Lebanese President Warns International Community of Continuing Wars in Region
Al-Manar | November 29, 2018
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, on Thursday condemned the fact that UN resolution #194, which affirmed the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland, remained mere ink on paper.
“This has deepened the feelings of oppression amongst the Palestinian people, all amid daily attempts to hide their identity and to destroy their legitimate rights,” Aoun said marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
“The declaration of Al-Quds as the capital of ‘Israel’, and the transfer of some embassies to it against the will of the international community, the passing of the ‘Jewish nation-state law’, and the blocking of UNRWA aid signify a collective effort to defeat resolution #194 and point to attempts to rid it of its content,” Aoun said.
The President also warned the international community of its failure to carry out its duties towards the Palestinian cause, and its adoption of a double standard policy.
“This would lead to the continuation of wars in the Middle East due to lack of justice,” Aoun said.
The President’s words came in a letter addressed to Cheikh Niang, the Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations Chair of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
Amid warming ties with Chad, Israel eyes normal ties with Sudan, other Africa states: Report
Press TV – November 26, 2018
Amid warming relations with Chad, Israel is reportedly working to normalize relations with Sudan and other African states as the regime steps up its push to strengthen its foothold in the continent.
A senior Israeli official told Channel 10 TV channel that a visit on Sunday by Chadian President Idriss Deby to the occupied territories was laying the groundwork for normal ties between Tel Aviv and the Muslim-majority African states of Sudan, Mali and Niger.
The unnamed official also noted that Israel was seeking to shorten flight times from the occupied territories to Latin America through normalizing relations with African countries.
Deby became the first Chadian leader to visit Israel on Sunday, 46 years after the two sides severed ties.
After meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Chadian president pledged a new era of cooperation with “the prospect of reestablishing diplomatic relations.”
Israeli media cited sources in N’Djamena as saying that Deby’s visit was focused on “security,” and that the regime in Tel Aviv had already been supplying weapons and other military equipment to Chad.
Netanyahu, however, declined to comment on potential Israeli weapons sales to Chad.
During his visit, Deby said the future resumption of ties with Israel “does not make us ignore the Palestinian issue.”
The Palestinians, however, protested Deby’s trip to Israel.
Wasel Abu Youssef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, voiced displeasure over the visit.
“All countries and institutions must boycott the extremist government of Israel and impose a siege on it because of its settlement activities, its occupation of Palestinian land,” Youssef was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Over the past two years, Netanyahu has traveled to several African states in a bid to end decades of hostility against the occupying entity and convince them to stop voting against the Israeli regime at the United Nations in favor of Palestinians.
According to Channel 10, Israeli is now in talks with Sudan in a bid to improve relations with the African state.
The Israeli push comes almost two years after Sudan joined Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in cutting relations with Iran.
At that time, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Tel Aviv had urged the US and other countries to improve their relationship with Sudan in response.
In a 2016, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour said Khartoum was open to the idea of normalizing ties with Israel in exchange for lifting US sanctions.
Israel is also said to be seeking to take advantage of the insurgency and Takfiri militancy gripping parts of Africa to sell advanced military equipment to conflict-ridden states in the continent.
Israel in contact with Persian Gulf Arab states
Meanwhile, reports have emerged recently of Israel’s attempts to make its secret ties with Persian Gulf Arab governments public and establish formal relations with them.
On Sunday, Israeli news sites reported that Tel Aviv is working to normalize ties with Bahrain, hours after Netanyahu hinted he would soon travel to unspecified Arab states.
Israeli Economy Minister Eli Cohen said on Monday he had been invited to attend a conference next year in Bahrain.
Netanyahu met with Oman’s Sultan Qaboos in Muscat last month, but the controversial visit was kept secret until after the Israeli premier returned to the occupied territories.
The visit to Muscat was the first by an Israeli prime minister since 1996.
On Sunday, Israel’s Hadashot television news reported that Netanyahu had secured reassurances from Oman that airlines flying to and from the occupied territories would be permitted to fly over the kingdom’s airspace.
Activists with a pro-Palestine boycott campaign against Israel said Monday that the meeting between Sultan Qaboos and Netanyahu may have breached a long-dormant Israeli boycott law.
“Since 1977, official records stopped mentioning the Law of Boycotting Israel, neither denying it nor confirming it,” an Omani activist with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement told the Middle East Eye news portal.
“This happened when the country took a neutral policy in foreign affairs, including accepting normalizing ties with the Zionist entity,” the activist added.
Another activist said several prominent activists had been arrested shortly before the Israeli prime minister’s visit to Muscat for pro-Palestinian posts on social media, adding, however, that they were freed after disassociating themselves from BDS Oman.
“There is no clear legal path of how to implement the law. But even discussing this topic is a risky business, because there is no political free speech,” he said.
The activist also noted that BDS Oman had sent its “sincerest apologies” to the Palestinian people after a visit by “criminal” Netanyahu.
French Carbon Tax Protests
Yellow vests imposed on motorists become powerful anti-government symbol
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | November 26, 2018
For more than a week, protests have been underway across France, sparked by January’s scheduled increase in carbon taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel. These taxes are supposed to save the world from climate change by encouraging everyone to drive less.
But working folk, especially those who reside outside of urban centers, have no choice. They need to get to work, and their elderly relatives need transporting to medical appointments. As Geoff Chambers observes: “Telling a plumber or refrigerator repair man to work from home or to travel by public transport seems…a sure recipe for starting a revolution.”
It’s a strange worldview that says we should lead diminished lives today so that people in the technologically advanced future will reap the rewards. (Human history is full of doomsayers who were convinced the future would be dire, but who have been proven wrong time and again.)
There’s a poetic aspect to these protests. French law mandates reflective yellow vests in every automobile. These aren’t to be kept in the trunk/boot, but within the cabin itself. In the event of a breakdown, a vest must be donned before one exits the vehicle.
Perhaps there’s some sense in this. But as soon as something stops being a suggestion and instead becomes a law, problems arise. One wonders how politically connected the manufacturers/distributors/retailers of such vests happened to be around the time that law got passed. More importantly, individual liberty is undermined when police have an excuse to harass anyone at any time under the guise of checking for the presence of such vests.
In a marvelous flourish, the good people of France have turned this lemon into lemonade. Dressed in these vests, they’ve taken to the streets to protest. An item everyone has been forced by the government to purchase has become a powerful symbol of resistance to a government-imposed carbon tax.
Visual impact is tremendously important if one hopes to attract media attention. A good visual can mean the difference between making it onto the television news or being wholly ignored.
The photos of, and videos from, these protests are fantastic. Those yellow vests (gilets jaunes) are the cat’s meow.
LINKS:
- See Geoff Chambers’ compelling exploration of the larger context of these protests here and here.
- See this photo collage posted on Facebook, this collection of images from search engine DuckDuckGo.com, and this collection of images from Google
- This BBC article says the fine for not having a yellow vest in one’s vehicle in France is 135 Euros – approximately 120 UK pounds, or 153 US dollars. The article also reports that these protests appear to be genuinely grassroots in nature: “In a country where protests are often tightly managed by one political party or trade union, this is a movement with no recognised national leader, no formal structure or affiliation, which unites voters of all ages from the far-left, the far-right, even those who once supported President Macron.”
- There’s a huge difference between peaceful protest and violence and vandalism. People who attack police and firefighters, and who damage property, aren’t admirable – whether they’re wearing gilets jaunes or not.
Haneyya: We will confront deal of the century
Palestine Information Center – November 24, 2018
GAZA – Head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haneyya has affirmed that his Movement will not allow the deal of the century to be implemented and will use armed resistance to prevent it.
Haneyya made his remarks in a televised speech during the 32nd Islamic Unity Conference that kicked off on Saturday in Tehran.
“We want to build a strong and strategic alliance that brings together all the forces to face the challenges surrounding the Palestinian cause,” Haneyya said.
He stressed that the Palestinian people have open options to defend their holy sites and stand like “an impenetrable dam” against any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause.
The Hamas official also underlined that all forms of resistance would remain his Movement’s strategic choice.
“We have one compass pointing towards the liberation of the land and the establishment of the Palestinian state, and every party sharing this goal with us is our ally,” he added.
He called on the organizers of the conference to adopt an Islamic strategy to confront Israeli schemes, strengthen the Palestinians’ steadfastness in Jerusalem and protect the Aqsa Mosque against Judaization.
‘Netanyahu Must Know His Probable Visit Would Be Confronted by All Bahrainis’
Al-Manar | November 8, 2018
Al-Wefaq Islamic Association in Bahrain on Thursday maintained that normalizing ties with the Zionist entity is a treason, stressing that Netanyahu and all the Israelis can never visit the Gulf country.
In a statement, Al-Wefaq considered that the media reports which mentioned that the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an invitation from the Bahraini regime to visit Bahrain represents a new challenge which must be addressed by all the Bahrainis.
This challenge indicates that there is major shift in the regime’s policy, which would confiscate all the values, covenants and humanitarian as well as the Islamic commitments of Bahrainis to the Umma causes, especially that of the occupied Palestine, according to the statement.
Al-Wfaq also considered that the silence of the regime figures about the circulated reports indicates that Netanyahu’s visit is probable, stressing that Netanyahu must know that his visit to Bahrain is categorically rejected and will be confronted by all the Bahrainis.
Calling on all the Arabs and Muslims to denounce this provocative move, Al-Wefaq emphasized that all the forms of normalization with the Zionist entity are rejected.
Israel’s diamond exports crash as BDS and war crimes impact
By Sean Clinton | MEMO | November 7, 2018
Fig.1 – Graph of diamond exports and trends from main exporting hubs
Israel’s gross diamond exports have crashed by a staggering 45 per cent since the 2014 massacre in Gaza that resulted in the death of over 2,200 people, mainly civilians including over 550 children.
The net value of Israel’s diamond exports has fallen even further, by 60 per cent from $11.25 billion to $4.4 billion over the period. This is about the same as the value of Israel’s total arms exports.
The Israeli diamond exchange initially blamed the decline on weak global demand and more recently on globalisation but the sudden steep decline shows that’s plainly not the case.
De Beers annual insight reports on the state of the global diamond market show demand increased slightly over the past five years.
No other diamond exporting country has suffered such a steep fall.
The Belgian diamond industry, which is a major hub for both the rough and polished diamond trade to and from Israel, has also been impacted by the steep decline in Israel’s exports.
Meanwhile India has gained market share and in 2016, for the first time ever, exported more diamonds to the USA than Israel which has traditionally supplied up to 50 per cent of the US market in value terms.
There can be no doubt that one of the most important and the most vulnerable sector of the Israeli economy is feeling the impact of Israel’s blood-drenched brand image.
Fig. 2 – Israeli manufacturing exports declined sharply after 2014 led by a 45% fall in diamond exports. The 2012 fall in diamond exports was due to the discovery of major fraud in the Diamond Exchange.
The global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) has highlighted jewellery industry links to Israeli human rights violations which are funded to a significant degree by revenue from the diamond industry. Both appear to be impacting the Israeli diamond industry particularly hard with exports down a further 6 percent in H1 2018.
The situation has become so serious that Israel is now offering to pay air fares as well as provide free hotel accommodation to attract buyers to Tel Aviv. Although the jewellery industry and NGOs have remained silent about Israel’s leading role in the diamond supply chain human rights activists have campaigned to expose it.
In 2012 activists first revealed the linkage between the Steinmetz Diamond Group (SDG) and the Givati Brigade of the Israeli military which was responsible for the 2009 massacre of the Samouni family in Gaza, a suspected war crime documented by the UN Human Rights Council and others including Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
This set in motion a series of actions that continue to reverberate through the upper echelons of the diamond industry. When the Anglo American owned De Beers Group put a Forevermark Steinmetz diamond on display in the Tower of London in honour of the Queen of England’s Diamond Jubilee the Inminds human rights group staged regular protests outside the Tower.
A member of the Samouni family in Gaza recorded a video appealing for the blood diamond to be removed. The diamond was removed a few months later without any of the fanfare and publicity that accompanied it’s unveiling. It hasn’t been seen or heard of in public since.
Sotheby’s Diamonds is a 50:50 partnership between Sotheby’s, the famous auction house, and Diacore, the now rebranded Steinmetz Diamond Group.
Since 2012, Inminds has staged a number of protests outside Sotheby’s premises in Bond Street, London, highlighting the link to Israeli war crimes.
In January 2013, Sotheby’s CEO and board were sent a registered letter alerting them to the damage to their reputation and the risks to their brand posed by their partnership with the Steinmetz Group. Months later in Geneva, in a blaze of global publicity, Sotheby’s auctioned the Steinmetz Pink, a specimen diamond. It was bought by a syndicate of investors lead by Isaac Wolf for a world record US$83 million. The pre-auction publicity and spin gave no indication that the diamond was tarnished by association with Israeli war crimes in Gaza and was, therefore, a blood diamond. Four months after the auction it was revealed that the investors defaulted and Sotheby’s were forced to take the diamond into inventory costing them millions.
In April 2017, in a much quieter event, the blood diamond was auctioned in Hong Kong and bought by Chow Tai Fook for $71 million.
The Isaac Wolf syndicate wasn’t sued.
Diamond buyers and sellers attend the International Diamond Week (IDW) in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv on February 14, 2017. (JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)
Sotheby’s continues to partner with Diacore despite the fact that the Steinmetz Foundation “adopted” the Givati Brigade which stands accused of war crimes.
As news of the default became public it was also disclosed that Beny Steinmetz sold his interest in SDG to his brother Daniel and the company was rebranded as Diacore. Some observers believe this was an exercise designed to distance leading diamond brands including Tiffany’s, De Beers, Sotheby’s and Forevermark from the tarnished Steinmetz brand which is indelibly linked to the Samouni massacre. Evidence supporting this was leaked in the Panama Papers which showed that in 2015, Beny Steinmetz was still involved and asked Mossack Fonseca to backdate the transfer of his power of attorney to his brother to 2013.
Further indications that jewellers are shunning diamonds linked to Israeli human rights violations emerged earlier this year when it came to light, via a Tiffany & Co Form 10-K submission to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, that the iconic diamond brand had terminated a supply agreement with a Steinmetz owned mine in Sierra Leone. Tiffany’s loaned Steinmetz $50 million to develop the mine and was one of their leading buyers.
Tiffany’s divestment came following pressure from human rights activists who exposed the fact that Tiffany’s sourced diamonds from a miner that donated to and supported suspected Israeli war criminals.
Although Tiffany & Co divested from a Steinmetz mine they continue to conceal the identity of the companies they buy 25-35 per cent of their polished diamonds from. Tiffany’s customers cannot, therefore, know where their jewellery comes from as alluded to by their new CEO Alessandro Bogliono in Tiffany’s Sustainability Report 2017.
“Our customers place great value on sustainability. They want to know where their jewellery comes from, how it is made and how the jewellery-making process impacts the planet as well as its people and communities. Tiffany & Co. holds this kind of transparency dear and, through this creation of shared value, we have a unique opportunity to build meaningful, lasting relationships with our customers. We are committed to sharing more with them — and all of our stakeholders — about what, exactly, Tiffany is doing to achieve sustainability for our business and for the planet as we very broadly define that goal: enriching the people and places we reach through our business; minimising our environmental impact; improving industry-wide practices; and channelling the power of the Tiffany brand as a force for positive change in the world.”
Given Israel’s leading role in the industry and the absence of a statement from Tiffany’s stating, as they have done with Zimbabwe and Angola, they do not buy diamonds from the apartheid state, it is likely Tiffany’s are sourcing diamonds from companies in Israel.
Fig. 3 – On June 1st, Rajan al-Najjar, a 21 year old paramedic, was shot dead by an Israeli sniper as she treated wounded civilians in Gaza.
Diamond companies in Israel employ people who have served in and are members of the Israeli army, have openly funded and supported attacks on the defenceless residents of Gaza, have been widely implicated in serious fraud and who discriminate against non-Jews who make up 20 per cent of the population.
Furthermore, Tiffany’s haven’t paid reparations to the Samouni family or any of the victims of the Steinmetz supported Givati Brigade. Mitigation for damage caused is a key component of “responsible sourcing” as outlined in the OECD Due Diligence Guidelines to which Tiffany and Co, a member of the UN Global Compact, claims it is committed.
Although revenue from the diamond industry is a significant source of funding for an apartheid regime that has killed over 210 Palestinians including women, children, medics and journalists and injured and maimed thousands more with live ammunition in besieged Gaza in the past six months alone, jewellers fraudulently claim diamonds processed in Israel are responsibly sourced and conflict-free.
This blood diamond cover-up and fraud is perpetuated by public companies and governments who collaborate to shield rogue regimes in Israel, Zimbabwe and Angola that they depend on to keep their coffers full, bolster dividends for shareholders and provide fat pension pots for c-suite executives.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP), the blueprint of which was drafted by the World Diamond Council, is the primary vehicle facilitating the ongoing blood diamond trade.
Although the remit of the KP is deliberately restricted to banning rough diamonds that fund rebel violence, jewellers use it to claim other blood diamonds are conflict free even when they fund war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Shamefully, Amnesty International, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch and Impact (Partnership Africa Canada), that the public rely on to expose the blood diamond trade and speak up for the victims, have said and done nothing to hold the diamond jewellery industry to account for funding Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Fig.4 –The diamond industry has created a matrix of bogus schemes, warranties, standards and codes of practices to con consumers and facilitate the trade in blood diamonds that fund rogue regimes
The silence of NGO’s on Israel’s blood diamond trade means the Kimberley Process charade continues to con most people and can keep mainstream media focused on the mining sector in Africa. Meanwhile, high street jewellers launder cut and polished blood diamonds labelled responsibly sourced and conflict free to unsuspecting customers.
Hilde Hardeman is the EU chair of the Kimberley Process in 2018. Indications to date suggest that she, like others before her in South Africa and Australia, will ignore the latest call from human rights activists for Israel to be suspended from the KP until those responsible for massacres in Gaza are brought to justice and held to account.
Some voices in the jewellery industry are speaking out. The most recent example being the Ethical Jewelry Exposé: Lies, Damn Lies, and Conflict Free Diamonds, from Marc Choyt and his team at Reflective Jewellery. The exposé peels back the layers of bogus schemes “through the metaphor of Russian nesting dolls, with eight layers of babble obscuring the nefarious truth hidden at the core”.
The exposé leaves readers in no doubt as to the magnitude of the fraud being perpetrated by the key stakeholders in the diamond industry, particularly the Responsible Jewellery Council which is now chaired by Signet Jewellers Vice President of corporate affairs, David Bouffard. Signet Jewellers source many of their diamonds from companies in Israel.
The successive withdrawal of human rights organisations from the KP, including Global Witness, Impact Transform, International Alert, Fatal Transactions and Ian Smillie – a key architect of the Kimberly Process scheme – has removed the fig leaf and left its exponents exposed with their bloody diamonds in full view.
Scrambling to conceal the blood diamond trade, the industry’s most recent and emerging addition to the matrix of deception, is the use of blockchain technology to digitally log all transactions a diamond undertakes from mine to market. While the technology has the potential to give consumers the information needed to make an informed decision about the ethical provenance of a diamond, the detailed information will only be available to “authorised users” as “privacy controls” will prevent consumers from accessing “sensitive data”.
Diacore, of the Steinmetz Group, was one of the first companies in a trial conducted by De Beers Group of their blockchain system, Tracr, earlier this year. It is clear, therefore, that blockchain will provide another layer of cover for the blood diamond trade while consumers are kept in the dark.
As the EU chairs a Kimberley Process plenary meeting in Brussels from November 12-16 it will be interesting to observe the corseted language emanating from the spin doctors. No doubt they will inform the public that the major reforms aimed at strengthening the KP and giving added assurance to consumers have been agreed. But one thing is for sure, any reforms that are agreed will not extend to banning blood diamonds that fund rogue regimes guilty of gross human rights violations in Israel, Zimbabwe or Angola.
Read:
Why Israel sees BDS as a ‘strategic threat’
In first, UK university divests from firms supplying Israel army
Students hold a protest calling for an end of Israel’s occupation on Gaza at Leeds University, UK on 5 May 2018
MEMO | November 5, 2018
In the first move of its kind, a UK university has divested from companies that supply military equipment to the Israeli army following a student campaign.
The University of Leeds this weekend made the decision to divest from three companies which were found to be complicit in the violation of Palestinian human rights: Airbus, United Technologies and Keyence Corporation. A fourth company – HSBC – is also under review by the university’s investment managers for its provision of loans to Elbit Systems, Caterpillar and BAE Systems, all of which sell weapons and military equipment to the Israeli government.
The move came after it emerged that the University of Leeds had invested £2.4 million ($3.1 million) in these companies this year alone. The sum was revealed by a Freedom of Information request dating back to August, under which the British public can demand access to information held by public authorities.
Students, staff, societies and alumni of the university then published an open letter to the Vice Chancellor calling for the cessation of investment in the four firms. The letter stated that: “In summer 2014, 2,251 Palestinians were killed, including 526 children, by the Israeli Defence Force in the attacks on Gaza […] the artillery used to carry out this destruction were made by Elbit Systems, funded by HSBC. The fighter jets employed by the IDF were maintained by United Technologies. The helicopters which patrol Gaza’s sea border are supplied by Airbus. Further military activity was aided by the equipment provided by Keyence Corporation. The University of Leeds knowingly enables this activity by investing in these companies.”
Our university should not enable military occupation. Our tuition fees should not fund killing. Our education should not be at the expense of a person’s life.
The move has been hailed as a victory for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Co-President of the Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group, Evie Russell-Cohen, explained: “It’s clear that the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is being heard in the UK. Students are no longer willing to see their tuition fees funding weapons companies which profit from the killing of Palestinians. This is a massive success, but we hope that it will only be the beginning of a wave change across UK Universities.”
Calls for UK universities to review their investments in companies known to assist the Israeli army have been growing in recent months. In April, activists at the University of Manchester exposed a web of connections between the university and several weapons companies, including Israel Aerospace Industries which produced drones used during Israel’s 2014 assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. The University of Manchester had previously tried to conceal its links to such companies until the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – the body regulating data protection in the UK – found the university to be in contravention of the Freedom of Information Act, the same act which enabled University of Leeds students to force their institution to divest.
Irish Lawmakers Call for Arms Embargo on Israel
IMEMC | November 2, 2018
In a letter published in the Irish Times newspaper, Minister of State Finian McGrath and fifty other Irish TDs and Senators have called for an arms embargo to be placed on Israel, and for “an end to the bi-lateral arms trade between Ireland and the apartheid state”.
In addition to independent Minister McGrath, the signatories include members of Sinn Féin, Solidarity-People Before Profit, Labour, the Green Party, Independents 4 Change and other independent members of the Oireachtas, who condemn “the shooting dead of some 205 [Palestinian] protestors, including 40 children, and wounding of more than 5,000 people by live fire [on the Great March of Return] in Gaza since April”.
The letter ends by calling for “the international community, and the Irish government in particular, to take a stand to help end Israel’s decades of colonial occupation, apartheid and war crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Welcoming the statement, Ms. Fatin Al Tamimi, Chairperson of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and a Palestinian-Irish citizen said she “thanks the members of the Oireachtas for this important and principled statement of solidarity, showing once again the strong bonds between the Irish people and the Palestinian people, both of whom have struggled heroically against colonialism and oppression in their homelands.”
لإamimi noted, according to the PNN, that “the IPSC strongly echoes this call for an arms embargo on Israel, a measure that we Palestinians have long been asking for. Weapons sent to Israel are used to kill, maim and oppress my people, while weapons exported from Israel are marketed as being ‘battle tested’ on Palestinians. It is time to end this horrendous trade in death and destruction, which is a bloody stain upon the Irish state.”
Thoughts on One Democratic State
By Nahida Exiled Palestinian | Poetry for Palestine | May 18, 2018
Some activists are worried that my passion for justice and my advocacy for full restoration of Palestinians’ inalienable rights might “alienate” some Jewish supporters. They claim Palestinians desperately need Jewish support.
To them I have this to say:
Palestine has now been under the heel of violent foreign rulers since a full Century. Palestinians have always been eager to get international support, including from Jews. Since a full century, the naturally trustful Palestinians were grateful and delighted to give a platform to whomever showed the slightest interest in their cause. Tragically, this resulted in our authentic Palestinian narrative being gradually silenced. Genocidal atrocities since a century are ongoing. Our will to self-determination is untamed. Our Right to be sovereign inside our own land, is intact. Our historic, cultural and national identity, is as strong as ever. Yet all is more or less silenced.
Today we have the terribly dangerous situation where the authentic Palestinian narrative is so absent, that it has never been truly heard or appreciated in the West.
Every time an uncompromising authentic Palestinian voice steps up assertive and strong, it is quickly muffled and tucked away, as to not offend Jewish supporters or to not scratch their sensitivities.
Unconditionally and almost religiously pro-Palestinian organizations have sought Jewish approval in every event, every talk, ever letter, every petition, every motion and every campaign. This went on for decades. I know it from first hand experience, and also from the many Palestinians who echo this same disturbing experience almost globally.
Whenever an authentic Palestinian voice steps out of the narrow confinement of such censored discourse, they are immediately reprimanded and told in no uncertain terms that they have crossed the lines defined by Jewish “supporters”. When a Palestinian refuses to be terrorized by such Thought Police, he or she faces defamation, blacklisting, ostracism, and even threats.
On the day of signing of Oslo agreement, I remember sitting on the staircase in shock, sobbing for the rest of the day, for I knew what is to come. Yet the pro Palestinian camp with all its Jewish “supporters” in control, embraced the move. Palestinians were deceived into believing that a Palestinian state will come into being within five years. They were led to believe the Palestinian problem is on the verge of being resolved once and for all, and closure was eminent, nothing could have been further from truth. And the genocidal slaughter continued, worse then ever. And it continues today.
For the twenty five years that followed, “israel” used the “peace process” to proceed with it’s undeclared aims of total colonisation of West Bank and Gaza. The number of settlers sky rocketed and settlements have multiplied many folds over, making it impossible for any Palestinian state to exist on a land infested with and totally disconnected by Jewish only settlements and Jewish only roads.
In the present, “israel” has managed to totally conquer Palestine by war and terror. It has created a new reality on the ground, by annexing most of the land of historic Palestine, reducing Palestinian areas into fragmented open prisons where Jewish “israelis” can kill-at-will. “israel” together with its international Jewish support network has reduced and degraded the Palestinian population from a formerly radiant, self-sufficient, productive, cohesive, cooperative affluent society into an aid-dependent, traumatized, unproductive, poverty stricken population. The degradation is even practiced by distributing free narcotics to the Palestinian youth!
Despite having achieved their Jewish Zionist goals of total dominance over land and population, the geo-political circumstances are rapidly changing.
Increasingly, the strategists and think tanks of the Jewish state realise that they have passed the highest moment of success, and that the world community in spite of some coerced puppet governments, is very rapidly turning against the Jewish state. They began to feel the heat, of growing isolation, of world disdain. In this context, the next logical step from the perspective of their think tanks and strategists, is to seek the total finalization of their Zionist project, by seeking legitimacy from the rightful natives, through legalization, and through mass campaigns to gain “the hearts and minds” from world community by any artifice necessary.
Such step would guarantee their permanent presence in Palestine while securing themselves with “peace treaties’. And while the And while the Arab Muslims remain majority in greater region, the Jewish-“isrseli” total hegemony and dominance; financial, economical, militaristic, technological, administrative, educational, would be guaranteed.
Their next strategic move would be to offer a luring “solution” which would lure Palestinian support by nominally less oppression, by feigning “equality” while knowing that in reality their hegemony will remain de-facto, due to the huge economical, technological, industrial, and of course military gap between the two groups. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the Jewish state exhibits a willingness to relinquish any part of their control over all apparatus of power in the region. And it is an irrefutable fact, demonstrated by a century of nefarious “facts on the ground” that the Jewish Zionists who invaded Palestine and their aggravated offspring, will never voluntarily relinquish their weaponry, military, and aggressive violence.
Add to this unsettling scenario the most horrific component of ideological supremacy which would no doubt manifest in an explosion of settler violence against Palestinians who are seen as mere slaves created only to serve Jews.
That horrific deception is a strategic move already has a name. “One Democratic State”, “with Equal Rights to All its Citizens”. Very easy to be deceived by such a lofty romantic title, except that it is a cruel misnomer, a sirens’ song to fool and victimise, one last lethal time.
“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled” as goes the adage sometimes attributed to Mark Twain
Leading Palestinians by the nose, dangling the carrot of “One Democratic State” and promising them of a “bright” joined future with their persecutors, while knowing fair well that the promised crumbs will never come to fruition, exactly as the crumbs of Oslo, due to the fact-on-the-ground dominance coupled with lethal ideological supremacy.
“ODS-Equal Rights”, is not only an act of egregious deception, it is designed to perpetuate wars and genocide, by rewarding sadistic terrorists, thus it is an act of betrayal to humanity.
Aux Barricades Mes Enfants!
Time for the sans-culottes to rise up against Washington’s insanity
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 9, 2018
On October 21st there will be a Women’s March on the Pentagon hosted by the Global Women’s Peace Action. My wife and many of our friends will be going and even I will tag along in support in spite of my gender. We participate with some reservations as we have only demonstrated publicly twice since 9/11, once opposing the then about to start Iraq War and once against the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). All too often demonstrations morph into progressive exercises in flagellation of what are now referred to as “deplorable” values with little being accomplished either before, during or afterwards, apart from the piles of debris left behind to be cleaned up by the Park Service. And such events are rarely even covered by the media in Washington, where the Post generally adheres closely to a neocon foreign policy tactic, which means that if you ignore something distasteful it will eventually go away.
Hopefully on this occasion it will be different because the time for talking politics is rapidly being rendered irrelevant by the speed of Washington’s disengagement from reality and Americans of all political persuasions must begin to take to the streets to object to what their government is doing in their name. I am mildly optimistic that change is coming as I find it difficult to imagine that in spite of the relentless flood of mainstream media propaganda there is even a plurality of Americans that supports with any actual conviction what the United States is doing in Syria and what it intends to do in Iran. And apart from a desire to make voting in America safer and insofar as possible interference free, I also believe that most think that Russiagate is a load of hooey and would prefer to be friends with Moscow.
Why now? “Now” is a whole new ballgame, as the expression goes, because the utter insanity coming out of Washington could easily wind up killing most of us here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Specifically, in a press conference on Tuesday, Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former Senator from Texas who is currently the United States’ ambassador to NATO, declared that Washington was prepared to launch a preemptive attack on Russian military installations as a response to alleged treaty violations on the part of Moscow. Note particularly what Hutchison actually said: “At that point, we would be looking at the capability to take out a missile that could hit any of our countries. Counter measures would be to take out the missiles that are in development by Russia in violation of the treaty. They are on notice.”
And note further what she was implying, namely that Washington, acting on its own authority, has the right to attack a nuclear armed and powerful foreign country based on what are presumably negotiable definitions of what are acceptable weapons to base on one’s own soil. It would be an attack on a neighbor or competitor with whom one is not at war and which does not necessarily pose any active threat. By that standard, any country with a military capability can be described as threatening and one can attack anyone else based purely on one’s own assessment of what is acceptable or not.
It is quite remarkable how many countries in the world are now “on notice” for punishment when they do things that the United States objects to. United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley has warned that she will be “taking names” of those United Nations members that criticize U.S. policies in the Middle East. As increasing discomfort with U.S. initiatives there and elsewhere is a worldwide phenomenon, with only Israel, the Philippines, Nigeria and Kenya having a favorable view of Washington, Haley’s list is inevitably a long one. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, when they are not fabricating intelligence and inflating threats, have likewise warned specific countries that they are being judged by Washington and will be punished at a level proportionate to their transgressions.
Hutchison is not known as a deep thinker, so one has to suspect that her expressed views were fed to her by someone in Washington. Her specific grievance against Russia relates to Moscow’s reported deployment of new land-based missiles that have a claimed range of more than 5,000 kilometers, which is enough to hit most targets in Europe. If true, the development would be in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 and would definitely pose a potential threat to the Europeans, but the more serious question has to be the rationale behind threatening a nuclear war through preemptive action over an issue that might be subject to renewed multilateral negotiation.
Hutchison and the State Department inevitably went into double-speak mode when concerns were expressed about possible preemption against Russia. She clarified her earlier comments with an almost incomprehensible “My point: Russia needs to return to INF Treaty compliance or we will need to match its capabilities to protect U.S. & NATO interests. The current situation, with Russia in blatant violation, is untenable.”
Spokesman Heather Nauert at State then chimed in “What Ambassador Hutchison was talking about was improving overall defense and deterrence posture. The United States is committed to upholding its arms control obligations and expects Russia to do the very same thing.” Both disclaimers were needed, even if lacking in clarity, but they did not dispel the ugly taste of the initial comment regarding starting a war of preemption. Russia took note of the back and forth, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman drily observing “It seems that people who make such statements do not realize the level of their responsibility and the danger of aggressive rhetoric.” Hutchison and Nauert also do not seem aware of the fact that Russia’s frequently stated defense doctrine is to use nuclear weapons if and when it is attacked by a superior force, which might well be Moscow’s assessment of the threat posed by U.S. led NATO.
The disconnect between the White House’s often expressed desire to improve relations with Russia and the bureaucracy’s tendency to send the opposite message is typical of what has been referred to as Trump’s “dual-track presidency”. Gareth Porter has recently observed how President Trump, for all his faults in so many ways, is indeed desirous of military disengagement in some areas but he is repeatedly being overruled or outmaneuvered by the permanent bureaucracies in government, most notably the Pentagon and intelligence services. Hutchison, Haley, Pompeo and Bolton speak and act for that constituency even when they appear to be agreeing with the president.
So given the danger of war based on what Washington itself says about the state of the world and America’s presumed role in it, it is time to take the gloves off and march. That a high-level official can even stand up and speak about preventive war with a major nuclear power is disgraceful. She should be fired immediately. That she has not been fired means that someone somewhere high up in the bureaucracy agrees with what she said. Nuclear war is not an option. It is an end of all options.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website: www.councilforthenationalinterest.org
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