Israeli Authorities Issue Administrative Detention Orders against 101 Palestinians in September

Palestine Chronicle | September 30, 2019
Israeli authorities issued in September administrative detention orders against 101 Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails for periods ranging between two and six months, today said the Commission of Detainees Affairs.
Some of the orders were issued against Palestinians detainees for the first time, while others had their administrative detention renewed.
Meanwhile, seven administrative detainees are currently on an open-ended hunger strike in protest against their prolonged administrative detention.
According to statistics, there are 500 administrative detainees in Israeli jails.
Administrative detention is the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial at orders from a military commander and on the basis of secret evidence. The order normally goes for six-month periods, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military authorities.
US holding Iranian stem cell scientist for nearly a year without trial

Renowned Iranian stem cell scientist Dr. Masoud Soleimani
Press TV – September 28, 2019
Top Iranian stem cell scientist Dr. Masoud Soleimani has been behind bars in the United States without trial for nearly a year.
Soleimani, a professor and biomedical researcher at Tarbiat Modares University (TMU) in Tehran, was arrested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) upon his arrival in the US in October last year.
Soleimani had been invited by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for leading a research program there, but he was secretly indicted by the FBI, which also canceled his research visa.
According to his Atlanta attorney, Leonard Franco, he has since been held behind bars in a jail in Atlanta without bond.
Prosecutors in Atlanta have accused him and two of his former students of conspiring and attempting to export vials of human growth hormone from the US to Iran without authorization, in violation of US sanctions.
The two students were charged in a court and released after posting bail because they held US citizenship.
According to Soleimani’s lawyer, the human growth hormone is not banned in the US or Iran and was being used “exclusively for medical research,” which is still considered largely exempt from US sanctions.
Meanwhile, the head of Tarbiat Moddares University, Mohammad Taqi Ahmadi, has dismissed prosecutors’ claims as “ridiculous and unacceptable,” calling Soleimani’s detention a “harassment operation.”
Earlier this month, Ahmadi expressed deep concern over the dire situation of Dr. Soleimani, saying he was not in desirable conditions in jail and that all academics, even in the US, condemn his detention.
The scientist’s brother, Rasoul, also said professor Soleimani’s health condition had aggravated and his eyesight had gotten worse in detention.
He said that his brother was unaware of his mother’s recent death and was waiting for his release while their father did not know about his brother’s detention.
He said that Iranian officials were following up on the issue, adding that the Foreign Ministry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were updating his family on the measures taken so far.
He appealed to executive bodies, scientific and members of the media to help secure the release of the Iranian scientist.
Alain Soral Sentenced to 2 Years Jail for Sharing “Gilets-Jaunes” Anti-Rothschild Rap Video
He Could Pay Over €170,000 in Fines and Compensation

A French writer and publisher will be jailed for sharing this meme
By Guillaume Durocher • Unz Review • September 26, 2019
The French civic-nationalist and anti-Zionist intellectual Alain Soral was sentenced to two years prison last week for sharing a rap video entitled “Gilets-Jaunes.”
The music clip (watch it while you still can) is typical of the Yellow Vests in denouncing French media, political, and financial elites, and making a plea for direct democracy, notably the famous proposed Citizen’s Initiative Referendum (Référendum d’Initiative Populaire or RIC).
The video also argues for the abrogation of the banking law of June 1973 – known as the “Pompidou-Rothschild Act,” after the then French president and the investment bank he used to work for. Critics claim the law has reduced France to debt slavery by making her dependent on financial markets for loans rather than self-finance through the national bank.
The video also features a pyre where various figures are symbolically burned: President Emmanuel Macron, various media (TF1, Le Monde, BFMTV . . .), the Rothschild bank, and, most problematically, powerful elite Jews (Jacques Attali, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Patrick Drahi).
The rapper points out: “And if we talk about the media and Macron, we’ll have to talk about Drahi. His bank account is in Israel and he pays no taxes here.” Drahi, a Franco-Israeli-Portuguese oligarch born in Morocco and residing in Switzerland, has bought up large swathes of French media in recent years.
In case the denunciation of Jewish-globalist and Jewish-Zionist power elites in the financial and media spheres were not explicit enough, the video also states: “We’re not talking about a so-called oppressed minority. We’re talking about the deliberately neglected majority [of workers, farmers, and pensioners] . . . France has decided to free itself from the Rothschilds.”

President Macron speaking before the powerless lobby you will be destroyed for criticizing
As the words “so-called oppressed minority” are uttered, images are flashed of the annual dinner of the CRIF – the influential official French Jewish lobbying organization – an event where the crème de la crème of the French politico-media elite regularly come to genuflect.
The rapper lauds the “prolo patriotes” (patriotic workers) who are rising up and denounces the oligarchic “parasites” who are enriching themselves all the while demanding austerity from the masses. The song concludes: “The French are fed up with these parasites. The French are fed up, it ain’t racist. National uprising!” The author is a certain “Rude Goy.”
There are various pro-Arab and pro-Muslim symbols included. Drahi is mentioned while a pro-Palestine hoody is flashed. The rapper wears a fashionable keffiyeh. As a mainstream journalist anxiously warns that the French State is bordering on collapse in the face of the protesters, the rapper answers: “Inshallah” (God willing in Arabic).
The video then artfully interweaves mainstream yellow-vest concerns about French democracy’s subversion by high finance with a denunciation of the specific role of Jewish elite power in this process. There is no blanket anti-Semitism or attack on day-to-day Jews.
The images of Jewish oligarchs and intellectuals being symbolically burned – along side mainstream media and the French president, mind you – angered a certain number of Jewish activist and (mostly Jewish-run) “anti-racist” organizations. I imagine these images felt downright Auschwitzian to them.
The groups sued Soral for “granting enormous visibility to this video by publishing it on his website” and thus promoting the anti-Semitic theory of a “Jewish conspiracy.”
Note Soral did not create the video: he merely shared it on his website, as he did innumerable other yellow-vest videos. One wonders if linking to the video is also considered a criminal act. Probably not, or only if your name is Alain Soral. This tells you something about the legal arbitrariness of these censorious laws and liberticidal ethnic lobbies.
Soral will also be required to pay a 45,000-euro fine and tens of thousands of euros in “compensation” to the various aggrieved Jewish and/or professional “anti-racist” activist organizations. That’s called good business.
Coincidentally, or not, the bank BNP Paribas simply closed the bank account of Égalité & Réconciliation, Alain Soral’s influential counter-cultural organization.
Presumably the court decision will be appealed. However, the noose is apparently tightening around Soral. Earlier this year, he was also sentenced to a year in jail for sharing a cartoon highlighting various holocaust hoaxes (lampshades, soap, etc).
Soral has always said that true intellectuals must inevitably come up against the authorities sooner or later. An intellectual who really stands up for his ideals “passera par la case prison” (will go to jail, do not pass-go), as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Charles Maurras did.
Whatever happens, more people than ever are being sensitized to a certain ethnic group’s considerable power and privilege by the very fact of jailing a French intellectual on their lobbying organizations’ behalf.
Israel arrests Palestine’s Jerusalem minister

Israeli forces detain Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi al-Hadami. (Photo: via Social Media)
MEMO | September 25, 2019
Israeli forces detained Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi al-Hadami of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday, according to an official statement, reports Anadolu Agency.
In a statement, the Jerusalem Affairs Ministry said Israeli forces raided the minister’s home and searched it before taking him into custody.
There was no comment from the Israeli military on the arrest.
This is the second time Israeli forces arrested the Jerusalem minister in the last three months.
Israeli forces have escalated their actions against Palestinian activities in Jerusalem since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the occupied city as Israel’s capital in 2017.
Jerusalem remains at the heart of the decades-long Middle East conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem – occupied by Israel since 1967 – might one day serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.
