#BREAKING| Media coverage: "Sharing jokes and goodbyes… Al Qassam Brigades has released a new video of the 6th batch of the Israeli detainees in #Gaza." pic.twitter.com/cVzTHoEp3h
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) November 29, 2023
How do Palestinians in the West Bank view the truce and the prisoner exchange deal?
Palestinians stage a demonstration on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Ramallah, West Bank on November 29, 2023 [İssam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency]
By Fareed Taamallah | MEMO | November 30, 2023
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are following the truce in Gaza with great interest and hope. This is due primarily to their wish to help stop the destruction and genocide against their fellow Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They feel powerless to get humanitarian aid and medicine into the besieged territory, and the hope is that the truce turns into a long and sustained ceasefire.
Despite its importance, there are other dimensions to the truce that are equally important. The truce represents a halt, even if only temporary, of the occupation army achieving what it wants by force, namely the destruction of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement; the destruction of the Gaza Strip; and the recovery of Israeli captives held by Hamas.
There were more than 5,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons before 7 October. A further 3,300 have been detained since then, including 170 since the truce came into force. Six have been killed in prison by the brutal Israeli prison system since 7 October. Around 1,000 Palestinian prisoners are serving life sentences and hundreds have spent decades behind bars. The Palestinian Authority has been unable to free them through political agreements and negotiations, and they are not expected to be released without a prisoner exchange deal.
Palestinians believe that women and children held by Israel who are from the West Bank and Jerusalem and were freed under the current exchange deal are evidence of the unity of the Palestinian people and their struggle against the occupation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. If the reports are true about the possibility of including for the first time Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship, this will carry a symbolism no less important than the above.
There are mixed feelings of joy at the liberation of our women and children, and extreme sadness at the blood price that Palestinians, specifically the people of Gaza, are paying for their freedom. These mixed emotions are with us in the West Bank every night as we await the release of a new batch of detainees. We all know that we want to defy the ban imposed by Israel on any celebrations of their release. The desire to challenge the occupation thus joins the other emotions.
The issue of prisoners held by Israel is a central and emotional issue for the Palestinians; it is an issue in every Palestinian home, because there is hardly any Palestinian family without one or more of its members having tasted the bitterness of captivity and the brutality of arrest. The release of prisoners has great popular support, and this is understood by Hamas as it strives to make freedom a reality. The people of the West Bank view with pride the ability of the resistance not only to thwart Israel’s deterrence policy, but also to impose conditions in exchange for a truce. This is seen as a victory, even if small and temporary, in exchange for the massive destruction and killing in the Gaza Strip. It confirms the unity of the fate of Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip which the Israeli occupation has been trying to tear apart for decades.
Palestinians and the rest of the world can see evidence of the humane treatment provided by the resistance in Gaza to the Israeli prisoners, and compare it with the evidence of Israeli oppression, beatings and torture meted out to Palestinians held by the apartheid state. Freed Palestinians tell of harassment and deprivation of basic rights alongside the beating of Palestinian prisoners, including children and women.
Many are surprised to learn that Israel imprisons Palestinian children. I was one of those minors detained by Israel. In 1991, I was arrested and tortured by the Israeli security services and interrogated in prison in very bad conditions. Children and women are often held for many years and in many cases without charges or trial and in difficult conditions. It is only after Israelis have been captured that the world has started to talk about them.
We Palestinians in the West Bank understand, of course, that the temporary truce will not lead to an end to the killing and arrest of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel has killed about 20 Palestinians during the truce alone, and arrested more than 170 in the areas supposedly under the security responsibility of the Palestinian Authority. The PA has peace agreements and security coordination with Israel that are supposed to stop such daily killings. The number arrested in the West Bank, by the way, almost matches the number of Palestinians freed so far under the truce deal.
Israel works to undermine the PA and any ambitions for Palestinian unity between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The authority has not succeeded in negotiations to stop settlement activity and has been unable, despite its international connections, to prevent the ongoing killing of Palestinians on a daily basis. For ten years, the PA has not been able to free any Palestinian prisoner through negotiations with Israel, even though President Mahmoud Abbas stated more than once his firm position that, “There will be no peace as long as there is a single prisoner behind bars.”
The last prisoner exchange took place in 2011 in the so-called Gilad Shalit deal, which stipulated the release of more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Hamas releasing the captured Israeli soldier. A large number of them included those whom Israel had refused to release as a gesture of good faith with the PA before, on the pretext that they all had “blood on their hands”.
Intentionally or not, the message that Israel sends to the Palestinians is that it does not give anything away for free, or as a “gesture of good faith”. It is clear that the only way to liberate Palestinian prisoners is solely through exchange deals between the resistance and the occupation state.
Ontario Cop Appeals Conviction For Freedom Convoy Donation
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | November 29, 2023
Constable Michael Brisco, a highly respected officer of the Windsor Police Service, found his professional reputation threatened for making an online donation to a protest in support of civil liberties.
Armed with no previous disciplinary records, Brisco has been thrust into a legal tussle over his $50 donation to the Ottawa Freedom Convoy’s peaceful protest via GiveSendGo on February 8, 2022.
Get the background on this case here.
Importantly, this occurred within the permissible boundaries set by an Ontario Superior Court Judge, allowing people to participate in the protest in Ottawa, provided their advocacy did not include honking. Brisco, who chose to fund the peaceful protest anonymously and not in his capacity as a police officer, now finds his actions punished.
The crux of this issue surfaced when the GiveSendGo donor list was compromised and fell into the possession of the Ontario Provincial Police Service.
Brisco’s name was flagged in the data breach and subsequently forwarded to the Windsor Police Service, gently illustrating the porous safety afforded by digital privacy. Brisco now stands accused of what the Windsor Police Service deems “discreditable conduct.”
Brisco’s legal team maintains their client’s donation was not evidence of his support for the Ambassador Bridge blockade in Windsor, Ontario. They argue the prosecution’s attempts to link Brisco’s anonymous contribution with allegedly unlawful protests was threadbare, relying solely on newspaper commentaries by several officials, including Ontario’s premier and the prime minister. Specifically, no video, photograph, or indisputable evidence supports the accusations against Brisco.
Get more information on this case at the Justice Center For Constitutional Freedoms.
Trudeau Supports Partnership With EU For Digital ID Push, Suggests it Will Help Curb Online “Disinformation”
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | November 28, 2023
Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, a proponent of centralized control, has finalized a controversial collaborative digital partnership with the European Union. This agreement exhibits full commitment to the introduction of a digital identity system in Canada and the government is pursuing it, in part, under the guise of fighting online “disinformation.”
The Trudeau government’s announcement delineates the terms of the Canada-EU Digital Partnership, which aims not only to institute digital credentials for Canadians but also to bolster cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).
The contentious partnership insists on a joint effort from Canada and the EU to bolster their respective bilateral and multilateral cooperation in forums like the G7 and the G20.
“The Digital Partnership will allow Canada and the EU to have a stronger common voice in multilateral fora, where appropriate, and bring jointly developed solutions to international partners and advance our joint strategic priorities,” the announcement states.
The G20, an influential conglomerate of the globe’s 19 major countries and the EU, has previously encouraged exploring the creation of “digital public infrastructure,” including potential digital identification systems and perhaps even a centralized digital currency.
This “digital public infrastructure” phrase is the same buzzword being used by the likes of The Gates Foundation and the UN, when it comes to pushing digital ID and payment systems.
Alarmingly for many Canadians that support the protection of civil liberties, Trudeau has demonstrated a seemingly unwavering allegiance to this digital ID agenda.
There is no sharing in settler-colonialism, Josep Borrell, only land theft
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 28, 2023
When the so-called humanitarian pause is over, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “We are returning full power to carry out our aims: destroy Hamas, ensure that Gaza won’t return to what it was, and of course to free all of our hostages.” No one ever doubted that, but the international community has descended into further disgrace with its silence over Israel’s next round of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s agreement to the hostage deal served as relatively good publicity, of course: “These incredible images of people being reunited with their families — the humanity of it, the sense of accomplishment of that and the possibility and promise that more and, ultimately, all of the hostages will come home.” This was despite the fact that it is possible that not all Israeli hostages will be freed by the end of the pause.
Those who are left run the risk of becoming part of Israel’s “collateral damage” in the enclave.
Meanwhile, as the focus on Gaza and the pause continues, Israel is ramping up its arrests of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, ensuring that the number of prisoners it releases as part of the deal is negligible in comparison. Since 7 October, Israel has arrested 3,260 Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory.
On top of this, extreme far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is requesting funds for “security and security infrastructure” in the West Bank. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, was “appalled” by this, according to a post on X, in which he described settlements as “Israel’s greatest security liability.” Even so, according to Borrell, Israel and the Palestinians “both have equal and legitimate right to the same land, so they have to share it,” imparting colonialism in the most erroneous way possible.
If Israeli settlements are a liability, they always were, including the early colonial settlements that paved the way for Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. The UN’s differentiation of settlement expansion is merely an excuse to justify Israel’s colonial enterprise and the international community’s recognition of it as a state. For Borrell, and the rest of the EU, sharing the land is equal to enforcing the two-state paradigm, in which, hypothetically, Palestinians get some slivers of land while Israel owns and manages it all.
The scenario unfolding in Gaza should at least prompt Western leaders to reconsider their two-state rhetoric. Netanyahu has stated that Gaza will not return to what it was; that overt threat speaks of the next phase of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the enclave. The entire world has watched Israel kill thousands of Palestinians and displace most of the population of Gaza, while diplomats debated over pauses – “humanitarian”, of course – in accordance with the hypocritical politics they espouse. Is there any consideration in the West for Israel’s genocide about to resume after the pause? How many more Palestinians will Israel kill before it is determined that there is no humanitarianism in this lull which has the world focused on hostages and not the process of settler-colonisation?
Settler-colonialism is not a sharing concept; it is theft. So, when will Borrell and all diplomats and politicians who speak of the two-state compromise face any accountability for encouraging genocide by refusing to acknowledge the reality of Israeli settler-colonialism, which seeks to replace the indigenous population with settlers?
UN: Aid entering Gaza is 5% of what entered before 7 October
MEMO | November 28, 2023
The spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Adnan Abu Hasna, today confirmed that dozens of trucks of aid had entered Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip during the truce.
He said it contains food supplies, drinking water, baby milk, flour, canned goods and various other foodstuffs.
Abu Hasna noted that the volume of humanitarian aid entering through the Rafah crossing is only five per cent of the volume that entered before the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on 7 October.
On average, he explained, 50 trucks are entering the Strip each day, while before the aggression 500, sometimes 600, trucks entered per day.
“What we need is the entry of 200 trucks daily for at least two continuous months in order to respond to the necessary humanitarian needs,” Abu Hasna said. The Rafah crossing alone is not sufficient for the entry of Gaza’s aid needs, he explained, adding that “the only crossing that has the capabilities, mechanisms, and detection devices is the Karam Abu Salem crossing.”
With winter temperatures setting in, Abu Hasna said, “we need bedding, covers and winter clothes, and we are working hard to bring them in or at least open a commercial corridor to bring in goods so that people can buy.”
Israel must stand trial for committing ‘4 core international crimes’ in Gaza: Iran deputy FM
Press TV – November 27, 2023
An Iranian deputy foreign minister says the Israeli regime should be brought to justice for all four core international crimes it committed against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip during its latest large-scale military operation.
Reza Najafi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, made the remarks in the 28th session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Monday.
“During the past eight weeks, the Israeli regime has committed all four core international crimes, namely genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression repeatedly and concurrently,” he said.
“This entails the international responsibility of the Israeli regime and its supporters as well as the individual criminal responsibility of all those who ordered and committed such crimes or facilitated, aided and abetted their commission, including by providing the required means,” he added.
The senior Iranian diplomat emphasized that all those responsible for the crimes against the Gazans shall be held to account and be brought to justice.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7, more than 15,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed only in Gaza while over 6,000 are still missing and more than 36,000 are wounded, Najafi said, adding that over 70 percent of those killed, missing or wounded are women and children.
He reiterated that in addition to these figures, the “horrifying” reports and “heart-breaking” images of Israel’s barbaric invasion once again revealed, clearly and undeniably, the very “murderous” nature of the regime which possesses weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), including chemical weapons in its stockpiles.
Najafi emphasized that Israel’s crimes along with a call by a regime’s minister for dropping even a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip once again proved the serious danger of the Israeli chemical weapons for the regional and international peace and security.
He stressed the importance of making every effort for the speedy universalization of the Chemical Weapons Convention, particularly by compelling the Israeli regime to join it without any precondition or further delay.
Israel is the sole possessor of nukes in the Middle East. The regime, which pursues a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear weapons, is estimated to possess 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.
Unlike Iran, Israel has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and continues its unsupervised nuclear activities with the support of the United States and European countries.
Palestinian surgeon recounts ordeal following Israel’s use of white phosphorus, incendiary bombs in Gaza
Press TV – November 27, 2023
A British-Palestinian surgeon has recounted harrowing healthcare-related ordeals the Palestinian civilians went through during Israel’s onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, which was initiated after Palestinian resistance groups launched Operation al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity, the largest retaliatory attack in decades.
Professor Ghassan Abu Sitta, who traveled with Doctors Without Borders via Egypt to Gaza on 9 October to work in the besieged territory’s hospitals as a surgeon, said in a press conference in London on Monday that he had seen evidence of war crimes, including the use of white phosphorus on civilians.
Sitta, who worked in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals in Gaza, said fragmentary missiles were used by the Israeli occupation army to attack Gaza, causing unique injury patterns and amputations.
At the burns unit in al-Shifa Hospital, he said, some 40 to 45 percent of the wounded were children and the primary target of the Israeli bombing was residential homes.
Stressing that incendiary bombs were used against Palestinian civilians, Sitta said he treated 100 patients with 40% of their body surface area burnt but no other injuries.
“Phosphorus burns burn through to the inner core of the body and only stop when they have no exposure to oxygen,” he added. “So the patient would be puckered with burns that bore right into the ribs, the bones.”
The British-Palestinian surgeon said he “increasingly” saw white phosphorous burn wounds while he worked in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“When the land invasion happened, we started getting patients increasingly from the north with white phosphorous burns,” Sitta told reporters. “Once you’ve seen them you know what they are. The flesh of these patients turns to Swiss cheese, with black burns from phosphorous pellets.”
Sitta underlined that a 15-year-old boy was “showered” with pellets of white phosphorous while running away which left his back with chemical burns.
Israel ‘deliberately’ targets civilians
Speaking at the press conference, the surgeon said the Israeli military “deliberately” targeted civilians in schools, hospitals and places of worship.
“Patients reported the wiping out of entire families and have described them as massacres,” he said, adding that there were between 700 and 900 children with amputations by day five of their visit to Gaza.
Sitta said he had witnessed Palestinian casualties shot by snipers in Gaza and that necessity had forced them to conduct several surgeries without anesthesia, including one on a nine-year-old girl.
At a hospital in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, Sitta also said he witnessed a phone call by the Israeli army to the director of the hospital, who was informed that unless he evacuated within two hours, the hospital would be targeted.
“One of the most horrific scenes I witnessed was when, after an air raid, the dead and the wounded were brought in, members of the staff would be running frantically in the emergency department, looking at the faces of the wounded and the dead to see whether their relatives had been among the dead and the wounded,” he said.
“In many cases their children had been among the dead and the wounded.”
Sitta also said there was a “huge explosion” in another day and “the ceiling in the operating room fell on top of us, luckily I wasn’t injured.”
He added, “The ambulances were on fire, some of the cars were on fire, and the forecourt, which had been lit by fire, was full of bodies and parts of bodies.”
The British-Palestinian surgeon said 160 doctors and nurses lost their lives during the occupation’s aggression on the Gaza Strip.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas conducted Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed nearly 15,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and left vast swathes of the coastal enclave in ruins.
It has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
Separate Tech and State
By Ron Paul | November 27, 2023
Some libertarians dismiss concerns over social media companies’ suppression of news and opinions that contradict select agendas by pointing out that these platforms are private companies, not part of the government. There are two problems with this argument. First, there is nothing unlibertarian about criticizing private businesses or using peaceful and voluntary means, such as boycotts, to persuade businesses to change their practices.
The second and most significant reason the “they are private companies” argument does not hold water is the tech companies’ censorship has often been done at the “request” of government officials. The extent of government involvement with online censorship was revealed in emails between government and employees of various tech companies. In these emails the government officials addressed employees of these “private companies” as though these employees were the government officials’ subordinates.
Government officials using their authority to silence American citizens is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Yet some conservative elected officials and writers think the solution to the problem of big tech censorship is giving government more power over technology companies. These pro-regulation conservatives ignore the fact that it would be just as unconstitutional if a conservative administration was telling tech companies who they must allow to access their platforms as it is when progressives order social media companies to deplatform certain individuals. Furthermore, since the average government official’s political views are closer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than to Marjorie Taylor Greene, giving government more power over social media companies is likely to lead to more online censorship of conservatives.
Instead of giving government more power over social media, defenders of free speech should work to separate tech and state. An excellent place to start is pushing for passage of the Free Speech Protection Act. Unlike other legislation, such as the PATRIOT Act and the Affordable Care Act, this bill is accurately named. Introduced by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, this bill makes it a crime for any federal employee or employee of a federal contractor to use his position to communicate with a social media company to interfere with any American’s exercise of First Amendment protected rights. Violators of this law would face fines of at least 10,000 dollars as well as suspension, demotion, or even termination and a lifetime ban from working with the federal government.
In addition to working to pass the Free Speech Protection Act, those who object to the big technology companies’ “content moderation” policies should abandon big tech for more free speech friendly platforms. Many of the newer social media companies were started to meet the demand for a “content moderation”-free alternative to the dominant companies. Senator Paul himself stopped posting videos on YouTube because of its suppression of free speech. While my Liberty Report still airs on YouTube, its main platform is Rumble. It is wonderful to do a show on any topic I choose without worrying about being canceled.
Big tech censorship is a problem created by big government. The solution lies not with giving government more power but with separating tech and state. Passing the Free Speech Protection Act and making big tech pay a price for cooperating with big government by leaving to use sites like Rumble are two excellent places to start.
White House funding massive phone surveillance program
Press TV – November 27, 2023
US Senator Ron Wyden has expressed “serious concerns about the legality” of a secretive phone surveillance program funded by the White House to track trillions of domestic phone records every year across the United States.
According to a letter sent by Wyden to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, the DAS (Data Analytical Services) program has been collecting information from countless phone calls nationwide.
The mass surveillance program, formerly called Hemisphere, allows officials to simply ask for phone records of not only criminal suspects, but of their spouses, children, parents, and friends.
In the letter, obtained by tech news site Wired, Wyden warned that “troubling information” he had received “would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress.”
“While I have long defended the government’s need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court.”
Hemisphere was first exposed in a New York Times report in 2013. At the time, it was understood that the program was used solely for drug-related investigations.
Four billion new records are being added to its database every day, according Wired.
Wyden’s letter also indicates the program is being used by law enforcement agencies across the country — from local police and sheriff’s departments, all the way up to federal agencies — for any of their investigations.
Germans are assaulted, murdered, and raped in huge numbers by migrants, according to federal crime data
BY JOHN CODY | REMIX NEWS | NOVEMBER 27, 2023
Last year, 47,923 Germans were victims of violent immigrants, according to statistics from the German federal government, with one top police union official describing the data as “frightening.”
This data comes directly from the Federal Criminal Police Office’s (BKA) situation report on serious crimes committed by foreigners who came to the country as refugees and asylum seekers. The troubling figures from the BKA show an 18 percent increase from the previous year. Although foreigners make up a far smaller share of the overall population, around 13 percent, they are committing a tremendous amount of crime against German citizens.
On the other side, 12,061 foreigners were victims of a suspect with German citizenship.
However, it is important to note that Germans in the crime statistics are not exactly ethnic Germans. Everyone with German citizenship, including, for example, ethnic Turks or ethnic Moroccans, is considered German in statistics. So, it is unclear how many of these foreigners were attacked or raped by ethnic Germans and how many were attacked or raped by foreigners who received German citizenship or are the children of first- or second-generation immigrants.
Based on the current data, Germans are four times more likely to be attacked by an immigrant than vice versa.
All of these violent crimes are classified by the BKA as rape, assault, murder, and robbery. When the 47,923 German victims are broken down into specific categories, the data shows that 258 Germans fell victim to murder, attempted murder or manslaughter committed by immigrants, with 38 of these victims dying, while the others survived the attacks. On the other side, 89 immigrants were victims of crimes that involved at least one German perpetrator, with five of them losing their lives.
Those most willing to attack Germans are those whose asylum applications were rejected, along with immigrants from North African countries like Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. While this group makes up only 0.8 percent of migrants, they account for 8.5 percent of all asylum seekers suspected of committing a violent crime.
The chairman of the Federal Police Union, Heiko Teggatz, said the crime data showing the rate of violent crime committed by migrants is “frightening.”
“What many have always suspected has now been proven. There is no more room for whitewashing. The federal and state governments must now act consistently and exhaust all possibilities to deport such criminals,” he said.
Under a new law that would dramatically increase foreigners receiving German citizenship, the country’s crime statistics are expected to become skewed. In fact, many of these foreigners would then be classified as “Germans” in the crime statistics, and if they were to assault a foreigner or another German, they would be listed as a “German” suspect.
Europe worries about the rise of “populism”, but real specter haunting EU is “maidanization”
By Uriel Araujo | November 27, 2023
In the Netherlands, the PVV (Freedom Party), led by controversial politician Geert Wilders, often described as “far-right” and “populist”, won about 37 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. While talks have started to form the new government, Wilders and his party are now in a leading position. Predictably, much is being written now about the rise of “populism” in Europe, while Western discourses try to link it to far-right Nazi-Fascism.
Whether one likes the “populist” wave or not, this being an umbrella term for a variety of movements, it would be simply inaccurate to equate all such groups with Fascism in general. The supposed connection to Russia in turn only appears “sinister”, thanks to a wave of Russophobia, if one suffers from memory loss: as recently as 2021, the (now gone) Nord Stream 2 German-Russian pipelines project was being completed to deliver Russian gas directly to Western Europe. It had been opposed from the very start by Washington, while Berlin resisted American pressures all the way to almost completion – and then pipelines got blown up in a sabotage explosion, just as US President Joe Biden himself on February 7 had promised would happen, when he said: “If Russia invades (…) there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, the sabotage was indeed carried out by Washington. However, thus far, the only voices that vehemently demand an active investigation about such an act of terrorism come from the populist camp, such as the Die Linke and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) political parties in Germany. It is no wonder then that populism is on the rise in the continent.
Notwithstanding any valid criticism one may have of the current Russian military campaign in Ukraine, the roots of today’s conflict lie on this energy angle and American interests – as much as they also lie on US geopolitical goals pertaining to “encircling” Russia and to NATO’s enlargement for the sake of maintaining unipolarity.
This month Moldova, a country which is trying to join the European Union (EU), banned a “pro-Russian” party (the Chance Party) from taking part in local elections, two days before the vote, on the basis of “national security” concerns. The measure is in line with the latest European trend, which can only be described as Neo-Mccarthyism: in France, Marine Le Pen, who vowed to pull Paris out of NATO’s military command last year, was questioned for four hours, on June, during what was described as a witch trial, and her Rassemblement National party was described as a “communication channel” for Russia by a report published by the French government.
The same month, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda signed a law allowing Warsaw to conduct political repression against the opposition, the justification being, of course, “to investigate Russian influence on Polish politics”. The commission created for that purpose can ban people from public office for a decade. Such measures, as I wrote, mirror post-Maidan Ukraine’s own anti-Russian initiatives pertaining to banning vaguely defined “pro-Russian” political parties (at least 11 thus far) and the opposition. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also been advancing moves to outlaw (Russian) Orthodox communities, something which even the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, has denounced.
France, particularly, had always boasted of being the land of demonstrations, but that has changed. Last month, the country’s Interior Ministry banned all pro-Palestinian rallies nation-wide. Violent clashes between police and defiant protesters ensued, and organizing such demonstrations can now lead to arrest. Similarly, protests have also been banned or restricted in Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, and Austria, among other European nations. Esther Major, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Research in Europe voiced the organization’s concern, stating, on October 20, that “in many European countries, the authorities are unlawfully restricting the right to protest (…) In some cases, protests have been banned altogether.”
According to Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on counter-terrorism and human rights (in Europe), “what people can say and do is narrowing by the day”, with France proposing to “criminalize people who criticize Israel”, which is “something new”. She adds that “free speech in Europe has been narrowed in record time. It is leaving victims without any voices. I do not think this will be a one-off.” The United Nations (UN) rapporteur Clement Voule has also voiced his concern about such “disproportionate and arbitrary” blanket bans on protests and the like setting “a very worrying precedent that could have a great impact on the exercise of our fundamental rights and freedoms” because in times of crisis people should have “space to raise their voices, grievances and solidarity, and calls for peace, justice and security.”
All such measures clearly violate human rights in Europe in Europe’s own terms, in accordance with article 11 of the European convention on human rights, by stigmatizing minorities such as Muslims and others, and by violating the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of expression. The thing is this trend has not started now with the issue of Palestine at all: in fact, this year Germany banned Russian and Soviet flags during its “World War II commemorations” on Victory Day, this being the very day when the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany.
While European Establishment voices may try to demonize populism, we are witnessing in fact the “Maidanization” of the continent, with rising anti-Russian neo-McCarthyism, talks about banning political parties and demonstrations, the Western mainstreamization of the far-right and even Nazism (as long as it is not “pro-Russian”) plus Europe agreeing with Kyiv on “no Russian minority” in Ukraine. Rather than expecting Ukraine to adapt to European norms and values, it would seem Europe is changing in such a way that post-Maidan Ukraine will just feel at home if its accession ever materializes.
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From the Archives
Politicians lie
By Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance | August 18, 2013
There is no way to say this truth nicely: Politicians lie. That includes Japanese, American, Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian politicians! Is there something more common sense than that? Yet, so many citizens around the world believe their own politicians or wistfully acknowledge lies but think it is part of the job needed to run things. They believe even when politicians contradict themselves blatantly. This phenomenon is rather remarkable. It is a dissonance and disconnect from reality that many seem oblivious to. It is very dangerous because it can lead to accepting rationales for going to war. These can be deadly wars that lead to millions of lives lost as happened in what was called World War 1 and WW2. Even when incredible and declassified evidence abound, politicians continue to lie and old mythologies refuse to die. Here are just a few of the countless lies told to us over the past few decades… continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Ukrainian Soldiers, Potential Mercenaries: Have Gun, Will Travel!
- Burnham’s UN debut… A masterclass in British disinformation
- Iran flights continue despite US aviation sanctions
- Global Tipping Points Lead the World Into a State of Entropy
- The day-after at the White House: USA and Xi Jinping
- The Geopolitical Balance in the Red Sea: The UAE Being Displaced by New Players
- Iraqi resistance group vows to stage airport sit-ins over Iran aerial blockade
- Turkish parliament to review Saudi-Pakistan defense pact next month
- DEATH SPIKES & RISING CANCER IN OUR YOUTH EXPLAINED
- Iran offers Trump deal before US election
- If Americans Knew
- Deconstructing Netanyahu’s pants-on-fire UN rant – Daily Update
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
