Lizzie Phelan about the war in Libya
Uploaded by Vort3xz on October 16, 2011
Lizzie Phelan – a British journalist twice was in Libya, including in late August. Tripoli saw the storm of NATO. Detailed speech about NATO’s lies – in all its aspects, starting with “Revolution” 17 February to the current situation in Sirte, Libya, and other cities.
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CCTV News October 12, 2011
Targeting Iran: US Playing the Saudi Envoy Game
By Ismail Salami | Palestine Chronicle | October 14, 2011
In a ‘united against Iran campaign,’ the US government has accused Tehran of orchestrating an assassination plot against the Saudi envoy in Washington, a move which is to be seen as part of a US stratagem to carry on with its plan of demonizing and isolating the Islamic Republic of Iran.
US Vice President Joe Biden said on “The Early Show” on Wednesday that “It’s critically important that we unite the world in the isolation of and dealing with the Iranians. That’s the surest way to be able to get results.”
Obviously, the US officials will use the fabricated occasion to press for new international sanctions as they say that Iranian agents have sought to hire a purported member of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi envoy on American soil.
Regardless of the impertinence and hollowness of the claim, one should not disregard the influence of the powerful Zionist lobby in the new mudslinging plan which is, as Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani puts it, a ‘tactless and childish game.”
To add more fuel to Iranophobia, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on other countries to work together against what is becoming a clearer and clearer threat” from Iran and said, “This really, in the minds of many diplomats and government officials, crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.”
Washington, once again, went on a labeling spree and called Iran “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”
There is well-grounded speculation that the new move is meant to stir up dissension in the region so that the US may bolster its waning influence among the Middle Eastern countries as Iran wields a great amount of political muscle in the region. In other words, the US will then be in a position to fish in troubled waters.
In concerted efforts with Israel, Washington has a long history of covert operations in Iran including cyber-terrorism, commercial sabotage and targeted assassinations. A notable instance of such operations is a computer worm known as Stuxnet which has hit Iranian nuclear facilities, categorically a deliberate attempt by the US government to destroy what Iranian scientists have reaped during years. The worm was reportedly tested in Israel at the notorious nuclear arsenal Dimona in a joint Israeli-American effort (The New York Times January 15, 2011). Ironically, Dimona which has been used as a testing ground for the worm, houses over 300 nuclear warheads, and was kept hidden for years until Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, fled to Britain in 1986 and revealed the Israeli nuclear program as well as a top-secret underground facility directly below the installation. Reports say that Israel has at its disposal material for roughly 20 hydrogen bombs and 200 fission bombs. Needless to say, Israel is not a global security threat despite its nuclear warheads and irresponsible behavior towards the Palestinians as it is a fawning ally of the USA.
Apart from sabotaging the nuclear program in Iran, Washington has shamelessly engaged in a series of assassinations against Iranian nuclear scientists. In July 2011, a university student named Daryoush Rezaei, 35, was shot down while his wife sustained serious injuries and was rushed to hospital. In 2010, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a nuclear scientist, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran. On November 29, 2010, two other scientists were targeted by bombs that hit their cars in the capital. The assailants, who were on motorcycles, had stuck magnetic bombs to the victims’ cars. Professor Majid Shahriari was killed on the spot, but Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi and his wife sustained minor injuries and were taken to a hospital. A report carried by The Jerusalem Post citing French Weekly Le Canard enchaine revealed that Mossad had conducted the assassinations “with the help of the CIA and MI6.”
According to intelligence sources, the assassinations were part of Joint US-Israeli plots meant to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. Also, an article published in the Portuguese-language Weekly, The Expresso revealed that high-ranking Mossad officials gathered at the spy agency’s headquarters in northern Tel Aviv, concluding that the killing of Shahriari would be Mossad’s last covert operation under its current director, Meir Dagan. However, the two spy agencies refused to assume any responsibility for the attacks whatsoever.
In the Iowa Republican Presidential Debate in August 2011, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spurted out his brazen sloganeering against the Islamic republic and when asked about the situation in Libya, he unconsciously gave rein to his anger and started ranting about Iran, saying the nation had “gone on the offensive” against the USA and needed to be confronted. Soon other hawks joined in with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty speaking venomously in favor of attacking Iran and boldly lauding the “good works” of the US government in assassinating Iranian scientists and the “good work” of creating the Stuxnet computer virus. This was how he let the cat out of the bag, making it clear that the USA was behind all those atrocities.
