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May welcomes Netanyahu despite atrocities against Palestinians

PressTVUK | Jun 8, 2018

“You shouldn’t be receiving this war criminal!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is welcomed by EU leaders during European tour but condemned by protestors for crimes against Palestinians at every turn. Amina Taylor files this report.

June 8, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Prepares to Start Uranium Enrichment

By Peter KORZUN | Strategic Culture Foundation | 07.06.2018

Iran has launched preparations to boost its uranium enriching capacity. The decision is the result of the United States’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JPCOA). Tehran has begun work on infrastructure to build advanced centrifuges at its Natanz facility. It also plans to secure nuclear fuel for the Bushehr power plant. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed of its plans to increase the enrichment within the limits of the 2015 deal with world powers.

This is a signal that Iran will not comply with the JPCOA if it collapses. Tehran wants European banks to take the risk and safeguard trade. Oil sales must be guaranteed and the losses resulting from US sanctions must be compensated by Brussels. The demand for new negotiations on Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional policy must be abandoned as these issues are not related to the JPCOA.

The EU is trying to preserve the agreement but it’s hard to see how private companies could be convinced to deal with Tehran running the risk of American punitive measures. Peugeot, Total, and Italy’s Danieli have already halted or are preparing to halt their ties with Iran.

Actually, the chances that Europeans would be able to protect their companies dealing with Iran from the effects of US sanctions are slim at best. If so, Iran has no reason to comply with the deal anymore. Why should it? It was not Iran who tore it up. If it’s not working, then why should Tehran observe its part of it? True, formally the agreement is still effective. Iran said the enrichment will be within the agreed limits but the US and Israel are likely to say it is not. Washington and Jerusalem will raise hue and cry over the announced enrichment to describe it as a breach of the JPCOA, whether the limits stipulated in the deal are exceeded or not. They will cite “intelligence sources” or invent something to justify their claims, no matter what the UN watchdog says.

The trouble is that the US decision to pull out from the deal was not an element of a well-defined policy, there was no plan B. The hope to have the JCPOA renegotiated was a pipe dream from the start. An agreement is an agreement. Iran complied with it. Other controversial issues, such as ballistic missiles, could have been subjects for separate talks. If not, it’s still preferable to have the JPCOA in effect to make sure there will be no nuclear warheads installed on delivery means. But Washington chose the language of ultimatums to spoil it all.

In April, President Trump warned Iran of “big problems” if it resumes the nuclear program. Iranian Bavar-373 air defense systems have already been deployed to protect the related infrastructure. In late May, Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin said Israel is the first country in the world to carry out an operational mission with the F-35 stealth fighter, which flew over Beirut undetected. In March, two Israeli F-35s were reported to fly over Iranian air space unnoticed. This was a clear warning to Iran that the resumption of nuclear program would be responded to with force.

In 2012, Israel was ready to strike but was held back by the US. With President’s Trump’s tough stance on Iran, it may be different this time. On the contrary, the US may find the idea to use force against Iran too tempting before the June 12 summit with the North Korean leader in Singapore.

Actually, a war between Israel and Iran is already waged as Israeli aviation regularly strikes what it says Iran’s forces in Syria. The recent success of pro-Iranian Hezbollah in Lebanon brings an armed conflict even closer. The unsettled maritime dispute over the natural gas deposits in the Mediterranean makes it almost inevitable as the profits to be received by the Lebanese government will inevitably enrich Hezbollah. The Hamas attacks in Gaza are also viewed by Israel as a conflict ignited by Iran. It strikes the eye that Israel has changed its tone demanding complete withdrawal of Iran from Syria not just keeping away from the Golan Heights.

There are unconfirmed reports that the US military is building an outpost in the Sinjar mountains of Ninawa province to secure the Syria-Iraq border and prevent Iran from establishing a land corridor linking Iran’s western border to the Mediterranean. If the reports are true, the US is evidently preparing for a military operation. It will not have NATO by its side. America and Israel are on their own. They may be supported directly or indirectly by some Sunni Arab nations.

For instance, Saudi Arabia’s threat to use force against Qatar is another sigh of preparing a multinational war against Iran. The deal to purchase the Russian S-400 air defense systems is used as a pretext though it’s hard to see how these defensive weapon systems could pose a threat to the kingdom. Riyadh is in talks with Moscow on purchasing the systems, why can’t Doha do the same? The real reason is probably the refusal of Qatar to break ties with Iran.

There are very disturbing signs that a war waged by Israel, the US, and probably its Persian Gulf allies is close at hand. The tensions could be eased if diplomacy were given a chance but the US unilateral withdrawal from the JPCOA appears to turn such scenario into a very remote possibility.

June 7, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US using ‘ethnic cleansing’ to set up compliant state in Syria – Vanessa Beeley to RT

RT | June 6, 2018

The US is trying to ethnically cleanse Syria in order to kill off Syrian nationalism and create an obedient state, journalist Vanessa Beeley told RT following a damning report on the US coalition’s military activities in Raqqa.

Beeley, an independent journalist who has covered the war in Syria extensively, told RT that the US, UK and French coalition is using proxy forces to cleanse certain areas of land in the war-torn country in an effort “to replace them with a proxy that will essentially create a US controlled state.”

She was responding to a new Amnesty International report that strongly criticizes the actions of the US-led coalition in its campaign to liberate the previously Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL)-controlled city of Raqqa.

The Amnesty report accused the coalition and its Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Force (SDF) proxies of creating “a level of destruction comparable to anything we’ve seen in decades of covering the impact of wars,” and it says that the coalition’s claims that the bombings were “precise” and caused few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny.

Beeley said that the Amnesty report put “meat on the bones” of previous analysis from on-the-ground journalists and some Russian analysts and commentators. She said that despite the US-led campaign ostensibly being about ridding the area of IS terrorists, it was the terrorists “who were evacuated as priority over the civilians.”

“Civilian property and infrastructure, essential infrastructure like water taps, like water supply units that were keeping civilians alive during the campaign were also being targeted,” she said, adding that it was the SDF forces designating the targets for the US coalition.

“So there’s a degree of collusion here between the US coalition and its proxies forces on the ground,” she said.

Beeley also criticized the reluctance of the British government, in particular, to admit to causing civilian deaths during its military campaign. The UK Ministry of Defense, she said, “did not even admit one civilian death as a result of their “precision” bombing — and then they only reluctantly admitted that they believe one civilian was killed by one of their drone strikes.”

Comparing the American-led military campaign in Raqqa to the Russian and Syrian-led military campaign to liberate east Aleppo, Beeley said that there were different standards set and attempts were made to protect Aleppo civilians.

“What we saw there were the provision of humanitarian corridors for civilians to be able to leave under the cover of the Syrian Arab Army and with the help of the Russian reconciliation teams negotiating with the terrorist and militant extremist factions to allow civilians to leave,” Beeley said. “What we’ve seen in Raqqa is civilians paying smugglers to try and leave during the military campaign, having to cross minefields, being unable to afford the cost of those smuggling groups.”

Beeley also said that Syrian civilians were being forced to return to buildings and areas of Raqqa that had not yet been cleared of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), booby traps and mines left by IS militants.

In contrast, the journalist said that Russian forces “cleared thousands of hectares of those IEDs and booby traps” following their campaigns to liberate Aleppo and Ghouta from IS.

“What we’re seeing here is a disgusting despicable disregard for human life both during the military campaign and even more importantly after the military campaign by the US coalition,” Beeley said.

Watch Vanessa Beeley’s full interview with RT.

‘Yemen killings may be even bigger’

In a separate interview, Joshua Landis, the director of the Center for Middle-East studies at the University of Oklahoma, told RT that the Amnesty report made it clear that there were “massive violations of human rights.” An investigation was unlikely given that the US, Britain and France sit on the UN Security Council, he said.

Landis said he believed the US did make efforts to avoid killing civilians, but that, ultimately, the US-led coalition was “in a hurry.”

“The UN asked them [US coalition] multiple times to give breaks so civilians could get out, but they didn’t want to negotiate with IS, they said they were gonna kill them on the battlefield. They didn’t want them as prisoners in another Guantanamo and this led to a situation where the US was eager to finish it off, did not want to allow a break, did not want UN workers to go into Raqqa because they were going to see the devastation,” he said.

Landis compared the destruction to that caused by the US-supported, Saudi-led coalition in Yemen: “What’s taking place in Yemen may be even bigger, but we don’t even know because reporters aren’t being allowed in there – but an entire population is being starved.”

“Half a million Yemenis have gotten cholera and there isn’t the proper medicine to fix them and heal them and this is a terrible, devastating war crime because it’s voluntary. It doesn’t have to happen. People don’t have to be starved. There’s a blockade going on,” he said.

“We know that US special forces are helping the Saudis now in Yemen. Is the killing in Yemen more clean than the killing in Syria? It’s hard to believe it is – and we’ll find out the ultimate body count, I guess in the end,” Landis added.

June 6, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Poll: 61% of Israel support military response to Gaza protests

MEMO | June 6, 2018

The majority of Israelis support Israel’s military response against the Great Marches of Return, a new poll revealed.

The poll was conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University between 28-30 May and included a sample of 600 people.

According to the monthly Peace Index a majority of respondents believed the Israeli military’s use of force against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza was “proportionate”.

The poll revealed that 61 per cent of Israeli Jews believe “the Israeli army’s handling of the Palestinian protests near the border fence is correct, and that the force used against the demonstrators is also correct” however, 92 per cent of Arabs in Israel believe the Israeli army used excessive force.

A majority of Israelis, 68 per cent, believe the demonstrations were planned by Hamas, while 62 per cent of Arabs believe the protests resulted from “despair”.

Asked about the living conditions in the Gaza Strip, the index showed that half of Israelis believe the authorities should work to alleviate the hardship in Gaza by facilitating the freedom of movement and the entry of goods.

Of those surveyed, 43 per cent believe there is a possibility of a full-scale war with Iran, while more than half think Israel is ready to protect its citizens if such unrest broke out.

June 6, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Salvador Option: the US is Once Again Supporting Death Squads in Central America

By Brett Wilkins | CounterPunch | June 5, 2018

The United States has been quietly funding and equipping elite paramilitary police units in El Salvador accused of extrajudicially murdering suspected gang members, according to a forthcoming United Nations report reviewed in advance by CNN.

Beginning with George W. Bush in 2003, successive US administrations have provided tens of millions of dollars in aid for Salvadoran military and police in support of the government’s “Mano Dura” (“Firm Hand”) security program, an aggressive campaign to combat out-of-control gang violence in a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates.

“Mano Dura” aid increased significantly during the Obama administration, which compared the effort to Plan Colombia, the decades-long anti-drug campaign in which billions of US aid dollars funded mafia-like army units that, along with allied paramilitary death squads, kidnapped, tortured and murdered thousands of innocent civilians with impunity. As was the case with Plan Colombia, the new UN report will accuse Salvadoran security forces, in this case some of its elite police units, of “a pattern of behavior by security personnel amounting to extrajudicial executions” and a “cycle of impunity” in which such killings go unpunished.

One police unit, the Special Reaction Forces (FES), killed 43 suspected gang members during the first half of 2017, according to the UN report. While FES officers were executing suspects in the streets, the US government continued to fund and equip the unit. Washington’s total assistance increased from $67.9 million in 2016 to $72.7 million last year. The deportation of members of MS-13 — formed in Los Angeles by young Salvadoran refugees fleeing civil war in a homeland ruled by a US-backed military dictatorship — and other gangs has further exacerbated the crisis.

A spokesman for the US Embassy in San Salvador assured CNN that “the US government takes allegations of extrajudicial killings extremely seriously,” that it has “consistently expressed concerns” regarding human rights abuses and that it heavily vets units receiving aid. These assurances ring hollow to many Salvadorans who recall how the Ronald Reagan administration covered up horrific human rights violations in order to keep military aid flowing to the anti-communist military regime during the 1980s civil war.

That aid, which included forming, training, funding and arming military death squads, began during the Carter administration and dramatically increased under Reagan. Officers, troops and police were trained in kidnapping, torture, assassination and democracy suppression at the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), also known as the School of Coups and School of Assassins because it produced so many of both.

SOA graduates and other US-backed Salvadoran security forces planned, ordered and committed the most heinous atrocities of the 12-year civil war, including the kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of four American nuns and church volunteers in 1980, the assassination of the country’s beloved Catholic archbishop, Oscar Romero, that same year and themassacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in 1989. After the four churchwomen were slain, the Reagan administration undertook a shameful effort to place blame on the victims.

The most notorious Salvadoran army unit, the Atlacatl Battalion, was created in 1980 at the SOA and hailed as “the pride of the United States military team in El Salvador.” As a rite of passage its new troops collected roadkill carcasses — “dogs, vultures, anything,” according to one former member — and boiled them into a soup they all drank. Atlacatl Battalion’s human victims fared even worse than the dead animals its recruits consumed. The unit committed countless massacres, including the slaughter of 117 men, women and children at Lake Suchitlan in 1983 and the mass murder of 68 civilians, many of them children, at Los Llanitos the following year.

But even these massacres paled in comparison to Atlacatl’s deadliest crime, the wholesale slaughter of more than 900 villagers, mostly women, children and the elderly, at El Mozote on December 11, 1981. There, soldiers shot, stabbed, hacked, smashed, and hung helpless villagers to death. They gang-raped women and girls before killing them. They skewered babies on bayonets. They dropped large rocks on the bellies of pregnant women. When the raping and murdering finished, they burned El Mozote to the ground, reducing the village to what one witness called “a moving black carpet” of scavenging vultures, flies and dogs feasting on the victims.

The day after El Mozote made front page headlines in the US, President Reagan officially certified that El Salvador was “making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights,” and was working to “bring an end to the indiscriminate torture and murder of Salvadoran citizens.” Meanwhile, Elliott Abrams, then a State Department human rights official who was later convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal before serving as a special assistant to President George W. Bush,  helped lead an effort to deny the El Mozote massacre ever happened.

US aid to El Salvador was doubled, and heinous atrocities continued through the end of the civil war.

It wasn’t just El Salvador. The United States also supported or covered up death squad activity throughout Central and South America in the 1970s and ‘80s. In Guatemala, it backed right-wing military dictators including Efraín Ríos Montt, who recently died facing genocide charges, as well as brutal death squads like the army’s elite Kaibiles unit, which tortured, raped and murdered more than 200 villagers at Dos Erres in December, 1982.

In Honduras, Reagan’s ambassador, John Negroponte, supervised the creation of the notorious Battalion 316, which was tasked with eliminating students, academics, labor unionists, clergy, journalists, indigenous rights activists and others deemed a threat to the dictatorship. Negroponte also played a key role in supporting the US-backed Contra army as it waged a terrorist war against the people of Nicaragua.

It also wasn’t just in the past. After a 2009 military coup deposed the progressive Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya, Obama and his secretary of state Hillary Clinton backed the repressive right-wing regime even as reports of its brutality, which included forced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions of opponents, were revealed. Despite the assassination of high-profile critics including the environmental activist Berta Cáceres, the Obama administration lavished the Honduran coup regime and its murderous security forces with  tens of millions of dollars in military and other assistance.

The United States has long operated or supported death squads, from the CIA’s Phoenix Program in Vietnam (40,000 killed) through the implementation of the “Salvador option” during the recent invasion and occupation of Iraq. The latter effort was run by Col. James Steele, a decorated veteran of Central America’s dirty wars, including a stint training Salvadoran death squad units during the civil war. Unsurprisingly, secret prisons, torture and extrajudicial killings became commonplace throughout occupied Iraq.

It now appears that the “Salvador option” has made its way back home from halfway around the world, further terrorizing guilty and innocent alike in what was already one of the most frightful corners of the planet.

Brett Wilkins is editor-at-large for US news at Digital Journal. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace.

June 5, 2018 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Senate Democrats threaten to block Trump-North Korea deal

Press TV – June 5, 2018

US Democrats have warned President Donald Trump that they will block any deal with North Korea that does not guarantee a “verifiable” dismantlement of the country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

In a letter to Trump on Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Bob Menendez said their party was not going to support a deal to ease sanctions on North Korea if the White House failed to meet their conditions.

“Sanctions relief by the US and our allies should be dependent on dismantlement and removal of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs,” the two Democrats wrote. “Any deal that explicitly or implicitly gives North Korea sanctions relief for anything other than the verifiable performance of its obligations to dismantle its nuclear and missile arsenal is a bad deal.”

An acceptable deal in Schumer and Menendez’s view had to ensure a “complete and verifiable denuclearization of North Korea,” an end to Pyongyang’s ballistic missile tests, and “robust compliance inspections.”

Pointing to the important role that Congress had in enacting a sanctions relief, the opposition leaders warned that they would opt for “tougher sanctions and oversight” if they thought the Republican head of state was moving in the wrong direction.

“If we think the president is veering off course, we won’t hesitate to move, but let’s see where he’s headed,” Schumer told reporters later in the day.

The letter came days ahead of a highly-anticipated summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12.

Trump called of the meeting a short while back, after a brief war of words broke out between the two countries over the terms of a possible deal.

“Now that the meeting will proceed as planned, we want to make sure the president’s desire for a deal with North Korea doesn’t saddle us… with a bad deal,” Schumer said. “The president needs to be willing to walk away from the table if there isn’t a good deal to be had.”

June 5, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Not just the Elgin Marbles: Britain’s colonial legacy lives long in UK museums

Benin bronzes. © Global Look Press
RT | June 4, 2018

After Jeremy Corbyn promised to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece upon becoming PM on the basis that they were “looted” from the country, RT looks at other rare artifacts taken by colonial Britain that now reside in UK museums.

“As with anything stolen or taken from occupied or colonial possession – including artifacts looted from other countries in the past – we should be engaged in constructive talks with the Greek government about returning the sculptures,” Corbyn said in an interview with a Greek newspaper.

If Corbyn were to become PM, here are some of the other artifacts that might be returned to their country of origin.

Benin artefacts

The British Museum boasts the second-biggest collection of Benin’s art after the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.

The Kingdom of Benin – now part of Nigeria – was stripped of its bronzes during what became known as Britain’s “punitive expedition,” a mission conducted against the natives after they defied imperial rule by imposing customs duties.

BBC Civilizations presenter David Olusoga, originally from Nigeria, said the UK has a “moral imperative” to return the art.

On the Benin looting, he said: “It’s just such a stark case of theft.”

He added during the Hay Festival this year: “A friend of mine, a TV producer, once came up with a brilliant solution: he said we should have a special version of Supermarket Sweep, where every country is given a huge shopping trolley and two minutes in the British Museum. Maybe he’s right, maybe that’s the way forward.”

Ethiopian treasures

Dozens of institutions up and down the country, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, are home to hundreds of northeast Africa’s finest treasures.

Beautiful and equally important manuscripts and artifacts were plundered after the British capture of Maqdala in 1868, the mountain capital of what was then Abyssinia under Emperor Tewodros II.

In 2017, Ethiopia lodged a formal restitution complaint. The offer was refused, but ahead of the Maqdala exhibition at the V&A at the beginning of April, its director suggested the case could be settled by granting the treasures to the east-African country on a long-term loan.

Sultanganj Buddha

The Sultaganj Buddha is a metallic sculpture that was extracted from an abandoned Buddhist monastery in northern India in 1861 by E B Harris, a British Raj railway engineer. The 1,500-year-old bronze Buddha was then shipped to Birmingham after being secured for a mere £200 ($265).

The item – the largest known Indian metal sculpture, which is known in the UK as the ‘Birmingham Buddha’ – is at the top of the list of thousands of alleged ‘stolen treasures’ that Indian authorities are trying to get back.

The Koh-i-Noor diamond

The Koh-i-Noor diamond, one of the largest cut in the world, is currently part of the British crown jewels. It has been the subject of a bitter dispute between India and the UK ever since it was taken from the Punjab and presented to Queen Victoria in 1849.

The jewel, which belonged to the Punjab’s Sikh Empire, was handed by the East Indian Company to Queen Victoria after they emerged victorious in the 1840s Anglo-Sikh wars.

The diamond – known as the Mountain of Light – is thought to have been mined in the 1300s.

India has called for the stone to be returned ever since it gained independence in 1947, though the UK claims it has a legal basis for withholding it, as it was guaranteed under the Treaty of Lahore.

Former PM David Cameron commented on the dispute, stating: “If you say yes to one you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty. I think I’m afraid to say, to disappoint all your viewers, it’s going to have to say put.”

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

UN aid boat comes under suspected Saudi attack off Yemen

Press TV – June 4, 2018

A United Nations vessel delivering humanitarian aid to the Yemeni port of Hudaydah has come under a suspected Saudi attack.

Yemen’s Red Sea Ports Corporation said on Monday that the vessel used by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) was attacked after delivering a shipment at Hudaydah, a port in western Yemen which is controlled by the ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement and is under a blockade by Saudi Arabia and its allies fighting the Houthis.

“The vessel traffic office received a distress call from the VOS THEIA at 1730 (1430 GMT) on Sunday, June 3, 2018 about a fire in the vessel resulting from an external attack,” said the Port Corporation in a statement, although it would not elaborate on who might have launched the attack.

The statement added that the ship was waiting in anchorage for permission to leave when it came under attack.

The UN’s aid chief, Mark Lowcock said, however, that no one was injured and the situation was calm now.

“There was an incident … We don’t know who’s responsible. We’re investigating and the incident is over,” said Lowcock.

The UN official, however, criticized anyone seeking to disrupt the humanitarian aid delivery in Hudaydah, a port which handles the bulk of Yemen’s commercial imports and aid supplies and is regarded as a lifeline for some eight million Yemenis being fed by the UN.

“There’s no port more important than Hudaydah. So anything which called into question the operation of Hudaydah would be a matter of deepest concern,” he said.

Reports over the past weeks have indicated that Saudi Arabia and its allies have been advancing on Hudaydah, launching frequent attacks on port authorities and guards patrolling at sea.

Saudis refused to provide any comment on the incident involving the UN aid boat.

According to figures released by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights, more than 600,000 people have been killed or injured in the Saudi war since 2015.

The illegal campaign, which is meant to restore power to former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, has also displaced hundreds of thousands of Yemenis while exacerbating the humanitarian plight of millions already affected by poverty and malnutrition in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation.

June 4, 2018 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Gaza Slaughter: Holy Land Still Denied Peace and Justice by Cowardly International Community

How can any sane person, after visiting Gaza, fail to demand the full force of international law and sanctions against the sadistic Israeli regime?

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | June 2, 2018

Here we go again. Jewish News reports the UK proudly announcing a new package of aid totalling £1.5 million to buy medicines and equipment for 11 hospitals in Gaza. The money will also provide services for around 4,000 people.

Live fire across the border by Israel’s snipers, slaughtering some 111 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including women and children, and wounding and maiming thousands more, shamed Britain into this latest gesture.

Middle East Minister Alistair Burt made the announcement on a visit to Gaza. He said: “I am deeply concerned about the worsening situation in the Gaza Strip, and today’s UK aid package gives a message to the world, and to the people of Gaza, that we have not forgotten them or their plight.

“Today’s support will help to ensure that hospitals which are under immense pressure are able to cope with the increased number of casualties who need medical and surgical care.”

Oh, how nice. Handing out £1.5 million of our tax money saves Burt the chore of calling the Israeli psychopaths to account. It is another cowardly subsidy to keep the illegal occupation of the Holy Land going.

Burt added:

“We have been clear that a political settlement is the only way to ensure lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike. All parties must redouble their political efforts and return to the negotiating table, not only to address the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, but to ensure tragedies of the past months are not repeated.”

Why should Palestinians ‘negotiate’ for their rights and freedom? And given the Israelis’ track record could a political settlement with them ever be fair or just? Without justice there can be no lasting peace. And without law there’s no justice. So why the continual focus on ‘negotiations’ while ignoring the rule of international law?

The BMJ (British Medical Journal) recently described the horror on the ground:

Since 2014 Israel has further tightened the passage of essential medicines and equipment into Gaza, and of the entry of doctors and experts from abroad who offer technical expertise not available locally. Gazan hospitals have been depleted of antibiotics, anaesthetic agents, painkillers, other essential drugs, disposables, and fuel to run surgical theatres. Patients die while waiting for permission to go for specialist treatment outside Gaza. All elective surgery has been cancelled since last January 2018, and 3 hospitals have closed because of medication, equipment and fuel shortages. Medical personnel have been working on reduced salaries. Gazan health professionals find it almost impossible to get Israeli permission to travel abroad to further their training. The regular episodic military assaults on Gaza and the current targeting of unarmed demonstrators are part of a pattern of periodically induced emergencies arising from Israeli policy. The cumulative effects of the impact on healthcare provision for the general population have been documented in multiple reports by NGOs, UN agencies and the WHO. This appears to be a strategy for the de-development of health and social services impinging on all the population of Gaza.

The current systematic use of excessive force towards unarmed civilians, including children and journalists, is provoking a further crisis for the people of Gaza. Since 30 March 2018, snipers firing military grade ammunition have caused crippling wounds to unarmed demonstrators. As of 23 April 5511 Palestinians, including at least 454 children, have been injured by Israeli forces, including 1,739 from live ammunition according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. As of April 27, the death toll has reached 48 and additional hundreds wounded.

The UK claims its aid is already providing Gazans with access to clean water and improving sanitation facilities to help stop the spread of deadly disease. So what? It does nothing to end Israel’s blockade, the day-to-day, hour-to-hour misery of economic strangulation and the helplessness of imprisonment within that tiny, overcrowded coastal strip.

Mr Burt and his Foreign Office colleagues are a large part of the problem. We’ve heard Burt many time before spouting the bollox of appeasement, giving away money and urging lopsided negotiations rather than enforcing UN resolutions and international law and imposing sanctions. Seven years ago, as the new minister in charge of Middle East affairs, he was handing the Palestinian Authority’s Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and his boss, president Mahmoud Abbas, £17 million for their sterling work. The official reason for such largesse with our hard-earned tax money was the dynamic duo’s progress towards creating an independent, viable Palestinian state “living in peace with a secure Israel”.

Their only real achievement, however, was having turned the Occupied Territories into a police state of the most sinister kind on behalf of their Israeli puppet masters. The gift was also a sweetener to get the Palestinian leaders back to the negotiation table. “It is critical that both sides find a way to return to talks,” said Burt. “The current impasse is of great concern and I urge all parties to take immediate steps to secure a lasting peace… We firmly believe that this should see a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is the solution which offers the best prospect of a just and sustainable peace.”

That was 2011. Where’s the peace?

“Enemies of peace will continue to use the conflict for their own purposes…”

Talk is cheap when you have no intention of following up with action. And Mr. Burt was not about to transform himself into a man of action for peace. Why not? Because he’s a creature of the Israel lobby. He used to be an officer of that detestable club of Israel flag-wavers, the Conservative Friends of Israel. The Foreign Office is stuffed with them thanks to our then prime minister, David “I’m-a-Zionist” Cameron, an individual so misguided that he proclaimed: “In me you have a Prime Minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible.”

What a ridiculous commitment for a British prime minister to make to a lawless, racist entity that respects nobody’s human rights, continually defies international law and shoots children for amusement (see ‘The methodical shooting of boys at work in Gaza by snipers of the Israeli Occupation Force’ by surgeon David Halpin and latest reports on the use of dum-dum and other soft-nose or ‘exploding’ rounds by Israeli snipers).

It is a disgrace that the Conservatives, who weren’t given a clear mandate to govern and resorted to forming a coalition with the wimpish Liberal Democrats, chose to vomit their infatuation with the thuggish Israeli regime all over the British nation and the Arab world. They continue their nauseating behaviour to this day.

In a speech to the Board of Jewish Deputies, Burt recalled how he had worked from the age of fifteen for an MP who was a president of the Board and a founder of the Conservative Friends of Israel, and how this “had a lasting effect upon me, and on my interests in Parliament”. He said: “Israel is an important strategic partner and friend for the UK and we share a number of important shared objectives across a broad range of policy areas.”

Can anyone think of a single objective they’d wish to share with those people?

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict he said that “without an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis peace in the Middle East is unobtainable”. Oblivious to the irony of his remarks, he went on: “Those who are enemies of peace will continue to use the conflict for their own purposes… We cannot allow those who want to pursue a violent agenda to succeed… We are committed to a two-state solution and we will continue to support the efforts of the US to broker a peace deal between both sides. And as an honest broker, the UK Government does not believe that economic sanctions or embargoes on Israel [are] the way to engage or to influence it.”

The “honest broker” has been happy enough to use economic sanctions to collectively punish the Gazans who are no threat to us, to punish the Iranians who are no threat to us, and even to punish the Russians who could swat us like a fly. Why so queasy about doing the same to Israel, which is a real and present danger to everyone?

I do, however, applaud Burt’s words condemning the enemies of peace who use the conflict for their own ends and his determination not to allow those who want to pursue a violent agenda to succeed. But it surely cannot have escaped his notice that Netanyahu doesn’t want peace. Land-grabbing, ethnic cleansing and other high crimes are what he does, so the jackboot of Israeli occupation stays on the Palestinians’ neck and any peace plan is treated with contempt. More to the point, no-one in the international community – and certainly not Burt – has actually told us what a two-state solution looks like. No-one, that is, since Ehud Barak made his absurd “generous offer” back in 2000.

When the Palestinians signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 they were ready to accept a meagre 22% of pre-partition Palestine and recognise Israel within the ‘Green Line’ borders (i.e. the 1949 Armistice Line established after the Arab-Israeli War). Conceding 78% of the land that was originally theirs was an astonishing compromise.

But it wasn’t enough for greedy Israel. Its “generous offer” demanded the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within the 22% remnant. It was obvious on the map that those settlement blocs created impossible borders and already severely disrupted Palestinian life in the West Bank. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under “Temporary Israeli Control”, meaning Israeli military and administrative control probably indefinitely. This two-state arrangement also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian State. What nation in the world would accept that? The idiotic reality of Barak’s offer was hidden by propaganda spin.

Later, at Taba, Barak produced a revised map but withdrew it after his election defeat. The ugly facts of the matter are documented and explained by organisations such as Gush Shalom, yet Israel lobby stooges in the UK government continue to peddle the lie that Israel offered the Palestinians a “generous” peace on a plate.

In lockstep with Netanyahu’s crazed ambitions?

Since then, Netanyahu has made it clear several times that Israel will not voluntarily give up any land it illegally occupies to a Palestinian state. “We are here to stay forever. There will be no more uprooting of settlements in the land of Israel. … This is the inheritance of our ancestors. This is our land.” So says an intruder who, like most of his unpleasant colleagues, actually has no ancestral links to ancient Israel. The Israeli regime occasionally gives the impression of going along with talks for propaganda reasons but will always ensure they go nowhere. Look at its track record.

Meanwhile Burt and others are still busy promoting the fantasy of a peace process that’s just around the corner. Why? Are they in lockstep with Netanyahu to prolong the conflict in order to buy more time to steal more territory? Or perhaps they need help in spotting the patently obvious: that the peace process is dead, belly-up, a write-off…. and has been for 20 years.

The Jewish Chronicle was ecstatic about Burt’s appointment as a Foreign Office minister, which it said sent “as clear a message as possible about the direction of the new [Conservative] government in the region. Mr Burt is listed as an officer in the parliamentary group of Conservative Friends of Israel and has been passionate in campaigning for visiting rights to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas for the past four years…”

Funny how Burt was so concerned for Shalit, a trained killer whose capture and detention he called “outrageous” while ignoring the thousands of Palestinian civilians (including women and children) abducted from their homes and left to rot in Israeli jails without trial.

And his stance on Palestinian independence has always been nonsensical. I remember Burt saying that we would not recognise a Palestinian state unless it emerged from a peace deal with Israel. London “could not recognise a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders.” He’d been talking earlier about a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Why had he suddenly lost the plot? And where does he suppose Israel’s borders are? Is Israel ever within them? Where does he think Israel’s capital is? And where does Israel claim it to be? In other words, is Israel where Israel ought to be? If not, how can he possibly recognise it let alone align himself with it?

“We are looking forward to recognising a Palestinian state at the end of the negotiations on settlements…” Israel’s illegal settlements are classed as war crimes. Since when did Her Majesty’s Government approve of negotiating with perpetrators of such crimes? Besides, the Holy Land’s status was ruled on long ago. International law has spoken. But instead of enforcing law and upholding justice Mr. Burt and his Government chums still push for more discredited, lopsided talks. He was one-time president of the Oxford Law Society and graduated with a law degree but he shows remarkably little regard for international legal process these days.

And where does Burt suppose the Palestinians’ offshore boundaries run in regard to the huge reserves of marine gas and oil in the Levantine Basin? Israel wants the lot and the question for many years has been: will Gaza ever get a whiff of its own gas? What does Mr. Burt, wearing the British government’s “honest broker” hat, say?

Don’t be surprised at the answer. Burt is or was a political adviser to the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative foreign policy think tank. Signatories and patrons include Richard Perle, William Kristol, Ambassador Dore Gold (former foreign policy advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel), Natan Sharansky (chair of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel), Denis MacShane, David Trimble (founder member of the Friends of Israel Initiative), Robert Halfon MP (former political director, Conservative Friends of Israel) and Stephen Pollard (editor, The Jewish Chronicle ).

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Supreme Court told that settlements law violates apartheid convention

MEMO | June 4, 2018

Israel’s Supreme Court heard a petition yesterday against a law that allows the expropriation of privately-owned Palestinian land for Israeli settlers, reported AFP.

The court, meeting in an expanded panel of nine justices, has been petitioned by Israeli and Palestinian rights groups, on behalf of 17 Palestinian villages.

The law was passed by the Knesset in February 2017. In August, the court issued a restraining order against the law’s implementation, pending its ruling.

According to AFP, the petition “argues that by giving preference to Jewish settlers over the rights of Palestinian landowners it [the law] breaches an international convention on Apartheid”.

“The clear, declared purpose of the law, which seeks to privilege the interests of one group on an ethnic basis and leads to the dispossession of the Palestinians, leaves no doubt that this law involves crimes under the convention,” it says.

Attorney Harel Arnon “argued in defence of the legislation in place of attorney-general Avichai Mandelblit, who has warned the government the law could be unconstitutional and risked exposing Israel to international prosecution for war crimes”, AFP reported.

Arnon told the court that striking down the law would be “abetting a coup against this administration”. It would be “the dismemberment of the sovereignty of the Knesset”, he added.

It was not known yeserday when the court would deliver its ruling, AFP noted.

The law is designed to retroactively “legalise” dozens of settlement outposts and thousands of settler homes across the occupied West Bank, homes built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

Under international law, including as reflected in United Nations Security Council resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, are illegal.

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US mulls expanding military intervention in Yemen: Report

Press TV – June 4, 2018

The United States is considering a request from the UAE to provide direct support for an attack to seize the Houthi-held port of Hudaydah, a major lifeline for Yemen, officials say.

US officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked for a prompt assessment of the UAE’s appeal for assistance such as surveillance drone flights to help a Saudi-led coalition capture Hudaydah.

The debate over increasing US support to the UAE and Saudi Arabia comes amid escalating military operations around the Yemeni port despite UN warnings of catastrophic effects on the impoverished country.

Eighty percent of commercial and humanitarian supplies flow through Hudaydah, a central gateway. Since May 27, forces supported by Saudi Arabia have been closing in on the port, claiming that Yemen’s Ansarullah movement uses it for weapons delivery.

American officials say the UAE and Saudi Arabia have assured Washington that they won’t attempt to take the Red Sea port until they get support from the US.

“We continue to have a lot of concerns about a Hudaydah operation,” said one senior US official, quoted by The Wall Street Journal.

“We are not 100% comfortable that, even if the coalition did launch an attack, that they would be able to do it cleanly and avoid a catastrophic incident,” the official added.

Senior Yemen specialists in the US administration were expected to meet on Monday to discuss what to do, the newspaper said.

According to the Journal, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have long sought to get backing from the US.

Last year, the Saudi-led coalition unsuccessfully sought to secure American intelligence, surveillance and direct support from elite US military forces for an attack on Hudaydah, former US administration officials said.

For now, prominent administration officials involved in the debate harbor reservations about expanding the American military role in Yemen, but some back providing assistance to the UAE, officials said.

“We have folks who are frustrated and ready to say: ‘Let’s do this. We’ve been flirting with this for a long time. Something needs to change the dynamic, and if we help the Emiratis do it better, this could be good,’” the senior US official said.

Some administration officials are also increasingly disappointed that both military and diplomatic efforts have bogged down, which is fueling efforts to cut US support for the fighting, the report said.

The US has been lavishing sophisticated weaponry upon Saudi Arabia since March 2015, when the latter attacked Yemen to restore its Riyadh-allied former government. Washington also helps to refuel Saudi and UAE warplanes that conduct airstrikes on Yemen.

According to figures released by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights, more than 600,000 people have been killed or injured in the Saudi war since 2015. Yemen has also turned into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The Red Cross and the United Nations have warned against the dangers of the Saudi-led operations in Hudaydah.

“The push for Hudaydah is likely to exacerbate an already catastrophic security situation in Yemen,” said François Moreillon, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen.

United Nations’ new special envoy on Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is to present his proposal for reviving peace talks to the UN Security Council in the next two weeks. He has publicly warned that an assault on Hudaydah “would take peace off the table.”

“We are all very concerned about the possible humanitarian consequences of a battle for Hudaydah,” he said.

June 4, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Pompeo Challenged at Senate Foreign Relations Committee

By Renee Parsons | OffGuardian | June 3, 2018

Newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had every reason to expect that his first official appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be the usual slam-dunk as mostly obedient, respectful Senators aligned with his testimony.

Instead of the typically gratuitous compliments and undeserved deference, there was a display (albeit a minority) of some moral courage with a rare slice of truth on Capitol Hill, epitomizing the real-time requirements of a Senator’s job: to be skeptical, provide oversight and demand accountability from every Federal government witness, no matter the rank – once referred to as ‘grilling the witness.”

Besides fraternizing with America’s most privileged citizens, endless rounds of lavish Capitol Hill receptions, wide ranging international travel opportunities (aka junkets), a liberal vacation policy and exorbitant benefits out of step for the minimal accomplishments actually achieved, the current Senate paradigm has allowed too many Members to degenerate into a protuberance of greedy, sniveling, weak-minded buffoons with no genuine regard for their constituents or what was once the greatest democracy on the planet.

Days earlier, as the nation’s top diplomat, Pompeo delivered the Trump Administration’s controversial “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy” in a decidedly undiplomatic speech to a less than enthusiastic audience at the Heritage Foundation. That aggressive strategy included a dozen doomed-to-fail, untenable demands that were little more than a precursor for military intervention and regime change.

Before the hearing began, Pompeo unexpectedly read a crude letter from President Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cancelling the June 12th summit citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” and concluded with the moronic “If you change your mind …, please do not hesitate to call or write me.” To date, Trump has softened his stance against a meeting and hints the June summit may occur on schedule.

As the hearing began, most Senators expended their allotted time by steadfastly avoiding the massive foreign policy blunder that had just been dropped in their laps. The following excerpts focus on two Members, Sen. Rand Paul (R-SC) (1:58) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass) (2:19/3:27) since they had the most extensive dialogue with Pompeo and because they gave Pompeo the most grief. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Or) (3:34) and Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) (3:15) questioned implications of the upcoming Authority for Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Sen. Paul launched into a rapid-fire critique exposing the inadequacies of Pompeo’s Iran Plan with a much needed dose of reality as he methodically decimated the strategy, beginning with the requirement that Iran reveal the ‘military dimensions’ of its nuclear program:

Let’s substitute Israel for Iran. Does anyone believe that Israel is going to reveal the military dimensions of their nuclear program? ” Paul inquired whether the Saudi’s would be willing to discuss “anything they’ve done to develop nuclear weapons or reveal the military dimensions of their nuclear program. So really what you’re asking for is something they (Iranians) are never going to agree to.”

Regarding the requirement that Iran end its proliferation of ballistic missiles, Paul explained that

… when we supply weapons, the Saudis buy weapons, the Saudis have a ballistic weapon program, they (Iran) respond to that. The Saudis and their allies … spend more than eight times Iran so when you tell Iran that you have to give up your ballistic missile program but you don’t say anything to the Saudis, you think they are ever going to sign?”

If you leave Saudi Arabia and Israel out of it and look at Iran in isolation, that’s not how they (Iran) perceive it. We want Iran to do things that we’re not willing to ask anybody else to do and that we would never do.”

Regarding Pompeo’s demand to end military support for the Houthi rebels:

Once again, you’re asking them to end it but you’re not asking the Saudis to end their bombardment of Yemen. If you look at the humanitarian disaster that is Yemen, it is squarely on the shoulders of the Saudis.”

Paul then drew attention to the demand for Iran to withdraw all its forces from Syria noting that

ISIS is getting weapons from Qatar and Saudi Arabia” and that “Saudi Arabia and Qatar are ten times the problem. The people who attacked us came from Saudi Arabia. We ignore all that and lavish them with bombs.”

It was naïve to pull out of the Iran Agreement and in the end, we’ll be worse off for it.”

Pompeo was Stunned and the Silence was Deafening. Pompeo had absolutely no reaction to Paul’s devastating analysis of US foreign policy in the Middle East, offering no explanation, no excuse, no correction or thoughtful response; nor did any other Senator present dare step into the swamp.

Next up was Sen. Markey citing Trump’s reference to North Korea’s ‘tremendous anger and open hostility” and inquiring:

How did you expect North Korea to react to comparisons between Libya and North Korea, between the fates of Kim Jong Un and Qaddafi. Why would you expect anything other than anger and hostility in reaction to these comparisons?”

Markey was referring to Vice President Mike Pence’s comment that “Kim Jong Un will end up like Qaddafi if he does not make a deal” and National Security Advisor John Bolton’s “we have very much in mind the Libya model of 2003-2004.”

As background, in 2003 Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi relinquished his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons allowing inspectors to oversee and verify the process. By 2011, with US and NATO instigation, Libya experienced a violent overthrow of its government with Qaddafi brutally murdered. And who can ever forget former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s macabre glee “we came, we saw, he died.”

Pompeo expressed “misunderstanding taking place with this idea of a Libya model” and that he “hadn’t done the work to find out what that was…when Libyans chose to give up their nuclear weapons in 2003. That’s the Libya model.”

Markey explained:

The Libya model, as Kim Jong Un has been interpreting it, is that the leader of the country surrenders their nuclear capability only to then be overthrown and killed. Why would you not think that Kim would not interpret it that way as it continued to escalate with Bolton and Vice President talking about the Qaddafi model? .… why would you think there would be any other interpretation at what happened to Qaddafi at the end of his denuclearization which is that he wound up dead? Why would that not elicit hostility from a negotiating partner three weeks prior to sitting down..”

From there Markey and Pompeo bantered back and forth with Pompeo consistently failing to grasp the connection between Qaddafi’s 2003 disarmament agreement and US military interference in Libya in 2011 that resulted in Qaddafi’s death as sufficient reason for North Korea to feel threatened. No matter how precise the clarification, Pompeo continued to respond as a dense, one-dimensional thinker unable to wrap his mind around logic that challenged his view of a simulated reality, as if looking at the same object through a different lens.

Committee chair Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn) agreed with Markey.

I opposed so strongly what the Obama administration did in Libya was exactly the argument you are laying out right now… to have someone like Qaddafi who gave up their nuclear weapons and then go kill him to me sent exactly the signal that you are laying out right now.”

Corker then announced that he

just had discussion with Secretary’s staff and he is now 15 minutes late for a meeting. I’m going to allow a couple of comments but going to stop it in five minutes.”

Markey immediately inquired:

Who is the meeting with Mr. Secretary… if you are not going to stay here and answer questions from us… can you not push that meeting back another 15 minutes…”

Corker:

… this is getting a little bit, this type of discourse, I’m sorry, I’m the one doing this. I’ve been very generous”

Markey:

… but we agreed to two seven- minute question periods and it is being ended here for two members…”

Markey continued until Sen. Corker gaveled his time had expired.

As the Foreign Relations Committee contemplates an upcoming markup and vote on a Forever AUMF next week, it will be a time for other Committee Senators to step outside the Matrix and dig deep to find their own moral fortitude.

Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31

June 3, 2018 Posted by | War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

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