How are you? Do I have to ask this question? I am sorry for I do not know how to start. Would you like me to ask another one?
Dear “israel”,
Do you really know what the word “loss” means? Do you really understand the meaning of sorrow and sadness? You know nothing of that and all that you know is the terror, blood, wars, massacres, and genocides that you commit against innocent people who did nothing to you except demand their rights as human beings. “Loss” is when you talk and laugh with one of your beloveds at your home in the morning, and you do not know if you will see them again in the evening. “Loss” is the voice you used to hear that no longer exists.
“Loss” is that day, October 26, 2018, when my brother, like hundreds of other Palestinians, went out in the Great March of Return to call for his right to return. He went out to tell the whole world our cause and that we are still here. He cried loudly that we as Palestinian refugees want to remind the international community of our demand for implementation Paragraph 11 of UN Resolution 194 calling for the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes at the earliest possible date. He cried, but the Israeli soldier did not want to hear his voice, so he shot my brother dead. The Israeli bullet penetrated my brother’s body and murdered him.
When they brought his body home, they did not know how to show it to my mama. My mama, like thousands of Palestinian mothers, was ready to sacrifice her son for the sake of our homeland, yet, at least, she wished that she could have a last look at him while he was alive.
My brother’s body laid in front of my mama’s eyes; she could not move; she was looking at him and her heart was bleeding. Her tears were falling silently. Everyone surrounded her and tried to calm her by saying words such as, “Be patient. God has chosen him to reward with paradise!” However, I am sure mama’s mind was just with my brother. She could not hear anything. She was looking at him for the last time. After this moment, there will be no kisses, no hugs, so she had to live every second with him.
When they were about to take his body, with a broken heart mama cried, “Leave him. Leave him. Let me see him more. Let me kiss him more.” They left him for a minute; she did what she asked for. How can a minute separate staying and leaving, death and life? The last words mama said were, “Ma assalama, ya habibi– goodbye, my love.” Then she blacked out.
His name was Ayesh, which in Arabic means “he is alive.” But you “israel”, you murdered him at a very young age. He was just 23. He went. Without return, he went. He will never come back, yet he is still alive in our hearts, and in the message he left behind him.
Do you not remember my brother as you have slaughtered thousands of Palestinians in cold blood? My brother is not a number you count. This letter is not a message you hear.
“Loss” is that moment when my mother, in a very cold winter night, took the picture of my martyr brother off the wall, put it next to her and covered it with her comforter so that he would not feel cold. And with tears, repeated, “Ma assalama, ya habibi.”
Dear “israel,”
They say that Gaza is a prison. Do not believe them. In prison, there is a specific period that the prisoner spends and then he is free. Here in Gaza, which they claim is a prison, this does not happen. Here, we are trying to get out but we fail. We are trying to fly but before we start, you, “israel”, break our wings. Gaza is more than a prison.
Last year, two other youths from Gaza and I were selected to represent Palestine in the “Youth Forum in the Arab Region” which took place in Tunisia. I was eager to see what the world looks like outside, to know what the word “Abroad” means. I had so many plans for what I would do there, outside of Gaza. Yet, my dream was shattered; we could not travel because of you, “israel”. You did not give us permission to pass Erez, the crossing you created to isolate Gaza from the rest of Palestine.
You did not want the voice of Palestine to be there; her voice disturbs you, as you always try to wipe her map and flag. But still, do not be happy. If we cannot fly, it is enough that the birds fly in the sky of Palestine.
Dear “israel”:
Do you remember what happened in 1948? Wait! Am I still calling you “dear”? I apologize. I apologize to myself. I apologize to my mama, to my papa, to my beloved ones. I apologize to my “Falasteen – Palestine”, my dear “Falasteen“. I apologize for calling you “dear”. That word which implies love and respect, for you do not know love, dignity, or peace. You do not know any of these. You only know torture and massacres that do not respect human rights. Have you noticed that I have not capitalized any of your letters? It is because you say “israel” means “to wrestle with God.” But you do not wrestle with God in Palestine. There is no God in your army. I will use the upper-case I in “israel” when you decide to stand up for God, for justice, for human beings, and let us return to our homes.
– Haneen Shat is a young journalist from Gaza City. After graduating from Gaza University in English Literature, Haneen has begun a career in journalism, hoping one day to be able to travel outside of Gaza and share the Palestinian cause with the world. Haneen is on twitter: https://twitter.com/Haneen_Gaza1998.
Canada’s defeat in its bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council is a major victory for Palestinian solidarity. It also puts Canada’s Israel lobby on the defensive.
Israeli politicians and commentators have begun to publicly bemoan the loss. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, told the Jerusalem Post, “we are disappointed that Canada didn’t make it, both because we have close ties with the country and because of the campaign that the Palestinians ran against Canada.” In another story in that paper headlined “With annexation looming, Canada’s UNSC upset is bad news for Israel, US” Deputy Managing Editor Tovah Lazaroff labels Canada’s loss “a sharp reminder of the type of diplomatic price tag Israel’s allies can suffer on the international stage.”
Inside Canada the Security Council defeat is a blow to the Israel lobby. While the Canadian media has generally minimized the impact Canada’s anti-Palestinian position had on the vote, the subject is being raised. In a Journal deQuébec column titled “Why did Canada suffer a humiliating defeat at the UN?” Norman Lester writes, “it is the support of the Trudeau Liberal government for Israel, like that of Harper before him, that is probably the main reason for Ottawa’s two successive setbacks. Ireland and Norway have more balanced policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than Canada.” He concludes the article by noting, “Canada has no chance of returning to the Security Council in the foreseeable future unless there is a radical change in its position regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
By acquiescing almost entirely to the ‘Israel no matter what’ outlook of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B’nai B’rith, the Trudeau government undercut its bid for a seat on the UN’s highest decision-making body. The Israel lobby’s point people in the Liberal caucus, Anthony Housefather and Michael Levitt, are no doubt hoping to avoid too much blowback for their role in this embarrassment. Housefather ought to be prodded on his contribution to the Trudeau government’s anti-Palestinian voting record at the UN since he repeatedly boasted that it was more pro-Israel than Stephen Harper’s.
Canada’s voting record at the UN was at the heart of the grassroots No Canada on the UN Security Council campaign. An open letter launching the campaign from the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute noted, “since coming to power the Trudeau government has voted against more than fifty UN resolutions upholding Palestinian rights backed by the overwhelming majority of member states.” A subsequent open letter was signed by over 100 civil society groups and dozens of prominent individuals urging countries to vote against Canada’s bid for a Security Council seat due to its anti-Palestinian positions. That letter organized by Just Peace Advocates stated, “the Canadian government for at least a decade and a half has consistently isolated itself against world opinion on Palestinian rights at the UN. … Continuing this pattern, Canada ‘sided with Israel by voting No’ on most UN votes on the Question of Palestine in December. Three of these were Canada’s votes on Palestinian Refugees, on UNRWA and on illegal settlements, each distinguishing Canada as in direct opposition to the ‘Yes’ votes of Ireland and Norway.”
Just Peace Advocates organized 1,300 individuals to email all UN ambassadors asking them to vote for Ireland and Norway instead of Canada for the Security Council. In a sign of the campaign’s impact, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN Marc André Blanchard responded with a letter to all UN ambassadors defending Canada’s policy on Palestinian rights.
Not only has Canada’s voting record on Palestinian rights undercut its standing within the General Assembly, the Canadian public doesn’t want the government pursuing anti-Palestinian positions. A recent Ekos poll found that 74% of Canadians wanted Ottawa to express opposition to Israel’s plan to formally annex a large swath of the West Bank with 42% of the public desiring some form of economic and/or diplomatic sanction against Israel if it moves forward with annexation. “The Trudeau government has not only isolated Canada from international opinion regarding Palestinian rights at the UN, but its positions contravene the wishes of most Canadians regarding the long-beleaguered Palestinians,” explained Karen Rodman of Just Peace Advocates.
While the impact of the loss shouldn’t be exaggerated, Justin Trudeau’s brand is linked to the idea that he is liked internationally. Additionally, the Liberals’ base supports the UN and the international body is closely connected with how they market their foreign policy.
Kowtowing to CIJA, B’nai B’rith and Israeli nationalists such as Housefather, Levitt, etc. on Palestinian rights at the UN helped scuttle Canada’s Security Council bid — that’s a fact Trudeau and the Liberals must face. More important, the international community’s rejection of a government enthralled to the Israel lobby weakens Israel diplomatically and is a victory for Palestine solidarity.
In my last article, I reviewed the case of Gough Whitlam’s firing at the hands of the Queen’s Governor General Sir John Kerr during a dark day in November 1975 which mis-shaped the next 45 years of Australian history. Today I would like to tackle another chapter of the story.
I used to believe as many do, in a story called “the American Empire”. Over the last decade of research, that belief has changed a bit. The more I looked at the top down levers of world influence shaping past and present events that altered history, the hand of British Intelligence just kept slapping me squarely in the face at nearly every turn.
Who controlled the dodgy Steele dossier that put Russiagate into motion and nearly overthrew President Trump? British Intelligence.
How about the financial empire running the world drug trade? Well HSBC is the proven leading agency of that game and the British Caymen islands is the known center of world offshore drug money laundering.
Who created Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel in the 20th century (as well as both nations’ intelligence agencies?) The British.
What was the nature of the Deep State that Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR, and JFK combatted within their own nations?
What the heck was the American Revolution all about in the first place?
I could go on, but I think you get my point.
The Disrupted Post-WWII Potential
Franklin Roosevelt described his deep understanding of British operations in America, telling his son in 1943:
“You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats over there aren’t in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston. As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of ’em: any number of ’em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!” I was told… six years ago, to clean out that State Department. It’s like the British Foreign Office….”
Where the British Empire certainly adapted to the unstoppable post-WWII demands for political independence among its colonies, it is vital to keep in mind that no empire willfully dissolves or “gives its slaves freedom” without a higher evil agenda in mind. Freedom is fought for and not given by empires which never had a reason to seek humility or enlightenment required for freedom to be granted.
In the case of the post-war world, the deliverance of political freedom among the “former British Empire” was never accompanied by an ounce of economic freedom to give that liberation any meaning. Although it took a few years to iron out America’s anti-colonial impulses over the deaths of such figures as JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK, eventually the rebellious republic was slowly converted into a dumb giant on behalf of the “British brains” controlling America’s Deep State from across the ocean.
The Case of Africa and the Crown Agents
Take the case of Africa as a quick example: Over 70% of the mineral control of African raw materials, mining, and refining are run by companies based in Britain or Commonwealth nations like Canada, South Africa or Australia managed by an international infrastructure of managers called “Crown Agents Ltd” (founded in 1833 as the administrative arm of the Empire and which still runs much of Africa’s health, and economic development policies to this day).
Crown Agents was originally set up as a non-profit with the mandate to manage British Empire holdings in Asia and Africa and its charter recognizes it as “an emanation of the Crown”. While it is “close to the monarchy” it is still outside governmental structures affording it to get its hands dirtier than other “official” branches of government (resulting in the occasional case of World Bank debarment as happened in 2011).
In 1996 Crown Agents was privatized as ‘Crown Agents for Overseas Government and Administration’ where it became active in Central and Eastern Europe with its greatest focus on Ukraine’s economic, energy and health management. The agency is partnered with the World Bank, UN and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and acts as a giant holding company with one shareholder called the Crown Agents Foundation based in Southwark London.
“101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) — most of them British — have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries. They collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources. The UK government has used its power and influence to ensure that British mining companies have access to Africa’s raw materials. This was the case during the colonial period and is still the case today.”
As we can see by this most summary overview of the modern imperial looting operations of Africa, the spirit of Cecil Rhodes is alive and well. This will take on an additional meaning as we look at another aspect of Rhodes’ powerful legacy in the 20th century.
The British Takeover of American Intelligence
Although many falsely believe that Britain was replaced with an American Empire after WWII, the sad truth on closer inspection is that British assets embedded in America’s early deep state (often Rhodes Scholars and Fabian Society assets tied to the Council on Foreign Relations/Chatham House of America) were behind a purge of leaders loyal to FDR’s vision for the post-colonial world. These purges resulted in the dismantling of the OSS months after FDR died, and the formation of the CIA in 1947 as a new weapon to carry out coups, assassinations and subversions of leaders within America and abroad seeking economic independence from the British Empire. This history was outlined brilliantly by Cynthia Chung in her paper Secret Wars, Forgotten Betrayals, Global Tyranny: Who is Really in Charge of the U.S. Military.
“Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, and for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire…”
Later on in his will Rhodes stated: “Let us form the same kind of society, a Church for the extension of the British Empire. A society which should have its members in every part of the British Empire working with one object and one idea we should have its members placed at our universities and our schools and should watch the English youth passing through their hands just one perhaps in every thousand would have the mind and feelings for such an object, he should be tried in every way, he should be tested whether he is endurant, possessed of eloquence, disregardful of the petty details of life, and if found to be such, then elected and bound by oath to serve for the rest of his life in his Country. He should then be supported if without means by the Society and sent to that part of the Empire where it was felt he was needed.”
Among the four Anglo-Saxon members of the Five Eyes that have the Queen as the official head of state (Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), all feature irrational forms of government structured entirely around Deep State principles organized within two opposing forms of social organizing: democratic and oligarchical… with the true seat of power being oligarchical.
Because this peculiar self-contradictory form of government is so little understood today, and because its structure has made Britain’s globally extended empire so successful, a few words should be devoted to it now.
A House Divided Against Itself…
In the case of Westminster-modelled Parliamentary systems, Senates represent the House of Lords, while Houses of Commons (for the Commoners) represent the elected parts of government. A prime minister selected by the governing party is assumed to be that nation’s leader, but unlike republican forms of government, instead of the “buck stopping there” (at least legally speaking), it is precisely there that the true sphere of power only begins to be felt.
Here parliamentary/quasi-democratic systems projected for public consumption find themselves enshrined within a much more shadowy and Byzantine world of Governor Generals (acting as the heads of state) who give Royal Assents to all acts and wielding the infinite prerogative powers of the Queen (aka: the “Fount of All Honors”). In the British Imperial system, hereditary power is seen as the source of all authority for all aspects of government, military, and economic- whereas in republican forms of government that authority is seen as deriving from the consent of the governed.
Where rights are “granted by the sovereign” within hereditary governments, republican forms of government recognize correctly that rights are fundamentally “inalienable” to humanity (in principle though not always in practice as the troubled history of America can attest).
By being essentially the legal “cause” of all authority among every branch of the British official and unofficial corridors of power, an obvious absurdity strikes which the empire would prefer plebs not think too seriously about: The queen and her heirs cannot themselves be UNDER any law, since they “cause” the law. This means that the queen, her heirs and anyone whom she delegates authority to literally have “licenses to kill”. The queen cannot be taken to court and she has no need of a passport or even a drivers’ license… since these items are issued by her crown’s authority alone. Within the logic of British legal systems, she cannot be held legally accountable for anything which the Crown has done to anyone or any nation of the world.
Although much effort goes into portraying the Crown’s prerogative powers as merely symbolic, they cover nearly every branch of governance and have occasionally been used… although those British spheres of influence where they most apply are usually so self-regulating that they require very little input from such external influence to keep them in line.
These powers were first revealed publicly in 2003 and in an article titled ‘Mystery Lifted on the Prerogative Powers’, the London Guardian noted that these powers include (but are not limited to):
“Domestic Affair, the appointment and dismissal of ministers, the summoning, prorogation and dissolution of Parliament, Royal assent to bills, the appointment and regulation of the civil service, the commissioning of officers in the armed forces, directing the disposition of the armed forces in the UK (and other Commonwealth nations), appointment of Queen’s Counsel, Issue and withdrawal of passports, Prerogative of mercy. (Used to apply in capital punishment cases. Still used, eg to remedy errors in sentence calculation), granting honours, creation of corporations by Charter, foreign Affairs, the making of treaties, declaration of war, deployment of armed forces overseas, recognition of foreign states, and accreditation and reception of diplomats.”
When a 2009 bill was introduced into parliament proposing that these powers be limited, a Privy Council-led Justice Ministry review concluded that such limitations would ‘”dangerously weaken” the state’s ability to respond to a crisis’ and the bill was promptly killed.
Acting on Provincial levels, we find Lieutenant Governors who (in Canada) happen to be members of the Freemasonic Knights of St John of Jerusalem (patronized by the Queen herself).
All figures operating with these authorities within this strange Byzantine world are themselves a part of, or beholden to figures sworn into the Queen’s Privy Council- putting their allegiance under the total authority of the Queen and her heirs, rather than the people or nation in which that subject serves and lives. If this is hard to believe, then take the time to listen to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s oath upon entering the Privy Council to get a visceral taste of this medieval policy in action (every cabinet member, Prime Minister and opposition leader must take this oath if they are to be granted intelligence briefings from her majesty’s intelligence services.)