Some pundits believe that the US move will put Iran in the forefront of global hatred. This will never happen as the US and its lapdog Israel have already played similar games about Iran over and over again.
What the US government has done to the Iranian nation is not easy to forget and the support it keeps voicing for Israel is not difficult to digest.
Isn’t it strange that Iran, which has long been a victim of US-sponsored terrorism and assassinations, should have become a target of threadbare allegations?
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Ismail Salami is an Iranian author and political analyst. He has written numerous books and articles on the Middle East some of which have been translated into more than ten languages. His analysis can be found on many online publications.
Major Media Liars Report Fake NATO Victories
By Stephen Lendman | Poor Richard’s Blog | October 13, 2011
On October 9, BBC claimed National Transitional Council (NTC) forces “made significant gains in the battle for the city of Sirte. (NTC) commanders said they had captured the main hospital, the university and the Ouagadougou conference center.”
Sirte is “close to falling.” After it’s taken, NTC officials “say they will declare national liberation, even if Gaddafi remains at large.”
“NTC chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil told reporters in Tripoli” that Sirte and Bani Walid liberation “will happen within this week.”
On October 10, BBC headlined, “Sirte ready to fall,” repeating the same canard. More on that below.
On October 10, AP headlined, “Libyan revolutionary forces celebrate gains but fierce fighting persists over Gaddafi hometown,” saying:
“Jubilant revolutionary forces have raised their tri-color flag over a convention center in Sirte that long served as a base for (Gaddafi) loyalists, even as fighting rages elsewhere in the fugitive leader’s hometown.”
Sirte commander “Younis al-Abdally….says his troops have surrounded pro-Gaddafi fighters in a small area in the upscale neighborhood of Dollar Street.”
On October 9, New York Times writer Kareem Fahim headlined, “Fighters Enter City Once Home to Qaddafi,” saying:
Anti-Gaddafi “fighters battled their way into the heart of this coastal city on Sunday, seizing a sumptuous conference center (and) nearby Ibn Sina hospital….”
“By Sunday afternoon, anti-Qaddafi fighters were speaking confidently about their chances of finally taking (Sirte), as a coordinated ring of troops closed in on loyalists in their remaining pockets.”
On October 10, Al Jazeera reported a “final push into Sirte,” saying “Anti-Gaddafi forces say they’ve captured more than half of (the city), one of (Gaddafi’s) last remaining strongholds.”
Correspondent Tony Birtley’s one-sided report falsified facts on the ground, claiming “70%” of Sirte was captured. His sole truthful comment was “(t)his is not finished yet.”
Indeed not, as Gaddafi loyalists are prevailing, contrary to falsified Al Jazeera and Western media reports. They include Al Jazeera saying on October 11 that TNC fighters “punched through (Sirte’s) last line of defence,” encountering “light resistance and suffer(ing) no casualties….”
On October 10, Christof Lehmann’s NSNBC said Sirte loyalists successfully resisted NATO terror bombing and rebel attacks for months.
“Even Al Jazeera’s Hollywood Narrative of the attack on Sirte (was discredited) when the ’embedded grand standing’ at a freshly captured university campus (was short-lived by a) message (saying) ‘we have to withdraw because there is a massive counterattack coming.’ ”
Gaddafi loyalists continue to show redoubtable staying power against all NATO’s might and paramilitary cutthroat army onslaughts. They’re in it for the money, other assorted reasons, and all they can loot. They’ve taken full advantage despite getting pummeled across the country.
In Sirte alone since Sunday, heavy fighting killed about 200 TNC fighters. In late evening, “TNC leader Mahmud Jubril (withdrew) ‘all fighters with allegiance to him’ from the Sirte theater, saying ‘it was senseless to sacrifice 200 fighters for a one minute Al Jazeera Victory.”
Actually, Birtley’s report ran about three minutes, none but a sole comment worth hearing.
Despite earlier more worthy credentials, Al Jazeera News channel (JNC) compromised them by waging one-sided war against Gaddafi and Syria’s Assad since last winter. Abandoning all professionalism and objectivity, it’s more a voice for power than truth.
On Sepember 20, The New York Times said WikiLeaks disclosures forced news director Wadah Khanfar to resign. Sheikh Hamad Ben Jassem Al-Thani, a Qatari royal family member, replaced him.
