Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

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.”

May 15, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

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.

May 15, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

May 15, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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.

May 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The U.S. Defeat in Vietnam Changed Nothing

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 14, 2024

April 30 was the anniversary date when North Vietnamese forces forced U.S. officials to exit Vietnam, much to their chagrin. That was after some 58,000 American men had died for nothing, not to mention the tens of thousands of injured American soldiers and the millions of Vietnamese who were killed or injured as a result of U.S. intervention in Vietnam’s civil war.

To this day, there are those who claim that those 58,000 men died for their country and in defense of our freedoms here at home. Almost 50 years after the end of that sordid intervention, such people continue to operate under severe self-delusion.

North Vietnam never attacked, invaded, or occupied the United States or even had any interest in doing so. Moreover, North Vietnam lacked the military, money, transport ships, planes, and supply lines that would have been necessary to cross the Pacific and invade the United States. If they had been successful in landing a few thousand troops on the West Coast, they would have been quickly massacred by the U.S. military or by well-armed private Americans. All that North Vietnam wanted to do was reunite North Vietnam and South Vietnam and make it one country again — Vietnam.

In other words, North Vietnam never posed a danger to our rights and freedoms here in the United States. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, despite the fact that North Vietnam defeated the United States and won the war, the defeat did not result in North Vietnam’s taking away any of our rights and freedoms. In fact, the irony is that it is the U.S. government — our government — that has destroyed our rights and freedoms.

By the same token, those 58,000 U.S. soldiers who were sacrificed in Vietnam did not die for their country. They died for their government. There is a difference. The government is one entity and the country is another entity. This difference is reflected by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the country from the government. Dying for one’s government is not the same as dying for one’s country.

During the war, the U.S. government resorted to conscription, which is also known as the draft. It’s impossible to reconcile conscription with freedom. When a government has to force people to fight in a war, that’s a pretty good sign that that is a no-good, rotten war. If the war were really about protecting our freedom and our country, people wouldn’t have to be forced to fight. They’d be willing to fight voluntarily.

The rotten nature of the war was reflected by the disparate treatment between rich and poor and blacks and whites. The rich white kids were given college and post-graduate school deferments, which would enable them to delay being forced into the military and sent to Vietnam. Another way for rich white kids to get out of being sent to Vietnam was to use political influence to get into a National Guard unit or a Reserve unit. During the Vietnam War, those units were not being activated to be sent to Vietnam. Thus, anyone who was lucky enough or privileged enough to get into those units knew that there was no risk of being sent to Vietnam. The poor were not so lucky. They couldn’t afford college and so they were drafted immediately on graduation from high school. They became the U.S. government’s cannon fodder in Vietnam.

Of course, from the day he was forced into the army, every soldier was indoctrinated into believing that he was being sent to Vietnam to protect our “freedoms” here at home. One irony of this indoctrination was that if black conscripts were lucky enough to make it back alive, the “free” society to which they were returning was a segregated one.

Those who had the audacity to challenge or criticize the war were immediately branded traitors, cowards, or communist lovers or appeasers. That included civil-rights leader Martin Luther King and championship boxer Mohammad Ali. U.S. officials destroyed Ali’s boxing career by ensuring that he was prohibited from fighting at the height of his career. But at least they let him live. They snuffed out King’s life given that they were convinced that he and the civil-rights movement were advance, Fifth Column troops of a communist invasion of the United States.

Unfortunately, North Vietnam’s victory over the United States didn’t result in any fundamental changes here at home. Today, Americans continue to live under a national-security state form of government, an interventionist foreign policy, and an empire of foreign military bases. The Cold War is still being waged against Cuba, North Korea, Russia, and China; ironically, North Vietnam is, at least for now, considered an official friend. The war on communism has been replaced by the war on terrorism and Islam. State-sponsored assassinations, torture, indefinite detention, and military tribunals are still part and parcel of America’s legal system. And so are unconstitutional undeclared wars that sacrifice American soldiers for nothing, like with the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan.

May 14, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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.

May 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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.

May 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Unremarkable peer recruited by Zionist lobby to stop Palestine Action

By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | May 13, 2024

I have written many times about the heroic activities of Palestine Action, the protest group which burst onto the scene around four years ago using a blend of unrivalled direct action, anarchy and good, old-fashioned peaceful resistance to disrupt and wreck Israel’s war machine factories in the UK.

Despite numerous arrests, very few PA members have been prosecuted successfully, largely because the arms dealers they target do not want to be subject to probing questions under oath in a British court. What are they trying to hide?

Let us suppose that these giants of the arms industry fear going to court. If so, it is impossible for them to give evidence in the same courts as the Palestine Action protestors arrested by the police for causing criminal damage which has run into millions of pounds. Who knew that red paint could be so costly?

Nothing disturbs warmongering Zionists more than peaceful resistance supported by the law of the land, which in Britain gives people the legal right to protest against injustice.

Demonstrations, mass rallies and sit-ins have been around for as long as anyone can remember. The freedom and right to protest are a defining cornerstone of any European democracy.

Palestine Action describes itself as a pro-Palestinian protest network that uses direct action to shut down and disrupt multinational arms manufacturers and dealers. In particular, the group targets UK-based operations that provide weapons, or parts of weapons, used by Israel against the Palestinians.

At arms fairs, companies like Israel’s Elbit Systems are constantly ridiculed and humiliated for being unable to protect their factories from the eclectic group of Palestine Action activists. After all, Elbit boasts that it is a company which: “Specialises in surveillance and reconnaissance systems, optimised for all range applications – from short-range to extremely long-range. Installed on mobile platforms, as well as on stationary towers and turrets, these surveillance and reconnaissance systems enable high-quality tactical level intelligence gathering for infantry, artillery and other ground forces.”

Let’s face it, being outwitted on an almost daily basis by today’s would-be rebels and unarmed revolutionaries wearing slack jogging bottoms and hoodies must be humiliating for the Elbit executives and its subsidiaries. Little wonder that they are the butt of so many jokes.

It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that Israel wants Palestine Action shut down for good. It’s a tall order, but this is where the pro-Israel, Zionist lobby becomes a useful tool in Tel Aviv’s many conflicts. All the lobby has to do is call to heel the politicians and parties it funds and tell them to ban the group.

This is where the likes of Britain’s Lord Walney comes in, an unremarkable, modest little man with not much to be modest about. To be blunt, this peer, described laughingly as an “independent” government advisor, is nothing but an Israeli lackey who has, in an otherwise bland 100,000-word report, criminalised protest groups active in the UK today.

Rarely a headline-maker for political strategy, as plain old John Woodcock he resigned as a Labour Party MP in 2018, hitting out at “manipulation” of an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, but continued to sit in the House of Commons as an independent member. Ahead of the 2019 election, he chose not to stand again as he announced he was expecting a baby with his partner Isabel Hardman, an assistant editor at the right-wing Spectator magazine.

Naturally, Woodcock was a fervent critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. The political turncoat even urged people to vote Conservative to stop Corbyn from “getting his hands on the levers of national security and defence.”

Perhaps more significantly, in the not-too-distant past, Woodcock was the chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

Now “The” Lord Walney since 2021, and sitting as an independent (“crossbencher”) in the House of Lords upper chamber of parliament, his report recommends that the government should impose new measures to deter Palestine Action’s direct campaign against Elbit, Israel’s largest arms company. Whilst acknowledging the “enormous damage” that the activists have inflicted on the arms industry, he suggests a series of moves to restrict Palestine Action’s ability to meet and raise funds. He is also calling for “buffer zones” around factories of death like those owned by Elbit in Britain to protect the company from further protests.

Woodcock is quoted in the Sunday Times as saying that he wants to “make it an offence to belong to a protest group judged to be ‘extreme’ and which routinely uses criminal methods to campaign.” If the same twisted, Zionist logic had been applied in the early twentieth century, British women would not have been given the right to vote because the “extremists” in the Suffragettes — who definitely broke the law on occasion — would have been banned outright.

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.

Palestine Action released a statement about the new proposals this week. “During our nearly four-year direct-action campaign, we’ve faced arrests, raids, imprisonment, beatings, convictions and more by a state desperate to protect the Zionist war machine, over the freedom of their own citizens,” it said. “Despite this, our movement’s determination and resilience have resulted in Elbit permanently closing two factories plus being dumped by several partners and losing hundreds of millions [of pounds] in contracts with the Ministry of Defence.”

The success of the group, almost always vehemently denied by Israel, is a testament to its peaceful but direct action. However, nearly eight months into the Gaza genocide, it is clear that the arms industry is reaching breaking point with the British judicial system, which has abandoned or dismissed most trials of activists who are taken to court.

If the Zionist lobby and Lord Walney think that this scare tactic is going to force the action group to surrender, though, I’m afraid they’ve seriously underestimated it.

“When Palestine Action began we were under no illusion that the route to victory would be an easy ride,” it pointed out. “As a movement, we understand that every obstacle we face and overcome is a step closer to ending Israel’s weapons trade with Britain. For years the political class repressed us behind closed doors but refused to show their frustration at our growing campaign publicly. Now, they’re showing their hand which means we are winning.”

They accused the British peer of being more interested in “protecting the military interests of a foreign genocidal entity over the will of the British people, who overwhelmingly support imposing an arms embargo on Israel. His alliance is with the hugely profitable Elbit Systems who use Gaza as a laboratory to develop their battle-tested weaponry and are crucial to arming the ongoing genocide. Our alliance will always be with the Palestinian people.”

The Palestine Action campaigners say that they will “Shut Elbit down”.

And, I have to say, I am more convinced by their commitment to the people of Palestine than that of Lord Walney who has compromised himself by his closeness to the Israeli arms industry and the Zionist lobby. He and his report are far from independent in this matter. The UK is, for all its faults, still a democratic state whose citizens have rights and freedoms won after centuries of dissent and popular protests. Now the likes of Walney and his Zionist friends want to curtail those rights to serve the interests of the alien, apartheid state of Israel. This cannot be allowed to happen.

May 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

360,000 flee Rafah due to Israel strikes: UNRWA

MEMO | May 13, 2024

The number of Palestinians who were forced to leave Rafah due to attacks by Israeli forces rose to 360,000, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said today.

“Nearly 360,000 people have fled #Rafah since the first evacuation order a week ago,” UNRWA stated on X.

“Meanwhile, in north #Gaza bombardments & other evacuation orders have created more displacement & fear for thousands of families,” it added.

The agency further underlined: “There’s nowhere to go. There’s NO safety without a #ceasefire.”

Israel has waged an unrelenting offensive on the Gaza Strip since 7 October. More than 35,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, and 78,400 others injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Over seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, forcibly displacing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January said it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and ordered Tel Aviv to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

However since then Israel has taken over the Rafah Crossing, through which almost all humanitarian aid was entering Gaza. No aid has been allowed into the Strip since Israel raised its flag over the crossing.

May 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

15 nations have made their position on the WHO sovereignty grab public before the WHA meeting commences

How many other countries are entirely fed up with the World Stealth Organization’s misleading spin about “equity”?

BY MERYL NASS | MAY 12, 2024

The negotiations have been controlled by globalists, not nations, from day one.

Eleven nations informed the UN General Assembly they were not going along with the UN’s support for the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Agenda last September. In alphabetical order:

  1. Belarus
  2. Bolivia
  3. Cuba
  4. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
  5. Eritrea
  6. Islamic Republic of Iran
  7. Nicaragua
  8. Russian Federation
  9. Syrian Arab Republic
  10. Venezuela
  11. Zimbabwe

The Netherlands’ government has been instructed to delay the WHO votes or vote No by the lower house of Parliament.

Slovakia said it will not sign current drafts of both documents.

Croatia’s new majority party is against the WHO’s pandemic preparedness plan

Italy’s Senator Borghi said Italy will vote No on the treaty and furthermore that there are 10 more months in which to reject the IHR Amendments.

It is very unusual to have this level of disagreement made public even before the start of the World Health Assembly meeting. And with “hybrid negotiations” aka backroom horse-trading, leading right up to the meeting, nobody will have time to consider the treaties before they are due to be voted on. It has been a corrupt process from start to finish. It could only succeed with stealth (no one knowing what is really in the treaties) and bribes.

Now that the US has announced that 100 countries are being paid off to develop their pandemic preparedness agenda, will the bribes be enough to get these treaties across the finish line? Will the unbribed be miffed? How much will it cost the US taxpayer for the world’s nations to agree to dictatorial control of pandemics and health information going forward?

May 12, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , | Leave a comment

How hawks in US are trying to demonize students protesting Israeli genocide

By Mohsen Badakhsh | Press TV | May 12, 2024

The US government has resorted to brutal measures not only to suppress the growing student movement in colleges across the country against the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza but also to demonize it by labeling protesters as “criminals” and “terrorists.”

Such oppressive measures – by a country that routinely uses its propaganda machinery to project itself as the “leader of the free world” – evoke familiarity as Washington has always falsely accused countries, organizations and individuals critical of its hegemonic policies of such measures.

In the past week, many American lawmakers across the political spectrum have labeled these protesting students and professors at America’s most prominent universities as Iran-backed “terrorists”, “pro-Hamas fanatics” and “criminals,” while referring to the traditional Palestinian keffiyehs as “terrorist headdress” and the protest encampments on college campuses as “little Gazas.”

Such racist and derogatory language against Palestinians as well as American critics of Washington’s military and economic support for the Israeli apartheid regime and the ongoing Gaza genocide was employed by members of the US Congress at the behest of the powerful pro-Israel lobby.

Take note of the following remarks by Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas made last week while introducing legislation to cut off federal funding of universities that have not done enough to suppress student protests against the persisting US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“We’re here to discuss ‘little Gazas’ that have risen upon campuses across America and liberal college administrators and politicians who refuse to restore law and order and protect other students. These ‘little Gazas’ are disgusting cesspools of anti-Semitic hate — full of pro-Hamas sympathizers, fanatics and freaks,” Cotton stated.

“The terrorist sympathizers in these ‘little Gazas’ aren’t peacefully protesting Israel’s conduct of the war. They’re violently and illegally demanding death for Israel, just like their ideological twins: the ayatollahs in Iran,” he hastened to add, trying to connect the pro-Palestine campus movement to Iran.

Such remarks point to Washington’s long-held strategy of linking Iran, a country that has dared to challenge the Western hegemony, to any meaningful criticism of its Israeli ally while falsely depicting the Islamic Republic and resistance groups as instigators of terrorism and human rights violations.

This is while top American officials have admitted to establishing, enabling and funding the world’s most notorious terrorist groups – such as Daesh (ISIS) – to wage wars of terror and destabilize countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Washington has also earned notoriety for waging military coups to topple popular governments and install ruthless dictators to push their interests in different regions, including Iran, all in the name of “democracy” and “rule of law.”

Joining the hawkish Arkansas senator in sponsoring the so-called ‘Bailouts for Campus Criminals Act’ were 18 other Republican senators that likened peaceful student protesters to “terrorists” and “criminals” just for taking a stand against US support for the Israeli regime’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“Hamas sympathizers engaging in criminal behavior on college campuses should be ineligible for student loan bailouts,” said Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee who co-sponsored the bill.

“We must hold these criminals accountable and ensure taxpayer dollars do not go toward paying off their debt,” she added, while having no word on billions of dollars worth of weapons sent to Tel Aviv by US President Joe Biden that are used to slaughter Palestinian children and women.

Meanwhile, Republican Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Rick Scott of Florida, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, and others also demanded a freeze on federal funding for US universities that have not done enough to condemn and punish student protesters.

The move also signifies that major US higher education institutions rely heavily on federal funding and are expected to abide by Washington’s policies, including its support for genocidal war crimes in Gaza.

Unfazed by the hostile and repressive crackdown on student protests at major American universities, teenage high school students in numerous US cities have started their own protest rallies against Washington’s ironclad support for persisting Israeli war crimes across occupied Palestine.

The emergence of the new protest movement led by the younger American student community in major US states such as New York, California, Illinois, Texas, Oregan, Maryland and Washington clearly points to the futility of harsher measures taken by US officials aimed at deterring and punishing any opposition to its oppressive policies – nationally as well as through foreign interference.

The development has raised new fears among US politicians and analysts about likely repercussions in the presidential and congressional elections next November for both political parties amid concerns about a potential upheaval and violence in the rematch presidential race between the 82-year-old Biden and the 80-year-old former president Donald Trump.

Moreover, a dozen American senators have also issued strongly-worded warning to the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan against the UN court’s possible handing of arrest warrants against the Israeli regime officials over their persisting genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

“Target Israel and we will target you,” vowed pro-Trump Republican senators that included Tom Cotton, Mitch McConnell, Rick Scott, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio.

The move came amid speculation that the court may issue arrest warrants against top Israeli officials over the genocidal war in Gaza that has so far killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Also this week, the largest American Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization slammed the US House of Representatives for passing a controversial legislation that criminalizes any criticism of the Israeli apartheid regime.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) insisted that the so-called ‘Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023’ is a “one-sided, and dishonest” document that ignores persisting anti-Palestinian racism across the United States.

The House approved the bipartisan bill, introduced by New York Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, in a 320-91 vote and forwarded it to the Senate for passage and likely enactment by Biden’s signature.

Pointing to Washington’s traditional support for persisting Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian population, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei reiterated earlier this month the validity of Tehran’s distrust of the US and rejection of the apartheid Zionist regime, citing American complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its brutal crackdown on student protests.

Ayatollah Khamenei declared that the only solution to the Palestinian issue would be the return of the entire land to its rightful owners and allowing them to decide what to do with the Zionist occupiers.

He further pointed to the expansion of the American student protest movement to universities across Europe and other parts of the globe, insisting that “Gaza remains the leading concern of the world” with a growing realization about the evil nature of the Zionist regime as well as the validity of the Islamic Republic’s unrelenting policy of rejecting the legitimacy of the Israeli occupying entity.

It remains to be seen what Washington’s defiance of the growing worldwide condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza will spell for it in a highly sensitive election year in the face of a very divisive Congress and persisting tensions with Russia, China and the West Asia region over various military, political, economic, and strategic issues.

Mohsen Badakhsh is an educator and freelance journalist.

May 12, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Palestinian protests grow at UK college as Sunak seeks crackdown

Al Mayadeen | May 11, 2024

Around thirty demonstrators continue their pro-Palestinian encampment for the third consecutive night as similar encampments have recently emerged on approximately 15 university campuses across the UK.

These student activists are urging their universities to divest from “Israel” in objection to its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. It is worth noting that divestment involves the selling off of stocks in Israeli companies or cutting financial ties in other manners. Additionally, they are demanding an immediate ceasefire in the besieged region.

Despite the peaceful demonstrations at Cambridge and various other UK campuses, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak convened with university leaders at his Downing Street offices on Thursday, reportedly attempting to prevent the surge of pro-Palestinian protests similar to those witnessed in the US in recent weeks.

In the same context, Sunak’s office extended invitations to vice-chancellors from several leading UK universities to address measures aimed at combating the “anti-Semitism” weapon of choice on campus.

As a part of these efforts, Sunak unveiled plans for the government to allocate an extra £500,000 ($623,000) to bolster the University Jewish Chaplaincy Service, aimed at providing support to Jewish students.

Accusations of a rise in antisemitism reflect a broader trend observed not only in the UK but also across Europe and the US. This trend appears to be part of efforts aimed at quelling pro-Palestinian student activism and uprisings on campuses.

It is worth noting that the charges of anti-semitism have been rampant in Western media in an attempt to silence pro-Palestine positions or any denunciation of the war on Gaza unleashed by the Israeli occupation.

Instead of upholding their students’ rights to peaceful protest and fostering an environment conducive to freedom of speech, the UK government opted to crack down on student demonstrators.

May 11, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »