Read the CIA’s 1951 listicle comparing U.S and Soviet Propaganda
Agency memo found 33 similarities between Voice of America and its USSR counterparts
By Alec Shea | Muckrock | June 30, 2017
In 1951, as the Cold War was intensifying, the CIA decided to see how Voice of America radio broadcasts into Eastern Europe compared with Soviet efforts. In a remarkably candid document, the Agency critically assessed the similarities and differences between U.S. and Soviet propaganda.
Today, VOA claims that it was founded during the Second World War to provide “Unbiased and accurate information.” The CIA officers assessing VOA in 1951, though, saw the service as essentially similar to Soviet propaganda, going so far as saying that most Americans would be surprised by the similarities between the two.
The document proposes that similarities could be the result of opposing countries imitating the propaganda put out by their rivals, and even posits the existence of an “international propagandists culture” that tended to produce similar techniques
The document includes a list of 33 main similarities between Soviet and American propaganda, including the “impression of objectivity,” “avoiding obvious lying on tangible facts,” blurring distinctions within enemy camp,” and “not dignifying opponent’s position by quoting it.”
However, it was in identifying where the two styles differed that the Agency saw the most strategic value.
Some of the differences that the CIA identified included “Soviet Conflict-Mindedness” …
which was directly opposed to “Greater American Fact-Mindedness”
Changes in the National Defense Authorization Act this year ignited fears that VOA could be marketing itself to an American audience. If it does, the American public may get a direct demonstration of exactly what the “international propagandists culture” looks like today.
Read the complete report.
Edited by JPat Brown
New analysis suggests Guccifer 2.0 files copied locally, not hacked by Russia
RT | July 12, 2017
Files stolen from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were likely downloaded to a USB drive by someone with physical access to a computer connected to the DNC network, not hacked remotely by Russia, according to a new analysis.
In an interview with Motherboard in June 2016, the hacker who claimed to be Guccifer 2.0 said he used a zero-day exploit to breach the DNC server and steal files he later published under the title “NGP-VAN.”
The leak was quickly attributed to the Russian government. However, a document published Sunday by an individual known as the Forensicator shows how the 7-zip file published by Guccifer 2.0 was transferred at a speed of 23 MB/s, making it “unlikely that this initial data transfer could have been done remotely over the Internet.”
“The initial copying activity was likely done from a computer system that had direct access to the data,” the report from the Forensicator stated. “By ‘direct access’ we mean that the individual who was collecting the data either had physical access to the computer where the data was stored, or the data was copied over a local high speed network (LAN).”
For his analysis, the Forensicator looked at the data from the 7-zip file which showed the .rar files were built on September 1, 2016, while the other files were last modified on July 5, 2016. When the .rar files are unpacked using a program called WinRAR, their timestamps were preserved from the date they were transferred.
The timestamps of those .rar files were relative times, while the times recorded in the 7-zip files are absolute times, recorded in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The Forensicator found that if the .rar files were adjusted to Eastern Time, they “fall into the same range as the last modified times for the directories archived in the .rar files.”
Therefore, the Forensicator concludes that the files were built on a computer system where the Eastern Daylight Savings Time (EDT) timezone setting was in force, meaning that the system was most likely located on the East Coast of the US.
The Forensicator then generated a list of the files sorted by the date they were last modified and imported the list into an Excel spreadsheet. Analyzing the files by date last modified, he observed that the last modified times were clustered together in a 14-minute time period on July 5, 2016.
The analysis of the metadata also found a majority of the time it took for the files to be copies, 12 minutes and 48 seconds of the 14 minutes and 15 seconds, was allocated to “time gaps” that appear between several top-level files and directories. The Forensicator concluded that this indicated that the files were chosen from a much larger collection of files.
Estimating the transfer speed of the files published by Guccifer, the Forensicator concluded that if the 1.98 GB 7-zip archive published by Guccifer was copied at a rate of 22.6 MB/s, and all the time gaps were attributed to additional file copying, the initial file copy would be 10 times larger, or 19.3 GB.