Take note that not even once does the welfare of the people or the nation arise in this oath.
Standing Defiant Against Natural Law
Despite these un-natural power structures, history has shown that from time to time, good leaders have found themselves in executive positions of high office. As rare as they are, such anomalies occurred in the cases of Canada’s Prime Ministers Wilfrid Laurier (1896-1911) and John Diefenbaker (1957-1963), Quebec Premiers Paul Sauvé (1959), Daniel Johnson Senior (1967-68), and Australia’s Gough Whitlam (1972-1975). Yet when these anomalies arise and such figures trespass beyond their acceptable sphere of action into policy territories reserved only for the governing elite, then more often then not a Rhodes Scholar-run coup occurs [Laurier 1911 (2), Diefenbaker 1963], an untimely death strikes [Sauvé 1959 and Johnson 1968] or a sacking by the Queen’s Governor General happens [Whitlam 1975].
In all aforementioned cases, Democratic institutions that are premised around the concept that all citizens are made equal and free in the image of a creator are never long tolerated within the cage of a system of oligarchism premised upon the belief that only one person is sovereign and her/his word is absolute law for all slaves, and minions of the ruling bloodline.
As Gough Whitlam discovered in 1975, the real British Empire is a nasty beast, and probably one which should have gone extinct a couple of centuries ago. Unfortunately, until this moment, history has been tainted by more than a few disruptions of progressive leaders who sacrificed their comfort, careers, and often their lives to resist this stubborn parasite which would rather suck its host dry than admit that the system of organization upon which it is based is an abomination to natural law and morality.
A lengthy resolution by the European Union legislators denounced US President Donald Trump for wanting to use force against rioters and condemned the “appalling death of George Floyd” and arrests of journalists.
In an 11-page resolution adopted on Friday with 493 votes in favor to 104 opposed – and 67 abstentions – the EU Parliament affirmed that “Black Lives Matter” and listed 36 more conclusions. The preamble ran out of letters of the alphabet.
Condemning the “appalling death of George Floyd” – a Minneapolis, Minnesota man who died during a botched arrest in late May – the EU parliamentarians also denounced “all forms of racism, hate and violence” as well as “Afrophobic traditions, such as the black face practice.”
They called on the US to “take decisive steps to address the structural racism and inequalities in the country, as reflected in police brutality” and condemned the “police crackdowns on peaceful US protesters and journalists.”
The EU Parliament also “strongly regrets the US President’s threat to deploy the US Army” to deal with the rioters. However, they blamed the riots on “extremist and anti-democratic forces which purposely misuse the peaceful protests to aggravate the conflicts with the intention of spreading disorder and anarchy.”
While denouncing the arrest of CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and his crew in Minneapolis as another example of racism, the EU Parliament praised freedom of the press as key to fighting racism.
Lest one thinks that means freedom of speech, however, the resolution noted that “racist and xenophobic speech is not covered by the freedom of expression” and denounced “all types of incidents of hate crime and hate speech, both offline and online.”
Leaving nothing to chance, “slogans that aim to undermine or detract from the Black Lives Matter movement and dilute its significance” were declared to be “white supremacism.”
Education, the parliamentarians said, is a “key tool to end structural discrimination and racism in our societies,” with the crucial role in “deconstructing prejudices and stereotypes, promoting tolerance, understanding and diversity.”
Neither the White House nor the State Department have yet commented on the apparent meddling into internal US affairs.
We’ve all come across online fact checkers that purport to warn us away from independent media sites under the guise of protecting us from fake news. But who is behind these fact check sites? How do they operate? And if these ham-fisted attempts at soft censorship aren’t the solution to online misinformation, what is? Join James for this week’s important edition of The Corbett Report podcast, where we explore the murky world of information gatekeeping and ask “Who will fact check the fact checkers?”
For those with limited bandwidth, CLICK HERE to download a smaller, lower file size version of this episode.
For those interested in audio quality, CLICK HERE for the highest-quality version of this episode (WARNING: very large download).
Whatever percentage of the West Bank Israel begins to annex in July, it will eventually annex the rest. Will it then turn to the east bank of the Jordan river?
Since the 19th century, the Zionist project was based on the seizure of all Palestine, including territory east of the Jordan. The map of ‘Israel’ presented to the Paris peace conference in 1919 extended northwards into what is now Lebanon and included the city of Sidon; in the northeast, all the Golan Heights and Syria almost as far as Damascus; in the southeast the entire Jordan River valley, with the territory it desired extending almost to the town limits of Amman.
Water was integral to Zionist calculations from the beginning. In the imperial carve-up between Britain and France, however, the headwaters of the Jordan on Mt Hermon, fed by the Hasbani and Baniyas rivers, stayed within the French mandate for Syria (later divided into Lebanon and Syria). The water flows into the Sea of Galilee, from where it feeds the Jordan River before emptying into the Dead Sea.
In the 1950s and 60s the Zionists made repeated attempts to divert the waters of the Golan, apart from bombing Syrian attempts to make better use of the water by building pumping stations. In its 1967 attack on Egypt and Syria, Israel seized two-thirds of the Golan, ensuring the flow of its waters south into Lake Galilee. About 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled, along with several thousand Palestinians. About 100 of their villages were demolished and their land given to the 22,000 settlers who now live on the heights. An entire city, Quneitra, was also reduced to rubble by Israeli army sappers.
Currently, Israel takes about 60 percent of its fresh water needs from Lake Galilee and the West Bank. From the Galilee the water is pumped south to feed the Naqab, while 80 percent of the West Bank’s aquifers is drained so Israeli needs can be met and the settlers (about 450,000 excluding occupied East Jerusalem) can water their lawns and fill their swimming pools. By comparison, the Palestinians (2.2 million are allowed scarcely enough for domestic use, they have to endure frequent cuts and they have been prevented from drilling new wells since 1967 despite population growth.
With the Dead Sea dying and the Sea of Galilee drying up, falling to its lowest level for a century in 2018, Israel is increasingly dependent on desalinated water. In 2018, in an attempt to revive the Sea of Galilee, the government approved a plan for it to be refilled with desalinated water. The drought of 2018 forced a reduction in the water pumped from the Sea of Galilee from an annual 400 million cubic meters to 30-40 million. With a growing population and a diminishing supply of fresh water, control of both banks of the Jordan river is bound to be a critical element in zionist forward planning once the latest stage of expansion – the annexation of the West Bank – has been completed.
A false dichotomy
The mainstream Zionists, led by Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, attached themselves to British imperial designs like a limpet, promising to be faithful to British interests in the Middle East. They were rewarded with key positions in the civilian administration (control of ‘immigration’ and the attorney-generalship) as well as military and police protection for their purchase and settlement of land, and the ejection of the Palestinian farmers which followed.
In the history of the Zionist movement a false dichotomy has been created between the mainstream ‘practicals’ and Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Revisionist stream of ‘politicals.’ Jabotinsky – “your fascist” as Mussolini described him to a Zionist delegation – was indifferent to the rights, needs and aspirations of the Palestinians but open about his intentions. The Palestine he intended to take in its entirety extended not just from the sea to the Jordan river but to the other side of the river, originally placed within the mandate but removed by Britain in 1922 and converted into the puppet state of Transjordan.
Jabotinsky knew ‘the Arabs’ of Palestine would resist the seizure of their land, and thus intended to build an ‘iron wall’ of military force to overcome them. Once defeated, having been forced to see reason, as Jabotinsky put it, peace could be established between the two peoples.
The ‘practicals’ projected an entirely different image. They reviled Jabotinsky’s fascistic Revisionists. They were socialists, so they declared, irrespective of the fact that their kibbutzes, their moshavs, their labor unions and their peak union body, the Histadrut, were for Jews only. They intended no harm to ‘the Arabs’. All they wanted was to work the land to the benefit of everyone and live in peace with their neighbors. They were happy to share irrespective of another fact, that Palestine was not theirs to share in the first place. When partition was first suggested in 1937 they accepted it and they accepted it again in 1947. It was ‘Arab’ obstructionism that was blocking the road to peace.
The diaries of their senior figures told the real story behind the dissimulation. Only there did they reveal their true intentions, to take the land and get rid of the people. The ‘practicals’ knew as well as the Revisionists that an ‘iron wall’ would have to be built against ‘the Arabs.’ An ‘Eretz Israel’ which included the other side of the Jordan was their map as well. The differences between themselves and the Revisionists were no more than tribal infighting over power. Tactics differed but the strategic end objective – the seizure of all of Palestine as delineated on the 1919 map – was the same.
Having served its purpose, the UN partition plan was dumped almost immediately. The Zionist leadership never had any intention of abiding by UN resolutions or international law. It could do neither, if Israel was to be established as a Jewish state. As Ben-Gurion made clear, war would give the Zionists what they wanted, all of Palestine, not just the 54 percent allocated in the partition plan and but for international intervention in 1948-9, they might well have succeeded. Partition was accepted by the Zionists only because at that stage they could go no further.
Having seized 78 percent of Palestine, Israel was admitted to UN membership only on the condition that it comply with General Assembly resolution 194 of 1948, giving expelled Palestinians the right of repatriation or compensation.
As it has never complied with this resolution and never had any intention of doing so, there is a clear legal reason to regard Israel’s membership of the world body as null and void. Another distinctive characteristic of Israel’s UN membership is that it remains a state without declared borders. This is not just because of the state of war that still exists between itself and two adjoining Arab states (Lebanon and Syria) but because Israel does not want to declare its borders. This seemingly anomalous situation is deliberate, allowing Israel to continue its expansionist drive towards the borders of the ‘national home’ as inked on the map in 1919.
Annexation of the West Bank takes it a further step in this direction. Netanyahu is a Revisionist. His Arab-hating father was for some time Jabotinsky’s secretary. Since the election of Menachem Begin in 1977, Revisionists have been in government for more than 40 years, with even more extreme extremists (Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked) now taking center stage. In the Zionist context they almost make Netanyahu seem a moderate.
No one should doubt that beyond his lies and deceit, Netanyahu remains faithful to his Revisionist roots. In his 1993 book A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World Netanyahu reaffirmed the “right” of the Jewish “people” to the entire ‘land of Israel.’
There should be no confusion about this. The ‘land of Israel’ is not (not yet) synonymous with the state of Israel.
The land is there only for Jews, not to be shared with anyone else, a principle pursued since the beginning of Zionist colonization and a commitment which Netanyahu took a step further with the nation-state law of 2018 and has now taken another step further with his declaration that the Palestinians of the annexed West Bank will not be citizens but “subjects”, a term usually applied to the subjects of a king or emperor. Again, this is consistent with the long-term view held along the political spectrum that Israel is the state of the Jewish ‘people’, and not of its citizens.
Last September Netanyahu pledged to annex the West Bank if re-elected. He now rules Israel under a power-sharing arrangement with Benny Gantz, army chief of staff during the 2014 onslaught on Gaza that killed 2200 people, including 1492 civilians (551 of them children). The Israeli military also shelled UNRWA shelters, killing civilians there as well as in the streets and their apartments. Annexation of the West Bank was part of the unity deal between these two unindicted war criminals.
How much will be annexed in the first stage won’t be known until Netanyahu issues the first decree but it will definitely include a 100-km long stretch of the Jordan River valley between the Hussein and Karameh (formerly Allenby) bridges. Violence will follow as surely as night follows day, the Zionists using resistance, as they always do, as a pretext to take more land and further tighten their grip.
There may well be a third intifada on the West Bank and it would take only a few shots across the river for Israel to have the ‘security’ pretext (the protection of its 11,000 illegal settlers in the Jordan valley) for crossing the water and establishing itself on the east bank. An immediate acquisition would be King Abdullah (formerly the East Ghor) canal on the east bank, from which is pumped 90 million cubic meters of fresh water a year to the residents of Amman.
On the basis of all past Zionist practice, the steady expansion into and settlement of Jordanian territory would soon follow, over the futile objections of the ‘international community.’ This is hardly far-fetched. Zionism is an opportunistic ideology and where opportunities have not arisen fortuitously to seize more of Palestine over the past seven decades, Israel has created them.
Those beating their breasts because annexation will mean an end to the ‘peace process’ and the two-state solution are delusional. The Zionists never intended there to be a two-state solution in Palestine and the ‘peace process’ died long ago, if it was ever intended to live. In reality, it was no more than a cost-effective war process fought behind closed doors at Camp David and giving Israel time to consolidate its hold on the West Bank.
Once the annexation of the West Bank begins the Palestinian Authority will collapse. Mahmud Abbas has already severed links with Israel and the US, not that this counts for anything at this stage. King Abdullah has already warned of the “massive crisis” that will follow once the West Bank is annexed but there is little he can do to stop it. The king can respond by sending the Israeli ambassador home and he can suspend the 1994 ‘peace’ treaty in whole or part but he cannot stop annexation any more than King Canute could stop the incoming tide.
The ‘international community’ is already reacting negatively but is likely to do little in practice. The US is giving Israel a free hand and the lobby will ensure King Abdullah stays in line. He is dependent on the US, where pressure is already being exerted through Congress for the extradition of Ahlam al Tamimi, implicated in the bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria in 2001, and released in 2011 as part of a Hamas-Israel prisoner exchange. As US nationals died in the bombing, Al Tamimi is wanted for prosecution in the US. Refusal or delay by Jordan in handing her over would completely play into Israel’s hands. It is the “child killer” – Israel of course never kills children – that would capture the US media headlines and not the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory.
Israel’s ‘peace treaty’ with Jordan is no more than a tactical tool, just as the ‘peace process’ was, to be tossed aside when it has outlived its usefulness. The Israel army is already stationed on the West Bank of the Jordan. No one should expect it to stay there once the annexation of the West Bank has been completed. The east bank of the Jordan River is as much a part of the 1919 map as the Golan Heights or southern Lebanon, where only the resistance of Hizbullah has held the Zionists at bay. Almost certainly Israel is going to cross the Jordan river one day.
*(Top image: Three members of the Beit Ommar National Committee against the Wall and Settlements were injured on May 7, 2011, in a demonstration near the Israeli Karmei Tsur settlement. Yousef Abu Marya, age 36, had his wrist broken in two places by Israeli soldiers, while Ahmed Abu Hashem, age 42, and Mousa Abu Marya, 33, sustained leg injuries. Credit: Palestine Solidarity Project/ Flickr)
Jeremy Salt has taught at the University of Melbourne, Bosporus University (Istanbul) and Bilkent University (Ankara), specialising in the modern history of the Middle East. His publications include “The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.) His latest book is “The Last Ottoman Wars. The Human Cost 1877-1923” (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2019).
Lately, anti-racism activists and their fellow-travelers have been vandalizing statues in the UK, including a memorial to Winston Churchill. Even Nelson is threatened. And Robert Peel, like Churchill, has been boarded up for protection from the loonies. Incredibly Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland 1306-1329, hero of Bannockburn and bringer of independence, has been branded a racist by graffiti scribblers. Bruce (or de Brus), Earl of Carrick and 7th Lord of Annandale, was of Norman descent I believe. So, is our entire medieval history and culture – 1066 and all that – condemned? If it’s the feudal system and the struggle between mighty lords and their lowly vassals that bothers today’s hypersensitive agitators, most of our history books will have to be taken off the shelves and our monarchs consigned to the dustbin in order to appease them.
Why don’t these firebrands look for modern-day racists to complain about? In which case they might focus on “Israel’s knee-on-the-neck occupation of Palestine”, as Leslie Bravery describes it. This snarling, brutal entity illegally occupies Palestine and part of Syria and is stuffed with baddies with no redeeming features whatsoever. They have been busy ethnically cleansing the native Palestinians and stealing their lands for seven decades. And what of their many supporters in high places? What should we call people who defend the indefensible… who admire the despicable… who applaud the expulsion at gunpoint of peaceable civilians and the confiscation of their homes?
Being a Friend of Israel – like most of the Conservative Party at Westminster – means embracing the terror and racism on which the state of Israel was built. It means embracing the dispossession of the innocent and oppression of the powerless. It means embracing the discriminatory laws against those who stubbornly remain in their homeland. It means embracing the jackboot gangsterdom that abducts civilians — including children — and imprisons and tortures them without trial. It means embracing the theft and annexation of Palestinian lands and water resources, the imposition of hundreds of military checkpoints, the severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods, and maximum interference with Palestinian life at every level.
It means not minding the bloodbaths inflicted by Israel on Gaza and feeling not too bothered about blowing hundreds of children to smithereens, maiming thousands more, trashing vital infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, power plants and clean water supplies, and causing $billions of devastation that will take 20 years to rebuild. And where is the money coming from? That’s right – from you and me.
