Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip fall under the definition of genocide as it is “clearly committing three of the five genocidal acts under the international treaties,” according to Palestinian-American lawyer, Lara Elborno, Anadolu Agency reports.
In an interview with Anadolu, Elborno asserted that Israel must be held responsible “for its crimes this time.”
“If it is not held responsible for its crimes … then what does that say about not only the entire framework of international law, which was developed post World War II for the purpose of preventing and sanctioning genocide, but also the international institutions which have been established for the purpose of promoting accountability,” she said.
Failure to act now would mean that international law and institutions are “essentially obsolete, completely ineffective and should be dismantled,” she added.
On the current situation in the Gaza Strip, Elborno said Israel had expressed its intent to resume its attacks and concentrate on the southern parts of Gaza after the end of “the so-called humanitarian pause.”
She said attacks are now increasing in the southern part of Gaza, where some 1.7 million Palestinians from the north were previously forced to flee.
The number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s relentless air and ground attacks since 7 October is now nearly 15,900, with more than 42,000 others injured.
The Israeli death toll stands at 1,200, according to official figures.
“What I fear is that what we have seen in the past six weeks is going to be far superseded in this moment – in brutality, in destruction, in killing – because of the fact that Israel is focusing its mammoth airstrikes, its brutality, its destruction on the very areas where the families are sheltering” said Elborno.
‘This genocide is latest aspect of colonial violence’
She stressed that it is essential for the world to realise “what Israel is doing right now is genocide.”
“This genocide is the latest aspect of its colonial violence and domination of the Palestinian people in a 75-year-long ethnic cleansing campaign to ethnically cleanse all of Palestine from Palestinians for the benefit of the settler colony,” said Elborno.
“We must strongly condemn this, we must strongly reject this, and support freedom for all people, from the river to the sea, regardless of background.”
She said Israel’s actions fit the legal definition of genocide under the Rome Statute and also the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, also known as the Genocide Convention.
“Genocide requires intent and action. Not only have there been over 100 statements of genocidal intent expressed at the highest levels of Israeli military and governments since 7 October, but they are also clearly committing three of the five genocidal acts under the international treaties,” said Elborno.
The convention defines genocide as five acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” according to the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect.
As Elborno explained, Israel is guilty of three of the five acts:
“Killing members of the group”, “Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
“This is not my opinion. This is the opinion of over 800 genocide scholars, over 47 state crime scholars and numerous scholars of genocide who have come out in this moment and said that Israel is committing genocide. Not only that, but the annihilation phase of genocide.”
‘They will not be able to hide’
Elborno said there is now “a sustained campaign” of efforts aimed at holding Israel and its allies accountable.
“We have seen a sustained campaign of international actions right before the International Criminal Court, attempts to organise now and lobby for a state to invoke the Genocide Convention before the International Court of Justice, attempts brought in the US to sue the Biden administration for violating their obligations under the Genocide Convention,” she said.
“We are seeing actions and we will continue to see legal actions brought, because this is genocide and they will not be able to hide in these courts of law, where they will have to respond to the substance of allegations.”
So far, when the US government has been asked “the question of genocide, they evade the question, they distract, they avoid answering it, but they will be required to respond,” she said.
“In fact, a judge has already ordered that they respond in the action in the US by 15 January. So, we’ll be following that closely to see if there will be any avenues for accountability before the legal system,” Elborno added.
Elborno, who is also an activist living in Paris, said organising pro-Palestine demonstrations is not easy in France, with authorities banning such protests and authorising violent tactics, like the use of tear gas.
“The situation in France is not easy, but despite this, the French people have come out in solidarity with Palestinians during this genocide, and they continue to show up for us at demonstrations every week,” she said.
“Everybody is doing what they can, despite the repression of the state,” she added.
December 5, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Produced by Liz Collin
Written & Directed by Dr. JC Chaix
Cinematography & Original Soundtrack by Josh Feland
See the references and research
Minneapolis Crime Statistics
Based on the bestseller
Award-winning investigative journalist Liz Collin sets the record straight. She uncovers what really happened on Chicago Avenue and exposes the truth of the 2020 riots.
Based on conversations with those who were there—including Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, and other Minneapolis police officers who’ve never spoken out before—Liz exposes how the facts were manipulated to dupe and divide America.
buy the book
December 5, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | United States |
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The recent death of former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger provides an opportunity to revisit one of Kissinger’s most infamous acts — the role he played in the 1970 kidnapping and murder of Gen. Rene Schneider, the overall commander of the Chilean Armed Forces.
Let me emphasize one thing right off the bat: Schneider was an entirely innocent man. Why, he wasn’t even a communist. Instead, he was simply a man of great integrity who believed that he had a responsibility to support and defend the constitution of Chile. That’s what got him killed.
In the 1970 presidential election in Chile, a socialist named Salvador Allende received a plurality of the votes. Since he had not received a majority, the election was thrown into the hands of the Chilean congress.
U.S. President Richard Nixon, along Kissinger, together with CIA officials, decided that U.S. “national security” would be threatened by the election of a socialist president in Chile.
So, Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA conspired to produce a two-level plan to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency. The first level involved the secret payment of bribes to the members of the Chilean congress, using, of course, U.S. taxpayer money. The second level was more ominous — to persuade the Chilean national-security branch to take charge of the Chilean government. (Chile was a national-security state, just as the U.S. had become.)
However, Gen. Schneider said no. He continued standing steadfastly in support and defense of the Chilean constitution, which did not provide for a national-security coup as a way to “save” the country from a president who, it was claimed, posed a grave threat to Chile’s “national security.”
Nixon, Kissinger, and CIA officials conspired to launch a violent kidnapping of Schneider to remove him as an obstacle to their plot. During the kidnapping attempt, which took place on the streets of Santiago, Schneider fought back. The kidnappers shot him dead.
The Schneider children later sued Kissinger for his role in the conspiracy to kidnap and murder their father. The federal courts threw them out on their ear. The courts held that when it comes to foreign policy, including kidnapping and assassination, the federal courts would never interfere.
Needless to say, the attitude of the Justice Department was the same. Even though there was clear and convincing evidence of a conspiracy involving felonious actions in Washington, D.C., and Langley, Virginia, the Justice Department never sought any indictments for the conspiracy to kidnap and murder an entirely innocent man. After all, it is important to keep in mind the U.S. felony-murder rule, which holds that if a person is murdered as part of a felonious action, all of the parties to the felonious action are criminally liable for the murder, even if they didn’t participate in it or intend it to happen.
Ironically, the Chilean people were so outraged over Schneider’s murder that the Chilean congress was pressured to elect Allende as president. Thus, the bribery part of the U.S. scheme didm’t work either.
