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The cultural genocide in Palestine: On Sally Rooney’s decision to boycott Israel

Sally Rooney attends a photocall during the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland. [Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images]

Sally Rooney during the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 22 August 2017 in Edinburgh, Scotland. [Simone Padovani/Awakening/Getty Images]
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 19, 2021

The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on award-winning Irish novelist, Sally Rooney, as soon as she declared that she had “chosen not to sell … translation rights of her best-selling novel, ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ to an Israeli-based publishing house”.

Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard smearing used by Israel and its supporters against anyone who dares criticise Israel and exhibits solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people.

Rooney’s laudable action was not in the least ‘racist’ or ‘anti-Semitic’. On the contrary, it was taken as a show of support for the Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose advocacy is situated within anti-colonial and anti-racist political discourses.

Rooney, herself, has made it clear that her decision not to publish with Modan Publishing House, which works closely with the Israeli government, is motivated by ethical values.

“I simply do not feel it would be right for me, under the present circumstances, to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the U.N-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people,” she said in a statement on 12 October.

In fact, Rooney’s contention is not with the language itself, as she stated that “the Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so.”

Rooney is not the first intellectual to take an ethical position against any form of cultural normalisation with Israeli institutions, especially those that directly support and benefit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. Her position is consistent with similar stances taken by other intellectuals, musicians, artists, authors and scientists. The ever-expanding list includes Roger Waters, Alice Walker and the late Stephen Hawking.

The BDS movement has made it abundantly clear that, in the words of the movement’s co-founder, Omar Barghouti, “the Palestinian boycott targets institutions only, due to their entrenched complicity in planning, justifying, whitewashing or otherwise perpetuating Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights.”

Of course, some are still not convinced. Those critics of the BDS movement intentionally conflate between anti-Semitism and a legitimate form of political expression, which aims at weakening and isolating the very economic, political and cultural infrastructures of racism and apartheid. The fact that numerous anti-Zionist Jews are supporters and advocates of the movement is not enough to make them reconsider their fallacious logic.

One of the ‘politest’ denunciations of Rooney, appearing in the Jewish Forward magazine, was penned by Gitit Levy-Paz. The author’s logic is puzzling, to say the least. Levy-Paz accused Rooney that, by refusing to allow her novel to be translated into Hebrew, she has excluded “a group of readers because of their national identity.”

While the Forward writer is guilty of confusing political ethics and nationality, she is not the only one. Israeli Zionists do this as a matter of course, where the Zionist ideology and the Jewish religion – and, in this case, language – are quite often interchangeable. As a result, the definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ has been stretched to include anti-Zionism – though Zionism is a modern ideological construct. Since Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Zionist state, it follows that any form of criticism of Israeli policies are often depicted as if a form of anti-Semitism.

One of the most interesting aspects of this conversation on language is that the Hebrew language has been used by the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948 as the language of oppression. In the minds of Palestinians, anywhere in Palestine, Hebrew is rarely the language used to communicate culture, literature, social coexistence and such. Instead, every military ordinance issued by the Israeli army, including closures and home demolitions, let alone the proceedings of military court hearings, and even the racist anti-Palestinian chants in football stadiums, are communicated in Hebrew. Palestinians are then excused if they do not view the modern Hebrew language as a language of inclusion, or even innocuous, everyday communication.

These realisations are not the outcome of daily experiences only. Successive Israeli governments have passed numerous legislations over the years to elevate Hebrew at the expense of Arabic. For over seven decades, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has been coupled with the erasure of their culture and their language, from the Hebraicisation of historic Arabic names of towns, villages and streets, to the demolition of ancient Palestinian graveyards, olive groves, mosques and churches, the Israeli ethnocide is a top item on the Israeli political agenda.

The Israeli Nation State Law of 2018, which elevated Hebrew as Israel’s official language and downgraded Arabic to a “special status”, was the culmination of many years of a relentless, centralised Israeli campaign, whose sole purpose is to dominate the Palestinians, not only politically but culturally as well.

