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Injured survivors of Gaza aid chaos say Israeli forces shot at them

MEMO | March 2, 2024

Some Palestinians injured in a Gaza aid delivery disaster said on Friday that Israeli forces shot them as they rushed to get food for their families, describing a scene of terror and chaos, Reuters reports.

Health authorities in Gaza said 115 people were killed in the incident on Thursday, attributing the deaths to Israeli fire and calling it a massacre.

Israel disputed those figures and said most victims were trampled or run over.

However, one Israeli official also said soldiers fired warning shots in the air and then fired at those who did not move away and were seen as a threat, adding when asked how many people were shot that this was “limited fire”.

The incident underscored the collapse of orderly aid distribution in areas of Gaza occupied by Israeli forces with no administration in place and the main UN agency, UNRWA, hamstrung by an inquiry into alleged links with Hamas.

Four witnesses, who spoke at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in a video obtained by Reuters, said they were fired upon by Israeli forces, some describing tanks and armed drones being involved.

Mahmoud Ahmad said he began waiting on Wednesday evening for the convoy that eventually arrived on Thursday morning, saying hunger forced him to take the risk of going to the delivery route in hopes of getting flour for his children.

As the aid trucks came into northern Gaza, he went towards them but, he said, a tank and a “quadcopter” drone began to fire. “I was injured in my back. I was bleeding for an hour until one of my relatives came and took me to hospital,” he said.

“When the aid entered, the tank and quadcopter started firing at the people gathered, the people who went to get food for themselves and their children. They started shooting at them,” he said.

Jihad Mohammed said he was waiting at Nabulsi roundabout on the Al-Rashid coast road, the main delivery route into northern Gaza from the south.

“We went and waited for the trucks and then there was firing at all the people and then I was injured,” he said.

Asked if he believed Israeli forces had fired on them deliberately, he said “Yes, that’s right. They used tanks, soldiers, aircraft … all were firing towards us.”

Sami Mohammed was at the Al-Rashid road with his son waiting for the aid convoy to arrive. “My son ran to the beach and they shot him twice … one grazed his head and the other hit his chest,” he said. He said bullets and shells were fired.

The boy was lying in a hospital bed with bandages on his chest and arm and a cut on his face.

Abdallah Juha said he went to try to get a sack of flour for his parents. “We are very hungry. We don’t have food or anything. They fired at us … they squashed us,” he said, adding that the fire came from tanks.

Juha, who had a bandage on his face, was injured in the head by a bullet. “My little brother cries because he wants to eat. Where should I get him food?” he said.

Divergent accounts 

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, said a UN team visited Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Friday to deliver medical supplies and met people injured in the incident.

“By the time of the team’s visit, the hospital had also received the bodies of more than 70 people who had been killed” it said.

An Israeli official said on Thursday there had been two incidents, hundreds of metres apart. In the first, dozens were killed or injured as they tried to take aid from the trucks and were trampled or run over.

He said there was a second, subsequent incident as the trucks moved off. Some people in the crowd approached troops who felt under threat and opened fire, killing an unknown number in a “limited response”, he said. He dismissed the casualty toll given by Gaza authorities but gave no figure himself.

In a later briefing on Thursday, Israel Defence Forces spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, also said dozens had been trampled to death or injured in a fight to take supplies off the trucks.

He said tanks escorting the trucks had subsequently fired warning shots to disperse the crowd and backed away when events began to get out of hand. “No IDF strike was conducted towards the aid convoy,” he said.

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Lies about China’s Uyghur Oppression

Tales of the American Empire | February 29, 2024

Americans see news reports about the plight of Uyghurs. They are told these Muslims living in the western China province of Xinjiang are abused by the ruling Han Chinese and over a million are imprisoned in camps where they are forced to perform slave labor. As a result, China must be constantly denounced for this abuse and sanctions imposed on any Chinese business exploiting this slave labor. This is false and based on lies promoted by the American CIA.

Note: We are told to pronounce Uyghur as “WEE-gur” even though it has no W. In the province of Xinjiang and in their language it is pronounced “OO-gur” and should be in English since it starts with a U! So I adopted Dr. de Zayas’ correct pronunciation to reject whoever decided we should call them something weird in English.

___________________________________________________

“I Saw ZERO Evidence of Uyghur Repression In China”; Jimmy Dore Show; YouTube; September 30, 2023;    • “I Saw ZERO Evidence Of Uyghur Repres…  

“What’s it REALLY like to travel in Xinjiang, China?”; Cyrus Janssen; YouTube; May 1, 2021;    • What’s it REALLY like to travel in Xi…  

“No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims”; Ben Norton; The Grayzone; August 23, 2018; https://thegrayzone.com/2018/08/23/un…

“Was There Really a Massacre in Tiananmen Square–or Was It an Illusion Fabricated by U.S. Politicians and Corporate Media to Make Americans Hate China?”; Jeremy Kuzmarov; Covert Action Magazine; August 7, 2023; https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023…

“US efforts to strangle China & reassert hegemony”; The Duran; YouTube; September 16, 2023; https://theduran.com/us-efforts-to-st…

Related Tales: “The American War on China”:    • The American War on China  

March 2, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

MPs smear Gaza protestors, while others invent scare stories

By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | March 1, 2024

Are the massive pro-Palestine marches in Britain being deliberately targeted and smeared as part of a concerted Zionist effort to use the law to stop people from joining the ranks of the growing anti-war movement? That would certainly explain the furore over MPs’ safety which came to a head last week when Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons and a member of the Labour Friends of Israel lobby group, cited threats to politicians in his disastrous handling of a debate on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

I pose the question after some extraordinary events have been picked up and anchored in a media campaign which has collectively shown nothing but hostility towards Palestinians in favour of the Zionist Israeli state as the genocidal onslaught in Gaza continues. Throw in some decidedly Islamophobic comments by prominent Conservative MPs, and there is a really toxic atmosphere brewing in advance of this year’s General Election, with Muslims — “Islamists” — cast as the bad guys.

Today, my suspicions were fuelled by none other than British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who resorted to shameless smears and scare tactics as he warned police chiefs of a “growing consensus that mob rule is replacing democratic rule”. Calling for more robust police action, Sunak used inflammatory language to insist that politicians need to be protected from intimidatory protests outside their homes.

However, the Home Office has nevertheless announced a £31 million package aimed at protecting MPs. It is said to be in response to the impact of the ongoing “Israel-Hamas conflict”.

Meanwhile, in Scotland police were called to investigate bizarre claims that the Glasgow constituency office of Labour Members of the Scottish Parliament was “stormed” by 30 pro-Palestine protesters, with MSP Paul Sweeney criticising officers for taking 27 minutes to respond even though the office staff were left “distressed”.

Police Scotland insist that the storming of the politicians’ shared office never happened as described, and rejected the claims made by Sweeney. According to him, campaigners forced their way into the office that he shares with party leader Anas Sarwar, and fellow MSPs Pam Duncan-Glancy and Pauline McNeil.

“It may well be that this entire furore over alleged threats by protestors is confected,” said Mick Napier, a co-founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, whose members took part in the protest. Certainly, the example of Sweeney caught flagrantly inventing threats to the staff suggests that this might be the case. Sweeney supports a party leader who endorses Israel withholding water, food and fuel from the entire population of Gaza — not only cruel, but also collective punishment, a war crime — while he complains that people opposing such barbarism raise their voices.

“Although in this case voices weren’t even raised,” explained Napier. “There seems to be something new in the shamelessness with which our politicians lie to the public. Could it be because the mainstream media have given up any pretence of investigating such fabrications?”

Despite repeated attempts to contact Sarwar, McNeil, Duncan-Clancy and Sweeney, none were prepared to offer a comment to me about the incident.

European political analyst Kevin Ovenden wrote about the incident on 22 February: “Two elected politicians have been exposed today for simply lying that they faced violent intimidation when they merely had to deal with democratic lobbying and political pressure. One is the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament Paul Sweeney. Police in Glasgow refuted his highly charged claim that anti-war protesters stormed his office and intimidated his staff. They did no such thing, as the police concluded, having been present throughout for an orderly protest, without even any civil disobedience, by a small group of middle-aged or older women and men.

“That has not stopped the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle (for years a nodding-donkey Labour MP) today smearing the entire anti-war movement as in some way incubating terrorism as justification for his anti-democratic manoeuvres on behalf of [Labour Party leader] Keir Starmer.”

Ovenden blames craven support for Israel by the two main establishment parties, Conservative and Labour, for “not only leading to authoritarianism against public protest and free speech. It is now even crushing the limited democratic avenues available through parliament.”

The streets of London have witnessed some of the largest, peaceful, pro-Palestine demonstrations in the capital’s history, but that did not stop Sunak from calling an urgent meeting in Downing Street for police chiefs on Thursday. He urged them to use all of their existing powers to crack down on the alleged intimidation, disruption and subversion.

“We simply cannot allow this pattern of increasingly violent and intimidatory behaviour which is, as far as anyone can see, intended to shout down free debate and stop elected representatives doing their job,” insisted the prime minister.

Without a hint of irony, the man who has so far given his unconditional support to Israel, currently under investigation for genocide by the International Court of Justice, added: “That is simply undemocratic… I am going to do whatever it requires to protect our democracy, and our values, which we all hold dear.”

Del Babu, a former chief superintendent in London’s Metropolitan Police, said language like “mob rule” was not “helpful”. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that appealing to people to demonstrate less could have “unintended consequences” and potentially lead to more people protesting.

“We will continue to march until there is an immediate ceasefire,” said Shamiul Joarder of Friends of Al-Aqsa. The organisation is part of a coalition of groups organising the marches which have brought world attention to London’s streets.

Members from all six groups, along with Labour MP and former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and the campaign group Liberty, held a press conference earlier this week in parliament criticising unhelpful language used by politicians. They claim that anti-Muslim “hysteria” and pressure from the government had provoked the Metropolitan Police into heavy-handed and “discriminatory” policing of “peaceful mass protests”.

Home Secretary James Cleverly, meanwhile, told the BBC: “I genuinely don’t know what these regular protests are seeking to achieve. They have made their position clear, we recognise that there are many people in the UK that hold that position.”

Hours later, 104 starving Palestinians in Gaza were massacred — witnesses say that Israeli troops opened fire on them — as they gathered around an aid convoy distributing food. If Cleverly doesn’t understand the point of the street demonstrations then he has the emotional intelligence of a brick and a surname which doesn’t quite match his IQ.

Calls for a ceasefire will continue until Israel’s genocide of the people of occupied Palestine is stopped in its murderous tracks. Which bit of “Stop Killing Civilians” do our politicians not understand?

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘State-minus’: Biden’s Palestine solution

Three decades after the Oslo Lie, neither the US nor the EU are in any position to dangle the promise of a Palestinian state.

By Stasa Salacanin | The Cradle | February 29, 2024

Is it sadly ironic that the issue of Palestinian statehood – unresolved for over 75 years – has resurfaced only after Israel’s wholesale carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip, killing over 30,000 civilians, injuring tens of thousands more, and destroying significant swathes of the territory’s infrastructure.

University of California (UCLA) historian James Gelvin states the case plainly:

“There would have been no serious discussion of a two-state solution without [the events of] 7 October. As a matter of fact, putting the Palestine issue back on the front burner of international and West Asian politics was one of the reasons Hamas launched its operation.”

As Gelvin explains it to The Cradle, Hamas has already scored several victories since its Al-Aqsa Flood operation: “The Palestine issue is back on the international agenda, it is negotiating the release of its captives as an equal partner to Israel,” and has demonstrated that it is “more effective in realizing Palestinian goals than its rival, Fatah.”

New ‘Biden Doctrine’

While the unprecedented, brutal Israeli military response has indeed illustrated the urgency for establishing a Palestinian safe haven, it is impossible to ignore that western state backers of the 1993 Oslo Accords – which laid out the essential framework for the establishment of a Palestinian state – have then so assiduously ignored and neglected that responsibility.

Even greater hypocrisy emerges from the fact that these western powers, led by Washington, have now decided to force the discussion of Palestinian statehood in the midst of Gaza’s carnage, with an Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is infamously opposed to it.

So, why is this debate possible now? Why was it ignored before 7 October – or even prior to Netanyahu’s return to the prime ministership?

After enormous public and international pressure, US President Joe Biden has, at least rhetorically, reopened the issue of Palestinian statehood. According to the New York Times, the Biden White House’s new doctrine would “involve some form of US recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for strong Palestinian guarantees that their institutions could never threaten Israel.”

In addition, the US president’s plan also envisages Saudi–Israeli normalization and a tough military stance against Iran and its regional allies. However, many analysts have already raised questions about the viability of a plan that does not reflect current ground realities.

While Netanyahu rejects the very notion of a Palestinian state, the ‘Biden doctrine’ and its offering of some limited-sovereignty version of a demilitarized Palestinian state is nothing less than humiliating for Palestinians.

Dr Muhannad Ayyash, Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University, observes that there is no fundamental change of approach by the US on this issue. In short, the Biden administration refuses to clarify what it means by a ‘Palestinian state.’ Its initiative appears mainly to advance a form of a two-state solution that would be palatable to Israel.

Ayyash points out that the key issues related to Palestinian statehood are left unanswered, including the issue of sovereignty, Jewish settlements, the status of East Jerusalem, a necessary West Bank/East Jerusalem connection with the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian right to return, and so forth.

As Israel has firmly insisted on retaining full security control over the entire territory west of Jordan – meaning, over all the territory likely to come under Palestinian (self-)rule – many experts fear that Israel would have the right to militarily enter those territories at will, without Palestinian consent, with the latter banned from assembling its own military force.