It means turning a blind eye to the strangulation of the West Bank’s economy and the cruel 14-year blockade on Gaza. It means endorsing the denial of Palestinians’ right to self-determination and return to their homes. It means shrugging off the religious war that humiliates Muslims and Christians and prevents them visiting their holy places. It means meekly accepting a situation in which hard-pressed American and British taxpayers are having to subsidize Israel’s illegal occupation of the Holy Land.
And if, after all that, you are still Israel’s special friend, where is your self-respect?
Pandering to Israel has been immensely costly in blood and treasure and stupidly damaging to our reputation. Is it not ludicrous that a foreign military power which has no regard for international law and rejects weapons conventions and safeguards can exert such influence on foreign policy in the US and UK?
Everyone outside the Westminster/Washington bubble knows perfectly well that there can be no peace in the Holy Land without justice. In other words no peace until the occupation ends. Everyone knows that international law and countless UN resolutions still wait to be enforced. Everyone knows that Israel won’t comply unless sanctions are imposed. Everyone knows that the siege on Gaza won’t be lifted until warships are sent.
What’s more, everyone now knows that the US is not an honest broker, that Israel wants to keep the pot boiling and that justice won’t come from more sham ‘negotiations’. Nor will peace. Everyone knows who is the real cause of turmoil in the Middle East. And everyone knows that Her Majesty’s Government’s hand-wringing and empty words of ‘concern’ serve no purpose except to prolong the daily misery for Palestinians and buy time for Israel to complete its criminal scheme to make the occupation permanent.
And that is about to happen.
Can’t breathe!
For the last year Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been saying he’ll “extend sovereignty on all the settlements” including sites that have security importance or are important to Israel’s heritage. And that will include Hebron, Jericho and the Jordan Valley.
The move would be another major step in the fulfillment of the long-running Plan Dalet (otherwise known as Plan D) which was the Zionists’ blueprint for the violent takeover of the Palestinian homeland as a prelude to declaring Israeli statehood – which they did in May 1948. It was drawn up by the Jewish underground militia, the Haganah, at the behest of David Ben-Gurion, then boss of the Jewish Agency.
Plan D’s intention was not only to gain control of the areas of the Jewish state and defend its borders but also to control the areas of Jewish presence outside those borders and ensure “freedom of military and economic activity” by occupying important high-ground positions on a number of transport routes.
“Outside the borders of the state” was a curious thing to say when nobody would admit to where Israel’s borders actually ran, but the aim was to steal land that wasn’t allocated to Israel but was reserved for a Palestinian state on the 1947 UN Partition Plan map. Since then Israel has purposely kept its borders fluid in order to accommodate the Zionists’ perpetual lust for expansion into Palestinian and Syrian territory and eventual takeover.
No doubt with this in mind the Israeli government has confirmed the appointment of the pro-annexation Settlements Minister Tzipi Hotovely as Israel’s next ambassador to the UK. Hotovely is a religious-nationalist extremist committed to the ‘Greater Israel’ project. As Minister of Settlement Affairs in the Israeli government many here will regard her as a war criminal. All Israeli settlements (a more appropriate word would be ‘squats’) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are considered illegal under international law. And many see Israel’s long-running squatter policy as a war crime for the simple reason that Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute defines “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory” as such “when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes”.
Hotovely tends to run off at the mouth having criticised American Jews for not understanding the complexities of the region because “they never send their children to fight for their country, most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers”. She herself slid out of compulsory military service by becoming an educational guide in Jerusalem and an emissary of the Jewish Agency in the United States.
She’s also keen to re-write New Israel’s sordid history: “We need to delete the word ‘occupation’ and we need to redefine the term ‘refugee’….” Hotovely rejects Palestinians’ hopes for statehood and instead dreams of a Greater Israel spanning the length and breadth of current Israel plus the Palestinian territories, saying “We need to return to the basic truth of our rights to this country…. This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.”
But what is the basic truth of her right to the land? She came there from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic so a question that immediately springs to mind is: “What ancestral links does she have with the Holy Land? Has she had a DNA check-up? And what exactly gives her and her kind the right to lord it over the Palestinians who have been there all the time?”
In London she’ll replace Mark Regev, former Netanyahu spokesman and mastermind behind Israel’s propaganda programme of disinformation and dirty tricks. Under Regev’s watch in January 2017 a senior political officer at the Israeli embassy in London, Shai Masot, plotted with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the rotting political woodwork to “take down” senior government figures including Boris Johnson’s deputy at the Foreign Office, Sir Alan Duncan.
Masot was almost certainly a Mossad asset. His hostile activities were revealed not, as one would have wished, by Britain’s own security services and media but an Al Jazeera undercover news team. Her Majesty’s Government’s response? “The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed.”
At a Labour Party conference fringe meeting Israel insider Miko Peled warned that “they are going to pull all the stops, they are going to smear, they are going to try anything they can to stop Corbyn…. the reason anti-Semitism is used is because they [the Israelis] have no argument….”
And that’s exactly what happened. Corbyn, a perceived threat to Israel’s cosy relationship with the UK, is now relegated to the sidelines.
Regev came to help silence criticism of the Israeli regime. Why the switch to lovely Tzipi? I’d say she’s here to smooth ruffled feelings caused by Israel’s latest planned land grab in the creeping annexation of the West Bank. And Regev, mission accomplished in the UK, is needed in Tel Aviv to defend Netanyahu from the ensuing flak if he goes ahead with annexation.
EU’s shame
Where does the EU stand in all this? A year ago one hundred and fifty-five European researchers and academics delivered a stinging rebuke to Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, and Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Science, Research & Innovation.
Their letter expressed the outrage felt throughout the world, and especially in European countries including the UK, at the EU’s policy of endlessly rewarding the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel. Perversely each new act of unspeakable brutality, each new onslaught of disproportionate force against civilians had brought fresh privileges, fresh co-operation, fresh embraces from an enthusiastic EU élite. The letter said among other things:
“In spite of continual and serious breaches of international law and violation of human rights, and regardless of the commitment for upholding human rights of European countries, Israel enjoys an exceptionally privileged status in dealing with Europe also through the Association Agreement and has been receiving grants from the European Commission in the area of research and innovation (FP7 and its successor Horizon 2020).
“Funds are granted even to Israeli arms producers such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd, the producers of lethal drones that were used in the Gaza military assaults against civilians, together with numerous academic institutions that have close ties with Israeli military industry.
“We appeal to the European Union to impose a comprehensive military embargo on Israel, as long as Israel continues to blatantly violate human rights. We are deeply disturbed that public funds contributed by European tax payers are channeled to a country that not only disregards human rights but also uses most advanced knowledge and technology for the very violation of human rights.”
The EU-Israel Association Agreement has a lot to answer for. It came into force in 2000 for the purpose of promoting (1) peace and security, (2) shared prosperity through, for example, the creation of a free trade zone, and (3) cross-cultural rapprochement. It governs not only EU-Israel relations but Israel’s relations with the EU’s other Mediterranean partners, including the Palestinian National Authority. To enjoy the Association’s privileges Israel undertook to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as set out as a general condition in Article 2, which says:
“Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”
Essential being the operative word.
Respecting human rights and democratic principles is not optional. Article 2 allows steps to be taken to enforce the contractual obligations regarding human rights and to dissuade partners from pursuing policies and practices that disrespect those rights. The Agreement also requires respect for self-determination of peoples and fundamental freedoms for all. Given Israel’s contempt for such principles the EU, had it been an honorable group, would have enforced Article 2 and not let matters slide. They would have suspended Israel’s membership until the regime fully complied. Israel relies heavily on exports to Europe so the EU could by now have forced an end to the brutal occupation of the Holy Land.
Rewarding annexation
Questions in the House of Commons last week revealed that the Government plans to host a UK-Israel trade and investment conference in London. One such question advertised the fact that “Israeli exports to the UK grew by 286% over the last decade, and bilateral trade levels are at a record high”. The Minister, Conor Burns, announced: “We strongly value our trading relationship with the State of Israel and are working closely with the Israeli government to implement the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement.… We are working with the Israeli counterparts to host a UK-Israel trade and investment conference in London, which will have its primary focus on scoping out and identifying new opportunities and collaboration between Israel and the United Kingdom.”
Then Andrew Percy MP, a notorious stooge for Israel, asked the Secretary of State for International Trade what recent discussions she’d had with her counterpart in the Israeli government on a UK-Israel free trade deal. Ranil Jayawardena, answering for the Secretary of State, said that the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement, signed in February 2019, will enter into force at the end of the Transition Period in January 2021. It will allow businesses to trade as freely as they do now, without additional tariffs or barriers. “Total trade between the United Kingdom and Israel increased by 15 percent in 2019 to £5.1bn. We value this trade relationship and are committed to strengthening it, so we will seek to work with counterparts in the new Israeli government to host a bilateral trade and investment summit in London.”
So there’s still a desire at the heart of UK government to reward racist Israel, not only for its knee-on-the-neck brutality but even for a crime of such enormity as can’t-breathe annexation.
In June 1967, Israel displaced over 400,000 Palestinians as a result of the Six-Day War. The Naksa (setback) is the most prominent wave of Palestinians expulsion after the 1948 Nakba, resulting in Israel seizing the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank. Decades later, the UN Security Council still feels it accomplished its duty through Resolution 242 which considers Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories a “principle”, rather than an obligation.
The Naksa is synonymous with Israel’s military occupation – a term which has eclipsed colonialism and which shields Israel from accountability. Political rhetoric does not confront Israel with decolonisation; instead it focuses on military occupation and as a result, shifts attention away from the ongoing colonial expansion which is still displacing the Palestinian people.
Within the international community and especially in relation to the two-state compromise, diplomacy regarding Israel’s military occupation proved a veneer to refrain from acknowledging the UN’s role in Israel’s creation and maintenance. Accepting Israel as a state marked the first collective normalisation of Zionist colonialism in Palestine. Sovereignty, built upon the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their land, was attributed to the colonial entity in Palestine. With Palestinians deemed a humanitarian urgency since 1948 and the classification further entrenched in 1967, the international community’s dismissal of the Zionist colonial project not only normalised colonialism, but also the ensuing military occupation of Palestine.
This has occurred due to the UN’s narrative of Israel’s international law violations, which are isolated from the earlier violence meted out by Zionist paramilitaries during the Nakba. From 1967 onwards, the military occupation provided Israel with the opportunity to legislate violations in order to collectively punish Palestinians and increase the likelihood of gradual Palestinian displacement, thus appropriating more land for its colonial expansion.
To describe Israel only as a military occupation is inconsistent with Israel’s colonial identity. Likewise, the calls to end Israel’s military occupation of Palestine ignore the colonial reality which supports the legislation depriving Palestinians of their movement, political expression, livelihood, basic necessities and freedom. Military occupation is a tool for colonial Israel; it does not define Israel and should not be exploited by the international community as the means to further deprive Palestinians of their anti-colonial endeavours, as is their political right.
For Palestinians, 1967 is a continuation of the 1948 Nakba, as is the military occupation of Palestine. It is the international community that played upon equivalence between colonialism and occupation, making them synonymous to facilitate the two-state diplomacy. In addition, the US consolidated its ties with Israel following the Six-Day War, which under President Donald Trump resulted in the so-called deal of the century which builds upon the two-state paradigm to pave the way for Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Although the 1967 war reinforced colonial domination over Palestine, the UN is partial to the military occupation, as it provides an alternative, albeit incomplete, departure point for the current framing of Israel’s narrative and its dissemination. The ongoing international law violations against the Palestinian people, including settlement expansion, now form part of Israel’s purported security narrative, which the UN has regularly defended, even as it issues weak statements condemning the transgressions.
The earlier Palestinian political unity and commitment to anti-colonial struggle post 1967 has been disrupted not only due to political rifts between Palestinian factions, but also due to the UN’s insistence on negotiations, which have in turn vilified the military occupation while normalising Zionist colonisation. For Israel, 1948 was the initiation; 1967 was the path to secure complete domination over all Palestinian land, facilitated by the subsequent betrayal, decades later, of the Palestinian cause at a regional and international level.
Remembrance of 1967 must take into account the earlier colonial process. The Palestinian people’s current predicament on the verge of annexation carries with it the international community’s complicity in diluting colonialism to the more preferable military occupation terminology. Calling for an end to military occupation does not eradicate colonialism. On the contrary, the UN is protecting Israel’s colonial process by normalising the steps of forced displacement and appropriation of territory, in the name of Israel’s security concerns.
A controversy has erupted over the naming of U.S. military bases here in the United States. The bases are named after Confederate generals, and there are people who want to change that. They want the bases to be named for more politically correct military figures.
I’ve got a better idea: Let’s not rename the bases. Let’s close them instead.
When people are born and raised under a particular form of governmental structure, it is extremely difficult for them to mentally or psychologically challenge the structure itself. The natural tendency is to want to work within the structure by coming up with ways to modify or improve it rather than to contemplate arguments for dismantling it.
That’s the situation we have with the national-security state structure that characterizes the United States. We have all been born and raised under a massive military-intelligence system that consists of the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial complex (as President Eisenhower termed it), the CIA, and the NSA. We’ve all been taught that “national security” is everything — that the national-security state protects our “freedom” and our, well, our “national security.” We are told that it does this through thousands of military bases both here at home and abroad. We’re taught that interventionism in foreign countries is essential to keep us safe here at home.
Thus, the natural tendency of people is to simply accept the permanence of this way of life and try to come up with ways to make it better. That’s what the impulse to rename all those military bases is all about. The bases are considered to be a permanent part of American life. So, the idea is let’s just make them better by renaming them.
An important question
Notice that in this renaming debate, the debaters never ask a critically important question: What do we need those bases for? For people who are embroiled within the paradigm, it’s just obvious. We need them because … well … just because.
After all, it’s not as though the United States is under the threat of an invasion by some foreign power. No nation-state in the world, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, or any other nation-state that has been labeled an adversary, rival, or enemy of the United States, has the remotest military capability to invade the United States. All of them lack the troops, equipment, supplies, transports, ammunition, armaments, and money to undertake such an enormous task.
So, if there is no threat of a foreign invasion of the United States, what do we need all those bases for, old names or new names?
One might assert that the bases protect us from “the terrorists.” But “the terrorists” are a direct result of U.S. military interventionism abroad. Given that the U.S. military and CIA have been killing people in the Middle East and Afghanistan for decades, it stands to reason that there are going to be people who wish to retaliate against Americans.
There is an easy fix for anti-American terrorism: Bring all the troops home from everywhere and discharge them. Their interventionism produces nothing positive and lots of negatives, including anti-American terrorism and the resulting destruction of our liberty here at home to protect us from “the terrorists” that their interventionism produce.
Even given anti-American terrorism, the notion that domestic military bases protect us from terrorism is ludicrous. Terrorists strike at civilians and civilian targets. When they do so, they are engaged in a federal criminal offense. Under U.S. law, the military is precluded from enforcing criminal laws. So, what good are those military bases when it comes to protecting us from terrorism?
America’s founding system
The U.S. government wasn’t always a national-security state. The nation’s founding governmental system was a limited-government republic, which is an opposite type of governmental system, one whose powers are limited.
For the first 150 years of our nation’s history, there was a basic military force but it was relatively small. Its principal purpose was to protect Americans from Native American attacks. That’s why in the 1800s, it might have made sense to have a fort near a community.
But why do American cities and towns today need military bases near them? There is no longer a threat of attack from Apaches, Comanches, or any other Native American tribe. And, as I previously observed, there is no realistic threat of a foreign invasion.
The U.S. government was converted from a limited-government republic into a national-security state after World War II. The justification given was that America faced a gigantic worldwide communist conspiracy to take over the United States and the rest of the world, one whose base was in Moscow, Russia (yes, that Russia), with tentacles to China, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala, and others.
That conversion fundamentally transformed not only America’s governmental structure but also American life. Now Americans were living under a totalitarian form of governmental structure, one that wielded omnipotent, dark-side powers, such as state-sponsored assassinations, kidnappings, executions, torture, coups, and regime-change operations.
Largess, dependency, and danger
I would be remiss, of course, if I failed to mention the trillions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money that have been spent over the decades to sustain and maintain this vast military empire. The national-security state has played a principal role in the massive taxation, spending, debt, and monetary debasement that has plundered the American people since the end of World War II.
Of course, there is also the mindset of dependency on all this military largess that has come to characterize thousands of American communities, where people live in desperate fear of losing their military base, convinced that they will die if it happens.
Finally, we must never forget President Eisenhower’s profound warning to the American people, one that echoed the sentiments of our American ancestors—that the national-security state poses a grave threat to the liberties and democratic processes of the American people.
Regardless of what one might think about the original post-World War II conversion to a national-security state, everyone agrees on one thing: With the demise of the suppose worldwide communist conspiracy in 1989 with the end of the Cold War, the original justification for America’s conversion to a national-security state disintegrated more than 30 years ago.
We have the right to the restoration of our limited-government republic. We have the right to the restoration of our rights and liberties. Forget about renaming those useless and destructive military bases. Close them instead.
One of the most disturbing aspects of American foreign policy since 9/11 has been the assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world, best exemplified by President George W. Bush’s warning that “there was a new sheriff in town.” Apart from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with each other, nor has any government sought to punish foreigners using sanctions with the cynical arrogance demonstrated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The United States uniquely seeks to penalize other sovereign countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the U.S. and that did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with whatever penalties are meted out by Washington. At the same time, it demonstrates its own hypocrisy by claiming sovereign immunity whenever foreigners or even American citizens seek to use the courts to hold it accountable for its many crimes.
The conceit by the United States that it is the acknowledged judge, jury and executioner in policing the international community began in the post-World War 2 environment, when hubristic American presidents began referring to themselves as “leaders of the free world.” This pretense received legislative and judicial backing with passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 (ATA) as amended in 1992 plus subsequent related legislation, to include the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2016 (JASTA). The body of legislation can be used to obtain civil judgments against alleged terrorists for attacks carried out anywhere in the world and can be employed to punish governments, international organizations and even corporations that are perceived to be supportive of terrorists, even indirectly or unknowingly. Plaintiffs are able to sue for injuries to their “person, property, or business” and have ten years to bring a claim.
Sometimes the connections and level of proof required by a U.S. court to take action are tenuous, and that is being polite. Suits currently can claim secondary liability for third parties, including banks and large corporations, under “material support” of terrorism statutes. This includes “aiding and abetting” liability as well as providing “services” to any group that the United States considers to be terrorist, even if the terrorist label is dubious and/or if that support is inadvertent.
The ability to sue in American courts for redress of either real or imaginary crimes has led to the creation of a lawfare culture in which lawyers representing a particular cause seek to bankrupt an opponent through both legal expenses and damages. To no one’s surprise, Israel is a major litigator against entities that it disapproves of. The Israeli government has even created and supports an organization called Shurat HaDin, which describes on its website how it uses the law to bankrupt opponents.
The Federal Court for the Southern District of Manhattan has become the clearing house for suing the pants off of any number of foreign governments and individuals with virtually no requirement that the suit have any merit beyond claims of “terrorism.” In February 2015, a lawsuit initiated by Shurat HaDin led to the conviction of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization of liability for terrorist attacks in Israel between 2000 and 2004. The New York Federal jury awarded damages of $218.5 million, but under a special feature of the Anti-Terrorism Act the award was automatically tripled to $655.5 million. Shurat HaDin claimed sanctimoniously that it was “bankrupting terror.”
The most recent legal victory for Israel and its friends occurred in a federal district court in the District of Columbia on June 1st, where Syria and Iran were held to be liable for the killing of American citizens in Palestinian terrorist attacks that have taken place in Israel. Judge Randolph D. Moss ruled that Americans wounded and killed in seven attacks carried out by Palestinians inside the Jewish state were eligible for damages from Iran and Syria because they provided “material support” to militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The court will at a future date determine the amount of the actual damages.
It should be observed that the alleged crime took place in a foreign country, Israel, and the attribution of blame came from Israeli official sources. Also, there was no actual evidence that Syria and Iran were in any way actively involved in planning or directly enabling the claimed attacks, which is why the expression “material support,” which is extremely elastic, was used. In this case, both Damascus and Tehran are definitely guilty as charged in recognizing and having contact with the Palestinian resistance organizations though it has never been credibly asserted that they have any influence over their actions. Syria and Iran were, in fact, not represented in the proceedings, a normal practice as neither country has diplomatic representation in the U.S. and the chances of a fair hearing given the existing legislation have proven to be remote.
And one might well ask if the legislation can be used against Israel, with American citizens killed by the Israelis (Rachel Corrie, Furkan Dogan) being able to sue the Jewish state’s government for compensation and damages. Nope. U.S. courts have ruled in similar cases that Israel’s army and police are not terrorist organizations, nor do they materially support terrorists, so the United States’ judicial system has no jurisdiction to try them. That result should surprise no one as the legislation was designed to specifically target Muslims and Muslim groups.
In any event, the current court ruling which might total hundreds of millions of dollars could prove to be difficult to collect due to the fact that both Syria and Iran have little in the way of remaining assets in the U.S. In previous similar suits, most notably in June 2017, a jury deliberated for one day before delivering a guilty verdict against two Iranian foundations for violation of U.S. sanctions, allowing a federal court to authorize the U.S. government seizure of a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. It was the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in United States history. The presiding judge decided to distribute proceeds from the building’s sale, nearly $1 billion, to the families of victims of terrorism, including the September 11th attacks. The court ruled that Iran had some culpability for the 9/11 attacks solely based on its status as a State Department listed state sponsor of terrorism, even though the court could not demonstrate that Iran was in any way directly involved.
A second court case involved Syria, ruling that Damascus was liable for the targeting and killing of an American journalist who was in an active war zone covering the shelling of a rebel held area of Homs in 2012. The court awarded $302.5 million to the family of the journalist, Marie Colvin. In her ruling, Judge Amy Berman Jackson cited “Syria’s longstanding policy of violence” seeking “to intimidate journalists” and “suppress dissent.” A so-called human rights group funded by the U.S. and other governments called the Center for Justice and Accountability based its argument, as in the case of Iran, on relying on the designation of Damascus as a state sponsor of terrorism. The judge believed that the evidence presented was “credible and convincing.”
Another American gift to international jurisprudence has been the Magnitsky Act of 2012, a product of the feel-good enthusiasm of the Barack Obama Administration. It was based on a narrative regarding what went on in Russia under the clueless Boris Yeltsin and his nationalist successor Vladimir Putin that was peddled by one Bill Browder, who many believe to have been a major player in the looting of the former Soviet Union. It was claimed by Browder and his accomplices in the media that the Russian government had been complicit in the arrest, torture and killing of one Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant turned whistleblower working for Browder. Almost every aspect of the story has been challenged, but it was completely bought into by the Congress and White House and led to sanctions on the Russians who were allegedly involved despite Moscow’s complaints that the U.S. had no legal right to interfere in its internal affairs relating to a Russian citizen.
Worse still, the Magnitsky Act has been broadened and is now the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2017. It is being used to sanction and otherwise punish alleged “human rights abusers” in other countries and has a very low bar for establishing credibility. It was most recently used in the Jamal Khashoggi case, in which the U.S. sanctioned the alleged killers of the Saudi dissident journalist even though no one had actually been arrested or convicted of any crime.
The long-established principle that Washington should respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal or foreign policies has effectively been abandoned. And, as if things were not bad enough, some recent legislation virtually guarantees that in the near future the United States will be doing still more to interfere in and destabilize much of the world. Congress passed and President Trump has signed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, which seeks to improve Washington’s response to mass killings. The prevention of genocide and mass murder is now a part of American national security agenda. There will be a Mass Atrocity Task Force and State Department officers will receive training to sensitize them to impending genocide, though presumably the new program will not apply to the Palestinians as the law’s namesake never was troubled by their suppression and killing by the state of Israel.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
The late Bert Bolin, a Swedish meteorologist, was the first chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His tenure began in 1988 and ended in 1997 – well after the IPCC’s second assessment report had been completed. (There have been four so far, published in 1990, 1995, 2001, and 2007.)
Cynical individuals are quick to declare that the fix was in from the beginning. According to these people, there’s no way the IPCC could have declared that humans aren’t responsible for an alarming degree of climate change. It’s easy to make these sorts of declarations, of course. Finding compelling, reliable evidence to support them is a different matter.
I’m currently examining Bolin’s memoir, titled: A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change. Although it was published back in 2007, I’m not certain many people have actually read it. On page 33 these lines appear:
I was asked by the Swedish government in 1975 to summarise available knowledge, and later that same year it was concluded in a government bill concerning future Swedish energy policy that ‘…It is likely that climatic concerns will limit the burning of fossil fuels rather than the size of the natural resources.’
As an adviser to the Swedish Prime Minister, therefore, Bolin was asked for his professional opinion. He doesn’t tell us what that opinion was. (In a footnote, though, he refers us to a document that is by no means easy to track down: Swedish Government proposition 1975/76: No. 30 to the Swedish Parliament.)
Back in the 1970s lots of people felt the depletion of the Earth’s natural resources was imminent, especially since the world’s population was increasing. But Sweden, after consulting Bolin, officially expressed a different view. If it had misunderstood Bolin’s position – or had egregiously exaggerated its import – one would think he’d have said so in his book.
Instead, we’re left with the uneasy feeling that a full 13 years before the IPCC was even born its first chairman had already decided that fossil fuels didn’t merely affect the climate, but that the affect was so adverse their use would need to be curtailed.
An important reckoning with a great historical injustice is underway in Australia which presents the world with a rare opportunity to look into the darker corners of the corridors of power too often ignored by even the most ardent truth seekers among us.
This reckoning has taken the form of a four-year, hard fought legal battle which a lone crowd funded Australian historian named Jenny Hocking waged in the highest courts of her nation to win the right on May 30, 2020 to make 211 secret letters held within Australia’s National Archives public for the first time since they were deposited in 1978.
These palace letters were written between the Queen of England (via her personal secretary) and her Governor General in Australia Sir John Kerr during the latter’s tenure as official Head of State during the interim of 1974-1978 and until last week’s court ruling, were intended to be kept hidden until December 8, 2037.
What makes these letters such a point of national controversy is that they contain information which will undoubtedly shed light upon the active role of the Queen herself in carrying out an act which essentially amounted to a modern coup d’état of November 11, 1975. During this sad period, Kerr made history by not only sacking the elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, but also revealed the scope and nature of the British Monarchy’s very real powers in our modern age.
These are bizarre god-like prerogative powers which those forces controlling today’s globally extended empire would much rather keep concealed from public view.
Gough Whitlam: An Intolerable Threat to the Empire
It is admittedly difficult for some westerners to contemplate how a white Commonwealth prime minister could suffer a coup in our modern times… are not coups usually something reserved for Asiatic, Latin American, or African revolutionary leaders?
When one looks upon a list of coups during the Cold War period, that has certainly tended to be the general rule… but like every rule, exceptions are always to be found.
By reviewing the nature of Whitlam’s political struggle, his policy reforms and greater vision for Australia, it becomes clear what sort of enemy he made and why the highest powers of the Five Eyes and Global Empire ousted him.
Before his December 2, 1972 victory, Gough Whitlam gave a brilliant speech which set him aside from the typical slavish pro-imperial stooges who tended to litter Australia’s political elite when he said in November 1972:
“The decision we will make for our country on 2 December is a choice between the past and the future, between the habits and fears of the past, and the demands and opportunities of the future. There are moments in history when the whole fate and future of nations can be decided by a single decision. For Australia, this is such a time. It’s time for a new team, a new program, a new drive for equality of opportunities: it’s time to create new opportunities for Australians, time for a new vision of what we can achieve in this generation for our nation and the region in which we live. It’s time for a new government- a Labor Government.”
Whitlam launched into his role as Prime Minister as a progressive juggernaut who revolutionized literally every aspect of Australian society, awakening a deep-seated yearning for true independence and taking on some of the largest power structures of the Anglo-American empire. Just to appreciate the scale of these reforms, let us review a few of them here.
1- Days after his election, Whitlam began negotiations to establish full diplomatic relations with Mainland China, breaking off relations with Taiwan.
2- Conscription which had forced thousands of young Australians to Vietnam was ended, Australia ended its participation in the war, imprisoned draft dodgers were released and the death penalty was abolished.
3- A committee was created with the full backing of the federal government to enforce equal pay for men and women while free universities as well as free health insurance were begun.
4- Whitlam began sanctioning Apartheid South Africa while banning all sports teams which practiced racial discrimination.
5- Large scale urban renewal programs were launched extending modern sewage systems to all urban centers, while new roads, rail, electrification and flood prevention programs were built. Highways linked of Australia’s capitals for the first time and standard gauge rail was established to accelerate continental development strategies (whether Africa or Australia, the British Empire never permitted common rail gauges in order to prevent internal development while keeping its “possessions” reliant on maritime trade).
6- On aboriginal rights, Whitlam tackled the injustices of colonialism by granting natives the right to own their traditional lands and granted independence to Papua New Guinea.
7- Culturally, he kindled a sense of independence from British Imperial traditions by replacing God Save the Queen with a new national anthem and patronized a National Art Gallery.
Standing up to the Five Eyes and Multinational Cartels
Within the first weeks of 1973, Whitlam’s team soon discovered the insidious nature of the international Five Eyes intelligence organization and upon discovering the scope of MI6/CIA operations in Australia, ordered a crackdown on the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization (ASIO) on March 13, 1973 under the authority of Attorney General Lionel Murphy. In his June 1st report on Consortium News, investigative reporter John Pilger stated: “Gough Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he ordered that his staff should no longer be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, ASIO, which was then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence.”
In a 2014 report, Pilger made the point that Whitlam had received a secret telex message from William Shackly (head of the CIA’s East Asia division) calling him a “security threat” on November 10, 1975, and before he could make these facts known to the parliament the next day, Whitlam was promptly called into the Governor General’s office where he was promptly fired under royal decree.
Whitlam’s most unforgivable of sins was the policy to “buy back the farm” to take back control of Australia’s resources- 62% of which were own by multinational cartels such as London’s Rio Tinto. Whitlam sought loans to buy Australia’s resources not from western banking sources in London or Wall Street but rather Middle Eastern nations who were awash in cash during the oil price increases of 1973-75. According to Minerals and Energy Minister Rex Connor, the loans were designed for 20 years and tied to large scale national development mega projects which would have extinguished the $4.5 billion of debt incurred. This process would have worked in a similar manner to the debt repayment process of FDR’s New Deal projects of the 1930s, JFK’s Apollo program of the 1960s or China’s Belt and Road Initiative of our modern age.
Why the disclosure still may not happen
In spite of the fact that the High Court ruled that the palace letters could now be accessed, the prerogative to follow the court’s orders is still left to the discretion of the head of the National Archives David Fricker- a strange character who has shown a decade of resistance to professor Hocking and even the High Court, telling ABC News: “We are not like a library or a museum.. I am required to diligently go through those things and just make sure that our release of these records is responsible, it’s ethical and it complies with the law.” Perhaps Fricker’s former job as Deputy Director of the ASIO may have something to do with this resistance.
While Fricker and other opponents of the letters’ release make the claim that they are merely personal correspondences of a private nature, Sir Edward Young (Personal secretary to the Queen) has demonstrated this to be a fraud as he cried out that their declassification “could damage not only international relations but also the trusting relationship between Her Majesty and her representatives overseas”. How could benign “personal correspondences” do that?
In a June 1st blog, Professor Hocking stated “It is surely an unusual position for the National Archives, which describes itself as a ‘pro-disclosure organisation’, to contest this action at significant expense – initially of almost one million dollars – at a time of severe budget and staff cuts”. She also made the point that “before lodging them in the Archives, the letters had been kept by Smith in the Government House ‘strong room under absolute security’ again in an official capacity, which scarcely suggested the letters were ‘personal’.”
What does the Empire have to fear?
The British Empire has worked very hard over the years to portray the image that the Crown is a benign symbol of conservative values without any real power and that the British Empire is a mere relic of the past. If anything critical is permitted to seep through the cracks of a squeeky clean veneer of austere traditional values, then Britain’s propagandists in the mainstream media and academia are sure to spin information in such a manner as to convey the idea that Britain is merely a second ringer to the real global villain: America.
The true story of Whitlam’s sacking, and the Crown’s active hand as an invisible yet real force shaping world imperial policy (including the Five Eyes) is an uncomfortable fact which imperial strategists would prefer forever remain in the shadows.
In the next segment of this story, we will delve more deeply into the real nature of the British Empire as a very active, very powerful, albeit (usually) very invisible force shaping current world affairs.
By Patrick Pillow | The Libertarian Institute | June 8, 2026
By the summer of 2000, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević appeared firmly entrenched in power.
A decade earlier, he had risen to prominence by harnessing Serbian nationalism as Yugoslavia began to fracture. Over time, he consolidated control over political institutions and much of the media while leading Serbia through wars, sanctions, and NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign. Yet beneath the surface, public frustration was growing. The economy was struggling, unemployment remained high, and many Serbians had grown weary of international isolation and authoritarian rule.
When Milošević changed election rules in July 2000 to allow the presidency to be decided by popular vote, he likely expected another victory. Instead, the move created an opportunity for a united opposition.
On September 24, voters went to the polls. Milošević faced Vojislav Koštunica, the candidate of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS). Election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe later described the vote as fundamentally flawed, citing irregularities, restricted monitoring, and unequal media access. State television overwhelmingly favored Milošević while opposition voices received little coverage.
When results were announced, the opposition claimed Koštunica had won outright. The government election commission insisted that no candidate had received a majority and ordered a runoff election. The opposition rejected the decision and called for nationwide resistance. … continue
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