Qatar funds Al Jazeera. It’s also part of NATO’s anti-Gaddafi coalition. Sheikh Hamad formerly chaired its board of directors with veto power over program content. With direct programming control, all JNC reporting henceforth will be suspect.
Notably throughout 2011, Khanfar’s pro-Western support got some JNC journalists to leave. They were unwilling to report managed news and information like BBC and America’s media. With a Qatari royal family member in charge, JNC’s fall from grace may reach bottom.
NSNBC reported a source it uses saying “an unnamed US intelligence agency has approached TNC leaders, suggesting the division of Libya into a Northern and Southern state” to provide cover for bringing in Blue Helmet paramilitary occupiers. The Security Council authorized them.
NATO and rebel war crimes also continue. Besides attacking Sirte’s university campus and Ibn Sina Hospital, NATO “bombed a civilian house, killing 22, with 20 others missing.” America’s media no longer notice.
Near Bani Walid, ambushed TNC fighters “took heavy casualties….In Gheryan, Libyan forces successfully attacked a military industrial complex,” heavily defended by “troops from NATO countries and Qatar.” Key military installations were destroyed.
Controlling most of the city, Benghazi loyalists are making slow progress “against heavily entrenched TNC fighters.” Unconfirmed reports say city tribal leaders are ready to join Libyan forces.
Fighting across Libya continues. NATO and cutthroat rebels commit daily war crimes. The appalling humanitarian crisis worsens. Diplomatic initiatives are absent to end it. “Where is a UN Fact Finding Mission? Where is an African Union Observer in Sirte?”
When will courageous African and other leaders say “enough is enough?” When will culpable NATO nations and officials be held accountable for turning Libya into a charnel house?
Largely out of sight and mind, civilian massacres continue daily while Western media yawn, cheerlead, or alternately do both.
On October 10, clashes between rebel and loyalist forces occurred in Hadbha, Arada, Abu Salim and other Tripoli areas. Helicopter gunships indiscriminately fired at peaceful anti-NATO demonstrators.
Reports suggest Qatari, Saudi and Israeli Special Forces in Libya. On October 10, “15 TNC fighters were killed outside Bani Walid. All were carrying Israeli” IDs. Late at night, UK “SAS Regiment (forces) entered Sirte to carry out a special operation. Reportedly “16” were captured, another “44” killed.
UK, Saudi, Qatari and Israeli forces in Libya provides more evidence “for US and NATO’s utter disregard for (UN) principles” and rule of law values. It also justifies Russia and China’s opposition with Security Council measures against Syria as a prelude to more conflict.
Libyan loyalists keep resisting to liberate their country and rebuild, despite daily NATO terror bombing.
On October 12, NSNBC said despite heavy NATO and rebel attacks, “Sirte is holding out. So is Bani Walid. So is most of Tripoli.”
Despite heavy clashes there and elsewhere, neither NATO or its hired guns “succeeded (in) break(ing) the Libyan peoples’ will and ability to resist.”
The battle for Libya shows no signs of ebbing. Further updates will follow key events.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
The “Fast And Furious” Used Car Salesman “Threat” Falls Apart
Moon of Alabama | October 13, 2011
The failed used car salesman Mansour J. Arbabsiar, who is accused in the “Iran kills Saudi ambassador” movie plot, is a hapless idiot and petty criminal whose businesses deals always went wrong. He couldn’t even match his socks, smoked marihuana and drank a lot of alcohol, was nonreligious, an opponent of the Iranian regime and only cared about money. A business man who knows him calls him “worthless” and his neighbors believed he was dealing in drugs.
But Arbabsiar had some money through inherited land holdings in Iran. Those holdings may well be the source of the $100,000 wired from Iran to the Drug Enforcement Administration informant. Israel’s Mossad, the MEK cult or some drug dealers in Iran are other possible sources for the money.
The Obama administration insists that it has proof of Iranian government involvement in the assassination plot. Some anonymous officials though are already walking back that claim. It seems that they have no proof at all, just a hunch.
Every Iran expert interviewed thinks the story as presented is nonsense: Alireza Nader from Rand Corp, Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service, former CIA agent Robert Baer, Carter era NSC official Gary Sicks, Bush 2 NSC official Hillary Mann Leverett (also here), Muhammad Sahimi of PBS/Tehran Bureau and Iran scholar Hamid Serri.