All that in mind, the hypocrisy of Israel’s mouthpieces is unmistakable. They welcome, or at least remain silent, when Israel tries to demolish and bury Palestinian culture and language, but cry foul when a respected author or a well-regarded artist tries, though symbolically, to show solidarity with the oppressed and occupied Palestinian people.

The Palestinian boycott movement is conscious of its morally-driven mission, thus can never duplicate the tactics of the Israeli government and official institutions. BDS aims at pressuring Israel by reminding peoples all over the world of their moral responsibility towards the Palestinians.

BDS does not target Israelis as individuals and, under no circumstances, does it target Jewish individuals because they are Jews, or the Hebrew language, as such. Israel, on the other hand, continues to target Palestinians as a people, downgrades their language, dismantles their institutions and systematically destroys their culture. This is rightly referred to as cultural genocide, and it is our moral responsibility to stop it.

October 20, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Google, Amazon staff protest ties to Israel spy network

MEMO | October 13, 2021

Employees of the tech giants, Google and Amazon, have condemned the companies for their contract with the Israeli military to develop cloud-based cybersecurity services, and have called on their employers to cut their ties with the occupation forces.

As part of the major $1.2 billion contracts signed with the Israeli military in May, following a bid in which it beat other giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are to provide cloud services technology to Tel Aviv and its armed forces.

In an article published yesterday in the Guardian newspaper, however, hundreds of anonymous employees of the companies, who described themselves as “employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds”, condemned the program named ‘Project Nimbus.’

Referencing their belief “that the technology we build should work to serve and uplift people everywhere,” the employees stated that “we are morally obligated to speak out against violations of these core values.”

They wrote that “we are compelled to call on the leaders of Amazon and Google to pull out of Project Nimbus and cut all ties with the Israeli military,” revealing that the signatories of the letter-number over 90 at Google and over 300 at Amazon.

The employees, who confirmed that they “are anonymous because we fear retaliation,” acknowledged that “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes, and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

If Google and Amazon continue with the project which would “sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government”, then it would only enable the “further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitate the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”

Aside from urging the companies to abandon the project and their ties with Israel’s occupation forces, the employees also “call on global technology workers and the international community to join with us in building a world where technology promotes safety and dignity for all.”

October 13, 2021 Posted by | Environmentalism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

We need a Covid champion to defy Big Pharma like the thalidomide heroine

By Mary McGreechin | TCW Defending Freedom | October 13, 2021

IN 1960, Frances Oldham Kelsey prevented thousands of American babies from facing a life of severe disability.

A medical officer with the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), Kelsey refused to buckle under relentless pressure from the pharmaceutical company Merrell to approve the drug thalidomide for use as a sedative and, off-label, as a treatment for morning sickness.

From 1957, the drug had been used in Europe to ease extreme nausea in the early stages of pregnancy. But by 1961, mounting reports from concerned doctors revealed devastating birth defects in the babies of women who had taken thalidomide.

Determined to break into the lucrative American drug market, Merrell had claimed stringent testing showed the drug to be safe as well as efficacious.

Kelsey, however, was suspicious of incomplete data and the omission of tests on the drug’s prolonged use and refused to give her approval. Despite harassment and intimidation by the company – ‘most of the things they called me you wouldn’t print’ – Kelsey had remained resolute.

Today, as the Covid agenda aims to vaccinate every man, woman and child, minimising, or ignoring, often fatal side-effects, we need a Frances Kelsey to say: ‘No.’ Or even: ‘Not yet.’  Despite some courageous voices within the medical community speaking out at great personal cost, no influential figure has voiced the level of dissent needed to halt this programme.

Medical advances have, undeniably, delivered life-enhancing and life-saving treatments. Yet countless lawsuits against the pharmaceutical industry demonstrate that medicine can have an iatrogenic (illness-causing), as well as a therapeutic, effect. In the US alone, billions of dollars are paid annually in damages by pharmaceutical companies. 

The industry has sought to temper such negative perceptions by cultivating a philanthropic image, portraying itself as a benevolent entity driven by altruism rather than a competitive industry whose investors salivate at ever-increasing share prices.