This version of ‘statehood’ is not remotely on par with that of other UN member-states, who are entitled, under the UN Charter, to exercise full sovereignty and defend their territorial integrity. Biden’s ‘solution’ of a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty is nothing more than the legalization of Israel’s perpetual occupation of Palestine.

A Palestinian ‘empty shell’

The revived debate on Palestinian statehood is also intricately connected to a big western public relations dilemma. The Atlanticists’ unconditional support for Israel’s illegal, disproportionate military assault against mostly female and child populations has deeply impacted their image and capacity to maneuver in West Asia and beyond.

This is especially true for Washington’s foreign policy objectives in the region, which are facing major, direct resistance on the ground in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

The revival of a two-state solution is, therefore, a “desperate act to salvage some of the credibility or legitimacy of these regimes (both Arab and Western governments),” argues Dr Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Professor and Abdulaziz Said Chair for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the American University in Washington, DC.

For decades, the US has capitulated to Israeli demands on pretty much everything Tel Aviv has ever asked for. In recent years, as Gelvin describes it, the US has mainly focused “on bribing various Arab governments – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan – to normalize relations with Israel” through the “Abraham Accords,” which, in effect, took the Palestine issue off the table.”

Meanwhile, Arab states managed regional expectations by continuing to pay lip service to Palestinian issues while scuttling any opportunities behind the scenes. With few Arab state allies left, Palestinians themselves had no cards left to leverage – until 7 October.

Now, Israel is doing all it can to negate that day’s gains. Says Ayyash:

“Netanyahu wants to dispense with all pretension about the establishment of the Palestinian state and use this moment to establish full Israeli Jewish sovereignty from the river to the sea, whereas the Biden administration prefers a quieter approach that pretends to care about the aspirations of the Palestinian people in order to maintain its close ties with Arab regimes across the region.”

The two-state solution, according to Professor Abu-Nimer, is, therefore, nothing other than a “fig leaf” to resuscitate the west’s crashing image and should not be viewed as a serious US initiative. The proposed plan is “a skeleton or an empty shell which lacks of any serious form of sovereignty.”

Nathan Brown, an American scholar of Middle Eastern law and politics at George Washington University, largely concurs:

“This is not a step toward statehood but only reviving some provisions of the Oslo Accords. Even at a maximum, it would produce what would have been called a ‘protectorate’ in the nineteenth century, not a state.”

A Palestinian state is not on the cards 

Although the US and the EU could exercise immense leverage over Israel to revive the Oslo agreement and fast-track its provisions, they are doing nothing of the sort.

Today, there is a unique opportunity for Tel Aviv’s western allies to play this hand, given the utter collapse of Israel’s image worldwide and the mass public demand for the protection of Palestinians.

Instead, the Biden administration thinks that it can resurrect the two-state idea by mediating a grand regional deal – one that will deliver everything Israel wants, by dangling the promise of a rump Palestinian state.

The White House believes that the reward of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia will offset for the Netanyahu government a reversal on the question of Palestinian statehood and withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.

Gelvin dismisses the plan, saying it simply won’t work on so many levels. For starters, “if Netanyahu commits to a Palestinian state and withdrawal from the occupied territories, his government will collapse and he will go to jail.”

Don’t expect anything spectacular from the European Union either. Although EU High Representative for Foreign Relations Josep Borrell has said that a Palestinian state may need to be imposed from the outside without Israel’s agreement, realistically, the range and reach of European foreign policy is minimal or non-existent. According to Gelvin, “the EU has no more leverage against Israel than Costa Rica.”

Abu-Nimer likely speaks for the majority of regional observers – who have seen this game play out before: these top-down western statehood formulas do not work without genuine engagement with Palestinian political representation – in this case, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations.

Thirty-one years after the Oslo Accords promised a Palestinian state, Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza and swallowing up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Almost five months after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, some of the leverage is back in Palestinian resistance hands, and they are unlikely to trade their gains for an unsovereign rump state which diplomats are privately calling a ‘state-minus.’

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington blocks UNSC statement condemning Israel for ‘Flour Massacre’

The Cradle | March 1, 2024

The US, on 29 February, vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) statement that would have condemned Israel for the mass murder of over 100 Palestinian civilians who were awaiting the delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza City.

“We don’t have all the facts on the ground – that’s the problem,” US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood told reporters on Thursday.

He then claimed there are “contradictory reports” about the Israeli army’s latest massacre and highlighted that Washington was focused on finding “some language that everyone can agree on.”

Thursday’s veto is the fifth time Washington has blocked a UNSC statement or ceasefire resolution that would hold Israel accountable for the atrocities it has committed in Gaza.

According to Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, 14 of the 15 council members supported the statement advanced by Algeria.

At least 112 Palestinians were killed and more than 750 wounded after Israeli troops opened heavy machine gun and artillery fire on thousands waiting for food on Gaza’s Al-Rashid Street, in what marked the first delivery of food to northern Gaza in several weeks.

“After opening fire, Israeli tanks advanced and ran over many of the dead and injured bodies,” Al Jazeera’s Ismail al-Ghoul reported from the scene.

“We had come here to get our hands on some aid. I have been waiting since noon yesterday. At about 4:30 in the early morning, trucks started to trickle in. The Israelis just opened random fire on us as if it was a trap. Once we approached the aid trucks, the Israeli tanks and warplanes started firing on us,” a witness at the scene told Al Jazeera.

The Israeli aggression triggered a stampede, adding to the chaos.

“We were going to bring flour … then Israeli snipers shot at us,” another person in the area told the Qatari news outlet. “They shot me in the leg. I’m unable to stand up,” he added.

Tel Aviv changed its story multiple times on Thursday, first claiming the majority of victims were killed by the stampede and later saying that soldiers opened fire only after feeling “threatened.” Officials have yet to explain how the crowds of underfed and displaced civilians posed any threat to them.

March 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-UK Army Chief Nick Carter, Once In Charge of “Misinformation” Surveillance Army Unit, Joins Tony Blair Institute

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 28, 2024

A new noteworthy instance of what can be described as the UK-style revolving door policy, where those working for the government and private entities switch employers in both directions, has happened in that country.

A former chief of the British Army, under whose watch the 77th Brigade was spying on citizens during the pandemic, has now joined Tony Blair’s organization.

General Nick Carter is therefore a new recruit at the Institute for Global Change (globalist not in name only, either) – which the former British prime minister set up to supposedly create “open, inclusive and prosperous countries for all.”

Carter previously “distinguished” himself at the peak of the pandemic for allowing a unit under his command to hunt down “bad” speech on the internet – that of citizens skeptical of Covid measures and related contentious issues, whatever was treated as “Covid misinformation.”

Carter’s fellow new recruit at the Institute is former Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. Another new hire is Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. They will act as members of a team of “expert strategic counselors” in what critics might call Blair’s elitist globalist group – his own version of WEF, even.

Before becoming Blair’s private adviser, Carter, a decorated officer, served as the principal military advisor to the prime minister (reports don’t say which ones), as head of the Armed Forces, and finally the chief of the Defense Staff for the United Kingdom.

Back in the spring of 2020, reports cited Carter, then at the helm of the Defense Staff, saying that the 77th Brigade was “countering coronavirus misinformation online.”

Not a traditional deployment of a country’s military potential, even if it is one set up to carry out physiological warfare, like 77th Brigade had been.

And it didn’t make things better that the target of this warfare was free speech on the UK’s citizens – on Twitter, Facebook and the like.

No less than 2,000 military personnel were involved in this, with a dubious to say the least goal of what looks like a straight-forward attempt to sway opinion among the population.

This was at the time phrased as delivering “means of shaping behavior through the use of dynamic narratives.”

Related: 

Tony Blair Institute Calls For a Digital ID For All British Citizens, Calls It The “Great Enabler”

UK government monitored tweets from high profile journalists and politicians that criticized Covid policy

February 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

How to Stop the WHO – #SolutionsWatch

Corbett | February 27, 2024

We all know the problem by now: the World Health Organization is trying to override your health freedoms and abrogate your bodily autonomy in the name of their scamdemic agenda. But what is the solution? Join James for this in-depth exploration of the ideas, organizations and actions that are already in motion to derail the WHO tyranny and regain our medical sovereignty.

WATCH ON: ARCHIVE / BITCHUTE / ODYSEE / ROKFIN / RUMBLE   /SUBSTACK or DOWNLOAD THE MP4

SHOW NOTES:

Episode 417 – The Global Pandemic Treaty: What You Need to Know

Episode 442 – The Global Pandemic Treaty Is A Threat To Us All

Episode 445 – James Corbett Testifies at the National Citizens Inquiry

Canadian petitions to parliament

UK petition

US petition

The Global WHO Uprising Has Begun! on CHD TV

Amending The International Health Regulations (2005) – Health.Govt.NZ

Netherlands Letter To Parliament

South Africa Bill To Withdraw From WHO

Press conference on the growing concerns over the WHO ‘pandemic treaty’

Presentation to Irish parliament

UK Reject and Exit the WHO!

Good News: The UK’s membership of the WHO seems to be unlawful and legal action is pending

DoorToFreedom.org

jamesroguski.substack.com

screwthewho.com

exitthewho.org

Nullification – #SolutionsWatch

Maharrey on The Corbett Report

Michael Maharrey on “Shot Callers” discussing nullifying the WHO agreements

This week, please PAY FORWARD your gratitude for this work by sending info on the WHO takeover to someone in your life and by supporting the group or the individual that put that info together.

February 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Video | | Leave a comment

Canada’s Liberal Government Advances “Online Harms” Censorship Bill

Trudeau wants new laws to censor online speech

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | February 27, 2024

Canada’s Justice Minister Arif Virani has advanced a highly controversial bill, named Bill C-63, proposing comprehensive new legislation aimed at addressing online “hate” speech.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill covers seven types of harmful material, from content sexually exploiting or re-victimizing children and survivors, to content promoting violence and extremism.

But it also outlaws online “hatred,” so-called “hate speech,” and forms of deepfakes.

In an attempt to decrease the prevalence of harmful content, this legislation puts the onus on online platforms to be accountable and transparent about how they handle such content.

Platforms like social media and live-streaming services are included under the legislation’s “online services” umbrella.

The bill would also create a new “standalone hate crime offense that would apply to every offence in the Criminal Code and in any other Act of Parliament, allowing penalties up to life imprisonment to denounce and deter this hateful conduct as a crime in itself,” – the briefing explained.

The proposed law would also raise the maximum punishments for the four hate offenses from five years to life imprisonment for advocating genocide and from two years to five years for the others when persecuted by way of indictment.

The Liberal government states that the bill’s proposed regulations centre on the platforms most frequented by Canadians. However, the specifics will depend on whether these platforms meet the eventual user thresholds. Over time, the government may hold other platforms accountable, if these platforms end up posing “a significant risk of harm.”

Additionally, Bill C-63 proposes establishing a censorship organization, which will oversee digital “safety” issues. This organization is anticipated to include a five-member digital safety commission, an independent digital safety ombudsman, and a digital safety office. These will assist in addressing Canadians’ grievances about platforms’ content moderation decisions.

In a recent critique of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approach to regulating online speech, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre didn’t mince words. He accused Trudeau of labeling any speech he personally dislikes as “hate speech.” This accusation comes amidst discussions surrounding Canada’s proposed online harms bill, a legislation echoing similar efforts in other western democracies aimed at curbing hate speech, terrorist incitements, and violent content online.

Poilievre’s comments reflect a growing concern about the potential for such laws to be misused for broader censorship. This concern is not unfounded, given precedents in other countries where similar laws have veered into the realm of suppressing free speech. The Conservative leader’s stance suggests a keen awareness of these risks.

The term “woke authoritarian agenda” was used by Poilievre to describe the draft of the online harms bill, which he and his party are committed to opposing. He draws attention to the Trudeau administration’s handling of the 2022 “Freedom Convoy,” a protest against COVID-19 restrictions. Poilievre points out the government’s extreme measures, including freezing citizens’ bank accounts, as indicative of a mindset that easily conflates criticism with hate speech.

Highlighting the Trudeau government’s actions during the pandemic, Poilievre remarked, “Justin Trudeau said anyone who criticized him during the pandemic was engaging in hate speech.” This statement underscores a fear that the government might use the proposed legislation to silence dissent in various scenarios.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Tucker Carlson makes shocking revelation about Moscow trip

RT | February 27, 2024

Tucker Carlson said on Tuesday that US spies had monitored him while he was in Russia earlier this month, and leaked to a ‘friendly’ outlet that he had met with Edward Snowden. This is despite the American journalist’s claim that he had tried to keep his meeting with the NSA whistleblower a secret.

Carlson went to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin. During his eight days in Moscow, he also met with Snowden – and US spies found out about it, he told podcaser Lex Fridman in the course of a three-hour conversation.

“I was being intensely surveilled by the US government,” Carlson told Fridman, noting that US spies had thwarted his plans to interview Putin in 2021 and that he received confirmation that he was being intensely monitored ahead of his Moscow trip. “Then, I’m over there, and of course I want to see Snowden, whom I admire.”

Snowden allegedly accepted Carlson’s invitation to have dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel, but declined the interview as well as a photo request, saying that it would be better to tell no one.

“I didn’t tell anybody,” Carlson told Fridman, however the meeting was leaked. “Semafor runs this piece – reporting information they got from the US intel agencies, leaking against me, using my money, in my name, in a supposedly free country – they run this piece saying I met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something.”

“If you have a media establishment that acts as employees of the national security state, you don’t have a free country. And that’s where we are,” Carlson added.

Carlson revealed that he did not fear getting arrested in Russia at any point, but was warned by his lawyers that the US might arrest him depending on the content of the Putin interview.

“I felt not one twinge of concern for the 8 days that I was there,” he told Fridman about being in Moscow.

Before he left for Russia, his team of attorneys counseled him to “not do this… A lot will depend on the questions you ask of Putin. If you’re seen as too nice to him you could be arrested when you come back,” Carlson quoted the lead lawyer as saying, to which he said he replied, “You’re describing a fascist country, OK?”

In 2013, Snowden revealed that the NSA was systematically engaged in mass illegal spying on American citizens. Fearing for his safety, he fled to Hong Kong with the intent to reach Ecuador, which did not have an extradition treaty with the US, but was stopped during a layover in Moscow after Washington canceled his passport. Russia ended up granting him asylum and reportedly, eventual citizenship.

One of the founders of Semafor, the outlet to which Carlson claims US spies leaked his dinner with Snowden, is Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of the now defunct BuzzFeed newsroom. In 2017, Smith notoriously published the ‘Steele Dossier,’ a sham document leaked by US spies to discredit incoming President Donald Trump.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

US Official Admits Only 85 Aid Trucks Entering Gaza Per Day

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 27, 2024

The head of USAID said on Monday that only around 85 aid trucks were able to enter Gaza each day, under 10% of the prewar number. The White House has touted that it has leveraged US influence to get Israel to provide more aid to the Strip. However, Tel Aviv is deploying a myriad of tactics to strangle aid shipments in Gaza.

“More than 500 trucks should be entering Gaza daily. In the past week, only ~85/day managed to get through,” Samantha Power, the head of USAID, posted on X. Power, who considers herself an expert on genocide prevention, has not called for a ceasefire or an end to US weapons shipments to Israel even as the International Court of Justice concluded Tel Aviv was plausibly waging a genocide in Gaza.

Before October 7, about 500 trucks entered Gaza daily to sustain the people. The number of Palestinians in the Strip needing aid has skyrocketed over the past four months. Nearly all 2.3 million Palestinians are displaced and do not have access to clean water or food.

Since Israel went to war in Gaza, Tel Aviv has used a multitude of methods to stifle aid deliveries, including attacking shipments. CNN reports that the Israeli military attacked a UN aid shipment in Gaza on February 5 after approving the trucks to travel through the Strip.

Additionally, Israel is preventing a US-funded food shipment from being unloaded at the port. Tel Aviv has enacted an onerous inspection regime that slows deliveries and prevents lifesaving medication from reaching the Strip. Israeli government agencies have denied visas to international aid workers, limiting the activities of dozens of organizations.

Israeli civilian protesters are also interfering with shipments by blocking and delaying trucks carrying the aid. Once convoys enter Gaza, they are mobbed by starving Palestinians. Recently, Israeli forces began targeting the police force in the Strip, making it harder for the trucks to move through Gaza.

Jordan has airdropped aid in Gaza 16 times since October 7 to bypass the backup at the border inspection checkpoint.

The Israeli onslaught in Gaza has thrown the Palestinian people into a horrific humanitarian crisis. Most of the medical facilities have been destroyed or shut down, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have suffered serious burns, cuts, and amputations.

In the northern half of the Strip, one in six children are suffering from acute malnutrition, meaning they could soon die of starvation or other deprivation. A two-month-old child succumbed to starvation in central Gaza last week. Palestinians are eating animal feed, grass, and rotten food.

The Biden administration has faced increasing pressure over its support for Tel Aviv as Israeli forces killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and annihilated most of the Strip. President Biden has touted that he has successfully pressed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to allow more assistance into Gaza. As with aid, Tel Aviv has ignored nearly all of Washington’s requests with no impact on US weapons shipments to Tel Aviv.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces stop UN convoy, detain and strip-search paramedics

Press TV – February 27, 2024

Israeli regime forces in the Gaza Strip have stopped a UN ambulance convoy that was evacuating critically-ill patients from a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younes before detaining and strip-searching the paramedics in the convoy.

In a statement on Tuesday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Israeli regime forces had stalled the UN convoy on Sunday detaining a paramedic and forcing others to remove their clothes.

The incident occurred during the evacuation of 24 critical patients from the city’s al-Amal Hospital, which has been under the continuous siege of Israeli regime forces, it said, adding that one pregnant woman and one mother and a newborn were among the patients.

“Despite prior coordination for all staff members and vehicles with the Israeli side, the Israeli forces blocked the WHO-led [World Health Organization] convoy for many hours the moment it left the hospital,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for OCHA, told reporters in Geneva.

“The Israeli military forced patients and staff out of ambulances and stripped all paramedics of their clothes,” Laerke added.

He added that Israeli forces had subsequently detained three Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics, “although their personal details had been shared with the Israeli forces in advance,” while the rest of the convoy stayed in place for “over seven hours.”

One paramedic was released, said the OCHA spokesman as he appealed for the immediate release of the other two, and all other detained health workers in Gaza.

OCHA’s statement said that the UN relief agencies operating in war-torn Gaza face “unacceptable security conditions” for humanitarian aid delivery.

“This is not an isolated incident. Aid convoys have come under fire and are systematically denied access to people in need,” it said.

“Humanitarian workers have been harassed, intimidated or detained by Israeli forces, and humanitarian infrastructure has been hit.”

That comes as the US-Israeli genocidal war against the defenseless Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated.

Nearly 30,000 people, including 14,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its aggression on Gaza in early October.

February 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s last battle promises no victory, just slaughter in Rafah

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | February 26, 2024

The Palestinian city of Rafah is not only older than Israel, it is also as old as civilisation itself. Rafah has existed for thousands of years. The Canaanites referred to it as Rafia, and Rafia has been almost always there, guarding the southern frontiers of Palestine, ancient and modern.

As the gateway between two continents and two worlds, Rafah has been at the forefront of many wars and foreign invasions, from ancient Egyptians to the Romans, to Napoleon and his eventually vanquished army. Now, it is Benjamin Netanyahu’s turn.

The Israeli prime minister has made Rafah the jewel in his crown of shame, the battle that will determine the fate of his genocidal war in Gaza; in fact, the very future of his country. “Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are essentially telling us: ‘Lose the war’,” he said at a press conference on 17 February.

There are now anywhere between 1.3 to 1.5 million Palestinians in Rafah, an area that had a population of 200,000 people before the war started. Even then, it was considered to be crowded. We can only imagine what the situation is right now, with hundreds of thousands of people scattered in muddy refugee camps, subsisting in makeshift tents that are unable to withstand the elements of a harsh winter. The Mayor of Rafah says that only 10 per cent of the needed food and water is reaching the people in the camps, where they suffer from extreme hunger, if not outright starvation.

They have lost loved ones and homes, and have no access to any medical care. They are trapped between high walls, the sea and a murderous army.

An Israeli invasion of Rafah will not alter the battlefield in favour of the occupation army, but it will be horrific for the displaced Palestinians. The slaughter will go beyond anything and everything we have seen so far anywhere in Gaza.

Where will up to 1.5 million people go when Israel’s tanks arrive? The closest so-called safe area is Al-Mawasi, which is already overcrowded. The displaced refugees there are also starving due to Israel’s blocking of aid and constant bombing of humanitarian convoys.

Then there is northern Gaza, which is mostly in ruins. It has no food to the extent that, in some areas, even animal feed, which is now being consumed by human beings, is no longer accessible.

If the international community does not finally develop the will to stop Israel, this horrific crime will prove to be worse by far than all the crimes that have already been committed by the occupation forces. It is expected that more than 100,000 Palestinians will be killed or wounded in Rafah alone.

However, an invasion of Rafah promises neither military nor strategic victory for Israel, just slaughter. Netanyahu simply wants to satisfy the bloodlust across the occupation state. Even though their armed forces have killed 30,000 Palestinians so far, and wounded 70,000, Israelis still want more revenge. “I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza,” said Israel’s Minister of Social Equality May Golan during a Knesset session on 21 February.

At the start of the war, Israel claimed that Hamas was concentrated mostly in the north of Gaza. The north was duly destroyed, but the Resistance carried on unabated. Then Israel claimed that the Resistance headquarters was under Shifa Hospital, which was bombed, raided and destroyed. Then it claimed that Bureij, Maghazi and central Gaza were the main prizes of the war. Then, Khan Younis was declared the “capital of Hamas”. And so it has gone on and on…

The Resistance has not been defeated, and the alleged “Hamas capital” has shifted conveniently from one city to another, even from one neighbourhood to another.

Now, the same ridiculous claims and unsubstantiated allegations are being made about Rafah, where most of Gaza’s population was ordered to go by Israel, in total despair, if they wanted to survive the onslaught.

Israel had hoped that the Palestinians would rush to leave Gaza in their hundreds of thousands and go to the Sinai Desert. They didn’t. Then Israeli leaders, like far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, spoke of “voluntary migration” as the “right humanitarian solution”. Still, the Palestinians stayed put. Now, the Israelis have agreed on the invasion of Rafah; it’s just a matter of time, in a last-ditch effort to orchestrate another Palestinian Nakba.

But another Nakba will not happen. Palestinians will not allow it to happen.

Ultimately, Netanyahu’s and Israel’s political madness must come to an end. Moreover, the world cannot persist in its cowardly inaction. The lives of millions of Palestinians are dependent on our collective push to stop this genocide immediately.

February 26, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

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