To me the indictment reads as if a nutty Mansour J. Arbabsiar attempted a drug deal which was then turned into a terrorism entrapment by and through the paid criminal Drug Enforcement Administration informant.
The Obama administration seems to use this case for three purposes:
- Diversion from the subpoena to AG Holder in the Fast and Furious gun running case which was served yesterday, from the #OccupyWallStreet movement and the general economic malaise
- To get some momentum for additional international sanctions on Iran
- To prop up the connections with the Saudi regime as it had threatened to distance itself from the U.S. over the U.S. veto of a Palestinian state
The administration’s case for the “plot” is now falling apart. Yesterday’s hype in the media has by now been replaced with doubts and mistrust. Given the obvious weakness of the case this was predictable.
But why then did the Obama administration use this case at all? Why come up with such a weak case that was sure to make it a laughing stock?
What a Whopper! U.S. Throws All the Demons in the Mix for the Mother Of All Anti-Iran Psy-Ops
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | October 11, 2011
Who said Barack Obama would bring sobriety and dignity to U.S. foreign policy? The president’s men, and Top Woman Hillary Clinton, have thrown every stereotypical demon of middle American nightmares into the psychological operations gumbo, to create a war hysteria against Iran. No reflexive terror button is left unpunished, no racial hysteria unexploited. Bubble, bubble, boil and trouble, the administration is cooking up an almost comically infernal witches brew just in time for Halloween.
What a confabulation! There’s the Mexican drug cartel hit men, the specter of a bomb exploding in a crowded, upscale Washington eatery, plus attacks on Israelis and, of course, in the background, the elite Quds unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. And if you believe the government story – well, that proves you are the typical America, and any idiot can keep you in a state of endless war.
How convenient this alleged plot is, to weave together the interests of the Mexican narco-regime, which is at war with some of its drug billionaires and in league with others, and a permanent lackey of the United States; Saudi Arabia, the most reactionary regime on the planet, where one family demonstrates its fitness to control the world’s largest oil reserves by building a skyscraper three times the height of the Empire State Building in the middle of a vast desert, and is also a collaborator with the United States in turning back the Arab Spring; and Israel, the uncontested champion violator of international law and United Nations resolutions, which maintains its supremacy in the Middle East and unique relationship to the United States by keeping the region permanently on the brink of Armageddon.
All four players now claim Iran has all but declared war on virtually everybody by plotting to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. But the whole thing smells more like the FBI’s schemes to frame Black men in Miami and Newburgh, New York, for terroristic attacks that never did, or could, happen.
Attorney General Eric Holder, the American entrapper-in-chief, says the Iranians wanted to pay $1.5 million to Mexican hit men to kill the ambassador, possibly by blowing up a DC restaurant where lots of congresspersons also dined. But it turns out that a Drug Enforcement Administration “confidential source” in Mexico was the guy the Iranians supposedly contacted for the hit, and that he came up with the bombing idea, and that the restaurant doesn’t even exist. A naturalized American who also kept his Iranian passport is now in custody. His alleged partner is an Iranian who, if you believe the U.S. government, was connected somehow to the Iranian Quds force. We are supposed to accept that this is how the Iranians make war against the western world.
Mexico says the plot was a threat to its national security, although it is not alleged that even one Mexican hit man was actually contacted. Israel – well, the Israelis are always trying to get the U.S. to attack Iran, so there’s nothing new, there. And the Saudis are pretending to be the injured party, even though they years ago promised the use of their airspace to Israel and the United States for the purpose of bombing Iran.
Iran calls the tale “a children’s story.” Which pretty much sums it up, except these American, Saudi, Mexican and Israeli children are vicious, straight out of Lord of the Flies.
US allegedly foils hit on Saudi ambassador, but how could Iran benefit from a crime like this?
RT | 11 October, 2011
American authorities reportedly disrupted an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Washington declared that it is “committed to holding Iran accountable.”
Two men, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, have been charged with conspiracy to assassinate the Saudi Arabian diplomat Adel Al-Jubeir. The FBI has described Shakuri as a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force. The plot also allegedly involved bombing attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington.
“The complaint alleges that this conspiracy was conceived, sponsored and directed from Iran and constitutes a flagrant violation of US and international law,” said US Attorney General Eric Holder, as quoted by Agence France-Presse.
“In addition to holding these individual conspirators accountable for their alleged role in this plot, the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions,” he said.
Shakuri remains at large while Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29 at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. He made an appearance in a Manhattan court on Tuesday.
Arbabsiar’s arrest came during a sting operation by the FBI and the US Drug Enforcement Administration. A holder of both US and Iranian passports, he is accused of being ready to pay $1.5 million for the murder of the Saudi ambassador. For the hit he allegedly turned to members of the Mexican drug cartel, who in fact were informants for the FBI.
Investigators also say Arbabsiar wired some $100,000 to an FBI undercover bank account as an advance for the assassination.
Iran has rejected claims by the US that Tehran was involved in a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington, saying this was a “prefabricated scenario” designed to “turn public attention away from domestic problems within the United States.”
In an open letter to the UN, written after the US accused Iran of plotting murder and terror acts on American territory, Iran’s UN ambassador Mohammad Khazaee strongly and categorically denied all allegations, calling them fabricated and “based on the suspicious claims of an individual.”
“Any country could accuse other countries through fabrication of such stories,” the ambassador wrote to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, stressing that “This would set dangerous precedents in relations among states.”
The ambassador condemned the politically-motivated allegations of terrorism, calling them “a showcase of animosity towards the Iranian nation.”
The letter also mentions that it is Iran that has been a victim of the terrorist tactics of the US-supported Israeli regime that does not hesitate to kill Iranian nuclear scientists on Iranian soil.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency described the accusations as “America’s new propaganda scenario” against Iran.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, took the US claims seriously, thanking the US authorities for foiling the alleged attempt.
The US is already consulting its allies over the alleged assassination plot in a bid to press Europe to support new sanctions against Iran. The British government has been the first to discuss introducing new measures targeting Tehran.
British PM David Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field confirmed on Wednesday that London was in consultations with Washington about anti-Iranian sanctions but ruled out British involvement in any future military operation against Iran.
Something is amiss with Washington’s allegations, claims antiwar activist Brian Becker.
“I think that the US has climbed the escalation ladder, and whenever the escalation ladder is climbed, you ratchet up an attack against the other side; the other side then has to reciprocate,” he told RT. “I think we really need to question what is going on here. Is it really in the interest of Iran to carry out the assassination of this Saudi Arabian or Israeli ambassador in the heart of Washington at a time when the Iranian government knows the US is trying to find a pretext to escalate tensions with Iran?”
Becker declared that Iran would not benefit from a crime like this, as it would have brought Tehran closer to war with the largest military power in the world.
“The only beneficiaries are the Israeli regime and the United States government, which wants to ratchet up tensions against Iran,” concluded Becker.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan behind Syria unrest
Hassan Hanizadeh | Press TV | April 10, 2011
Syrian opposition leader Abdul Halim Khaddam at his home in Paris
The rise in anti-government protests and mounting political tension in Syria brings to mind the question about who is behind these deadly incidents.
A probe into the root causes of the latest events in Syria shows that the revolt is mainly supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The revolt began in the city of Daraa, 120 kilometers south of the capital Damascus and near the border with Jordan.
Daraa is the birthplace of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties to the people in the Syrian city.
Undoubtedly, the Syrians, like other nations in the region, have some legitimate demands which have prompted the government to plan fundamental reforms. However, the protests have come with unjustifiable violence by some suspicious elements.
Similar protests were seen in 1982 against the government of late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in the cities of Hama and Daraa.
Hafez al-Assad — the late father of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — was president between 1970 and 2000 and was considered one of the powerful leaders in the Arab world.
Former Jordan King Hussein, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the then Saudi King Khalid incited Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood against Syria, when Hafez al-Assad backed Iran during the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war on Iran in the 1980s.
The fighting, which took place from 1982 to 1984, left more than 30,000 people dead, but the late Syrian president finally managed to end the crisis.
Saudi Arabia and Jordan continued their attempts to cause unrest in Syria after the death of Hafez al-Assad and his succession by his son.
Saudi Arabia, which often bows to US and Israel’s policies in the region, tried to destabilize Bashar al-Assad’s government by undermining his rule.
To this end, Saudi Arabia paid 30 million dollars to former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam to quit Assad’s government.
Khaddam sought asylum in France in 2005 with the aid of Saudi Arabia and began to plot against the Syrian government with the exiled leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Khaddam, who is a relative of Saudi King Abdullah and former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, used his great wealth to form a political group with the aim of toppling Bashar al-Assad.
The triangle of Khaddam-Abdullah-Hariri is well-known in the region as their wives are sisters.
Khaddam’s entire family enjoys Saudi citizenship and the value investment by his sons, Jamal and Jihad, in Saudi Arabia is estimated at more than USD 3 billion.
Therefore, with the start of popular protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, the Saudi regime saw an opportunity to drive a wedge between Tehran, Damascus and Beirut axis.
Due to the direct influence of the Saudi Wahhabis on Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, the people of the cities of Daraa and Homs, following Saudi incitement and using popular demands as an excuse began resorting to violence.
It is reported that the United States, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia formed joint operational headquarters in the Saudi Embassy in Belgium to direct the riots in southern Syria. Abdul Halim Khaddam, who held the highest political, executive and information posts in the Syrian government for more than 30 years, is said to have been transferred from Paris to Belgium to direct the unrest.
The reason for this was that based on French law, political asylum seekers cannot work against their countries of origin in France and therefore Khaddam was transferred to Brussels to guide the riots.
Jordan equipped the Muslim Brotherhood in the two cities with logistical facilities and personal weapons.
Although, Bashar al-Assad promised implementation of fundamental changes and reforms after the bloody riot in the country, the Brotherhood continued to incite protesters against him.
The Syrian state television recently broadcast footage of armed activity in the border city of Daraa by a guerilla group, which opened fire on the people and government forces. It is said that the group, which is affiliated to Salafi movements, obtained its weapons from Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Because Syria’s ruling party is from the Alevi tribes associated with the Shias, the Brotherhood, due to its anti-Shia ideas, has tried for three decades to topple the Alevi establishment of the country.
Hence, the recent riots in Syria are not just rooted in popular demands but harbor a tribal aspect and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the US are directing the unrest for their future purposes.
In the eyes of these three, the removal of Syria’s Alevi government would cause the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut axis to collapse and would be followed by the gradual weakening and elimination of Lebanon’s resistance.
Therefore suadi and US efforts to topple Assad’s government are taking place with the aim of eliminating the last anti-Zionism resistance front.
This is while, considering the Syrian government’s experience in resolving difficult crises, it is unlikely that Saudi Arabia and Jordan will succeed in weakening or toppling the Syrian ruling system.
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Hate Speech Finds a Mainstream Platform
By Mouin Rabbani | Jadaliyya | October 03 2011
It is not often that major international publications respond to crackpot opinion pieces in other newspapers. Yet Robert L. Bernstein’s latest tantrum against the Palestinians, which the Washington Post published instead of steering the author to an extremist website, was so far beyond the pale that The Economist felt compelled to issue a rejoinder.
Beneath the layers of dehumanization, delegitimization, distortion, and outright deceit, Bernstein’s argument is straightforward in tone yet crooked in reasoning: Israel is the victim of the Palestinians it has dispossessed and occupied; Palestinian (and Arab) hostility to Israel is—and is motivated by—anti-Semitism rather than dispossession and occupation; and anyone who disagrees with his putrid nonsense is an accomplice to incitement to genocide. His proof consists of a blend of his own imagination and assertions, and quotes from Palestinian Media Watch which is a propaganda outfit run by radical Jewish settlers that has been thoroughly discredited by serious scholars on every continent save Antarctica.
Bernstein concentrates his bile on the United Nations and human rights organizations, particularly Human Rights Watch which he apparently established. He accuses these organizations of being “accomplices” to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, which he re-defines as a campaign to commit genocide. The claim is laughable at best.
Rather than being an enemy of Israel, the UN established it. In the decades since 1948, the UN has systematically failed to redress the resultant ethnic cleansing of the vast majority of Palestinians from the territory that became Israel. Moreover, its Security Council has been instrumental in promoting Israeli impunity with respect to systematic violations of the UN Charter and other UN conventions.
This year alone, the Security Council, courtesy of yet another American nyet, ensured that Israel could continue expanding illegal settlements in occupied territory—a grave breach under international law—without consequence. Washington is currently working overtime to ensure that the Arab state in Palestine specified by the same resolution that led to Israel’s founding is not admitted to membership in the world body.
