In an interview for RIA Novosti, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated that the lack of intention to continue in the investigation of the explosion on the Nord Stream pipeline that occurred last year is “outrageous and scandalous.”
“I really do find it outrageous and scandalous that no forward progress has taken place regarding the attack against the Nord Stream pipeline. It has taken place more than a year ago. So, there’s no forward progress and I don’t really see the intention to have forward progress which is outrageous,” Szijjarto said.
He added that his country prefers a thorough and deep investigation into the situation regarding a recent incident at Finland’s Baltic connector pipeline that took place earlier this month.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned after the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline that it would view any acts of sabotage on gas routes used to buy gas from Russia as a casus belli, or a reason for war, though he noted that the warning had been heeded.
“What we, Hungarians, did immediately: we made clear that there is another pipeline, not just Nord Stream, but there is Southern Stream, coming gas from Russia through the southern corridor,” he said.
Internal play
Famed journalist Seymour Hersh, who had previously exposed US war crimes in My Lai and Abu Ghraib, and had most recently exposed the US’ role in the Nord Stream explosions, revealed further information in an interview with China Daily in March this year.
Hersh argued that the US elites had a “long-standing history” of being “disturbed by the Russian gas and oil sales to Western Europe” which was further confirmed after US President Joe Biden’s public threat to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipelines just two weeks prior to the war in Ukraine. This, Hersh said, proved that it “wasn’t much of a secret what we wanted to do.”
Significantly, Hersh explained that the US administration was unhappy with the fact that its proxy war against Moscow was not “going well”, and “decided in late September to trigger the mines.” He said that American foreign policy elites had made it clear, in the past, that they objected to Russian-Europpean cooperation. Based on that, Hersh said he was not “surprised one bit” by the decision to sabotage the Nord Stream Pipelines.
A leaked policy document compiled by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence calls for the depopulation of Gaza and the forced displacement of its residents to Egyptian territory, according to a copy published by the Sicha Mekomit news site on Saturday.
The ten-page document, dated October 13, recommends that Israel establish tent cities in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to accommodate the Gazan population. These tent cities should then be developed into permanent settlements, with a“sterile zone of several kilometers” separating them from the Israeli border.
Under the plan, Gaza’s 2.3 million residents would be told that “there is no longer any hope of returning to the territories that Israel will occupy in the near future,” and that “Allah made sure that you lost this land because of the leadership of Hamas.”
US support will be vital to the plan’s success, the document states. Washington could put “pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to contribute to the initiative either in resources or in accepting displaced persons,” it notes, adding that Spain, Greece, and Canada could also be convinced to accept refugees from the strip.
Sicha Mekomit stated that the plan “amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” According to the Ministry of Intelligence, however, the policy would be portrayed to the rest of the world as causing “fewer casualties among the civilian population” than the current cycle of Hamas attacks and overwhelming Israeli reprisals.
Despite its name, the Ministry of Intelligence does not oversee the activities of Israel’s security and intelligence agencies. Instead it prepares studies and policy papers for review by the government, which ultimately decides whether or not to implement them.
The ministry is headed by Gila Gamliel, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Gamliel is the second Netanyahu ally in recent weeks to recommend the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, with the Meshgav Institute, a right-wing think tank, publishing a similar policy paper last week describing the war as “a rare opportunity” for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.”
The Meshgav Institute is led by Meir Ben Shabat, who served as Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2017 until 2021. The paper was published online but deleted after it drew international condemnation.
Netanyahu’s office told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the ministry’s document represents “initial thoughts” on the future of Gaza, and will not be considered until the war is over.
Spanish Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra has urged European leaders to take immediate action against Israel, including severing diplomatic ties and imposing economic sanctions, amid the intensified bombing and expanded ground operations against Hamas militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
She also called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be prosecuted for the alleged war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.
“After this hellish night in Gaza, I have a very simple but very important message for European leaders. Do not make us complicit in genocide. Act. Not in our name,” Belarra said in a passionate video message on X on Saturday.
After this hellish night in Gaza I have a very simple but very important message for European leaders. Do not make us complicit in genocide. Act. Not in our name. pic.twitter.com/6YxdxaLDW9
More than 8,000 Palestinians, including 3,342 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s air campaign began, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. The unprecedented Hamas raid into Israel, as well as hundreds of rocket strikes on Israeli territory earlier this month, left around 1,400 people dead, while 230 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Addressing the severity of the current situation in Gaza and Israel’s disproportionate retaliation, the minister highlighted the termination of internet and telephone services in the strip, claiming that the move “has a very clear objective” of guaranteeing that “Israel commits crimes against humanity without consequences.”