Three years later, U.S. officials finally succeeded in ousting Allende from power through a violent U.S.-supported coup that left Allende and some 3,000 innocent Chilean people dead. It also left the Chilean citizenry to suffer under a brutal U.S.-supported military dictator, one in which 50,000 innocent Chilean citizens were violently rounded up and subjected to torture and rape at the hands of Pinochet’s goons. Kissinger had a close relationship with Pinochet and, in fact, visited him in Chile soon after the coup and offered him generous U.S. support for his brutal dictatorship.
For a detailed analysis of the Schneider murder, I recommend reading “The CIA and Chile: Anatomy of an Assassination” on the website of the National Security Archive.
For a good summary of the lawsuit that Schneider’s sons brought against Kissinger — and the deferential attitude of the federal courts toward foreign-policy actions like kidnapping and assassination — see René Schneider et al. v. Henry A. Kissinger et al on the website of the International Crimes Database.
December 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Chile, CIA, Latin America, United States |
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Five years back, technology companies were hitting their stride with cracking down on alternative voices. That crackdown has continued over the ensuing years. Further, evidence has increasingly been revealed that fills out the story of how United States government agents have behind the scenes been pushing the crackdown.
Given this context, one is wise to be skeptical of politicians and bureaucrats of the US government, along with their media allies, clamoring that TikTok needs to be banned because it is spreading propaganda for the government of China. It sure sounds like a fox guarding the henhouse sort of situation. Is the US taking a break from its censorship fixation to defend Americans from censorship here? Isn’t a more likely explanation for this talk of banning TikTok that making this threat is part of an effort to further bring this social media company into the US propagandizing operation — that the US government is seeking to advance its own interests, not to protect users of the company’s social media platform?
That’s Glenn Greenwald’s take that he expertly presented in the Tuesday episode of his news program System Update. Summing up the situation, Greenwald commented:
The big tech platforms — Facebook and Google, and Twitter before Elon Musk — as we know were subject to constant orders from the government about what to censor, and they did it. And the reason they’re so fixated on Elon Musk and the reason they hate Rumble and any other site that doesn’t obey them is because they can’t stand the notion that Americans can go on a platform and communicate ideas that they can’t stop.
And this is what the threats to ban TikTok are about. It’s about trying to have the American government be able to commandeer those censorship decisions so that critical videos of [Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky] and the war in Ukraine or videos about the [Osama Bin Laden] letter get censored because the US government wants it to and they can easily get Google and Facebook to censor it. It’s a little harder with TikTok. And TikTok has had to agree more and more because they don’t care about political censorship; they care about profit. These are capitalists. They don’t care about giving the US government control over content moderation. They are happy to do it if that’s the condition they have to meet in order to keep access to the very lucrative US market.
Watch Greenwald’s discussion regarding TikTok in the System Update episode here:
In the video, Greenwald further discusses how TikTok has already largely capitulated to US government control over its actions. But, the US government is not yet satisfied.
December 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | Human rights, United States |
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“A huge loss.” “A cherished friend and mentor.” “His appointment said as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness.” Tributes are pouring in after the death of Henry Kissinger, America’s best known diplomat.
Kissinger died Wednesday at the age of 100 at his home in Kent, Connecticut. Having served as US Secretary of State for eight years under the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon, Kissinger strove to maintain global US dominance during a time when it was in doubt. His influence molded America’s foreign policy for years to come.
But not everyone celebrates the empire built by the highly consequential statesman.
An Argentine speaks with Sputnik about how her family was affected.
Guillermo Montes (right) pictured next to his brother (left), the father of Agustina Montes © Courtesy of Agustina Montes
“What it really is, is a kingdom built on the ashes of genocide,” said Agustina Montes in an interview with Sputnik.
Montes is an Argentine citizen now living in New Zealand. Inflation neared 150% in her home country last month amidst an economic crisis that’s wreaked havoc on Argentina for half a decade.
Compounding the financial disruption, Montes sees an Argentine society still torn apart by its recent history.
“Genocide denialism is at an all time high,” laments the 37-year-old. “With the elections in Argentina, it’s more pressing than ever. Politicians make barely veiled threats about military uprising. We know what that can mean.”
Argentina’s vice president-elect Victoria Villarruel has downplayed the brutality of the South American country’s seven-year military dictatorship. Villarruel made headlines last month when she criticized UNESCO’s decision to declare Buenos Aires’ ESMA Navy school a World Heritage site. Tens of thousands passed through the facility before being tortured or killed.
Among them were Montes’ uncles, Miguel and Guillermo.
Reorganization
The “National Reorganization Process” was the benign name for the regime that seized power in 1976.
Argentines knew it was a military dictatorship. They’d seen several throughout the 20th century. If the generals sought to “reorganize” Argentine society it was through the barrel of a gun.
Amid the violence, one figure in Washington provided Argentina’s new rulers with the legitimacy they craved.
“We have followed events in Argentina closely,” said then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the country’s new foreign minister Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti. “We wish the new government well. We wish it will succeed. We will do what we can to help it succeed.”
“If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly.”
Photograph taken on April 29, 1975 in Washington of the then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. © AFP 2023 / GENE FORTE
For the junta, the things that had to be done were kidnapping, torture, and murder. The regime faced pressure from armed resistance groups. Some of them aligned with charismatic former President Juan Perón. Many were socialists. The regime was intent on snuffing them out.
“I have a ‘desaparecido’ on each side of my family,” Montes told Sputnik, using the Spanish term for people who vanished during that period. “My dad’s brother Guillermo and my mum’s brother Miguel Angel.”
“Miguel Angel Fiorito – Milan to his family – was taken on July 12th, 1976, so pretty early in the dictatorship. My uncle was 21 and very idealistic, I’ve been told he was very funny and warm. He worked in the villas, or slums, and had a very keen sense of social justice.”
“Guillermo Montes was my dad’s brother. He was a bit older when he was taken, about 27 or 28. He made it to 1977. He was a massive man, called ‘the Yeti’ by his companions. He went to work one day and never came back.”
Left: Miguel Angel Fiorito, Right: Guillermo Montes © Courtesy of Agustina Montes
In the repressive fog of the time, “disappeared” became the euphemism for those who fell prey to the reorganization. The word was terrifying as much because of the uncertainty it implied as anything else. Families rarely received closure. “The army never spoke,” says Montes.
Parents throughout the country sought answers. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo was formed when a group of mothers came together in Buenos Aires’ central square. The group became known for their unique form of silent protest, wearing white headscarves symbolizing the cloth diapers of their disappeared children.
Montes said her grandmother knew of the Madres, but “she lacked the political beliefs they had. She loved her son but didn’t believe that what he had done was right.”