For Bernstein, that most of the world has already recognized this state means the planet is wrong and Israel is right. Anything he doesn’t like, after all, is evidence of an anti-Semitic conspiracy—and nothing more so than global support for Palestinian rights. One wonders how Bernstein would characterize the UN if it actually held Israel accountable for its actions the way it has Arab states like Iraq and Libya, and translated its annual confirmation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination from ink to reality.
It is certainly true that the UN has devoted more column inches to the Palestine question than perhaps any other. This reflects not only the conflict’s unjustifiable longevity, but also the UN’s direct involvement and responsibility from its very outset—making Palestine the international question par excellence. This is a rather different reality from Darfur or Tibet. If the world body were genuinely hostile to Israel, the latter simply would not exist, let alone remain an active member that is simultaneously the world’s longest-serving occupying power.
The record of the human rights community on this issue is even worse than that of the UN. Until the eruption of the (first) Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, Israel’s conduct—whether in the occupied territories, Lebanon or towards its Arab citizens—elicited barely a peep. Industry leaders like Bernstein, who never let the pursuit of justice get in the way of their politics and/or political calculations, played a crucial role in this respect. It was in fact primarily on account of Israel’s globally televised barbarism that it became impossible for Bernstein’s organization and others to continue lending Israel two blind eyes.
Even today, the record of many such organizations, and that of Human Rights Watch in particular, remains deeply problematic. As any serious reading of HRW literature confirms, the organization has been more—and more openly—critical of Arab states and even occupied Palestinians than it has of Israel. In HRW reports, Israel, unlike its neighbors, is neither explicitly condemned nor directly accused of war crimes, even when the evidence it has collected itself leaves room for no other conclusion. Bernstein aims to denounce HRW, but unintentionally helps explain the organization’s persistent shortcomings.
Like fanatic ethno-nationalists everywhere, Bernstein clearly believes Israel should be held to a different standard than other states—the standard of total impunity and a complete absence of accountability. But to suggest that his own outfit holds it to the same or higher standards than others reflects pure ignorance—if not his own then his reliance on that of others.
In this respect, one would do well to judge Bernstein by his ludicrous assertion that such organizations have “chosen to focus primarily on Israel.” A brief perusal of HRW’s Middle East page—which he either does not read or willfully misrepresents—reveals that a grand total of two of HRW’s sixty-five most recent statements on the region concern Israel/Palestine, one of them a condemnation of Hamas’ harassment of Palestinian activists.
Bernstein is perhaps at his most comical when invoking his settler friends from Palestinian Media Watch to denounce Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for rejecting Israel’s recent and novel demand, without precedent in international relations, for explicit recognition as a Jewish state. If his bizarre tantrum on this issue holds any water, surely it applies equally to the rest of the planet, including even the United States, which also has yet to formally indulge Binyamin Netanyahu on this score.
There are, needless to say, legitimate points that can and should be raised about the manner in which Palestinians and Arabs have responded to Israel’s usurpation of their rights. Yet Bernstein’s tirade relies primarily on gross exaggeration and outright falsification. And in refusing—like the settlers he champions—to even acknowledge that these same points apply in plentiful abundance to Israeli leaders, opinion makers, and educational curricula, he disqualifies himself from participation in the debate about Israel and Palestine, particularly where human rights are concerned.
Since Bernstein claims to be motivated by opposition to hate speech, he would do well to first desist from this reprehensible practice. Pending such an unlikely transformation, mainstream media such as the Washington Post have a moral as well as political obligation to deny such loathsome sentiment a platform.
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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- BRITAIN’S WARNING: PREPARE FOR WAR
- “Historic Russia”: The Land Putin Will Not Give Back
- How the Cambridge Analytica scandal still haunts Mark Zuckerberg
- The Ongoing Cancellation Campaign Against a Dissenting Academic in Norway
- Yemen and ‘the Houthis’: Challenging Sami Hamdi’s Narrative
- No, Christians did not invent Zionism
- AIPAC-led lobbying network opens branches in Cypriot, Greek parliaments
- Araghchi blasts ‘parasitic’ alliance as US taxpayers pay for Israel’s war on Iran
- Easy fix for Europe’s chaos? Stop fueling war against Russia
- Putin’s key remarks on peace talks and Europe’s ‘schizophrenia’
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- 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
