protest and took to the streets to burn effigies of the “deal of the century”.
Israeli government representatives were also not in attendance. That was only after the White House belatedly pulled their invitations in the weeks before the Bahrain conference took place. No doubt that hasty move by the White House was meant to minimize the embarrassing spectacle of a Palestinian boycott by also not having an official Israeli delegation.
Russia and China also gave the Kushner presentation a miss. Some Arab countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, did not attend either. Iran, a major regional player and supporter of the Palestinian cause, was not represented. The European Union sent only technical-level officials; EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was not present.
The glaring absences reflect the lack of international credibility of this White House’s peace efforts for the Middle East. The “deal of the century” is more seen as the “con of the century”.
US Ambassador to Israel Participates in Israeli Underground Settlement Expansion
IMEMC | July 1, 2019
The US Ambassador to Israel, and longtime Israeli settlement financier, David Friedman, participated on Sunday in an underground excavation under the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, in East Jerusalem, actively participating in the illegal settlement action by bashing with a hammer a section of ancient underground wall located beneath Palestinian homes.
In addition to Ambassador David Friedman, the US “Peace Envoy” Jason Greenblatt also participated in the controversial and illegal excavation, along with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who recently narrowly avoided prison time by negotiating a plea agreement in which she pleaded guilty to corruption charge.
The presence of US officials at the incident marks the first time that the US, or any country, has decided to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem. The Old City was declared an international space open to all during the declaration recognizing the state of Israel in 1948. But since 1967, Israeli forces have occupied the mainly Palestinian city and have used many measures, legal and illegal, to push out the Palestinian residents of the city.
This archaeological dig is to excavate a tunnel that Israeli state archaeologists claim was used by Jewish pilgrims thousands of years ago.
According to a statement by the Israeli non-profit Emek Shaveh, the group believes that this incident with the U.S. officials is “a further step in American support for the pro-settlement policy in Jerusalem, and particularly the touristic-settlement projects…. It is inexcusable to ignore the Palestinian residents of Silwan, carrying out extensive excavations of an underground city and to use such excavations as part of an effort to tell a historical story that is exclusively Jewish in a 4,000 year-old city with a rich and diverse cultural and religious past”.
In an editorial in the leading Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, the paper’s editors write, “The participation of American diplomats at an event sponsored by a right-wing group in East Jerusalem constitutes de facto recognition of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem’s historic basin. If anyone had any doubts about that, Friedman made clear in an interview with the Jerusalem Post that, ‘The City of David is an essential component of the national heritage of the State of Israel.” Giving it up, even in the context of a peace agreement, he said, “would be akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty.’”
The problem with this argument, according to the editors of Ha’aretz, is that, “This recognition doesn’t just put the American administration on the extreme right of the Israeli political map – thus undercutting the claim that American can be an unbiased broker between Israel and the Palestinians – but it also ignores the complicated reality in Silwan, East Jerusalem and the entire region. The tunnel, which was excavated using controversial methods from a scientific standpoint, harnesses archaeology to politics while ignoring the nuances of Jerusalem’s ancient past…. Anyone having even a passing familiarity with the Palestinian people knows that there’s no chance of arriving at any kind of agreement that will end the occupation so long as Israel continues to control East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Thus, by mere words and an event dripping with sweetness and smiles, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has sentenced Israelis to a life of constant conflict, or to an apartheid state in which there are two types of residents, those with rights and those without them.”
Over 300,000 Palestinians live in the city of Jerusalem, at least 20,000 of whom live in Silwan. These Palestinians have no citizenship rights and are not granted freedom of movement by the Israeli authorities. They are frequently displaced from their ancestral homes by Israeli settlers, particularly in Silwan neighborhood, which has been targeted by Israeli right-wing settlers for colonization.
European trade unions urge governments to ban trade with illegal Israel settlements
![A campaign against Israeli settlement goods [Amnesty UK/Twitter]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Israeli-settlement-goodsDtglC7HWsAICLWw.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1)
MEMO | June 28, 2019
Dozens of European trade unions have urged authorities to ban trade with Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).
In a letter to the European Commission and European governments, the unions demand “effective action to bring an end to European complicity with human rights abuses associated with illegal Israeli settlements and to introduce a ban on economic activities with illegal Israeli settlements”.
According to the European Trade Union Initiative for Justice in Palestine, the 34 signatories represent millions of workers across Europe, including the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Belgium’s ACV/CSC Brussels and La Centrale Générale FGTB, as well as Britain’s Unison and Unite the Union.
Although the European Union (EU) views Israeli settlements as illegal under international law, Brussels still allows Israel to export large quantities of products produced or partly produced in such settlements to Europe, providing direct support to the settlement expansion.
Last week, the advocate general of the European Court of Justice said that European shops ought to label Israeli settler exports so that consumers can boycott them for “ethical reasons”.
“This opinion highlights the fact that European governments are falling short on their obligations under international law. To be consistent with its own legislation the EU and all European states should go further and end all economic relations with illegal Israeli settlements”, stated Koen Vanbrabandt, a chair of European Trade Union Network for Justice in Palestine.
The trade unions argue that the EU as a whole and its member states are obliged to withhold from trading with Israeli settlements as part of their duties of non-recognition and non-assistance to such grave violations of international law.
“The fundamental values of trade union internationalism mandate us to take concrete and effective action to facilitate the implementation of UN resolutions, international legal obligations, and a just and equitable peace for all”, state the signatories.
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Book Review
Why the War on Conspiracy Theories Is Bad Public Policy
By Kevin Barrett • Unz Review • February 1, 2019
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying “we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Trita Parsi: Israel Set a Trap for Total War in the Region
- Trump’s Iran war is on an Israeli leash
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- Riyadh Says Its Oil System Is Intact. The Numbers Say Otherwise.
- Trump and Netanyahu Want to “Finish the Job” on Iran
- US ‘one-sided dictation’ not Iran’s beliefs makes rational talks impossible: Baghaei
- Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down /Col Doug Macgregor
- Iran: US political targets legitimate if assassinations return
- Iraq shuts key border crossing with Iran under US pressure: Report
- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- If Americans Knew
- The Israel Lobby’s Changing Fortunes
- AIPAC has become such a political liability that it’s shifting to a more “nimble” approach to buying politicians
- At least 160 Israeli settler attacks in 2 weeks
- Will Gaza’s Ancient Christian Community Disappear Forever?
- Israel’s vision of regional security rests on keeping Arab states weak
- Heidi Levine recounts how Palestinian youths helped save her in settler attack
- DAILY UPDATE: Latest essential news on Palestine, Israel, & region
- Trump’s Intensifying Sabotage of the ICC, for Israel’s Sake
- Israeli military detain US and UK volunteers in West Bank including Democratic NY politician Brad Lander
- Americans at National Conservatism Conference held in Israel this year criticize Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
