Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

How Israeli legal squad fumbled, failed, got exposed at ICJ genocide hearing

By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | January 14, 2024

South Africa on Thursday presented compelling evidence of the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which was followed by incoherent rhetoric by a team of lawyers representing Tel Aviv, who tried to defend the indefensible.

The team of lawyers representing the South African government presented an exhaustive, well-researched 84-page document at the top UN court in the Hague, explaining that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, by using a variety of methods.

They include causing serious bodily and mental hurt, forced evacuation of people, widespread hunger, and bringing about “physical destruction” of people in the small besieged territory.

In their opening remarks, the South African team said they “place Israel’s genocidal acts and omissions within the broader context of Israel’s 56-year occupation, 25-year apartheid, and 16-year siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.”

“The point is not simply that Israel is acting disproportionately. The point is that the prohibition on genocide is an absolute,” said Vaughan Lowe, one of the South African lawyers.

More than 23,500 people have already been killed in Gaza in the past 100 days, a vast majority of them children and women. Thousands more are lost under rubble and presumed dead.

Physicians, aid workers and journalists have also been killed deliberately by the Israeli regime’s forces, and the damage to the civil infrastructure is enormous and disproportionate to anything seen before.

On Thursday, the legal team representing South Africa requested that the court issue emergency measures to stop the relentless aerial bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

With this action, South Africa showed that its people still remember and respect Nelson Mandela’s words: “We know very well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

In its Friday counter-submission, lawyers representing the Israeli regime laid out its “defense”.

Led by veteran British lawyer Malcolm Shaw, the team of lawyers argued that South Africa’s application “distorted” and “decontextualized” Israeli military actions in Gaza.

The team of lawyers representing the regime also made some outlandish claims, repeating lies peddled by the Israeli and Western media, such as the beheading of babies and hospitals not being bombarded.

The lie about Israeli children “beheaded” by the Hamas was debunked long ago. Even the Israeli media recently admitted that the Oct. 7 killings were linked to the regime’s military in line with the so-called Hannibal Directive.

The claim that no hospitals have been bombed by the Israeli regime in Gaza also holds no water. Images of dozens of hospitals being attacked and inmates being killed have been doing rounds on social media.

Such was the confusion that Shaw misplaced a page of his presentation, cutting a sorry figure.

Tal Becker, a legal adviser for the regime’s foreign ministry, presented opening statements, arguing that South Africa had “ignored” the events of October 7 and that Israel had “the right to defend itself.”

He also told the court that the Genocide Convention was drawn up in the aftermath of the Holocaust and that the phrase “never again” is one of “the highest moral obligations” for Israel.

Becker rejected requests for an interim order, arguing South Africa is trying to deny Israel “the opportunity to meet its obligations” to the captives.

Legal experts were quick to criticize Becker’s presentation, primarily because it moralizes based on anachronistic events from World War II, irrelevant to contemporary politics.

This represents the continuation of decades of the Zionist victimhood narrative, by which the Israeli regime’s crimes and dirty policies are sought to be justified by victims from the past.

Becker manipulatively accused South Africa of ignoring October 7, specifically Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, the catastrophic Israeli military defeat that the regime likes to manipulate to be an alleged “war crime.”

In reality, South Africa resolutely placed the genocide in the context of the long-term Israeli occupation, apartheid and siege of Gaza, which the Israeli regime ignored in its presentation and invoked its own interpretation on October 7.

Legal experts point out that Israel’s arguments were abysmally weak and incoherent because no events of that date give the right to a war crime of a disproportionate nature.

They further argue that as an occupying entity that has grabbed the land of Palestine by force, the Israeli regime does not have “the right to self-defense” so this argument also does not hold water.

In 2003, the ICJ ruled that an occupying power cannot claim the right to self-defense, in a case involving Israel’s construction of a separation wall in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli regime’s legal team claimed that South Africa’s accusation about Zionist officials harboring an inherent intent to destroy the Palestinian people was based on “random assertions.”

That is also a shoddy argument since top regime officials, including parliamentarians, the war minister, the president and the premier have called for genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

After Israel’s final “defense,” South Africa’s Minister of Justice Ronald Lamolathe said the Israeli regime has suffered a shameful defeat.

He also rejected flawed Israeli denials, stressing that genocide “is never declared in advance” and evidence for 13 weeks is at the disposal of the ICJ that shows the Israeli regime has committed genocide.

Ivan Kesic is an independent journalist and researcher.

January 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Namibia president rebukes Germany’s support for Israel in genocide case

Press TV – January 14, 2024

Namibia’s President Hage Geingob has categorically censured Germany’s support for the 100-day Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Geingob’s condemnation came in a statement late on Saturday after Germany became the first country to legally intervene on Israel’s behalf at the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) and defend the occupying regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Geingob said Berlin committed the first genocide of the 20th century on Namibian soil and “is yet to fully atone for the genocide.”

He was referring to the German colonial forces’ massacre of indigenous Namibians between 1904 and 1908, during which tens of thousands of people lost their lives, with Germany refusing to accept responsibility for reparations.

The Namibian president expressed “deep concern with the shocking decision communicated by the Germany government, on 12 January, 2024, in which it rejected the morally upright indictment brought forward by South Africa before the ICJ that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”

Voicing concern, the statement said, “Ignoring the violent deaths of over 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza and various United Nations reports disturbingly highlighting the internal displacement of 85% of civilians in Gaza amid acute shortages of food and essential services.”

Underscoring the Israeli regime’s gruesome acts against innocent civilians in Gaza, Geingob said, “Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza.”

The Namibian president called on the German government “to reconsider its untimely decision to intervene as a third-party in defense and support of the genocidal acts of Israel before the ICJ.”

During the ICJ’s two days of hearings earlier in the week, South Africa instituted proceedings that accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians and said the regime’s aggression aimed to bring about “the destruction of the population” of Gaza.

German officials had previously rejected the accusation of genocide brought against Israel by the international community and claimed that the brutal aggression was part of “self-defense” against the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

The Israeli regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.

Since the start of the aggression, Israel has killed more than 23,843 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Nearly 60,317 Palestinians have also been wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

January 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

100 Days of Ongoing Genocide in Gaza Amid the International Community’s Failure to Protect Palestinians

Al-Haq | January 14, 2024

Today, 14 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign against Gaza enters its hundredth day. Over this period, Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) have monitored and exposed the plethora of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts constituting genocide committed by the Israeli authorities and military across the occupied Palestinian territory, with its epicenter in Gaza. A hundred days later, the international community still falls short of fulfilling its duty to protect the Palestinian people.

The Israeli military is killing an average of 250 Palestinians per day in Gaza, a higher daily death rate than any other twenty-first-century armed conflict. In 100 days, Israeli attacks have killed one out of every 100 Palestinians in Gaza and injured—often with life-altering wounds—at least two Palestinians in every 100. As we write, thousands of Palestinians remain buried under rubble, whether dead or alive, some enduring this situation for days or even weeks. Hundreds of bodies are in a state of decay, deprived of the right to a dignified burial, as Israel continues to deny medical and rescue teams access to areas where its troops and soldiers are deployed.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza killed 23,843 Palestinians and wounded 60,317 more. According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, among those killed are approximately 10,400 children, 7,100 women, 337 medical personnel, 45 civil defense personnel, and 117 journalists. Our teams on the ground emphasize that the actual number of fatalities is considerably higher than the figure announced by the Ministry of Health, as a substantial number of individuals remain trapped under the rubble.

This chilling death and injury toll occurs amidst a deliberately imposed humanitarian crisis by the Israeli authorities upon the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza. Ninety percent of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, with many experiencing displacement on multiple occasions, notwithstanding that there is not a single place in Gaza that can be called safe. Israel employs starvation as a method of warfare: 2.3 million residents of Gaza, including our staff, face significant daily challenges in accessing food and water. Reports of deaths from hunger, particularly among children, newborns and infants, are beginning to surface. The situation is particularly catastrophic in northern Gaza, where the presence of Israeli soldiers and troops on the ground has made the delivery of humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians who are still located there virtually impossible.

Due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, every facet of life there has faced utter destruction. The local healthcare system has crumbled as Israel has declared an “unrelenting war” on the health system in Gaza, rendering it incapable of delivering essential care to the injured, sick individuals, and everyday patients. Educational pursuits have been severely disrupted, with Israeli attacks causing complete destruction to 95 schools and universities, and partial damage to 295 others, as reported by the Government Media Office in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes destroyed 145 mosques, while another 243 were partially damaged. Three churches have been destroyed by Israeli attacks, along with numerous archaeological and historical sites, as well as significant cultural landmarks, contributing to the erasure of Palestinian history and life throughout Gaza.

Simultaneously with the genocide in Gaza, Israel escalated attacks against Palestinians all across historic Palestine. In the occupied West Bank, between 7 October 2023 and 12 January 2024, the Israeli military and settlers killed 336 Palestinians, including 84 children. Over the same period of time, Israel started a campaign of mass arrest: since 7 October, at least 5875 Palestinians have been detained, as further punitive measures have been imposed on them and the existing 5,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, including administrative detainees. Palestinians in Israeli custody and detention are subjected to torture, ill-treatment, inhumane or degrading treatment, and enforced disappearances. The Israel Prison Service announced the ‘death’ of at least seven Palestinian detainees and prisoners. Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship have also experienced various forms of persecution, including arbitrary arrests, threats of citizenship revocation, and a severe crackdown on freedom of speech.

Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR reiterate that the Palestinian people in Gaza are facing an ongoing genocide. Israel’s actions in Gaza—encompassing killings, causing severe bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life aimed at physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group—constitute genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention. These acts are committed with the intent to destroy, either wholly or in part, the Palestinian population in Gaza. This intent is substantiated by statements from official Israeli sources and individuals expressing the clear intention to carry out such destruction.

The recent address from the Israeli Prime Minister, delivered last night, underscores the lack of any inclination on Israel’s part to cease its genocidal military campaign in Gaza. The remarks made during this speech also underline Israel’s refusal to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, in violation of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/ES-10/L.27 adopted on 10 December 2023, highlighting the urgency for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to promptly issue provisional measures.

To this end, we urge the ICJ to swiftly issue provisional measures instructing Israel to cease military operations, refrain from genocidal acts in Gaza, and facilitate the entry of aid and fact-finding teams for accountability purposes, as requested by South Africa. We additionally call on all State Parties to the Genocide Convention to express their endorsements and formally support the legal proceedings initiated by South Africa at the ICJ.

We reiterate our plea to the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, to officially acknowledge and publicly affirm that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip amount to genocide. Additionally, we urge her to condemn the genocidal rhetoric emanating from Israeli officials and emphasize the inherent dangers that such rhetoric poses to the international community.

Under international law, States must not recognize illegal situations as legitimate and must refrain from assisting in maintaining the illegal situation. States must also impose a two-way arms embargo on Israel and stop the provision and transit of military equipment that may foreseeably be used in the commission of international crimes.

Responsibility at the State level should be accompanied by individual criminal accountability. We strongly reiterate our calls on the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to promptly issue arrest warrants for Israeli political, security and military officials—especially governmental officials and high-ranking military personel—believed to be responsible for perpetrating, ordering, planning, and instigating international crimes, including genocide, committed over the past 100 days as well as since 13 June 2014.

Israel’s international crimes against the Palestinian people must cease immediately and permanently. To this end, the international community must not only hold Israel and the Israeli authorities accountable, but address the root causes by dismantling Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, and ensuring that all discriminatory and inhumane laws, policies and practices against the Palestinian people are abolished once and for all. The international community must also urge Israel, the Occupying Power, to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, lift the closure and blockade of Gaza, and enable the Palestinian people to fully exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, including their right to return.

January 14, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The Hague won’t stop us – Netanyahu

RT | January 13, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed at a press conference on Saturday not to let the genocide case being taken against his country at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stand in the way of continuing his country’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“No one will stop us – not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, and no one else. It is possible and necessary to continue until victory and we will do it,” he said.

While the term “Axis of Evil” was first used in a speech by then-US president George W Bush to refer to Iraq, Iran and North Korea – at the time believed to be Washington’s chief enemies equipped with “weapons of mass destruction” later shown to be almost entirely mythological – it’s not clear whether Netanyahu intended to slight Pyongyang. However, North Korean state media did argue in an editorial posted shortly after the October 7 attack by Hamas that West Jerusalem had brought the raid upon itself with its “constant criminal acts against the Palestinian people.”

Elsewhere in the speech, the Israeli leader used the term to refer to Iran, the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah, and Hamas itself – a loose coalition that has elsewhere been described as the “Axis of Resistance” for its opposition to US and Israeli power in the region.

Hearings into alleged genocide against Israel began earlier this week at the ICJ in The Hague in the Netherlands, with South Africa making the case that Israel has engaged in actions “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”

West Jerusalem has countered that it is Hamas actually that is harboring genocidal intent against Israelis and argued it is justified in attempting to “eliminate” the militant group it blames for 1,200 Israeli deaths on October 7 – no matter the resulting harm to the civilian population.

Israel Defense Forces troops have since admitted they were ordered to fire on Israelis in the border kibbutzes and desert rave during the Hamas raid, raising questions about how many of the casualties were actually killed by Palestinians as opposed to IDF tank fire and airstrikes.

January 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan FM Condemns the US Attacks on Yemen

teleSUR – January 13, 2024

The Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, strongly condemned the USA, United Kingdom and other countries’ attacks on Yemen, through a formal statement on his X account.

Gil emphasized that those are an illegal action that violates International Law and that only contributes to generating greater destabilization in the region.

“Venezuela insists that the only way to guarantee peace and stability in the Middle East is through the cessation of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, carried out by Israel,” reads the communique.

As well, Venezuela asks the immediate compliance with all United Nations resolutions for the establishment of a free and sovereign Palestinian State.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela join to the countries that urges the international community to exert all necessary pressure measures to reestablish international legality and justice in the area, avoiding an escalation of the conflict caused by Israeli barbarity in Palestine.

Other FMs, like the Russian and the Cuban, also condemned the military attacks by the US & NATO allies in Yemen. They considered that such acts encourage genocide in Gaza and reiterated their call for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave.

January 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UNSC has not authorized force against Yemen; China urges all parties concerned to abide by international law

Global Times | January 13, 2024

China opposes any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, and all measures must be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe and make a cease-fire the most urgent task of the moment, China’s permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun said during a UN Security Council conference on Friday local time.

An immediate ceasefire has become the overwhelming call of the international community, but a permanent member of UN Security Council (UNSC) has vetoed the consensus reached by the UNSC in this regard on various grounds, which is a blatant defiance of international fairness, justice and the authority of UNSC, Zhang said.

The UNSC failed to adopt a draft resolution on December 8, 2023 that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza due to a veto cast by the US. Many countries expressed disappointment over the US veto of the Gaza-related draft.

It is a blatant double standard for some people to talk about the protection of human rights and the prevention of genocide while pretending to be deaf and dumb, covering up and diverting attention from the tragic situation in Gaza, Zhang remarked, “We must remove all interference and take vigorous action to quell the war, save lives and restore peace.”

In addition, Zhang stressed that that any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people must be firmly rejected.

Over the past three months, millions of Palestinian people have been forced to relocate repeatedly and were under constant threat to their lives, said Zhang, noting that China is gravely concerned about the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza people, which has been advocated by some Israeli politicians.

The horrific idea of displacing two million people from Gaza and turning it into a “safe zone” devoid of human habitation, if implemented, would constitute a grave crime under international law and completely destroy prospects for the “Two-State solution,” Zhang remarked.

The Chinese envoy called for all measures to be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.

Zhang said it was totally unacceptable for Israel to accuse the UN of not having the will and capacity to provide humanitarian relief when it was clear that Israel was accountable for the continued bombing and striking in Gaza and setting obstacles to the entry of humanitarian supplies.

He urged Israel to immediately cease its indiscriminate military attacks and destruction of Gaza.

UNSC resolutions 2712 and 2720 must be fully implemented, and Israel must fulfil its obligations as the occupying party to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and provide full cooperation with humanitarian relief efforts, Zhang said.

The envoy reiterated that a ceasefire must be implemented with the utmost urgency. “Only a ceasefire can prevent greater civilian casualties and humanitarian disasters and create conditions for the early release of all hostages; only a ceasefire can prevent the complete destruction of the basis of the Two-State solution; and only a ceasefire can prevent the entire Middle East region from being drawn into a catastrophe.”

Regarding the recent attacks launched by US and UK on Yemen against the Houthi rebels, which targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, Zhang expressed concerns about the spillover effects of the Gaza crisis.

Zhang said at a UNSC emergency conference on the Red Sea situation on the same day that the UNSC has never authorized any country to use force against Yemen. The military action taken by the related countries runs counter to the UN resolution 2722, which the Security Council has just adopted.

The envoy warned that the Middle East region is on the brink of extreme danger, and what should be avoided now is reckless military adventurism. He added that what is needed most of all is calm and restraint to prevent further expansion of the conflict.

China urges all parties concerned, especially the influential powers, to abide by the Charter of the UN and international law, adhere to the direction of dialogue and consultation, and make practical efforts to maintain peace and stability in the Red Sea and the Middle East region, Zhang said.

The US carried out further strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday night a day after launching a coordinated multi-nation attack on nearly 30 Houthi locations.

January 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US quietly sent American Air Force unit to aid Israel in Gaza genocide

MEMO | January 12, 2024

The US is quietly providing intelligence to Israel for targeting purposes in Gaza, deploying US Air Force “intelligence engagement officers on the ground,” according to a deployment order obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and published at the Intercept.

While the administration of President Joe Biden has publicly insisted US forces are not directly aiding Israel’s military campaign in Gaza beyond the rescue of prisoners of war, the newly uncovered deployment orders suggest American personnel are secretly advising on offensive target selection and intelligence gathering.

Freedom of Information Act materials show the US Air Force dispatched officers specialising in “targeting intelligence” to Israel in late November as concerns that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza started to grow. The revelation contradicts assurances that US advisers are solely focused on hostage recovery.

“I’ve directed my team to share intelligence and deploy additional experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise the Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts,” said Biden three days after the Hamas attack.

But several weeks later, on 21 November, the US Air Force issued deployment guidelines for officers, including intelligence engagement officers, headed to Israel, the Intercept reported.

Experts say the team would likely provide satellite imagery and analysis directly used for Israeli bombing of suspected Hamas sites in densely populated Gaza. This sensitive targeting support allows the US to coordinate with Israel’s military while avoiding public scrutiny.

The deployment order was issued by the Pentagon’s air component command for the Middle East, Air Forces Central (for Central Command). The document provides deployment instructions to airmen sent to the country, including “airmen assigned as the Intelligence Engagement Officer (IEO)” — personnel who specialise in sharing sensitive intelligence with partner militaries.

Rights advocates argue that by bolstering Israeli capabilities, Washington makes itself complicit in potential war crimes including genocide. US administration statements celebrate supporting Israel’s “self-defence” but conceal specifics of weapons supplied to the occupation state and intelligence provided to target Palestinians.

“As a general matter, US officials who are providing support to another country during armed conflict would want to make sure they are not aiding and abetting war crimes,” Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser for the State Department who now works for Crisis Group, told the Intercept.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel has destroyed 380 mosques since 7 October

MEMO | January 12, 2024

The Israeli occupation army has destroyed 380 mosques and three churches in Gaza since the beginning of its aggression on 7 October, the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip revealed yesterday.

Earlier, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the death toll from the aggression on the territory had risen to 23,469 martyrs and 59,604 wounded.

The Ministry of Health stated that the occupation had committed ten massacres against families in the territory in the past 24 hours, resulting in 112 deaths and 194 injuries.

Since October, the occupation army has deliberately targeted mosques, churches, and historical sites in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to erase the religious, cultural, and heritage presence in the territory, and to conceal the historical evidence and Palestinian historical depth in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s well-oiled PR machine collapses

By Ali Choukeir | The Cradle | January 11, 2024

“Israel condemns South Africa’s decision to play advocate for the devil.”

“History will judge South Africa for its criminal complicity with the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and it will judge it without mercy.”

With these highly emotive words, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy lashed out at South Africa for filing a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the genocidal Israeli military assault that has killed more than 22,000 civilians in Gaza and injured tens of thousands more.

As the war in Gaza enters its fourth month, Israel faces challenges in shaping international public opinion despite its substantial Hasbara propaganda machine, and a significant budget allocated to ‘public diplomacy’ activities globally. Observers and researchers say the occupation state is losing the propaganda war, ceding its long-cultivated ‘victim’ image to one of a perpetrator of horrendous war crimes.

Hasbara is part of Israel’s ‘national security’

Following the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October aimed at targeting the occupation army’s Gaza Division and taking captives to advance a prisoner swap deal, Israel intensified its media and digital diplomacy efforts, alongside its military and security actions. Recognizing the importance of framing those events to shape public perception, Israel made every effort to construct unimpeachable narratives that cast the Palestinian resistance actions as ‘terrorism,’ both domestically and internationally. 

But faced with unprecedented levels of pro-Palestinian activism on social media and on the ground in the form of global protests, Israel and its western allies collaborated heavily on quashing those counter-narratives in order to create support for Tel Aviv’s military assault on Gaza. 

Greg Shupack’s book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, highlights three central frameworks that form the foundations of Israel’s narrative to the west: 

  1. Creating equal blame between both parties to the conflict.
  2. Framing ‘extremists’ as the main obstacle to peace efforts and undermining moderate voices.
  3. Emphasizing Israel’s right to ‘self-defense’ even in the face of unarmed protests, with little regard for Palestinian rights.

These frameworks essentially guide western mainstream media coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Though, additionally, Israel leverages historical claims to Palestinian land and anti-Semitism accusations to shape its narrative and appeal to western sympathy.

Several key Hasbara strategies were employed to impact the western media narrative following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood:

First, the tapping into the western conscience: Both at official and popular levels, this involves associating Hamas with ISIS (“The world defeated ISIS. The world will defeat Hamas”) and framing 7 October as Israel’s 9/11. This tactic aims to create an emotional connection by reducing what can be termed the ‘emotional gap.’ 

Second, falsifying facts and fabricating lies: This tactic plays a significant role, taking advantage of the ‘anchoring bias,’ which involves presenting a version of events that influences how subsequent information is perceived, such as the notorious allegation, now debunked, of 40 beheaded babies. Utilizing this strategy, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, for example, claimed that Hamas fighters have instructions on how to make chemical weapons.

