Spain turns away ship carrying arms to occupied territories
Press TV | May 16, 2024
Spain has turned away a ship carrying arms to the occupied territories amid the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.
Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares announced the development on Thursday.
“This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port,” he told reporters in Brussels.
Transport Minister Oscar Puente identified the vessel as Marianne Danica, which had requested permission to berth at the southeastern Spanish port of Cartagena on May 21.
The country’s El Pais newspaper, meanwhile, reported that the Danish-flagged ship was carrying 27 tons of explosive material from Madras in India to the port of Haifa in the occupied territories.
‘Consistent policy’
Adding to his remarks, Albares said, “This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports.”
“The foreign ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason. The Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace,” he noted.
The remarks came as the Israeli regime presses on with the war that it launched against Gaza on October 7 last year following a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance movements.
The overall death toll from the brutal military onslaught has reached 35,272 people, most of them women and children. Some 79,205 others have also been wounded.
The figures exclude the tens of thousands of dead, who are believed to be buried in the bombed-out ruins of buildings.
Spain has been one of Europe’s most critical voices about the war.
It halted arms sales to the Tel Aviv regime after the latter launched the aggression.
The country has also been working to rally other European capitals behind the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state.
US: Ilan Pappe interrogated by FBI at Detroit Airport
MEMO | May 16, 2024
Prominent Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, known for his strongly anti-Zionist views, has revealed that he was subjected to a two-hour interrogation by the FBI upon his arrival at Detroit Airport on Monday. During the ordeal, US security officials recorded everything on his phone. The 70-year-old professor, who has long been a vocal critic of Israel in his speeches and books, took to social media to share his experience.
In his statement, Pappe described the questioning as “out of this world,” with the two FBI agents asking him about his alleged support for Hamas and whether he considered Israel’s actions in Gaza to be genocidal. “They asked me what I believe is the solution to the ‘conflict’ (seriously, this is what they asked!),” wrote Pappe, expressing his disbelief at the nature of the questions.
The professor said that he was interrogated about his personal connections, with the agents inquiring about his Arab and Muslim friends in America, the length of their relationships, and the nature of their interactions. Pappe responded by directing the agents to his published works in some instances, while providing brief “yes” or “no” answers in others, citing exhaustion after an eight-hour flight.
He also mentioned that the FBI agents engaged in a lengthy phone conversation with an unidentified party, which he speculated could have been an Israeli official. Following the conversation, the agents copied the contents of his phone before allowing him to enter the country.
Despite the troubling nature of the interrogation, Pappe believes that such actions by the US and European countries, taken under pressure from pro-Israeli lobbies or Israel itself, are indicative of “sheer panic and desperation” on their part. He believes that these reactions are a response to Israel’s increasingly tarnished reputation, which he predicts will soon lead to the country becoming a “pariah state”.
Prof. Pappe’s experience comes after recent incidents where Palestinian academics, including the Rector of Glasgow University, Ghassan Abu Sitta, were denied entry to France and Germany. These events have raised concerns about the treatment of individuals critical of Israel’s policies and the influence of pro-Israel lobbies on foreign governments.
Palestinian journalist killed in Israeli air strike in northern Gaza
Palestinian Information Center – May 16, 2024
GAZA – An Israeli air strike on Jabalia in northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday night killed the journalist Ha’el al-Najjar and a number of his family members.
Local sources said that at least one missile was fired at the journalist’s house.
Thus, the number of journalists killed in the Israeli aggression on Gaza, ongoing since October 7 last year, rose to 144, according to data provided by the Government Media Office.
The Office had also documented the arrest of at least 20 journalists in Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces in the same period.
UK Disinformation Unit Minutes Reveal Consideration of Placing Government Employees Inside Social Media Companies
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 15, 2024
Recently released minutes from the UK government’s Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) governing board, the Disinformation Board, provide further evidence of the authorities’ direct involvement in monitoring online speech during the pandemic but also flagging it for removal.
But even this wasn’t enough for CDU, which in 2023, after several years of criticism and scrutiny by some media and privacy groups, got rebranded as the National Security Online Information Team (NSOIT).
One of the moves considered by top UK officials was to “embed” civil servants in companies running social platforms, and it remains unclear if this was in fact done, writes Big Brother Watch’s Jake Hurfurt for Public.
CDU was only one building block in the UK’s Covid-era censorship effort; several military units were enlisted to participate as well, most notably and controversially the 77th Brigade, whose job is supposed to be spreading misinformation, and in general, finding its “psyops” targets abroad, not at home.
NSOIT (CDU) also states that it is “countering disinformation and hostile state narratives.” But these and several other outfits, as well as private contractors hired by the government, were tasked with surveillance of British citizens and suppression of those seen as “Covid measures dissenters.”
And so, what scores of freedom of information requests have since revealed is that they went not after disinformation-spreading “foreign adversary” – but ordinary British citizens, medical professionals, journalists, and even politicians who were engaging in legitimate, albeit critical of the government, speech.
Regarding the lengths to which the UK was prepared to go – specifically if officials actually got “embedded” in social media companies – this is unclear to this day thanks to the government’s refusal to provide access to reports compiled by Logically, a private company.
Logically made millions from contracts with the British military, Hurfurt notes. Completing the picture of the web of sometimes loosely, other times tightly inter-connected entities that work hard to censor online speech, he adds:
“(Logically) has a large US presence and is headed by US ex-intelligence officer Brian Murphy, who worked at the Department for Homeland Security (DHS).”
Meanwhile, the UK government explains its refusal to shed light on the question of whether or not its officials were directly involved with social media companies as fears those reports “would reveal its capabilities to hostile actors.”
British Palestinian surgeon wins legal battle against Germany’s travel ban
MEMO | May 15, 2024
In a significant legal victory, Professor Ghassan Abu Sitta, a renowned British-Palestinian war surgeon, has successfully overturned a Schengen-wide travel ban imposed on him by the German government. Abu Sitta’s legal team — lawyer Alexander Gorski of the International Centre of Justice for Palestine (ICJP), and the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) — challenged the ban, which they argued had deprived the surgeon of his freedom of expression and freedom to travel.
His lawyers described how he had faced hostile media and a travel ban after returning from Gaza, where he worked in hospitals and witnessed war crimes during Israel’s ongoing military offensive. The ban prevented him from entering France, the Netherlands and Germany, where he had been invited to speak about his experiences.
The ban also extended to joining a German conference online, with the German authorities warning Abu Sitta that if he took part it would “constitute a breach of German law” and could result in fines or imprisonment. Most recently, he was prevented from entering the Netherlands, where he was due to speak later this week to civil society organisations and Dutch MPs at the University of Amsterdam.
“These efforts by the German authorities constitute a serious breach of freedom of movement and expression in Europe and now a judge has ruled that the travel ban should be overturned,” said the ICJP. “This is a significant victory for freedom of speech and a significant turning point in challenging the chilling environment that many Palestinian human rights advocates have to operate in.”
ICJP lawyer Gorski emphasised that the victory ensures that Abu Sitta’s freedom of expression and movement are no longer under threat, allowing him to speak out about what he witnessed in Gaza.
Since leaving the Palestinian enclave in late November, Abu Sitta has been raising awareness about the impact of Israel’s war, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children. During his time in Gaza, he became the unofficial English-language representative of Palestinian doctors and surgeons treating the wounded, accusing Israel’s military of using illegal white phosphorus and deliberately targeting children.
Ukraine Prepares Total Mobilization in 5 Controlled Cities – Russian Official
Sputnik – 15.05.2024
SIMFEROPOL – Kiev is preparing full-scale mobilization in five Ukrainian-controlled cities in the coming days, Vladimir Rogov, a senior official of the Russia-appointed Zaporozhye regional administration, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
“According to the received operational information, [the cities of] Kostyantynovka, Slovyansk, Pavlograd, Zaporozhye, Kharkov should be subjected to total mobilization in the coming days. We are talking about the complete blocking of roads in the cities with checkpoints, filtration measures, apartment and house-to-house rounds. Everything is expected to start on May 17-18,” Rogov said.
He added that hundreds of employees of the Ukrainian military recruitment centers were coming in the cities to collect people, with reinforcements from the Ukrainian National Guard and the Ukrainian Security Service.
On April 11, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a bill on mobilization aimed at replenishing Ukrainian forces depleted by two years of armed conflict with Russia. On April 16, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed it into law. The document will take effect on May 18.
Martial law was introduced in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The next day, Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilization. The martial law and mobilization have been continuously extended since then. On May 9, Zelensky signed bills to extend mobilization and martial law in the country for another 90 days. Under martial law, men aged from 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving Ukraine.
Meta’s Oversight Board Adopts International “Norms” Instead of US Free Speech Principles
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | May 14, 2024
In a world where international law (a set of ratified documents) is being rapidly replaced with narratives about a “rules-based system,” it is no wonder that US tech giants like Meta choose to set their free speech “baseline” not on their country’s Constitution, but on “international human rights norms.”
The less clarity there is, the more space for abuse and biased interpretation, critics might say. But Meta Oversight Board member Kenji Yoshino is satisfied that this is the right approach, and even spelled it out.
“Our baseline here is not the US Constitution and free speech, but rather international human rights norms,” Yoshino recently told the National Constitution Center, a private nonprofit.
Such bold statements require bold justification, and so this Oversight Board member noted that in terms of free speech “values” the US is “an outlier,” while Meta’s global reach means it must adjust its policies accordingly.
There are plenty of openly authoritarian regimes out there, with their own “free speech values,” but when Yoshino – from the William J. Brennan Center for Justice – spoke about “striking a balance” between US law and international “norms” – he chose to mention the palatable to his audience example of Europe.
What’s striking in this context, however, is that in many, if not all European countries, “hate speech” is criminalized, unlike in the US. It isn’t clear from Yoshino’s statements how a balance between such different approaches to speech can even be achieved in a social platform’s guidelines, particularly around elections.
But, that is the explanation for why the giant chooses not to make the First Amendment its “baseline.”
And if the baseline is international human rights norms, Yoshino admitted, “often times that calculus comes out differently than it would if the baseline were First Amendment norms.”
Such statements will do little to reassure those in the US already wary of Meta’s handling of content, censorship, and free speech, especially ahead of yet another high-stakes election coming up.
The fact that after a brief “pause” the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are now officially back in the business of “communicating” (opponents of the policy would say, “colluding”) with social media platforms, doesn’t help matters.
If anything, it raises fears of a concerted censorship push, driven both from the outside by government pressure, and from within Meta itself.
Israel Stopping All Aid To Gaza, Journalist Tells Sputnik
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 13.05.2024
Last week, Israel seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing, the only entry point into Gaza not controlled by Israel and where the largest amount of aid was entering the Gaza Strip. Israel has halted all shipments entering through the Rafah border crossings and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, citing nearby fighting.
Israel has completely stopped all aid shipments going into Gaza, Lebanon-based journalist and geopolitical analyst Leila Hatoum told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Monday.
“They control the whole area and… they have shut down all border crossings. Nothing has entered Rafah or Gaza for the past eight days. Israelis have shut down all borders,” Hatoum explained, citing her sources on the ground in Gaza.
“Nothing has entered Gaza, not even water, flour, medicine, children’s needs, baby formula, hygienic products. Nothing. Nothing whatsoever,” she emphasized.
On Monday, videos emerged on social media showing Israeli citizens destroying aid intended for Gaza on trucks waiting to cross the Tarqumiya checkpoint. There doesn’t appear to be any police presence attempting to stop the looters in the videos. According to media reports, four individuals were arrested at the scene.
“The aid that the State of Israel transfers goes directly into the hands of Hamas,” the organization that organized the blockade, Order 9, said in a statement.
It was only the latest in a string of videos showing Israelis sabotaging aid trucks on their way to Gaza, another video released late last month showed Israelis destroying bags of flour, again without visible police resistance.
Israelis destroying the flour that was meant to feed starving people in Gaza.
Also on Monday, Israeli forces opened fire on an officially marked UN vehicle, killing one UN employee and injuring another. Later in the day, according to Israeli Rights group HaMoked, a group of young Israelis set fire to the perimeter of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in East Jerusalem. It was the second incident of arson at the headquarters this week.
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres called for an investigation and condemned the attack on the UN vehicle. As of May 1, at least 182 UNRWA employees have been killed in Gaza.
At least 370,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah ahead of Israel’s promised ground war and continued bombardment of the last remaining refuge in Gaza, but many complain that there is no safe place to go.
“Every single place in Gaza, across [the] north all the way down to the south, is being bombarded by the Israelis,” Hatoum relayed. “Back in January and February we were warning that famine is going to hit north Gaza, people will die of starvation and nobody believed us, and then we started seeing people dying of starvation – children first and then others.”
At least 35,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, though that number is presumed to be a low-count as thousands of bodies are believed to remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
Israelis use Palestinian kids as human shields: Rights group
Press TV – May 12, 2024
A Geneva-based rights group has condemned the Israeli regime forces for using children as human shields in their assaults on Palestinians.
The Defense for Children International (DCI) said it heard testimonies of three children who described how they were used as human shields by occupying Israeli forces during a recent search and assault operation in the West Bank’s Tulkarm refugee camp, the Middle East Eye on Sunday reported.
The DCI said the Palestinian children said on May 5 and May 6 Israeli soldiers had forced them to walk ahead of them as they searched through the refugee camp, describing two instances in which the Israeli regime forces had placed their rifles on their shoulders.
One teen named Kareem recounted how Israeli forces stormed his family’s apartment on May 6 and then forced him to lead them through the apartment block as they carried out a search operation in the building. The teen said the soldiers had placed a loaded rifle on his shoulders and fired two shots toward one of the apartment’s entrances.
Another child, Mohammad, said during a raid on his home, he was forcibly separated from his family by the Israeli forces.
“I remained alone with the soldiers after they instructed my mother and siblings to climb to the fourth floor of the building. I started crying and trembling with fear because I didn’t know what they would do to me. They were armed, masked, and their appearance was terrifying, accompanied by a large police dog making frightening noises,” Mohammad said.
He said they told him to knock on each apartment door in the building and tell the residents in the apartments to leave their homes.
Mohammad said if an apartment was empty and no one answered, the armed men would enter by force.
“When we reached the door of one of the apartments and found it empty, the soldiers blew up the door and forced me to enter alone to inspect it,” said the Palestinian child.
Ibrahim, another Palestinian teen, recounted how on the morning of May 6, Israeli forces stormed his family’s home in the Tulkarm refugee camp in a “brutal and terrifying manner,” searching and vandalizing their belongings.
He said, “A group of soldiers took me to one of the rooms and began interrogating me. When I told them I knew nothing, one of them threatened me in Arabic and said (I’ll smash you if you don’t talk). Then he physically assaulted me for several minutes before handcuffing my hands behind my back with a plastic tie. They then took me outside and asked me to walk in front of the soldiers.”
“I was trembling with fear and terror. At first, I thought they wanted to arrest me, but they asked me to walk in front of them in the alleys of the Al-Sawalme neighborhood in the camp. They would hide in the alley and ask me to show the way. After that, they released my hands, and every time we passed by a house or building, they would ask me to enter and ask the residents to leave and head towards the soldiers, after which they would raid those homes. During the raids, they would ask me to open the internal doors of the houses and apartments.”
Ibrahim said after about two hours of searching the camp, the Israelis took him to a house in the camp where he was detained alongside others until the Israeli forces withdrew from the camp.
In the meantime, the use of Palestinians as human shields by Israeli regime forces in numerous cases has been well documented by multiple human rights organizations.
Israeli regime forces put Palestinian civilians in front of them or otherwise put civilians in the line of fire, and force them to open doors that could be booby-trapped or remove suspicious objects that might be bombs. They also force them to walk through suspected booby-trapped buildings.
The Zionist forces also often employ the “neighbor procedure” in which Palestinian civilians are forced to attempt to persuade individuals to leave or surrender themselves.
“International law is explicit and absolutely prohibits the use of children as human shields by armed forces or armed groups,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at the DCIP, adding, “Israeli forces intentionally putting a child in grave danger in order to shield themselves constitutes a war crime.”
For decades, both Palestinian children as well as adults have been used by the Israeli forces during operations as human shields.
The use of civilians as human shields is one of many war crimes committed by the Israeli regime forces.
Unremarkable peer recruited by Zionist lobby to stop Palestine Action
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | May 13, 2024
Despite posing as an “independent” government advisor, Woodcock is affiliated with the pro-Israel lobby and the arms industry. He is also the chair of the Defence Purpose Coalition, which brings together senior figures within the arms industry to promote its deadly products. Since 2011, he’s travelled to Israel on numerous occasions on trips paid for by the Israeli government and pro-Israel lobby groups, according to a recent investigation by Declassified UK.
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
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