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Memory hole for Netanyahu’s supreme crime

By Jonathon Cook | The Blog From Nazareth | September 5, 2014

240814_slides1-c0c4caedadNow even the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, admits in court documents that the group behind the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli youths in the West Bank in June was a rogue cell, comprising only four individuals. Further, the man named as the mastermind behind the plot was “lukewarm” about it.

Hussam Qawasmeh was apparently originally lukewarm about the plan proposed to him by a relative, Marwan Qawasmeh, who with Amer Abu Aisheh has been named as having carried out the kidnapping and murder and is still wanted by Israel.

So who’s going to remind us that Netanyahu’s invasion of the West Bank, his rounding up of hundreds of Hamas activists, and the ensuing confrontation with Hamas in Gaza that led to Israel’s use of massive military force, killing more than 2,100 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians, were all based on a lie: that he had cast-iron evidence that Hamas was responsible for the murders?

A crime of aggression against Gaza is a crime against humanity – in fact, the supreme crime, as determined by the Nuremberg tribunals. But this crime against humanity is going straight down the memory hole because Israel, rather than an official enemy, was responsible.

September 5, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

On Israel’s Insanity Defense and the World’s Shared Delusion

By Samah Jabr | Washington Report on Middle East Affairs | September 2014

Once the surveillance cameras of Palestinian shopkeepers in East Jerusalem’s Shuafat neighborhood revealed the images of the Israeli abductors of Muhammed Abu Khdeir, the fabricated Israeli propaganda that the 16-year-old Palestinian boy had been gay and the victim of an honor killing perpetrated by his own people became completely unsustainable. Soon after, hoping to contain the resulting clashes that erupted in Shuafat and extended to many nearby neighborhoods, Israeli police announced that they had captured six suspects involved in the crime.

Just days later, however, it was announced that three of them already had been freed. The others were described as two minors and a mentally unstable adult with a dominating personality who is on psychiatric medication, according to Yediot Ahronot.

That has a familiar ring to it! In 1969 Dennis Michael Rohan, an evangelical Protestant from Australia, set fire to the al-Aqsa mosque in order to hasten the second coming of the Messiah and create an opportunity to rebuild the Jewish Temple. Rohan was later declared mentally ill and exonerated for his actions.

In 2007 Julian Soufir confessed to having murdered Palestinian taxi driver Taysir Karaki, saying he did not feel guilty because he considered Arabs the equivalent of cattle and he was simply slaughtering one. Soufir had entered the victim’s taxi in Jerusalem and asked to be driven to Tel Aviv. He then persuaded Karaki to come to his brother’s apartment with an offer of coffee and the use of the bathroom, and attacked the Palestinian with a knife he had obtained ahead of time. At his 2008 trial, the court accepted the testimonies of two defense witnesses who claimed that Soufir was not fully “conscious” at the time of the murder—despite the fact that he had explained his motive for murdering Karaki—and Soufir was acquitted.

A few years ago, I testified as an expert witness at the Jerusalem district court regarding the case of one of my psychiatric patients who, while suffering an acute psychotic episode, stabbed an Israeli soldier. My patient was 30 years old; after sustaining severe injuries during his arrest, which required 12 surgeries and left him handicapped, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison! The insanity defense certainly did not do my patient much good.

It is one of many pretexts used to avoid the prosecution, imprisonment or punishment of Jewish Israelis who murder Palestinians—but not the other way around. When a Palestinian minor attacks an Israeli, the youngster appears in court with bruises and fractures. Nor are charges dropped because he is a minor. We shall see what happens to the minors who tortured Abu Khdeir and burned him alive.

Settlers’ Law

For many years—in Hebron, especially—radical Jewish settlers have been attacking Palestinians under the very noses of Israeli soldiers, who only intervene to defend the settlers from Palestinians responding to their attacks. In 1994 American-born Dr. Baruch Goldstein massacred 30 Palestinians praying at Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque, which he entered under the eyes of Israeli soldiers who—instead of acting to stop the massacre—fired live ammunition into the fleeing crowd, killing even more Palestinians!

In 2008 Ze’ev Braude, a settler from nearby Kiryat Arba, was caught on camera as he shot at close range two Palestinians from the Matariya family during the evacuation of a Palestinian house in Hebron. The film was provided to Israeli police as evidence, but the indictment against Braude was dropped. In his ruling, Judge Elyakim Rubinstein held that “in this instance, the right of the accused to a fair trial outweighed the harm to national security!”

These and similar actions are the consequences of ideologies held by Gush Emunim and other radical movements that encourage the building of settlements in the belief that the coming of the Messiah can be hastened through Jewish settlement of occupied Palestinian land that God promised the Jews. Rather than working to eradicate these beliefs, the Israeli government instead has endorsed them through such vehicles as the Sebastia agreement, which encourages Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Israeli intelligence, so effective in hunting down every Palestinian boy who so much as throws a stone, remains inept at imposing limits on the actions of Jewish Israelis—from the fanning of anti-Arab sentiment and racist slogans by the Beitar football team, to attacks on Arab employees of Israeli restaurants, to settler “Price Tag” vandalism and assaults, with graffiti boasting “Price tag blood vengeance.” The official Israeli response to these and other outrages is one of indulgence, and actions to counteract them are minimal. But these groups are inspired by the undercurrent of hatred and dehumanization of Palestinians—a sentiment expressed by Israeli politicians, rabbis and the arbiters of public opinion. Israel’s consistent unwillingness to bring settlers to justice for their violent actions against Palestinians only encourages and incites further settler violence.

Impunity for Israeli Soldiers

In 1984, during what became known as the Bus 300 affair, Shin Bet officers first allowed Israeli Jews to beat up two Palestinians who had hijacked a bus, then executed the two men on the spot—after the hostages had been freed and the hijackers captured and handcuffed. The Shin Bet initially claimed that the hijackers had died when the hostages were being rescued. But these lies were exposed when photos were released showing the hijackers alive after their capture. Nevertheless, Shin Bet head Avraham Shalom and all the officers involved received a presidential pardon for unspecified crimes—before any charges were even brought against them.

In 2004, Iman al-Hams, a 13-year-old Gaza student, lay injured on the ground after having been shot by Israeli soldiers when she entered a “closed military zone” on her way to school. Captain “R,” a Givati Brigade soldier, approached her and shot her at point-blank range. (See Jan./Feb. 2005 Washington Report, p. 9.) According to transcripts of radio exchanges between the soldiers during the incident, Captain “R” said he did this “to confirm the kill.” In court he later claimed that he believed the young girl posed a serious threat and that he had opened fire, not directly aiming at Iman, as a deterrent. Haaretz later reported that Israel would award Captain “R” 80,000 NIS in compensation, after he was acquitted of a charge related to the shooting.

In 2005, Israeli soldier Eden Natan-Zada opened fire on Palestinian citizens of Israel at the border of Shafa Amre, killing 4 and wounding 21. When he paused to reload his rifle, those who survived the massacre overpowered and killed him. The state of Israel, however, chose to indict 12 of the town’s residents! Many were charged with attempted murder for “taking the law into their own hands.”

Last year, Arafat Jaradat, a young student from Hebron, died five days after being detained for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli forces during a protest. An autopsy revealed three broken ribs, severe contusions on his legs and forehead, and blood in his mouth and nose. A Turkish forensic specialist found the injuries consistent with torture. The Israeli medical examiner described the same wounds on Jaradat’s body but was unable to determine a cause of death. The Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement claiming that Jaradat died of a heart ailment—even though none of the medical specialists, including the Israeli medical examiner, had noted any evidence of a heart condition!

Just a few months ago, on March 10, Israeli troops at Allenby Bridge killed unarmed Palestinian-Jordanian Judge Raed Zeiter, 38, who was on his way to the West Bank to collect rent money to pay for the treatment of his ill son. The Israelis alleged that he tried to snatch a weapon from a soldier, but eyewitnesses told a different story: When the judge lit a cigarette while waiting to be searched; a soldier pushed him, yelling that he couldn’t smoke; Judge Zeiter pushed back, shouting, “Don’t insult me!” The soldier then shot the judge, who was left bleeding for half an hour at the feet of a crowd of Palestinians who waited in line, paralyzed by fear. Judge Zeiter finally died of his wounds. Israeli officials claim surveillance cameras were not functioning on that particular day, and the investigation is now closed, leaving the Israeli officials’ version unchallenged.

Palestinians who kill or even attempt to kill Israelis invariably receive heavy sentences. By contrast, Israelis who kill Palestinians get away with their crimes or receive very minimal sentences, suspended sentences, or fines—if they are not given medals and awards! We have seen soldiers who film themselves while they abuse Palestinians. Many of my own patients who have been tortured under interrogation describe appalling events that took place within four closed walls. Who pays for that? Who is held accountable? Israel makes it impossible to document or track these cases, destroying the evidence and hiding the truth.

The Israeli army, Israeli institutions and individual Israelis violate Palestinians’ human rights with complete impunity. International laws have been created to provide an effective remedy to victims of human rights abuses, but Israeli laws are carefully designed and amended to make Jewish Israelis immune from them. For example, Law 5712 of 1952 was amended to make it impossible for a Palestinian who has sustained damages at the hands of a state agent in any area of the West Bank or Gaza Strip to claim compensation. While “national security” is invoked to drop all charges against Israeli Jews, “secret evidence” is used to prosecute and detain Palestinians through administrative detention without disclosing the charges against them, thus depriving them of the right to due process.

Julian Soufir did not consider himself a murderer because he believed Arabs were like cattle and he was just slaughtering one; Captain “R” felt threatened by an injured 13-year-old schoolgirl and shot her at point-blank range. Not only does the Israeli government and public opinion share these delusions, but the international community supports Israel’s paranoia by endorsing its “right to defend itself.”

After “Operation Cast Lead” in 2008-09 and “Operation Pillar of Defense” in 2012, in July Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge.” We have witnessed three wars in less than six years, all on the pretext of weakening resistance groups. The failure of the international community to set limits and hold Israel accountable for its actions and the inertia of the official Palestinian leadership in going to the International Court of Justice will only invite young people like the friends of Muhammed Abu Khdeir to overcome their fear and act on behalf of the victims of Israel’s insane policies. ❑

Samah Jabr is a Jerusalemite psychiatrist and psychotherapist who cares about the wellbeing of her community—beyond issues of mental health.

September 5, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Victory’ in Gaza is illusory

By Ibrahim Hewitt | MEMO | September 4, 2014

How much longer is the farce of the Palestinian Authority going to continue? I ask because it has been obvious over the past few months that the PA, under President Mahmoud Abbas, is there more for Israel’s benefit than that of the people it is meant to serve, the Palestinians. In such circumstances, any claim of “victory” by the resistance groups in Gaza is illusory.

So-called “security cooperation” with the Israeli occupation forces makes the PA’s own 70,000-strong security agencies collaborators in the eyes of many Palestinians. Has anyone ever seen any PA security forces coming to the aid of Palestinian protesters against Israel’s Apartheid Wall at the weekly demonstrations across the occupied West Bank? Such protests usually start peacefully but end in violence as those taking part are attacked by Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers. Do Palestinian security officers rush to their defence? Well, do they? Of course not, for that is not their role; they exist to police the Palestinians on Israel’s behalf and stifle any form of resistance not tackled by the absurdly-named Israel Defence Forces. Hence, mass round-ups of non-Fatah activists and the suppression of anti-Israel demonstrations during the latest of the Zionist state’s attacks on the civilians of the Gaza Strip.

The EU is the “biggest multilateral donor of assistance to the Palestinians”, and in 2011 this aid amounted to €453 million. Ostensibly there to “build up the institutions of a future democratic, independent and viable Palestinian State living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security”, the bulk of the aid is spent on security and salaries for PA officials and employees. It has been said that one of the reasons for Mahmoud Abbas’ reluctance to sign up to the International Criminal Court to pursue alleged Israeli war criminals through legal means is that the funding which pays his and his cronies’ salaries and pensions will be cut-off if he takes such a step. In other words, he has sold out, placing his personal wellbeing over and above justice for his people.

The “international community”, meanwhile, goes through with the charade that the two-state solution is still viable and, through the “Middle East Quartet”, seeks to impose its own conditions on the Palestinians to get them to acquiesce and offer yet more concessions “for peace”. Israel is spared such pressure and gets away, literally, with murder as it continues to steal ever more Palestinian land while paying lip-service to a moribund peace process.

This is why I am concerned but not surprised to learn that PA negotiator Saeb Erekat has met with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington to discuss ways to reopen negotiations with the Israelis. It is as if the recent slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza hasn’t happened; that Israel’s intense military bombardment and destruction of the infrastructure was just a blip on the screen; that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Equally shocking is that the pre-Operation Protective Edge status quo is likely to be the “norm” that prevails, because that is what Israel and the Zionist Lobby in capitals around the world want. Israel will proceed with its expansion unhindered, with more and bigger settlements, arrest campaigns, torture (by Israeli and Palestinian security forces alike), checkpoints and all of the other paraphernalia of its brutal military occupation. The Palestinians will continue to be besieged, brutalised and killed by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Despite all of this, Mahmoud Abbas and his team of negotiators will be pushed into giving Israel concessions that will not be reciprocated, with little thought, one is led to believe, for the fact that illegal settlements, land grabs and ethnic cleansing should never be subject to “negotiation” in the first place. It is a question that has been asked before but is worth repeating until someone involved in the whole sordid process can provide a legitimate answer: since when have criminals been able to “negotiate” their way out of paying for their crimes?

Euphoria in Palestinian circles, especially in Gaza, over the “victory” against the IDF is, I believe, not only premature but also misleading. How many more “victories” will be celebrated before the world wakes up to the reality that the two-state solution is long dead and buried and efforts to find a “solution” serve only Israeli interests; that we have all been duped by a slick Israeli PR machine aided and abetted by a compliant media and politicians in the West (which now includes a number of Arab capitals in thrall to Zionism) into believing that Israel is the victim in all of this and entitled to “self-defence”? Such a conclusion rides roughshod over international law and natural justice, but it is accepted by Washington, London, Berlin and the other capitals which support Israel right or wrong.

Only when its Western supporters stand up to Israel’s illegitimacy and illegal activity is there ever any likelihood that peace and genuine justice may prevail. Until and unless that happens (and I am not holding my breath), the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip will be squeezed between the rock of Israeli oppression and the hard place of the Palestinian Authority. They are now two sides of the same coin, but neither carries any currency for the people of Palestine.

September 5, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza reconstruction to cost $7.8 billion

Al-Akhbar | September 4, 2014

003Rebuilding Gaza will cost $7.8 billion, the Palestinian Authority said on Thursday, in the most comprehensive assessment yet of damage from the seven-week Israeli assault during which whole neighborhoods and vital infrastructure were flattened.

The cost of rebuilding 17,000 Gazan homes razed by Israeli bombings would be $2.5 billion, the Authority said, and the energy sector needed $250 million after the Strip’s only power plant was destroyed by two Israeli missiles.

“The attack on Gaza this time had no precedent, Gaza has been hit with a catastrophe and it needs immediate help because many things can’t wait long,” Mohammed Shtayyeh, a Palestinian economist and a senior member of the West Bank’s dominant Fatah party, told reporters in Ramallah.

Rebuilding Gaza would depend heavily on foreign aid and requires an end to Palestinian rivalry and Israel opening its border crossings, said Shtayyeh, who heads the Palestinian Economic Council for Research and Development (PECDAR) which ran the survey.

But none of the factors mentioned by Shtayyeh appeared forthcoming. A donor conference in Cairo has yet to be formally scheduled, Palestinian institutions remain divided between Gaza and the West Bank and Israel has yet to fundamentally ease the movement of people and goods at its Gaza border.

The PA’s assessment also found that the Strip’s education sector would need around $143 million to get back on its feet. About half a million children have been unable to return to their schools due to damage or because the buildings are being used to house refugees.

Over 106,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents have been displaced to UN shelters and host families, the UN says.

The remaining billions of dollars in the PECDAR assessment, which was compiled by 13 experts resident in Gaza and their research teams, were allocated to the financial, health, agriculture, and transportation sectors, all of which suffered widespread damage during the war.

The assessment also earmarked $670 million for an airport and sea port, which Shtayyeh said was a Palestinian right, but Israel has so far rejected.

The Israeli assault on Gaza killed over 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, along with 64 Israeli soldiers and five civilians.

In the week since an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire took hold on August 26, little progress has been made in getting the rebuilding underway or settling the bitter political rifts around Gaza.

An international donor conference jointly chaired by Egypt and Norway has yet to be formally scheduled, and Israel has not fundamentally changed its curbs on the movement of people and goods, especially crucial building materials, on Gaza’s border.

The cash-strapped Palestinian Authority barely has enough money to pay its own employees in the West Bank and has no immediate plans to pay employees in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, despite a unity pact signed between Fatah and Hamas in April.

“The Authority needs to be able to work as an authority to become completely responsible for all aspects of life in Gaza,” Shtayyeh told reporters.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

September 5, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Expert Q&A: The New Palestinian Peace Plan, Gaza Ceasefire Talks, & Israel’s Latest Land Grab

IMEU | September 4, 2014

Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, former advisor to Palestinian negotiators, and author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013) and The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (2006).

Diana Buttu, Ramallah-based analyst, former advisor to Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian negotiators, and Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

Q&A

Q – Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently announced a new diplomatic initiative calling on Israel to end its occupation within three years and to allow for the creation of a Palestinian state with borders based on the pre-1967 lines. If Israel refuses, or fails to negotiate in good faith, Abbas says the Palestinians will take action at international forums like the International Criminal Court.

How does this plan differ fundamentally, if at all, from Abbas’ previous strategy, and what is the likelihood that it will succeed, or at least advance the cause of Palestinian freedom in some way?
RK – “It appears that it would delay further the possibility of pressure on Israel by the International Criminal Court, and provide further opportunity for Israeli foot-dragging, prevarication and aggression, while settlement building and occupation continue. This Israeli government has never negotiated in good faith, and there is no proper forum or structure for a negotiation in any case, the Oslo process having been revealed as a device for strengthening Israeli occupation control and colonization of Palestinian lands.”

DB – “This plan does not differ, in any way, from previous failed plans put forward by Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is one of the architects of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations process known as Oslo. As such, he appears to have only one plan — negotiations — and despite the indisputable fact that this process has failed to bring Palestinians any closer to their freedom after more than two decades, he continues to insist on returning to this same strategy.

“To be clear, Israel has no interest in reaching a fair and lasting peace agreement with the Palestinians, but does have an interest in resuming negotiations. Under the cover of ‘peace talks,’ Israel can continue to build and expand its illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land, and it can continue to maintain a brutal military occupation while at the same time reaping the benefits of increased trade and normalized international relations.

“Therefore, Abbas needs to change course and pursue a different strategy. Instead of demanding more negotiations, he should push the international community to isolate and ostracize Israel for its continued military occupation, colonization, and other violations of international law. This should take the form of advocating for sanctions and boycotts against Israel, and pushing for Israel’s isolation from the international arena. At the same time, he should mobilize large-scale nonviolent resistance on the ground in Palestine, something he has failed utterly to do up until now. Another three years of negotiations will only serve to provide Israel with yet more time to build more settlements, and make even further demands that Palestinians concede more of their territory to accommodate Israel’s criminal behavior.”

Q – According to reports, Israel is refusing to send negotiators to Cairo for follow-up talks to ease its blockade of Gaza and to address other issues, as stipulated in the ceasefire agreement that ended its latest bloody military assault on the occupied and besieged coastal territory last week. If Israel refuses to abide by its word to discuss a loosening of the siege and other matters, what avenues of redress do Palestinians have, and does Israel’s continued intransigence make another war in Gaza inevitable? 

RK – “If occupation and settlement continue, and in the absence of international efforts to call Israel to account for its violations of UN Security Council resolutions and international law, there will unfortunately inevitably be more violence. The Palestinians should be actively seeking to reunite their national movement, agreeing on a consensus strategy involving popular mobilization, and expanding international and regional support for their cause in order to put pressure on Israel, which has managed to maintain the status quo of occupation and colonization of Palestinian land for nearly five decades now.”

DB – “Israel has no incentive, whatsoever, to resume discussions over Gaza. Unlike its negotiations with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, in which a resumption of talks provides Israel with the opportunity to expand its settlement enterprise without international repercussions, Israel is under no pressure to open Gaza. Rather, Israel has been allowed to maintain a seven-year blockade of Gaza, deny Palestinians freedom of movement and the ability to import and export goods, and deny Palestinians access to their fishing rights without any reaction from the international community. Israel has reneged on previous promises to open a seaport and airport in Gaza and to open the crossing points. Yet, it has done so with impunity.

“Given that no people can be expected to sit idly by while being denied their freedom, caged in an open-air prison, and targeted by repeated military attacks, sadly it will only be a matter of time before yet another war in Gaza breaks out. This is why Palestinians have been urgently pressing for the international community’s involvement, and highlights the necessity of a comprehensive approach to address Israel’s military occupation and denial of Palestinian rights and freedoms.”

Q – On Sunday, the Israeli government announced plans to expropriate almost 1000 acres of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank near Bethlehem, in what is reportedly the largest Israeli land grab in three decades. In response, the international community, including the United States and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, condemned the move, with the latter pointing out that all settlement activity is “illegal under international law and runs totally counter to the pursuit of a two-state solution.” Even before this latest large-scale Israeli theft of Palestinian land, a growing number of observers had concluded that the two-state solution, which is predicated on the creation of a Palestinian state in territories that Israel continues to aggressively colonize, was dead. What, if any, impact do you think this move will have on the situation on the ground, Abbas’ new diplomatic initiative, and prospects for a two-state solution to the conflict? 

RK – “Israel has long since buried the two-state solution with its colonization efforts all over occupied Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly publicly stated that Israel will never give up its control of these territories. It is unclear what more he could do to drive a stake through the heart of the two-state solution, so far without provoking any serious international or regional reaction. The Oslo paradigm is dead, and we seem to be in a new phase, but neither Palestinian and Arab leaders, nor the US and Europe, have yet reacted in an appropriate way, which would be to finally hold Israel responsible for its actions and to impose serious sanctions on this serial violator of international law and norms.”

DB – “Israel cannot claim to favor a negotiated settlement or to support the two-state solution while also expropriating Palestinian land, demolishing Palestinian homes and building settlements. While Israeli actions like settlement building are blatantly illegal, the international community has failed to hold Israeli leaders accountable or to censure Israel in any way, apart from the occasional toothless verbal condemnation. Unfortunately, Abbas’s ‘new’ diplomatic initiative will only serve to provide Israel with more time to build and expand more settlements while the world sits, watches, and does nothing. Israel killed the two-state solution a long time ago, aided and abetted by the international community’s apathy and inaction. One can only hope that this latest large-scale theft of Palestinian land will lead to a shift in international thinking, forcing world leaders to realize that the only way forward is to hold Israel accountable for its illegal actions — rather than demanding a return to useless, counterproductive negotiations.”

~

For further reference, see our recently released expert Q&A: Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch on Being Denied Entry to Gaza, and our recently released fact sheets, Putting Palestinians “On a Diet”: Israel’s Siege & Blockade of Gaza and The Children of Gaza: A Generation Scarred & Under Siege.

September 4, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

UNRWA calls for end of Gaza siege

IMEMC News | September 3, 2014

UNRWA Commissioner-General, Pierre Krähenbühl, says that the reconstruction process of Gaza may take over a decade, if the current blockade on the Gaza Strip is not lifted.

According to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, Kraehenbuel declared, during a two-day official visit to Switzerland, that the blockade on Gaza “must be lifted”.

“I would like to thank the government and people of Switzerland for their generous and unwavering support to UNRWA and the refugees we serve. The recent fighting in Gaza and the UNRWA response demonstrated once more how vital our services have become,” he said.

“As the discussions intensify about the reconstruction of Gaza, it is becoming clear that UNRWA will be central to that effort. But we have to remember that Swiss funds are supporting our services beyond Gaza, across the Middle East in war-torn Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the West Bank.”

Mr. Krähenbühl announced that at least 20,000 homes were destroyed during the recent Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, and that there had been widespread destruction of public infrastructure.

He states that it was “an imperative for the international community and for the people of Gaza to reconstruct after the devastation”, which was unprecedented in recent history:

“I visited Gaza three times during the recent conflict and the impact of the fighting on individual human lives, particularly the young, is palpable and profound. Hundreds of thousands of children are deep in trauma. We estimate that of one thousand injured children out of three thousands will suffer permanent disabilities.”

Krähenbühl noted that several hundred UNRWA counselors are working to restore a sense of normality to the region. “UNRWA will do all it can to restore human dignity to a community that has suffered enough,” he said.

He also expressed his concern for “more than 50,000 people” who are still living in Gaza’s UNRWA schools due to the fact that their homes had been destroyed:

“We need to do all we can to find alternative accommodation for these people, as we are determined to begin our delayed school year on 14 September… It will be a challenge.”

September 3, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

EU source: Gaza reconstruction aid is ‘made in Israel’

school_damaged_in_operation_protective_edge_gaza_city_7_august

A Palestinian school damaged during Operation Protective Edge. 7 August, Gaza City. [Jordi Bernabeu Farrús/Flickr]
EurActiv | September 3, 2014

A row is brewing over claims that Israel is earning millions of euros from a de facto policy of preventing non-Israeli reconstruction aid from entering the Gaza Strip.

At least 65,000 people in the Gaza Strip are homeless after the recent seven-week conflict. Infrastructure ranging from water desalination centres to power plants lies in ruins.

No formal Israeli ban prevents the import of reconstruction materials that were not made in Israel, but EU sources speaking on condition of anonymity say that in practice, Israeli security demands present them with a fait accompli.

“If you want aid materials to be permitted to enter, they will almost inevitably come from Israeli sources,” an EU official said. “I don’t think you’ll find it written down anywhere in official policy, but when you get to negotiate with the Israelis, this is what happens. It increases construction and transaction costs, and is a political problem that has to be dealt with.”

As well as Israel’s security restrictions on aid, “it can be very difficult to export materials to Gaza,” the official said. “A lot of goods for a Gaza private sector reconstruction project we had, ended up being held in Ashdod port for very lengthy periods of time – months if not years – so there was de facto no alternative but to use Israeli sources.”

The source added that the policy had benefited Israel’s economy to the tune of millions of euros and was, in his view, deliberate.

The European Commission donates some €300 million in development aid to Gaza and the West Bank every year, and around €200 million in humanitarian aid.

The EU official’s allegation received backing from international agencies canvassed by EurActiv and is broadly in line with findings in a UN report due to be published later today (3 September).

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) study will say that half of all donor assistance to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza – who the UN body say constitute a captive market – is spent on servicing a trade deficit to Israel.

‘Dual use items’

Tel Aviv imposed a full blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007 after the ascent to power of the Islamist Hamas movement, which has used suicide bombing and rocket attack tactics against Israel’s occupation, that have claimed hundreds of civilian lives.

But the UN and international NGOs have protested the blockade’s prevention of free movement and trade for the vast majority of Gazans as a collective punishment.

Building materials such as steel and cement, necessary for the reconstruction of Gaza, have been designated by Israel as ‘dual use’ items – adaptable for munitions – that may only be imported to Gaza by the UN and aid agencies under Israeli supervision.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime ministers’ office, denied claims that Israel’s entry policy to Gaza prevented non-Israeli-made reconstruction materials from entering the Strip.

“I know that policy, and it is not true,” he told EurActiv over the phone from Jerusalem. He was unable though to give examples of non-Israeli reconstruction materials allowed into Gaza, referring inquiries on to Cogat.

The Israeli body, Cogat, which coordinates the entry of aid into Gaza, did not respond to requests for comment.

But “there are not many choices,” Amir Rotem, the public affairs director for Gisha, an Israeli NGO, told EurActiv. “The Israeli market has a monopoly of cement in just one company, and I don’t know of any Palestinian-made cement in the West Bank, so there’s not much to choose from.”

‘Chutzpah writ large’

International reactions to the EU official’s claims were strong.

“It is outrageous that a country which has just demolished 25,000 houses is demanding that their construction industry benefit from rebuilding them at the expense of the international community,” one Western diplomat told EurActiv.

“Talk about chutzpah writ large!” he said.

Mahmoud el-Khafif, UNCTAD’s special coordinator for assistance to the Palestinian people, told EurActiv that he believed the EU official’s claims were correct.

“If you look at steel or cement, I think the only source for it would be Israel,” he said. “It is a serious problem in my opinion as an economist. What happened in Gaza and what is happening in the West Bank in terms of controlling Area C is an ongoing process to reduce the ability of the Palestinian economy to produce, and the only alternative is to import from Israel.”

Later today, a new UNCTAD report will say that economic growth (measured by GDP) in the economy of the occupied Palestinian Territories declined from 11% in 2011 to just 1.5% last year, far below the rate of population growth.

‘An unliveable place before 2020’

Even before the recent fighting, unemployment in Gaza was running at 36% and people were poorer than in the 1990s, when the Oslo peace process began.

Rebuilding the battered Strip now will take 20 years under the current regime of restrictions, according to a report published earlier this week by Shelter Cluster, an NGO chaired by the Norwegian Refugee Council, with the participation of the UNHCR and the International Red Cross.

That could be too late for many Gazans. The UN’s relief and works agency (UNRWA) has previously estimated that Gaza will not be “a liveable place” by 2020 because of population increase and a depletion of fresh water sources by 2016.

“lf Gaza was going to be an unlivable place by 2020 – before the latest fighting – it will now be an unlivable place considerably before then,” Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA told EurActiv, from the Gaza Strip.

“With at least 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed, with miles of water infrastructure devastated, with millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into the sea every day, and the corrosive impacts of blockade, the sustainability of Gaza will be even more short lived,” he said.

More than 2,100 Palestinians – mostly civilians – were killed in Israel’s recent Operation Protective Edge, as were 73 Israelis – mostly soldiers.

The international reconstruction effort in Gaza could cost more than $6 billion, according to the Palestinian deputy prime minister.

September 3, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UIUC Chancellor to forward Salaita appointment to Trustees for vote on 9/11

By Corey Robin | September 1, 2014

We are getting reports out of the University of Illinois that Chancellor Wise is going to forward the Salaita appointment to the Board of Trustees for a vote on September 11. A group of Gender and Women’s Studies students reports the following:

From GWS Undergraduate Stephanie Skora’s report back on meeting with Chancellor Wise on Monday, September 1, 2014:

The meeting with Chancellor Wise was a success, and we have gained some valuable information and commitments from the Chancellor!

We have discovered that the Chancellor HAS FORWARDED Professor Salaita’s appointment to the Board of Trustees, and they will be voting on his appointment during the Board of Trustees Meeting on September 11th, on the UIUC campus! Our immediate future organizational efforts will focus around speaking at, and appearing at, this Board of Trustees meeting. We will be attempting to appear during the public comment section of the Board of Trustees meeting, as well as secure a longer presentation to educate them on the issues about which Professor Salaita tweeted. Additionally, we are going to attempt to ensure that the Board of Trustees consults with a cultural expert on Palestine, who can explain and educate them about the issues and the context surrounding Professor Salaita’s tweets. It has been made clear to us that the politics of the Board of Trustees is being allowed to dictate the course of the University, and that the misinformation and personal views of the members of the Board are being allowed to tell the students who is allowed to teach us, regardless of who we say that we want as our educators. We will not let this go unchallenged.

Additionally, Chancellor Wise has agreed to several parts of our demands, and has agreed upon a timeline under which she will take steps to address them. The ball is currently in her court, but we take her agreements as a gesture of good faith and of an attempt to rebuild trust between the University administration and the student body. She has not agreed unilaterally to our demands, and but we have made an important first step in our commitment to reinstating Professor Salaita. In terms of his actual reinstatement, the power to make that decision is not hers. This is why we have shifted the target of our efforts to the Board of Trustees, because they alone have the power to reinstate and approve Professor Salaita’s appointment at the University. In regards to the rest of our demands, which we have updated to reflect the town hall meeting, we have made progress on all of those, but continue to emphasize that it is unacceptable to meet any of our demands without first reinstating Professor Salaita.

We have made progress, but we all have a LOT of work left to do. We must organize, write to the Board of Trustees, and make our voices and our presences known. We will not be silent on September 11th, and we will not stop in our efforts to reinstate Professor Salaita, regardless of what the Board of Trustees decides.

Please keep organizing, please keep making your voices heard, and please‪#‎supportSalaita‬!

Also, feel free to message or comment with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Assuming the report is accurate, I can think of two interpretations of what it means.

If the UIUC is thinking politically, it would be an absolute disaster for them to open this can of worms, to act as if Salaita’s appointment is now a real possibility, to raise expectations for two weeks or so, to encourage all the organizing this will encourage (I can imagine the phone calls and emails that will now start pouring into the Board of Trustees), only to have the Board vote Salaita down. From a political perspective, this would be a disaster for the university. The strongest weapon the UIUC has always had is the sense that this is a done deal, that they will not budge, that we can raise all the ruckus we want, but they simply don’t care. Opening the decision up again calls that into question. Where does this line of reasoning lead us? To the possibility that the UIUC Trustees will vote to appoint Salaita on September 11, throw Chancellor Wise under the bus (remember, the Executive Committee that upheld her decision is only comprised of three Trustees, not the full Board)*, and say it was all a misunderstanding wrought by an incompetent chancellor. Who’ll then be pushed out within a year. The advantage of this approach is that it will effectively bring this story to a close. There will be angry donors, but everything I’ve ever read and experienced about that crew suggests that their bark is often worse than their bite. The ongoing atmosphere of crisis and ungovernability on campus is not something any university leader can bear for too long, and this threatens to go on for a very long time.

The other possibility is that the UIUC is thinking legally. One of the many weak links in their legal case was that Wise never forwarded Salaita’s appointment to the Board of Trustees for a vote. She basically did a pocket veto. Salaita’s offer letter stated that his appointment was subject to approval by the Board of Trustees, but Wise effectively never allowed the Board to approve or disapprove. So the UIUC’s lawyers could have decided that the better thing to do would be simply to carry out the full deed.

Many questions remain. Stay tuned. Regardless of which interpretation is correct, we have to operate on the assumption that the first is a very real possibility and that we have a lot of work to do in the next ten days.

*John Wilson reminds me in this post that all the members of the Board did sign a letter supporting Wise’s position, which I had forgotten about.

Update (11:15 pm)

Just to clarify my blog post: Like all of us, I have no idea what Wise and the Board are thinking (though we can assume that they are making this decision together). But while I think we have to be as strategic and smart about this as possible (fyi: John Wilson thinks I’m wrong; he may have a point), and gather as much information as we can, there’s always a tendency in these situations to play armchair strategist, to try and read the tea leaves, to figure out the pattern of power, as if we didn’t have hand or a role in shaping that pattern of power. Particularly when questions of law get involved (in a country of lawyers, Louis Hartz reminded us, every philosophical question is turned into a legal claim.) We have to resist that tendency. We have to treat this announcement, assuming it’s true, as a golden opportunity. To use the next 10 days as a chance to shift the balance of power on the ground. Remember the Board will be meeting and voting on campus. There are students, faculty, and activists on and around that campus. That’s an opportunity. Remember these trustees are individuals who can be called and emailed round the clock. That’s an opportunity. Between now and 9/11 (they really chose that date), let’s be mindful of the constraints, but also be thinking, always, in terms of opportunities.

September 2, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas: US is partner to Israeli crimes in Gaza

MEMO | September 2, 2014

Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar said on Monday that the United States is a partner to the Israeli occupation and its crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking to the Palestinian Al-Quds television, he said: “We mean the US administration, not the American people, who took to the streets in large rallies against Israel’s crimes.”

He explained that lifting the Israeli siege of Gaza is not a demand, but a right. “We have the right to exist and lifting the siege is one of our rights,” he said, “it has to be lifted without a price.”

Regarding the Israeli soldiers who were abducted during Israel’s latest invasion of the Gaza Strip, he said their price is the release of the Palestinian prisoners. “This is our policy, which the enemy knows very well,” he said.

He continued: “There are two kinds of prisoners: MPs, former ministers, Hamas leaders and those prisoners freed in previous swaps; and the prisoners who are spending long terms in Israeli jails.”

The first kind should be released without a price, he asserted, while “the Israeli prisoners in our hands” are the price for the second kind of prisoners.

He also spoke about the seaport and airport that Hamas insisted on during the ceasefire talks in Cairo. “The airport was built during the time of late Yasser Arafat, but the occupation forces demolished it,” he said. “It is our right to rebuild it.”

“The seaport was supposed to be built in Gaza’s central port, but the occupation forces have stopped any positive measures from happening in the Strip, including the seaport,” he explained. “The Palestinian Authority was too weak to defend establishing the seaport. It is our right, which we seek to achieve. Whoever attacks us, we will attack them.”

Al-Zahar stressed that the Israeli occupation has to be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court (ICC). If the Palestinian Authority does not carry out this mission, individuals in Europe and Latin America and every free country should pursue Israeli criminals at the ICC.

He concluded by comparing negotiations and resistance as methods to gain Palestinians rights. “There are diplomatic negotiations, which supporters think will gain a Palestinian state,” he said. “However, they have now failed and its supporters warn that they are going to join international organisations if negotiations are not revived.”

Meanwhile, he said the resistance programme is more “successful” and it insists on not making any concessions on Palestinians’ rights.

September 2, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report: Netanyahu says will not send delegation to Cairo talks

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Ma’an – 02/09/2014

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not plan to send a delegation for negotiations in Cairo as stipulated by the ceasefire agreement that ended seven weeks of fighting in Gaza, Israeli media reported Monday.

Channel 10 said in a TV report that Netanyahu told his cabinet in a closed session that he would not send as agreed a delegation to Egypt for further talks regarding a seaport and airport in Gaza, the release of Palestinian prisoners, the demilitarization of Gaza factions, and the delivery of bodies of Israeli soldiers presumed held by Hamas, among other unresolved issues.

Netanyahu spoke proudly to his cabinet about the Gaza offensive, saying Hamas had not achieved any of its demands, according to the report.

Qais Abd al-Karim, member of the Palestinian negotiation team to be sent to Cairo, told Ma’an that any Israeli step that shows a lack of commitment to the ceasefire’s terms would render the ceasefire null and void.

Abd al-Karim said the Palestinian delegation is awaiting the Egyptian invitation for negotiations and that it is committed to the terms of the ceasefire agreement.

Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip ended over seven weeks of fighting last Tuesday with a long-term ceasefire agreement in which Israel agreed to ease its siege on the coastal enclave and expand the fishing zone off its coast. Further negotiations regarding many other key unresolved issues were to take place in Egypt a month later.

The Israeli assault on Gaza left over 2,100 Palestinians dead and some 11,000 injured, the vast majority of them civilians. Some 71 Israelis also died in the fighting, 66 of them soldiers.

September 2, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Jews, Hollywood, and Gaza: Some Thoughts

By Andrew Joyce — Occidental Observer — September 1, 2014

ADL_THR_FullPageAd_GoldaMeir_v1.indd

A few days ago I noticed the appearance of a truly remarkable full-page ad in the Hollywood Reporter. The ad, which I initially saw as a piece of poorly conceived propaganda, was concocted by the Anti-Defamation League, and called upon world leaders and ‘decent people everywhere’ to make sure that ‘Hamas terrorists’ cannot be rearmed so the ‘people of Gaza and Israel can move toward a more peaceful future.’

My immediate impression was that the ad failed on two levels. The first is the quote from the truly hideous Golda Meir: “We can forgive [them] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [them] when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Presented in bold, the quote reeks of an ADL desperate to counter the images of slaughtered children that continue to fill our television screens. A couple of important textual and contextual changes have been made to the quote — note the substitution of “the Arabs” from the original quote with the less pejorative “them.” But even more significantly, the original quote was referring to the deaths of sons and daughters on either side — soldiers rather than infants. The ADL has simply adapted the quote contextually in order to fit the current Israeli policy of mass child murder.

Even examining it in its new context, the central message being conveyed is that Israel is being forced to kill Palestinian children, and further, that Israel is distraught at being made to do this. Such a claim is ridiculous given world has seen images of Israelis making the bombing of Gaza’s schools and hospitals into a social occasion complete with snacks, drinks and selfies.

On top of this there is the sinister implication, alluded to by playwright Wallace Shawn, that “Golda Meir can be interpreted as saying here that she plans to kill the children of Arabs up until the moment when, in her sole judgment, the Arabs stop feeling ‘hate’ and become sufficiently unprovoking and pacified.” As far as warm and fuzzy ‘feel-good’ quotes go, this one left a lot to be desired.

The second ‘fail’ in the ad is the ludicrous marching out of Hollywood Jewry against ‘Hamas terrorists.’ So much for the ‘grain of truth’ lie — that there is a mere ‘grain of truth’ to the idea that Jews control Hollywood. It was quite easy for tje ADL to bring out almost every single major Hollywood executive, and every one of them a strongly identified Jew. Among those signing the letter were MGM chairman and South African Jew Gary Barber, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer, Relativity Media CEO Ryan Kavanaugh (his original family name was Konitz), Nu Image/Millennium Films co-chairman Avi Lerner, Quentin Tarantino’s personal Jewish mogul Lawrence Bender, Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair Amy Pascal, Saban Capital Group chairman and CEO Haim Saban, and President of the CORE media group Marc Graboff.

The question begged: what do these figures know about the history of the conflict in Palestine? And so I was almost ready to dismiss it out of hand as another shoddy and pointless ADL production.

However, looked at more closely, and with some consideration for context, it quickly became apparent to me that such a question was irrelevant to the true aim of the ad: what was being presented here was not so much a claim for moral legitimacy as a Jewish ‘show of strength.’ Kevin MacDonald has pointed out that the recent slaughter in Gaza has presented “another situation where the public pronouncements of people who matter have to be squelched.” Indeed, the number of celebrities who dared to express sympathy with innocent Palestinians, even fleetingly, was remarkable. Some, such as Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, even went so far as to sign an open letter condemning “Israeli genocide” of the Gazans.

The response of organized Jewry to this mass expression of free-thinking was hurried and harsh. Nervous celebrities then clamoured to ‘clarify’ their initial statements of solidarity with the Palestinians, instead now uttering mealy-mouthed ‘hopes’ for peace and panicked refutations of anti-Semitism. Take, for example, Bardem’s effort:

This week, along with a number of artists in my home country of Spain, I spoke out about the conflict in Gaza urging all governments to intervene in this escalating crisis. My signature was solely meant as a plea for peace. Destruction and hatred only generate more hatred and destruction. While I was critical of the Israeli military response, I have great respect for the people of Israel and deep compassion for their losses. I am now being labelled by some as anti-Semitic, as is my wife — which is the antithesis of who we are as human beings. We detest anti-Semitism as much as we detest the horrible and painful consequences of war.

Time will tell whether Bardem’s grovelling will be sufficient to stop his career going down the toilet — a consequence that Jackie Mason would like to see for any uppity goy actor who doesn’t know his place. MacDonald also noted that Mason has been quite clear that these people should suffer professional consequences—that the Jews who run Hollywood should punish celebrities who offend the pro-Israel crowd.

They come from these kinds of anti-Semitic, low-class backgrounds where a Jew is the most disgusting thing in the world to them,” Mason answers, according to audio obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “The ironic thing is that it’s Jewish people who own these Hollywood studios … And they all hire these people and they depend on them for a living. Every penny they made is made from Jews and they hate every Jew just by nature.

These celebrities are justifiably afraid that Hollywood Jews will act as Jews in exerting pressure on them to conform, because the idea that Hollywood executives are ‘just’ Americans who ‘happen’ to be Jewish ‘by faith’ is nonsense. In my analysis of Jewish self-deception regarding participation in the media, I pointed out that

Although not religious, moguls like Carl Laemmle, Louis Mayer, Harry Cohn, Irving Thalberg, and the Warner brothers moved in an almost exclusively Jewish social milieu. On a larger scale, ethnic “connections and sympathies opened the flourishing Hollywood commerce to thousands of transplanted New Yorkers, in turn offering possible escape routes to Jewish filmmakers in Europe.” There were so many Jews working for Mayer’s MGM that the company was known in Jewish circles as “Mayer’s Ganze Mishpokhe” (“Mayer’s entire family). RCA founder David Sarnoff struggled “to maintain Jewish cultural identity.” Almost all of the moguls maintained links with Jewish organized crime, particularly with Chicago’s Jewish mobster and former pimp, Willie Bioff.  Although outwardly, and perhaps even inwardly, maintaining the pretence of an assimilated citizen of the world, Mayer himself was notorious for interfering on the set of the Andy Hardy series by issuing pronouncements on “how the Gentiles behave.” Despite these realities, there appears to have been a great deal of self-deception and hypocrisy at work in the group. Buhle notes that, despite the fact that these moguls operated in an almost exclusively Jewish world, they were at pains to present the image of “the benevolent melting pot, usually exaggerating its virtues on the screen.”

Little has changed. In fact, Jews might have more of a monopoly on the entertainment industry now than at any time in their history. However, self-deception regarding Jewish participation in the media today can only be said to be very weak at best. For a start, I think today’s moguls are more openly and unapologetically Jewish than before. Take Ryan Kavanaugh. Before signing his name to the ADL ad, Kavanaugh, described by The Hollywood Reporter as “an outspoken supporter of Israel” and a past recipient of the ADL’s Entertainment Industry Award, claimed in an open letter to renegade celebrities that “Israel is perhaps the closest free-thinking place to Hollywood.” After a rambling, and very clumsy defense of Israeli actions, Kavanaugh then brings out a classic Jewish argument-ender:

My grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, used to say, “Remember Ryan … remember this happened. Remember that the U.S. stood by and allowed Hitler to take over Poland and so many other countries, and slaughter 6 million Jews.” It took five years before the U.S. did anything, and one-third of the Jewish population was captured and killed. Remember the very streets in London with rallies chanting “Free Palestine” are the same streets where some British citizens rallied and chanted in favor of the Nazis. And remember our government did nothing.

Yes, that’s right, Kavanaugh is actually drawing a parallel between people protesting against the killing of Palestinian children and support for Nazi Germany. As an exercise in logic, it’s little more than an ADL special served up with a side of irony. It means nothing beyond the emotive response the trigger words ‘Holocaust’ and ‘Nazis’ might elicit from the indoctrinated, the uninformed, and the unsuspecting. But it says a lot about the mentality of your typical Jewish media mogul. Note the resented and ‘not forgotten’ failure of the United States to intervene in World War II at a speed sufficiently pleasing to the Jews. This is the classic, and often stereotyped, Jewish sense of entitlement together with that notorious sense of historical grievance.

Kavanaugh was also among the first to bring Bardem and Cruz under fire, at one point stating that he didn’t want to work with them again. Kavanaugh told the Holywood Reporter that their expression of sympathy with Gaza “makes my blood boil… As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, anyone calling it Israeli ‘genocide’ vs. protecting themselves are either the most ignorant people about the situation and shouldn’t be commenting, or are truly anti-Semitic.”

Never a guy to miss an opportunity to dwell on the past, Kavanaugh went on to say that the lack of support for Israel “is akin to the silence when concentration camps started during World War II.” Kavanaugh, who has produced such cultural treasures as Fast & Furious 6, 21 Jump Street and The Social Network, has spent a great deal of time in Israel, and works to strengthen American Jewish identity by arranging trips for business leaders, politicians and fellow industryites to tour the region. His statement: “As a Jew, I’m shocked that other Jews in America and our industry aren’t being more proactive,” stands in marked contrast to the denials of moguls in my essay on self-deception, particularly that of producer David Selznick who was always eager to superficially maintain “I am an American, not a Jew.”

The ‘media Jew’ has evolved, and he is certainly now more assertive and aggressive in protecting Jewish interests. Gary Barber, (Chairman and CEO, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures), Jon Feltheimer (CEO, Lionsgate Entertainment),Jeffrey Katzenberg (CEO, DreamWorks Animation), and Avi Lerner (Chairman and Founder, Nu Image/Millennium Films) have all had open associations with the ADL in the past.

The reason for this disparity is that we live in a different age. In the postscript to my exploration of the manufactured rise of Spinoza in academia I commented that

It appears that Jews are becoming more and more flamboyant and confident (or aggressive) in asserting their dominance. While the ADL would like us not to think of Jewish power and influence at all, there are recurrent examples where Jews unabashedly assert their influence. … Jews see their future in a world where their claims of Jewish superiority are met with mere acceptance or apathy from the White population. This is neatly summed up in the 1979 ADL-sponsored book Anti-Semitism in America (by Harold Quinley and Charles Glock; New York: The Free Press). The authors state (p. 2) in relation to accusations that Jews are a moneyed elite that “a majority of Jews are in fact moneyed in the sense of having above-average incomes.” The writer added (p. 2) that 97% of American respondents to a survey on this fact said they weren’t bothered by it because they attributed it to individual merit, rather than seeing Jews as a group. This is precisely the goal sought by organizations like the ADL. The ADL’s enmity is aroused when, as Quinley and Glock put it (p. 3), discussion of such facts goes “beyond a simple recognition.”

So the ADL will be quite happy to place its name beside a list comprising the big-hitters of Hollywood Jewry — especially if it includes such loyal and hardworking members of the Tribe as the pathological Ryan Kavanaugh.

Just don’t question the deeper significance of that list, or Jewish control of Hollywood. Because that, dear friends, would be anti-Semitic.

Jewish assertiveness in Hollywood has also now culminated in a mirror image of the Gaza effort, with a pro-Israel open letter now claiming the signatures of 190 Hollywood celebrities. It’s clear even from a quick glance that around 95% of individuals on the list are Jewish. The vast majority of the signatories are actors like Roseanne Barr, Seth Rogen, and Aaron Sorkin. Some of the non-Jewish conformists included Minnie Driver, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone who apparently has some Jewish ancestry. As a publicity exercise this particular effort struck me as empty and derivative, even a little immature. But again, this isn’t about scoring moral points with the masses — this is about putting non-Jewish Hollywood in its place.

When it comes to putting the uppity goy actors in their place there has been no hesitation at all on the part of Jews like Mason, Kavanaugh, or the ADL to making very explicit the scale of Jewish power and influence in Hollywood, and the kind of consequences a renegade can expect. Organized Jewry and its muzzling arm, the ADL, are fully aware of the power they wield in Hollywood. The ADL stalks its prey with the term ‘anti-Semite’ as a safari hunter would a trophy with a high-powered rifle. One shot, one kill.

In the world of entertainment, there are few recoveries. In terms of raw power, the eighteen names on the ADL ad are more than match for the hundreds of celebrities who have signed open letters or penned offending tweets. The message might be lost on the public at large, but to those entertainers it is crystal clear — “We own you.”

September 1, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Five point action plan for political advocacy in the UK on Palestine around reconstruction

Palestine: a journal of everyday occupation | August 31, 2014

Below are five points that campaigning organisations and individuals should be using in all discussions and correspondence with their political representatives. This is UK-specific as DFID wants to play the leading role in co-ordinating the reconstruction of Gaza. The five point action plan relies on international law and the UK’s responsibility as a signatory of the IV Geneva Convention.

Next month there is a donors’ conference in Cairo and it is vital that British voters start pressuring their MPs as soon as possible. An online petition issued by a coalition of civil society organisations (such as Oxfam, War on Want, PSC, JFJFP, etc) which individuals can sign is also a powerful tool to exert political pressure.

I would like to ask all civil society organisations and individuals in the UK to read this, share it and help implement it as a campaign. There is a general election in the UK next year, let’s work now to make Palestine a key issue for MPs, especially the issue of the Blockade.

  1. UK taxpayers should not subsidise Israel’s destruction of Gaza. Taxpayers financially support the work of DFID in assisting in the rebuilding efforts, but Israel should reimburse all of DFID’s costs. DFID should send an itemised assessment, or the UK government should send a similar bill, to the Israeli government. The bill should clearly state that the UK government is issuing it as part of third-state responsibility to ensure accountability and prevent impunity for international law violations. The UK is obligated as a third state party, party to IV Geneva Convention, to demand from the violator to make reparations, compensation.
  2. Taxpayers should demand that the UK government makes public the complete list of all UK-funded projects destroyed and/or damaged and/or setback and/or delayed by Israel’s war on Gaza. This should also apply to the West Bank and East Jerusalem demolitions. This includes DFID funding of INGO’s who partner with local NGO’s, not just direct DFID funding.
  3. Should Israel refuse to pay for the damages or for DFID’s reconstruction projects, then the UK and EU should impose a Gaza reconstruction tax on all Israeli imports. The fees collected will go towards a Gaza Reconstruction Fund.
  4. DFID projects must be aimed at empowering the local Palestinian economy (local means all of Palestine). Israel should not profit from its violations, ie, its markets should be excluded from or be of last resort for providing materials for reconstruction projects.
  5. Reconstruction should not be done by accommodating the Blockade or any other illegal action. (That means continuing to use Israeli controlled crossings at the restricted rates of the Blockade which simply perpetuates the Blockade.) Ending the blockade means ending Israeli control of all imports. The current paradigm needs to be changed through international political action: Gaza needs an autonomous crossing not controlled by Israel, for example, an international seaport. The EU proposal for a Cyprus corridor is a good first start and should be supported by the UK and EU.

August 31, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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