Third, paid advertising and utilizing influencers: High profile social media figures like Elon Musk were flown into Israel for PR stunts while in a little over a week, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry ran 30 ads that have been seen over four million times on his platform X. 

Fourth, establishing the idea of cultural difference: By dehumanizing and ‘othering’ the Palestinians, Israel seeks to emphasize its unique connection to western civilization in West Asia. Statements by Israeli officials, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s use of the words “fighting human animals” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the civilized world to combat “barbarians,” contribute to this narrative. 

The information war shifts dramatically

It can be argued that Operation Al Aqsa Flood constituted a qualitative leap for the Palestinian cause in the media realm, based on the results reaped from massive global public interaction, inputs from global influencers, large demonstrations in many countries – all of which have slowly seeped into the corporate media coverage.

Despite the vast disparities between Palestinians and Israelis in terms of capabilities, technologies, material resources, and major media reach, social media became the great equalizer in this information war, making it increasingly difficult for establishment outlets to ignore the new global discourse on Palestinian developments and events. 

Equally important to Hasbara’s failings is the recognition of Palestinian performance and narrative in the information war:

Israelis are now forced to chase down their top allies to help salvage their narrative shortcomings, as in when President Herzog complained to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about defining Hamas as a terrorist organization. UPDAY, Europe’s largest news group, was revealed to have instructed its staff to prioritize the Israeli point of view, minimize coverage of Palestinian deaths, avoid pro-Palestinian headlines, and formulate comments by Israeli politicians in a way that dehumanizes their adversaries. These kinds of revelations have prompted audiences everywhere to read their media with a pinch of salt.

More instructive is the growing numbers of journalists and political figures who have left their organizations in protest of the enforced pro-Israel discourse, with prominent celebrities being sacked for public stances that favor the Palestinian perspective.

Western and Israeli media performances have diminished public trust in the Israeli and western narrative globally, particularly over wild, unsubstantiated allegations, all now proven false, that Hamas “beheaded 40 babies,” ran its operations from a command center under Shifa Hospital, and was in active pursuit of chemical weapons capabilities. US President Joe Biden’s quickly debunked endorsement of the claim that babies had been beheaded based on “photos he has seen,” also played a role in this shift.

Media professionals and politicians are also increasingly undermining the Israeli narrative by employing the term ‘genocide’ rather than ‘self-defense’ – largely because international organizations have now weighed in to provide facts and figures showing that Tel Aviv indiscriminately kills civilians, in greater numbers and with greater firepower than in any other conflict this century. 

They have even begun to undermine their own tired argument that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” as western political leaders rush to differentiate Netanyahu’s jingoistic right-wing coalition with the rest of Israel’s body politic, though that is mainly because they need to unseat the former in order to rehabilitate Israel’s post-war image.

In the meantime, the Palestinian narrative emphasizes resistance to Israel’s ongoing oppression, and has succeeded in contextualizing the events of 7 October as a justifiable resistance by Gaza, “the largest open-air prison in the world,” against 75 uninterrupted years of inhumane oppression – an oppression the world has come to intimately understand through three harrowing months of genocide on their X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook platforms. 

Because the mainstream media has had to – at least gratuitously – provide some balance to the biggest news story of the day, Palestinian historical context has seeped into the news, as seen in myriad interviews, such as with Palestine’s ambassador to Britain Husam Zomlot, which helped to extend public understanding beyond recent events.

Despite ferocious Israeli efforts to restrict the Palestinian narrative in western nations, pro-Palestine protests have grown unchecked, and hashtags like #StandWithPalestine continue to dominate social media platforms. The hashtag reached over 4.8 billion views, outpacing #StandWithIsrael on TikTok, even amid the many restrictions in play.

In attempting to gain and maintain global sympathy on the back of 7 October events, Israel’s disinformation and deceptive tactics through its global Hasbara apparatus has faced significant setbacks and backlashes, which may have been entirely avoided had it not chosen to blow Gaza to bits. 

The vicious murder and maiming of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women, children and refugees, in Tel Aviv’s almost gleeful rage-fest that followed Hamas’ operation, has permanently flipped Israel’s David vs Goliath narrative. And its collaborating western allies have suffered an equal blow in the social media realm, as all of Israel’s debunked storylines were parroted verbatim in major western capitals.

Gaza has undoubtedly thrust the Palestinian cause back into the global spotlight, gaining support at popular levels rarely seen globally, and increasing pressure on governments, NGOs, and media outlets to both acknowledge and address Israel’s ongoing genocide. 

Given the now obvious challenges Tel Aviv faces in achieving its stated military goals, even a nominal field victory for Netanyahu can no longer make up for the country’s Hasbara collapse. It is a national security disaster that more than matches a military loss. For Israel, this war was lost from the moment it dropped bombs on homes in the Gaza Strip.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Mr Biden, you are a war criminal

By Dr. Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt | MEMO | January 12, 2024

In case you forgot Joe Biden, you are the commander in chief and the president of the United States. You are responsible for the slaughter and mass atrocities in Gaza. More than 24,000 have been killed in three months and almost 60,000 have been injured; 8,000 more are missing. About two-thirds of those figures are made up of children and women. According to the WFP, 70 per cent of the population is starving and half of the physical infrastructure, housing, hospitals etc have been bombed to rubble. You have signed the death sentence of these innocent human beings. Israel’s leaders openly promote collective punishment and without any hesitation brutally attack hospitals, schools and UN facilities. Untreated sewage and overcrowding are leading to the rapid spread of disease, with the full support of the White House in Washington.

The consequences are that your country is sinking together with Israel and your friend the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Your country is isolated both diplomatically, politically and morally. Your support of the most intense bombing campaign in history is not only related to human rights, which you normally use as a weapon to coerce other countries, it is also undemocratic, goes against the Geneva Convention and is an attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing. South Africa has filed a case at the main judicial body for the United Nations, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Your country is not only complicit, but in real time Israel would not be able to commit genocide without your help.

Crimes against humanity

Let us take it one by one. The crimes against humanity include mass starvation and famine. The denial of water, fuel, electricity, medical supplies and food to the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the camp, ghetto, prison or whatever you prefer, is not only a war crime it is genocidal examples of aggravated war crimes explicitly prohibited by provisions of the 4th Geneva Convention on Belligerent Occupation. Israel as the Occupying Power does not enjoy any right of self-defence against an Occupied People and is under a pervasive duty to protect the civilian population under all circumstances. Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently said: “For over two months, Israel has been depriving Gaza’s population of food and water, a policy spurred on or endorsed by high-ranking Israeli officials and reflecting an intent to starve civilians as a method of warfare.” It added: “World leaders should be speaking out against this abhorrent war crime, which has devastating effects on Gaza’s population.”

According to HRW: “Providing weapons that knowingly and significantly would contribute to unlawful attacks can make those providing them complicit in war crimes.” The same organisation has called for an arms embargo to be imposed on Israel to stop its unlawful attacks.

On 25 December 2023 the Times of Israel wrote that 245 US transport planes and 20 ships have delivered more than 10,000 tonnes of military aid. The Defence Ministry has made 40 billion shekels (almost $2.8 billion) in additional purchases from the US of armaments and military equipment since the start of the conflict.

According to Bloomberg, your country has sent “2,000 laser-guided Hellfire missiles that can be launched from Apache helicopters,” as well as an array of other mortars and ammo, including “36,000 rounds of 30mm cannon ammunition, 1,800 of the requested M141 bunker-buster munitions and at least 3,500 night-vision devices.” Approximately 92 per cent of Israel’s arms industry is either financed by or delivered from the US. These weapons are used to kill Palestinian refugees including women and children in an unprecedented manner. This is not all. Other sources note that Israel is using 155mm shells and 120mm mortar shells to strike both Lebanon and Gaza with white phosphorus. Your Administration has also provided intelligence and logistics help in order to expedite a smooth genocidal war against the Palestinians.

In addition, there are at least 15 US navy ships in the region, air surveillance, American drones over Gaza, fighter squadrons and thousands of troops to project US military strength in support of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank and as a deterrence against Israel’s neighbours.

Mr Biden. This is your legacy.

Your government cannot support a ceasefire in the UN Security Council in the unjust onslaught of the people in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In fact, there is no war. There is no self-defence. One of the best equipped armies in the world is committing attempted genocide by using a scorched-earth annihilation strategy. There is no real war taking place. There are some 300,000 soldiers against a small group of 30,000 guerilla fighters with light weapons. This cannot be described as a war. The biggest forced displacement in history of more than two million people, or more than 80 per cent of the total population, in the shortest span of time is the disaster that will taint your records for future historians.

Your unwavering support for the genocidal regime in Tel Aviv is undermining future references to human rights and democracy by your Administration. My guess is that the Orwellian Newspeak of ‘pauses’ instead of ceasefire and ‘no visa for violent and militant settlers’ from the West Bank (implicitly recognising the illegal settlements) are blatantly clear examples of the primitive hypocrisy coming out of the White House. It is easy to see that the attempt to mislead the world by claiming that the US is trying to moderate Israel’s brutal massacre against the Palestinian people is pure propaganda and spin. This is also the case with your government’s rebuke against the fascist ministers in Israel suggesting mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza.

May I remind you that Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the beginning of October aggressively tried to force Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Adullah to take in hundreds of thousand refugees. In December, your friend Netanyahu told members of the Likud party that Israel is “working to facilitate the so-called ‘voluntary migration’ of Gaza’s Palestinians.”

Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, was interviewed by Kan Bet radio and claimed he had been contacted by “countries in Latin America and Africa that are willing to absorb refugees from the Gaza Strip.”

“We have to make it easier for Gazans to leave for other countries,” he said. “I’m talking about voluntary migration by Palestinians who want to leave.”

There is no existential threat against Israel from an enemy with no army, no air force, no navy, no state and almost no civilian infrastructure, this is indeed a combat between David and Goliath. As stressed by Jeremy Scahill from the Intercept, Mr Biden you have shown unwavering and staunch support for Israel over the past 50 years. The Palestinians do not have hundreds of nuclear weapons which are in the possession of the so-called Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Israel can burn Gaza and its people to the ground because the US facilitates it, politically and militarily. It does not have hundreds of nuclear weapons. Mr Biden, you have been defending Israel’s disproportionate use of force, collective punishment and brutal massacres in plural.

Your government is also supporting the more than 60,000 American settlers in the West Bank. They believe in the heroism of the terrorists and racists Baruch Goldstein and Meir Kahane, two American citizens whose followers are part of the Likud led government. They are seen as the prophets of the settler movement and the American fanatics who compose approximately 15 per cent of the total settler population in the occupied West Bank. In addition, there are about 100,000 US citizens in occupied East Jerusalem.

During the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, as Scahill notes, in public you Mr Biden were neutral, but in private you met with then Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, and it appears from Begin’s biography that your support for the brutality of the invasion even outstripped the Israeli standpoint. According to Begin’s account, you said you would go even further, even if that meant killing women and children. Israel’s former Ambassador to the United States from 2009-2013, Michael Oren, writes that in Israel’s alliance with America, the first principle was ‘no daylight’. The second, ‘no surprises’. The US and Israel always could disagree but never openly. This is the point as he says “we are an ultimate ally for the United States.”

When elected three years ago, after four years with Donald Trump, you said that you would promise to reclaim the mantle of global leadership as “a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress and security.” But now we see your real purpose as a full time promoter of apartheid in Israel and disaster in Gaza.

Israel’s violations of international law include collective punishment, an emerging famine and diseases due the restriction of food, water, medicine and fuel. It is unprecedented and is eroding all narratives about democracy and human rights. You are even violating US law. According to the US Foreign Assistance Act section 620I “No assistance shall be furnished to any country when it is made known to the president that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance.”

Catholicism and terror

Mr Biden, you once referred to himself as “Israel’s best Catholic friend.” A friend who supported and supplied Israel with more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs which have been dropped on Gaza. According to reports in the New York Times, the Biden Administration is so committed to fuelling the carnage in Gaza that it has even invoked rare emergency powers for transferring tank ammunition without Congressional review. The arms shipment was put on an expedited track right after Washington vetoed a ceasefire proposal in the Security Council.

According to military historian Robert Pape: “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns,” comparable to the carpet bombing of German cities in World War II.

Mr Biden, you probably don’t care. One of your famous predecessors Eisenhower advocated “that the nation guard against the potential influence of the military–industrial complex.” This is interesting because it appears that your administration consists of the most right-wing neoconservatives in the history of the United States. Advisers and foreign policy “experts” who still believe the US is Master of the Universe.

Your Administration’s corporate ties illustrate your personal involvement as a warmonger. Your Secretary of Defence and comrade in arms, Lloyd J. Austin III, serves on the board of Raytheon, one of the world’s largest weapons makers while Blinken is affiliated with Pine Island Capital Partners, an investment firm which specialises in defence companies. Both companies have high stakes in delivering deadly weapons for the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.

The recent Memorandum on United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy (CAT) from 23 February 2023, states clearly: “The United States CAT Policy will bolster the security of allies and partners and contribute to shared security objectives; enhance global deterrence; promote respect for international humanitarian law and human rights; adhere to international nonproliferation norms; strengthen partnerships that preserve and extend our global influence. Hypocrisy is evident and the world is watching.”

Mr President, you and your government do not comply with international humanitarian law, but it also seems as though you do not uphold your own laws. This can be seen in the light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes. The brutal massacres with lethal support from you and your government have clearly shown that you are bereft of commitment to democratic principles. 153 nations demanded a ceasefire in a UN General Assembly vote and again you were isolated when voting against, with ten smaller countries including Israel and Austria. Security Council resolutions were met with a veto from you. It is shameful and shows that you are a war criminal directly supporting famine and genocide. Mr Biden, you, your government and Congress are enabling these annihilations.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Goes to Court for the Crime of Genocide

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JANUARY 12, 2024

A friend of mine who follows international developments closely recently observed that the United States and Israel have “own goaled” themselves to become widely perceived as together the two most evil governments on earth. It is a judgement that is hard to disagree with regarding the Jewish state if one examines the abundant evidence that Israel is systematically committing war crimes against the largely unarmed Palestinian civilian population in an effort to bring about ethnic cleansing or even genocide in Gaza and on the West Bank. The process would include removing the Palestinians physically and/or killing them if they resist, which is what is currently taking place. Something like 10,000 dead Palestinian children attest to the brutality and inhumanity of the effort, together with nearly 400 doctors and nurses who were directly targeted plus more than 100 UN employees trying to bring aid to the civilians. What Israel is doing is monstrous, almost unimaginable. A number of senior Israeli officials have confirmed their government’s view, supported by public opinion, that a land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea swept clean of Arabs would be the most desirable outcome of current developments.

The United States is at the same time loathed alongside Israel because it is enabling the slaughter by the Israelis while simultaneously spewing the lies that it is somehow restraining or even making more “humanitarian” Israel’s attack. Nothing could be farther from the truth as the White House recently worked hard to defang a major UN-led diplomatic effort that had global support to bring about a ceasefire that would enable emergency relief supplies to be introduced into the battered enclave. Instead, Israel now continues its daily bombardment of Gaza and controls entering supplies, slowing the process down while watching people die of famine and disease, not to mention from artillery shells and bombs. Oh, and the United States both funds the Israeli war effort and supplies the munitions that make it all possible. That makes Washington an accessory to the war crimes and to what most of the world considers to be a genocide being perpetrated openly and with malice.

In spite of all that, and the tons of evidence of atrocities of all kinds which even includes “friendly fire” killing of Jewish hostages, the Joe Biden Administration continues to spout the nonsense that neither war crimes nor a genocide are taking place. Thursday saw the opening of the International Court of Justice hearings on evidence filed by South Africa demonstrating that Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians amounts to a genocide as defined by the 1948 “UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” which both Israel and the US have signed. On the day before it opened at the Hague, US National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby preemptively stated that the charges were “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” State Department spokesman Matt Miller added that the United States is “not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Israel’s bombing and physical destruction of Gaza. Both comments are contrary to the fact that Israel is clearly creating at a minimum “conditions that don’t allow the survival of the population,” which is a definition of genocide. It all means that the United States will be fighting hard on behalf of its favorite son, doing whatever lying, coercing and cheating that it might take to protect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the crimes-against-humanity crew that he has surrounded himself with. As it is not a US interest to become a nation that condones the killing of tens of thousands of helpless civilians, one must ask the question “Who owns you Joe and why are your top officials lying about what is taking place?”

As an American, what I find most offensive about the current state of play is that my country has been turned into a war criminal by a group of politicians and staff appointees controlled by a foreign government and its lobby whose ignorance is so profound that they should not be running a hot dog stand. In particular, it is soul-destroying to hear the pathetic squealing coming out of a subservient White House every time Israel kills another hundred or so Palestinian children and women cowering in the ruins of a hospital, church or school. Each squeal in support of more “humane” or “restrained” warfare is followed by an assertion from Netanyahu to the effect that Israel’s war cabinet will make its own decisions about who it will kill and when. One senior official Itamar Ben-Gvir even warned Biden that Israel is “no longer a star on the American flag.” Indeed, but it is not that Israel is ungrateful, as those two-thousand pound bunker buster bombs supplied by Biden can really do a number on them “terrorists.” The Biden Administration has now expedited two shipments of munitions to Israel worth about $253 million, relying on another lying rascal Antony Blinken of the State Department’s claim that the weapons were urgently needed for poor “victim” Israel to “defend itself, allowing circumvention of existing Congressional authority requiring legislative approval of arms sales. There is no step so low when pandering to Israel that the Biden Administration will not take it!

It is all as if Genocide Joe is in a hurry to get the job done on those pesky Palestinians so he can get back to the serious work of fooling the US electorate into voting for him a second time. He is now going around the country trying to sell the product that he is “saving democracy,” which he is claiming would be destroyed by Trump. As Trump is on an apparent revenge tour, Biden might actually be more right than he usually is, but one has to ask what is happening to American democracy with the current open borders and two wars being de facto fought simultaneously without any actual threat to the US having ever been involved and without the consent of the American people. Quite the contrary, opinion polls suggest the wars are very unpopular while Biden weasels his way to support the fighting while pretending that the US is not directly involved. Can one imagine voluntarily putting the survival of one’s nation in the hands of someone like Joe Biden?

Israel continues to play its own hand as the US has given it political cover to bomb and otherwise kill as it sees fit. Civilian deaths from bombing totaled 247 on one night alone in early January, but the Netanyahu government has just announced that it will be shifting from large scale troop movements in Gaza to more “directed” operations that will focus on Hamas concentrations, finding hostages, and destroying the tunnels that connect resistances points. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesperson for the Israeli military, described how the new phase of the campaign, hopefully to be completed by the end of the month, will involve fewer soldiers and airstrikes, though Israel has previously lied repeatedly about its actual intentions. Ironically, the US concern appears to be that the war is already expanding apart from Gaza. The violence by armed settlers directed against Palestinians on the West Bank is increasing and foreign targeting by Israel now includes the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, regular bombing missions directed against targets in Syria which recently killed a dozen senior Iranian officials near the Damascus airport, assassinations in Iraq, as well as the terror bombing in Tehran claimed by ISIS that killed 103. Both Israel and the US are known to have cooperative clandestine relationships with ISIS.

And there are several other issues that are worthy of mention. First, is how a steady stream of mostly Republican hawks have been making the pilgrimage to Israel to express their wholehearted support of Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. Most recently, former Vice President Mike Pence made the trip and was photographed near Israel’s border with Lebanon writing messages or possibly signing off on US made artillery shells that were about to be fired against Hezbollah. This pushing for direct US involvement in an impending war that should and could be avoided has had an impact in Washington, where clowns like Senator Lindsey Graham have called on the Biden administration to “… hit Iran. They have oil fields out in the open, they have the Revolutionary Guard headquarters you can see from space. Blow it off the map.” This pressure has prompted Biden to pledge to those in Congress calling for war and also to the Israelis that he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and do whatever it takes to stop it. As US intelligence has declared its judgement that Iran has no such weapons program, the alleged intelligence suggesting that Iran has a secret program will inevitably come from Israel and Netanyahu, so guess what? Israel will be working hard to produce fabricated evidence that will drag the US into a first strike against Iran, which will in turn hit back against US bases in Syria, Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq. It is all too reminiscent of the neocon-Israeli plot that dragged a clueless George W. Bush and Condi Rice into initiating the disastrous Iraq War in 2003.

And the other issue that absolutely no one chooses to talk about is the “secret” Israeli nuclear arsenal of 200-400 weapons together with delivery systems, which is definitely a potential game changer no matter what happens in Gaza and on the West Bank. Would Israel use the nukes? They sure would, especially if the war they are deliberately expanding should turn against them somehow. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was queried about how the rest of the world might respond to Israel using its nukes to effectively wipe out its Arab neighbors, he responded “That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force… We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”

The plan by America’s “best friend” and “closest ally” to nuke the world even has a name: “The Samson Option,” recalling how the Biblical strongman Samson brought down the temple where the Philistines were mocking him, killing thousands of them. So maybe Joe Biden should be thinking long and hard about how, and with whom, he is getting our country set up to go to war. Or just maybe it is already too late!

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.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

US, UK Trying to Distract From Genocide in Gaza by Strikes in Yemen – Ansar Allah Member

Sputnik – 12.01.2024

DOHA – The US and the UK are trying to divert attention from the genocide in the Gaza Strip with ill-conceived airstrikes against the Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen, Hezam al-Asad, a member of the movement’s political bureau, said on Friday.

The US and the United Kingdom carried out overnight airstrikes against Houthi positions in four governorates of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the cities of Al Hudaydah, Saada and Taiz, provincial government officials told Sputnik. The US and UK officials confirmed the airstrikes, saying these were targeting Houthi military facilities and positions in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and not civilian population centers.

“Through these hostile and ill-conceived operations, Washington and London are trying to divert attention from the ongoing crimes of genocide. We will continue to defend our principled position on the key issue for us — Palestine — and neither the US nor the UK will be able to dissuade us from supporting our people in the Gaza Strip, whether in the Red or Arabian Seas,” al-Asad wrote on X.

The Red and Arabian Seas will remain closed to Israeli-associated ships until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends, the political bureau member added.
“Our armed forces are well prepared and the aggressors will regret their aggression against the Yemeni people,” he said.

January 12, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »