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Israeli historian Ilan Pappé on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine

If Americans Knew | March 16, 2020

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian who is currently a professor at the University of Exeter in England. His book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” was based on declassified Israeli archives.The video is by filmmaker Porter Speakman Jr.

A trailer for Speakman’s film, “With God On Our Side,” can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/490.

A long interview with Pappé can be viewed at https://youtu.be/32667KycvJE?t=139

For another book on the founding of Israel, see “Against Our Better Judgment: The hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel” by Alison Weir. The book is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Against-Our-Be…

March 16, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Beijing believes COVID-19 is a biological weapon

By Lucas Leiroz | March 16, 2020

From conspiracy theory to geopolitical realism, the possibility to treat COVID-19 as a biological weapon has been finally accepted in the public sphere. The recent statement by the Chinese spokesman Zhao Lijian, formally accusing the US of bringing coronavirus to China, has highlighted a series of new opinions about the pandemic.

The hypothesis of biological warfare behind the global pandemic had already been raised by Russian experts some weeks ago. Like any opinion that is slightly different from the official version of Western governments and their media agencies, the thesis was ridiculed and accused of being a “conspiracy theory”. However, as soon as the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the second largest economic power on the planet publishes a note attesting to this possibility, it leaves the sphere of “conspiracy theories” to enter the realm of public opinion and official government versions.

In addition to making the explanation of biological warfare official, Zhao Lijian raised important questions about the pandemic data in the USA: “When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals? It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”

The supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, ordered on the same day of the declaration of the Chinese Ministry the creation of a unified center of scientific research specialized in the fight against the coronavirus. The motivation, according to the Iranian spiritual and political leader, was motivated by evidence that the pandemic is a biological attack. These are his words: “The establishment of a headquarters to fight the outbreak [of COVID-19] occurs due to the presence of evidence that indicates the possibility of a biological attack, signaling that it is necessary that all coping services [to the coronavirus] be under the command of a unified headquarters”.

In fact, what the mainstream Western media has called a “conspiracy” has been manifested in US defense programs for a long time. We must briefly recall the official document named “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, published by the conservative think tank “Project for a new American Century”, where we can clearly read: “(…) advanced forms of biological warfare that can target specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

Taking into account that the document was published in 2000, we can see that the possibility of biological warfare has been carefully considered and worked on by American strategists for at least two decades. However, the projects are even older. This article published in Global Research tells a brief history of biological warfare technology, tracing the remote origins of this practice by the American armed forces. In this genealogy of biological warfare, we find reports of the use of bio-weapons in wars in great conflicts of the last century, such as the Second World War, the Korea War and the conflicts with Cuba. Even so, until last Thursday, the mere fact of mentioning this hypothesis for the new coronavirus was rejected as conspiracy.

We must attain to concrete data: Pentagon has 400 military laboratories around the world, whose activities are still obscure; the USA has not yet made a clear statement about the COVID-19 data in its territory, having not yet informed the identity of its patient zero and maintaining uncertain information about the number of infected; Chinese scientists conducted a complex study in which they concluded that the virus did not originate in China, but that it had multiple and diverse sources from the Huanan marine seafood market from where the virus subsequently spread.

In February, the Japanese media agency Asahi TV reported that the virus originated in the U.S., not China, and that Washington would be omitting its actual numbers, with some cases of death attributed to influenza being, in fact, camouflaged cases of coronavirus; on February 27, a Taiwanese virologist presented a series of flowcharts on a TV program, corroborating the thesis that the virus has an American origin, providing a scientific explanation to the flow of the virus sources devoid of any geopolitical purpose.

Another curious fact is that China has been unexpectedly affected by epidemic phenomena, particularly during the period of the trade war between Beijing and Washington. Only between 2018 and the beginning of 2020, the country recorded epidemic episodes of H7N4, H7N9 (two variations of bird flu) and African swine flu. Also, the US has not officially responded to any of these notes, remaining silent about the coronavirus situation in its territory.

Not proposing a concrete answer, but only speculations, we can consider that the circumstances of the case present us a very extensive list of possibilities about what in fact the coronavirus is. Obviously, it is possible that it is not a biological weapon – and this is the official version of most of the media agencies and governments – however, once this hypothesis has been raised and no concrete evidence to the contrary is presented, it is also possible that it is a biological weapon.

The most important thing to do is to dispel the myth that biological wars are conspiracy theories. We must begin to take this possibility seriously and analyze the evidences in search of real solutions. Biological weapons are methods that have long been used and that form a fundamental part of modern warfare, whose costs are less than the methods of direct confrontation of the old wars of mobilization – and whose benefits are greater.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

March 16, 2020 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pompeo slams Iran’s ‘biological defense’ against Covid-19, sidesteps Khamenei’s ‘biological attack’ claims

RT | March 13, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has criticized Iran’s efforts at “biological defense” against Covid-19, but conspicuously avoided addressing Ayatollah Khamenei’s claim that the virus was a “biological attack.”

Khamenei all but accused the US of weaponizing coronavirus in a speech on Thursday, announcing the establishment of a military “Health and Treatment Base” to fight the disease. He declared that the facility “may also be regarded as a biological defense exercise… given the evidence that suggests the likelihood of this being a ‘biological attack.'”

Khamenei repeated the inflammatory claim in a series of tweets, echoing the words of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief Hossein Salami, who last week floated the “possibility” that coronavirus was the “product of a biological attack by America which initially spread to China and then to Iran and the rest of the world.”

But instead of responding to the cleric’s accusations, Pompeo merely chided him for not “telling the Iranian people the truth about the Wuhan virus when it spread to Iran from China” in a tweet on Friday, suggesting Tehran missed an opportunity for “the best biological defense” when it failed to curtail flights from Wuhan and “jailed those who spoke out.” He made no mention at all of the virus as a “biological attack” – American or otherwise.

Other Iranian officials have avoided openly accusing Washington of deploying the virus as a weapon, focusing instead on how US sanctions have contributed to the epidemic’s devastating effects. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed the Trump administration’s “medical terrorism” earlier this week, pointing out that artificially-induced shortages have put a major strain on hospitals’ resources. More than two dozen Iranian officials have fallen ill with the coronavirus in the weeks since it first surfaced in Iran in what appears to be an especially virulent form.

While the virus now known as Covid-19 first gained international attention in Wuhan, where it was thought to have originated in an open-air meat market, further research appears to disprove that hypothesis – opening the matter to speculation. And the Iranians are not alone in suggesting US responsibility for the epidemic, which has spread to 116 countries and killed over 5,000 people globally as of Friday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian came forward on Thursday to suggest that a US military delegation had brought the virus to Wuhan in October during the World Military Games, tweeting as his “proof” a video of the director of the US Centers for Disease Control admitting that some patients thought to have died of the flu later tested positive for the coronavirus.

March 13, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Israel kills 10,000th Palestinian since 2000, US media largely ignore it

Mohammed Hamayel, 15, killed by an Israeli sniper on March 11, 2020. (Credit: Palestine Chronicle )
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | March 11, 2020

Israeli forces invading Palestinian Territory have just killed a 15-year-old unarmed Palestinian boy. A sniper shot him in the head with an expanding bullet. This is the 10,000th Palestinian killed by an Israeli since the round of violence that began in fall 2000. The boy was reportedly shot in the face.

During the same period, Palestinians have killed 1,270 Israelis. See the list and details on this Timeline of Israeli and Palestinian deaths.

Because US media rarely cover Palestinian deaths, while often emphasizing Israeli deaths, most Americans are unaware that Israeli forces have killed far more people than Palestinian resistance groups, and that Israel kills first in nearly all cycles of violence.

