Ukrainian MP placed on state-backed ‘kill list’
RT | July 16, 2024
Notorious Ukrainian website Mirotvorets has blacklisted MP Mariana Bezuglaya for repeatedly targeting the country’s senior military officials.
The database was created to collect and track personal data on people whom anonymous moderators consider enemies of Ukraine. Some of the individuals have been killed after being doxxed by the website.
Bezuglaya, who is a member of Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, was added to the “kill list” on Monday along with a list of accusations against her. These included “interference with the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” “discreditation and demoralization” of the army, and working to cause a “split” in Ukrainian society.
Mirotvorets also claimed that the MP had leaked state secrets that Russia could use to its benefit. The website added that Bezuglaya had deliberately projected an image of an “irredeemably stupid f**king fool” as part of her subversive ploy.
Days earlier, the MP, who sits on the National Security, Defense and Intelligence committees, accused Ukraine’s top general, Aleksandr Syrsky, of mismanaging the army. The lawmaker claimed that the senior military official wanted to capitulate to Russia and prevent more competent officers from stopping that.
Bezuglaya has a record of verbally attacking Ukrainian generals, including Syrsky’s predecessor, Valery Zaluzhny. Zelensky fired the top commander in February, after he publicly acknowledged that attempts to push Russian forces back had resulted in a “stalemate,” contradicting the Ukrainian leader.
Following her allegations, Bezuglaya was stripped of her role as the head of a parliamentary subcommittee, but remains the deputy chair of the security committee. She has described the development as irrelevant and an attempt to punish her for “telling the truth.” Her inclusion on Mirotvorets was part of the same pressure campaign, she claimed.
The controversial online project was launched in 2014 and is strongly associated with Anton Gerashchenko, a former Ukrainian MP and adviser to the Interior Ministry. The database features a number of prominent journalists and other public figures, including citizens of Western nations, as well as many ordinary people.
Israel using US-provided internationally prohibited weapons: Hamas
Press TV – July 15, 2024
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Israel is using the US-provided internationally prohibited weapons against people in Gaza.
Hamas said in a statement on Monday that more than 320 martyrs and injured have reached hospitals in the past 48 hours with their bodies burned due to the use of internationally prohibited weapons by Israeli occupation forces.
The weapons used by the Israeli occupation forces have caused third-degree burns which thermal or chemical arms cause, Hamas said.
The group added that these “are unconventional, internationally banned weapons, mostly of American manufacture.”
“These weapons cause a chemical reaction with the skin, leading to the direct chemical erosion of tissues in the bodies of martyrs and the injured,” it added.
“They cause severe pain and deep physical damage, resulting in fatal burns within 27 hours or less. We have indeed lost many martyrs in this tragic manner,” the statement added.
Hamas said they strongly condemn the crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli occupation against civilians, children, and women.
“We call on all countries of the world to denounce these incendiary crimes against civilians and to pursue and prosecute the occupation in international courts,” it added.
Hamas said it holds the US administration “fully responsible, both legally and morally, for supplying the Israeli occupation with these various types of internationally prohibited weapons.”
“We also hold the Israeli occupation responsible for the crimes and massacres it commits against civilians and displaced persons,” the resistance movement said.
“We call on the international community, all international and UN organizations, and all free countries of the world to pursue the Israeli occupation and pressure it to stop the genocide that the occupation army is committing to kill and destroy our Palestinian people,” it concluded.
Gaza Civil Defense Service has in several statements pointed to the “dissolution of victims corpses and their conversion into ashes.”
A Euro-Med Monitor report highlights that the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and international humanitarian law all forbid the use of thermal bombs against civilians in populated civilian areas.
“The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also classifies the use of thermal bombs as a war crime.”
Two weeks into the war, Gaza’s Health Ministry warned in a statement that “medical staff monitored the usage of unusual weapons that caused severe burns to the bodies of the martyrs and wounded.”
Analysts believe that the Gaza war is the latest laboratory for Israel’s arms industry as the regime is known to test its weapons on Palestinians in its offensives against the occupied nation.
At least 90 Palestinians mostly women and children were killed and almost 300 others were injured in the July 13 Israeli aerial assault on the densely-populated camp near Khan Younis.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory operation into the occupied territories.
Concomitantly with the war, the regime has been enforcing a near-total siege on the coastal territory, which has reduced the flow of foodstuffs, medicine, electricity, and water into the Palestinian territory into a trickle.
So far during the military onslaught, the regime has killed at least 38,664 Gazans, most of them women, children, and adolescents. Another 89,097 Palestinians have sustained injuries as well.
Israel launches new Gaza strikes after weekend attack kills scores in safe zone
MEMO | July 15, 2024
Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the group’s leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp, Reuters reports.
Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.
“Those moments as the ground shook underneath my feet and the dust and sand rose to the sky and I saw dismembered bodies – was like nothing I have seen in my life,” said Aya Mohammad, 30, a market seller in Mawasi, reached by mobile text message. “Where to go is what everybody asks, and no one has the answer.”
Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Yunis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander, Mohammed Deif, an architect of the 7 October assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.
The military said it struck an open area, with several buildings and sheds, adding it was a compound run by Hamas and not a tented camp.
Palestinian officials say at least 90 people were killed on Saturday and many hundreds wounded. Reuters journalists at the scene filmed carnage, with residents carrying the wounded and dead amid flames and smoke.
Further south in Rafah, the main focus of Israel’s advance since May, residents reported renewed fighting on Monday. Israeli forces in western and central parts of the city blew up several homes, they said. Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose.
The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi historic Refugee Camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi Camp.
The Israeli military said the air forces struck dozens of Palestinian military targets across Gaza, killing many gunmen. It said forces killed gunmen in Rafah and central Gaza, sometimes in close combat.
A statement from the Al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, said its fighters were engaged in fierce battles in the Yabna camp in Rafah.
Later, on Monday, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where Israel has not yet invaded and hundreds of thousands have taken refuge, the municipality issued an urgent statement saying it was no longer able to provide 700,000 people in the area with drinking water after running out of fuel.
“We urge citizens to preserve what is left in their private tankers and we stress the need to maintain the spirit of cooperation and sharing,” the statement said.
Speaking amidst the rubble of his family home in Deir Al-Balah, Walid Thabet told how an Israeli strike earlier on Monday had killed members of his family. Rescue workers and neighbours sifted through the debris to search for survivors buried beneath the wrecked building.
“My mother, an elderly woman, was sitting with me upstairs. She went downstairs and after five minutes, I pulled her out from under the rubble. We also pulled my sister out from under the rubble, and my sister’s children, too,” said Thabet.
“Those who died are my mother, my sister, and my sister’s children. Children! One was two and a half years old, and the other two, I don’t know what happened to them. God willing, may God save them,” he added.
Talks
Saturday’s carnage in Mawasi, one of the deadliest Israeli strikes of the war, has overshadowed negotiations that both sides had previously described as the closest yet to a lasting ceasefire. A senior Hamas official said on Sunday the group had not walked out of the talks despite the Mawasi strike.
Israel says another senior commander was killed in the strike but it has not yet confirmed the fate of Deif. Hamas officials have denied Deif was killed.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive since 7 October. It does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but officials say most of the dead throughout the war have been civilians.
Israel says it has lost 326 soldiers in Gaza and says at least a third of the Palestinian fatalities are fighters.
The war began after a Hamas-led attack inside Israel on 7 October, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.
Citing a report by the United Nations Environment Programme, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said in a post on X it would take 15 years to clear around 40 million tons of war rubble in Gaza. The effort would need 100+ trucks and cost over $500 million.
“Debris pose a deadly threat for people in the #GazaStrip as it can contain unexploded ordnance and harmful substances,” it added.
Supporting Israel Is Big Business in the United States
Government and elite institutions work together to protect and empower the Jewish state
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 12, 2024
In a recent article discussing how US Treasury Department tax breaks are exploited by groups that raise money in America in support of the Israeli so-called Defense Forces (IDF), I concluded that it does not require any particular brilliance on the part of even a casual observer to realize that both politically and economically Israel and Israelis are not treated like everyone else by governments at various levels in the United States, quite the contrary in many cases. Nevertheless, some key questions must be asked even at risk of being repetitive about Israel’s clearly privileged status. One must consider how is it possible that organizations that are committed to financially supporting war crimes and even genocide by a foreign nation are allowed to have tax breaks that enable them to collect more money which in turn helps them to corrupt the system that feeds them while also empowering those foreign militaries? How is it possible that the foreign army carrying out the war crimes is also allowed to benefit directly from the US laws that have created exemption from taxation? In short, is there no sense of responsibility and/or consequences on the part of American government when it comes to the behavior of the pariah apartheid Jewish state?
In the event, comments and insights from some readers both on my posting and privately in emails and on Facebook have convinced me that I have greatly understated the case. Those who argue, perhaps somewhat in jest, the Congress is the Knesset West and that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden are in fact Israeli puppets are very close to being on the mark, making Israel and its all-powerful billionaire funded lobby indisputably in control of many key aspects of American government beyond the obviously targeted foreign policy. Combine that with control over the media and entertainment industries that shape the Israeli preferred narrative at all times, and you have a situation where when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says “jump” 95% of Congress and everyone in the White House begin hopping. We will no doubt see that in play when the monstrous Netanyahu arrives in Washington to address a joint session of Congress on July 24th. The performing monkeys who will appear on television leaping up and down while cheering Bibi will definitely be something to see, though one hopes that at the same time there will also be a million demonstrators surrounding Capitol Hill calling for the head of the world’s leading war criminal.
One thing that should be completely clear is that the United States gets absolutely nothing out of the relationship with Israel, which all flows in only one direction to the tune of what probably amounts to more than a billion dollars a month if all the extras and the inevitable fraud are taken into account. And that does not even include special donations like the $14 billion recently granted by Congress and President Joe Biden to fund Israel’s never-ending war of extermination against the Palestinians. In my recent piece, I took particular aim at 501(c)(3) non-profits set up in New York City and in Massachusetts which exist to provide funds to the Israeli army. Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), based in New York but with twenty branches in the US, boasts on its website that it has provided tens of millions of dollars to the Israeli military. The money contributed is federal income tax exempt and most of the donors are able to write the contributions off on their own federal taxes as an inducement to give. Such non-profits are generally granted that special status through demonstrating that they are religious, charitable or educational. Sending money to the Israeli army satisfies none of those requirements.
Not only does Israel take advantage of a tax break on money coming from groups that are ostensibly US-based, one of my correspondents advised me that the corruption goes far deeper than that, consisting of the fact that 501(c)(3) organizations must be registered through what is referred to as a “domicile.” Most are in the United States but domiciles in Canada and Mexico are also accepted given the economic realities of the North American market. Only one other country has an acceptable domicile and that is, of course, and, inevitably, Israel. In other words, an allowable exemption and the related deductible contribution for US tax purposes, might uniquely consist of US taxpayer money that goes to a charity registered in Israel. As Israeli charities have no reporting requirements vis-à-vis the US Treasury and no mechanism exists to validate their function and activity, they only answer to the government of the state of Israel.
And of course the pandering to Israel includes much more in the way of manipulating the political process to provide benefits to the Jewish state. It has long been a cliché in Washington that any long bill like defense appropriations that passes through the Congress will inevitably have some goodies for Israel inserted in it. Recent and current legislation reflects the perceived need by Congressmen to show the flag, which would be the Star of David rather than the Stars and Stripes, given the Israeli engagement in the military extermination of Palestinians that has no sign of ending as it is entering into its tenth month. The United States is not only funding and arming the Israelis, it is also providing political cover by vetoing nearly every United Nations proposal that would have led to a cease fire accompanied by some kind of exchange of hostages and prisoners. Along the way, no excess by Israel is considered to be too outrageous to require an objection coming from Congress and/or the White House, including Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s proposal that he would relieve the overcrowding in the prisons with Palestinians who are being held without charges by taking them out and killing them, one pistol shot to the head each. Former defense minister Avigdor Liberman has gone one step farther, calling on his country to use its nuclear weapons to obliterate Iran, presumably with full US approval. Israel has also been charged with killing journalists, humanitarian workers, medical workers including doctors, and torturing and starving Palestinian prisoners, but hey, that all constitutes minor stuff when one is best friends with the “Chosen” in Israel.
And there is much more. The International Criminal Court ruling that Israel’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister should be on the receiving end of arrest warrants over war crimes and possible genocide in Gaza was responded to by US Congress with a letter threatening the jurors and their families if the court were to proceed. The US also cut off all funding and even cooperation with the United Nations’ UNWRA which, Israel has declared to be a terrorist organization, but which has been the major source of what food and medicine was actually getting through to Gaza in spite of Israeli efforts to block it. Congress also has moved to ignore any reports coming from the remaining Gazan authorities revealing the casualties resulting from the Israeli bombing and other killing, as if hiding the death toll will make it go away. The respected British medical journal The Lancet is now reporting that as many as 186,000 Gazans might be dead, mostly among the rubble of their homes, uncounted because the Gazan officials who would have performed that task are dead and whole families are wiped out so no one is reported missing. It is a far larger number than the ca. 37,000 that keeps appearing in the western media in an attempt to mitigate what Israel is up to.
And there is also the really petty stuff that surfaces regularly from the pro-Israel message control network. Three Columbia University senior officials have been removed from their positions because of comments and private emails they have written deriding the claims of “surging” antisemitism at colleges. Among the “evidence” was an intercepted message suggesting that a panelist could have used recent campus protests as a fundraising opportunity and another that appeared critical of a campus rabbi’s essay about antisemitism. The university will also launch a “vigorous” antisemitism and antidiscrimination training program.” Meanwhile a leading New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, headed by an Orthodox Jew, is setting up an index that will identify law students who have been demonstrating against Israel, creating a “do not hire” list of the names so they will not be offered employment after graduation. “The firm is scrutinizing students’ behavior with the help of a background check company, looking at their involvement with pro-Palestinian student groups, scouring social media and reviewing news reports and footage from protests. It is looking for explicit instances of antisemitism as well as statements and slogans it has deemed to be ‘triggering’ to Jews.” And then there is Donald Trump using the word “Palestinian” as a slur in his debate with Joe Biden and efforts by politicians like Governor Ron DeSantis to reject the arrival of any refugee Palestinians as immigrants to Florida as they are all “terrorists.” You know, little stuff like that and the efforts at criminalization of free speech if it comes to criticizing either Israeli or Jewish group behavior. You know, minor stuff. Pretty soon we Americans will all be terrorized into dancing to the same tune that Congress and the White House dance to. Then it will be too late.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Dozens killed as Israel strikes Al-Mawasi ‘safe zone’ in Gaza
The Cradle | July 13, 2024
Israeli forces killed at least 71 civilians and injured 289 more in a series of massive airstrikes on the Al-Mawasi region on the southern Gaza coast, Al Jazeera reported on 13 July.
An official at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis told Al Jazeera that more than 20 bodies and dozens of wounded people have been brought to the hospital.
He said civil defense teams continue to recover from the rubble, but the hospital cannot receive any more wounded patients.
An eyewitness told the BBC that the strike site looked like an “earthquake” had hit. The British state broadcaster reported that “videos from the area show smoldering wreckage and bloodied casualties being loaded onto stretchers. People can be seen trying desperately to pick through the rubble of a large crater with their hands.”
Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, denied a claim by Israeli Army Radio that the strikes targeted the head of Hamas’ armed wing, Mohammed al-Deif.
“All the martyrs are civilians and what happened was a grave escalation of the war of genocide, backed by the American support and world silence,” Abu Zuhri said.
Zuhri also said that the attack showed Israel was not interested in reaching a ceasefire agreement.
Al-Mawasi, a Bedouin town west of Khan Younis, is filled with hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians living in tents.
Israel designated the area a “safe zone” shortly after the war began in October and demanded Palestinians flee there to escape massive Israeli bombardments and ground assaults throughout the strip. A new wave of displaced families fled to the area after the start of Israel’s offensive in nearby Rafah in early May.
But Israel has bombed Al-Mawasi multiple times.
In late June, Israeli forces killed 22 Palestinians when they shelled the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Al-Mawasi. The ICRC office was surrounded by hundreds of displaced Palestinians living in tents.
Witnesses told AP that some people were killed as they went to help others who panicked after an initial bombardment.
Israel has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, since the beginning of the war in October.
Thousands more are feared dead, trapped under the rubble and in streets inaccessible to rescue and ambulance crews.
UNRWA: UNRWA staff tortured in Israeli jails
Palestinian Information Center – July 12, 2024
GAZA – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Friday that its staff who were detained by Israeli forces were subjected to “ill-treatment and torture.”
This came in a press conference held by the Agency’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, during a pledging conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Today, UNRWA is staggering under the weight of relentless attack, Lazzarini said.
“In Gaza, it has paid a terrible price, 195 of our colleagues were killed and nearly 190 installations were damaged or destroyed, killing over 500 people seeking United Nations protection.”
It comes at a critical time as UNRWA undergoes unprecedented attacks and systematic attempts to dismantle it, he added.
“It is a tribute to our staff working across the region, including on the humanitarian front lines in Gaza.”
“We are committed to continuing to deliver assistance and basic services, including education to Palestinian boys and girls.”
Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, also spoke at the UNWRA pledging conference at the UN headquarters in New York.
Guterres appealed to everyone to protect UNRWA and its employees, saying that “there is no alternative to it.”
Iran’s Pezeshkian discusses foreign policy, principles in first op-ed
Al Mayadeen | July 13, 2024
Iran’s newly-elected president stated that his administration is dedicated to maintaining Iran’s national dignity and global standing “under all circumstances.” Additionally, it will advocate for creating a “strong region” instead of one dominated by a single country’s pursuit of hegemony and dominance.
In an op-ed published by the Tehran Times, President Masoud Pezeshkian outlined his government’s outlook and policy, emphasizing it will focus on opportunities to maintain balanced relations with all nations in line with Iran’s economic and national interests, in addition to the needs of regional and global peace and security, saying he “will welcome sincere efforts to alleviate tensions and will reciprocate good-faith with good-faith.”
Moreover, he emphasized his opposition to neighboring countries depleting their resources through engaging in unnecessary competition, arms races, or “containment” efforts against each other. “Instead, we will aim to create an environment where our resources can be devoted to the progress and development of the region for the benefit of all.”
Pezeshkian mentioned that, following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran “severed ties with two apartheid regimes, Israel and South Africa,” a decision “motivated by respect for international law and fundamental human rights.”
While “Israel” remains an “apartheid” regime to this day, Pezeshkian said it added genocide to “a record already marred by occupation, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, settlement-building, nuclear weapons possession, illegal annexation, and aggression against its neighbors.”
Don’t reward ‘Israel’ through normalization
The Iranian president-elect further said that “as a first measure” in strengthening ties with neighboring states, his government will “urge” Arab countries to collaborate diplomatically for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to halt the ongoing massacre and prevent an expanded escalation.
“By leveraging our normative influence, we can play a crucial role in the emerging post-polar global order by promoting peace, creating a calm environment conducive to sustainable development, fostering dialogue, and dispelling Islamophobia. Iran is prepared to play its fair share in this regard.”
He underlined that all members of the 1948 Genocide Convention are obligated to take action to prevent genocide, “not to reward it through normalization of relations with the perpetrators.”
“We must then diligently work to end the prolonged occupation that has devastated the lives of four generations of Palestinians,” he continued.
Pezeshkian continued that he “looks forward” to collaborating with “Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates,” in addition to regional organizations, to deepen economic and trade relations. He added that coordination would also be focused on “tackling common challenges” and working on creating “a regional framework for dialogue, confidence building and development.”
Allegations of antisemitism an insult to Iran’s culture
“Cooperation for regional development and prosperity will be the guiding principle of our foreign policy,” he said, adding that, “as nations endowed with abundant resources and shared traditions rooted in peaceful Islamic teachings, we must unite and rely on the power of logic rather than the logic of power.”
Elsewhere in his piece, he pointed out the increased awareness among Western youth of “the validity” of Iran’s “decades-long” position on the Israeli occupation entity.
Addressing this “brave generation,” Pezeshkian said that the Islamic Republic considers allegations against it of “antisemitism” due to its “principled stance” on the Palestinian case are “false” and an “insult to our culture, beliefs and core values.”
Ukrainian children still speaking Russian – regulator
RT | July 12, 2024
Ukrainian children don’t know their official state language well enough because they’re still using Russian in their daily lives, Kiev’s Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language Taras Kremin has complained, urging citizens to report violations of language restrictions.
The commissioner said there are also many violations being recorded in the sphere of education, as well as on the internet and in the service industry. He cited a recent study that suggested one-third of children in some Ukrainian regions prefer to speak Russian.
“A child outside of school uses services, visits shopping and catering establishments, sees external advertising and signboards in non-state language, hears non-state at home,” Kremin wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
He suggested that many schoolchildren were therefore prone to bilingualism and do not have sufficient knowledge of the Ukrainian language.
Kremin said Kiev should strengthen control over compliance with the law on state language, which defines Ukrainian as the only language approved for education, and called on citizens to be more involved in recording and reporting violations of the law.
Since gaining its independence in 1991, Ukraine has largely been a bilingual nation, with most citizens able to speak or understand both Russian and Ukrainian, particularly in the eastern half of the country. After the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev, however, Ukraine’s new authorities abolished Russian as an official regional language and have adopted policies aimed at suppressing and outlawing it, arguing that it represents a threat to national unity and security.
In 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law requiring Ukrainian to be used exclusively in nearly all aspects of public life, including education, entertainment, politics, business and the service industry, obliging all Ukrainian citizens to know the language. It also requires that 90% of TV and film content produced in the country be made in Ukrainian. From July 17, the use of the Russian language in Ukrainian media will be virtually outlawed, Kremen has said.
This forced Ukrainization was one of the reasons why Russian-speaking residents living in the east of the country rejected the post-coup authorities in Kiev in 2014. Many of these regions, namely the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, have since joined Russia after overwhelmingly voting to do so in public referendums in 2022.
Kremin, however, has denied that the term ‘Russian-speaking’ could be applied to any Ukrainian citizens, stating in an interview last year that the word is a “marker introduced by Russian ideology,” and declaring that “everyone in the country must have command of the Ukrainian language.”
The War on Free Speech: Biden Adds Another Advocate for Censorship to the White House
By Jonathan Turley | July 10, 2024
I have previously written how President Joe Biden is the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. For his part, Biden has continued to double down on his anti-free speech policies with the appointment of figures who have long supported bans and other speech controls. The latest such appointment is Andy Volosky, who was made deputy director of platforms for the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy. Volosky has been outspoken in support of banning former president Donald Trump from social media platforms.
In my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I lay out the chilling comparisons between the Adams and Biden Administrations in the crackdown of free speech. For Adams, that led to defeat in 1800 when Jefferson ran in part on restoring free speech. To my surprise, Trump and his fellow challengers in this election have not made free speech a central issue to force Biden to defend the massive censorship system supported by his Administration.
The public does not support censorship. This is a movement that originated in higher education and has been pushed by the political and media establishment, not the voters.
Volosky will now help direct digital strategies for the White House. He previously praised the banning of Trump, asking “What took them so long?” in a 2021 blog post.
In Volosky’s blog post, titled “A New, and Hopefully Welcome, Standard,” he warned that “Twitter still allows the accounts of various world leaders, governments, and spokespeople, who use Twitter for what one can only describe as propaganda as cover for autocracy, to continue to use their platform.”
He praised how Democrats have “long advocated for regulating the [social media] platforms” and emphasized how active social media users like himself and others can “keep the platforms honest.”
He added that:
“we can play a role in keeping the platforms honest and improving the positive role of social in people’s lives… It’s past time for the platforms to take content moderation and user safety seriously; as social media professionals, we should be ready and eager to make that happen, and we hope that [banning Trump] can be a small step in getting that ball rolling.”
Again, with the White House doubling down on censorship, Trump and others need to force him to defend his overwhelmingly anti-free speech record. The 2024 election can give voters the same choice that they faced in 1800. Democracy is not on the ballot, but free speech is.
Pro-Israel Group Censoring Social Media Led by Former Israeli Intelligence Officers
By Lee Fang and Jack Poulson | July 11, 2024
CyberWell, an Israeli nonprofit with deep ties to the intelligence arm of an Israeli government propaganda effort, has been influential in shaping social media content since October 7. The group, which purports to be independent, has lobbied Meta, X, and TikTok to remove social media posts under the banner of fighting hate and antisemitism.
The group claimed a major victory regarding Meta’s decision on Tuesday to expand its definition of antisemitic hate speech to include many criticisms of “Zionists” – those who call for an independent state in the Middle East that privileges Jews over other ethnic groups. “CyberWell intends to leverage its technological tools and analysis efforts to ensure this policy is implemented efficiently and fully, and that Meta’s moderation tools are trained to effectively bar this content,” the organization claimed in a press release.
The success is the latest string of victories to shape permissible speech when it comes to Israel and its actions.
In January, CyberWell reported that it had pushed to censor accounts that disputed the false allegation that Hamas had slaughtered dozens of babies during the October 7th attack. Any accounts disputing claims around babies killed during the attack, CyberWell argued, are akin to “content denying or distorting the Holocaust.” President Joe Biden and leading Israeli figures have falsely claimed that Hamas beheaded or burned forty babies during the assault into Israel.
That claim has been widely debunked. Despite repeated false assertions to the contrary, only one baby was killed during the Hamas assault: a 10-month-old infant named Mila Cohen, who was killed at Kibbutz Be’eri. In more recent months, CyberWell has lobbied TikTok and Meta to censor social media posts with the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” claiming that the slogan constitutes hate speech.
CyberWell is one of many agenda-driven nonprofits now censoring social media discourse, including benign or true information, under the cover of fighting hate and misinformation. The pharmaceutical industry, for instance, funded a nonprofit that worked to censor tweets critical of pandemic-related policies. The U.S. government funds several think tanks that work to moderate social media content critical of NATO’s policies impacting Ukraine.
We briefly mentioned the organization in our recent exclusive on the rebirth of an Israeli government influence effort to counter critics in the United States. After ignoring our detailed request for comment by email, CyberWell recently contacted The Guardian, our publishing partner, and falsely claimed that we never contacted the group for comment.
CyberWell has not received “government funding whatsoever from any country,” wrote Stan Steinreich of Steinreich Communications in a statement to The Guardian, which included a request for a correction. “CyberWell’s leadership is neither affiliated with nor compensated by Voices for Israel,” he continued, in reference to the joint venture created by Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs roughly eight years ago under the name Kela Shlomo before renaming to Concert in 2018 and adopting its current name in 2022. In response to Hamas’s October 7 attack, the organization formally rebooted to focus on winning the online war of narratives surrounding Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza, which has so far killed roughly 13,000 women and children.
But CyberWell’s attempts to portray itself as independent obscures its deep ties to Israeli intelligence officials and the government-backed influence operation we wrote about.
CyberWell, as we originally reported, maintains close ties to the Israeli government ministries involved in covert advocacy in the U.S. and to the Voices for Israel group now at the center of a sprawling influence campaign. Since reaching out for comment for our investigation, CyberWell has scrubbed the biographies of its executives and advisors, such as former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin and a current spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces.
When CyberWell was reached for comment regarding why the biographies of its staff and advisors were removed, they stated: “Highlighting the danger of generating false and misleading information, we were forced to remove the ‘Our Team’ page for safety reasons. Following the publication of your story, our analysts were attacked and identified by name on X. Users shared your article and our employees’ names with a wider network and we became concerned for our staff’s safety.”
Despite CyberWell’s denial of ties to Voices of Israel, the organization’s 2022 annual report listed its Chief Financial Officer as Sagi Balasha, the first CEO of the organization now known as Voices of Israel. The list of CyberWell advisors in the report also included Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who Israeli corporate records reveal to be a director of the research and intelligence arm of Voices, known as Keshet David, which is Hebrew for “David’s Rainbow.” Keshet David was initially headed by Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of research in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, widely known as Aman, and an ex-director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. Another advisor to CyberWell, Amos Yadlin, previously led Aman.
“Proud to support @CyberWell_org,” Mr. Lerner posted on X on Wednesday, in response to CyberWell’s celebration of Meta’s new policy on criticisms of Zionism.
Voices of Israel chairman Micah Avni explained the history of Keshet’s aliases in a December 2018 interview, including the previous name of Israel Cyber Shield and the official English name Innovative Collaboration Strategies. “Concert [Voices of Israel] funds Keshet David and we get all the information. That’s one leg of what we’re doing,” said Avni. But, unlike Voices, Keshet David Research and Information Ltd., its legal Israeli entity, maintains no directly attributed public website.
Peter Lerner, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson and advisor to CyberWell, as well as former head of international relations at the Israeli labor federation Histadrut, is listed as both a shareholder and director of Keshet David. (As reported by Calcalist, the Histadrut was apparently a customer of the online campaigning firm STOIC, which Haaretz reported to have beat out Voices of Israel for a contract with Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs to covertly influence U.S. lawmakers.)
Formed in 2021 under the name Global Antisemitism Research Center (Global ARC), CyberWell shared a $30,000 donation that year with Keshet David through a foundation run by the wife of CyberWell board member Adam Milstein, who co-founded the influential Israeli-American Council (IAC) in 2007 under the direction of Israel’s then-consul general in Los Angeles, Ehud Danoch, before pleading guilty to two felony counts of tax evasion. Keshet David received an earlier donation through IAC in 2016 under its previous name of Israel Cyber Shield, just as future CyberWell CFO Sagi Balasha transitioned from chief executive of IAC to chief executive of Voices.
The chief executive of Keshet David since 2018, former Israeli police officer Eran Vasker, disclosed on his LinkedIn profile that he has simultaneously led the private intelligence firm Argyle Consulting Group since April 2017. The head of CyberWell, Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, similarly noted in a January podcast interview and on LinkedIn that her immediate previous job was working at Argyle as head of business development circa January to October 2021, the same year as the joint donation to Keshet David and CyberWell. Tal-Or’s manager at the time was Argyle Chief Operating Officer Zohar Gorgel, who became a founding board member of CyberWell. Gorgel co-founded a solar power company in early 2021 with Arik Becker, a member of CyberWell’s audit committee who was, according to Becker’s LinkedIn profile, head of strategic operations at Argyle circa 2018 to 2020.
In other words, the chief executive of CyberWell and two of its board members previously worked at the same private intelligence spin-off from Voices of Israel, a director of the spin-off is an advisor to CyberWell, and the CEO of Voices became the CFO of CyberWell.
Israeli corporate records further show that CyberWell shares the same accountant as Keshet David and Voices of Israel, Yakov Pal (פאל יעקב) of Yakov Pal & Co. Certified Public Accountants. (CyberWell and Voices have also shared the same fiscal sponsor, Central Fund of Israel, which reportedly donated $700,000 to Voices in 2017.)
Letterhead of Yakov Pal CPA from the 2017 financial statements of Voices of Israel, then known as Kela Shlomo, as revealed by the Israeli independent investigative site The Seventh Eye.
A recently-deleted page on CyberWell’s website noted that it was founded as a result of Tal-Or’s time working in private intelligence at an unnamed firm (Argyle), as a result of “her then-manager and IDF intelligence veteran, Zohar Gorgel, [suggesting] that Tal-Or use her open-source expertise and deep understanding of social media” to combat online antisemitism.
Tal-Or’s biography in her podcast interview also noted that she had “provided analysis” to Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the agency that founded Voices of Israel. CyberWell’s 2022 annual report further disclosed that the nonprofit partnered with Act-IL, a failed online propaganda effort partly run by IAC and closely affiliated with the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, noting that “CyberWell served as the data provider to Act-IL’s community for their end of year call to action on the state of online antisemitism.”
According to 2018 reporting from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israel Cyber Shield (Keshet David) surveilled the prominent Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour as part of compiling a dossier for Act-IL.
CyberWell CEO Tal-Or Cohen and founding board member Zohar Gorgel did not respond to repeated questions regarding their previous positions at the private intelligence firm Argyle Consulting Group or on Argyle’s relationship to Keshet David. Instead, CyberWell blocked one of our accounts on X.
Argyle and Keshet David CEO Eran Vasker similarly did not respond to a request for comment through Argyle. Neither CyberWell nor Adam Milstein and his wife, Gila, responded to requests for comment on MERONA Leadership Foundation’s receipt of a joint donation for Keshet David and CyberWell.
***
CyberWell’s primary focus has been to pressure social media companies to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) redefinition of antisemitism, which has been described by one of its core contributors as designed to combat growing international human rights criticisms of Israel as an apartheid state, beginning with the United Nations’ 2001 Durban declaration. In reference to the now-defunct advocacy organization known as the Adopt IHRA Coalition, CyberWell’s 2022 annual report noted that “On the heels of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter,” CyberWell “served as the [Adopt IHRA Coalition] data provider, demonstrating our value through collecting, vetting, and leveraging a dataset of over 1,200 recent antisemitic Tweets.”
The IHRA definition has come under fire as an attempt to criminalize and suppress First Amendment-protected speech critical of Israel and its occupation of Palestine. Pro-Israel lobbyists have pushed to encode the IHRA definition into hate crime statutes and official speech codes for hundreds of institutions and have succeeded in advancing legislation on the state and federal level. The IHRA definition of antisemitism includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” If enacted, such a definition would mean that an American can call any government, including his own, racist, except for Israel.
CyberWell’s high-level influence on social media policy arose during a meeting of the Israeli legislature’s immigration committee on June 21 of last year, which included representatives of Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter.
Matthew Krieger, a representative of Twitter and Elon Musk at the hearing, bluntly refused to answer questions from the committee chairman about a report from the Israeli advocacy organization Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA), which accused Twitter of only removing 14% of antisemitic content, in contrast to TikTok allegedly removing 100%. Immediately after, Facebook policy manager Yehuda Ben Yaakov noted his relationship with FOA, CyberWell, and Tal Or-Cohen, stating: “The activity of non-profit organizations in this context is important and non-profit organizations like FOA and CyberWell, just last week Tal-Or [Cohen] and I met and had the ability to exchange things.” “Tal-Or told us about a new way of linking the theory of Freemasons and the theory of anti-Semitism,” Ben Yaakov added.
During the same hearing, Ella Saban, an official in Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption, noted that “We work with ADL [Anti-Defamation League], we work with civil society organizations, CyberWell and [FOA] are based here, we also have a good relationship with the social networks in Israel.”
Images from a pair of posts on X on June 17 and on June 25 by CyberWell.
“VICTORY: TikTok is the first social media platform to publicly recognize denial of sexual violence on October 7 as prohibited content,” CyberWell boasted on June 17 through a post on X, which further implied that the decision was a result of CyberWell’s status as a trusted partner of TikTok.
A subsequent post claimed that: “Thanks to CyberWell’s data, TikTok is leading the way in recognizing and actioning this new form of antisemitism, and we urge all other social media platforms to follow suit.”
The image coupled with the post praising TikTok accused X user @HadiNasrallah of “Encouraging Violence” and “Denying that well-documented violent events took place” for claiming that “Hamas did not rape anyone on October 7th and Israel killed their own people with tanks and helicopter shelling.”
The degree to which Hamas committed sexual violence during its attack, and the scale of Israeli usage of the so-called Hannibal Directive preference of killing its own troops and citizens rather than let them be taken hostage, are perhaps the central narrative battles surrounding October 7.
More than 50 tenured journalism professors signed a letter in April asking The New York Times to investigate the reporting process behind its flagship publication on alleged sexual violence on October 7, “Screams Without Words,” and the Associated Press argued the next month that two “debunked” allegations had created a fog over credible evidence presented by organizations such as the United Nations.
Following a late October article from the independent American news site The Grayzone, Times journalist Ronen Bergman reported in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in January that the country’s military had invoked the Hannibal Directive, indeed firing on any vehicle approaching Gaza, including those that may have carried hostages. Haaretz provided further detail on Sunday, reporting the usage of the Hannibal Directive by the Gaza Division of the Israeli military’s Southern Command in three army facilities. The number of potential casualties remains a matter of ongoing controversy in Israeli papers.
Whether controversial debates relating to the Israeli military should be refereed by a de facto spin-out of a covert Israeli government intelligence effort is perhaps an easier question.
In a series of posts on the social media platform X crediting CyberWell with Meta’s recent decision to classify many criticisms of “Zionists” as hate speech, CyberWell board member Adam Milstein bragged that: “all content targeting Zionists with claims about running the world or controlling the media, plus more, WILL BE REMOVED!” “Will @elonmusk and @X follow suit?” Milstein then asked.
But Meta’s policy update on Tuesday noted that it has not yet decided on how to handle critical speech such as “Zionists are war criminals” and has forwarded the question to its oversight board. Meta argued that “the term ‘Zionists’ can be used to refer to people on the basis of their nationality (i.e., Israeli people), [and] commentary about ‘Zionists’ may also refer to government or military actions.” “We look forward to any guidance the [Oversight] Board may provide,” Meta added. “
Microsoft shuts Palestinian accounts used to contact relatives in Gaza
MEMO | July 12, 2024
Microsoft has been accused of shutting down email accounts belonging to Palestinians using Skype to call Gaza, according to a BBC investigation.
The report found that several Palestinians living abroad had their Microsoft-owned voice and video chat accounts terminated without warning, “destroying their digital lives.”
Salah Elsadi, a Palestinian living in the US, told the BBC: “I’ve had this Hotmail account for 15 years. They banned me for no reason, saying I violated their terms — what terms? Tell me.”
The investigation revealed at least 20 cases where Palestinians had their accounts suspended without any explanation. Those impacted explained that a paid Skype subscription allowed them to make affordable mobile calls to Gaza, providing a vital service for many Palestinians during Internet outages.
In some cases, these email accounts were over 15 years old, leaving users unable to access emails, contacts, or memories. Moreover, some reported that their email accounts were connected to their work.
Eiad Hametto, who has been calling his family from Saudi Arabia, said: “We are civilians with no political background who just wanted to check on our families.”
“They’ve suspended my email account that I’ve had for nearly 20 years. It was connected to all my work. They killed my life online,” he added.
Another Palestinian, Khalid Obaied, told the BBC that he no longer trusted Microsoft. “I paid for a package to make phone calls, and then, after 10 days, they banned me for no reason,” he said. “It has to be because I’m a Palestinian calling Gaza.”
A Microsoft spokesperson clarified that the company does not block calls or ban users based on the calling region or destination. Adding: “Blocking in Skype can occur in response to suspected fraudulent activity.”
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Mossad ‘in contact from very beginning’ with killers of Italian PM, reporter reveals
By Kit Klarenberg and Wyatt Reed | The Grayzone | October 5, 2025
A roving reporter who covered Italy’s top politicians explains to The Grayzone how his country was reduced to a joint US-Israeli “aircraft carrier,” and raises troubling questions about an Israeli role in the killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
For years, Israel’s Mossad monitored and secretly influenced a violent communist faction that carried out the March 16, 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian statesman Aldo Moro, veteran investigative journalist Eric Salerno has documented.
Having worked closely alongside multiple Italian heads of state during his 30-year career as a correspondent, Salerno published an expose of their secret relationship with Israeli intelligence in 2010 called Mossad Base Italy. … continue
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