“Israel” razes Palestinian house in the 1948 occupied lands
Palestine Information Center | September 22, 2019
NAZARETH – Israeli authorities in the 1948 occupied lands on Sunday morning demolished a Palestinian house under construction in Qalansuwa city at the pretext that it was built with no license.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli bulldozers escorted by municipal employees and police forces stormed al-Sahel al-Gharbi area of Qalansuwa and later embarked on razing the house, which belonged to the family of Abu Arrar.
The Israeli authorities had already demolished two homes belonging to the same family in the area about four years ago.
Like in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel systematically demolishes Palestinian homes and structures in the Palestinian towns and cities in the 1948 occupied lands at the pretext of unlicensed construction, while it prevents the local residents from obtaining permits or make it difficult for them to meet construction conditions.
Israeli occupation forces raid office of Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | September 19, 2019
Israeli occupation forces raided today, Thursday, 19 September 2019 at around 2:00am the office of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah.
The Israeli forces stole five laptops, memory cards, three laptop memories, one laptop card, several books and additionally searching through the belongings of the office.
This is the third incident where the Israeli soldiers have raided the office, the first was in 2002 and the second incident was in 2012.
Addameer reassures that those constant raids will not stand in the face of any duties the organization has for Palestinian political prisoners. The organization will continue to support Palestinian prisoners to flight all human rights violations they suffer from including torture, arbitrary detention and unfair trails.
Addameer sees this raid as a part of ongoing and systematic attacks against the Palestinian civil society organization. Those attacks are targeting the organizations that have a role in facing the occupation’s violations and claiming accountability for those violations. This is additionally a part of the occupation’s campaign to shrink space, delegitimize and de-fund those human rights and civil society organizations.
Top Iran cultural body slams US protracted detention of stem-cell scientist

Masoud Soleimani, senior Iranian stem-cell researcher in US custody
Press TV – Sep 11, 2019
A leading Iranian cultural organization has slammed the United States for its protracted detainment of an Iranian stem-cell scientist on “hollow” grounds, calling on advocates of human rights worldwide to help end the “arbitrary detention.”
“The US government constantly delays Dr. Soleimani’s trial in violation of academic and research protocols, and has so far failed to produce any official report on the reason behind his arrest,” said Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in a statement published on its website on Wednesday.
Masoud Soleimani was arrested upon his arrival in Chicago in October last year on charges that he had violated trade sanctions against Iran. He has been held in detention south of Atlanta since then.
Soleimani and two of his students, who are free on bond, are accused of conspiring to export biological materials from the US to Iran without a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Attorneys in the case say he seized on the plans of a former student to travel from the US to Iran in September 2016 as a chance to get recombinant proteins used in his research at a lower price than what he would pay at home.
Lawyers for the scientists argue that the trio did nothing wrong, stressing that no specific license was required as the proteins are medical materials and that transporting them to Iran for noncommercial purposes does not amount to exporting goods.
The Council further said Soleimani ranked among the world’s top 100 scientists in terms of scientific citation, who had traveled to the US at the invitation of the Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic — a ranking nonprofit academic medical center — on a valid visa.
He was arrested right upon arrival without charge or trial, and was currently jailed alongside criminals, drug traffickers, and hooligans, it added.
“Dr. Soleimani’s detention is a clear example of arbitrary arrest,” prohibited under all international norms, added the statement.
The case serves to prove the US’s adversarial and inhumane attitude given that Soleimani’s research and academic background has nothing to do with Washington’s sanctions targeting Iran, it stated.
“The American government, which has failed to block Iran’s monumental scientific progress,…has now resorted to such inhumane behavior,” the document noted.
It asserted that Soleimani was an “apolitical academic figure.” The detention prevented him from seeing his mother, who went into a coma after learning about his arrest, and passed away recently.
The Council also noted that Soleimani’s prolonged detention has severely affected his eyesight and caused him to lose much weight.
Soleimani’s family is paying all the medical and legal costs, it noted. The US government is preventing his access to decent medical treatment, despite the fact that he suffers from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
The body called on the world’s justice-seeking people and organizations to help pursue the scientist’s release.
Hamas: Saudi detains one of ‘our senior leaders’
MEMO | September 9, 2019
Hamas on Monday said “one of its senior leaders” and his son have been in Saudi custody since April of this year, reports Anadolu Agency.
In a statement, the group said the Saudi security services arrested Mohammad al-Khoudary, who has been living in Saudi Arabia for three decades and described the arrest as a “reprehensible action”.
The statement mentioned that al-Khoudary was responsible for administering the relations with Saudi Arabia for over the past two decades and he got several leading positions in the movement.
“Hamas kept silent over the past five months of his arrest to allow for mediations efforts but these efforts have yet to bear fruit”, it said.
Euro-Mediterranean Monitor for Human Rights, a Geneva-based group, also said that the Saudi authorities detain around 60 Palestinians in its jails.
In a statement, the rights group called on Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz to order the immediate release of the detainees, especially those who are detained without specific indictments.
Israel bombs Gaza position for an entire hour: Palestinian sources

Press TV – September 7, 2019
Israel has launched a lengthy bombardment of positions in the Gaza Strip, sources inside the besieged enclave say.
Palestinian news agencies said late on Saturday that Israeli airstrikes targeted positions allegedly held by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas north of the Gaza and deep inside the enclave.
Health officials said there were no casualties from the attacks that lasted close to an hour.
Israeli regime sources said the attacks hit Hamas naval facilities on the Mediterranean and two military compounds run by the group in central Gaza.
There was no confirmation from Hamas and its affiliated groups.
The relentless Israeli bombardment came after Hamas launched a drone operation targeting an Israeli military equipment stationed along the border with the occupied Palestinian territories.
It also came a day after Israelis launched attacks on five positions inside Gaza.
Regime sources have claimed the attacks were in response to Hamas operations targeting Israeli settlers and military forces.
However, attacks by Hamas have come in response to regime’s killing of people marching along the border to protest the Israeli occupation.
Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in such attacks by Israeli troops earlier on Friday in clashes that erupted east of the Gaza City.
Some 66 other Palestinians were wounded in Israeli gunfire and other attacks during the anti-occupation protest held the same day.
Hamas has launched two rounds of retaliatory attacks on Israeli positions over the past 48 hours. The group fired five rockets into the occupied territories on Friday night, setting off sirens in Israeli settlements along the Gaza border as well as in the city of Sderot.
The group also responded to Israeli attacks by launching a successful drone operation earlier on Saturday.
The Israeli military confirmed the drone attack inflicted damage to equipment stationed along the border while claiming there were no casualties to its troops.
Australia Furthers Its Cooperation With NATO
By Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 29, 2019
In 2001, Australia became involved in the US “war on terror”, coined by former US President George W Bush as the pretext for invading Afghanistan. The rationale behind Australia’s decision was the ANZUS Treaty – a non-binding security between Australia, New Zealand and the US purportedly in line with the principles of the UN Charter.
Despite the treaty relating to possible attacks on either party in the Pacific, former Australian Prime Minister John Howard invoked Article VI to justify Australia’s involvement in Afghanistan, which states, “This treaty does not affect and shall not be interpreted as affecting in any way the rights and obligations of the Parties under the Charter of the United Nations or the responsibility of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Since 2001, Australia has maintained a presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. Adopting US rhetoric on security and terrorism, the Australian Defence Ministry described its presence in Afghanistan thus: “Our fundamental objective in Afghanistan is to combat a clear threat from international terrorism to both international security and our own national security. Australia cannot afford, and Australians cannot afford, to let Afghanistan once again become a safe haven and training ground for terrorist organisations.”
Needless to say, the war on terror accomplished a continuation of the terrorism fomented by the US in its plans to permanently destabilise the region. Following its involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, Australia has also cooperated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) since 2005, thus prioritising security discourse at a national level.
In 2012, the Australia-NATO Joint Political Declaration established the foundations for cooperation and strategy – in other words, the prolongation of intervention abroad upon pretexts of security. The document recognises Australia as “one of the leading contributors to the NATO-led ISA mission in Afghanistan, which works under a UN Security Council mandate.”
Additionally, the declaration whitewashes foreign intervention through security concerns: “We understand the need to manage effectively risks and threats to our mutual interest, such as political instability from failed states, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, and cyber-attacks.” This statement has been reflected in the recent partnership agreement signed by NATO and Australia earlier this month.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg described Australia’s role as “helping us to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for international terrorists.” Days later, US President Donald Trump spoke about US presence in Afghanistan as a purported deterrent to prevent the country from becoming “a laboratory for terror.”
Far from deterring terrorism, international involvement in Afghanistan has created networks of terror which cannot be dissociated from foreign intervention. Dismantling terrorism in a failed state created by foreign intervention is the pretext for prolonged international presence.
Australia’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as a non-NATO member has been one of the most prominent and reportedly in relation to training missions, although it was also involved in capturing and detaining alleged terror suspects.
As early as 2003 while working in close cooperation with the US, Australia not only was knowledgeable about the torture and abuse meted out at Abu Ghraib in Iraq – it was also a participant. Documents reveal that Australia’s representative at Abu Ghraib, officer and military lawyer George O’Kane, blocked the International Committee of the Red Cross access to detainees undergoing torture sessions. The Australian Government’s response to the revelations refuted responsibility, stating that the techniques applied against detainees were in concordance with the Geneva Conventions.
Australia was also one of the countries, among them NATO members and allies, participating in the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) extraordinary rendition program, which involved the transfer of individuals suspected of terrorism to secret US detention and torture centres.
Speaking about the recently agreed framework, Stoltenberg highlighted Australia’s cooperation with NATO as focusing on preventing terrorism. “Training local forces is the best thing we can do in fighting terrorism; helping countries to stabilise their own countries.”
False premises instigated the war on terror. Maintaining it requires the regurgitation of past, dangerous lies. The West’s appropriation of what constitutes “individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law” has fomented perpetual war and subjugation to imperialist powers.
In the words of Australian Defence Minister as to the level of involvement of Australia in the region, “what we’re doing at the moment is assessing the ask from the United States, assessing what other allies are doing and how they’re considering this.” A simple statement that shows the Australian government has no consideration for the countries invaded by NATO, the mutating violence, dispossession of people and permanent instability. Neither, for that matter, will Australia assess its own involvement in terms of the human rights violations it helped to propagate. Dropping bombs in Iraq? Australia seems to have no problem with furthering an oppressive legacy.
Israeli Soldiers Injure Numerous Palestinians Near Jerusalem

IMEMC News – August 28, 2019
Israeli soldiers invaded the town of al-‘Isawiya, east of occupied Jerusalem, on Tuesday evening and injured several Palestinians, including a woman who was wounded in her eye, in addition to causing property damage.
Media sources said the soldiers invaded many neighborhoods in al-‘Isawiya, and fired rubber-coated steel bullets, gas bombs and concussion grenades at local protesters, and at many Palestinian cars and homes.
The sources added that one woman was injured in one of her eyes after the soldiers fired rubber-coated steel bullets at her car while driving.
The soldiers also surrounded a mosque in the town, and attacked dozens of Palestinians, in addition to firing gas bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets at them, causing many injuries.
One of the wounded Palestinians is an elderly man, who was attacked and pushed by the soldiers before they threw him onto the ground.
In addition, the soldiers surrounded the home of Mohammad Obeid, 21, who was killed by Israeli army fire on June 27th, and prevented the Palestinians from entering or leaving it, in addition to occupying rooftops of several surrounding homes.
The soldiers forced the residents to remove Palestinian flags, and posters of the slain Palestinian, in addition to detaining several young men.
The latest attacks took place less than twelve hours after the soldiers invaded the town and conducted extensive and violet searchers of homes and other property, including cars and stores.