“Our inaction is turning us into accomplices,” the minister stressed, arguing that “Israel believes that its international alliances guarantee its impunity.”
“We have to act now, tomorrow will be too late,” she continued, voicing her message to the EU leaders: “Cut diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Carry out exemplary economic sanctions against those responsible for this genocide. And without a doubt, let’s take Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court, so that he can be tried for what he is, a war criminal.”
She also appealed to EU citizens to take to the streets and raise their voice so that “this genocide” comes to an end.
The IDF escalated air and ground attack on Gaza on Friday, causing a near-total communication blackout. Connectivity was partially restored over the weekend, but the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues; Netanyahu announced the “second stage” of the war against Hamas on Saturday.
An investigation by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has found out that an artillery shelling that killed a Reuters journalist and injured six others in southern Lebanon earlier this month was deliberate and came from Israel.
Video journalist Issam Abdallah, who worked for Reuters, died and six other journalists were wounded — including two from AFP, one of them seriously — in the Israeli shelling of the village of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon on October 13.
Qatar-based Al Jazeera said the network’s cameraperson Elie Brakhia and reporter Carmen Joukhadar were also among those wounded in the attack.
“The initial findings of the investigation show that the reporters were not collateral victims of the shooting,” the RSF said on Sunday, adding, “One of their vehicles, marked ‘press’, was targeted, and it was also clear that the group stationed next to it was [comprised of] journalists.”
Although the RSF did not explicitly name Israel, it added that according to ballistic analysis the shots came from the east of where the journalists were standing; that is, from the direction of Lebanon’s border with the 1948 Israeli-occupied territories.
The journalists themselves have been quoted as saying that they believe they were hit by fire coming from the direction of Israel.
Offering more details, the investigation revealed that the journalists had occupied the spot, which was hit by two strikes 37 to 38 seconds apart. The first strike killed Abdallah, while the second and more powerful one ignited the vehicle used by Al-Jazeera TV crew and injured several journalists.
“Two strikes in the same place in such a short space of time, from the same direction, clearly indicate precise targeting,” the RSF report said.
It added, “It is unlikely that the journalists were mistaken for combatants, especially as they were not hiding: in order to have a clear field of vision, they had been in the open for more than an hour, on the top of a hill.”
Meanwhile, the report noted, the journalists’ bullet-proof vests and the nearby vehicle were marked ‘press’.
According to two journalists interviewed by the RSF, an Israeli helicopter had flown over the scene a few seconds before the strikes.
Lebanon’s Press Editors’ Syndicate condemned what it called the “targeting” of journalists and described the killing of a Reuters video journalist as a “deliberate crime.”
One day after the incident, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani condemned the attack. He condoled with and expressed sympathy towards the survivors as well as the international community of journalists.
The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement also strongly condemned the fatal Israeli attack against journalists in southern Lebanon, stating that the regime’s killing of civilians and threats to Lebanon’s security will not go unanswered.
“We vehemently denounce the occupying Israeli regime’s new crime against a journalist team of seven people covering news… near the Israeli enemy’s al-Abad site, outside the town of Hula, which resulted in the martyrdom of a civilian,” Hezbollah said in its statement.
“This act of aggression comes in line with the occupiers’ assaults on members of the press in Lebanon and Palestine, and is meant to prevent exposition of truth to the international community,” it added.
Gaza Fights Back is a MintPress News original documentary, directed by Dan Cohen. It tells the story of how Gaza’s armed resistance intervened in occupied Jerusalem as Israeli settlers expelled Palestinians from their homes and created provocations at the al-Aqsa compound. Featuring rare interviews with the Palestinian armed resistance and innocent victims of Israeli aggression, Gaza Fights Back offers a unique look at how Hamas’ armed wing outwitted the region’s most powerful military, and the toll exacted against the civilian population.
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill is a pediatric allergist in Toronto. She condemned COVID rules as irrational, political, harmful, and inconsistent with scientific data. In the eyes of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), Gill was dangerous.
In 2021, the CPSO issued three “cautions” (formal warnings) against her. In 2022 it began disciplinary proceedings. The College alleged that she was undermining confidence in public health measures. Its senior counsel wrote that her communications were unprofessional and unbalanced. In its persecution of Gill, the CPSO has made the case for its own demise. Self-regulated monopolies do not work. The CPSO and other professional regulators need competition.
