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How Britain invented modern torture

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | January 6, 2024

On January 2, Frank Kitson, a lifelong British Army officer, writer, and military theorist died peacefully in his sleep at the grand age of 97. It was an undeservedly dignified exit for an individual who directly and indirectly inflicted misery upon untold people for much of his lifetime. It is likely many will continue to suffer adverse consequences as a result of his teachings for decades to come.

Kitson was a pioneer in the field of counterinsurgency, defined as “the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces.” His assorted views on the topic were informed by Britain’s experience of brutal, asymmetric wars against nationalist rebellions and attempted revolutions throughout the Global South, as its Empire rapidly disintegrated following World War II. In several cases, he was on the literal frontline of these bloody disputes.

Kitson wrote a series of books about counterinsurgency, which were hugely influential internationally. Most notoriously, his proposed strategies for “defeating irregular forces” were deployed throughout “the Troubles” – London’s secret dirty war against the Catholic population of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Ever since, these methods have been deployed over and again to devastating effect in theatres of war domestic and foreign, by multiple governments.

Even sympathetic mainstream obituaries of Kitson were forced to acknowledge this highly controversial legacy. The Times of London noted how in his final years, “he was still dogged by litigation” from his time leading Britain’s war on Catholics throughout the Troubles. “Threats to his personal security and that of his family continued to the end” as a result of his posting, the newspaper recorded.

Absent from these eulogies was any reference to a core, clandestine component of Kitson’s patented counterinsurgency credo – a very specific, uniquely British form of torture. Actively practiced and exported abroad by London for decades, these techniques of maltreatment have been adopted by countless militaries, security and intelligence agencies, and police forces. Just as the primary casualties of battles against “irregular forces” are invariably innocent civilians, average citizens of the world have been the ultimate victims of this mephitic push.

‘Propaganda Cover’

In the Autumn of 1969, Kitson’s British Army superiors personally tasked him with an extremely sensitive mission. He was to enroll at Oxford University and produce a thesis “to make the army ready to deal with subversion, insurrection and peace-keeping operations” over the next decade, if not beyond. The 42-year-old lieutenant colonel was an ideal candidate for the role.

Pyrrhic victory over the Nazis severely weakened London financially and militarily, prompting populations of her colonies and imperial holdings to rise en-masse against their oppressors. This produced bitter end-of-Empire wars on every continent. Kitson was a veteran of two – the 1952 – 1960 Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya, and the 1948 – 1960 Malayan Emergency. There, he witnessed first-hand the British innovate new, vicious ways of dealing with unconventional threats, in real-time.

Kitson was dispatched to Oxford at a time when London struggled desperately to contain another popular civilian rebellion. Escalating tensions between indigenous Catholics and Protestant colonizers in Northern Ireland resulted in the British Army’s formal deployment to the province in August 1969. Initially welcomed as protectors, the situation rapidly spun out of control. The “peacekeepers” became embroiled in endless, unwinnable street-to-street battles against IRA insurgency and hostile Catholic civilians.

In September 1970, Kitson took command of the British Army’s 39th Brigade, responsible for keeping the peace in Belfast and much of the east of Northern Ireland. Serendipitously, his thesis was published as “Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping” not long after. Received with some relief by soldiers, military chiefs, and government officials wrestling with how to deal with “the Troubles”, its contents provoked an outcry in certain public quarters.

Of particular concern were passages in which Kitson argued against conducting counterinsurgency efforts “against those practicing subversion” under typical civil, legal, and political conditions. Instead, he contended that standard freedoms, protections, and rights should be suspended, before launching military operations against “irregular targets”. In such contexts, laws could not “remain impartial and [be administered] without any direction from the government.”

“Law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal…a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public. For this to happen efficiently, the activities of legal services have to be tied into the war effort in as discreet a way as possible.”

Elsewhere, Kitson likened counterinsurgency to catching a fish, with civilian populations of areas where enemy groups operate as “the water in which the fish swims.” He argued that if a fish could not be caught via traditional means such as a net or rod, “it may be necessary to do something to the water which will force the fish into a position where it can be caught. Conceivably it might be necessary to kill the fish by polluting the water.’’

‘Five Techniques’

In August 1971, Operation Demetrius commenced in Northern Ireland. British soldiers went home-to-home across the province, mass-arresting IRA suspects and their family members, frequently based on outdated or outright false intelligence, in service of “internment”. This policy was entirely in keeping with Kitson’s counterinsurgency pronouncements and executed under his direct watch. It meant detention without trial for hundreds of “terrorism” suspects, over lengthy periods.

While jailed, internees were subjected to some or all of London’s “Five Techniques” of torture to make them talk. These methods, in keeping with Kitson’s counterinsurgency philosophy, evolved over the course of Britain’s assorted end-of-Empire conflicts. Catholics were spared the absolute worst excesses of the horrors meted out to indigenous populations. For example, while women were victims of internment, broken bottles, gun barrels, knives, snakes, and hot eggs were not routinely thrust into their genitalia, as was done with female Mau Mau suspects in Kenya.

Still, what was done to detainees can only be considered barbarous in the absolute extreme. In November of that year, a senior commandant within the British Army’s Intelligence Corps sketched an official history of the development of London’s military interrogation methods since World War II. Its contents were so sensitive and shocking that senior government officials wished for the report to remain secret for a century. As it was, the document was declassified after just three decades.

In brief, Britain had devised a system of torture, combining prolonged stress positions, subjection to white noise, sensory deprivation, and cessation of food, drink, and sleep. The Five Techniques could be applied to anyone in almost any context, cost little or nothing to employ, and would not leave physical marks on victims. As such, public exposure, scandal, or prosecution for human rights abuses and/or war crimes was extremely unlikely, if not impossible.

Physical pain and psychological devastation inflicted by the Five Techniques were nonetheless dependably gargantuan. In stress positions, detainees were stripped, then forced to wear buttonless boiler suits and hoods, before being forced to stand with their legs spread apart, leaning forward with their arms held high against a wall, supporting all their weight with their fingers alone. Simultaneously, relentless white noise was pumped into their cells. If a prisoner did not maintain the stress position, they were beaten into compliance.

‘Very Simple System’

The Intelligence Corps report notes these methods had been applied over the past three decades to prisoners of war, refugees, guerrilla fighters, and spies. Contained therein is a lengthy section documenting the deployment and refinement of the “Five Techniques” in numerous counterinsurgencies, while discussing their efficacy and the results gained by usage. For example, the author cites how Mau Mau “terrorists” in Kenya “were persuaded under interrogation to switch their allegiance and subsequently guided British patrols against their erstwhile comrades.”

In British Cameroon 1960/1, “members of a subversive group from the neighbouring Cameroon Republic were arrested on British-controlled territory, which they were using as a base.” An Army team set up shop in a “converted hotel annex” to interrogate 20 “high grade subjects”, of which 15 “cooperated fully” as a result of torture.”

“Information elicited included full details of rebel training camps in Morocco and other north-west African countries – even course syllabi.”

In June 1963, British Army interrogators flew to Swaziland, a protectorate of London, after 1,500 workers at a British-owned asbestos mine went on strike, demanding a basic wage of £1 a day. In a perverse irony, “it was thought that the labour problem [was] created by [a] subversive organisation,” rather than legitimate and reasonable grievances over grossly exploitative low wages paid by their colonial overlords.

After the Five Techniques were liberally applied to strikers – and, given their racial extraction, surely more gruesome methods too – “no subversive organisation was found” to be behind the strikes. This “negative result” was considered “valuable”, as “it quickly established that local grievances were the cause of unrest.” The effort was also “successful in clearing up the labour problems,” the report commended. But of course – when industrial action results in torture, workers quickly learn to stay in line.

Fast forward to March 1971, a British Army interrogation center was set up in a “disused camp” in Northern Ireland. The site “was not perfectly adaptable to the task, but was the best available,” the report records. The stage was thus set for Catholics to be subjected to the Five Techniques with total impunity. Savage tactics tested and honed against Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans were being brought “home” to British soil.

The report’s author understood the monstrousness that had been created. They noted the importance of training British soldiers to withstand comparable interrogation techniques and to know “what to expect at the hands of an unscrupulous enemy.” It is nonetheless likely that British trainees were spared the indignity of being beaten, kicked in the genitals, and having their heads smashed into walls, as many Catholic internees suffered.

The result in every case was prolonged pain, physical and mental exhaustion, severe anxiety, depression, hallucinations, disorientation, and repeated loss of consciousness. No detainee ever fully recovered from their internment – long-term psychological trauma was universal. Yet, it appears only 14 prisoners were subjected to every single one of the Five Techniques. They became known as the “Hooded Men”, and in 1976, their case was considered by the European Commission of Human Rights. It ruled that the Techniques amounted to torture.

The case was then referred to the European Court of Human Rights, which astoundingly ruled two years later that while the Five Techniques were “inhuman and degrading” and breached Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, they did not amount to torture. In 2014, after it was revealed that British government ministers had expressly greenlit the use of the Five Techniques in Northern Ireland, Dublin asked the ECHR to review its decision. Four years later, the Court declined.

The declassified British Army Intelligence Corps report notes many foreign countries “show considerable interest” in the Five Techniques, with students from the US, Netherlands, Jordan, Belgium, Germany, Norway, and Denmark regularly attending training sessions convened by London. “Our European allies look to the UK for advice… our very simple system is admired,” the report boasts. This surely explains why the Five Techniques cannot be formally recognized by the most influential and powerful human rights court in the world.

January 8, 2024 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

J’Accuse… !

The line is clear

NewZealandDoc’s Newsletter | January 7, 2024

We are now approximately four years removed from the unleashing of the covid so-called pandemic and the consequential measures adopted and enforced world-wide that created terror in the global populace, imposed unprecedented strictures, subverted foundational principles of medicine and foisted an unnecessary and dangerous inoculation upon a mostly unwitting public.

Some of us, at the very outset, upon hearing the mainstream messages of bat-inspired trans-species migration of a respiratory virus, suspected that things were amiss. The frenzied media, however, with their ‘case’ counts, death counts and fraudulent reporting about the actual lethality of the pathogen, were unstoppable and relentless, and I can forgive the many who began to shudder at this unexpected turn of events and who lined up for the dubious polymerase chain reaction ‘test’ and who, ultimately, placed every hope upon an emergency so-called vaccine, convinced as they were that our world was engulfed by an incomparable threat.

I have a harder time forgiving doctors who threw their senses and duties out the window, were unperturbed by the omission and suppression of attempts to treat and prevent the pathogen before hospitalization was required, abandoned informed consent, pushed the covid jab and regarded those who preferred to keep their minds and bodies and general health intact by not receiving the jab as a dangerous entity.

I frankly cannot forgive those physicians who, wielding considerable influence in establishment media, used this influence to sway their followers to accept something that has now been shown demonstrably and repetitively to be a health disaster

Perhaps, however, under the unnerving full-court press of a rabid and unchecked propaganda campaign waged by once highly-regarded journalistic authorities, everyone can be forgiven for having, essentially, lost their wits. Perhaps.

But now, four years hence, as the general picture has clarified itself, anyone with a sentient eye or ear not wedded to mainstream pulp can conclude that there never was a genuine pandemic, there never was a need to lock and shut down the entire world, and there never was or will be a need to inject billions with a gene-altering concoction that has hurt and killed too many to pass muster as a real and viable vaccine. We can further conclude that the preposterously tremendous control over people exhibited by the roll-out of the covid campaign, and the submission of people to the evisceration of their unalienable rights — these were not organically evolved developments, but consequences of a highly orchestrated deployment of power.

In short, all things covid was a strategically planned operation — a war-crime — the likes of which are unprecedented, and the consequence of which is to move the world towards some kind of autocratic fiefdom wherein we ‘little people’ surviving the first waves of the onslaught will be subjugated to the whims and directives of The Few.

I don’t care how many X followers one may have, or how many Sierpinski triangles one may conjure, how many high-profile interviews one has done, how many conferences one has attended, how many grants one has received, or how many plaudits one has obtained from our freedom-loving community: unless one can see the line and step across it, I regard you as an Enemy.

What line? The line that separates those who understand the concerted efforts of a Global Cabal to inflict the covid mess upon us for purposes of control, versus those who assert that this mess was essentially the result of unfortunate circumstances complicated by greed, incompetence, opportunism, corruption, human error and the like. To espouse the latter is untruthful and enervating: it takes the life out of our tenuously cobbled opposition and plays into our opposition’s hands.

Pick a side. To deny that the genocide visited upon us has been deliberately perpetrated, regardless of what you may invoke in the way of prudence, reason and thoughtful consideration, is to join the ranks of its perpetrators.

Pick a side, the line is clear, and time is short.

 

Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.

January 2024

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Singling out Smotrich and Ben-Gvir adds to Israel’s impunity

MEMO | January 6, 2024

Earlier this week, the US State Department released a statement rejecting the forced transfer and resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza, attributing the rhetoric from the Israeli side to Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. “We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the Government of Israel, including by the Prime Minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government,” US State Department’s Spokesperson Matthew Miller declared.

Maybe the US State Department is unaware of the reports that explicitly name Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as making the suggestion during a closed-door meeting for Likud MKs. Or that the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon called forced transfer and the international community’s possible complicit participation “a moral imperative”. Going further back, the leaked document by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence also lists the forced transfer of Palestinians as the preferable option for Israel.

If Israel does not go ahead with the plan, it only means that the international community is not willing to go so far as visibly aiding Israel’s colonisation after public opinion has shifted so much towards Palestine, and rightfully so. Before 7 October, the Nakba could only be imagined or read about in terms of statistics on ethnic cleansing and its related destruction. Zionism has now illustrated to the world what genocide looks like, and governments are paying slight heed, if only to prevent themselves from getting further embroiled in the repercussions of Israel’s fabricated security narrative.

To make the forced displacement of Palestinians sound like it was just the concoction of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir lends additional impunity to Israel. Israel was built upon the ethnic cleansing and forced transfer of the Palestinian people. Conceptualising the forced transfer of Gaza’s Palestinian population is a continuation of the Nakba, not an innovative idea conjured up by two far-right-wing politicians. The Times of Israel is perpetuating the narrative of forced transfer being the idea of just two politicians, both of them in the public eye for their ongoing incitement. But the Israeli settler-colonial state is an incitement in itself.

Meanwhile, in a brief interlude, an unnamed Israeli official spoke of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) for its delivery of humanitarian aid as doing its work “for the first time in its history”. There is no forgetting, however, that Israel wants to destroy UNRWA and, during the Donald Trump administration, embarked upon doing so, emboldened by the so-called “deal of the century” and the US-Israeli insistence to alter the definition of who can be classified as a Palestinian refugee.

The bottom line here, however, is that Israel’s expectation that the international community clears up the mess after its atrocities knows no limit. Had Israel not bombed Gaza and rendered 85 per cent of the population forcibly displaced, the current humanitarian catastrophe could have been avoided. As things stand, and with Gaza almost completely destroyed, Israel and the international community can maintain the humanitarian paradigm for Palestinians because basic needs will always be perceived as more important than a political process where Palestinians are concerned. Colonisation required complicity, and there is no proposal Israeli officials come up with that can be separated from the narrative of Israel’s settler-colonial existence.

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli army uses drones to terrorize civilians at Gaza hospital

Palestine Informtion Center – January 7, 2024

GAZA – The health ministry in Gaza has accused the Israeli occupation army of using its armed drones to terrorize the patients and medical staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah City in central Gaza.

“Israeli drones are opening fire at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital’s sections and courtyards, targeting everyone who moves,” the health ministry said in a statement on Sunday evening.

The ministry also accused the Israeli army of seeking to put Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital out of service through intensively opening fire at it from drones.

The ministry pointed out that the ongoing shooting attack on the hospital forced a number of patients and wounded civilians to leave it and expose themselves to gunfire from the drones.

The ministry warned that thousands of wounded and sick people in central Gaza would be sentenced to death if the hospital stopped providing its services.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli army’s military aggression against Gaza and its deliberate attacks on medical facilities have made the majority of the hospitals and health centers “nonfunctional.” The Israeli army has also destroyed 121 ambulances since then.

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Day 93: Israeli Assault Claims Two More Journalists

Al-Manar | January 7, 2024

Gaza Strip is witnessing a sharp escalation in violence, with Israeli military operations in last night’s onslaught in Al-Faluga and Khan Yunis leaving at least 20 Palestinians martyred, a toll that tragically includes civilians seeking refuge and victims from an attack on a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school in the Mughazi refugee camp.

In the southern Gaza Strip, at least two journalists, Hamza Wael al-Dahdouh, son of al-Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Al-Dahdouh, and Mustafa Thuraya, were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted and blew up their vehicle in Khan Younis on Sunday.

The journalists, including Hamza, were en route to the Moraj area northeast of Rafah, designated a “humanitarian zone” by the Israeli army but reportedly subject to recent bombings. Their intention was to report on the situation and aftermath of bombings in the area, where many displaced Gazans sought refuge from bombardment in other regions of the territory.

Bureau chief for Al-Jazeera Arabic in Gaza, Wael Dahdouh, stands over the body of his son Hamza

Wael al-Dahdouh, Hamza’s father and Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, was recently wounded in an Israeli strike. His wife and two children had been killed by a separate Israeli strike in the initial weeks of the aggression.

The media office of the Hamas resistance movement strongly condemned the “heinous crime” committed by the “Israeli occupation army against journalists.” The Zionist entity aims to “intimidate journalists in a failed attempt to obscure the truth and prevent media coverage,” the office added.

The media office called “on all press unions, human rights and legal bodies to condemn this crime and denounce its repeated commission by the occupation.” It also called for pressuring “the occupation to stop the genocidal war against our defenseless people in the Gaza Strip.”

20 Palestinians lost their lives during the night as the Israeli occupation forces launched airstrikes on Al-Faluga in the Jabalia refugee camp, situated in the northern Gaza Strip. Among the targeted locations was a building belonging to the Abu Alba family in Al-Faluja. Concurrently, air strikes pounded Tal Al-Zaatar in the northern Gaza Strip, further exacerbating the already dire situation.

Adding to the toll, 16 Palestinians were martyred in the bombing of the central Gaza Strip since evening.

Deir al-Balah witnessed 11 casualties due to Zionist attacks, while in Khan Yunis, located in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the death toll rose to 17. Artillery shelling intensified in the neighborhoods of the city’s center, west, and north.

Rafah also bore the brunt of the occupation’s aggression, with several areas being targeted. The toll rose to 7 as a result of an Israeli bombing that specifically aimed at a building housing displaced people. Disturbingly, reports emerged of injuries resulting from an air strike on a house belonging to the Al-Ajez family in the Al-Zuhur neighborhood, situated in the northern part of Rafah.

According to reports from the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, the Israeli military targeted a residence in Khan Yunis, where a significant number of displaced individuals sought refuge. Tragically, this resulted in the loss of at least 12 civilian lives and injuries to 50 others.

Furthermore, Israeli warplanes struck a school operated by the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, leading to the death of at least four individuals, including a woman.

The report indicates that the Israeli military employed drones and engaged in intensive firing at homes and streets in the Mughazi camp. Simultaneously, Israeli warplanes launched a fire attack near Sekka Street west of the camp, accompanied by heavy artillery fire from the army.

Eyewitnesses reported a fire breaking out east of the neighboring Nuseirat camp due to sustained Israeli airstrikes.

The Israeli aggression extended to Tel al-Zaatar and the city of Deir al-Balah, where fierce airstrikes resulted in additional casualties, according to the report.

The grim statistics underscore the severity of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, with the death toll reaching at least 22,700 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. Additionally, 7,000 individuals are reportedly missing under the rubble, presumed to be casualties of the conflict. The international community faces an urgent call to address the escalating humanitarian crisis and seek a sustainable solution to the longstanding conflict in the region.

Display of Resistance

Palestinian forces thwarted the advances of the Zionist enemy, effectively dealing heavy blows and preventing any consolidation of occupation across various regions of the Gaza Strip.

Despite the passage of two and a half months since the commencement of the ground operation, the relentless efforts of the Palestinian resistance have led to successive defeats for the occupying forces, compelling their withdrawal from the majority of areas in the northern Gaza Strip—an accomplishment of significant magnitude for the steadfast resistance fighters.

A notable triumph unfolded today as the Al-Qassam Brigades orchestrated the complete destruction of a Zionist personnel carrier situated in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip, employing the formidable “Al-Yassin 105” shell. Scenes depicting the obliteration of the personnel carrier were released by Al-Qassam, symbolizing a powerful stance against the occupiers.

The resilience of Al-Qassam forces further manifested as they obliterated enemy forces that had penetrated Al-Maghazi camp, utilizing a barrage of heavy-caliber mortar shells. Simultaneously, the Al-Quds Brigades announced the successful missile salvoes targeting strategic locations, including “Nahal Oz,” “Sufa,” and “Hulit.”

In another commendable operation, the Brigades revealed their precision and efficacy by targeting an occupation army force entrenched in a house in Tal al-Hawa, Gaza, with an OG-7V anti-personnel missile. This precise strike resulted in casualties within the force, and the Mujahideen successfully seized the soldiers’ equipment.

January 7, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

DPR Head Explains Why Russia Only Hits Military Targets in Ukraine

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 07.01.2024

The Ukrainian military has been launching daily attacks on Donetsk throughout the winter holidays. Three hospital patients were wounded during shelling of the city on Orthodox Christmas Eve. Before that, a Ukrainian attack on New Year’s Eve left four dead and 13 more injured.

Russia’s Armed Forces hit only military targets in Ukraine as part of the ongoing special operation, Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told Sputnik.

This is what sets Russia apart from the regime in Kiev that targets civilians in Belgorod and Donetsk during its recent attacks, Pushilin said.

“We, like no one else since 2014, have a certain moral right to act emotionally and deal straight from the shoulder, but that is not who we are. And this is what sets us apart. If we were to employ the methods used by our enemy, how would we then be any better than our enemy, what are we fighting against then?” Pushilin asked rhetorically.

The so-called Euromaidan protests in Ukraine’s capital culminated in the February 2014 coup d’etat that brought radical pro-EU and pro-NATO politicians to power and plunged Ukraine into crisis, leading to the current conflagration.

The DPR head emphasized that Moscow would never stoop to attacks targeting the civilian population – an approach that has become a trademark of the regime led by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We would never be able to forgive ourselves if at some point we were able to speed up victory by resorting to carpet bombing and shelling the civilian population,” Pushilin said.

Dwelling on Moscow’s response to the constant shelling of Russian frontline towns by Ukraine’s Armed Forces, the DPR head emphasized: “Gritting our teeth and losing loved ones, we have been dealing with this since 2014, but it has not eroded our humanity. Losing humanity here could have much more serious consequences for our country. This is exactly what our president is talking about – the need to remain human.”

January 7, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden Regime Can Force Israel to Stop Fighting in Gaza But Will Not Do It

Sputnik – 06.01.2024

Three months after the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict sparked by the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli territories, Tel Aviv appears intent to continue its invasion of the Gaza Strip — seemingly oblivious to the number of Palestinian civilians killed in its quest to punish Hamas.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has undertaken yet another voyage to the Middle East, meeting Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the ongoing hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

While media reports this week suggested that Blinken will try facilitate the return of Palestinians displaced by the fighting back to their homes and to urge Israel to increase aid to Palestinians, American human rights lawyer Francis Anthony Boyle argues that the US state secretary is “up to no good.”

In an interview with Sputnik, Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois’ College of Law, suggested that Blinken headed to the Middle East to “better coordinate the escalation of conflict” there instead of trying to put an end to bloodshed.

“In fact, the Biden administration just needs to order Israel to cease fire immediately, and they will have to do it. But of course, Blinken is not going to do that. He is a diehard Zionist. He is in on the plot over there with Netanyahu to inflict outright genocide on the Palestinians,” Boyle said.

According to him, the US appears to be “just backing whatever Israel wants to do,” which currently appears to be attempting to displace over 2 million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

“If you look at the countries Blinken is going to, he is going to try to neutralize any opposition to this plan by Israel and see if they can pull it off,” Boyle remarked.

He also argued that the Biden administration is “complicit in Israeli genocide against the Palestinians” by supplying Israel with military hardware and munitions and by providing Tel Aviv with political support.

January 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rwanda, Congo deny claims of talking with Israel to take in displaced Gazans

Press TV – January 6, 2024

Rwanda, Congo and Chad have refuted claims that they have engaged in any discussions with Israel concerning the potential acceptance of Palestinians displaced from the war-torn Gaza Strip.

Citing the latest fake news campaign from Israel, the Rwanda foreign ministry circulated a “disinformation alert” against the Zman Yisrael, an Israeli news outlet and The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site, that had claimed on Friday that “Israel is in talks with Chad and Rwanda to accept thousands of Palestinians from Gaza.”

“No such discussion has taken place either now or in the past, and the disinformation should be ignored,” the statement from the Rwanda foreign ministry read on X, formerly Twitter.

Earlier, Congo and Chad also denied holding talks with Israel about the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.

Contrary to what is reported in some media, there has “never been any form of negotiation, discussion or initiative” between Kinshasa and Israel on the alleged reception of Palestinian migrants on Congolese soil, the Congolese government spokesperson, Patrick Muyaya, said in a statement late Thursday.

In its report, The Times of Israel asserted that Congo is willing to take in Palestinians. Quoting from a senior source in the security cabinet, it claimed that Congo “will be willing to take in migrants, and we’re in talks with others.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is conducting secret contacts for accepting thousands of immigrants from Gaza with Congo, in addition to other nations,” the report read.

Meanwhile, The Times of Israel published another report on Thursday, stating that Israel has denied that it is in talks with other countries about absorbing Gazan immigrants, and that the senior official pushed back on Zman Yisrael’s report.

“It’s a baseless illusion in my opinion. No country will absorb 2 million people, or 1 million, or 100,000, or 5,000. I don’t know where that idea came from,” said the official in a briefing to Israeli journalists, on condition of anonymity, as the report stated.

According to reports, the Israeli regime is adopting the “voluntary” resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza as an official policy.

Earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu said he supports the idea but needs to find countries that are willing to “absorb” Gazans. “We are working on it,” he said.

While quoting a senior Israeli official, the report from Zman Yisrael also stated that whoever volunteers for migration would be handed over a “generous financial grant” and “extensive aid” to the receiving country.

“The principle is to give a generous financial grant to any Palestinian who expresses a desire to emigrate from Gaza, along with extensive aid to the receiving country, including military aid,” the report read.

On Wednesday, despite criticisms from the United States, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism Party, doubled down on a call for “voluntary emigration” from Gaza once the current war on Gaza ends.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the so-called national security minister, this week issued a call “to encourage the migration of Gaza residents” as a “solution” to the humanitarian crisis.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, condemned both Smotrich and Ben Gvir for their calls to resettle Palestinians living in Gaza as “inflammatory and irresponsible” on Wednesday.

“Forced displacements are strictly prohibited as a grave violation of [international humanitarian law] and words matter,” Borrell said on X.

A spokesperson for the United Kingdom foreign office said: “Gaza is Occupied Palestinian Territory and will be part of a future Palestinian state. The UK firmly rejects any suggestion of the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza.”

Furthermore, the Spanish government also offered its own rebuke Wednesday, saying the administration rejects recent statements by Israeli authorities evoking population movements in Gaza that would be contrary to international law.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

Since the beginning of the war, at least 22,600 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,910 others injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities.

The relentless attacks have caused extensive devastation in Gaza, resulting in 60% of the region’s infrastructure being either damaged or completely destroyed.

This has led to the displacement of nearly 2 million residents, who now face severe shortages of essential resources such as food, clean water, and medicine.

January 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel aiming to derail ICJ genocide case – Axios

RT | January 6, 2024

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has ordered its embassies across the globe to pressure their host countries to reject South Africa’s genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Axios has reported, citing an urgent diplomatic cable.

Pretoria addressed the ICJ last week, claiming that Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza are “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part” of the Palestinian population. South Africa wants the The Hague-based court to issue an injunction ordering the IDF to suspend its military campaign in the enclave. More than 22,600 people have been killed in Gaza over the past three months, according to the local health ministry.

The cable, which was sent out by the Foreign Ministry on Thursday, stresses that Israel’s “strategic goals” are for the ICJ to reject South Africa’s request for an injunction, refrain from determining that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and acknowledge that the IDF’s actions in the enclave comply with nternational law, Axios said in an article on Saturday.

“A ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications,” the document, copies of which were seen by the outlet, read.

According to the Foreign Ministry, Israeli diplomats must pressure their counterparts and high-level politicians in host countries to issue “immediate and unequivocal public statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the outragest, absurd and baseless allegations made against Israel.”

It’s also important for foreign nations “to publicly acknowledge that Israel is working to increase the humanitarian aid to Gaza, as well as to minimize damage to civilians, while acting in self defense after the horrible October 7 attack by a genocidal terrorist organization [Hamas],” the cable read.

The Foreign Ministry stressed that Israeli diplomats must urgently work on obtaining such statements so that they come out before the ICJ hearings begin on January 11. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also send letters to dozens of world leaders, relaying a similar message, it added.

Countries like Türkiye, Jordan, and Malaysia have supported South Africa’s cases. However, it was rejected by Israel’s prime backer, the US. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier this week that “we are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Gaza.

January 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

USA: mask of peacemaker and human rights defender dropped

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 05.01.2024

The meeting of the UN Security Council on December 8 was a rather sad and very instructive event for all mankind. At this meeting, the United States used its veto right to brazenly and rudely single-handedly block a resolution introduced by the United Arab Emirates and supported by 97 countries. This resolution, as we know, demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in order to put an end to the insane, unprecedented and deliberate daily killings of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli army. With its shameful vote, the United States proved and showed to the whole world that it is not only complicit in Israel’s murder of Palestinians, but also actually complicit in all those crimes committed by the Israeli military and the crazed Netanyahu government in the Gaza Strip.

Saying that almost 18,000 people were killed and 50,000 injured in just over the first 60 days may be a difficult statement to make, especially when the majority of those killed are innocent civilians, mostly women and children. This is not an earthquake or a natural disaster. This is a deliberate, reckless act of revenge directed against all Palestinians, undertaken in the hope that such war crimes will forever put an end to the Palestinians’ desire to free themselves from occupation and establish an independent Palestinian State. Nevertheless, this is a reality that the US administration, led by President Joe Biden, has decided to ignore in spite of the whole world, giving Israel additional time to take the lives of even more innocent people.

This is not the first time that the United States has used its veto right to protect Israel from harsh condemnation by the overwhelming majority of the world for continuing violations of all kinds of UN and human rights conventions in order to maintain its racist occupation of Palestine since 1948. It was US veto No. 46 in favor of Israel, confirming the isolation of the Jewish state, double standards and hypocrisy of successive US administrations when it comes to the rights of Palestinians and Arabs. Even the British government, in an effort to avoid harsh criticism from its own people for supporting Israel’s criminal war, decided to abstain from voting on the resolution.

The UN Security Council has rarely been a forum for Arabs and the peoples of developing countries in general to seek justice, given the balance of power between its five veto-wielding countries. After all, this body charged with maintaining international peace and security failed to stop the illegal war waged by former US President George W. Bush to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003, or to force Israel to comply with dozens of Security Council resolutions calling for an end to the occupation of, or the construction of illegal settlements in, the occupied West Bank of Jordan and East Jerusalem.

However, this time the case is different by all standards. After all, it was the Western media that pointed out that nowhere on earth has there been such a brutal bombing campaign against such a tiny enclave as Gaza, where more than 2.3 million people live in appalling conditions. Comparisons were made with the Allied bombing of Dresden (Germany) during World War II, noting that the total weight of bombs dropped by Israel on Gaza could be equal to two atomic bombs that the United States used against Japan in the same war. Apart from the heavy loss of life among Palestinian women and children, which prompted the brave UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to use Article 99 of the UN Charter for the first time since 1971 to call for the intervention of the Security Council to end the war, there was the fact that many more people could have died of hunger and disease due to the appalling living conditions in Gaza since Israel had began its “war of revenge.”

Antonio Guterres said he invoked Article 99 because “there is a high risk of a complete collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza.” The UN expects that this will lead to a “complete disruption of public order and increased pressure for mass displacement to Egypt.” The Gaza Strip is at a “tipping point,” he said, and desperate people are in serious danger of starvation. Guterres said that the HAMAS action in Israel on October 7 would “never be able to justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” The UN chief had earlier angered Israel, which called for his resignation, when he reminded the world at a previous Security Council meeting that the HAMAS attack had not happened “in a vacuum”, but had occurred after more than 56 years of Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights exceeding the right to self-determination. Besides, the right to self-defense of the Palestinians and Palestine has never been terminated by anyone. Or should we assume that in this case, the right to self-defense only exists for Israel, while the Palestinians, according to one Israeli minister, “these animals” should be destroyed by using atomic weapons? What does it feel like for the world in the 21st century to listen to this caveman Israeli, and moreover a minister? Apparently, this is not only his personal opinion, but the dominant view of the entire cabinet under the leadership of “conductor Netanyahu.”

Antonio Guterres described in detail the “humanitarian nightmare” faced by Palestinians in Gaza, referring to the intense, widespread and ongoing Israeli attacks from the air, land and sea, as a result of which, according to incomplete data, 339 educational institutions, 26 hospitals, 56 medical institutions, 88 mosques and three churches were completely destroyed. According to reports, more than 60 percent of housing in Gaza has been destroyed or damaged, about 85 percent of the civilian population has been forced to leave their homes, the health system is collapsing, and “nowhere in Gaza is safe.”

Nevertheless, all these facts seemed to be empty words for the US representative at the Security Council meeting, who, like a well-trained parrot, repeated the same senseless and false arguments that ending the war now would allow HAMAS to carry out new attacks on Israel in the future. It is well known that Israel’s security will be ensured only by the creation of an independent Palestinian State that will be able to build peaceful relations with the Israelis. Echoing the ridiculous fabrications of the Israeli Prime Minister, US officials stupidly and irresponsibly stated that they supported some kind of illusion of “eliminating HAMAS”, although they know that this is practically impossible. Both Israel and the Biden administration insist on arrogant and outrageous disregard for the fact that the only way to prevent future attacks on the Israeli State and put an end to any violence is to end Israel’s racist occupation of Palestinian lands.

Even if HAMAS theoretically disappeared, it would not prevent the emergence of new Palestinian resistance groups as long as the suffering of Palestinians under occupation and the apartheid system continues. Thus, instead of using the same old arguments about protecting Israel’s security and right to exist, an alternative strategy should be to stop putting Israel above all international laws. Take, for example, the fact that Israel is the only state in the Middle East that has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has managed to create both nuclear weapons and their means of delivery under the “American umbrella”. Perhaps this explains the fact that Israel allows itself to disobey international laws and regulations of international organizations and is still actively preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian State.

By using its veto right to prevent an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the United States has lost many friends in the Arab region as well as around the world. It has also lost all credibility in asserting that human rights occupy any place on its foreign policy agenda. Washington has completely thrown off the mask of a peacemaker and a champion of human rights and appeared in its true selfish and unsightly form, and no matter how hard it tries, the former prestige, respect and reverence cannot be restored. This is the new current unenviable fate of Americans.

January 5, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel picks purported American rapist as defense lawyer at ICJ in Gaza case

Press TV – January 4, 2024

A purported rapist lawyer will likely defend the Israeli regime at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague against allegations of genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip.

South Africa filed an 84-page suit against Israel at the ICJ on December 29, asking the top UN court to urgently declare that the regime has breached its responsibilities under international law since October 7, when it launched its genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Barak Ravid, the political reporter at Axios, has revealed that American lawyer Alan Dershowitz, 85, will likely defend the case for Israel.

“Israeli officials say [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu wants Alan Dershowitz to represent Israel at the @CIJ_ICJ hearing next week about South Africa’s accusation that it is conducting genocide in Gaza,” Ravid said on X.

Often referred to as Israel’s “attack dog,” Dershowitz in 2004 alleged that the top court was “founded” on discrimination, only because it had ruled that the Israeli-built “Separation Wall” was erected “contrary to international law.”

Dershowitz, among others, has defended sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. This is while a federal judge in New York last month ordered the identities of more than 150 people mentioned in court documents related to the crimes of Epstein to be released.

One of the victims said Epstein trafficked her to Dershowitz for sex at least six times, beginning when she was only 16.

A long-time friend and advisor of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Dershowitz also defended convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein, a disgraced Hollywood producer who was arrested and charged with rape in New York back in May 2018, and was finally found guilty of two of five felonies in February 2020.

South Africa says Israel has violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention, stressing that it “has engaged in, is engaging in and risks further engaging in genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

South Africa will present its arguments on January 11, while Israel is set to counter on January 12.

January 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Gaza withdrawal, a prelude to full-out war

By Hasan Illaik | The Cradle | January 4, 2024

At the start of the new year, Israel’s occupation army began implementing the withdrawal of a large portion of its forces from the northern Gaza Strip.

This withdrawal did not mean the end of the war on Gaza, and it certainly did not suggest calm on the Lebanese-Israeli front. On the contrary, reducing the pace of the war in the Gaza Strip increases the possibilities of an Israeli war on Lebanon.

The battles taking place between the occupation army and Hezbollah along the southern Lebanese border since 8 October, in support of the resistance in Gaza, have been increasing in intensity day after day.

Washington and Tel Aviv have sought to maximize pressure on Hezbollah by warning of the possibility of a large-scale war between Israeli forces and the Lebanese resistance. These tactics were in effect long before the assassination of Hamas’ Deputy Head of the Political Bureau Saleh Al-Arouri on 2 January by an Israeli air strike in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut. The killing of Al-Arouri now increases the chance of the war expanding.

The third stage is coming

The first stage of Tel Aviv’s war was the mass destruction and occupation of northern Gaza; the second stage is the occupation of key points in the south of the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians have flocked for safety. The current troop withdrawal from the territory’s north means that the Israelis are cementing their southern plans and preparing to move on to phase three: the long, low-intensity war.

As it enters the third stage, the occupation army intends to maintain a geographical buffer surrounding the northern Gaza Strip. It also plans to continue occupying the Gaza Valley area (central Gaza), while completing its operations in Khan Yunis in the south.

The fate of the Philadelphia axis – or Salah ad-Din Axis – a strip of land on the border between Gaza and Egypt which Israel wants to control, will be left to deliberations between Tel Aviv and Cairo. This is to ensure that incidents do not occur that lead to tension between the two parties, as well as to guarantee that refugees do not flow from the south of the Gaza Strip towards Sinai.

Israel’s ground withdrawal from northern Gaza is taking place primarily because the occupation army’s target bank has been depleted. All targets prior to the start of the war have been destroyed, and all new operational targets have been bombed.

Despite this, the Palestinian resistance continues to carry out operations against Israeli forces. These organizations remain relatively unscathed in the entire area of ​​the northern Gaza Strip, which will increase the ability of the resistance to inflict losses on occupation ranks, now and in the future.

This clear Israeli loss – in terms of Tel Aviv’s stated war objectives – has been made evident by two basic factors: First, that the occupation army cannot ‘cleanse’ the northern Gaza Strip house by house or tunnel by tunnel, because this process will take years, expose more of its soldiers to danger, and cannot be implemented without further displacing the entire population of northern Gaza or massacring them. It should be noted, despite Israeli attempts to portray matters otherwise, that hundreds of thousands of civilians are still present in the north.

Second, the Israeli government needs to gradually re-inject reserve soldiers into the country’s economy to jump-start it, and to ensure that the productive sectors are not exposed to damage from which recovery will take a long time. This, despite the fact that the US and much of Europe appear ready to assist Israel’s economy, if necessary.

These measures are being taken because Israel has patently failed to achieve the two main goals of its war, namely, eliminating the Hamas-led resistance in Gaza, and liberating the Israeli prisoners captured by the resistance on 7 October.

There remains a basic motive that must be noted: The Israeli army is currently putting all its efforts into implementing a US decision to push the war from its first and second phases into the third phase before the end of January 2024. This requires the war to be managed at a slower boil, drawing less attention to Israeli carnage and the mass suffering of Palestinians.

After three months of brutalities, Washington has assessed the Israeli army as unable to eliminate the resistance or the possibilities of regional escalation, and has noted the significant harm caused to the US administration of Joe Biden as he enters the presidential primary season.

An escalation with Lebanon

As the Israeli occupation army moves to focus its operations on the southern Gaza Strip, the intensity of military operations along the Lebanese border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army has also been ratcheted up.

Hezbollah increased its targeting of occupation soldiers, both in their visible locations and inside the settlements of northern Palestine.

The information capabilities of Hezbollah have developed in both sophistication and accuracy during the past months. The Lebanese resistance fighters have employed missile types not previously utilized, which have a greater range and better destructive capacity than previous generations.

On the other hand, Tel Aviv has doubled the firepower it used in southern Lebanon. The Israelis continue to limit their operations to the area south of the Litani River, and are not expanding their scope except to target resistance groups that carry out strikes across the border. In recent weeks, the occupation army’s destructive power has risen dramatically since the early days of the battle.

By increasing its strikes, Israel’s leadership seeks to inflict the greatest possible number of losses among the ranks of the resistance fighters, as well as to spread panic among southern Lebanese residents – displacing more of them, and destroying the largest possible number of homes. This places a burden on both Hezbollah and the Lebanese state in the reconstruction process after the end of hostilities.

But there is a longer-term goal to this Israeli military performance. The government in Tel Aviv, according to its official statements, wants Hezbollah to withdraw from the south of the Litani, to ensure the security of Israeli settlers in northern Palestine who abandoned their homes, either voluntarily or under evacuation orders from their army. By some estimates, the number of Israelis fleeing their settlements in occupied north Palestine has reached more than 230,000 people.

In parallel with the public statements, messages began arriving in Beirut, from the US and from European capitals, demanding what they call ‘the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,’ meaning Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the south of the Litani River.

According to emerging information, Tel Aviv is betting that Hezbollah will be deterred, as the 2019 economic collapse from which Lebanon has not yet recovered and the country’s long-running internal tensions are factors that will ultimately prevent Hezbollah from waging war.

Israel is therefore hoping that Hezbollah will yield to pressure and meet its demands regarding the withdrawal of its fighters from the border area with occupied Palestine.

The Israeli assessment of Lebanese affairs preceded its assassination of Al-Arouri in Beirut on 2 January. But in the same way that Israel military commanders and politicians have under-estimated and dismissed armed Palestinian resistance initiatives within occupied lands prior to 7 October, they continue to cling to a dated Israeli calculus that Hezbollah will never fully retaliate, or that it will only do so in a way that stops short of war.

Granted, Hezbollah does genuinely seek to limit the scope of the military confrontation, and has often pushed for a Gaza ceasefire to end hostilities throughout the region. Hezbollah is equally concerned about not disrupting the lives and livelihood of southern residents.

But while Hezbollah takes into account the complex political and economic Lebanese reality, it is not prepared to make concessions. Sources in the resistance axis say that Israel, as Hezbollah sees it, is not in a position to go to war with Lebanon when it cannot even compensate or digest the massive strategic losses it has incurred from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

Despite its desire to not expand the war, Hezbollah has already begun to prepare for it. Hezbollah’s party statement, issued after the assassination of Al-Arouri, indicates this, and field measures and developments will begin to appear in time.

What Israel was unable to achieve in Gaza (restoring deterrence) while facing the tight ranks of the region’s Axis of Resistance, it will most certainly not be allowed to gain in Lebanon.

The first signs of this will appear in the plans that Hezbollah is expected to carry out in response to Israel’s 2 January raid on Dahiyeh to assassinate Al-Arouri – the first of its kind since August 2006 – and to which its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah had previously threatened he would respond.

The bottom line is that Tel Aviv’s assessment of a war with Lebanon is based on its reading that Hezbollah wishes to prevent a major confrontation at any cost. Not only is this calculus wrong, but it has also muddled Israeli minds to the point where this may itself lead to the outbreak of a destructive war between the two sides.

January 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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