If the situation were reversed, and a Palestinian military force invaded an Israeli town and shot a teenager in the head, it would in all probability be front page news across the U.S.

US news reports also fail to mention that the violence began when colonizers began moving to Palestine in the early 1900s with the intention of taking over the land for a Jewish state, and that Israel was established through a war of what an Israeli historian terms “ethnic cleansing.”

Once again, U.S. news media are largely ignoring Israel’s latest killing of a Palestinian youth. Other than an automatic Associated press feed buried on their websites, there don’t seem to have been any reports on the death by NPR, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, PBS, etc.

Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org


Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

March 11, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Maiming Palestinians for Sport is a War Crime

By Marion Kawas | Palestine Chronicle | March 10, 2020

The new Haaretz report entitled “42 Knees in One Day” is a difficult and painful read, and many people of conscience have responded with disgust and rage.

For those few who have not seen the report, it details in chilling fashion the accounts of 6 Israeli snipers who were stationed at the border with Gaza during the Great Return March protests. The report is long and gruesome; I had to put it down and then return to it several times. The “42 knees” reference is the “high count” for how many Palestinians were maimed by a single sniper team in one day.

The overall message is one of devastating impunity and disregard for the sanctity of Palestinian life. Palestinians and their long-time supporters have always known this was the mentality at play, but to see it all compiled in one place, in black and white, in the soldiers’ own words, was damning. Especially here in Canada, where barely a week earlier, it was revealed that the Trudeau government had called on the International Criminal Court not to investigate war crimes accusations against Israel.

“Canada’s longstanding position is that it does not recognize a Palestinian state… In the absence of a Palestinian state, it is Canada’s view that the Court does not have jurisdiction in this matter under international law,” Canada’s Foreign Ministry reportedly told various media outlets.

This is the same Canadian government that is busy traveling the world trying to get (or buy) votes for a UN Security Council seat. That has sent Joe Clark, a former Prime Minister, to visit multiple Arab countries looking for support; the Joe Clark that pioneered the idea of moving Canada’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem back in 1979, an election promise that he was later forced to abandon.

The same government whose Deputy PM and former foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, informed an Israeli audience in late 2018 that Canada would be an “asset for Israel” at the UN Security Council if it got one of the non-permanent member seats.

Canada, and other governments, must understand that there is a direct trajectory from their unconditional support for Israel to the continuation of Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Hampering the ICC investigation, refusing to accept your own court’s decision on labeling of Israeli settlement wines, smearing pro-Palestinian advocates as “anti-semitic” as happened at York University last year, all of this enables the Israeli government and military to feel they are immune to any sort of accountability.

This new report on Israeli sniper violence against Palestinians is most profound in what lies in the shadows: the Israeli military’s crude but effective approach. Promoting the concept that maiming these Palestinian youth is somehow “more humane” than killing them outright. But permanently disabling them in a poor society with few resources for the healthy let alone the injured, is an equally cruel fate. And a poignant and daily reminder to the rest of that society of the price to be paid for rebellion.

Most of the sniper accounts demonstrated a total lack of appreciation of the consequences or severity of their actions. One said, when talking about the other soldiers and their initial reaction to maiming their victims:

“He has fulfilled himself just now, it’s a rare moment. Actually, the more he does it, the more indifferent he’ll become. He will no longer be especially happy, or sad. He’ll just be.”

The snipers work in a team with a locator and the “42 in one day” soldier, related how he suggested to his locator to take over the shooting when they were getting close to the end of their shift because “he didn’t have knees”.

And “you want to leave with the feeling that you did something”. (Note its just “knees”, not Palestinian lives or limbs.) The parallel here with how sports teams allow rookie players to be involved at the end of a game that they know they are winning, is unmistakable. And it also highlights that these snipers didn’t seem to feel threatened and had few concerns about their own safety.

I realize that the Israeli snipers are themselves indoctrinated kids. But I hate the system and ideology that brought them to this, that placed them on those dirt embankments overlooking the people of Gaza, that made them think this was all “sport” or a video game where the player with the most points wins.