Tangier Island
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | July 10, 2017
CBS have a report on rising sea levels at Tangier Island, in Chesapeake Bay here
The video is worth watching. The CBS reporter makes the usual attempts to blame it on “climate change”, but the locals know too much to fall for that old pony.
They know that sea levels have been rising, and land eroding, since 1850.
And they are right. Tide gauges in the area, such Sewell Point, Norfolk, confirm that sea levels have been steadily rising for a long time, long before recent rises in emissions of CO2.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8638610
The rate of rise is 4.6mm/yr, nearly three times the global rate. But there is a very good reason for this – the land is sinking.
Chesapeake Bay is the site of an ancient impact crater, caused by a comet or meteor. As a result the land has been subsiding ever since. Estimates by proper scientists suggest it is sinking at a rate of up to 3mm/yr.
For instance this recent study by John Boon et al found (Sewell Pt is SWPT):
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/sea-level-rise-at-norfolk-va/
In other words, this accounts for two thirds of the sea level rise.
The study also found no acceleration in the rate of sea level rise:
The sea in Chesapeake Bay is doing what it always has, and no amount of windmills and solar panels will have the slightest effect.
Asma Al-Assad: How Western Media turned “A Rose in the Desert” into “A Cheerleader for Evil”
By Sarah Abed | The Rabbit Hole | July 8, 2017
In early March 2011, right before the carefully calculated and planned imposed war and invasion in Syria, Vogue Magazine published a surprisingly positive article titled: Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert.
“Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic—the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She’s a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her “the element of light in a country full of shadow zones.” “She is the first lady of Syria”.
The article gave readers an inside view of what life was like for the Assad’s In Syria. It didn’t exaggerate, or misrepresent information and had a seemingly unbiased tone.
“Back in the car, I ask what religion the orphans are. “It’s not relevant,” says Asma al-Assad. “Let me try to explain it to you. That church is a part of my heritage because it’s a Syrian church. The Umayyad Mosque is the third-most-important holy Muslim site, but within the mosque is the tomb of Saint John the Baptist. We all kneel in the mosque in front of the tomb of Saint John the Baptist. That’s how religions live together in Syria—a way that I have never seen anywhere else in the world. We live side by side, and have historically. All the religions and cultures that have passed through these lands—the Armenians, Islam, Christianity, the Umayyads, the Ottomans—make up who I am.”
“Does that include the Jews?” I ask. “And the Jews,” she answers. “There is a very big Jewish quarter in old Damascus.”
Also included in the article is some background information on the first lady. Asma Akhras was born in London in 1975 to a Syrian-born cardiologist and his wife, a diplomat who had served as first secretary at the Syrian embassy. She went to Queen’s College a private school, graduated from King’s College London, and worked for some time at JP Morgan in Manhattan. She was accepted into the prestigious ivy league school Harvard but instead of attending she accepted a marriage proposal from President Bashar in 2000 after secretly dating for some time.
The article detailed some other information as well, but nothing that would strike the knowledgeable reader as pretentious, over the top, or propaganda material. The response however from other publications written by disgruntled journalists was outrageous. They spoke as if they had more knowledge about conditions in Syria than a journalist that actually went to Syria and wrote about the experience.
Soon after the Vogue article was published the war in Syria began, with a staged uprising in Daraa. Another war against Vogue Magazine and this article, in particular, was waged by many publications, in particular, those that had ties or were sympathetic to the illegal state of Israel.
These publications shamed, insulted, belittled and demanded that this story be retracted or changed to fit the demonization campaign that spawned in mainstream media.
A few years prior in 2009 The Huffington Post published a slide show entitled, “Asma Al Assad: Syria’s First Lady And All-Natural Beauty.”
In 2010 the Harvard Arab Alumni Association’s website promoted an event featuring Asma by praising her as an avid supporter of “a robust, independent and self-sustaining civil society.” Asma convened a conference for the Syria Trust for Development about “the emerging role of civil society in development.”
As reported in Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs website, The First Lady “… opened the conference by declaring that the state wanted to open more space for civil society to work, develop and partner with the government in designing and implementing development-oriented policies. We will learn from our mistakes, she said, and a law will be passed soon — after consultations with civil society — to provide non-governmental organizations the safeguards they need to operate effectively. She challenged them, for their part, to rise to the occasion and achieve higher levels of efficacy and professionalism. Her overall theme of partnership reflected a realization that the government alone could not provide all the expertise or services needed to develop the country at the pace that its citizens expect.“
Syria hosted a conference of Harvard Arab Alumni with Asma leading the event.
The website was enthusiastic about Mrs. Assad’s role in Syrian national life and the connection between her work and that of her husband’s: ‘‘In her role as Syria’s first lady, Her Excellency Asma al-Assad applies her experience, energy, and influence to her country’s social and cultural development. Her role reflects the significant economic, political and social change that is happening in Syria today. Asma al-Assad’s work supports that of President Bashar al-Assad by fostering the emergence of a robust, independent and self-sustaining civil society.’’
Harvard Arab Alumni met in Damascus, “Under the Patronage of H.E. Mrs. Asma al-Assad, The First Lady of Syria.” “We are honored that Harvard Vice Provost for International Affairs, Prof. Jorge Dominguez, will be joining us in Damascus to deliver the Harvard Guest Address.“
In 2010, French Elle voted Asma “the most stylish woman in world politics,” and Paris Match called her “an eastern Diana,” a “ray of light in a country full of shadow zones.”
Even US Politicians appreciated and admired the Assads before this war bloody war was waged on the sovereign nation. Paying them visits and speaking about them in positive and affirmative tones.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stood on Syrian soil in April 2007 and famously declared that “the road to Damascus is a road to peace.” During her visit, Pelosi had an enjoyable shopping tour through Damascus markets.
Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bought the Assad-is-a-reformer narrative, telling CBS News on March 27, 2011: “There is a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.”
Senator John Kerry, President Obama’s former informal envoy to Syria. Kerry feverishly pushed to revive diplomatic engagement with the Assad regime. Indeed, he was a frequent guest of Bashar’s; the two men and their wives were known to dine together in Damascus and discuss bilateral relations. He delivered a speech in Washington that heaped praise on Assad for the generosity he personally extended to the former Democratic presidential candidate during his many visits to Damascus.
All seemed well in Syria according to politicians and media alike. Was that all just a front? Were they all lying? Or were they dubbed into believing something that wasn’t true? Maybe they were tricked? Could it be that the Assad’s had put them all under a spell? No, no, no. They were not handed a memo yet that going forward they would be limited to derogatory terms and hate speech however ridiculous or nonsensical it may be when speaking about the Assad’s. It was a requirement or else they would face ridicule much like what happened to Vogue Magazine after they published their article on the first lady. They needed to quickly recant their support, respect, and admiration in order to fit with the new script. New terminology would replace the old, regime and dictator instead of government and president. Also, going forward all mainstream media outlets are required to mention barrel bombs, chemical weapons, and how the US will protect and save poor Syrians who are being bombed by their “brutal dictator” by well.. bombing them. Wait.. what?
Why this sudden change in March 2011? Simply because mainstream media completely flipped it’s script and started to demonize this “Rose in the Desert” along with her husband President Dr. Bashar Al Assad in an all-out propaganda campaign that fit the US/NATO “regime change” narrative. Asma Al-Assad never was nor is she evil. President Bashar Al Assad is not a ruthless dictator but instead they both are very much loved and respected in THEIR country by their people which is all that should matter. Before this invasion took place in 2011 and over 300,000 foreign mercenaries came in from over 80 countries, Syria was one of the safest countries in the world, and the only secular, nonsectarian and united country in the Middle East. For the first ten years of his presidency there were no major issues, no bombings, beheadings by terrorists, none of that so how is this something that President Bashar brought to the country? That is a huge misconception, one of many that the western media has helped instill in the minds of gullible people who have completely refused to use logic and critical thinking or to even question what they are being told.
The agenda in most mainstream media outlets globally soon became to destroy the first Assad’s image by any means possible, with a proliferation of lies and negative press. The same demonization that was used previously by imperialist nations in pursuit of destabilizing yet another country in the region. The modus operandi was the same, create an over the top propaganda media campaign to win the public’s sympathy and wage a “humanitarian intervention” in order to save the people of a country from their corrupt “dictatorship” run government by ousting the elected president, installing a puppet president approved by the US/NATO, stealing their resources, and establishing a long-term military base on the pretense that they are helping to rebuild the nation they themselves unapologetically destroyed. Much like they did with other countries they were “spreading democracy” in prior such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya etc.
The plethora of articles one will find by doing a simple google search that reek of propaganda and are filled to the rim with bias, sectarian hate speech, and outright lies is profound. For the knowledgeable reader, they are simply infuriating to read.
I have included one such propaganda spewing article below published by The Guardian and some interesting information I found about the author as well.
“Asma al-Assad is a cheerleader for evil. Her UK citizenship should be revoked” was written by Nadhim Zahawi.
In this poorly written and utterly pathetic excuse for an article, Zahawi states “The Assad regime has a seemingly infinite capacity for evil, and an inability to be touched by compassion. At the very best he is dangerously deluded about what is happening, and the atrocities he has ordered. But most likely he is a monster.” Even though his article was supposedly about Asma Al-Assad he took whatever invalid and fact-deprived hits that he could at her husband as well.
Interestingly enough Mr. Zahawi a Kurdish Iraqi politician who visited Syria in 2011 and resides in the U.K. also had this to say “Removing Mrs. Assad’s citizenship is not illegal, because she is also a citizen of Syria. The home secretary has the power to do so when she believes it would be “conducive to the public good”. Asma al-Assad should never be welcome in our country again.” On that note, I hope Mr. Zahawi is forbidden to return to Syria as well.
After looking into Mr. Zahawi a little further I found that he is the vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kurdistan Region in Iraq, which receives secretarial support from Gulf Keystone Petroleum International, an oil company of which Zahawi is Chief Strategy Officer. Concerns have been raised about how MPs’ independence might be compromised by such links between APPGs and private companies, and specifically about how Zahawi’s connections with the oil industry affect his role as MP. Zahawi has been co-chair or vice-chair of this APPG since it was established in 2008/9. Also worth noting, in November 2013 Zahawi “apologized unreservedly” after The Sunday Mirror reported that he had claimed £5,822 expenses for electricity for his horse riding school stables and a yard manager’s mobile home.[19] Zahawi said the mistake arose because he received a single bill covering both a meter in the stables and one in his house. He would repay the money though the actual overcharge was £4,000.[20] An article in The Independent also drew attention to the number of legitimate but “trivial” items on Zahawi’s expenses.
In January 2011, Zahawi appeared in the Commons debate discussing the end of the Education Maintenance Allowance scheme wearing a musical tie which proceeded to play during his contribution. The Deputy Speaker advised him to be more selective when choosing ties to avoid a musical accompaniment to debate in the chamber.
An investigation by the Guardian has revealed close links between a Conservative MP and two companies based in a tax haven. Nadhim Zahawi has financial ties to Balshore Investments and Berkford Investments, which operate from a lawyer’s’ office in Gibraltar. He does not declare a connection to either company on the MPs’ register of interests.
The same script in mainstream media is used repeatedly yet people still fall for it. Isn’t it time for the masses to recognize this repetition and bring an end to these bankers wars based on lies? We are all of one race, the human race and we need to end these countries destructive imperialist driven plots. World domination by the elite is not in the best interest of humanity.
The United States has been practicing this destructive behavior in toppling sovereign nations for their own benefit since 1898. New imperial influence of U.S. (1898-1917): New territories gained in Spanish American War: Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines. Up until present day with Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela, the Philippines etc. At some point, this bloodshed has to end. Sovereignty has to be preserved. Cultures and customs need to be protected against greedy nations who only have their own best interest at heart. Whether it be neo-colonialism, imperialism, economic imperialism, etc. These ruthless regimes will do whatever it takes to complete their bloody missions.
Antikrieg TV -In 2010, the Syria’s First Lady Asma al-Assad talked to diplomats and intellectuals at the Paris Diplomatic Academy. She spoke without notes, about Syria’s history and how that heritage informs daily life.
“Some often ask me how then can Syria remain stable, moderate and influential in a region that is increasingly being surrounded by extremism, ideologism (sic), sectarianism and all other forms of negative perceptions in our society,” she told the gathering. “The typical answer I get is because of military, political, security reasons. Again, I believe I have a different view.
“It’s the very essence of our culture. It’s what our history teaches us of openness and engagement,” she said. “It’s the sense of identity and pride that we have knowing who we are in the world and knowing what we’ve contributed to the world over thousands of years that give us that sense of stability and that sense of moderation.
“Some of you might think I am talking politics. … Trust me, I have no interest in politics,” she continued. “My interests are elsewhere. But living in the region for as long as I have, I realize that politics affects every facet of our lives.”
Many people who have never heard of Syria before it became front page news after this imposed war was launched by outside forces on it’s land, think they have the right to speak ill about a nation that people like myself are originally from. Their profound arrogance is matched by their ignorance. What they may not realize is that they are indirectly contributing to the bloodshed by spreading this false propaganda. It would be better for them to never speak about Syria than for them to carelessly spread information that is nothing more than dirty gossip that they heard on their T.V. If they truly care, they need to educate themselves by reading and watching alternative media sources and listening to independent journalists, that do not have a vested interest in seeing Syria crumble and fall into the hands of the vultures in the West and their allies.
Sarah Abed can be contacted at sarahabed84@gmail.com.
Only the News That Fits: How American Media Erase Palestine – Even Alternative Media
Abdul-Rahman Mahmoud Barghouthi, 18 months. Photo from IMEMC.
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | July 10, 2017
An 18-month-old died in Palestine Friday. The cause of death was teargas inhalation from an Israeli invasion of his village two months ago.
It wasn’t a major invasion; just another of the routine ones that happen almost every day in the West Bank. U.S. media call these “incursions,” when they bother to mention them. Which is rarely.
The toddler’s name was Abdul-Rahman Mahmoud Barghouthi, a name that feels incongruously long for his short life.
When he was injured, Israeli soldiers held up an ambulance rushing to him, forcing medics to go to his home on foot and carry him back to the ambulance in their arms – a 60 minute round trip.
In the past three months, Israelis have killed 18 Palestinians, including an eight-year-old and 10-year-old, and Palestinians have killed two Israeli soldiers.
So far, I don’t see any US mainstream news media mentioning the end of Abdul’s short life, the final two months likely infused with pain. If an 18-month-old Israeli child had been killed by Palestinians, I suspect there would be headlines, and the President would go on CNN [LOL] and condemn the killers.
Perhaps Palestinians are killed so often that to the media it’s just not newsworthy, a little like the old saying that ‘dog bites man’ is not news, while ‘man bites dog’ is news. Israelis killing Palestinian children is not news. However, it is literally news to most Americans, since they so rarely hear about it.
My personal experience in writing about this issue for more than a decade and a half illustrates the very American tale of media omission on Palestine. Just last week another episode showed that the saga continues.
I’ve written about this sort of thing before, on more than one occasion.
The first time I wrote about tiny dead Palestinian children was 15 years ago. I described small deaths and quoted the words of poet Shawqi Baghdadi:
I remember the children
As dead angels
And injured sparrows
God was sad
A few years later I wrote about Palestinian toddlers killed by Israeli drones, and a few years later about Palestinian children shot in the head. I wrote stories about dead Palestinian mothers, such as Anatomy Of A Cover-Up: When A Mother Gets Killed Does She Make A Sound? and “Just Another Mother Murdered.” The titles give you the gist.
I could write stories like this over and over, if I could bear it. Because the deaths keep coming, and the misery and the cruelty, and the media keep ignoring so much of it.
And that’s the point of this story. Americans need to know important facts that they aren’t learning in the very filtered reporting we get. We need to know what’s happening in Palestine, and we need to know what’s enabling this in the U.S. The latter stories are even more covered up.
Until we expose and break through the media bias and omission, the children will keep dying, and the tragedy and carnage and injustice will grow and spread.
In the past I’ve conducted media studies that document the disparity in reporting on Palestinian deaths compared to Israeli deaths, and have deconstructed news reporting. Through the years I’ve periodically written articles describing the flawed system of reporting on Palestine, including a chapter for a Project Censored book on the subject.
This time I’d like to give a few small, personal anecdotes – one from last week.
In 2001 a reporter for the Gannett news chain interviewed me at length about what I had just seen firsthand in Gaza and the West Bank at the height of the Second Intifada, and about the founding of If Americans Knew. Gannett is a major chain and this would have been a significant breakthrough for information on Palestine to get to the general public. The reporter sent a photographer to take pictures of me and told me his feature was about to come out.
But it never did. The reporter later told me a higher-up had killed the story, saying it was “missing something.” He hadn’t explained what.
Another time a journalist at the other end of the media scale, a reporter working for a small town newspaper, wrote a similar story about me. It, too, was killed by a higher-up. The reporter told me this was the first time that had ever happened to him.
Awhile later, a letter I had written about Palestine had gone through the usual editorial process and was slated to be published in the Washington Post. At the last minute it, too, was blocked by a superior.
Most recently, Truthout, a progressive website with a large readership that publishes much excellent work, accepted an article I had submitted about government monitoring of Palestine activism. My piece went through the standard editing and fact-checking, and the next day the article was published on the website. Briefly. It was quickly removed when higher-ups saw it and the staff then told me courteously and apologetically it wasn’t “the right fit for Truthout.”
I asked what this meant, exactly, but haven’t heard back. We’ve now published the article on our blog.
Naturally, news organizations can’t publish everything that’s submitted to them, and all have the right to decide what they will publish and what they won’t.
But it’s unusual for pieces that have gone through the usual channels and passed the standard hurdles to suddenly get killed for unidentified reasons. And it’s disturbing when this fits into a pattern of news filtering that has life and death consequences, and has gone on year after year after year.
Many news media are telling us more than they used to about Palestine, but they continue to leave out important aspects. Sometimes a half truth is a whole lie.
Meanwhile, Israel and its partisans have rewritten the governmental definition of “antisemitism” to include criticism of Israel and embedded this new Israel-centric definition in governments and law enforcement agencies around the world, so that eventually articles like this one may be banned as “hate speech.”
But you won’t learn that in Truthout.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
Committee: Convicted Israeli terrorists receive support from Israeli state
Ma’an – July 10, 2017
RAMALLAH – Amid what the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs has described as a “frenetic Israeli campaign” against Palestinian authorities’ payment of allowances to prisoners of Israel and their families, the committee published a list on Monday of Israelis convicted of murdering Palestinians and anti-Palestinian extremist organizations, who have received financial and legal support from the state of Israel.
Committee head Issa Qaraqe has accused the Israeli government of “supporting Jewish terrorists and their extremist organizations both financially, socially, and legally through organizations authorized by the Israeli government,” calling Israel “the biggest funder of official terrorism in the Middle East.”
A large number of the criminals mentioned on the list were convicted and received life sentences, “but only served only five to seven years in Israeli jails,” according to the committee. Additionally, the Israelis used “deceitful methods” to bypass law and pardon certain criminals, some of them before ever entering a prison cell, the statement added.
Rights groups have meanwhile documented the discriminatory and racist manner in which the Israel Prison Service (IPS) classifies its prisoners, specifically “to violate the rights of Palestinian prisoners defined as ‘security’ prisoners, while at the same time providing benefits to Jewish prisoners also defined as ‘security’ prisoners,” as legal NGO Adalah put it.
The Jewish Underground movement
The first item on the committee’s list was the Jewish Underground, a right-wing terror organization that carried out and plotted a string of attacks in the 1980s, with some of its members being decorated officers in the Israeli army and widely respected in the Israeli settler community.
Members of the group were convicted in 1985 of committing of a number of attacks — marking the first time a group of Israeli Jews were convicted of being part of a terrorist organization.
Among the Jewish Underground’s crimes were car bombings targeting Palestinian mayors: Nablus Mayor Bassam al-Shakaa lost both of his legs, Ramallah Mayor Karim Khalaf lost a foot, and al-Bireh Mayor Ibrahim al-Tawil was saved when the device planted in his car was discovered.
The defendants also plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, attempted to murder three Palestinian college students in Hebron, and booby-trapped Palestinian buses with bombs.
Menachem Livni, Shaul Nir, and Uziah Sharabaf received life sentences defined as lasting 24 years, while the others received terms of imprisonment ranging from three to nine years. Twenty members were released after less than two years, and none served more than five years. The three life sentences were commuted three times, finally to 10 years. With time off for good behavior, they were released in 1990.
The committee’s statement said that all have received monthly benefits, by order of Israeli law, from the Israeli Social Affairs Ministry and from Israeli National Insurance.
Three of the members of the group currently work at Israeli prime minister’s office. Nathan Nathanson, convicted of involvement in the car bombings against the Palestinian mayors, has since been employed as a political adviser for Israeli Education Minister and chairman of the Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett.
One of the three original founders of the cell, Yehuda Etzion, is the founder and current chairman of the right-wing Jewish group Hai Vekayam, dedicated to allowing Jewish prayer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
A number of others have since become heads of settlement councils, according to the committee’s statement.
Dani Eizman, Michal Hillel, and Gil Fox
The second group of “Jewish terrorists,” according to the prisoners’ affairs committee, consisted of Dani Eisman, Gil Fox, and Michal Hillel, who were convicted for the 1985 kidnapping and murder of taxi driver Khamis Tutanji, a Palestinian resident of Israel. They were each sentenced to life in prison, but released after serving between five and seven years.
The three also received the usual benefits from the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs and Israeli National Insurance while in prison.
The case was cited in a report, which indicated that unlike Jewish prisoners who are citizens of Israel and perpetrated acts against Arabs or Palestinians based on ideological motives, Palestinian prisoners who are citizens of Israel have yet to receive any real commutation of their sentence or early release.
David Ben-Shimol
David Ben-Shimol fired an anti-tank missile at a Palestinian bus in 1985, killing one person and injuring dozens. He was sentenced to life, serving only 11 years of his sentence. He also received benefits while in prison, according to the statement.
Ami Popper
After Ami Popper massacred seven Palestinians in 1990, he was found guilty of seven counts of murder and initially handed seven life sentences, before seeing his sentence commuted to 40 years.
He has reportedly been granted furlough more than 100 times in the 18 years since his conviction, marrying three times while in prison custody. He fathered six children while in custody, according to the prisoners’ committee.
The statement said in addition to the usual social benefits, his family has been the recipient of financial support from far-right Israeli NGO Honenu, which is reportedly indirectly funded from tax deductible US donations.
Zeev Wolf and Gershon Hershkovich
Zeev Wolf and Gershon Hershkovich were convicted of hurling a hand grenade at a market in Jerusalem in November 1992, killing one Palestinian and injuring 20 others, according to the statement which didn’t provide further details on the attack. They were released after serving six years and a half in prison, and received social benefits while in prison.
Yoram Shkolnik
Israeli settler Yoram Shkolnik shot and killed Moussa Suleiman Abu Abha multiple times at close range while the Palestinian was blindfolded, bound hand and foot, and guarded by Israeli soldiers after allegedly attempting to detonate a hand grenade in 1993. Shkolnik’s life sentence was later reduced.
In addition to the allowances Shkolnik received from the Israeli National Insurance and the Social Affairs Ministry, the prisoners’ committee said the Israeli government “gave him a grant to start a project of his own,” without providing additional details.
Nachshon Wales
According to the committee, Nachshon Wales was sentenced to life in prison for killing a Palestinian woman in August 1990 while she was tending her olive grove. His sentence was twice commuted, and he was released after serving 11 years. He currently works as a security guard in an illegal Israeli settlement, according to the committee.
Bat Ayin Underground
Members of terrorist organization Bat Ayin were convicted of parking a booby-trapped car in the yard of a Palestinian girls school in East Jerusalem in 2002. Some of the defendants remain in custody, receiving social benefits as well as financial support from the right-wing settler organization Elad, according to the committee, as well as from Honenu.
Dawabsha murderers
The committee’s statement also mentioned the two Israelis convicted of murder for the 2015 deadly arson attack that killed three members of the Palestinian Dawabsha family in the occupied West Bank.
Amiram Ben-Uliel was charged with three counts of murder, while a minor was charged as an accessory to murder and unnamed by Israeli media due to gag orders on the identities of underage Israeli suspects.
The prisoners’ committee’s statement named Yoram Stenhil to have been found guilty of firebombing and killing the Dawabsha family, though it could not immediately be confirmed if this was referring to the minor convicted in the case alongside Ben-Uliel.
Stenhil, in addition to receiving social benefits from the state, allegedly also is funded by Honenu and received 600,000 shekels ($169,000) in one year, according to the statement.
Yigal Amir
After being convicted for the 1995 murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Amir was given a life sentence and remains in prison. He has since been married in custody and is allowed to meet with his wife in prison. He receives social benefits and has been receiving “generous donations from extremist right-wing Jewish groups,” including Honenu, the statement said.
Elor Azarya
Israeli soldier Elor Azarya shot dead Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif in Hebron in March 2016 after the young Palestinian had already been shot and incapacitated by another Israeli soldier for allegedly attempting a knife attack. Azarya was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The sentence has been appealed by both the prosecution and the defense for being both too lenient and too harsh.
According to the prisoners’ committee, Azarya has continued to receive his salary from the Israeli army, while his father founded a charitable organization and named it after him. The organization has so far received more than 8 million shekels ($2.25 million) in donations, according to the committee.
Bus 300 Affair
Ehud Yatom, a former member of Israeli Knesset and former deputy chief of Israeli general intelligence, was among members of the Shin Bet involved in the Bus 300 Affair of 1984 in which Shin Bet members executed two Palestinian bus hijackers.
Yatom expressed pride over “smashing their skulls” with rocks after capturing them alive.
Yatom, Shimon Malka, and Yosi Genswar were convicted but did not go to jail due to a full presidential pardons.
Honenu organization
The committee’s statement also listed the aforementioned Honenu organization for offering financial and legal support to extremist Israelis who have been convicted or are on trial for terror attacks against Palestinians. The group, which raises funds in the US, also receives approximately 6 million shekels ($1.69 million ) from the Israeli government every year, according to the committee.
Dr. Goldstein organization
Dr. Goldstein organization, named after the US-born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein who massacred 29 Palestinians inside Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994, “attempts to perpetuate the terrorist Goldstein as a national hero,” the committee said, adding that the group receives direct and indirect financial support from the Israeli government.
Rehavam Zeevi organization
The prisoners’ committee also identified the Rehavam Zeevi organization as an example of Israeli state-sponsored anti-Palestinian extremism. The organization was named after the right-wing Israeli politician who was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Zeevi was known for establishing the extremist Moledet (Homeland) party that advocates for the population transfer of Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to neighboring Arab countries.
According to the committee, the group receives direct support from the Israeli government.
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Confronting the Threat of Ethnic Bioweapons
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 29.11.2017
The United States Air Force’s 59th Medical Wing’s molecular biology branch recently was revealed to have been collecting specifically Russian RNA and synovial (connective) tissue samples, prompting fears in Russia of a possible US directed ethnic-specific bioweapons program. … continue
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