Despite these endeavours, it is astonishing that a large proportion of the public have failed to be concerned that drug companies which have been fined astronomical sums in multiple lawsuits have been granted liability immunity on Covid vaccines. With pharmaceutical firms typically afforded limited liability protection, this indemnity has been described as ‘very rare.’

Should we be surprised at the lack of public suspicion?  The NHS has been elevated to such a degree that any condemnation of this behemoth is considered blasphemy. A 2020 Ipsos MORI poll revealed that more than 90 per cent of Britons trusted doctors and nurses ‘to tell the truth.’ 

Yet medics may be untruthful, or unaware of the full facts behind the medicine they prescribe. UK doctors believed thalidomide could be given ‘with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child’, yet it was later acknowledged that no tests were done involving pregnant women.

The effect of Covid vaccines on fertility and the unborn child are unknown. However, more than 30,000 women have, at present, reported changes in their menstrual cycle post-vaccination.

The vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated: ‘We support calls for more research to understand why women may be experiencing changes to their menstrual cycle after having the vaccine.’ Stable door, horse and bolted come to mind.

And whilst pregnant women were excluded from the Covid vaccine trials, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) had these reassuring words to ‘pregnant people’: ‘Reproductive toxicity studies with the Moderna vaccine in rats haven’t uncovered any worrisome signals.’

Are we to place our trust in pharmaceutical companies whose employees’ emails reveal such statements as:

‘I am not 100 per cent comfortable with this data being made publicly available.’

‘Thus far we have buried trials 15, 31, 56 … how do we face the outside world when they begin to criticise us for suppressing data?’

‘Lisa has done a great “smoke and mirrors” job.’

All this correspondence was made public when litigation against AstraZeneca’s anti-psychotic drug Seroquel began. The company, now most famously known for the development and production of Covid vaccines, faced a major lawsuit in 2009 brought by thousands of Seroquel users who claimed they had developed diabetes whilst taking the drug.

The damning emails proved the pharmaceutical giant had been aware of the risk a decade earlier. Moreover, AstraZeneca had suppressed research which showed its earlier anti-psychotic treatment, Haloperidol, was more effective, and much cheaper, than Seroquel.

Employee John Tumas messaged concerns to colleagues that ‘our own analysis supports the “view out there” that we are less effective than Haloperidol.’

Promoting expensive treatments over cheaper alternatives has also caused debate regarding Covid-19. Those advocating for the use of Ivermectin, more commonly used as an anti-parasitic in animals, to treat the virus, have been relentlessly mocked. But studies have shown the drug can provide ‘an increase in clinical recovery … and a decrease in mortality rates even when used in patients with severe Covid-19.’

Yet a trial conducted on those with mild symptoms concluded it had little effect. Doctor Eduardo Lopez-Medina published his findings in JAMA, maintaining that Ivermectin had delivered negligible benefits.

However, a ‘conflict of interest disclosure’ revealed Dr Lopez-Medina was in receipt of grants and ‘personal fees’ from pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen and Sanofi Pasteur – all involved in the production of Covid-19 vaccines.

Countless stories have emerged in the past 18 months which should raise serious questions over transparency and truthfulness within the medical field – from doctors wrongly claiming intensive care units are full of unvaccinated 20 and 30-year-olds on ventilators, to hospital matrons inventing stories of children’s wards full of Covid patients.

And yet we are expected to have faith that such medics, and the pharmaceutical industry, have our best interests at heart in their pursuit of global vaccination against Covid-19.

Like Frances Oldham Kelsey, we should remain steadfast against coercion and duress. We should ask more questions and seek more answers. If we do not like the answers we find, then we must hold the line. For our own sake and that of our children.

October 13, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

SouthWest Airlines cancels 1,800 flights in 2 days amid rumours of employee ‘sickout’ due to Covid-19 vaccine mandate

RT | October 10, 2021

Thousands of passengers that booked Southwest Airlines flights for their weekend travel have been stranded in the US airports after the airline cancelled the flights amid reports of a protest against the vaccine mandate.