Gill’s inquisition was not an isolated case. Like other medical regulators in North America, the CPSO forbade its doctors from publicly contradicting COVID orders and recommendations. Its Discipline Tribunal revoked the licence of Patrick Phillips, one of several Ontario doctors pursued for their COVID dissent.
The Nova Scotia medical college investigated Dr. Chris Milburn for writing an op-ed on the death of personal responsibility in the criminal justice system. The Ontario College of Psychologists ordered Jordan Peterson to undergo re-education on the use of social media for tweeting about politics. The BC College of Nurses seeks to discipline Amy Hamm for believing in the biology of two sexes.
The Law Society of Ontario compelled its members to state their concurrence with the ideology of “equity, diversity, and inclusion” until a group of rebel lawyers (of whom I was one) managed to repeal it, although the agenda remains. In British Columbia and Alberta, law societies are instituting politically laden “cultural competency” requirements. Teachers, occupational therapists, engineers, and accountants cannot safely voice doubts about transgenderism or “anti-racist” agendas.
This regulatory bullying is occurring within self-regulated professions. Like “ordinary” regulation, self-regulation is coercive. The state delegates authority to their governing bodies. Some doctors rule over other doctors. A licence from the CPSO is voluntary only in the sense that a driver’s licence is voluntary. You don’t get fines or prison time if you don’t get one, but then you can’t drive or practice medicine. Gill’s livelihood was on the line.
Civil servants do not run self-governing professional bodies, but they are part of the executive branch of government nonetheless. Legislation creates them and they are subject to the constitution. Self-regulation exists only for as long as the legislature says that it does.
Legislatures delegate authority, the theory goes, because professionals have the expertise to ensure competence and ethical practice in the public interest. Your surgeon should know how to cut. Your corporate lawyer should be able to draft articles of incorporation and not skim funds off your trust account. But focusing on technical competence and honest conduct no longer satisfies professional regulatory bodies.
We live in a managerial age. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.”
Professions have become managerial cartels. Governing bodies are their godfathers, permitting only proper people and perspectives. Their purpose is not to ensure public access to a variety of professional opinions. Instead, they seek to herd people into “correct” attitudes and behaviors. Propaganda is not evil, but merely a tool to facilitate right results.
Ironically, managerial cartels turn out to be terrible managers. They excel at exercising control but not at producing good outcomes. During COVID, even propaganda was patently incoherent. Yet Gill was one of a scant few doctors and scientists to decry the public health debacle unfolding in front of them. As her lawyer Lisa Bildy wrote in response to the College’s accusations, Gill provided the public with substantiated facts on lockdowns, masking, and COVID vaccines, relying on credible and respected scientific sources and opinions.
The College had scheduled a two-week disciplinary hearing for early 2024. But in September 2023, it abruptly cancelled the hearing with no explanation. Gill’s disciplinary ordeal had come to an end, although her formal warnings remain. Bildy will challenge their validity by judicial review in spring 2024.
Self-regulation protects professions from government interference. That is ironic, given the CPSO’s insistence that their members toe the government line. But self-regulation does not protect individual professionals from the oppression of their peers. A different model beckons: multiple, private regulators competing for members, credibility, and public trust.
Professional cartels benefit the bullies who run them. There’s no reason to grant them the power of monopoly.
Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.
Dr. Malik writes:
My name is Ahmad Malik and I am an honest surgeon passionate about free speech and medical ethics.
I have been suspended without pay and cancelled because I dare to challenge the Government narrative, defend informed consent, oppose mandates and lockdowns, question experimental jabs and insist that there are only two biological sexes.
I am raising funds to take legal action against the hospital to lift my suspension and stop the attempts by organisations to censor me.
It will set a precedent that organisations cannot bully, harass and censor those that speak up for medical ethics, and encourage others to speak out.
I am up against large organisations and my case is complex. Legal costs will easily run into the thousands. I need a decent fighting fund which will give me the best chance of being successful.
It’s Sunday, not normally a good day for gaining people’s attention on news or analytical current events’ columns. The ongoing emergency—the massacre of children and other civilians in Gaza however—trumps all other considerations, at least for this writer, so here goes.
Part One: Netanyahu Channels Amalek
In their ignorance (or malice), Old Testament haters will have a field day with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu having channeled “Amalek” as he ordered the Israeli army to invade Gaza on October 28.
