Long Live The Resistance
By Adam Akkad | Beyond Compromise | November 19, 2012
It is rather unfortunate that we Palestinians do not get to set the dynamics of our own resistance. Under the iron boot of occupation, siege and apartheid the means available to us are beyond limited and are, in fact, nonexistent. What is even more unfortunate is the constant humiliation, fear and never ending suffering my people have to endure under the oppressive and discriminatory hand of Zionism. This dynamic places us Palestinians in a tough position, between a rock and a hard place, if you will. How is it exactly that we resist this oppression? How can we compel our oppressor to grant us our freedom and bring about justice?
Behind this keyboard I am typing with and from the comfort of my apartment, it is easy for me to condemn violent resistance, as many so-called solidarity activists choose to do. When bullets and bombs are not whisking past your head threatening not only your life, but the lives of your loved ones, it is all too tempting to take this politically correct stance and avoid any possible friction with so-called comrades. This understanding is not only insufficient and unbecoming of true solidarity, it is intellectually disingenuous.
The dynamic of our resistance is set by our Zionist oppressor, which as it stands, comes from the position of power. Our resistance is defensive and reactionary. The effect, not the cause. In a situation where we find ourselves entirely helpless and defenseless, violent resistance becomes the only means of raising our voices and procuring any and all leverage we can to demand our rights and bring about justice. When the arrogance of the oppressor is shattered and replaced with insecurity, that is a success of the resistance. The point is to make our oppression risky for the oppressor. Without any risk, the oppressor has no reason to cease it’s oppression and actually begins to benefit from it. And as we’ve seen in Palestine, oppression then becomes the status quo.
It is important to consider the causes and effects of the rocket attacks of the Palestinian resistance. Do these attacks put civilians in danger? Yes. But pushing our thoughts a bit further we land upon the key question: Why are these rockets fired in the first place? The answer lies in the decades long horror story that is aptly referred to as the Nakba, or the Catastrophe. The Nakba is the story of the destruction of the Palestine and the Palestinian people; the ethnic cleansing, massacre, aggression and oppression of an entire people. The Nakba didn’t end in 1948 and Israel’s latest aggression on Gaza is a continuation of its diabolical desire to rid historic Palestine of its indigenous population. When we understand that the rockets are a response to Israeli oppression that didn’t start last Wednesday, but over 6 decades ago, it becomes abundantly clear that Israel is responsible for any danger its citizens face. If these civilians truly want to put an end to the danger they may potentially face, then I extend to them an invitation to join us in our struggle to end oppression for all. Help us bring justice to Palestine and let all human beings live with their dignity intact. Any danger these citizens face is a knee jerk reaction to the oppression and suffering their country not only perpetuates, but thrives off of.
It is entirely unnatural to expect anything but resistance, violent or otherwise, from the oppressed.
Related articles
- Palestine: Oppression Will not Work (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Nakba-denial: whitewashing Zionist crimes ~ by Dr. Tariq Shadid (@doccjazzmusic) (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
- Not black-and-white: The chess game behind the recent Gaza-Israel war (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Refusing to Acquiesce in Gaza
By JOSHUA BROLLIER | CounterPunch | November 30, 2012
Gaza City – The past few days have been harrowing, yet still deeply inspiring in Gaza as people in the strip must carry on with their lives after the Israeli army’s deadly 8 day offensive operation “Pillar of Cloud” which killed at least 160 Palestinians and left over 1000 wounded, many of them severely. To “carry on” in Gaza does not mean returning to predictable routines or a reasonable set of expectations of calmness in what amounts to everyday life in most parts of the world. This is exceptionally true for Palestinian fishermen who return to the daily struggle with the Israeli Navy to fish in waters that are rightfully theirs.
There has been no ceasefire for these men who bravely attempt to exercise not only their legal rights, but perhaps more urgently, the human right to fulfil the most basic of needs, such as feeding their families and paying rent. Since November 26th, 2012, 15 fishermen have been arrested and 6 boats destroyed. As participants in an emergency delegation to Gaza, we have had the opportunity to speak to several of the fishermen arrested, members of their families, and a Palestinian activist, Maher Alaa, who was documenting the situation while aboard one of the adjacent boats, which also received heavy gunfire. We spoke with concerned relatives in the afternoon after the attacks, but we did not get the full story until Maher returned in the evening.
Israeli gunboat off coast of Gaza.
The scene Maher described was chaotic, but not uncommon. Only one boat sailed the full length of six nautical miles, the distance supposedly conceded by Israel as a term of the ceasefire, before it was attacked. Israeli Navy and helicopters assaulted the others boats, most far inwards of six miles, with live fire periodically from the early morning until evening. (It’s also essential to keep in mind that Gazans were guaranteed 20 nautical miles for fishing in the Olso Accords.) The boat of Jamal Baker (20) was completely destroyed. Others had engines destroyed from bullets. Five men from the al-Hessi family were ordered to take off their clothes and jump into the water, which is a common humiliation tactic deployed by the Israeli Navy. They were then forcefully arrested at gunpoint and their boat impounded for the second time in one year. The al-Hessi’s boat alone was the main source of income for the twenty-five person crew and the families depending on them.
Another brave Gazan fisherman, Mohammed Morad Baker (40), was fired upon and ordered to strip his clothes and leave his boat. According to Maher, he looked directly at the Israeli gunboat captain and responded loudly “You can put a bullet in my head before I will jump into the water.” He then draped his body over the engine to protect it. This brave act apparently caught the Israeli soldiers off guard as he was then able to navigate another course and avoid being detained.
In the aftermath of an eight day war and what Dr. Khalil Abu-Foul of the Palestine Red Crescent describes as a “chronic, acute and protracted state of emergency” in Gaza, the heroic acts of fishermen like Mohamed Baker are often left out of the broader mainstream media’s discussion of military and diplomatic victory or defeat.
It has often been said that “existence is resistance” in Palestine. From what I have seen here, Gazans are doing far more than just existing. They are standing up with dignity and ingenuity to a slow and inhuman process of destabilization and colonization that many feel is intended to gradually force Gaza to become uninhabitable for Palestinians. Mohamed Baker and the other fishermen’s refusal to acquiesce to the destruction of their livelihoods is a victory over the cowardly conscience of Israeli soldiers who make sport of shooting at unarmed men, most of whom are very poor and supporting families with over ten children.
It’s also heartening to witness that after such a traumatic eight days where many people did not leave their houses for fear of their lives, Gaza’s streets are alive. Just across from our apartment at Al-Bakri Tower, families are filling a wedding hall. Dozens of youth pile into the back of trucks, enthusiastically beating on drums. Adults and children alike laugh and hold hands as they perform Debke, a traditional wedding dance. Though Khalil Shahin, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, has spent long nights taking only as little as two hours of sleep while documenting and double checking the casualties and injuries from the conflict to avoid duplication, he still smiles brightly as he tells of reviving plans for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, which had been postponed due to the fighting.
In the afternoons, children pour out of the schools, many of which were used to shelter thousands during the recent bombings. They kick cans and soccer balls while approaching our delegation with openness, curiosity and playfulness. The shock they have just endured will likely remain with them in some ways for the rest of their lives, but the strong sense of community and family is evident. I cannot help but wonder how children and families from the United States would cope given such conditions, especially with the breakdown of the communal structure and obsessive focus on individualism in our culture.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful things I have seen throughout our short time here is that, despite the very legitimate anger, mourning and failure of the political process to provide scarcely any justice to Palestinians, the Gazans I have met know better than to waste their lives on hate. The suffering they have seen all around them is too great to wish upon others. Just today we sat with Dr. Anton Shuhaibar, a Palestinian physician and also one of Gaza’s 3,000 Christians, who described at length his hope for a solution that includes psychological healing for all parties involved, especially the youth, so that both Israel and Palestine’s children can live as neighbours. His sentiment was not without critique of long needed political changes that would have to be implemented for this vision to be a possibility. However, the intention I sensed from his words reminded me of what Mamie Till uttered so profoundly in response to the brutal and racist lynching of her son in Mississippi in the fall of 1955: “I have not a minute to hate. I’ll pursue justice for the rest of my life.”
Palestinian farmer in Johr Al-Deek.
Gaza’s farmers continue to pursue justice on the issue of land rights. Yesterday, November 29th at approximately 9:30 AM, members of our delegation accompanied other international solidarity activists and Palestinians from the Ministry of Agriculture to the farm of Ahmad Hassan Badawi who lives and farms along the border with Israel in an area called Johr Al-Deek. Mr. Badawi has remained on his land despite multiple incursions and direct attacks from the Israeli Occupation Forces, including attacks during the recent Israeli offensive which killed many of his sheep and chickens.
Much of Ahmad’s farmland has now been rendered useless by Israel’s arbitrarily declared buffer zone, which has confiscated around twenty -per cent of Gaza’s arable land. After the November 21st ceasefire, negotiations were supposedly in place that Hassan would now be able to farm within 300 meters of the fence. The allowed distance has often changed and has nothing to do with international law or any understandable pattern. After we heard from Hassan and other farmers about their situation, we approached the barb wire fence, which also separates residents of Johr al-Deek from their former water source. In a manner of minutes, multiple shots were fired in our direction by Israeli soldiers. Moments later, tear gas canisters were launched within a few feet of where we were standing. This treatment was mild compared to many other instances, including the killing of a young Palestinian named Anwar Abdul Hadi Musallam Qudaih (20) in Khan Yunis on November 23rd and the injury of 14 others.
One does not need to travel far in any direction to witness the destruction wreaked by the Israeli offensive. Yesterday in Tal al-Hawa we met with Ahmed Suleman Ateya. His entire house and a small olive grove were destroyed when Israel targeted an empty house across the street ostensibly used by militants. His was not the only other house flattened nearby by Israel’s “precision guided” missile strikes. A former farmer, Ahmed is sixty-six years old and has no money to rebuild and no permanent place to house his family who are staying with relatives in Al-Tufah while he searches for scrap metal from the rubble of his home to sell for a few shekels. As we talked with Ahmed, an Islamic relief agency arrived to provide him with a heavy blanket for the winter and a few other items. Mr. Ateya received them gratefully and with a dignity which escapes those who have not suffered such loss.
Ahmad Hassan Badawi amid ruins in Gaza City.
The wounds from operation “Pillar of Cloud” are obvious and the stories we have heard are tragic, but a spirit of resilience and determination is equally visible in the eyes of the families we have visited. Last night, Gazans were in the streets celebrating the UN General Assembly’s decision to upgrade Palestine’s status to a non-member observer state. The United States was one of only nine UN countries, including Israel and Canada, to vote against the resolution. Even so, Palestinians continue to extend hospitality to the members of our delegation as relentlessly as the fishermen who refuse to be pushed from their waters. It is my hope that residents of the United States will learn such strength based in friendship and resistance to inhumane policies, demanding that our government recognize the aspirations and political rights of Palestinians that have been ignored now for decades.
Joshua Brollier (joshua@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (vcnv.org).
Related articles
- PCHR Statement On Ongoing Attacks Against Palestinian Fishermen In Gaza (imemc.org)
- Palestine: More land taken in WB, two succumb to serious injuries, 70 year old farmer assaulted, & Gaza’s fishermen taken (realisticbird.wordpress.com)
- PCHR Statement On Ongoing Attacks Against Palestinian Fishermen In Gaza (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
Israeli Terror: The “Final Solution” to the Palestine Question
By James Petras :: 11.28.2012
Introduction
For the past forty-five years the state of Israel has been dispossessing millions of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, confiscating their lands, destroying homes, bulldozing orchards and setting-up ‘Jews-only’ colonial settlements serviced by highways, electrical systems and water works for the exclusive use of the settlers and occupying soldiers.
The process of Israeli territorial expansion throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem has greatly accelerated in recent years, converting Palestinian-held territory into non-viable isolated enclaves – like South Africa’s Bantustans – surrounded by the Israeli soldiers who protect violent settler-vigilantes as they assault and harass Palestinian farmers at work in their fields, beat Arab children on their way to school, pelt Palestinian housewives as they hang their laundry and then invade and defecate in Palestinian mosques and churches.
The Rage and Rape of Gaza and its Apologists
Israel’s strategic goal is to impose ‘Greater Israel’ on the region: to take over all of historical Palestine, expel the entire non-Jewish population and subsidize ‘Jews-only’ settlements (for settler-immigrants, often from the US and former USSR). While bulldozers and tanks have dispossessed Palestinians in the West Bank for decades, the launching of thousands of missiles and bombs have become the ‘weapons of choice’ for uprooting and eliminating the Palestinians in Gaza. In just eight days, Israel’s latest blitzkrieg resulted in the killing of 168 Palestinians (42 children and 100 civilians), the wounding of 1,235, the destruction of over 1,350 buildings and the further traumatizing of over 1.7 million children, women and men fenced in the world’s largest concentration camp. According to the Israeli Defense Minister, the Jewish State dropped “a thousand times more bombs onto Gaza” than the Palestinians fired back into Israel.
The current Israeli offensive began with the gruesome assassination of a prominent Hamas leader, Ahmed Jabari, and immediately escalated into an assault on the entire Palestinian population of Gaza. Secure in the knowledge that the Palestinians had no capacity to retaliate with similar weaponry, the Israeli High Command ordered the systematic destruction of civilian life, workplaces and densely populated neighborhoods. Over 75% of the casualties have been non-combatants; almost half are children, women and elders.
The Israeli propaganda machine and its ‘Fifth Column’ in the US fabricated and repeated the Big Lie: that the Jewish state was ‘defending itself’… Right… with only six (mostly military) deaths and 280 wounded versus the nearly 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, slaughtered. The US Zionist power configuration (ZPC), embedded in the policy centers of the US Executive, the Congress and both political parties, parroted this line. All the major US TV networks and print media reproduced verbatim Israeli Foreign Office press handouts about Israel’s ‘defensive’ … genocide … while entire Palestinian families were being buried under the rubble of their bombed apartments.
Death and destruction, planned and executed with the unanimous support of all the major Israeli political parties and leaders, enthralled the mass of its Jewish citizens: Indeed, over 80% of Israeli Jews supported the terror blitz against Gaza. As the Russian media outlet (RT) reported: “A new wave of hatred towards Palestinians is sweeping through Israel from public figures to the man (person) in the street”. The Israeli Interior Minister declared that “Gaza should be bombed into the Middle Ages”. Israeli demonstrators in Tel Aviv shouted; “they (the Palestinians) don’t deserve to live, they must die”, “may your children die” and “now we must go back there (to Gaza) and kick out all Arabs”. The prominent Israeli Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, the son of a former chief rabbi, made a speech in the Cave of the Patriarchs in occupied Hebron where he blessed the Israeli soldiers and urged them “to slaughter their enemy”.
Even more to the point, Israel Katz, Israel’s Transport Minister, demanded “Gaza be bombed so hard the population will have to flee into Egypt (the Sinai desert)”. Avi Dichter, the Minister of Home Front Defense, incited the Israeli military to “re-format” Gaza – that is to erase its population with bombs.
Almost half of Israeli Jews considered Netanyahu’s terror bombing of Gaza insufficient: According to the independent Israeli Maagar Mohot poll, half of Israelis opposed the cease fire and demanded the bloody assault against the Palestinian population of Gaza continue. The same poll reported that almost a third of Israeli Jews though their government should have sent ground forces into Gaza, an invasion which would have led to tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties and total destruction of their vital infrastructural life-lines. Netanyahu and his allies in power now confront a new, totalitarian mass opposition that openly embraces a genocidal ‘Final Solution’ to the Palestinian problem.
Genocide at the Service of Greater Israel
The parallels between the pronouncements and actions of Nazi Germany and Zionist Israel are overwhelming. The blood lust in Israel goes far beyond psychopathic raving of a few deranged rabbis and marginal politicians: it extends from the top Cabinet members to the average citizen.
In Israel, almost an entire people – over 80% of Jews – support, with varying degrees of intensity, the terror bombing and slaughter of the people of Gaza. Setting aside the profound sociopathic disorders of the raging and racist multitude in Israel, what is politically more significant are the totalitarian rants of leading Israeli public figures, published as editorials, in such newspapers as the respectable Jerusalem Post: “We need to flatten all of Gaza. There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing,” writes Gilad Sharon and the statements of prominent Knesset members, like Michael Ben-Ari , “There are no innocents in Gaza … mow them (all) down”. These outbursts reveal Israel’s strategic goal: Genocide at the service of Greater Israel – the bloody purge of 5 million Palestinians, the creation of a 100 percent ‘pure’ Jewish State. Overseas (mostly US) Zionist-Jewish media moguls, Ivy League university academics, billionaires, US Congress people and government officials finance, underwrite, propagandize for and promote with single-minded perseverance the defense of Israel’s most heinous war crimes, its violations of international law and its ongoing crimes against humanity.
During the entire period of the recent Israeli blitzkrieg, Israel’s Fifth column, the Presidents of the 52 Major American Jewish Organizations, the New York Times and the rest of the major US press rose to the dirty task of giving unconditional support for Israel’s war crimes. Vocal support from the US White House and by extension the leaders of the European Union echoed Netanyahu’s lies. In order to grasp the media white wash of these ongoing crimes against humanity one could compare the US press reports on Israel’s bombing of Gaza to those which would have appeared in the leading fascist newspapers at the time of Hitler’s ‘defensive’ attacks on Poland and Belgium and the bombing blitz of civilians in London.
The true purpose of Israel’s terror bombing raids and assassinations in Gaza and the cutting up of the West Bank is to make these territories uninhabitable for the Palestinians. The daily humiliation and destruction of the basic conditions for normal life are designed to force young, educated, ambitious Palestinians to abandon their land, homes and families for less grotesquely barbaric sites, where they might achieve a normal civilized existence, free from foul-mouthed Jewish settlers, unending military incursions, Israeli soldiers pistol-whipping their fathers or breaking the legs and arms of stone-throwing Arab schoolkids.
The Logic of Public Flogging
This obscene Israeli-Jewish behavior is intentionally open and flagrant: Flaunting Jewish military superiority over the defenseless Arab is a vital part of the psychological war reinforcing the idea of Arab inferiority and of Palestinians as aliens in their own country. Israel’s underlying slogan “Arab Raus!” (Arabs Get Out!) echoes the Nazi screed, “Juden Raus!” (Jews Get Out!). The message is clear: “If you are not a Jew then you do not exist! Your very alien presence is an abomination in the eyes of the Zionist God. So if you won’t leave politely we will hasten your departure with a few thousand bombs, missiles and a rain of white phosphorous.” That is the deeper meaning of Israel’s rape of Gaza.
The Impact of Israel’s Genocide on US Society
Leading journalists in the most politically influential US newspapers, academics from the most prestigious universities and ‘experts’ from the leading research institutes have systematically defended each and every Israeli war-crime, including the rape of Gaza, the demolition of Palestinian civil society and the cruel blockade of 1.7 million Palestinians in the biggest ‘open air concentration’ camp in the world.
As usual, the Uber-Zionist Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz and his acolytes provide a legal gloss on the savage bombing of essential public services and private communication and media centers. Not to be outdone by the loudmouths in Harvard Square, Yale and Princeton professors, with tribal loyalties to the Jewish state, describe the Israeli killing machine as a righteous citizen army defending its eternally victimized people. “Experts” at the Brookings Institute, Hudson Institute and dozens of other ‘research’ (read propaganda) centers provide ‘scientific’ explanations regarding Israel’s unique right to dispossess millions of Palestinians. The experts’ justifications of Israeli war crimes permeate the mass media, penetrate the homes of millions of Americans and fill the heads of elected officials. Meanwhile they ‘convince’ and/or browbeat thousands of non-tribal school teachers and educators into complicity or silence, thus perverting and hollowing out what residual humane and democratic values remain embedded in the citizenry. It is precisely the much-vaunted ‘high achievements’ of so many Israel-Firsters that has led to their rise to the most influential positions in US society and state and makes their support of terror bombings, ethnic cleansing and genocide so deeply destructive to the US political culture. In spite of this, some of the same expert-academic apologists for Israel’s terror against the Arab civilians are the most vociferous defenders of human rights everywhere else in the world – including the US (piously condemning US war crimes whenever and wherever they are not explicitly aligned with the interest of the Jewish State). These ‘experts’ have perverted the concept of universal human rights in the minds of the US public.
As the US mass audience and political class watches the smoke, debris and wreckage of Gaza – and even catch glimpses of a child’s dismembered small body – they are told by the tribal loyalists that this destruction is morally justified, that the target is really “Hamas” – even over the piercing cries of Palestinian mothers for their slaughtered children. US citizens are told that Israel’s aggressive aerial bombing and mass shelling from warships off-shore is really a “defensive” maneuver against a “terrorist” regime – one which just happens to lack a single airplane, warship, tank or missile capable of hitting a single major Israeli military or civilian installation.
The Zionist Academic –Journalist Propaganda Complex
The Israeli academic-journalist propaganda complex in the US has pushed the entire US political narrative even further to the fascist right. It has perverted our political vocabulary, equating mass slaughter with national defense; equating the ‘anxiety’ of Israeli Jewish civilians with the homeless, jobless and traumatized widows and children emerging from their devastated densely-populated urban neighborhoods.
The tribal scholars and mass media pundits excel in transforming executioners into victims and victims into executioners. The Liberal-Zionists, peace-time critics of Israel, remove their peace buttons and pick up scripts defending ‘just wars’, as soon as Israel starts bombing another Arab population or adversary. For the liberal (human-rights-spouting) Zionists, bombing civilians is always illegal – except when it is Israel launching the missiles. Propaganda zealots for Israel saturate the media attacking any human rights activist critical of Israel with charges of “anti-Semitism”. They smear, threaten and blackmail each and every dissenting voice daring to oppose their narrative.
The entire mass media and the most prestigious universities censor any mention of Israeli crimes against humanity. As bombs rained on Gaza not one single Congressional voice denounced the odious American President Obama when he defended Israel’s eight-day “Guernica” against a defenseless population. Unlike the citizens in Nazi Germany, we, in the US and Western Europe, cannot claim that we did not know about Israeli war crimes as they were happening. On the other hand, how can the mass of semi-literate TV viewers in the US really ‘know’ what is going on when Israel-Firsters have so thoroughly ‘framed the context’ – claiming it’s all defensive, that only Hamas “terrorists” are targeted … despite the images of children being frantically pulled from the wreckage of their homes. However, the educated classes in the US do know about Israel’s tradition and practice of mass civilian bombings; they do remember Lebanon 2006 as well as Gaza 2008-2009 (and countless Israeli massacres in the late 20th century). At the same time, they also “remember” the vicious reprisals and vitriolic attacks the Zionist ideological attack-dogs launched against the critics. Having ‘learned their lessons’ from the Zionist ‘thought-cops’ they conveniently remember … to forget and walk away… from the whole ‘Middle East mess’. Worse still, they sanctimoniously blame the Palestinians for their efforts to retaliate in the face of Israel’s blatant murders of their most prestigious leaders as well as their stubborn refusal to surrender.
There are a few Left-Zionists who actually praise the ‘resilience’ of the Palestinians and their refusal to surrender to the dictates of Israel and its occupying army. They note how the Gazans ‘celebrate’ their ‘victory’ amidst the rubble after having secured a very tenuous cease fire. Any reasonable observer could reply to this sentimental nonsense: Is survival in an open air concentration camp for another day, the daily prospect of Israeli drone flights overhead and a brutal land and sea blockade any “victory”? There is no cause for celebration: Transforming Israeli war crimes into Palestinian virtues is a cheap liberal Zionist sideshow. An eight-day Israeli assault, which had successfully destroyed every major and minor public office responsible for providing the people of Gaza with essential services, and the savaging of the water and sewage systems, power and electrical grids and media offices (not to mention perishable food and medicine) is nothing to celebrate. In fact the underlying strategic goal of the Jewish state – to make the remains of historical Palestine uninhabitable (a modern ‘howling wilderness’) for its people – has been advanced by leaps and bounds. Surviving another day in order to bury loved ones and scrounging among the burnt ruins of a home for a birth certificate or photograph is hardly the noble “Hamas victory” proclaimed by Norman Finkelstein and Uri Avneri.
Why NATO/Washington Support Israel’s Genocidal War
Unlike in the past, where some international organizations and European states raised tepid objections to Israel’s military assaults against Palestine or Lebanon, this time around nothing took place. The White House immediately embraced Israel’s terror bombing as did the governments of Western Europe. Meanwhile, Turkey, the Gulf States, the Arab League and the pan-Islamic organizations did nothing concrete, offering no arms, no boycotts, no oil embargoes – only shallow symbolic gestures.
Netanyahu timed his assault to take advantage of the western imperial offensive against independent countries and leaders who had historically supported the Palestinian liberation struggle for decades. Since NATO states had invaded and bombed the sovereign nation of Libya back into the Stone Age, Netanyahu’s Cabinet Ministers must have reasoned, “Why can’t we send the Gazans back to the Middle Ages with our bombs”? When NATO and the Gulf States now arm, finance and support a prolonged terrorist-led assault against the secular regime, people and infrastructure of Syria, Netanyahu reasons, “Why don’t we do the same to the Palestinians”?
With the EU, Washington and the Gulf States engaged in covert and overt wars against all of Palestine’s staunchest allies (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iran and the Sudan) and against the people’s movements in Yemen, Bahrain and Pakistan, Netanyahu’s plan to ethnically purge Palestine has advanced with total impunity – indeed with overt Western approval and without concern for any international ‘humanitarian’ sanctions or even protest.
Netanyahu’s murderous war on Gaza, with full US complicity, has unmasked the collaborationist-nature of Egypt’s Islamist President Morsi. Morsi, together with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, secured a cease fire only after Netanyahu had accomplished his immediate goal of destroying the public institutions of civil society and undermining the vital public functions of the Hamas government.
Against the protests of the blood-thirsty Israeli public, who wanted their bombers and army to ‘finish the job’, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu negotiated and signed an agreement overseen by Morsi on a cease fire where Israel will pay no indemnity to the devastated civilians of Gaza while confirming the Mubarak-era Israeli– Egyptian treaty and starvation blockade of Gaza. Right after the ‘cease-fire’, President Morsi assumed dictatorial powers over the Egyptian state. With the shameful terms of the cease fire and Morsi’s assumption of dictatorial powers the ‘Arab Spring’ has come to a tragic end.
Conclusion
The people of the Middle East, especially the Palestinians, are in their worst position ever. Palestinians have lost the political, financial and military support of the independent, secular regimes of Libya, Syria and Iraq. And Iran, the principle source of arms for the Palestinians, faces a US Naval armada off its coast. Israel is accelerating its naked land grabs in the West Bank. The PLO continues to be Israel’s front-line ‘cop on the block’ – jailing resistance fighters and dissidents by the hundreds. Israel’s Fifth Column in the US ensures unconditional support for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of its non-Jewish population. Above all, as the terror bombing of Gaza reveals, Israel, as a state and as a people, is free to bomb and destroy Gaza in order to force a mass exodus of the Palestinians so that they may establish a ‘pure’ and unadulterated Jewish state on historical Palestine.
Epilogue
Less than 24 hours after the so-called “cease fire” Israeli soldiers murdered an unarmed Palestinian protestor and wounded dozens with live ammunition on the Gazan side of the border. Israeli storm troopers raided West Bank homes and arrested 55 Palestinians accused of supporting Hamas. Scores more Palestinians in the Beit Lahia area of the West Bank were summarily arrested and jailed as suspected Hamas members. Jewish vigilante settlers near occupied Hebron uprooted 400 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers from the village of Hawara. As the missile murderers take their break, the bulldozers rev up their engines: Israel’s leaders pursue their strategic objective of a “pure” Jewish state with their inexorable and destructive juggernaut. The ‘cease fire’ merely changed the methods and the terrain of dispossession for the time being.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has totally demolished its vibrant recovery and growth since the previous war of destruction. In 2011 the economy of Gaza grew by 20%; after the recent Israeli attack who would dare consider Gaza as a place to live and invest?
Related articles
- Refusing to Acquiesce in Gaza (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Origins of Israel’s Anti-Arab Racism (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- stories from the border, where donkeys and carts are potential threats to Zionist security (ingaza.wordpress.com)
- 15th Violation of truce by #Israel | Israeli gunfire injures 2 in Gaza (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
A Different War in Gaza, and the war ahead
By RAMZY BAROUD | Palestine Chronicle | November 28, 2012
In life, some phenomena cannot be explained by ordinary logic or technical language, let alone official discourses. How did Gaza manage to fight back with such ferocity and undying vigor in quelling the latest Israeli war despite years of a bloody siege and one-sided war in 2008-9? It simply cannot be explained by the outmoded language of today’s media analysts. Notwithstanding, a new reality is about to emerge.
During the 2008-09 ‘Operation Cast Lead,’ Israel killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 5,000 others. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Most victims were civilians as is always the case in such wars of ‘self-defense’. A United Nations investigation published in September 2009 concluded there is “evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity.”
Back then there was no shortage of indictments and condemnations, as will surely emerge from its latest 8-day war on Gaza. Many spoke of how the tide of public opinion is turning against Israel, how the self-declared Jewish State was losing its command over an ever-skewed narrative of David vs. Goliath, of how the US will no longer be able to shield Israel against the profound anguish of millions of besieged people imploring the world for help and solidarity.
Much of this was in fact true, but equally true was that Israel succeeded in dragging Gaza and the rest of Palestine back to the same status quo – despite the heinous crimes committed four years ago -that preceded the war. Former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, told journalists on January 12, 2009 that her country was deliberately ‘going wild’ in Gaza to “restore … Israel’s deterrence. Hamas now understands that when you fire on its citizens it responds by going wild – and this is a good thing.”
It certainly was good enough for the United States, but also for many European powers who giddily wined and dined with Livni in Brussels, shortly after the war, as if thousands of people had not been killed and wounded or that whole families hadn’t just perished for no fault of their own and as if a whole nation was not still in mourning for its lost children, men and women.
It is not that Israel was particularly crafty in restoring its standing among official western circles in the last four years, thus giving it the needed confidence to assault Gaza once more. The fact is that Israel never lost that standing to begin with. These very powers (starting with Washington and London) never ceased backing Israel with the latest killing technology, bolstering Israel’s economy despite their own economic woes and of course, supporting Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ at every available opportunity.