SouthWest, known for its relatively low prices, cancelled at least 1,018 flights on Sunday, that is in addition to 808 flights that were cancelled on Saturday, US Today reported, citing flight tracking data.

In a statement on Saturday, SouthWest blamed the abnormal rate of cancellations on air traffic control issues and “disruptive weather,” adding that they were working to “recover” the operation.

However, the situation appeared to have only worsened on Sunday, with SouthWest account on Twitter being inundated by complaints from the disgruntled passengers claiming that flights had been cancelled out of the blue and that the airline’s employees were nowhere to be seen.

“Flight cancelled out of nowhere and now NO ONE is seen at the front desks to assist customers,” actor Kevin Michael Martin complained.

Another passenger, who has been apparently stranded at a Dallas, Texas, airport, posted a photo of a long line of people, tweeting: “Ticket agent counter before security is a mess,” to which SouthWest responded by insisting that the chaos was merely a result of “ATC issue and disruptive weather.” “Thanks for hanging in there with us today,” SouthWest said.

Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), which represents some 10,000 pilots, also poured cold water on the speculations of an ongoing strike, saying on Sunday that the group was “focused on the safety of our crews, passengers, and overcoming operational challenges, not unofficial job actions.”

However, media citing “airline sources” have reported that air traffic controllers were staging a mass “sickout” or walkout at the federal air traffic control center in Hilliard, Florida, over mandatory vaccinations. The reported protest caused “ripple effect” paralyzing SouthWest operations, Leland Vittert, national correspondent for NewsNation, reported on Twitter.

Responding to the rumours of a mass walkout on Sunday afternoon, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) dismissed the report, insisting that “no FAA air traffic staffing shortages have been reported since Friday.” “Flight delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center,” the agency said.

Jacksonville Aviation Authority Chief Operating Officer Tony Cugno reportedly sent an email to the JAA board of directors, pinning the blame for the havoc on some of the employees taking their “normal approved leaves” and controllers having to stay at home for 48 hours after receiving their Covid-19 vaccine shot.

The email was reported by Action News Jax anchor Ben Becker.

SouthWest Airlines became one of the last major US air carriers to introduce a vaccine mandate for its employees last Monday after the company was reportedly pressured by White House coronavirus adviser Jeffrey Zients to comply with President Joe Biden’s vaccination order. Some 56,000 SouthWest employees have until December 8 to get vaccinated if they want to keep their jobs.

Biden’s order states that companies with over 100 employees must either require the workers to get the Covid-19 jab or to test weekly for the virus.

October 10, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian factions call for cancellation of Oslo and adoption of national agenda

MEMO | October 7, 2021

Five Palestinian factions called on Wednesday for the cancellation of the Oslo Accords and the adoption of a national agenda agreed upon by their secretaries general in September last year, Sama has reported.

According to the news agency, the five factions are the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, the Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.

They warned against what they called the blackmailing of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and undermining of its status at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian refugees. The EU’s “extortion” against UNRWA to make school textbooks and curriculums “Israel friendly” is intended to make Palestinian students grow up without knowing their national identity, they said.

The factions also reiterated the importance of fast-tracking the adoption of a national resistance strategy instead of Oslo and its related Paris Economic Protocol. The formation of a united leadership for a comprehensive popular resistance effort to push the Israeli occupation out of Palestine is also a priority, they insisted.

“Betting on the delusional international proposals” and dependence on the International Quartet led by the United States “is an extension of a three-decade of failure,” they added. “Political escalation is not achieved through illusory and empty statements, but through the accumulation of material power on the ground.”

October 7, 2021 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Picnic Protests Sweep the World! – #SolutionsWatch

Corbett • 10/05/2021

This week we look at yet another way of protesting the incoming vaxx passport agenda: picnicking. Join James for this week’s edition of #SolutionsWatch where he looks at how we can render the vaccine mandate debate moot when we stop begging for scraps from the would-be ruler’s table and build a table of our own.

Watch on Archive / BitChute / Minds / Odysee or Download the mp4

SHOW NOTES

Fight Vaccine Passports

How can we use the law to challenge the global Covid response?

VAX CONTROL GROUP

TMR 268 : Diny Fielder-van Kleeff : Vaccine Control Group

Red Balloon

Dutch protest against COVID-19 vaccine pass to enter bars, restaurants

OHRC policy statement on COVID-19 vaccine mandates and proof of vaccine certificates

Fair Work Commission – Appeal of decisions Jennifer Kimber v Sapphire Coast Community Aged Care Ltd

Decision

Police Bust Gang Members With Car Trunk “Full Of KFC” Takeout Breaching ‘Strict Lockdown’

Picnic protest

Swiss Citizens Revolt, Install Tables Outside in Front of Bars, Restaurants to Ignore Vax Passports

October 7, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Iraqi Government Rejects “Normalization” Conference Held in Erbil

Al-Manar | September 25, 2021

The Iraqi government highlighted its rejection of the conference held by some tribal figures in Erbil city in Kurdistan for advocating the normalization of ties with the Israeli enemy.

The Iraqi government also stressed that the tribal figures who attended the conference did not represent the cities they came from, adding that the assembly was aimed at stirring sectarian sedition amid the national preparations for the upcoming public elections.

The government further indicated that normalization is constitutionally, legally and politically rejected in Iraq, reiterating support to the Palestinian cause and rights in face of the Israeli aggression.

September 25, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Apologies and compensation are simply not good enough for the victims of drone attacks

By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | September 20, 2021

Palestine Action is, as its name implies, involved in direct action against some of the arms trade’s most deadly production lines, notably Israel’s Elbit Systems. Since it burst onto the scene, quite a few members have been arrested at some of Elbit’s ten known factories and offices in Britain.

Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest arms company; it makes deadly “unmanned aerial vehicles”, known as drones. Palestine Action’s trademark calling card is deep red paint; it has used gallons since last year, symbolising the blood of innocents spilled in drone strikes.

Recently, the group has expanded its brief from targeting weapons factories to spraying the tented entrance of Britain’s biggest arms fair — DSEI at London’s ExCel Centre — to remind those seeking to buy weapons of the bloodshed caused by the products marketed within. Key exhibitors such as Elbit Systems, Raytheon, BAE Systems, and Lockheed Martin use arms fairs to market their deadly technology and products to governments from around the world. Perhaps they should be the focus of police interest rather than members of Palestine Action.

Palestine Action activists dyed security tent blood red and threw red and green flares on the Excel exhibition centre in London – Sunday, Sept 12, 2021 [VX Photo/ Vudi Xhymshiti]

Like many others, I am sick and tired of half-hearted apologies from the armed forces which use (or misuse) their weaponry. There’s nothing “smart” about a precision-guided missile which kills innocent civilians as — and I hate this term — collateral damage. There is no such thing as a clinical kill, a point agreed by several protest groups which have criticised the arms fair for its role in enabling the destructive US-UK war in Afghanistan over the past twenty years.

According to US policy, attacks by drones are not to go ahead if there is a probability that innocent civilians will be killed or injured. As we found out a few days ago, the US doesn’t really have a clue who it’s blowing up. Call me naïve, but it seems that the only certain thing when a drone takes to the air is, that innocent civilians will die, whether they’re Afghani, Iraqi, Pakistani, Yemeni, Syrian, or Palestinian.

Drone attacks were much favoured by Barack Obama who joked about their efficiency. One news story illustrated how much he ordered their use by pointing out that it would take the former US president more than three years to get through them all if he apologised to one innocent person a day. Human rights groups have demanded transparency from all US presidents since the Bush administration launched its drone wars, but there remains very little clarity on the number of civilians killed.

I’ve suspected this for many years. After the most recent US apology for killing civilians, I had a sense of déjà vu. In April 2003, I travelled solo to Paktika in Afghanistan after hearing rumours of an atrocity against innocent civilians in a district called Bermal. All eyes were focused on Iraq so even though I got the story, it was difficult to find someone to publish it. There’s only so much injustice against the people of Asia and the Middle East that the media is prepared to broadcast or publish.

While I was investigating the atrocity in southern Afghanistan, a senior US army officer was also in the district with hush money to keep Afghan villagers quiet. He did not want people talking to me in case I found out that America had killed eleven children in another deadly blunder.

The Pentagon had claimed that it destroyed a Taliban stronghold when, in fact, US forces had destroyed a house. The grieving mother — Sawara was her name —lost all of her nine children in the attack. She was like an empty shell when I finally spoke to her.

She and her husband Mawes Khan had put their children to bed in the family home they shared with his brother Sardar, and his wife and their seven children. By morning, the corpses of eleven brothers, sisters, and cousins lay in a neat row in the courtyard. The Americans realised the full extent of their mistake and gave the family the equivalent of £6,350 and an apology.

That happened two years into the war when the number of dead Afghan civilians was not deemed important enough to register. How much compensation will the Americans pay to Zemari Ahmadi after wiping out ten members of his family, including eight children? The admission of guilt and an apology were only forthcoming because the world’s media was in Kabul on the day of the attack and had access to the scene of devastation as well as eyewitnesses and survivors to interview.

The media in Washington was briefed about how an unnamed ISIS-Khorasan fighter had been in a vehicle with an associate at the time of the strike, which was carried out by an MQ-9 Reaper drone. Captain Bill Urban, spokesman for US Central Command, assured journalists that the military had used specially chosen precision munitions in order to minimise civilian casualties. In essence, the compliant media was being fed propaganda packed with deceptive euphemisms.

The drone attack on the eve of the departure of the last US troops had come three days after Isis-Khorisan terrorists killed dozens of Afghan civilians, nearly 30 Taliban soldiers, and thirteen members of the US military in a suicide bombing at the gates of Kabul Airport. Civilians always suffer when the US rushes in to wreak revenge.

This week we heard US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin apologise for a “horrible mistake” after he admitted: “We now know that there was no connection between Mr Ahmadi and Isis-Khorasan, that his activities on that day were completely harmless and not at all related to the imminent threat we believed we faced, and that Mr Ahmadi was just as innocent a victim as were the others tragically killed.”

Compare this with the narrative pushed out on 29 August when the US military claimed triumphantly to have taken out ISIS terrorists and that there had been “significant secondary explosions from the vehicle”, suggesting that explosives were on board. Journalists were told that there were “no indications” of civilian casualties. As I said, America would have got away with the lies had there not been so many foreign journalists on the ground.

It emerged that Zemari Ahmadi is an engineer for aid group Nutrition and Education International. He was observed placing large water bottles or jugs into the back of his white car. US intelligence (surely a contradiction in terms) interpreted this as an ISIS-K member packing explosives into a vehicle for another suicide mission.

It is time for the world to accept that there’s no such thing as a surgical strike and that unmanned drones are among the worst weapons for producing civilian casualties. It would, therefore, make more sense to listen to groups like Palestine Action rather than deploy deadly weapons which have a track record of killing innocent people.

The theme of the DSEI fair at the ExCel Centre was “Integrated Response to Future Threats”, with a focus on drone warfare and surveillance technology. Palestine Action says that this will mean a greater role for drones in British policing as the government enters new procurement and training contracts with the likes of Elbit Systems. According to the activists’ press release, the London fair and a similar exhibition in Liverpool “serve a similar purpose of normalising these firms’ operations and providing an open market for the exchange of the weapons of war. Palestine Action is calling for the cancellation of both events and the ceasing of these firms’ operations on British soil, failing which direct action will continue and will escalate.”

Drone strikes outside the declared war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq are the province of the CIA and the secretive US Joint Special Operations Command. Various US administrations have treated them as official secrets. In the absence of justice for the families of those killed accidentally and/or targeted in drone strikes, civil disobedience and resistance is thus the duty of all reasonable people in war zones like Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, and elsewhere.

It is easy for governments to demonise dead civilians as “terrorists” because most are killed in remote areas where the absence of justice or journalists makes it easier for the authorities to bury their mistakes. With governments prepared to lie or twist the facts, weapons manufacturers should be careful about those to whom they sell their arms, or be ready to be accused of complicity in war crimes.

We now suspect that the Palestinian children killed while playing on a beach in Gaza in 2014 were hit by an Israeli drone strike. The manufacturers are surely just as complicit as the Israeli soldiers who targeted young boys. Again, had journalists not been in an adjacent hotel when the strike took place, Israel might have got away with insulting everyone’s intelligence by claiming that Hamas “terrorists” were on active duty that day.

These are the sort of crimes that British police officers should be investigating, instead of arresting the people who draw attention to international war crimes and criminal negligence which led to the killing of Palestine’s 9-year-old Ismayil Bahar, 10-year-old Aed Bahar, 10-year-old Zacharia Bahar, and 11-year-old Muhammed Bahar on that Gaza beach; the Ahmadi family in Kabul earlier this month; and the Khan’s eleven children in Bermal in 2003, as well as the tens of thousands of others in-between. The law of universal jurisdiction exists to allow states to prosecute those responsible for international crimes committed elsewhere. The fact that few, if any such prosecutions go ahead, signals a degree of complicity at the highest levels of governments and judiciaries.

In such cases, it is not always the law that is an ass, but the people charged with implementing it and ensuring that justice is seen to be done for people like the Bahar, Ahmadi, and Khan families. Apologies and compensation are simply not good enough.

September 20, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas calls for revoking Abraham accords with occupation state

Palestine Information Center – September 19, 2021

GAZA – The Hamas Movement has called for renouncing the shameful Abraham accords and ending all forms of normalized relations with the Israeli occupation state, urging the Muslim and Arab nations to restore their role in defending Palestine.

In a press release on Saturday, Hamas stressed the need “to swiftly correct such wrong political trajectory and respond to the aspirations of the peoples in the region who reject any sort of normalization with the occupation state.”

“The so-called Abraham accords are a Zio-American project par excellence, aimed at establishing regional openness and normalization with the Zionist entity, integrating it into the region and forging alliances with it to shift the conflict priorities, instead of being with the Zionist entity that is occupying Palestine and considered the greatest danger to the region,” the Movement said.

“The US administration and the Zionist entity are working on deceiving our nations and anesthetizing their awareness through an intensive marketing and promotion campaign for the Abraham accords that have been brokered with rogue regimes working against the region’s history, present and future,” it added.

“Those accords are aimed at consolidating and achieving the Zionist hegemony over the region militarily, politically and economically, plundering its wealth, marginalizing the Palestinian cause and isolating our Palestinian people from its Arab and Islamic surrounding and depth,” the Movement underscored.

On September 15, 2020, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain officially signed normalization deals (Abraham accords) with the occupation state under the auspices of the previous US administration. Sudan and Morocco followed suit soon later.

September 19, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Australia: Petition EN3196 – Alternate treatment options for Covid 19

Petition Request

Millions of Australians are extremely concerned about the federal government’s push to force hastily approved and poorly tested novel vaccines on the population, when adequate long term safety data is unavailable.

It is also is of great concern that many notable doctors and medical researchers reporting successful treatment using cheap, safe generic anti viral drugs appear to be ignored by the government and TGA, due to these generic drugs being of little commercial value and not sponsored by pharmaceutical companies for approval by the TGA.

We therefore ask the House to formally request that the TGA assess the use of Ivermectine and Hydroxycloriquine, in the recommended dosages and combination with complimentary drugs, based on the peer reviewed studies and data, and the recommendation of notable Australian medical researchers such as Professor Thomas Borody and Professor Robert Clancy.

We ask that the house requests this of the TGA in the absence of sponsorship by a pharmaceutical corporation, seeing as both of these drugs are generic and of little commercial value to an individual company, and due to the conflict of interest many of these companies have with competing patented vaccines of far higher commercial interest.

We believe that if this is performed thoroughly and transparently it will restore public faith in the federal government, and also provide confidence to the public that all options for treatment are being honestly explored.

The petition is currently open for signatures. [until September 29th]

To see more and sigh the petition, see here: aph.gov.au

September 13, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Deaths From Covid Vaxcine are government mandated genocide

NZ OUTDOORS PARTY | SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

A rush of student deaths and serious heart problems since the government’s decision to roll out the Pfizer vaccine to 12-17 year olds is government mandated genocide says the NZ Outdoors Party. The rollout to teenagers only started a few weeks ago, and already two deaths and two other post Vax admissions to Starship hospital have been reported. Another two serious post vaccine injuries in students are under investigation, including a boy who collapsed in Whangarei and another in the South Island. All are understood to have been healthy until sudden post vaccine heart issues, attributed to blood clots or myocarditis. These are well known adverse effects of this mRNA injection, which is known overseas as the #clotshot.

“The Prime Minister is floundering as the community networks are proving far more efficient at collecting and sharing information than the bureaucrats” says Sue Grey, co-leader of the NZ Outdoors Party. “This highlights one of the problems we have been raising for months. With a novel vaccine that is yet to complete clinical trials, there should be active follow-up of each recipient, to check on their health and to ensure all adverse effects are reported and assessed. The devastating effects on so many families could likely have been avoided if only the government had been more pro-active and transparent about the harm.”

Information obtained under the OIA shows that Medsafe, the government regulator, declined consent for the Pfizer Vaccine in January because it was not satisfied that the benefits exceeded the risks. Since then Medsafe has acknowledged the Pfizer Vax may cause myocarditis, pericarditis and thrombocytopenia ( blood clots).

In February the PfizerVax was given “provisional consent for the restricted treatment of a limited number of patients”, and subject to 58 conditions requiring more research and information.

After the High Court case raised questions about the legality of the Vaccine rollout, the government undertook an emergency law reform within 24 hours to remove the restricted use.

Recently the age limit was reduced to 12 year olds. it is understood the Prime Minister wants to inject everyone in New Zealand.

Despite its own advisors concerns, government advertising has repeatedly claimed the PfizerVax is “safe and effective” and “approved by Medsafe”. The Prime Minister herself claimed this recently in Parliamentary question time.

Many doctors and communities are furious about the ongoing devastation the PfizerVax is causing, and that people are not being told about the risks. A petition calling for an immediate suspension of the Vaccine rollout to teenagers launched today reached over 2000 signatures within hours. http://www.oursay.co.nz

The Outdoors Party says the ongoing rollout must stop immediately, and the government must start to listen both to the people they were elected to represent, and to the many doctors and international experts who have been issuing warnings for months.

“This programme must stop today, without any further excuses, and whoever is responsible must resign immediately” says Outdoors Party President Alan Simmons . End For more information call Alan Simmons alan@outdoorsparty.co.nz 0274 980304 or Sue Grey 22 6910586 suegreylawyer@gmail.com

September 12, 2021 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Anti-Tyrany Protests Growing Worldwide, Truckie Victory In Australia

By Brian Shilhavy | Health Impact News | September 8, 2021

All across the world there were massive protests against medical tyranny and COVID vaccine passports this past week, but most of these are not being reported by the corporate media.

In Australia, people are reporting that the cell phones of truckers were blocked so that they could not communicate and take photos and videos of their nationwide strike, which is apparently still in effect. There have been videos of empty shelves in some grocery stores, but the corporate media is reporting that it has nothing to do with the trucker strike.

South Australia, however, did drop their COVID-19 vaccine mandate for truck drivers.

In France, the reports are that the demonstrations against the vaccine passports are getting larger and larger every weekend.

I have put together a short video update, which also includes massive protests in Brazil, allegedly against pharmaceutical companies.

The corporate media in Brazil has reported that at least 32,000 people have now died after taking one of the COVID shots. See:

Over 32,000 People DEAD in Brazil Following COVID-19 Vaccines According to Official Media Report

We are also now seeing video clips of local protests in the U.S. One in New York City over the Labor Day weekend, and one in Waikiki, Hawaii.

This is from our Bitchute channel, and it will also be on our Rumble channel shortly.

September 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Video | | Leave a comment