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Pentagon Gave $39 MILLION To Dr. Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance

“Charity” that funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan lab accused of being the source of the outbreak, federal data reveals

By JOSH BOSWELL and MARTIN GOULD – Daily Mail – June 10, 2021

The Pentagon gave $39 million to a charity that funded controversial coronavirus research at a Chinese lab accused of being the source for Covid-19, federal data reveals. The news comes as the charity’s chief, British-born scientist Dr. Peter Daszak, was exposed in an alleged conflict of interest and back-room campaign to discredit lab leak theories.

The charity, EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), has come under intense scrutiny after it emerged that it had been using federal grants to fund research into coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

The U.S. nonprofit, set up to research new diseases, has also partly funded deeply controversial ‘gain of function‘ experiments, where dangerous viruses are made more infectious to study their effect on human cells.

A political storm broke when former president Donald Trump canceled a $3.7 million grant to the charity last year amid claims that Covid-19 was created in, or leaked from, the Wuhan lab funded by EHA.

But federal grant data assembled by independent researchers shows that the charity has received more than $123 million from the government – from 2017 to 2020 – and that one of its biggest funders is the Department of Defense, funneling almost $39 million to the organization since 2013.

Exactly how much of that money went toward research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is unknown.

Federal grant data assembled by independent researchers shows that the charity has received more than $123 million from the government – and that one of its biggest funders is the Department of Defense, funneling almost $39million to the organization since 2013.

Grants from the Pentagon included $6,491,025 from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) from 2017 to 2020 with the description: ‘Understanding the risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease emergence in Western Asia.‘

The grant was categorized as ‘scientific research – combating weapons of mass destruction.‘

The majority of the DoD funding came from the DTRA, a military branch with a mission to ‘counter and deter weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.’

EHA also received $64.7 million from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), $13 million from Health and Human Services, which includes the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control, $2.3 million from the Department of Homeland Security, and $2.6 million from the National Science Foundation.

A government funding figure of $3.4 million was widely reported, after White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci was questioned in a Senate hearing on how much money the National Institutes of Health sent to the Wuhan lab via its grants to EcoHealth Alliance in 2019.

But the total grant figures including Pentagon funding dwarf that number.

Researchers James Baratta and Mariamne Everett assembled grant filings from US government agencies to EHA, which were published on popular science site Independent Science News in December.

The site found EHA’s declaration of its vast military funding is nestled deep in the ‘Privacy Policy’ section of its website, under the title ‘EcoHealth Alliance Policy Regarding Conflict of Interest in Research’.

In the disclosure EHA says it is ‘the recipient of various grant awards from federal agencies including the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense.‘

It does not disclose the size of its DoD funding.

In 2014 the Obama administration outlawed gain of function research, such as the experiments funded by EHA, after concerns were raised among scientists that it could lead to a global pandemic from a genetically enhanced virus escaping a lab.

But EHA reportedly continued to legally fund the practice, using a loophole that allowed for the research in cases ‘urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.‘

One notable EHA ‘policy advisor’ is David Franz, a former commander at the principal US government biowarfare and biodefense facility Fort Detrick.

Franz was an official in the United Nations Special Commission which inspected for bioweapons in Iraq.

The charity’s head, Daszak, has been accused of orchestrating a behind-the-scenes ‘bullying’ campaign to ensure the blame for covid-19 did not fall on the Wuhan lab he funded.

The 55-year-old worked closely with the lab’s so-called ‘bat woman,’ Shi Zhengli, in their studies of coronaviruses.

In February 2020 Daszak persuaded more than two dozen other scientists to sign off on a letter he had written to highly respected medical journal The Lancet, that was seen as so influential that it cowed most experts into refusing even to consider that the virus could have been man-made and escaped from the Wuhan institute.

Former high-level Clinton administration staffer Jamie Metzl, who now sits on the World Health Organization’s advisory committee on human genome editing, told DailyMail.com that the Lancet letter ‘was scientific propaganda and a form of thuggery and intimidation.‘

Freedom of Information Act disclosures revealed Daszak tried to distance his charity from the letter to make it appear it was coming from ‘a community supporting our colleagues.‘

The charity chief told his fellow signatories in an email that the letter would not be sent under the EcoHealth logo ‘and will not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person.‘

The joint letter, published in the journal on February 19 last year, praised the Chinese ‘who continue to save lives and protect global health during the challenge of the Covid-19 outbreak‘ and added ‘We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.‘

Despite his close connections to the Chinese lab, Daszak was also picked by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be part of its 13-member team that was tasked with finding the cause of the pandemic which began in Wuhan, a city of some 11 million people in Central China.

Metzl told DailyMail.com the appointment was a ‘massive and outrageous conflict of interest,‘ allowing a man who had significant financial and reputational stakes in discrediting lab leak theories to investigate those theories.

Prominent scientists have criticized the WHO probe, which dismissed lab leak theories, as lackluster and incomplete.

In a Freedom of Information disclosure of Fauci’s emails obtained by Buzzfeed last month, Daszak thanked the White House doctor for pushing back on the theory that covid-19 was man made.

‘I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,‘ Daszak wrote in April 2020.

Fauci says the emails have been taken out of context.

EHA’s most recent financial statements filed with the IRS say that around 90 per cent of its funding comes from government sources.

The 2019 report says Daszak was paid a total $410,801 for the year, including $311,815 base pay, $42,250 bonus, $24,500 deferred compensation and $32,236 nontaxable benefits.

June 10, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Zarif defends Iran’s voting rights as Guterres set to get reelected as UN chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Press TV – June 9, 2021

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres earlier this month, criticizing the United Nations’ decision to deprive Iran of its voting rights.

As the UN Security Council backed Guterres for a second term on Tuesday, it is worthwhile to read highlights of Zarif’s letter to the UN chief, in which the Iranian foreign minister slammed the UN decision as “fundamentally flawed, entirely unacceptable and completely unjustified.”

“Iran’s inability to fulfill its financial obligation toward the United Nations is directly caused by ‘unlawful unilateral sanctions’ imposed by the United States to punish those who comply with a Security Council resolution,” Zarif wrote.

He was making a reference to the sanctions that the US slapped on Iran after former president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the historic pact.

The sanctions have blocked Iran’s access to global financial systems, and its money in foreign banks, including in South Korean, Japanese and Iraqi banks.

Zarif said the world is well aware that the people of Iran have been under unprecedented economic warfare and terrorism since the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, also called the JCPOA, in material breach of preemptory norms of international law, the Charter of the United Nations and Resolution 2231.

“It is astonishingly absurd that Iranian people, who have been forcibly blocked from transferring their own money and resources to buy food and medicine – let alone pay UN contributions arrears – by a permanent member of the United Nations’ Security Council, are now being punished for not being allowed to pay budget arrears by the secretariat of the same organization, which has unjustifiably chosen for the past 3 years to remain indifferent in the face of attempted mass starvation – a crime against humanity – by the United States,” he noted.

The letter came after the UN said it had suspended the voting rights of Iran and four other countries over dues under Article 19 of the UN Charter, which states that any member owing the previous two years of assessments may not vote in the General Assembly.

However, Zarif pointed out that the UN Charter gives the General Assembly the authority to decide “that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of the member,” and in that case a country can continue to vote.

“By what definition are Iran’s arrears not ‘due to conditions beyond control’?” the chief Iranian diplomat asked.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is fully committed to fulfilling its financial obligations to the United Nations and will continue to make every effort to settle the arrears in the payment of its financial contribution to the UN and other international organizations as soon as the underlying imposed conditions, i.e. the US unlawful unilateral coercive measures, is removed,” Zarif added.

The UN decision came while Iran and the other parties to the JCPOA are engaged in multilateral talks to bring the US back into compliance with the deal and remove the anti-Iran sanctions in exchange for the reversal of Iran’s nuclear activities that go beyond the JCPOA limits.

The talks, which began in early April, have not led to a tangible outcome yet.

Zarif said on Monday that it remains unclear whether US President Joe Biden and State Secretary Antony Blinken are ready to bury the failed “maximum pressure” policy of Trump and his State Secretary Mike Pompeo.

“Iran is in compliance with the #JCPOA. Just read paragraph 36,” Zarif wrote in a tweet. “Time to change course.”

June 9, 2021 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

World should not tolerate Israel’s reckless terrorism, North Korea says

Palestinian workers clear rubble and debris in al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City on June 8, 2021. (Photo by AFP)
Press TV | June 9, 2021

North Korea has denounced the latest Israeli military aggression on the besieged Gaza strip, stating that Tel Aviv is massacring children and that the international community should not tolerate Israel’s reckless sponsorship of terrorism.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the whole Gaza Strip has turned into a huge human slaughterhouse and a place of massacring children,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Israel’s horrific crime of killing the … children is a severe challenge to the future of humankind and a crime against the humanity,” it added.

The international community should not tolerate “Israel’s reckless state-sponsored terrorism and act of obliterating other nations.”

At least 260 Palestinians, including 66 children, were killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in 11 days of the conflict that began on May 10. Israel’s airstrikes also brought widespread devastation to the already impoverished territory.

The Gaza-based resistance movements responded by launching over 4,000 rockets into the occupied territories, some reaching as far as Tel Aviv and even Haifa and Nazareth to the north.

The Israeli regime was eventually forced to announce a ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, which came into force in the early hours of May 21.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that Palestinians are facing “staggering health needs” in the occupied territories after the last month’s conflict in the Gaza Strip.

June 9, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Blinken’s statements encourage Israel to continue its crimes: Hamas

Palestine Information Center – June 8, 2021

GAZA – The Hamas Movement denounced the recent statement of US Secretary Antony Blinken on Israel’s right to self-defense, saying that it gives the green light to the “Zionist enemy” to continue its aggression against the Palestinian people.

Hamas in a press statement on Tuesday said, “Is the killing of women and children, demolishing homes on the heads of their residents, expelling citizens from their homes in Jerusalem, attacking Al-Aqsa Mosque, assaulting journalists and breaking their hands, self-defense?”

It stressed that the occupier does not have the right to self-defense but its duty according to international law is to end the occupation and stop the aggression against the occupied people.

Hamas also condemned the continued US military support to Israel and providing it with all kinds of advanced weapons which makes the United States an accomplice in the violence against Palestinians.

“Hamas is a democratically elected Palestinian national resistance movement that exercises its legitimate right under international law to resist the occupation by all available means, including armed resistance”, it added.

The Movement demanded that Blinken and his administration abide by international law and implement international resolutions that affirm Palestinians’ right to freedom and independence and to return to their homes from which they were forcibly displaced.

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Questions as Israel intelligence officer dies in detention

MEMO | June 8, 2021

Mystery has shrouded the death of an Israeli military intelligence officer in prison three weeks ago after he was accused of committing crimes that harmed the state, local media reported on Monday.

The Israeli military said that “the investigation uncovered suspicions that the officer, who served in a technology unit in the Intelligence Directorate, knowingly took actions that severely harmed state security.”

Haaretz reported the military saying: “The officer cooperated during his investigation and confessed to many of the deeds that were attributed to him.”

Information about the case was revealed after the military scaled back a complete gag order on it, but, according to the Times of Israel, key details about the affair, including the officer’s identity and the exact nature of his alleged crimes, remain barred from publication.

The Israeli military said, according to the Times of Israel, that the soldier acted alone and did not commit the actions on behalf of a foreign government, for financial reasons or as a result of a specific ideology, but rather for unspecified “personal motivations”.

Meanwhile, Haaretz reported the soldier’s relatives saying: “We are confused, we are frightened and we want real answers.”

“No one has explained to us what happened.”

The soldier was arrested in August. He was found injured in his prison cell on 17 May and died later in hospital.

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Wins Big in Washington

$1.2 billion more is on the way!

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 8, 2021

Now let me get this straight. A nation bullies and harasses a much smaller neighbor which eventually leads that neighbor to strike back with largely home-made weapons. The larger and more powerful country, armed with state of the art killing machines, attacks its basically unarmed opponent and kills hundreds of civilians, including a large number of children. It also destroys billions of dollars of infrastructure in the poorer and weaker neighbor. Almost immediately after the fighting stops, senior legislators from a third nation that had nothing to do with the war apart from supplying the larger nation with weapons appeared on the scene and promoted the lie that the larger nation had actually been the victim of an unprovoked attack by the “terrorists” running the small nation. They did so publicly while meeting with and endorsing the actions of the government officials from the large nation, which, it would seem, is about to be investigated by an international body for war crimes. They were joined by an ex-officio former foreign minister of the third nation who likewise echoed the propaganda being put out by the large nation. Several of them also promised to provide military assistance worth $1 billion so the large nation could rearm itself.

Of course, I am writing about how Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Bill Hagerty traveled to Israel over the Memorial Day weekend and bowed and scraped before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and company. During his meeting with Bibi, Graham even held up a sign reading “More for Israel.” They were joined in Jerusalem by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who was in town visiting with his old friend Yossi Cohen, head of the Israeli Intelligence service Mossad, who is retiring soon.

I sometimes wonder what the Founding Fathers would think about senior legislators ignoring their constituent duties so they could instead travel overseas to pander to the corrupt rulers of a foreign nation that exhibits none of the civic virtues that the Constitution of the United States once embraced in establishing a new republic? Cruz, for example, is a particularly ambitious slimeball who clearly sees his future in the tight embrace of the Israel Lobby. He was recently on the receiving end of some bad press when he abandoned his home in Houston, at the time suffering from a prolonged electricity crisis due to storm damage, to take his family to Cancun. Cruz is a senator whose main job is promoting himself.

Cruz used the opportunity provided by his presence besides the exalted Netanyahu to denounce President Joe Biden for his Administration’s failure to help Israel while it was under attack by the terrorist hordes. Before he left for Israel he stated that he intended “to hear and see firsthand what our Israeli allies need to defend themselves, and to show the international community that we stand unequivocally with Israel. Far too many Democrats morally equivocated between Israel and the terrorists attacking them, and fringe progressive Democrats went even further with wild accusations and conspiracy theories.”

After a day spent touring Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system before viewing damage in Ashkelon in Israel from the Gazan rockets, which he commemorated with a weepy self-video demonstrating his empathy for the Israeli dead, he said that Biden’s calls for Israel to seek a cease fire had “emboldened” the “Hamas terrorists.” He elaborated that “The longer Joe Biden shows weakness to Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran, the more you’re going to see terrorist attacks escalating.”

But it was Lindsey Graham who has to be awarded the prize for being completely oleaginous in the presence of Netanyahu, holding up a sign reading “More for Israel” while practically swooning in the presence of the great leader. He said, with a grin, “The eyes and ears of America is Israel. Nobody does more to protect America from radical Islam than our friends in Israel.”

Flattery will apparently get you everywhere you want to be as Graham is surely aware that Israel is a strategic liability for the United States and its brutality is in fact a recruiting tool for radical groups. Holding up his sign, Graham then asked, “So what can you expect, my friends in Israel, in the next coming days and weeks from Washington? More.” For the home audience he then elaborated on a tweet what “More” would mean. “Great meeting this morning in Jerusalem with Israeli PM Netanyahu. ‘More for Israel’ to help protect and defend from Hamas rocket attacks.” Graham later reported to Fox News that Israel would be sending Defense Minister Benny Gantz to Washington to negotiate the request for the $1 billion increase in military aid to restore its “deterrent” after the savage bottle rocket attack by Hamas. He elaborated “It will be a good investment for the American people. I will make sure in the Senate that they get the money.”

Since the Senate Committee is packed full of Democratic Party Zionists, Graham knows for sure that his support for giving Israel the money will be approved in committee to go to the House for a final vote where it will be also be approved. And the White House is actually signaling that the Treasury check will be somewhat bigger, to the tune of $1.2 billion. A smiling Netanyahu demonstrated that he knows how to say thanks for the freebee, telling Graham “No one has done more for Israel than you, Senator Lindsey Graham, stalwart champion of our alliance and we have no better friend. You’ve been a tremendous friend and a tremendous ally.”

The third Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, a former Trump Ambassador to Japan, is a bit of a non-entity compared to his superstar traveling companions, though he, like Cruz, is unfortunately on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has taken the lead on authorizing immediate resupply of Israel’s weapons. And he too got into the game of kissing Israel’s posterior, posting a media release on his Senate website saying “Cruz and Hagerty Land in Israel to Assess Damage from Hamas War: Americans watched in horror when Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorists in Gaza recently launched thousands of rockets at innocent men, women, and children in Israel. I’m joining Senator Cruz, my colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to visit Israel and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies after they endured the worst terrorist attacks in recent years because I want to see firsthand what more the U.S. can do to strengthen our vital alliance with Israel at a time when terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah and terror-sponsoring regimes in Iran and Syria are making the Middle East more dangerous…”

Pompeo also did his bit, enthusing over his attendance at the retirement party for Cohen. He tweeted how it was “Great to be with good friends in Tel Aviv!” He clearly has acquired the presidential pretensions disease and knows which button has to be pressed first.

One notices immediately the complete lack of any expression of sympathy for the hundreds of Palestinians who were killed by Israel in what was a war that was provoked by the home seizures, armed mobs of settlers in remaining Arab neighborhoods and attacks by soldiers and police on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. After that, one notes that these clowns pretending to be senators are people who were elected and generously paid by American citizens, not by Israel, yet they seem to believe it is completely appropriate to be spend time in that country meddling in someone else’s war on behalf of a rogue state. If anyone is worthy of impeachment, it is they, but never mind, neither the Zionist dominated US national media nor the Establishment will make any such demand, quite the contrary. Be that as it may, their behavior is despicable and is symptomatic of type of corruption that is preceding the decline and fall of what was once a great nation.

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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org

June 8, 2021 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Belfast urges expulsion of Israeli envoys from UK, Ireland

Press TV – June 6, 2021

The City Council of Belfast in Northern Ireland has approved a motion calling on the governments of the UK and Ireland to expel Israeli ambassadors over the occupying regime’s crimes against the Palestinians.

The document, passed with votes from left-wing parties, urged Belfast municipality to call on London and Dublin “to expel from office Israeli ambassadors, with immediate effect.”

Speaking at the voting session, Socialist councilor Fiona Ferguson said, “I think the expulsion of ambassadors is a first step – a preliminary step – to greater action, but it’s an incredibly important and symbolic step.”

Ferguson, who has tabled the motion, demanded that the UK and Ireland lead by example and answer “the call from Palestinians across the world who have asked for ambassadors to be expelled.”

The resolution states that Israel’s military operation in Gaza amounts to the “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” and that the regime’s “illegal settlement expansion, represents flagrant breaches of international law.”

It further says normal cooperation with Tel Aviv is “untenable” at a time when “a growing list of human rights organizations has determined that Israel’s actions amount to apartheid.”

“The council recognizes the rich history of solidarity and activism in this city from all communities for Palestine, including very recently when a huge demonstration called for an end to Israeli mistreatment of the Palestinians; and that such solidarity on the part of our citizens can be an important tool in dismantling support for Israel’s actions,” the motion reads.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian students and activists staged a sit-in protest in front of the Irish Foreign Ministry in Dublin.

They blocked the entrance to the ministry, waving signs urging Ireland to expel the Israeli envoy.

Tel Aviv launched the bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip on May 10, after Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at the al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Apparently caught off guard by unprecedented rocket barrages from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance movements accepted with Egyptian mediation.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children and 39 women, and 1948 others were wounded.

June 6, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel pursuing ultimate goal of destroying Iraq, annihilating its people: Asa’ib leader

Press TV – June 3, 2021

The leader of Iraq’s anti-terror Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq movement says Israel’s Mossad spy agency has silently expanded its presence in Iraq and is working to pit resistance groups against each other, warning that the regime is pursuing the ultimate goal of destroying the Arab country and annihilating its people.

“Israel’s presence, not only in Kurdistan but also in Iraq, is more than expected. Israel already operated in Iraq through its elements, but today, they themselves are present in several provinces in Iraq,” Qais Khazali said on Wednesday, according to Iraq’s al-Ahad television network.

He said Mossad is attempting to assassinate some figures of Kata’ib Hezbollah and Saraya al-Salam resistance group in order to drive them into war with each other.

Pointing to Israel’s presence in Anbar town, Khazali said the Israelis have entered Iraq through civil society organizations and some companies using fake passports.

“The Israelis believe that the land of Babylon (Iraq) must be destroyed and its people annihilated and even the trees there must be uprooted,” he said.

The remarks came almost two months after a facility affiliated with Mossad was attacked by resistance forces in northern Iraq, dealing a heavy blow to the regime and its spy agency.

Khazali also criticized the US military’s presence in Iraq as illegal, saying Baghdad must drive the American forces out in accordance with the Iraqi constitution and a bill passed by the country’s parliament, requiring the Baghdad government to end the presence of all foreign military forces in the Arab country.

The Iraqi MPs’ decision came two days after the high-profile assassination of top Iranian and Iraqi anti-terror commanders – General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) – near Baghdad airport in a drone strike authorized by former US President Donald Trump.

Since then, Iraqi resistance groups have announced a new phase of resistance against US forces in the country as the only option that guarantees the liberation of Iraq from the occupiers.

June 3, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel, Don’t Raise the Roof Beams High As You “Resettle” Lifta; Its Owners Will Return

By Rima Najjar | Global Research | June 1, 2021

The latest crisis in Palestine cannot be set aside as another passing episode in Israel’s forever war against the Palestinian people.

We are now witnessing shocks within Israel behind the Green Line, something that Israel had hitherto been able to contain. In the process, it pretended, along with much of the western world, that it is the “longest-lived democracy in the Middle East” and that only its continued occupation of the West Bank and its harsh blockade of Gaza undermine its “constitutional ideals”- ideals now exposed for what they’ve always been: Jewish supremacist in nature.

We know, as CJ Werleman wrote in Inside Arabia on May 14, 2021,

“Israel is a country built on racism, dispossession, and genocide. The recent rise in attacks by Israeli settlers, vigilante groups, and lynch mobs targeting Palestinians are a continuation of that history and must be addressed.”

There is an unbreakable thread between the Palestinian man lynched by Israeli Jews on the pavement after being pulled from his car in Jaffa and then beaten unconscious recently and the killings and massacres at the hands of Zionist militia in Jaffa and elsewhere in 1948 that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, as recounted by Israeli historian Benny Morris.

The myth, amplified by Wikipedia, is that historians [presumably Israeli] disagree “concerning the effect these killings and massacres had on the Palestinian refugee flight and whether or not these killings and massacres were carried out with the intent of hastening it.”

Palestinian historians have absolutely no doubt about what happened then and why, just as we Palestinians have no doubt about what is happening now in occupied Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, in Gaza and in several towns and cities behind the Green Line where Israel has imposed states of emergency — and why.

Take, for example, my own father’s village of Lifta on the northwestern edge of Jerusalem. It is the last remaining Palestinian village that was ethnically cleansed of its population in the 1948 Nakba. Now, Israel is set to destroy what remains of it.

The Jerusalem Post (JP), an Israeli English newspaper where facts are shaped by a narrative driven by Zionist values instead of knowledge, reported on this deeply disturbing piece of news this month by denying, like those Israeli historians who are still disputing historical facts, that any ethnic cleansing took place in Lifta — apparently, my grandfather just up and put his eight children and wife in a truck and abandoned his home so that, 73 years later, his village would be “resettled” by Israeli Jews and a luxury hotel built there.

The Israeli newspaper published the following shameful headline:

“Arab village of Lifta, abandoned in ’48, to house new Israeli neighborhood: The western neighborhood in Jerusalem which was abandoned in ’48 will be resettled with 259 housing units, including a luxury hotel.”

A report by Hidden Palestine: a News & Media Website, which, unlike JP, is a site driven by a narrative that values freedom from oppression, provides us with the following facts:

The Israeli land authority announced this month that it is taking bids from construction companies to take charge of the real estate development of Lifta, with the contract set to last 98 years.

The agreement includes the construction of 259 buildings, as well as commercial and business units, in addition to a hotel. If it moves forward, the deal would also see the majority of the Palestinian village’s remaining buildings razed to the ground.

Thanks to petitions by its past Palestinian residents, Lifta was declared as one of 25 endangered sites on the 2018 World Monuments Watch list. It also appears on UNESCO’s tentative list of World Heritage Sites, which has led to threats from Netanyahu that Israel would withdraw from UNESCO.

Lifta has few parallels anywhere in the world. The Palestinian village, lying on a slope at the entrance to Jerusalem, is the last ethnically cleansed Palestinian village to be frozen in time. Here, hundreds of beautiful Palestinian stone houses have continued to stand the test of time, empty and neglected for the past 73 years.

With a history dating back at least 700 years as a Palestinian Arab village, Lifta was among the wealthiest communities in the Jerusalem area, and the women were known for their fine embroiders. Thob Ghabani bridal dresses were sewn in Lifta, which were made of ghabani, a natural cotton covered with gold color silk floral embroidery produced in Aleppo. The village’s clothing stores attracted Palestinians and Arabs from across the Levant.

The entire population was forced out following brutal attacks by the invading Hagannah militias in early 1948. It is an incredible but depressing place to visit, and its destruction would contribute to the continued erasure of Palestinian culture and heritage.

The Jerusalem Post’s story made it sound as though the “resettling” of Lifta was a preservation and development project. What it is, in fact, is a rewriting of history.

Destroying Lifta destroys opportunities for Palestinians to uncover the past of both Palestinians and Israelis: “Lifta has a lasting value in its own right, as it can link restitution to the right of return. Moreover, its preservation will be an opportunity to assert the restoration of dignity in the Palestinian as well as the Jewish community. Finally, by halting the new development in Lifta, UNESCO will affirm its global credibility in response to cultural cleansing.” [See LIFTA AFTER ZIONIST PLANNING and PLANNING AS A CRIMINAL ACT]

Israel’s expulsions of Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, Jerusalem neighborhoods just outside the Green Line, are motivated by the same Zionist objective that resulted in the expulsion, also known as ethnic cleansing, of Palestinians like my family from Lifta, which is just inside the Green line. (See Israeli 2019 map of so-called “Greater Israel” below with Lifta, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan circled). That objective is Israel’s desire to Zionize/Judaize all of Jerusalem and all of Palestine.

Israeli 2019 map of so-called “Greater Israel” below with (left to right) Lifta, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan circled

I hope the ongoing worldwide protests on social media against Israel’s crimes will now add the rallying cry of #SaveLifta, in addition to #SaveSheikhJarrah and #SaveSilwan.

If you are still in doubt about Israel’s intention, listen to two Palestinian citizens of Israel reacting to the message they have heard loud and clear all their lives from successive Israeli governments:

Eva Najjar, Haifa-based lead designer and developer at Just Vision, writes:

“I knew I was bringing my children into an ethnic-supremacist state when they were born. But after these past weeks, I don’t know how I can continue to raise them here.” (In The Washington Post : Palestinian citizens of Israel like me are facing terrifying new attacks)

Diana Buttu wonders:

“How do I explain to my 7-year-old son what being a Palestinian citizen of Israel means? What future can he look toward, when the leaders of the government incite hatred against him? What audacious hope can he have when he is bound to face racism and discrimination in education, employment and housing? For now, I try to shield him from the images on television and on our phones, but there will soon come a time when I cannot shield him from the reality that he is surrounded by people who consider him a second-class citizen.” (In The New York Times : The Myth of Coexistence in Israel)

I am heartened by the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) Special Session held on May 27, which for the first time has included a geographic scope encompassing Israeli violations targeting the Palestinian people on both sides of the Green Line.

Israel’s institutionalized regime of racial domination and oppression targets the Palestinian people as a whole, including those no longer in Lifta through no fault of their own, who have more right by far to reconstruct their homes in Lifta than Israeli Jews have in constructing housing and luxury hotels to “resettle” the village. We will return, so don’t raise the roof beams high, Israel.

*

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

June 1, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Revealed: The American Money Entwined with Israel’s Jewish Terrorist Groups

By Jessica Buxbaum | MintPress News | May 28, 2021

JERUSALEM — As Israel rained rockets down on Gaza in mid-May, inside 1948-occupied Palestine (Historic Palestine and modern-day Israel), another kind of Israeli terror emerged. Jewish supremacists stormed cities with high Palestinian populations chanting “Death to Arabs!,” attacking scores of Palestinians and vandalizing their properties.

The mob violence killed two Palestinian citizens of Israel, according to the Mossawa Center: the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel. And despite calls for calm, the attacks are ongoing. On Thursday, a Jewish mob dragged a Bedouin driver out of his car and beat him with glass bottles in northern Historic Palestine. Earlier, footage posted on social media showed Arab gas station workers lying on the ground after being surrounded and beaten by a Jewish mob in the town of Binyamina:

The American Jewish community condemned the wave of anti-Palestinian violence, under the assumption these attacks stem from the fringes of Jewish society. In reality, however, these Jewish supremacists receive financial support from a network of charities in the United States.

Jewish extremists organizing online

As the Israeli government orchestrated a bombing campaign on Gaza, right-wing Israeli activists were coordinating their own war-like operations online.

According to HaBloc, an Israeli nonprofit organization monitoring anti-democratic activity, tens of new groups have been created in the last two weeks on WhatsApp and Telegram. The number of participants in each group ranged from the tens, hundreds, and even thousands. About 2,200 people in total were active in these groups.

HaBloc’s observation of these ultra-right-wing groups reveals how they used social media to organize attacks in advance offline. The groups exchanged information, sold weapons like knives, bats, and pepper spray, used inflammatory rhetoric such as calling for revenge against Palestinian citizens of Israel and documented themselves rioting in the streets.

“This is far more than what’s happening on a daily basis within the far right in Israel,” Ran Cohen, co-founder of HaBloc, said of the extremist activity.

News media reported that the main groups behind the recent rampage were Lehava, a Jewish supremacist organization opposing assimilation and coexistence, and La Familia, a far-right group supporting the Israeli Premier League football club Beitar Jerusalem.

The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), the public and legal advocacy arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, has been monitoring Lehava’s activity for more than a decade.

“Lehava is an organization that claims to work against assimilation, but basically wants to create a Jewish-only space in Jerusalem and in Israel in general,” Rabbi Noa Sattath, IRAC’s director, told MintPress News. “In this last wave of violence, they were certainly instigators in several of the cases.”

IRAC demanded Lehava be labeled a terrorist organization in a letter sent this week to Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, and Head of the Shabak (General Security Service) Nadav Argaman.

Researchers within HaBloc, cautioned, though, attaching the violence to specific organizations.

“The role of Lehava in what happened is not direct,” HaBloc said. “It’s not like there was a central command and they’re sending people into the streets. It was really something that sort of spread out in a more organic way.”

“But the infrastructure and the ideology of Lehava is present and it contributes to what happened in the past few weeks,” HaBloc added.

The American charities bankrolling Lehava

Ben-Zion Gopstein is the leader of Lehava (or “flame” in Hebrew) and founded the organization in 2005. He is a notorious right-wing activist and disciple of Rabbi Meir Kahane, an American-Israeli extremist who founded the Kach Party, a political movement espousing racist beliefs.

After a brief stint in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in the 1980s, the Kach Party was banned from Israeli politics and deemed a terrorist organization by both Israel and the U.S.

Kahane called for the expulsion of Palestinians and Arabs from the Holy Land and advocated for the outlawing of marriage between Jews and non-Jews.

Four years after Kahane’s assassination in 1990, Baruch Goldstein, an ardent Kahane follower, opened fired at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron—killing 29 worshippers.

Kahane and Goldstein have become revered within the Israeli settler movement. Settlers have shared Kahane’s teachings on social media and have prayed at his grave.

Lehava is considered the successor to Kach, and Kahane’s racist ideology, Kahanism, runs deep within Lehava circles.

In addition to following right-wing interactions online, HaBloc’s research has also found a complex web of nonprofits in Israel and the U.S. connected to Lehava.

Lehava is not a registered charity in Israel so it can’t accept donations. Instead, money is funneled to Lehava through the Israeli nonprofit, the Foundation for the Salvation of the People of Israel, or Hakeren Lehazalat Am Israel in Hebrew. Israeli fund, Chemla or “mercy” in Hebrew has also been linked to Lehava until about 2014, according to HaBloc.

The Foundation for the Salvation of the People of Israel did not respond to requests for comment via email. The email address may be Gopstein’s as “benzion” is part of it. When contacted at the telephone number associated with the organization’s GuideStar (a nonprofit database) profile, the person said this was not the foundation and hung up. Contact information for Chemla is not publically available.

Two tax-exempt charities in the U.S. fund Kahanist activity in Israel: Charity of Light and the American Friends of Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi.

Charity of Light funnels money to Chasdei Meir (which translates roughly into “charity which shines” in Hebrew). Chasdei Meir was named after Kahane, according to the fund’s website. As evidenced on Charity of Light’s tax returns, Chasdei Meir is related to the Chemla Fund. Charity of Light donated $72,000 to Chasdei Meir/Chemla Fund in 2018, according to its most recent tax filing.

Jewish terrorism

Armed members of Chasdei Meir are shown wearing jumpsuits emblazoned with portarts of Meir Kahane

The American Friends of Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi directly supports Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi or the Jewish Idea Yeshiva, a Jewish education institution founded by Kahane.

“This is sort of the place for indoctrination of Kahanist ideology,” HaBloc said. “It’s where Benzi Gopstein studied and other prominent Kahanist figures.”

The charity gave $154,000 to Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi in 2018, according to the most recent tax report. The yeshiva is even classified as a terrorist organization by the United States. The yeshiva’s dean, Rabbi Yehuda Kroizer, is also part of Chasdei Meir. The yeshiva did not return a request for comment.

The nonprofits’ tax filings list Levi Chazan as the director of Charity of Light and American Friends of Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi, and Steven Goldrich is listed as a director of Charity of Light and treasurer of American Friends of Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi. Chazan was convicted in a 1984 bus shooting in the Occupied West Bank, which wounded seven Palestinians. Both did not respond to requests for comment.

HaBloc explained this entanglement of Israeli and American organizations is not directly supporting Lehava with monetary contributions, but rather aiding the network around it.

“The relationship between [Lehava] and groups that are funded with American money are two separate issues,” HaBloc’s Cohen said. “There are connections, of course, but we cannot say that these groups that were active in the last two weeks were funded with American dollars.”

Other financial players

The aforementioned charities are largely linked to Kahanism and Lehava, but other American foundations have also been tied to Israeli extremism.

The Traditional Fund gave $51,000 to American Friends of Yeshivat HaRa’ayon and $11,500 to American Friends of Chasdei Meir in 2018. The American Friends of Chasdei Meir is not listed in any available nonprofit database, however, Chasdei Meir’s website does name the American Friends of Chasdei Meir as its contact. The Traditional Fund did not respond to press inquiries.

According to T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, the Central Fund of Israel (CFI) funds Chemla and Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi. The organization filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2018 to revoke CFI and the American Friends of Yeshivat HaRa’ayon’s charitable status on the grounds these groups are funding terrorism.

IRS charity law states that terrorist activities are considered substantial means for disqualifying an organization’s tax-exempt status. This is in accordance with engaging in illegal acts contrary to standard U.S. policy.

A litany of private foundations supports the CFI. Most notably, the foundations belonging to the late American billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Irving Moskowitz. The Moskowitz family foundations have contributed more than $8 million to CFI since 2018 and Adelson’s foundation gave $50,000 to CFI in 2018.

Israeli soldiers and settlers attack Palestinian protesters in the Occupied West Bank town of Salfit, Nov. 30, 2020. Majdi Mohammed | AP

Jay Marcus of CFl said in a statement to MintPress News that, “The Central Fund of Israel absolutely rejects violence and does not support any organizations that promote violence. Furthermore, if an organization that we once supported ever started promoting violence, CFI would not support them in the future.”

Marcus claims that he hasn’t heard of Lehava, adding, “having had rockets indiscriminately showered down on my head, I would certainly disagree with your myth about which ‘groups start violence.’”

The Falic family, owners of the major retail chain Duty Free Americas, has supported The Fund for Saving the People of Israel in the past, providing a total of $60,000 to the association from 2007-2017. The money is wired through the Falic’s Israel-based foundation, the Segal Fund. The Falics could not be reached for comment.

Kahanism’s surge in Israel

Kahane’s Kach Party was banned from entering Israeli politics in 1988. But thanks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kahanists are now infiltrating the halls of the Knesset (Israeli parliament).

In the lead-up to Israel’s March election, Netanyahu pushed for a right-wing alliance with Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Kahanist, a defense lawyer for price tag campaigners, and leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party. Otzma Yehudit partnered with the anti-LGBTQ Noam Party and the National Union-Tkuma faction to form the Religious Zionism bloc in the last election. The coalition allowed the electoral list to secure six seats in the Knesset and for a Kahanist to gain political power. Rabbi Sattath pins the blame squarely on Netanyahu for Jewish supremacists’ rise in government.

A Jewish settler wears a T-shirt with the image of Meir Kahane near the city of Ramallah. Bernat Armangue | AP

“Because the prime minister was in such a dire situation and was desperate for every vote, he gave [Otzma Yehudit] the legitimacy,” Rabbi Sattath said. “What we’re seeing here in Israel and around the world is that one of the symptoms of democracies in decline is when the extreme right takes over the center right. The fact that the prime minister and some of the right-wing parties gave the Jewish Power Party legitimacy has then increased their power. And that’s what enabled them to use these methods they’ve used for over a decade on a large scale in the last wave of violence.”

Upon reflecting back to Kahane’s short time in the Knesset, Rabbi Sattath said he faced opposition from every politician and was immediately ostracized.

“When he got into the Knesset, he got the bare minimum [of votes] to get one seat. But what happened in the eighties was he was boycotted by every other Knesset member. Nobody would sit in the plenum when he was speaking,” Rabbi Sattath said. “Everybody from the left and the right understood that these ideas were dangerous and extreme and had to be restrained.”

Today, the political climate in Israeli politics is different.

“What we’re seeing now is that the restraint is completely over,” Rabbi Sattath continued. “And we’re hoping that by shedding light on the past weeks’ violence, we can return to the understanding that there needs to be a red line, that these violent militias and racist, Jewish supremacists have to be stopped.”

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.

June 1, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Four People Dead After SDF Fighters Attack Demonstrators in Syria’s Manbij

Sputnik – 01.06.2021

DAMASCUS – Four people were killed and 13 more injured after militants from Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) opened fire at demonstrators in Syria’s Manbij on Tuesday, a local source said.

“SDF fighters opened fire on demonstrators at the Jazeera circle in the centre of Manbij, four people were killed and 13 injured as a result,” the source said, adding that some of the injured are in critical condition.

According to the source, demonstrators against the SDF are ongoing for several days in Manbij as locals disagree with “forced conscription of the male population into the armed forces of the Kurdish formations.”

Kurdish militias imposed a curfew and fully blocked the city.

At the same time, another source said that locals in a settlement east of Manbij kicked Kurdish fighters out after they used force against residents.

June 1, 2021 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Israeli State Terror — Killing Palestinians with Impunity

By Stephen Lendman | May 31, 2021

Throughout Jewish state history, its ruling regimes treated Occupied Palestinians and Arab citizens ruthlessly.

Terrorizing them is longstanding Israeli policy, including daily arrests throughout the Occupied Territories, torture, beatings and other forms of abuse, targeted killings, and justice nearly always denied.

Last week, Al Jazeera reported about “grief and anger (in the al-Amari refugee camp) as women wept, young men chanted with raised fists, and masked gunmen fired into the air during” Ahmed Fahd’s funeral.

According to his family, he was extrajudicially arrested by Israeli undercover agents — then assassinated by multiple shots in the back and legs.

Mortally wounded and bleeding to death in public pre-dawn, he was left to die in Ramallah’s Um al-Shayaret neighborhood last Tuesday.

What happened to Fahd repeats time and again throughout the Occupied Territories, accountability virtually never forthcoming.

Weeping at her son’s funeral, Fahd’s mother mother said he “was shot without mercy.”

According to a Palestinian health ministry spokesman, he was shot multiple times at close range, adding:

“Doctors reported that one of the bullets that entered his back made a 2.5cm entry hole, but when it exited his stomach the hole was 7cm, proving that he’d been shot at close range.”

Israeli soldiers, security forces, and undercover agents use dumdum “butterfly bullets,” Palestinian doctors explained.

They explode on impact, cause severe internal injuries, and make large exit wounds.

Palestinian human rights group Al Haq’s general director Shawan Jabarin said Fahd’s state-sponsored murder was no accident, adding:

His “killing is part of a deliberate Israeli policy of assassinating Palestinians at close range by undercover units known as Musta’ribeen as well as regular troops.”

“The(se) (elements) come into Ramallah nearly every night after 2:00 AM to carry out arrests.”

“There have been a number of cases where Shin Bet intelligence officers phoned the families of Palestinians they killed after shooting them at close range and blocking ambulances from evacuating those critically wounded – young men whom they accused of armed attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers – saying that ‘the account had now been settled.’ ”

Al Haq documented numerous cases of Israeli state-sponsored assassinations of Palestinians for invented reasons.

Musta’ribeen are ruthless. Arabic speaking, they pose as Arabs to seek out, abduct, and assassinate targeted Palestinians.

According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), undercover Israelis “pos(e) as protesters and incit(e) the situation.”

They “attack civilians very violently and make severe threats, especially against minors.”

“There have been cases when undercover officers pulled people, including minors, off the street without identifying themselves, which made the arrests look like kidnappings.”

In May alone, Palestinians threatening no one were killed almost daily in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — with impunity.

B’Tselem explained that when Israeli security forces kill or otherwise harm Palestinians, “none of those responsible have faced charges.”

Most often, probes aren’t conducted. When initiated, whitewash nearly always follows.

The Israeli Yesh Din human rights group denounced targeted killings of Palestinians, saying:

“The combination of permissive rules of engagement, regarding firing at unarmed protesters and a law enforcement system that prevents genuine, effective investigation of protester deaths, is a lethal one,” adding:

“The result is the unfortunate, unnecessary loss of many lives, a lack of accountability for harming innocents, and the abandonment of (Palestinians) who remain defenseless against the specter of losing their lives.”

A Final Comment

Countless thousands Gazan children were terrorized, traumatized, and severely damaged emotionally from days of Israeli aggression in May.

During round-the-clock IDF terror-bombing and shelling, children endured nightmares.

When bombs detonated overnight, many woke up screaming.

The effects of what happened left permanent scars.

Parents tried to stay strong for their children, but devastation in much of the Strip took a toll on most all its residents.

According to Palestinian psychotherapist Ghada Redwan:

“There are a number of cases suffering from severe panic and intense fear.”

“There are also children whose psychological symptoms are showing up in strong emotions and vomiting.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) explained that Palestinian children who survived the trauma of war likely relive what they endured for some time after it ended.

For some, trauma never ends.

As a boy and adolescent in the 1940s, my next door neighbor was a WW II survivor around my own age.

I was too young at the time to understand why he was different from other neighborhood kids, largely keeping to himself, not playing with me and my other friends.

The trauma of war took its toll on countless numbers who survived the ordeal, developing young children likely affected most of all.

May 31, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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