The 22-day war on Gaza of 2008-09 was in actuality a continuation of another long war, which is difficult to demarcate by specific dates and times. Palestinians in Gaza (as in the rest of the occupied territories) have been dying at rates that decelerate and accelerate depending on the political mood in Tel Aviv. In 2008, embattled Kadima party officials sought war to boost their rating among a war and security-obsessed public. In 2012, national elections in Israel are upon us once more. In both cases, Palestinian blood had to be exacted in that same bloody game of Israeli politics. And all rising stars in Israeli politics needed to be there to impress the ever-approving public.
When “more than 90 percent of Israeli Jews support Gaza war” (Haaretz, Nov 19), it becomes less shocking to read Gilad Sharon (son of former Israeli Prime Minister and repeatedly accused war criminal Ariel Sharon) writing in the Jerusalem Post: “There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire … We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.”
Yet what was thought of as another hunting season of Gaza’s civilians and fighters alike didn’t turn out as desired. ‘Operation Pillar of Cloud’ was meant to present Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak with ample opportunities so that they may wave their fingers in threatening gestures and score as many political points as they could before international pressure mount. Instead, it ended up being a political debacle of historic proportions.
Israel’s trial balloons were downed by hundreds of Palestinian rockets that reached as far as northern Tel Aviv and even west Jerusalem. What was meant to break the resistance, so that Palestinians may never dare complain of occupation, of Israel-imposed political isolation and suffocating siege, along with Israel’s ‘deterrence’ wars, resulted in a new strange reality that sent Israelis everywhere seeking shelter. When sirens blared, Israel came to a halt as Israelis experienced bloody glimpses of what Palestinians experience too often. 167 Palestinians were killed and over a thousand wounded. 6 Israelis were killed, including a soldier who died from his wounds after a ceasefire was achieved through Egypt on Nov 21. But it was not the amount of spilled blood that made this war different, for the ratio of horrific deaths remains tilted. It was different because of the nature of the message that Hamas and other resistance factions delivered. Even starved and besieged Gazans are capable of fighting back after six long years of a hermetic blockade that forced them to dig hundreds of tunnels seeking salvation through neighboring Egypt.
In Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority, with little credibility to begin with, became more irrelevant than ever before. Mahmoud Abbas tried to impose himself as a party in the conflict by speaking of a popular but peaceful resistance in a televised speech. He conveniently explained the Israeli war as an attempt to coerce him not to seek the UN vote on a non-member state status for Palestine. And as Israeli leaders struggled to understand the new variable in their unfair war equation with the Palestinians, Arab officials poured into Gaza signaling that this time around things would be different. The Americans took notice too. Just as the US media spoke of a shift in US foreign policy focus to East and Southeast Asia, the alarming nature of the new war forced Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to rush to Israel to offer its support and solidarity. European leaders did the same. The lines were being demarcated once more. This time Gaza was a dividing point of regional and international politics, its resistance being the main factor behind a seismic shift.
Many in Israel tried to distort the facts by explaining that a ceasefire for Hamas would be good for Israel as it would bring “quiet” to border communities. Thus the Israeli objectives were achieved in a roundabout sort of way. Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel labored to soften the blow by saying “The art of measuring the level of deterrence power is far from an exact science. Nobody expected that failed actions against Hezbollah in 2006 would lead to six-and-a-half years of quiet (which for the time being persists) on the Lebanon border”.
However, Israel’s intentions were not exactly about achieving peace and tranquility. For decades, Israel’s sought to have complete monopoly over violence, thus the right to punish, deter, intervene, occupy and ‘teach lessons’ to whomever it wanted, whenever it wanted. Its recent targeting of Sudan, its past strikes against Iraq, Tunisia, Syria, appalling wars in Lebanon, and constant threats against Iran are all cases in point.
Certainly, something big has changed. Not that Palestinians managed to narrow the imbalance of power, but that they succeeded in imposing their resistance as a factor in Israel’s ‘security’ equation that was exclusively determined by Israel.
Despite their heavy losses, thousands of Palestinians danced with joy throughout the Gaza Strip. They knelt and prayed among the rebels, thanking God for their ‘victory’. Masked armed men were crowded by jubilant Gazans cheering for resistance. Israel and its benefactors began assigning blame by pointing the finger mostly at Iran. But their words drowned in the echoes of Palestinian chants. All parties know that something fundamental has been altered, although the battle is anything but over. A war of a different kind is about to begin.
Israel’s War on Palestinian Children
By VIJAY PRASHAD | CounterPunch | November 29, 2012
On 18 November, the Israeli armed forces bombed a house and killed the al-Dalou family, all ten members that were present and two neighbors. When the dust and fires settled, it became clear that amongst the dead were five children and five women. Among them was Mohammed Jamal al-Dalou, 29, who his neighbors said worked at a grocery store. The Israeli military said at the time that there was an error: either its ground operatives failed to laser-paint the correct target or its munitions misfired (as reported by Gili Cohen at Ha’aretz). Hamdi Shaqqura of the Palestine Centre for Human Rights in Gaza noted, “There is now a complete disregard for human life, shown by the attack on the Dalou family home in the middle of a residential area. This was not the home of a militant.”
Now, with the ceasefire in place, the Israeli military’s spokesperson Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich has reversed the Israeli view. “There was no mistake from the IDF,” she noted. “It’s tragic when a terror operative is hiding among civilians but unfortunately it is part of Hamas and Islamic Jihad tactics.” The Israelis now say that al-Dalou was a member of the police unit of Hamas charged with the security detail for high-level officials. In other words, al-Dalou sounds like a functionary of the Hamas organization. The Israelis are not saying that he was part of the military wing, let alone was part of any unit that had either done or planned to undertake any kind of operations in Israel. At most, al-Dalou was a Hamas bodyguard and driver. His terror level is even lower than that of Salim Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden’s driver who was acquitted by a US appeals court in mid-October.
It is contrary to the customs of war to bomb civilian areas. The jargon of warfare (Proportionality and Distinction) makes it clear that the threshold for prevention of civilian casualties must be very high and the imminent threat from the person being targeted must be demonstrable. The attack on the Dalou home meets none of these tests. Mohammed al-Dalou was at home, not “hiding among civilians,” as the Israeli spokesperson put it. The IDF bombed his home, knowing that his family would be inside. To have bombed a family as they cowered in their home is reminiscent of the Israel’s Dahiya Doctrine, so baldly enunciated by Israel’s General Gadi Eisenkott, “What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.” To bomb civilian areas, then, is part of the Israeli government’s plan – and it is a violation of the international rules of war.
Why did the IDF kill and injure so many children during this bombing run? Seventy-five percent of the population of Gaza is under 25. This means that if the IDF attacks civilians, it is more likely to kill or maim children than adults. Israeli officials conceded by the fourth day of the bombing that there was a “decline in the number of quality targets available to Israeli intelligence and Israel Air Force” (as reported by Avi Issacharoff in Ha’aretz). Israel took to “bombing real estate” – empty Hamas facilities – and bombing secondary and tertiary targets, which included residential areas and UN facilities (the Palestine Chamber of Commerce estimates that the damage amounts of $300 million, a fortune in the impoverished Strip). In congested Gaza no amount of “precision” bombing is going to prevent the “flattening” of the civilian population and its infrastructure. Whether Mohammed al-Dalou is a member of Hamas or not, Israel was prepared to attack his home in a residential area. This was not a “quality target.”
Among the “secondary targets” were the media center, which was bombed because of the presence of a Hamas media unit in the building, and it bombed a car owned by the Hama-run al-Aqsa television channel (Mahmoud al-Kumi and Hussam Salama, cameramen for al-Aqsa, died in this attack). Lt. Col. Leibovich said, “The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity.” The al-Aqsa car also had Mohamed Abu Aisha, director of al-Quds Educational Radio, and the car in front of them was carrying the New York Times’ translator. Israel did not care for freedom of speech and the freedom of journalists to travel in war zones. It sent out a tweet, “Advice to reporters in #Gaza. For your own safety, stay away from #Hamas positions and operatives.” In other words, Israel declared it a terrorist act to talk to Hamas during its bombardment. One of those who made the mistake was Omar Misharawi, age 11, son of Jihad Mishrawai, a BBC cameraman. Their house in Gaza City drifted too close to Israeli positions.
Concern for the human rights of the Palestinians is minimal. No wonder that Raji Sourani, the director of the Palestine Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, came on Democracy Now and said quite plainly that Palestinians are entitled to protection, that “Geneva Conventions are not for the intellectuals or academics; it’s for civilians to have it on their skin, to be protected at the time of war, not peace.” To have rights on the skin is a decisive image: it is on the skin that the bombs begin their intrusion into the world of the civilian. Impunity delivered to Israel from one callous US administration after another provides the bombs with permission to break the skin of the Palestinians. “We are the targets of this war,” said Sourani, meaning that it is civilians, and children, who carried the weight of the cynicism from the Israeli and US governments.
The noise, the stress and the danger of the war take its toll on children. UNICEF’s Communications officer in Gaza, Sajy Elmughanni says, “My one year old son Kamal has not been the same since the air strikes started. He used to be a happy baby, but now he sits and stares blankly. It makes me feel powerless.” Meanwhile, in a classroom in Gaza, children gather for their first day. Desks have been left empty for the dead. One desk has a sign. It reads: The Dear Martyr Sarah al-Dalou. She came too close to a terrorist.
It Rains Rockets from Gaza, Never Bombs from Israel
By Stuart Littlewood | Palestine Chronicle | November 27, 2012
Alistair Burt is the UK Foreign Office minister in charge of Middle East affairs. He is also a former officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel lobby group. He resigned from that position when he became a minister, but leopards don’t suddenly change their spots.
Judge for yourself.
I sent a question through my MP asking why Government ministers such as Burt quote exact numbers of rockets fired from Gaza without also giving the corresponding numbers of bombs, rockets, shells and other ordnance poured into Gaza by the Israeli military.
In his letter of reply Burt says “there are no reliable statistics on the number of bombs and other ordnance fired by Israel on Gaza and Israel does not make public this information”.
In that case, should he not make it clear when quoting Gaza’s rocket numbers that Israel refuses to provide numbers of their own vastly superior missiles used to bombard Gaza?
Yesterday in Parliament David Amess, another officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel, was playing the familiar game of planting Parliamentary questions designed to deflect attention from Israel’s malodorous reputation. He asked Mr Burt what recent reports the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs [William Hague] had received on the number of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel since 30 October; what recent discussions he has had with the government of Israel on such attacks; and if he would make a statement.
Mr Burt obligingly replied: “We have received reports that 287 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel between 30 October and 14 November. According to Israeli Defence Forces figures, 1,443 rockets were fired during the period 14-21 November.” He added that Mr Hague spoke to Mr Lieberman on 17 and 21 November and he, Burt, spoke to him on 21 November and again on 22 November.
Such precision is of course commendable but grossly lopsided and plainly calculated to mislead Parliament and public. It is astonishing that in all its discussions with Israel’s ministers the Foreign Office hasn’t managed to extract data on Israeli bombing and rocket attacks.
Mr Burt, I venture to suggest, ought to paint a balanced picture and not simply regurgitate Israeli propaganda without caveats and facts from the other side. He should inform the Israeli authorities that British ministers will not in future quote figures for Palestinian rockets unless accompanied by corresponding numbers of Israel’s. These should then be cross-checked with Palestinian and independent sources for proper monitoring.
The same goes for any remarks about Iran’s so far non-existent nukes. There should be equal emphasis on Israel’s vast arsenal of WMDs.
Four fishermen arrested in the Gaza Sea, fishing boat confiscated
PCHR | October 22, 2012
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns continued Israeli violations against Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip, and expresses concern about the escalation of these violations, which have resulted in the arrest of four fishermen and the confiscation of a fishing boat belonging to a fisherman from the Gaza Strip.
According to the findings of investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 10:00 on Monday, 22 October 2012, Israeli naval forces positioned off Al-Waha resort northwest of Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire on a group of fishermen and arrested four fishermen while they were fishing 2 nautical miles offshore. The arrested men were identified as: Ramez Izat Baker (41), Khamis Sobhi Baker (43), Arafat Mohammad Najib Baker (20), Bayan Khamis Baker (17). In his testimony to a PCHR fieldworker, ‘Eid Mohssen ‘Eid Baker (23) from the northern Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City, who was near the scene at the time of the attack, reported the following:
“At approximately 10:00 on Monday, 22 October 2012, I was fishing with my brothers on my father’s boat near al-Soudanya area, in the north of Gaza, nearly 2 nautical miles off the shore, while my cousins’ boat was fishing approximately 200 meters away from us, when I saw an Israeli gunboat approaching us. One of the soldiers used a speakerphone and told us to sail towards the north, however, we went south and continued fishing. 15 minutes later, the gunboat came again at great speed and suddenly they started shooting randomly at us. One of the soldiers ordered us to stop, but we kept sailing south in escape of the open fire. My cousin Ramez Baker’s boat suddenly stopped after a bullet hit the boat engine, and the Israeli gunboat approached it, to a distance of nearly 30 meters. I saw the four fishermen, Ramez, Arafat, Khamis and his son Bayan, take off their clothes, jump in the water amidst the continuous shooting, and swim towards the Israeli gunboat. The soldiers confiscated the fishermen’s boat and transported it towards the northern side.”
It should be noted that Israeli forces have recently imposed more restrictions on the work of fishermen in the Gaza Strip. Since 2000, fishermen have been denied their right to sail and fish freely. Israeli forces reduced the area of fishing from 20 nautical miles, which was established upon in the agreements signed between Palestinians and Israel, to 6 nautical miles in 2008. However, Israeli forces have continued to prevent fishermen from going beyond 3 nautical miles since 2009. As a result, fishermen are prevented from reaching areas beyond that distance where fish is abundant. Sometimes, Israeli forces also chase fishermen within the 3 nautical mile area. Consequently, Palestinian fishermen have lost 85% of their source of income, because they are denied access to Palestinian waters.
PCHR condemns the recurrence of violations committed by the Israeli naval forces against Palestinian fishermen. PCHR believes that these violations are committed in the context of a policy of collective punishment against civilians, and that they are aimed at preventing civilians from meeting their subsistence needs. Such actions are prohibited under international humanitarian and international human rights law.
PCHR holds that the closure imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip is illegal and constitutes a form of collective punishment, prohibited under Article 33 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. It is also a war crime, the recurrence of which must be prevented by all parties, including the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. This view is maintained in legal opinions issued by many international legal experts and UN bodies concerned with human right and international humanitarian law.
In light of the above, PCHR:
- Calls upon Israel to immediately release the arrested fishermen, return the confiscated boat to its owners, and compensate the victims for any material or psychological damages caused by the attack;
- Calls upon Israel to respect the right to freedom of movement of fishermen in the Gaza Strip, to immediately put an end to its policy of chasing and arresting Palestinian fishermen, to allow them to sail and fish freely in the Gaza Sea;
- Calls upon Israel to put an end to the illegal closure of the Gaza Strip, which constitutes a form of collective punishment, prohibited under Article 33 of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War; and
- Calls upon the international community and the High Contacting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfil their legal and moral obligations, apply the rules of international law, and put a just end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Related articles
- Israeli Navy Chases Fishing Boats, Tries To Sink Them (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Army Opens Fire At Fishermen In Gaza (imemc.org)
- 13 Israeli attacks on Palestinian fishermen in past two months (alethonews.wordpress.com)
US withdraws scholarships to Gaza students
Al Akhbar | October 15, 2012
The American Consulate in Jerusalem has withdrawn scholarships awarded to students in Gaza to study in the United States after Israel announced it would deny them permission to travel outside the coastal enclave, the Associated Press reported Monday.
“Under Israeli pressure, US officials have quietly canceled a two-year-old scholarship program for students in the Gaza Strip, undercutting one of the few American outreach programs to people in the Hamas-ruled territory,” the AP reported.
It added: “The program now faces an uncertain future, just two years after being launched with great fanfare by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during a visit to the region.”
The program, launched in 2010, offered about 30 students from the West Bank and Gaza scholarships to study at US universities.
Israel, which has imposed a paralyzing land, air and sea blockade on Gaza since 2007, allowed the students to travel when the program originally launched, but now cites security concerns over its decision to deny them travel permits.
Israel bans Palestinians of Gaza from travelling to the West Bank except in rare cases. The ban also applies to students who want to travel to the West Bank to study.
Israel’s supreme court last month upheld the ban after rights groups petitioned to allow five students from Gaza to travel to the West Bank for a master’s program.
Featured Video
Trita Parsi: Middle East Unraveling — Are We on the Path to World War?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Why Saudi Ties to 9/11 Mean U.S. Ties to 9/11
By Kevin Ryan | Dig Within | September 27, 2015
Media interest in Saudi Arabian connections to the crimes of 9/11 has centered on calls for the release of the 28 missing pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s report. However, those calls focus on the question of hijacker financing and omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States. Here are twenty examples. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Neria Leiter Was A Legitimate Military Target
- Integrity Initiative: UK-funded network framed dissent as Russian disinformation for years
- ‘We don’t seek permission to defend our country’: Snippets from President Pezeshkian’s UNGA address
- NATO chief wants Europeans to fight American wars [for Israel]
- German chemicals giant reveals details of downsizing
- Refaat Al-Areer Was The Canary In The Coal Mine In Israel’s War On The Truth
- Israeli election committee bars candidate from Knesset race over Gaza war opposition
- French-Lebanese man files war crimes complaint over Israeli attacks
- Mahan Air Flight Lands in China Despite US Threat against Iranian Airlines
- US eyes $10bn fund to rebuild war-battered Gulf infrastructure
- If Americans Knew
- Caught on Tape: AIPAC CEO Boasted of Controlling Trump’s National Security Officials
- Why Hamas Attacked Israel in October 2023 – Israeli professor Ilan Pappé
- They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
- Winter could turn Gaza’s treacherous, war-damaged buildings into deathtraps
- Majority of Democratic Voters Want to Prosecute Both Biden and Trump Administration Officials Over Gaza
- As Gaza languishes, world leaders gather at the UN – Daily Update
- Sanctions are collective punishment: immoral and self-defeating
- Phosphorus Munitions Fired by Israel Burn Groves, Orchards in Southern Lebanon
- Israel Carries Out New Ceasefire Violations Across Gaza
- AI – Emphasis on the ‘I’: Israel Is Funding AI Chatbot Propaganda
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