This fact is so incendiary that a quick search of the New York Times today reveals that the “newspaper of record” hasn’t dared to mention it thus far.
The Israeli Prime Minister stated: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you says our Holy Bible, and we do remember and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that started 3,000 years ago—from Joshua to the heroes of 1948—the Six Day War, the 1973 October war—and all other wars of this country—are hero troops. They have one supreme main goal, to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country.”
In 1 Samuel 15:3 we find the judgment of God on the Amalekites, in the form of the divine command to Saul, the first King of Israel: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
These are patently the marching orders Netanyahu is giving to the Israeli military (“the most moral in the world”): Slay all the civilians of Gaza and spare them not.
Not even Clarence Darrow could parse it otherwise. There’s no lawyer’s loophole here; no moderating clause, which is why, as of Sunday, October 29, the New York Times and other major media have not dared to report Netanyahu’s genocidal directive.
They’ll get around to it after they have concocted a defense of the indefensible, which is their job. The delay is due to the fact that even the skilled spin doctors at the Times are having difficulty coming up with an explanation that has plausibility: the Israeli Prime Minister’s insinuation to the Israeli Army to commit genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, by invoking the Biblical war with Amalek, is not a warrant for genocide because…
Because what?
A day later and the corporate media haven’t managed to cook up a cosmetic exculpation.
Juan Cole got it partially right: “Netanyahu may have gestured to, and defiled the Bible by excusing his genocide against the civilians of Gaza with reference to 1 Samuel. But his real bible is… Zionism with its Fascist and explicitly colonial ideology.”
I say “partially,” because Mr. Cole succumbs to the humdrum of Leftspeak when he ends his summation of Zionism by describing it as a colonial ideology, which it is, but that is not the most accurate summation of its inspiration and motivation. Zionism is Talmudic.
True, a distinction has to be made between Talmudism in and of itself, as practiced before the ascendance of Zionism in the 19th century, and Talmudism as weaponized by Zionism, a task we undertook in our October 17 column, “The Disaster of Israeli Zionism.”
Only a Biblical illiterate would tell the Israelis, “You must remember… Amalek,” and then ascribe that memory to the Hebrew Old Testament.
To remember Amalek is to nullify the Old Testament!
Yahweh not only ordered the complete extirpation of the Amalekites; that’s only half the story. He ordered every faithful Israelite to blot out the memory of Amalek, so that the name of Amalek would never again be mentioned:
“You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under Heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25:19).
The Pharisee Talmud destroys the meaning of the Old Testament, rips it to shreds and stomps it into the gutter.
Rabbi Jacob Neusner, translator of the Yale University Press edition of the unredacted Mishnah (the sacred Pharisee text which comprises the supreme halacha (law) of Orthodox rabbinic Judaism), stated:
“We have already seen substantial evidence that any notion of Pharisaism (or later rabbinic Judaism), as the true and direct descendants of the Old Testament, is contradicted by the most fundamental assumption of one Mishnah-tractate after another. These stand wholly separate from the Priestly Code… And generally contradict it!” (A History of the Mishnaic Law [Brill Academic, 1974], p. 7).
As for why Yahweh ordered Amalek destroyed three millennia ago, that’s a hermeneutic for another day.
Part Two:The Gaza Massacre in 40 Words of Power
Our critics in Europe opine that Americans are slogan-mad, seeking in our haste and frenzied pace to reduce everything sublime to a bumper sticker.
There’s some truth in the observation. On the other hand, compared to our loquacious kindred in the Old World, we occasionally exhibit the laconic virtue of conveying the most meaning with the least amount of words.
Some of the head-scratching over the whys and wherefores of the dehumanization of the thousands of Palestinian children butchered in Gaza with American tax dollars this month of October — the sheer shoulder-shrugging indifference in the face of the carnage, by everyone from John Kirby to Joe Biden and their legion of epigones—can be understood with a few dozen words of power which compel obedience from the Department of Defense to the White House and most of the Western world.
Neither the Neocon Right nor the progressive Left will traverse this territory. Hence, the obligation to utter a proscribed truth which is the key to grasping why the massacre in Gaza is not being opposed by the Biden administration, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, NATO, or the European Union— falls to us, in this obscure column of ours.
From the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 57a, we read:
“Regarding bloodshed, the following distinction applies: if a non-Jew killed another non-Jew, or a non-Jew killed a Jew, the killer is liable for execution; if a Jew killed a non-Jew, he is exempt from punishment.”
My dear kiddies, you who have been infantalized by the refusal on the part of every major news source, whether Muslim, Christian, atheist, Marxist, Conservative or Liberal, to cite this halacha—now you know the real reason why the International Court in The Hague will not be prosecuting Netanyahu or his generals for war crimes. Now you know why the children of Gaza have been murdered, are being murdered and will be murdered in this annus horribilis.
If Mr. Netanyahu wishes to quote ancient passages from holy books, let him quote from Sanhedrin 57 in the Talmud of Babylon, the holiest book of Israeli theology. [BT Eruvin 21b: “Be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah”].
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE CONTRA CANCEL CUTLURE
Michael Hoffman is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press. He earns his living as a professional historian. His books are published in the USA, and in translation in Japan and France. His textbook,Judaism Discovered (1,102 pages) is banned by almost all major booksellers and libraries.
One of the world’s most powerful corporations is on the ropes as Johnson & Johnson is looking at its third attempt at leveraging bankruptcy to avoid an onslaught of lawsuits over asbestos-laced baby powder, which they allegedly hide the dangers from consumers for decades.
Many COVID vaccine skeptics reported an unusual number of “sudden deaths” happening lately.
Such reports are always dismissed as “biased.” And, perhaps, they are biased. I have to admit that I am biased, too, and that keeps me from blaming Covid vaccines for various isolated incidents that I know of.
However, we now have Peter Hotez, one of the most rabid Covid vaccine promoters, unwittingly join the “reporting unusual sudden deaths” club.
Professor Hotez’s today’s tweet laments the sudden passing of his “close colleagues and friends.” Peter mentions that they were “still active when they passed,” so he means sudden deaths.
His suddenly deceased friends were “champions of global health”; tireless Covid vaccine advocates like himself. Professor Hotez is not sure what to blame. Overwork? Exhaustion? – he asks.
I am also not sure; perhaps it is climate change or stress his friends experienced from seeing vaccine misinformation online.
The US Department of Defense announced on Friday the project to upgrade its main nuclear gravity bomb. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Department of Energy would develop the B61-13 munition, pending the approval and funding by Congress.
“The B61-13 represents a reasonable step to manage the challenges of a highly dynamic security environment,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb. “While it provides us with additional flexibility, production of the B61-13 will not increase the overall number of weapons in our nuclear stockpile.”
Plumb described the announcement as “reflective of a changing security environment and growing threats from potential adversaries.” The Pentagon, however, insisted that the decision was not made in response to “any specific current event” but “reflects an ongoing assessment” of the security environment, as described in the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review.
According to the Pentagon, the B61-13 project would use the established production capabilities supporting the B61-12, with the “modern safety, security, and accuracy features” of that munition, but the much higher yield of the B61-7 model.
While the B61-12 is a tactical weapon, with a yield ranging from 0.3 to 50 kilotons, the B61-7 is a strategic bomb that goes up to 340 KT. According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, the newest variant may replace some of the B61-7s as well as the B83, which is due to be retired soon.
First designed in 1963, the B61 is the primary air-dropped thermonuclear weapon in the US arsenal. In addition to the B1B-Lancer, B-2 Spirit and B-52 Stratofortress bombers, the bomb can also be carried by the F-15 and F-16 tactical attack jets. The F-35 has also been testing the capability to carry and deploy the bomb, though it is not officially rated for it yet.
Air-dropped nuclear weapons are one leg of the so-called Nuclear Triad, the other two being intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) based either on land or on board special submarines. A recent report by the congressional Strategic Posture Commission urged a massive expansion of both the conventional US military and the “triad,” in order to address a potential war with Russia and China at the same time.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington nonprofit that tracks nuclear arsenals, the US currently has around 5,200 atomic weapons in service, while Russia has almost 5,900.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently said, “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.” The Israeli Ambassador responded that Guterres’ comments were “shocking”, “unfathomable” and “disconnected from reality”. He called for the Secretary General’s resignation. Below are some facts about Gaza to evaluate whether Guterres was accurate or not.
Gaza is a tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean coast with the 5,000 year old Gaza City in the north. The entire strip is only 5 miles wide by 25 miles in length with 2.3 million Palestinians locked in this territory by Israel. It is the size of a small US city.
In 1996 Israeli journalist Amira Haas published the book Drinking the Sea at Gaza. After living and researching in Gaza, she described the history, conditions, religion and politics. The subtitle was “Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege”. Gaza has been under siege for decades.
About 80% of the people in Gaza are descendants of refugees who were expelled from their villages in what is now southern Israel in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe). Most Gazans have never been able to set foot outside the territory. They are born, live their lives and die in this concentration camp.
At least 50% of Gaza’s work force is unemployed. Israel restricts nearly all aspects of their economy. For example, Gaza’s fishermen are prevented from going into deeper waters to fish. If they try, they are fired on by Israeli naval boats. Farmers and shepherds are also fired on as they try to eke out a living.
From December 1998 to February 2001, there was an airport in Gaza until Israel bombed the control tower and destroyed the runways to make it unusable.
Gaza has a port but foreign boats are prevented from landing. In 2010, six civilian ships including the Turkish Mavi Marmara tried to bring humanitarian relief to Gaza. Israeli paratroopers attacked the ships, killing 9 passengers including one American.
Israel routinely demolishes the homes of Palestinians. In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to prevent the destruction of the home of a Palestinian pharmacist in Gaza.
Israel routinely denies exit permits to outstanding youth who have received scholarships to study abroad.
In 2014 Israel bombed Gaza’s water reservoir and sanitation treatment facilities, escalating the shortage of drinking water while sewage ran in the streets. Since then, as documented by Oxfam, Israel has prevented the importation of equipment necessary to rebuild sanitation and water treatment.
In spring 2018 Gazans demonstrated against their imprisonment. They called it the Great March of Return. The two year report documents that 217 Palestinians were killed and over 19,000 injured by Israeli soldiers.
In 2020 the UN issued a report saying that Gaza is not liveable. “The primary cause of this ‘unliveable environment is a highly restrictive Israeli blockade … which has reduced Gaza to the point of ‘systematic collapse.’”
Conclusion
Clearly, the Secretary General was accurate in his statement that Palestinians have endured decades of “suffocating occupation”. It is a measure of the Israeli Ambassador’s sense of impunity that he attacks the top UN official who dares to mention this.
The diplomatic conflict will increase in the coming days and weeks as Israel’s genocidal campaign continues.
The facts about Gaza and Palestine are clear: Israel is violating international law and Western states that support this are complicit. It is up to the people all over the world to speak out.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was behind the assassination attempt on Oleg Tsarev, the BBC and several Ukrainian outlets reported on Friday citing a source from the agency.
“Tsarev is an absolutely legitimate target. He is not just a fanatic of the ‘Russian world’, but personally came together with Russian tanks to seize Kiev,” the SBU source told the BBC’s Ukrainian service.
Ukrainian outlets Babel, Ukrinform and Ukrayinska Pravda have also reported that the SBU was behind the attack on Tsarev, likewise quoting an anonymous agency official.
Tsarev was attacked on Thursday night at the sanatorium he runs in Yalta, Crimea. He was reportedly shot two times and had lost a lot of blood before being taken to hospital, where he remains in critical condition.
Russian authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the attack on Tsarev but have yet to attribute blame.
The 53-year-old former Ukrainian lawmaker had retired from politics and settled in the Russian peninsula several years ago. He had served as a deputy from the now-banned ‘Party of Regions’ in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada from 2002 to 2014. Following the US-backed Maidan coup in Kiev, Tsarev endorsed the rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk and eventually became the speaker of the parliament of ‘Novorossiya’ – as the two Donbass republics dubbed their union at the time.
The BBC’s source in the SBU described Tsarev as “on the list of traitors who must answer for their crimes,” presumably referring to Ukraine’s notorious Mirotvorets (Peacekeeper) database. As a number of prominent journalists and other public figures featured on the website as “enemies of Ukraine” have been murdered over the years, it has been dubbed Kiev’s “kill list.”
The Mirotvorets page for Tsarev has been updated to blame Thursday’s attempt on his life on “Russian security services.” The site has made the same claim about the assassinations of journalist Darya Dugina and blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, which US spies later said were the work of Ukrainian intelligence.
Valentin Nalivaichenko, former head of the SBU, admitted to the existence of a secret assassination unit last month, in an interview with The Economist. The Washington Post published a lengthy feature last week about the CIA support for the SBU, admitting that the US invested “tens of millions” of dollars into the Ukrainian intelligence and its military counterpart GUR, but insisting it had nothing to do with the “dozens of assassinations” that Kiev’s spies have undertaken.
A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:
How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence. … Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?
The answer to the second part of my friend’s question—“Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?”—is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).
Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.” … continue
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The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
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