American Foreign Policy Seems to Have Nowhere to Go
Just like the caged-up Palestinians
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 15, 2024
Over the past four months I have carried out my daily morning scan of the major online news websites increasingly concerned over what I would be seeing given the mainstream media’s reluctance to report honestly and the persistent management by government propaganda mills of what is leaked to the journalists. News regarding what is taking place with Russia-Ukraine suffered initially as the war turned sharply in Moscow’s favor late last year, so much so that the likely outcome is only being challenged on neocon dominated sites like American Enterprise Institute, Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the National Review. President Joe Biden and team are now only struggling to raise $61 billion for Volodymyr Zelensky to prolong the conflict through the US election later this year so Biden can appear to be a strong “wartime” president fighting hard to defend the United States from the threatening Red Hordes. That the money will essentially drop down the hole of Ukrainian corruption seems to bother no one in the White House, but the game goes on with Biden saying “This bipartisan bill sends a clear message to Ukrainians and to our partners and to our allies around the world: America can be trusted, America can be relied upon, and America stands up for freedom. We stand strong for our allies. We never bow down to anyone, and certainly not to Vladimir Putin. So, let’s get on with this… Are [we] going to side with terror and tyranny? Are [we] going to stand with Ukraine, or are [we] going to stand with Putin? Will we stand with America or – or with Trump?” The president is also currently pumping the line that he is somehow saving or protecting “democracy.” The fact that Ukraine, banning political parties and even religious groups and the Russian language, is no democracy does not seem to impact on the narrative. And don’t forget how the Zelensky government recently murdered American journalist Gonzalo Lira for his exercising freedom of the press!
Biden argues that standing by America’s “allies,” even when they are not actual allies, is essential to maintain confidence in the United States and its leadership mission to create a “rules based international order” and thereby save the world. Beyond Ukraine, there is, of course, America’s “best friend” and “greatest ally” Israel which also is no democracy as Palestinian citizens have limited rights, with those living on the Israeli army occupied West Bank having effectively no protection from being arrested arbitrarily or even shot on sight by rampaging soldiers and settlers, who fear no consequences for killing and robbing Arabs because there are no consequences. The bombing of Gaza into the stone age continues with hardly any coverage in the mainstream media as if it is an atrocity that will disappear from the collective conscience if no one refers to it in spite of the rows of dead women and children. The US and European media meanwhile blithely report every new “Hamas atrocity” promoted by the habitually lying Israeli Army (IDF) as if it were the truth while Biden is pulling out the stops to provide the cash ($14 billion) and weapons to enable the IDF to kill more Palestinians while at the same time mock-mourning the slaughter of the innocents that is taking place. The ghastly death toll is a direct result of Joe’s lack of any action to force the Israelis to change course, which he has the leverage to do with a phone call to Benjamin Netanyahu threatening to cut off the cash, arms and political support. But the administration has made plain that it has no intention to do anything like that.
But even given all of that excitement last week there is one story that stands out, the video of former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo in Israel grinning and dancing with celebrating Israeli soldiers, who presumably have just returned from Gaza after having had the pleasure of blasting a few more score of civilians, including a large percentage of children. The Israeli Army’s latest stunt is to position snipers and tanks around the last functioning major medical facility in Rafah district in the south of Gaza, the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. The Palestinians trying to survive in Gaza were previously ordered by Israel to go to Rafah where they would be “safe” but it was a self-serving lie and the military then proceeded to bomb and shoot civilians, even when they were trying to surrender, and also destroying infrastructure like hospitals and schools to make the area uninhabitable. The army snipers have now joined in the fun by shooting Gaza’s doctors and patients inside the building and on the grounds to force Nasser Hospital to evacuate and shut down. They followed up on the shooting gallery by storming the hospital, allegedly in search of “hostages.” It is all part of what is developing as Netanyahu has announced that the ground invasion of Rafah will soon begin even though the encaged Palestinians, who are already starving due to the Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid, have nowhere to go and many more thousands will die one way or another.
As a taste of what is to come that is even more bizarre than what has already transpired, Israel’s “most moral army in the world” has now also gone into the entertainment business. It has begun to invite groups of Israeli civilians into detention centers and prisons that have been holding West Bank Palestinian prisoners as well as detainees from the Gaza Strip. The civilians are able to observe the detainees, stripped to their underwear, and laugh and jeer as the men are being beaten, humiliated and tortured, with many of the viewers also allowed to film what is happening on their own cell phones to share with their friends and families. Mike Pompeo, who is a Christian Zionist of dispensationalist persuasion, believes that the former Palestine belongs to the Israelis because it says so in the Bible, which he has carefully “studied.” He also, while Trump’s Secretary of State, declared that the US no longer regards the illegal Israeli settlements on the West Bank as “illegal” and he similarly approved of the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights as perfectly acceptable under international law, which it is not. Wonder what Mike as a self-identified pious Christian thinks about all those dead and mutilated Palestinian babies if he ever chooses to think about it at all?
Also in the running for god-awful narrative of the week was a piece claiming that the successful first step by way of a majority vote in the House of Representatives to bring about the richly deserved impeachment of Department of Homeland Security’s ghastly Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday was the result of an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” because he is a “Sephardic Jew,” not due to his own incompetence which he has been demonstrating regularly for the past three years. The deep hole of depression that I crawled into as I watched the fat twerp Pompeo cavorting while the midget Mayorkas touted his Jewish credentials drove me to rethink the whole issue of US foreign and national security policy. I came to the conclusion that the players are caricatures and it should not be taken seriously and should instead be regarded as a comedy routine, something like Monty Python but terribly lethal and without the intelligence and wit of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman.
To be sure the Biden administration can always be counted upon to produce a laugh, particularly when it brings on the clowns named Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, Karine Jean-Pierre and Jake Sullivan. There has been a lot of funny stuff lately, most particularly the chatter about a solution to the Palestinian genocide, even though Biden seems quite comfortable to let the Israelis finish their ethnic cleansing of Gaza before anyone looks for a place willing acquire two million more stateless and homeless Palestinians. Former presidential aspirant and totally owned Zionist stooge Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has already declared that no Palestinians should be allowed into the US as refugees as they are “antisemites.”
Nevertheless, Biden and Blinken’s State Department want to come up with some kind of formula, if only because the worldwide blowback due to the White House’s unflinching support for Israeli brutality has begun to have consequences as it constitutes complicity in crimes against humanity. Some kind of limited sovereignty, disarmed for sure, allowed to Palestine is envisioned but Netanyahu and his political allies, long opposed to a two-state solution, have recently repeatedly rejected proposals for any Palestinian sovereign entity. Israel is even now using its formidable lobby and international press/narrative control to work assiduously against any diplomatic recognition of a Palestinian state by individual countries or as a full member at the UN. Not surprisingly, the greatest effort to keep things on track is being directed against voices raised in support of Palestine in the United States. Biden is listening to be sure and is having both Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan carefully coordinate every step the administration takes with the Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs and former ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer. Even though Israel and Netanyahu definitely hold the whip hand, the president is nevertheless inevitably looking over his shoulder and is fearful of alienation of voters with the national election coming up if the carnage in Gaza continues. Not for the first time the endless farce of US internal politics will likely at least somewhat influence what eventually takes place in countries six thousand miles away. And given Biden’s propensity to avoid doing the right thing, one can be pretty sure that the result won’t be pretty!
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Germany’s interior minister: ‘No one who donates to a right-wing extremist party should remain undetected’
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is demanding more power to target the bank accounts of Germans accused of funding “right-wing extremists.”
By John Cody | Remix News | February 15, 2024
With one phrase, controversial German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser highlighted just how far the German government is willing to go to stamp out its main opposition with a new law.
“No one who donates to a right-wing extremist party should remain undetected,” warned the 53-year-old while announcing a new crackdown on bank accounts and funding for political groups, which notably is believed to include the opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“Those who mock the state must deal with a strong state,” she added.
The SPD politician presented her new plan together with President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) Thomas Haldenwang and Federal Criminal Police Office head Holger Münch. Under the title “Resolutely combating right-wing extremism,” Faeser presented 13 new measures, with a special focus on targeting those who fund her party’s political rivals.
“The BfV is communicating closely with the financial sector in order to sensitize it to the problems of financial flows and transactions in connection with right-wing extremism.”
She also said that right-wing extremist networks should be prosecuted in the same way as members of organized crime. To achieve her goals, she wants a new law passed and soon.
“The German Bundestag should pass the law quickly,” said Faeser. In addition, the law would “combat hate on the internet, (…) remove enemies of the constitution from public service (and) disarm right-wing extremists.”
Undoubtedly, the government made the announcement with an eye on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which continues its surge in popular support despite a media and government campaign aimed at the party. In fact, the latest Insa poll shows the party back over 20 percent after briefly dropping below this mark earlier this month. The results are sure to have alarmed the government, as the relentless propaganda drive against the party has failed to have the desired effect.
In several German states, the domestic intelligence agency, the Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has already labeled the AfD a “definitive case of right-wing extremism,” which means the party is already subject to extreme surveillance. Now, the government may be able to leverage this designation to target those who donate to the party after revising the current law.
It remains unclear how such targeting would work and what kind of penalties would be directed at someone who donates to a right-wing party or organization; however, Faeser said the BfV would handle the specifics of tracking and targeting donors.
As Remix News reported, the BfV has become the political arm of the left-liberal establishment, and rival parties to their power are being actively targeted by the powerful agency.
Currently, such monitoring is subject to stringent approvals and a high threshold. However, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, under the new law, would no longer have to prove incitement or violence, but only “risk potential,” which leaves far more room for interpretation.
Epstein victims sue FBI
RT | February 15, 2024
A dozen victims of Jeffrey Epstein have sued the FBI, alleging that the agency failed to properly investigate the notorious sex offender. They claim that the FBI sat on reports about Epstein’s activities for two decades, allowing the victims to be “trafficked, abused, raped, tortured and threatened.”
The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in New York on Wednesday by 12 women, all of whom are referred to in the document as anonymous Jane Does.
“For over two decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation permitted Jeffrey Epstein to sex traffic and sexually abuse scores of children and young women by failing to do the job the American people expected of it,” the complaint alleges. “As a result of the continued failures of the FBI, Jane Does 1-12 bring this lawsuit to get to the bottom – once and for all – of the FBI’s role in Epstein’s criminal sex trafficking ring.”
According to the lawsuit, the FBI began receiving tips, reports, and complaints about Epstein’s alleged trafficking and abuse of minors in 1996, but failed to open a case or share this information with other law enforcement agencies. The FBI eventually opened a case in 2006, two years before Epstein pleaded guilty to a child prostitution charge in Florida.
A controversial plea deal saw Epstein register as a sex offender and serve 13 months on supervised release in lieu of a possible life sentence. Despite the fact that he had been convicted for one offense and dodged a litany of other sex-trafficking charges, the FBI continued to ignore tips that flowed in over the next decade, the lawsuit claims.
“As a direct and proximate cause of the FBI’s negligence, plaintiffs would not have been continued to be sex trafficked, abused, raped, tortured and threatened,” the complaint said.
Epstein was eventually arrested in 2019 and charged with the trafficking of dozens of minors. He died awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail cell a month later, with his death officially ruled a suicide. Epstein’s girlfriend and “madam,” Ghislaine Maxwell, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for child sex trafficking in 2022.
According to testimony from victims, Epstein and Maxwell recruited girls to perform sexual acts on themselves and their rich and powerful associates, and instructed these girls to recruit additional victims. Among the powerful men accused of abusing the girls was Britain’s Prince Andrew, who settled out of court with an accuser in 2022.
The plaintiffs behind the latest lawsuit are seeking an unspecified amount in compensation and damages from the US government.
The FBI has already been accused of negligence in its handling of the Epstein case. In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in December, agency Director Christopher Wray was asked why the FBI didn’t do more to stop the notorious pedophile. Wray promised to conduct an internal investigation to “figure out if there is more information we can provide.”
Israel transfers Marwan Barghouti to solitary for planning uprising, media reports
MEMO | February 15, 2024
Israel’s Channel 13 reported yesterday that the occupation’s prison administration transferred prominent Fatah leader, prisoner Marwan Barghouti, to solitary confinement.
It said that the prison administration “took measures against Barghouti claiming he is pushing for escalating resistance in the West Bank.”
It explained that “Barghouti was transferred from Ofer Prison to solitary confinement in another prison,” without specifying which prison, after the prison administration “received information that Barghouti is encouraging the escalation of acts of resistance against the occupation in the West Bank.”
The occupation authorities claimed that “Barghouti is working through several channels to break out a Third Intifada in the West Bank, due to the continued Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.”
Barghouti is a prominent politician and leader in the Fatah movement. He participated in the First Intifada in 1987 and was one of the most prominent faces of the Second Intifada in 2000. He was arrested and exiled on several occasions and was subjected to failed Israeli assassination attempts. He has been sentenced to five life sentences and has been held in detention since 2002.
In spite of his incarceration he has a large following and numerous polls show that, should Palestinian elections be held, he would likely be chosen president of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Israeli troops launch ‘massive incursion’ into south Gaza hospital
The Cradle | February 15, 2024
Israeli forces stormed Al-Nasser Hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis on 15 February, which had been besieged by the invading troops for several weeks.
“Israel’s military stormed Nasser Hospital and turned it into a military outpost. The Israeli military destroyed the ambulance station and tents of displaced civilians and bulldozed over [mass] graves in the courtyard of the hospital,” the Gaza Health Ministry announced.
Displaced Palestinians inside the hospital were “forcibly evacuated” on 14 January before a “massive incursion” on Thursday morning, which began under intense shelling, the ministry added.
Al-Jazeera reported “heavy tank and machine-gun fire as the Israeli army entered Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis after ordering occupants to evacuate this morning.”
Intensive care patients were forced to move into one of the hospital’s older buildings, which was not equipped to care for them.
“The Israeli occupation forces the administration of Nasser Medical Complex to keep intensive care patients without medical staff, which puts their lives in grave danger,” Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
According to hospital officials, seven patients were hit by Israeli fire, and one of them was killed.
The Israeli military claimed on 15 January it had “credible evidence” that Hamas kept prisoners inside Al-Nasser Hospital and that their remains may still be in the facility.
However, Hebrew media reported on Thursday that “expectations regarding finding corpses of Israeli detainees at Nasser Hospital must be lowered.”
Tel Aviv also claimed Hamas operatives involved in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood were hiding in the hospital. The Israeli army entered Khan Yunis in early December, laying siege to the southern city’s hospitals.
Over the past week, dozens of Palestinians have been shot and killed by Israeli snipers in the vicinity of Al-Nasser Hospital, including those who were trying to leave the facility.
The Israeli army stormed Khan Yunis’ Al-Amal Hospital at the start of this month.
Tel Aviv has been conducting a military campaign against hospitals in Gaza with the aim of making the strip uninhabitable for Palestinians. In November, north Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital was besieged, stormed, and transformed into a detention center by Israeli troops.
Israeli forces are now preparing to push further south into Rafah but are still facing fierce resistance from Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other resistance groups in Khan Yunis.
The unrepentant West: Olaf Scholz and the right to commit genocide in Gaza
By Dr Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | February 14, 2024
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Washington on an official visit on 8 February aimed at working jointly with the United States to make “sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.” If such a statement was made soon after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, the logic would be more obvious, not least because of the well-known, inherent bias of both Washington and Berlin towards Israel. Scholz made his visit and statement, however, on the 125th day of one of the bloodiest, most well-publicised genocides in modern history.
The purpose of the visit was highlighted in a press conference by White House spokesperson John Kirby, even though, hours later, US President Joe Biden admitted that Israel has gone “over the top” in its response to the Hamas attack.
If killing and wounding more than 100,000 civilians, and counting, is Israel’s version of self-defence, then both Scholz and Biden have done a splendid job in ensuring that the apartheid state has everything it needs to carry out its bloody mission. However, in this context, who is entitled to act in self-defence, Israel or Palestine?
On a recent visit to a hospital in a Middle Eastern country, which must remain nameless as a precondition of my visit, I witnessed the most horrific sights that one could ever see. Scores of limbless Palestinian children, some still fighting for their lives, some badly burned and others in a coma.
Those who were able to use their hands had drawn Palestinian flags to hang on the walls beside their hospital beds. Some wore SpongeBob T-shirts and others had hats with Disney characters on them. They were pure, innocent, and very much Palestinian.
A couple of children flashed the victory sign as soon as we said our goodbyes. They wanted to communicate to the world that they remain strong and that they know exactly who they are and where they come from. The children, though, are far too young to understand the legal and political context of their strong feelings towards their homeland.
UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 (XXIX), for example, “affirmed the inalienable right of the Palestinian people in Palestine (…), the right to self-determination, (and) the right to national independence and sovereignty.” The phrase “Palestinian right to self-determination” is perhaps the most frequently uttered in relation to Palestine and the Palestinian struggle since the establishment of the UN. On 26 January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) also affirmed what we already know, that Palestinians are a distinct “national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
Those injured Palestinian children do not need legal jargon or political slogans to locate themselves. The right to live without fear of extermination, without bombs and without military occupation is a natural right, requiring no legal arguments and unfazed by racism, hate speech or propaganda.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a world built upon common sense. It’s built on topsy-turvy legal and political systems that exist only to cater for the strong. In this parallel world, Scholz is more concerned about Israel being able to “defend itself” than a besieged Palestinian population, starving, bleeding, yet unable to achieve any tangible measure of justice.
Israel doesn’t actually have the right to claim “self-defence” when the people living under its brutal military occupation stand up for themselves and say enough is enough.
Moreover, those carrying out acts of colonial aggression — and settler-colonial occupation itself is a de facto act of aggression — should not demand that their victims refrain from fighting back.
Palestinians have been victimised by Israeli colonialism, military occupation, racist apartheid, siege and now genocide. As such, for Israel to invoke Article 51, Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations makes a mockery of international law. Article 51, often used by the major powers to justify their wars and military interventions, was designed with a completely different legal spirit in mind.
Article 2 (4) of Chapter I in the UN Charter prohibits the “threat or use of force in international relations.” It also “calls on all Members to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other states.” Given that Israel is in violation of Article 2 (4), it simply has no right to invoke Article 51.
In November 2012, Palestine was recognised as an Observer State at the UN. It is also a member of countless international treaties, and is recognised by 139 countries out of the 193 UN member states.
Even if we accept the argument that the UN Charter only applies to full UN members, the Palestinian right to self-defence can still be established under international law. In 1960, General Assembly Declaration No. 1594 guaranteed independence to colonised nations and people. Although it did not discuss the right of the colonised to use force, it condemned the use of force against liberation movements.
In 1964, the UN General Assembly voted in favour of Resolution No. 2105, which recognised the legitimacy of the “struggle” of colonised nations to exercise their right to self-determination.
In 1973, the Assembly passed Resolution 38/17 of 1983. The language, this time, was unambiguous; people have the right to struggle against colonial foreign domination by all possible means, including armed struggle.
The same dynamics that ruled the UN in its early days continue to this day, where Western countries, which represented the bulk of all colonial powers in the past, continue to give themselves a monopoly over the use of force. Conversely, the Global South, which has suffered under the yoke of those Western regimes, insists that it, too, has the right to defend itself against foreign intervention, colonialism, military occupation and apartheid.
While Scholz was in Washington to discuss yet more ways to kill Palestinian civilians, the government of Nicaragua made an official request to join South Africa in its effort to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide in Gaza.
It is interesting how the colonisers and the colonised continue to build relations and solidarity around the same old principles. The Global South is, again, rising in solidarity with the Palestinians, while countries in the North, with a few exceptions, continue to support Israeli oppression.
Just before I left the aforementioned hospital, a wounded child handed me a drawing. It featured several images, stacked one on top of the other, as if the little boy was creating a timeline of events that led to his injury: a tent, with him inside; an Israeli soldier shooting a Palestinian; prison bars, with his father inside; and, finally, a Palestinian fighter holding a flag.
He knows who he is. He knows where he comes from. And he knows where he belongs. He will never forget.
Egypt builds ‘buffer zone’ in Sinai as 1.4 million Gazans face displacement: Report
The Cradle | February 15, 2024
The Egyptian government has started building an “isolated security zone” in the eastern Sinai Desert on the border with the Gaza Strip that would serve as a buffer zone for Palestinian refugees if they are forced out of Rafah by the Israeli army, according to the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.
Local contractors told the rights group that the construction work was commissioned by the Sons of Sinai Construction and Building Company, owned by businessman Ibrahim al-Arjani, a former warlord from the Tarabin tribe in northern Sinai who holds close ties with the family of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
The construction work aims to “create an area surrounded by walls seven meters high, after removing the rubble of indigenous homes that had been destroyed.” The construction is expected to be completed in under 10 days and is supervised by the Egyptian Armed Forces Engineering Authority, with a heavy security presence.
“This morning, the Foundation’s team … monitored the construction of a seven-meter-high cement wall, starting from a point in the village of Goz Abu Waad, south of the city of Rafah, and heading north toward the Mediterranean Sea, parallel to the border with the Gaza Strip,” the Sinai Foundation said on 14 February.
“The construction work seen in Sinai along the border with Gaza – the establishment of a reinforced security perimeter around a specific, open area of land – are serious signs that Egypt may be preparing to accept and allow the displacement of Gazans to Sinai, in coordination with Israel and the United States,” Muhannad Sabry, a researcher in Sinai affairs and security in Egypt, told the Sinai Foundation.
Earlier this month, Egyptian journalist Ahmed el-Madhoun shared a video showing workers strengthening the security wall separating Egypt and Gaza. Since the outbreak of the war on 7 October, Cairo has constructed a concrete border topped with barbed wire and extending six meters into the ground.
Cairo recently boosted its military presence on the Gaza border, citing fears of a spillover of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign onto its territory once the ground invasion of Rafah begins. Western media has also quoted Egyptian officials as saying that the government considered suspending the 1978 Camp David Accords if Palestinians were forcibly displaced into the Sinai Desert.
Nevertheless, Israel’s Army Radio reported over the weekend that Cairo informed Tel Aviv that they will not object to a military operation in Rafah as long as it is conducted without harming Palestinian civilians. Other Israeli outlets, as well as the New York Times, have reported Egyptian officials expressing fears that any influx of Palestinians could lead to a resurgence of “Islamist militancy.”
Israeli officials have repeatedly made clear their desire not only to defeat Hamas but also to force Gaza’s 2.3 million citizens to flee to Egypt or other countries as refugees. Those statements coincided with explicit plans to annex Gaza and build settlements for Israeli Jews over destroyed Palestinian homes.
Israeli settler groups and Knesset members recently held a conference to discuss building Jewish settlements in Gaza once its indigenous inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed.
Australia regime threatens X with “big trouble” if It doesn’t censor “misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | February 14, 2024
Australia’s authorities are once again putting pressure on social media, X this time, threatening that the company will face big fines and “big trouble” in general – unless “mis- and dis-” information is censored.
And, it is Australia’s new laws, when they come into force this year, that will represent the legal grounds for such actions.
The fines would run up to $3 million or 2 percent of annual turnover for “voluntary code of conduct” violations, and $7.8 million or 5 percent of annual turnover in case of lack of compliance with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) “standards.”
This transpires from an article published by the Financial Review, citing Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, while the motive behind her last crusade is described as “a litany of issues” now allegedly plaguing X.
Rowland went all over the place to accuse X of “not doing enough” – from Taylor Swift deep fakes, to what’s likely a key point of contention – the platform’s decision to reinstate some 6,000 accounts of users previously banned by Twitter.
The thinking here seems to be that if the threat is made ahead of time, X will “align” better with Australia’s politics and agree to once again plunge itself into mass censorship.
The laws Rowland mentioned were drafted in 2023 with the aim of giving broader powers to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, specifically “to combat mis- and disinformation online,” the article said.
The upcoming legislation seeks to produce two effects – the tech industry subjecting itself to a formally voluntary code of conduct, and after this “carrot” comes the stick in the shape of the ACMA’s new powers, fines and punishment, if ACMA’s unhappy with how the code is adhered to.
Rowland added that X at this time “isn’t even covered by a voluntary industry code.” The reason is that X was removed from the code after it stopped the practice of flagging content running against (Twitter’s) “civic integrity policy.”
Elsewhere in Australia’s media scene, some are asking why the country’s government “hates Elon Musk.”
“It is about $300 million that Musk owes the Australian government so far,” wondered Sky News host James Macpherson. And by “owes” – he meant, the fines Australia has tried collecting from X even before the latest threats.
Palestinian arrests in West Bank exceed 7,000 since 7 October
(Photo Credit: Anadolu Ajansı)
The Cradle | February 14, 2024
The number of Israeli arrests in the West Bank since 7 October has risen to around 7,020, multiple institutions concerned with the rights of detained Palestinians reported on 13 February.
According to the human rights groups, 18 arrests were made in the West Bank overnight, including two women from Jericho alongside other children and former prisoners.
Overnight arrests made by the Israeli forces were mainly carried out in Hebron and Qalqiliya, while other arrests were made across Jericho, Nablus, Jerusalem, and Ramallah.
The Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), and the Addameer Prisoner Care and Human Rights Association released a joint statement revealing that the total number of arrests – including individuals from the 1948 territories – amounted to approximately 220 women and 440 children.
The number reported includes those arrested in their homes, at military checkpoints, those taken hostage, and those forced to surrender under pressure.
The statement added that 53 journalists had been detained since 7 October – 36 of whom remain imprisoned – with 21 others under administrative detention without charge or trial.
The detention campaigns are accompanied by escalating instances of abuse, beatings, and threats against the detainees and their family members. This includes the destruction of homes as well as the confiscation of vehicles, money, and jewelry.
They also reported executions targeting members of detainees’ families.
The data given by the prisoner rights groups does not include those arrested from Gaza due to Israel’s refusal to disclose such information.
The total number of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons is estimated to exceed 9,000 individuals. Among them, there are 3,484 administrative detainees and 606 individuals classified as “illegal fighters” from Gaza.
WHO’s Fooling Who? The one who gives the orders is the sovereign.
Tedros slams us for lies but it’s all projection: here’s the documentary proof it is the WHO that is lying
BY MERYL NASS | FEBRUARY 12, 2024
The WHO lawyers are trying to play us, saying the nations are sovereign because they still make the laws. What the WHO omits saying is that under the Treaty and proposed IHR Amendments, nations will be forced to pass the laws that the WHO tells them to pass. Examples of this and other word games below.
First the treaty tells you that unhindered, timely access to information is a general principle. Then it adds the caveat that transparency means open access to “accurate” information.
Then a few pages later the treaty demands that nations perform “infodemic management”—which requires not only censorship, but also surveillance of everyone’s social media footprint, so the nation will know who and what to censor. This violates both the First and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution.
Not only that, but the censorship should be performed with international collaboration—so all nations can target the same misinformation spreaders and there will be nowhere to hide. Finally, they want to make sure you Trust the(ir) Science.
Below, the treaty is forced to admit that the so-called sovereignty that Tedros claims we will retain— the ability to pass laws—will in fact be subject to the orders of the WHO.
The WHO treaty draft requires that every nation pass laws to legalize Emergency Use Authorizations, so that unlicensed vaccines can be given to populations during a WHO-declared pandemic. You know, like a Monkeypox pandemic. There are no standards required and the WHO Director-General can declare any pandemic whenever he wants. Then the needles come out.
The WHO also demands that nations pass the laws needed to remove all liability from these untested and potentially deadly vaccines. Who’s sovereign now?
So you see, the WHO has just played a bunch of word games and they intended for us to be the suckers and go along, ignorant. So long as the Treaty and IHR Amendments still let nations make laws, the WHO insists on calling us sovereign. But the real sovereign is the one ordering that laws be passed. That’s the real power. Why would anyone give that up to the WHO, especially when its Director-General is a puppet for Bill Gates, is not a real doctor, and has been accused of withholding food and hiding 3 cholera epidemics to kill members of competing tribes in his native Ethiopia, when he was the #3 top official there? Do you really think he cares about your health during a pandemic?
So you can wait idly by as these treaties move ahead, or you can say ‘Hell No!’ and put on your big girl panties and decide you have finally had enough. Which will it be?
GMO denounces targeting two members of Al-Jazeera team in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza
Palestinian Information Center – February 13, 2024
GAZA – The Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli targeting of the Al-Jazeera Arabic news crew for the fifth time, leading to the serious injury of the channel’s correspondent and cameraman in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza Strip.
The GMO said, in a statement on Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes targeted Al-Jazeera’s reporter Ismail Abu Omar and cameraman Ahmed Matar, stressing that “the Israeli occupation army has deliberately targeted the channel’s teams for the fifth time in a row in a complete crime in violation of the international law.”
Journalist Abu Omar has had his right leg and some fingers amputated, in addition to other various wounds. His colleague Matar sustained various injuries, as well.
The GMO pointed out that since October 7, the Israeli occupation army has killed 128 journalists, arrested 10, and injured many others, stressing that this indicates that journalists have become targets of the Israeli occupation army.
The GMO called on press unions, media agencies, and human rights groups to denounce this crime and to pressure Israel to stop targeting journalists and to halt its genocidal war against civilians.
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From the Archives
Mutually Assured Delusion (MAD)
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | November 5, 2013
Groupthink: A pattern of thought charaterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics.
Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets, by Roland Benabou, published in the Review of Economic Studies. Benabou also has a talk (ppt slides) on this subject.
First, a definition of groupthink (from the ppt slides):
Janis (1972)’s eight symptoms [of groupthink]:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Sound like any groups that we know? … continue
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