And if I feel such rage thousands of miles away, I can only imagine (and will never judge) how the youth of Gaza and their families must feel.

– Marion Kawas is a member of the Canada Palestine Association and co-host of Voice of Palestine.

March 10, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mounting concern over SAS operations in southern Syria

British SAS or SBS soldier in action in Syria
Press TV – March 8, 2020

There is mounting concern in the region about the nature and scale of British Special Forces deployment to southern Syria.

The concern comes in the wake of an exclusive report by the Daily Mirror (March 05) that two RAF Chinook helicopters “packed with special forces” troops and medics had “swooped” into southern Syria to rescue a wounded Special Air Service (SAS) operative.

According to the Mirror, the casualty was airlifted from “deep inside the warzone” to a medical facility in Erbil, northern Iraq.

Whilst the Mirror doesn’t say exactly where in southern Syria the SAS soldier was operating, the reference to “warzone” would suggest Deraa province, in the southwest of the country.

There have been clashes in recent days between Syrian government forces and terrorist groups controlling parts of the town of Al-Sanamayn, situated 50 kilometers south of the capital, Damascus.

Based on the realities on the ground, there is mounting speculation that Britain’s elite SAS could be lending a helping hand to anti-government forces in and around Al-Sanamayn.

British Special Forces, both in the form of the SAS and its allied unit, the Special Boat Service (SBS), have been operating in Syria for seven years.

According to the Mirror, more than 30 British special operatives have been injured in Syria. There has been at least one combat fatality, that of Sergeant Matt Tonroe, who was killed in a joint US/UK operation in March 2018.

Late last year it was reported that British Special Forces in Syria were beating a hasty retreat following US President, Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria.

The latest incident appears to indicate that the SAS and SBS continue to operate in Syria based on the needs of allied Syrian rebel and terrorist groups.

The exfiltration of the injured SAS soldier will cause huge concern as the rescue operation involved RAF choppers taking off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus before flying through Israeli airspace to northern Jordan and onto southwestern Syria.

This brazen violation of Syrian sovereignty is likely to aggravate Britain’s outlaw status in Damascus, where both the Syrian government and people take a dim view of Britain’s hostile interference in their internal affairs.

March 8, 2020 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanon lodges UN Security Council complaint over Israeli violations

Press TV – March 6, 2020

Lebanon has condemned incessant Israeli violations of its airspace, and filed a complaint at the UN Security Council over serious and numerous breaches of the Lebanese sovereignty and UNSC Resolution 1701.

On Friday, Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Nassif Hitti discussed the latest developments in southern Lebanon as well as Beirut’s commitment to the resolution during a meeting with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubitsch.

Hitti then expressed his great resentment over violation of Lebanon’s airspace by the Israeli regime.

Syria’s official news agency SANA, quoting an unnamed military source, reported early on Thursday that Syrian air defenses had intercepted Israeli missiles over strategic Quneitra province in the country’s southwest.

“At 00:30 on Thursday our air defense monitored Israeli warplanes coming from northern occupied Palestine toward Saida, and several missiles were fired from Lebanese airspace toward the central area,” the source added.

The missiles were intercepted successfully, he pointed out.

Israel violates Lebanon’s airspace on an almost daily basis, claiming the flights serve surveillance purposes.

Lebanon’s government, the Hezbollah resistance movement and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have repeatedly condemned the overflights, saying they are in clear violation of UN Resolution 1701 and the country’s sovereignty.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which brokered a ceasefire in the war of aggression Israel launched against Lebanon in 2006, calls on Tel Aviv to respect Beirut’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

In 2009, Lebanon filed a complaint with the United Nations, presenting over 7,000 documents pertaining to Israeli violations of Lebanese territory.

March 6, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Starting a nuclear conflict now ‘a political option’ for Washington, Moscow believes

RT | March 6, 2020

The US is expanding its nuclear capability with new types of low-yield weapons, and Moscow believes US strategists now consider launching a nuclear strike as a viable option in a conflict.