Politics provoked sharp divisions in Argentine society in those days.
“My mum’s family was pretty pro-dictatorship up until that point [that Miguel was kidnapped],” says Montes, “mostly because they were anti-Perón.” Montes explained that Miguel began Argentina’s required military service in March of 1976.
“He was also a part of the Montoneros, one of the leftist anti-dictatorship movements. Growing up in the ‘90s, where the rhetoric was that everyone involved in the guerrilla was a terrorist, I had a deep sense of shame about this. We did not discuss politics in my house.”
“My uncles were very present ghosts but we would not talk about them.”
The Chilean Method
The divisions within Montes’ family mirrored those throughout Latin America. Cuba’s revolution sent shockwaves across the region with the reverberations felt at the highest echelons of American power. They only intensified as grassroots movements approached political legitimacy.
Washington’s worst fears were realized in 1970, when the socialist Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile.
“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,” said Kissinger during a closed-door meeting with Nixon. “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
The CIA immediately went to work destabilizing Allende’s democratic government, infiltrating Chile’s trade unions, provoking strikes, fomenting opposition within the military. Within three years Allende was overthrown in a military coup backed by Kissinger. The country’s new leader General Augusto Pinochet declared war on the left, and Santiago’s national soccer stadium was filled with dissidents waiting to be tortured, jailed, and killed.
Nixon’s embrace of Pinochet was justified under the Cold War banner of anticommunism. Socialists, democratically-elected as they may be, were also simply bad for business as it turned out. Concerned about their investments in Chile, the US-based International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation funneled millions of dollars toward forces plotting Allende’s downfall.
Three years later, Argentina’s military government sought a similar approach to repress opposition. “Their theory is that they can use the Chilean method,” aide Harry Shlaudeman informed Kissinger in 1976. “That is, to terrorize the opposition – even killing priests and nuns and others.”
By then an axis of dictatorship stretched across the Southern Cone, with American-backed juntas in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, and now Argentina. Under the coordination of the US Central Intelligence Agency the governments coordinated their efforts in a campaign of state terror known as Operation Condor.
“I don’t remember the first time I heard or read his name,” said Montes of Kissinger. “My family didn’t speak about this, and back then this whole period of Argentine history was completely erased from history classes at school.”
“I think of his name in proximity to the names of our dictators: Videla, Massera. Kissinger, the CIA, ‘Plan Condor.’ Like shadowy figures behind it all.”
Montes is likewise unsure about what drew her uncles towards issues of social justice.
“They didn’t get that from their families,” she insisted. “None of my grandparents were particularly socialist, quite the contrary. I believe they saw the disparities, the injustice all around them. But they were both middle class. My mum always says Miguel would give the clothes off his back if it meant helping someone else.”
The Latin American left was a diverse array of forces. Some admired the guerrilla tactics of Che Guevara. Others simply advocated for Western European-style labor reforms. Still, others professed Liberation Theology, a strain of Catholicism that stressed concern for the poor.
But after Cuba’s popular uprising against US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista trended towards socialism, any movement from below could be suppressed in the name of fighting the communist threat.
“Some people still say that my uncles and others like them were terrorists,” claims Montes, “that they did all sorts of horrible things, bombed child care centers and schools. Where is the evidence of that?”
“And if they did, why did the military – that was in control of the government, the police and the judicial system – not put them through a trial and in jail? Why did they disappear them and destroy any evidence and witnesses of what they allegedly did?”
Miguel and Guillermo stood firm by their beliefs, even as the military consolidated its rule.
“There is resentment towards them from my parents and grandparents,” says Montes. “They both could have escaped Argentina. They chose to stay knowing what could happen to them.”
Heaven and Earth
Kissinger stayed on as secretary of state through 1977. Then-US President Jimmy Carter continued to support the junta until the following year; when he moved to end arms transfers, Kissinger registered his opposition by attending the 1978 World Cup in Argentina as the personal guest of dictator Jorge Videla.
US relations with the regime were restored and expanded after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as the CIA sought their assistance in training Central American death squads.
Lieutenant General Videla’s government shaped up to be perhaps the most repressive of all those of the Condor era. Of the 60,000 who were killed across the continent, it’s estimated that around half of them were Argentines.
Montes’ grandparents were determined to make sure Miguel and Guillermo weren’t among them.
“[Miguel] was taken and my grandma, who was also widowed around that time, started moving ‘heaven and earth,’ as we say, to find him,” she said. “She was threatened by police and even by the church when she went there, they told her she would end up just like him.”
“My parents met through their mothers’ – my grannies’ – fight to find out what happened to their sons. I used to think it was a very romantic story when I was a child. But the reality is that two very broken people met each other because of one of the most horrific things that happened to them.”
The final years of the dictatorship saw mounting economic instability. The military attempted to distract from the matter by waging war against the United Kingdom for control of the Falkland Islands. When they failed, the days of the junta were numbered.
Liberal democracy was restored in 1983. Time went by, but Miguel and Guillermo were still gone. President Carlos Menem’s pardon of the junta leaders six years later suggested a desire to forget about the nightmare of Argentina’s Dirty War.
It was only in 2003, when new investigations were opened, that the relatives of Argentina’s desaparecidos finally saw the potential to receive some closure. For Montes’ family the process would take over a decade.
“We didn’t get to find out what happened to my uncles until very recently, almost 40 years after the fact,” says Montes. “The only reason we know what happened is because of witnesses, people that survived, who saw them.”
In that moment Miguel and Guillermo reappeared, but only in memory as Montes’ family imagined their tragic last days.
“They were both taken to the same concentration camp, the ESMA. Miguel Angel was tortured with electricity until he died. We don’t know what happened after, his body was likely burned.”
“Guillermo was able to survive the electric torture. He was drugged and put on a plane, and dropped alive in the River Plate.”
Very Present Ghosts
Montes recounts the horrible toll of her uncles’ kidnappings on her family.
“My mum was around 14 years old when her brother disappeared and her dad died. That family was destroyed… Most of the people this happened to have been destroyed: mentally, physically. My parents have had substance abuse issues, mental health issues.”
“A lot of people in my country want us to ‘move on’ from what happened, to stop talking about it. But how can you do that when the collective trauma still remains?”
Montes now feels much differently about her uncles – especially Miguel, who she’s heard many stories about.
“I have since learned a lot about my uncle and believe he was an incredible man. It feels weird to say, when he died at 21. But what made Miguel and Guillermo literally give their lives for what they believed in? I don’t know. I wish I got to meet them, to talk to them.”
Young Miguel Angel Fiorito as an infant (left) and young boy (right) © Courtesy of Agustina Montes
Among the many condolences and the judicious praise of Kissinger as a friend, a pioneer, and even a peacemaker, the eulogy of former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk may contain the most truth: “He was deeply skeptical of those who would aim to try to achieve a peaceful world. He was much more focused on establishing order because order was more reliable than peace.”
“I’m not surprised,” responded Montes. “Order for most, freedom for few.”
And what about George Bush’s comment, that Kissinger was a symbol of “America’s greatness?”
“I feel like they are saying the quiet part out loud. He is a symbol of America’s imperialism,” says Montes.
“Living in South America – and I’m sure this is true of many other so-called ‘Third World countries’ – we get sold this glossy idea of the US, you know? The Land of the Free, of Opportunity, of Freedom and Dreams.”
“I used to be enamored with the US! I grew up watching US TV shows and movies. I learned English from watching ‘Friends.’ It’s only when you grow up a bit that you start seeing it for what it is.”
The Palestinian American scholar Edward Said once remarked:
Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort.
And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn’t trust the evidence of one’s eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice.
When asked about the influence of the junta – and that of Kissinger and the United States – Montes is unequivocal.
“Their legacy is seen in the poverty in the villas, in the sunken eyes of hungry kids all over the world, in the missing but remembered, in the children of women who were taken that we are still looking for. It’s still very much there.”
But Montes doesn’t think the final chapter has been written in the story of Latin America. “I wholeheartedly believe in justice.”
December 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Argentina, CIA, Latin America, United States |
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After seven weeks of relentless Israeli bombing throughout Gaza, according to the modest estimates of the UN as of November 23 (right before a humanitarian ceasefire came into effect), more than 14,800 people have been killed in the enclave, including about 6,000 children and 4,000 women.
While these Israeli attacks on Gaza are by far the worst yet, with Israel dropping a reported 40,000 tons of explosives in less than two months, it is worth recalling that Israel has repeatedly waged assaults against the Palestinians of Gaza over the past 15 years.
Living in Gaza for years between late 2008 to March 2013, I was witness to two major Israeli assaults (and countless smaller ones over the years). Here, I will highlight what I saw and documented, to show that the horrific Israeli war crimes we are seeing coming out of Gaza are not new, even if they are exponentially worse this time around.
On December 27, 2008, Israel unloaded 100 bombs on Gaza within the first minutes of its Operation Cast Lead. The Shifa Hospital (Gaza’s main), was receiving the dead and the injured non-stop. The ICU beds were filled, and doctors told me that as soon as one patient died another took their place.
Together with a handful of international activists in Gaza I made the decision to ride in ambulances with Palestinian medics as they searched for the wounded and took them to hospitals. We did so aware that Israel barred journalists from Gaza, and knowing that, in the past, medics and ambulances had been targets for the Israeli army.
I would see this first-hand soon after first joining the medics, when an Israeli sniper targeted the ambulance I rode in, injuring one medic in the leg when one of at least 14 bullets hit the rear of the car as we sped away.
This was during the January 7, 2009 “humanitarian cease-fire” hours. The Geneva Conventions explicitly state that “medical personnel searching, collecting, transporting or treating the wounded should be protected and respected in all circumstances.”
Some days prior, Israeli shelling had killed Arafa abd al-Dayem, a medic I knew and had accompanied. He was rescuing injured Palestinians, standing at the rear of the ambulance when it was hit with a shell containing flechettes. Flechette munitions are designed to spray thousands of small metal darts in a wide arc, increasing the chance of injuries and death. The dart’s sharp head is designed to break away, increasing the amount of internal damage done. Another 21-year-old medic, a volunteer, was injured, his legs lacerated.
The day after Arafa was killed, the Israeli army fired three times within two minutes on the neighborhood where family and neighbors had gathered to pay their respects. The shelling, again with flechettes, killed six more civilians, including a young pregnant mother, and injured 25 more.
The night the Israeli land invasion began, on January 3, shells flew dangerously close to the Red Crescent station in the district east of Jabaliya I was then based in, when not in one of the ambulances. By morning it was impossible to access, and by the end of the war, we returned to find it riddled with bullet holes from machine-gun fire and blasted by shelling.
The ambulances and their medical equipment were some of the most bare-bone I’ve seen, supplies depleted by the long Israeli siege and blockade of Gaza. The medics drove quickly over bumpy roads to get to the people in need, wasted little time collecting them, and bolted away, trying to avoid being targeted by the Israeli army.
After invading the Tel al-Hawa district in the third week of its war on Gaza, the Israeli army repeatedly bombed the Quds hospital, while Israeli snipers targeted Palestinians fleeing residential areas. I was with an ambulance that went to evacuate civilians from the hospital and take them to the Shifa hospital (which had no space), going back repeatedly to save Palestinian civilians, each time at risk of being shot by Israeli soldiers.
By the end of the 2009 war, the Israeli army had killed 23 medics, and injured 57 more, destroying at least nine ambulances and damaging 16 more. None of the journalists or medics that I knew had protective body armor – including me. Given the massive bombs which Israel was dropping on us, it would’ve made little difference.
One evening, after giving an interview to RT about what I’d seen while riding in ambulances in the extremely dangerous areas of Gaza’s north, just after finishing the interview, Israel shelled the building at least seven times. We scrambled down ten flights of stairs, thankfully intact. Incidentally, in 2021, Israeli airstrikes destroyed the same building as well as another, collectively housing 20 media outlets.
During and after the 2008-2009 war, I took countless testimonies of Palestinian parents who said their children were deliberately murdered by Israeli soldiers: shot point blank, drone struck during ceasefire hours, shot by a sniper. In Shifa hospital, I met the mutilated survivors whose home had been shelled with white phosphorus munitions, killing six family members, including an infant burned alive. I followed up on their story afterwards, learning more chilling details and seeing their bombed-out home with my own eyes. Graffiti, apparently left on the walls by Israeli soldiers, included hate messages and threats, like “it will hurt more next time.” (Warning: disturbing images)
In the last two months, Israel has repeatedly bombed schools, including UN-affiliated ones that housed displaced Palestinians seeking safe shelter. It did the same back in January 2009, bombing numerous UN schools, including the Fakhoura school that has suffered in the current war as well.
I could, unfortunately, write pages more on what I saw and heard in those three weeks of Israeli bombing, and also during the November 2012 Israeli campaign (when I was based at a hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza), but for the sake of some brevity will stop. What did not stop were the Israeli bombings and shooting immediately post ceasefire, both in 2009 and in 2012.
But almost as brutal as the Israeli bombing campaigns has been the over-16-year-long strangling siege on Gaza. I’ve written about it at length, but which in summary it has caused a vast increase in poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, anemia, stunted growth, diabetes, treatable illnesses going untreated, water that was 95% undrinkable (already back in 2014).
On November 24 of this year, a four-day ceasefire was implemented, to allow for exchange of Hamas hostages for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, as well as for deliveries of desperately needed food, water, fuel and medical aid, of which the 2.4-million population of Gaza had been deprived for weeks. Unsurprisingly, there were reports of the truce being violated, including snipers firing on Palestinian civilians.
In the first day after the ceasefire expired, over 100 Palestinians were killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as Israel started to deliver the promised “mother of all thumpings,” ostensibly to Hamas militants.
There is no space for me here to outline all the horrors inflicted upon Gaza in the past two months, nor do I need to: social media and Telegram channels are filled with horrific scenes of schools housing displaced civilians getting bombarded again, entire blocks of refugee camps bombed, hospitals and churches housing tens of thousands of displaced civilians bombed, white phosphorous again rained down on densely inhabited residential areas, and on, and on.
What I do want to highlight is that there is no doubt in my mind, or in the minds of numerous other international reporters and observers who have seen the situation on the ground first-hand, that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, and the intent, if not the reality, is genocidal.
We have globally watched as Israel commits the definition of genocide: “The intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Raz Segal, a genocide expert, wrote of this after only one week of Israel’s bombardment, since which Israel has committed uncountable heinous crimes.
In late October, former Director of the UN’s New York (OHCHR) office, Craig Mokhiber, resigned from his position in protest and disgust, stating, “Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.”
He explicitly stated that Israel’s “wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people… coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt, this is a textbook case of genocide.”
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
December 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Canada’s top politicians were recently served a notice of intention to seek prosecution for aiding and abetting Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, National Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and Justice Minister Arif Virani were warned they could be liable and face charges before the International Criminal Court for aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes.
During the past six weeks Israeli ministers have repeatedly expressed their genocidal intent towards what they’ve called “human animals” in Gaza. Israel has cut off water, food, fuel and electricity to the open-air prison and one minister even declared a desire to “eliminate everything” in the coastal strip of 2.2 million. Tens of thousands of houses, hospitals, Mosques, schools and other buildings have been destroyed. So far over 30,000 Palestinians have been injured and 14,000 killed, including 6,000 children. As the notice to Canadian ministers’ highlights, a director at the United Nations, Craig Mokhiber, called Israeli policy a “text-book case of genocide.”
Ottawa has enabled Israel’s bid to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from a small part of what’s left of their historic homeland. During a visit foreign minister Melanie Joly offered Canada’s approval for Israel’s genocidal siege and violence. In describing the meeting a week into its onslaught, Israel’s foreign minister Eli Cohen boasted, “We continue to mobilize the world for the fight against Hamas! I met today with Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, who also came to support Israel.”
At a rhetorical level Trudeau has repeatedly supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” while defence minister Bill Blair declared that “Hamas has to be eliminated.” At the same time Canadian officials have largely refused to condemn Israel’s war crimes and have rebuffed calls for a ceasefire.
At the United Nations Canada abstained on a General Assembly resolution calling for “protection of civilians and upholding legal and humanitarian obligations.” It was backed by 120 countries.
Beyond the diplomatic sphere, Canada has offered more concrete assistance. After Hamas’ October 7 attack the Canadian Air Force flew 30 Israeli reservists back into the country. With flights evacuating Canadians from Tel Aviv to Athens, military aircraft transported Israeli reservists in the other direction.
Alongside assisting Israeli reservists to return, Canadian special forces were dispatched to Israel. The stated reason for the deployment of these soldiers is to assist the embassy with security and evacuations. That may be true. But the Canadians may have a more direct role in Gaza and — at a minimum — the deployment reflects Canada-Israel military co-operation.
Through the Five Eyes and NATO the Canadian military has significant ties with its Israeli counterparts. Bilaterally, Canada and Israel both have military attachés in each other’s countries and top military officials regularly visit each other. The Israeli Air Force trains in Canada and for 15 years Canadian troops training Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank have coordinated with their Israeli counterparts. Canada also has a “border management and security” agreement with Israel, even though the two countries do not share a border.
The Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Fund has pumped tens of millions of dollars into joint research ventures between the countries’ military companies. In recent years Canada has exported a little more than $20 million worth of arms to Israel annually (Canadian weapons makers sell many millions of dollars more in components to US firms that arm Israel.) But Canada is a signatory to the UN Arms Trade Treaty, which is designed to limit weapons from entering conflict zones and preventing their use by human rights violators.
As detailed in the notice of intention to prosecute, the Trudeau government has failed to fulfill its obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty and Canada’s Export and Import Permits Act despite repeated calls by the opposition NDP to end arms sales to Israel. The intention to prosecute also cites the government’s failure to stop illegal recruitment for the IDF or Canadian charities from unlawfully assisting Israel’s military.
Private organizations and Israeli officials have long recruited in Canada. Three years ago, a multi-faceted campaign was launched calling on the federal government to apply charges under the Foreign Enlistment Act against those “recruiting” or “inducing” Canadians to assist the Israeli military.
The government immediately sought to downplay the issue after they were delivered a formal complaint and an open letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, filmmaker Ken Loach, author Yann Martel and 150 others. Responding to a Le Devoir reporter’s question on the matter then Justice Minister David Lametti simply said, “it’s up to the police to investigate” any violation of an act that states “any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offence.”
The Trudeau government hasn’t simply downplayed illegal IDF recruitment. They’ve boosted it. In January 2020 the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv hosted a pizza party to celebrate the 78 Canadians fighting in the Israeli military.
The government has also been indifferent to other illegal forms of support for the Israeli military. Many of the 200+ Canadian-based Israel-focused registered charities assist the Israeli military in contravention of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) rules, which state that “increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s armed forces is charitable, but supporting the armed forces of another country is not.”
The HESEG Foundation, Canadian Zionist Cultural Association (CZCA) and many other registered charities assist the IDF. But the CRA has been slow to apply its rules to Israel-focused charities.
The Trudeau government’s indifference to Canadian law has enabled Israeli impunity. Ditto for Ottawa’s indifference to international law. In 2020 Ottawa pressed the International Criminal Court to stop investigating Israeli war crimes. Their letter said it didn’t believe the ICC had jurisdiction over Palestine and implied Canada could sever its funding if the ICC pursued an investigation of Israeli crimes. In a similar move, three months ago Ottawa sought to block a World Court opinion on Palestine. Canada submitted a statement opposing an International Court of Justice advisory opinion called for by a UN General Assembly resolution titled “Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.
To protect Israel from criticism the Trudeau government created a special envoy to combat antisemitism and formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is designed to marginalize those criticizing Palestinian dispossession. The Trudeau government also sued to block proper labels on wines from illegal settlements while expanding the Canada-Israel free trade agreement that grants duty free status to products produced in illegal West Bank settlements.
Since taking office in 2015 the Trudeau government has voted against nearly 100 UN resolutions, often supported by most of the world, upholding Palestinian rights. They’ve also repeatedly justified Israeli violence against Palestinians while mostly ignoring its brutal blockade of Gaza, demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and growing Jewish supremacy inside its 1948 borders.
The notice to prosecute was delivered by activists to the ministers’ offices in Toronto, Ottawa, Sherbrooke and Montreal. Subsequently the lawyers driving the initiative held a press conference to explain the legal process behind the notice of intention to seek prosecution. A few Canadian media reported on it, but it was widely covered in international pro-Palestinian outlets.
The notice of intention to seek prosecution concludes:
“In order to reduce the risk of further complicity, the Government of Canada must immediately take the following diplomatic and economic measures:
1. Call for a ceasefire to prevent further loss of life in Gaza;
2. Call for secure provision of meaningful humanitarian aid to Gaza;
3. Issue a public statement condemning Israel’s breaches of international law;
4. Insist that Israel fully comply with international law;
5. Cancel all Canadian permits for arms exports to Israel;
6. Prosecute those recruiting Canadian volunteers for Israel’s armed forces; and
7. Prevent Canadian charities from using donations to benefit Israel’s armed forces.”
The least Canadians should be able to expect of their government is adherence to international law.
December 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Canada, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Washington is run by Israel’s proxies
Americans remain largely ignorant about the extent to which foreign influence pervades the United States government, and I am not referring to the fraudulent claims made by Hillary Clinton that Russian has interfered materially in US elections. The real threat comes from elsewhere. Few outside the government itself are likely to be aware of the extent to which the state of Israel and its domestic affiliate-lobby operating out of Washington and New York have corrupted the United States political system, to the point where nurturing and enabling the Jewish state in its ambitions to dominate much of the Middle East has become effectively US policy. As the exchanges surrounding the recent fighting in Gaza, rightly referred to as a war crime and ethnic cleansing, perhaps even the first steps in a planned genocide, demonstrate that even when the US has genuine interests at stake Israel believes itself empowered to say “no” to the president of the United States. The assault on Gaza and the ongoing killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians started again on Friday after a week long pause for hostage/prisoner exchanges. It will continue and Washington is complicit in the deaths as it has politically shielded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government no matter what it does while also arming and funding the Israeli actions.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said that “We the Jewish people control America.” Indeed, the Israeli dominance of the “fools on the hill” in DC has been carefully contrived, cultivated and sustained. One prime example is the regular rush to the Israeli door whenever Congress is in recess. It is not widely reported how large gaggles of congressmen usually drawn in separate groups from each major party travel to Israel on all expenses paid trips where they are wined and dined and subjected to round after round of presentations that drill into their otherwise empty heads all the virtues of Israel and what it represents. This is propaganda combined with indoctrination at its finest with many “facts” presented by the speakers conveniently fabricated to support Israel’s perpetual victimhood and to hide the fact that Israel is a strategic liability for the US rather than an actual ally or asset. Nor is it a democracy. It is a formula for dissimulation and lying that worked with the Jewish officials in the Pentagon under George W. Bush to provoke a war against Saddam Hussein that killed one million Iraqis and cost the US taxpayer nearly $2 trillion.
The trips to Israel are funded by the “educational” affiliate of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). One might reasonably ask why an organization connected to AIPAC, which describes itself on its website as having the “mission” to “…strengthen, protect and promote the US-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel,” should be able to fund the annual mass migration of congress-critters to promote Israeli interests without having to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as an agent of the Jewish state’s government? The answer is actually quite simple. Congress and the Justice Department have been so corrupted by pro-Israel money and other manifestations of Jewish power that they do not enforce the law when it comes to Israel. The venal creatures in Congress are a large part of why that is so.
And the trips are structured in a way that discourages any actual discussions of real issues affecting the two countries. The payoff is exceptional from Israel’s point of view, with the United States serving as, in Netanyahu’s own words, a near unlimited source of money and weapons from a country in thrall, an “America [that] is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction” possessing “an inherently dupable people.”
One particularly tone-deaf recent trip to Israel occurred in 2019. In the wake of two heavily reported mass killings in Dayton and El Paso that were attributed both by the media and the Democrats to “racism” a senior US Congressman led a delegation of 41 of his Democratic Party colleagues plus spouses on a week-long luxury all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, which is one of the few countries in the world that defines its full citizenship as a matter of race and religion and which was at that time as now widely criticized for its human rights record. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland led the annual excursion, having made the pilgrimage to Israel more than fifteen times. “I am pleased to join so many House Democrats in traveling to Israel to reaffirm our support for a critical US ally and to continue learning about the opportunities and the challenges facing Israel and the Middle East,” he said shortly before departing for Tel Aviv.
Other politicians at state levels have followed the federal government lead by making their way to Israel to kiss Benjamin Netanyahu’s ring. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is a presidential aspirant, has gone way overboard in expressing his love for the Jewish state. He transported his whole cabinet to Jerusalem to publicize his legislation to combat what he views as antisemitism and has followed through on that by banning Palestinian student groups at the state universities. He also opposes allowing Palestinian immigrants into the US because they are “antisemites.”
More recently, California governor Gavin Newsom has made the pilgrimage trip and his office has released his comments on just how wonderful Israel is. He wrote his heart out, meaning that the memo is totally phony and contrived bullshit which demonstrates no sympathy at all for the tens of thousands of Palestinian victims: “As I reflect back on the extraordinary people I just met today in Israel, I am reminded of the deep connections between my home state and this country. A country that has faced many dark times before, and certainly is in one now. But amid this present struggle against terrorists are stories of unimaginable heroism — and unspeakable tragedy. I grieved with families in mourning, I met with young soldiers fresh from bomb shelters and battlefields, and I sat with leaders who bear the responsibility of response to it all. Despite the horror, what I saw and heard from the people of Israel was a profound sense of resilience. A commitment to community and common purpose, especially in these most difficult of times. That’s the Israeli spirit. And it’s also the California spirit…”
Republican presidential wannabe Chris Christie has also recently shown up in the Jewish state to kiss the ring and we expect that Nikki Haley will soon arrive bowing and scraping, particularly as it is Jewish money honoring her passion for Israel that is floating her campaign. And there is lots of love even at the bureaucratic level in a number of states to make sure Israel is getting enough American money. In some states including Virginia Israel trade commissions have been funded which have benefited Israeli businesses and investors much more than local workers or companies. In Virginia the commission is staffed by American Jews and Israelis even though it is funded by the state.
The Israeli power over Congress is also reflected in billions of tax dollars that flow from the US Treasury to the Jewish state each year in spite of the fact that Israel is a wealthy country. Also one might consider the White House’s supine behavior vis-a-vis Netanyahu and its large percentage of senior level staff appointments that are given to Jews. Donald Trump gave away the house to Netanyahu by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, approving the annexation of the Golan Heights, and giving the Israeli government a free hand to “deal with” the illegally occupied Palestinian areas on the West Bank and Gaza, which has produced thousands of Arab arrests without trial. Trump’s Ambassador to Israel was his lawyer David Friedman, who spent four years covering for Israel and represented its interests rather than those of the United States. Biden arguably has done even worse by becoming complicit in war crimes by enabling Netanyahu and his band of criminals to perform a developing genocide in Gaza.
One must look at how the power of the Lobby has influenced senior staffing decisions coming from the White House in Israel’s favor because that is where foreign policy is made. President Joe Biden personally considers himself to be a “Zionist.” The president’s Chief of Staff and the State Department’s top three officials have been Zionist Jews. Jews also head Treasury, Homeland Security, the Office of National Intelligence, the Justice Department, the National Security Council and the deputy director slot at CIA.
Regarding some other appointments that smell very bad, two recent stories stand out. The first, entitled “Tel Aviv’s Man in Washington”, comes from journalist James Carden. It concerns Amos Hochstein who, has been reportedly tapped as President Joe Biden senior adviser for consultations with top Israeli officials in order to mediate between Israel and Lebanon. Hochstein is an odd choice as he was born and raised in Jerusalem and is a Jewish Israeli-US dual national who served in the Israeli Defense Forces in the early 1990s and who still has a mother and father living in Israel. He moved to Washington after military service and began his unusually rapid ascent to the highest levels of the US government, beginning with a staff position for Jewish Congressman Sam Gejdenson and then as Staff Director of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It is not clear how he obtained a security clearance given his background, but he obviously was given highly sensitive assignments. Carden cites the Lebanese news source L’Orient which reported that Hochstein, as a congressional staffer in the 1990s,” met with an Iraqi Foreign Ministry official to discuss a plan to resettle Palestinians in Iraq in return for sanctions relief.” This background suggests that Hochstein is a bit of a specialist in removing Palestinians from Israel.
After that job, Hochstein joined the Obama administration, eventually being placed in charge of the energy portfolio at the State Department, an astonishing leap in status for a man billed as “Biden’s favorite energy guy” who appears to have no college degree. And what about a biographical sketch that mentions Hochstein’s ownership interests in two Washington restaurants and a movie theater? And then there is his obtaining a well remunerated board seat on the Ukrainian state oil and gas giant Naftogaz, which positively exudes a Hunter Biden odor? And it was reported that early in the Biden administration, Hochstein was the president’s choice to lead efforts to block or destroy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which presumably would have inter alia enhanced his own likely financial interests in Ukrainian energy companies.
Carden also poses the big question, which is “How could someone of Hochstein’s (opaque) background possibly be viewed as an honest broker in the Middle East?” He responds to that himself with “He isn’t” and then goes on to explain “The practice of appointing foreign nationals in sensitive positions of public trust are wildly inappropriate and lead, inevitably, to a subversion of US national interests. As Biden and his staff of bought and paid for political appointees drag us deeper and deeper into two wars 5,000 miles from our shores, the pernicious influence of foreign nationals at the highest levels of the US government is a danger the American people need to awaken to.”
To that expert analysis I would add that naming an Israeli as US-envoy for dealing with a highly manipulative Israel is completely delusional. Hochstein will lean strongly towards benefitting his country, which is Israel, and when it comes to energy there are large gas and oil fields just off the Gazan coast, which would fall into Israeli hands if the Gazans were completely eliminated. The fields are worth many billions of dollars. It will be interesting to watch the development of what Hochstein will contrive to hand them over to his Jewish countrymen while also benefitting his own interests.
The other story is similar in that it illustrates why you should not send Israelis or even American Jews who feel very strongly about Israel to deal with the Israeli government or even anywhere near the Middle East. I say this not to punish them for being Jewish but rather to avoid placing them in situations where there would be a presumption of serious potential conflict of interest. A former senior US official fitting that profile is facing a backlash after being caught on video included on the link repeatedly harassing a halal food vendor in New York and aggressively calling for the deaths of more Gazan children. Stuart Seldowitz previously served as deputy director of the United States Department of State’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs where he must have been quite a lot of fun to be around. How does a man like that get a senior diplomatic post dealing with the Middle East? Well, the only answer must be that he is given the job precisely because he is Jewish and will do the “right thing” for the state of Israel. And you wonder why US foreign policy might be politely described as “completely screwed up”? It did not happen by accident!
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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
December 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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You might think that a government faced with a barbaric public stabbing of schoolchildren and an unprecedented night of rioting in its capital city would extend condolences to the victims, take a deep breath, and try to figure out how a city managed to spiral out of control on its watch. But instead, Thursday’s riots in Dublin were met by a shallow, one-dimensional analysis by all of the key authorities involved: to blame the “far right.”
For example, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris blamed the violence on the streets on a “hooligan faction driven by far right ideology.” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pledged at a news conference to “modernise our laws against incitement to hatred and hatred in general.” And Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that a “thuggish and manipulative element” was using the earlier incident to “wreak havoc”.
The Irish government would have us believe that the most destructive riot in Dublin in living memory was not a symptom of failed governance, but the result of an ideological fringe group going on a looting spree. That is a suspiciously convenient narrative for the powers that be, for it absolves them of all responsibility for losing control of the city. By fingering a Far Right fringe, public officials can wash their hands of any role they themselves may have played in bringing the city to the brink of anarchy.
But blaming these riots on the “far right” only serves as an excuse for not engaging in serious reflection about the deeper causes of this incendiary atmosphere, and the ensuing events. These events did not come out of nowhere and cannot be simplistically reduced to the work of a fringe “far right” mob. “Far right” talk is an excuse for not thinking hard about what led up to this and how public authorities lost control of Dublin’s city centre.
Of course, any sane and sensible person would recognise that going on a looting spree and setting fire to trams and buses is an absolutely destructive, anti-social and counterproductive way to react to a horrible crime. And given that there is documentary evidence that some of the rioters used explicitly anti-immigrant rhetoric, yes, there was undeniably an element of “Far Right” sentiment at work in these riots, if, by that, we mean indiscriminate hatred and anger directed toward immigrants in general.
Nonetheless, to suggest that Thursday’s chaotic scenes can be blamed exclusively on the “Far Right” would be profoundly disingenuous. To begin with, many of the “hooligans” that joined the riots seemed at least as interested in looting shops and finding an excuse to set something on fire as in joining a political movement. Secondly, even if there were important xenophobic elements among the rioters, this does not explain how a city can be so fragile as to succumb to chaos and looting in a few hours.
The attempt to scapegoat the “Far Right” for the breakdown in public order that we saw on Thursday conveniently ignores the fact that successive Irish governments have allowed criminals to wander the streets of Dublin with relative ease. Budding criminals know they will face lenient sentences, partly because there is simply no room in Irish jails to hold them for long, leading to a “revolving door” scenario in our prisons, as pointed out five months ago by the Irish Prison Services.
People feel less safe in Dublin city than ever before, and there is a widespread belief that criminals in Dublin can act with impunity, or else will not suffer a prison sentence proportionate to their crimes. The government most certainly must answer for failing to address this problem over the years. This failure most certainly cannot be blamed on “far right” ideology.
Thirdly, while there is no excuse for attacking police officers or setting vehicles alight, the Irish government has undoubtedly paved the way for these riots by refusing to listen to its citizens for years. Ireland’s political establishment has consistently been dismissive toward reasonable concerns about its immigration and refugee policies, reducing them to the rantings of a “Far Right” fringe. This has created an atmosphere of pent-up resentment and frustration, and it was only a matter of time before this frustration erupted onto the streets.
Many aspects of Ireland’s immigration policies strike people as profoundly unfair and destructive, including allowing very large numbers of asylum-seekers to avail of free or cheap housing on the taxpayer’s dime while Irish citizens are frozen out of the housing market; and flooding local communities with large numbers of refugees with no prior consultation whatsoever. In response to complaints, the Irish government has just doubled down, and given us more of the same “open door” immigration policies.
So when a city is taken over by thugs for a night, we should be less worried about whether there were “far right” elements among them, and more worried about why they felt they could openly engage in this level of brazen violence and destruction and get away with it; and how the atmosphere in Dublin become so tense and angry that a single stabbing incident, however unspeakable, could spark riots on a level we have not seen in generations.
December 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Ireland |
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… when using the same assumption-based methodology to arrive at the conclusion only 0.5% of scientific papers reject AGW.
In a new study, six scientists (Dentelski et al., 2023) effectively eviscerate a methodologically flawed 2021 study (Lynas et al.) that claims 99.53% of 3,000 scientific papers examined (by subjectively classifying papers based only on what is written in the abstracts) support the anthropogenic global warming, or AGW, position.
The Lynas et al. authors begin with the assumption that a consensus on the human attribution for global warming not only exists, it is ensconced as the unquestioned, prevailing viewpoint in the scientific literature. So their intent was to effectively quantify the strength of this assumed widespread agreement by devising a rating system that only assesses the explicit rejection of AGW in the paper’s abstract as not supporting the presumed “consensus.”
Of the 3,000 papers analyzed in Lynas et al., 282 were deemed not sufficiently “climate-related.” Another 2,104 papers were placed in Category 4, which meant either the paper’s authors took “no position” or the position on AGW was deemed “uncertain”… in the abstract. So, exploiting the “if you are not against, you are for” classification bias, Lynas and colleagues decided that the authors of these 2,104 scientific papers in Category 4 do indeed agree with AGW, as what is written in the abstract does not explicitly state they do not agree.
Interestingly, if this classification bias had not been utilized and the thousands of Category 4 (“no position” or “uncertain”) papers were not counted as supporting AGW, only 892 of the 2,718 (climate-related) papers, or 32%, could be said to have affirmatively stated they support AGW. So, simply by assuming one cannot divine the AGW opinions of authors of scientific papers by reading abstracts, it could just as facilely be said that 67% (1,826 of 2,718) of climate-related papers reject AGW.
Dentelski and colleagues also point out that by their own analysis, 54% of the papers they examined that were classified by Lynas et al. as only “implying” support (Category 3) for AGW or Category 4 (“no position” or “uncertain”) actually described a lack of support for AGW in the body of the paper itself. But since this expressed non-endorsement of AGW was not presented in the abstract, these papers were wrongly classified as supporting AGW anyway.
To fully grasp the subjective nature of the methodology employed by Lynas and colleagues, Dentelski et al. uncover the internals of the study indicating 58% of the time two independent examiners did not agree on numerical classification scale (from 1 to 7) for a paper. If two people agree just 42% of the time when classifying papers, it cannot be said that the rating system is sufficiently objective.
The Lynas et al. paper appears to be little more than an exercise in propaganda.
December 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | AGW |
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The Mossad is preparing to assassinate Hamas leaders around the world once the war between Palestinian resistance forces in Gaza and Israel winds down, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 1 December.
“With orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s top spy agencies are working on plans to hunt down Hamas leaders living in Lebanon, Turkiye, and Qatar,” the report reads.
“I have instructed the Mossad to act against the heads of Hamas wherever they are,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a nationwide address on 22 November.
In the same address, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that the Hamas leaders are living on “borrowed time.”
“They are marked for death,” Gallant continued. “The struggle is worldwide, both the terrorists in Gaza and those who fly in expensive planes.”
Usually, Tel Aviv keeps talks of these assassination attempts secret. However, since 7 October, Tel Aviv has thrown caution to the wind in most cases and voiced its view of taking out resistance leaders openly.
“Israel is already working to kill or capture Hamas leaders inside Gaza,” officials told the WSJ. “The question now for Israeli leaders isn’t about whether to try to kill Hamas leaders elsewhere in the world, but where—and how.”
Some Israeli officials wanted to launch an immediate hunt on Khaled Mashaal and other Hamas leaders who live abroad, citing anger over footage of Mashaal and other Hamas officials, including political chief Ismail Haniyeh, celebrating the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.
Former Mossad director Efraim Halevy said that the plan to pursue Hamas officials internationally is “a desire to exact revenge, not a desire to achieve a strategic aim,” adding that such a plan is “far-fetched.”
Amos Yadlin, a retired Israeli general, said, “All the Hamas leaders, all those who participated in the attack, who planned the attack, who ordered the attack, should be brought to justice or eliminated […] It’s the right policy.”
The Mossad has a legacy of international assassinations, dating back to the 1950s with the assassination of the head of Egypt’s Military Intelligence on Israel, Mustafa Hafez, who urged then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser to form a commando brigade that would conduct cross-border attacks on Israel.
On 12 July 1956, Israel assassinated Hafez with an explosive device hidden in an envelope.
The intelligence agency also murdered Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh on 28 November 2020, who had been on Mossad’s hit list since 2009.
According to Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First, Israel has conducted more than 2,700 targeted assassinations since the second World War.
December 2, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Aletho News
Aletho News 