The US has made adjustments to its nuclear posture and has been introducing low-yield nuclear warheads to its arsenal, including those that can be launched from submarines. Russia sees such developments with great concern, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova told journalists on Friday.

The developments make Moscow believe that the American leadership “has made a decision to consider a nuclear conflict as a viable political option and are creating the potential necessary for it.”

She rejected US justification of the upgrade by pointing the finger at Russia, and called on Washington to adhere to nuclear non-proliferation and reduction goals, saying that the path of “unrestricted growth of military strength,” which it was pursuing, was “a road to a dead end”.

Unlike Russia, the US never made a formal commitment not to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. Russia’s nuclear doctrine says it may use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that threatens the existence of Russia as a sovereign state, but otherwise the nuclear option would only be used in response to an attack with weapons of mass destruction.

March 6, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Zarif adviser & diplomat known for his role in Iran hostage crisis dies of coronavirus

© Wikipedia / Tasnim News Agency
RT – March 5, 2020

Hossein Sheikholeslam, adviser to Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, has died of coronavirus, becoming the third government figure to perish in the epidemic which has infected thousands in Iran.

Sheikholeslam, whose previous political posts have included ambassador to Syria and assistant to parliament speaker for international affairs, first rose to prominence in the country while still a student for his role in the US-Iran hostage crisis.

He died on Thursday in Tehran’s Masih Daneshvari Hospital.

The coronavirus epidemic has hit Iran hard. Some 23 lawmakers have tested positive for the illness, including the head of emergency medical services, and other high-profile deaths include a member of the council advising the Ayatollah, a former ambassador, and a newly-elected member of parliament. Schools and universities have been closed until March 20 as of Thursday, and Parliament suspended its session at the end of last month “until further notice.”

Some 3,513 Iranians are said to be infected with coronavirus, while at least 108 have died. The disease had spread through “almost all” the provinces as of Wednesday, according to President Hassan Rouhani. Iran’s fight against the epidemic has been complicated by US sanctions restricting the import of much-needed specialty drugs.

IRGC commander Hossein Salami accused the US of engineering the coronavirus outbreak earlier this week, noting the virus had targeted Iran and China most intensely – both thorns in Washington’s side. Vowing that Tehran would “fight” the virus, Salami warned it “will return” to the US. It’s not immediately clear how the epidemic, which first surfaced in Wuhan, China in December, took hold in Iran while leaving other countries closer to China relatively unscathed.

Also on rt.com:

Сoronavirus may be a product of US ‘biological attack’ aimed at Iran & China, IRGC chief claims

March 5, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Could US face ‘criminal liability’ for torture program? ICC greenlights inquiry into Afghan war crimes

RT | March 5, 2020

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has approved a probe into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan by the US and other parties, potentially exposing Washington to legal repercussions for its nearly 20-year occupation.

Hailed as a landmark ruling, the panel of judges at The Hague reversed a decision by the court’s Pre-Trial Chamber denying the ICC prosecutor’s request to open a formal inquiry into crimes committed in connection with the conflict in Afghanistan. The previous decision not to pursue an investigation was reportedly influenced by the belief that the United States would not cooperate with the proceedings.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that there were ample grounds to begin an investigation into Taliban crimes, as well as an alleged torture program operated by Afghan authorities, the US military and the CIA. The court agreed on Thursday, authorizing the investigation.

The court’s decision was applauded by many – but some warned that expectations should be tempered.

Mark MacKinnon, a correspondent for Canada’s Globe and Mail, said that the ICC had done the “right thing” by pushing forward with the investigation.

“Powerful nations can’t be above international law, or the whole concept collapses,” he wrote.

The Center for Constitutional Rights described the ruling as “the first time senior US officials may face criminal liability for their involvement in the torture program” in Afghanistan.

The ruling marks a “good day” for the ICC, but it’s far from certain that the investigation will lead to formal charges, cautioned Kevin Jon Heller, an associate professor of international law at the University of Amsterdam.

The United States is not a member of the ICC, but Afghanistan is – leaving open the possibility that US crimes committed on Afghan soil could be prosecuted by the court.

Even if the inquiry exposes serious wrongdoing, it’s unclear how the ICC would proceed. US President Donald Trump has been an outspoken opponent of the Hague-based court, and even imposed travel restrictions and other sanctions against ICC employees.

Trump has slammed the ICC for its “broad” and “unaccountable” prosecutorial powers, and has repeatedly scoffed at the idea of US soldiers being charged with war crimes. In November, he pardoned two army officers facing war crimes charges for their actions in Afghanistan, and reinstated the rank of Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was accused of similar atrocities during his deployment in Iraq, but was ultimately cleared of most wrongdoing.

March 5, 2020 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Who Made Coronavirus? Was It the U.S., Israel or China Itself?

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 5, 2020

The most commonly reported mainstream media account of the creation of the Coronavirus suggests that it was derived from an animal borne microorganism found in a wild bat that was consumed by an ethnic Chinese resident of Wuhan. But there appears to be some evidence to dispute that in the adjacent provinces in China, where wild bats are more numerous,  yet have not experienced major outbreaks of the disease. Because of that and other factors, there has also been considerable speculation that the Coronavirus did not occur naturally through mutation but rather was produced in a laboratory, possibly as a biological warfare agent.

Several reports suggest that there are components of the virus that are related to HIV that could not have occurred naturally. If it is correct that the virus had either been developed or even produced to be weaponized it would further suggest that its escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology Lab and into the animal and human population could have been accidental. Technicians who work in such environments are aware that “leaks” from laboratories occur frequently.

There is, of course and inevitably, another theory. There has been some speculation that as the Trump Administration has been constantly raising the issue of growing Chinese global competitiveness as a direct threat to American national security and economic dominance, it must might be possible that Washington has created and unleashed the virus in a bid to bring Beijing’s growing economy and military might down a few notches. It is, to be sure, hard to believe that even the Trump White House would do something so reckless, but there are precedents for that type of behavior. In 2005-9 the American and Israeli governments secretly developed a computer virus called Stuxnet, which was intended to damage the control and operating systems of Iranian computers being used in that country’s nuclear research program. Admittedly Stuxnet was intended to damage computers, not to infect or kill human beings, but concerns that it would propagate and move to infect computers outside Iran proved to be accurate as it spread to thousands of PCs outside Iran, in countries as far flung as China, Germany, Kazakhstan and Indonesia.

Inevitably there is an Israeli story that just might shed some light on what has been going on in China. Scientists at Israel’s Galilee Research Institute are now claiming that they will have a vaccine against coronavirus in a few weeks which will be ready for distribution and use within 90 days. The institute is claiming that it has been engaged in four years of research on avian coronavirus funded by Israel’s Ministries of Science & Technology and Agriculture. They are claiming that the virus is similar to the version that has infected humans, which has led to breakthroughs in development through genetic manipulation, but some scientists are skeptical that a new vaccine could be produced so quickly to prevent a virus that existed only recently. They also have warned that even if a vaccine is developed it would normally have to be tested for side effects, a process that normally takes over a year and includes using it on infected humans.

If one even considers it possible that the United States had a hand in creating the coronavirus at what remains of its once extensive biological weapons research center in Ft Detrick Maryland, it is very likely that Israel was a partner in the project. Helping to develop the virus would also explain how Israeli scientists have been able to claim success at creating a vaccine so quickly, possibly because the virus and a treatment for it were developed simultaneously.

In any event, there are definite political ramifications to the appearance of the coronavirus, and not only in China. In the United States President Donald Trump is already being blamed for lying about the virus and there are various scenarios in mainstream publications speculating over the possible impact on the election in 2020. If the economy sinks together with the stock market, it will reflect badly on Trump whether or not he is actually at fault. If containment and treatment of the disease itself in the United States does not go well, there could also be a considerable backlash, particularly as the Democrats have been promoting improving health care. One pundit argues, however, that disease and a sinking economy will not matter as long as there is a turnaround before the election, but a lot can happen in the next eight months.

And then there is the national security/foreign policy issue as seen from both Jerusalem and Washington. It is difficult to explain why coronavirus has hit one country in particular other than China very severely. That country is Iran, the often-cited enemy of both the U.S. and Israel. The number of Iran’s coronavirus cases continues to increase, with more positive tests confirmed among government officials last Saturday. There were 205 new coronavirus cases, bringing the government claimed total to 593 with 43 fatalities, though unofficial hospital reports suggest that the deaths are actually well over 100. That’s the highest number of deaths from the virus outside of China.

No less than five Iranian Members of Parliament have also tested positive amid a growing number of officials that have contracted the disease. Iran’s vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar and deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi had also previously been confirmed with the virus.

The usual suspects in the United States are delighted to learn of the Iranian deaths. Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Washington-based but Israeli government connected Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) boasted on twitter Tuesday that “Coronavirus has done what American economic sanctions could not: shut down non-oil exports.” An Iranian government spokesman responded that “It’s shameful and downright inhuman to cheer for a deadly Virus to spread – and enjoy seeing people suffer for it…” Dubowitz followed up with an additional taunt, that Tehran has “spread terrorism” in the Middle East and “now it’s spreading the coronavirus.”

So, you have your choice. Coronavirus occurred naturally, or it came out of a lab in China itself or even from Israel or the United States. If one suspects Israel and/or the United States, the intent clearly would have been to create a biological weapon that would damage two nations that have been designated as enemies. But the coronavirus cannot be contained easily and it is clear that many thousands of people will die from it. Unfortunately, as with Stuxnet, once the genie is out of the bottled it is devilishly hard to induce it to go back in.

March 5, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Human shield tactics again? ‘Israeli jets’ striking Syria force TWO civilian planes to change course

RT | March 5, 2020

Two civilian airplanes bound for Qatar were reportedly used as cover by Israeli jets launching missiles from Lebanese airspace against targets near the Syrian cities of Homs and Quneitra.

Syrian air defenses engaged incoming missiles shortly after midnight local time on Thursday, both near Homs in central Syria and Quneitra in the south, on the armistice line with Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Following the attack, reports appeared that at least two flights – one passenger, one cargo – had to change course to avoid getting struck by air defense missiles.

The flights were tentatively identified as a Qatar cargo flight QR8294, bound for Doha from Basel, Switzerland. The other was QR419, a passenger plane that had taken off for Doha from Beirut, Lebanon and made a loop around Tripoli before continuing course south of Homs.

Israel regularly strikes targets within Syria claiming that it is bombing “Iranian” targets. When asked about it last month, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he knew nothing, wouldn’t comment on military operations one way or another, and laughed it off as maybe the work of the “Belgian Air Force.”

This is not the first time Israeli jets bombing Syria have endangered civilian airplanes. Most recently, an Airbus A320 flying from Tehran to Damascus was forced to make an emergency landing in early February, after a near-miss during an Israeli strike on the Syrian capital.

The Russian Defense Ministry afterward described it as “commonplace” for Israeli Air Force pilots to use civilian aircraft as a “shield” in their operations.

Russia has had bitter experience with the tactic, notably when a RUAF scouting plane was shot down in September 2018 during an Israeli strike on Latakia, and all 14 people on board were killed. It was later revealed that Syrian air defenses had struck the plane because an Israeli F-16 was using it as a shield. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu later traveled to Moscow to offer an apology.

READ MORE:

Syrian air defenses engage ‘hostile targets’ over Homs & Quneitra

March 4, 2020 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment