The Rule of the Mob: Labour Conference Banner Banned, Slashed
By Peter Gregson | OffGuardian | September 27, 2019
On Sunday 22nd Sept, I, a Labour Party member since 1986, had my banner taken down from outside Conference. Why? The police agreed it was not anti-Semitic. When Zionists first started complaining about it, the police photographed it and referred it to their superiors. Not a problem, they said. The banner could stay.
But the Zionists, from the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and the Sussex Friends of Israel (FoI) were incandescent with rage. Repeatedly they complained and when the police refused to act, they took the law into their own hands.
Cllr Joshua Garfield from Newham Council rushed past me at the banner and slashed it in two. The police apprehended him and removed the large sharp scissors he had used and took his details. (Later Garfield boasted about it on twitter.)
The Secretary from Labour Against the Witch-hunt and I repaired it. Yet again it was attacked, ripped in half again by another Zionist. We repaired it again.
At this point local hoodlum Simon Cobbs (Founder of Sussex Friends of Israel and ex-resident of HMP Exeter) stood spread-eagled before it and refused to move. After an hour of this he moved away, whereupon another extremist rushed the banner and this time ripped it in several places.
On each occasion we repaired the banner, and on each occasion the police caught the assailant and took their details.
The police asked me if I would consider taking down the banner; I said I would not do this- I explained this was a matter of freedom of speech; I was in a public space, the banner was not anti-Semitic.
Eventually, a group of Zionists stood before the banner and created a scene, arguing and shouting with a group of us who defended the banner, supporters of free speech. At a certain point the police made the decision that a possible public order offence had been committed. They removed the banner and took it away.
The police explained that it was now evidence in a potential public order charge…. AGAINST me!
It would appear the police had been bullied into making a decision into taking my banner on the grounds that I had committed a public order offence, rather than those who had been harassing and attacking me, calling me an anti-Semite. Readers can see the slashed banner here.
Later that day, Jeremy Corbyn waded in. He tweeted:
I’m disgusted that this banner was displayed near our #Lab19 conference centre. We asked the police to remove it and I’m glad they did. This kind of antisemitic poison has no place whatsoever in our society.”
This brought forward 1,800 responses, many from people who couldn’t see anything anti-Semitic about the banner at all. Even the artist, Latuff, said so.
On the Monday, I attended a voluntary interview at the John Street police station where I was interviewed under caution with the duty solicitor present. I explained what the banner was about and why I had brought it to Brighton, to promote political discussion on the weaponization of anti-Semitism.
I explained about the Al-Jazeera documentary on which the banner was based, The Lobby , which portrayed how Israel funds the take-down of politicians sympathetic to Palestine, using groups such as the JLM and the FoI.
I noted the banner had particular relevance at this time. An election was coming and that once the date was announced, newspapers would be full of accusations of anti-Semitism aimed at Labour politicians who have dared to criticise Israel, in an effort to undermine their vote. I thought it important to point out the role a foreign country was having in British electoral affairs.
I concluded by telling the police that I was disappointed in them for undermining my freedom of speech.
The police must now decide if they will ask the CPS to prosecute me; it is likely to be months before a decision is made.
In the meantime, I will pursue claims of criminal damage against those who attacked my banner and against the police for taking it down, for the Human Rights Act of 1998 – Article 10 protects my right to hold my own opinions and to express them freely without government interference, including through works of art.
The next day, Rabbi Ahron Cohen of the Neturei Karta spoke to me and gave his view that he could not fathom any way that the banner was anti-Semitic.
Many are dumbfounded at Corbyn’s tweet describing it as such. When the Lobby film was shown in 2017, its fairness and accuracy was supported by OFCOM and Corbyn called for an investigation, so he knew that Israel pumps millions of pounds into Zionist defamation activities in the UK with the sole aim of shutting down any debate on Israel’s racist treatment of Arabs and Christians.
However, according to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted by most political parties, to say that Israel is a racist endeavour is now seen as prejudice against Jews.
The banner says: “IHRA: tell the NEC how you feel”, because I wanted Labour members to tell the Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to abandon the IHRA definition they adopted a year ago, an action Corbyn himself objected to.
Party members are now beholden to a definition whereby any activist criticising Israel as racist becomes an anti-Semite, a plainly ludicrous claim. This enables Zionists to make endless charges of anti-Semitism against anti-apartheid activists.
Most of these accusations come from the JLM, registered as a socialist society affiliated to Labour.
I am chair of Labour Against Zionist Islamophobic Racism (LAZIR), a group of Labour Party activists which sees Zionism as racism and who want to end its influence, seeking to get the JLM disaffiliated. At the Conference, we distributed 1,500 flyers to Party members calling for this, highlighting the JLM’s role in undermining any politician who supports Palestine and criticises Israel.
Corbyn’s pro-Palestine stance has drawn JLM’s ire and they have declared Corbyn “unfit to be prime minister”. They score Labour candidates seeking election according to their level of support for Israel, working with the media to undermine whose whom they don’t like or who support Corbyn.
A tweet from a man at LP Conference showing plans to attack Corbyn and Labour with “big stories” come election time
One doesn’t have to be either Jewish or in the Labour Party to be in the JLM.
Labour’s founding planks are fairness, equality and social justice. LAZIR point out that JLM’s sole focus is on protecting Israel, sharing none of Labour’s values in their disregard for Palestinian rights.
I emailed Corbyn in response to the tweet, pointing out the Rabbi’s views and that he himself had called for an investigation into Israel’s work undermining UK politicians; he had also not supported Labour adopting the full IHRA definition.
I copied in all NEC members and drew this response from Jon Lansman:
I do not wish to receive any more of your messages. Your obsessive hatred of those you call “Zionists” marks you out as an anti-Semite. To be clear, you do not have my permission to retain my contact details so please delete them and never contact me again.”
Lansman is Momentum leader and the man responsible for getting the IHRA definition adopted by Labour in 2018. He is a strong supporter of Israel and spent years on a kibbutz. He is also one of the nine CLP reps on the NEC and as such was elected to represent the views of CLP members, including me. I consider that as my rep, Lansman must accept that part of his role is to receive communications on Labour Party matters from members.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson couldn’t resist wading in as well, saying in the Jewish Chronicle he was furious about this “deliberate intimidation of Jewish Labour members at the conference”.
He said “Regardless of where and why it is outrageous to come to a conference of a democratic party and to intimidate people who are just trying to make the world a better place.” I do not consider Watson’s unbridled support for Israel is in any way making the world a better place.
I am now in discussion with my solicitors; I will seek redress through the courts.
NOTES:
Latuff’s cartoon was first published in September 2018, when it was used to illustrate Gregson’s article Why let Netanyahu write the Labour rulebook?
See the footage of the police removing the banner at LBC here. More on this, including the links to the many publications who carried the story, can be found at lazir.org
Alain Soral Sentenced to 2 Years Jail for Sharing “Gilets-Jaunes” Anti-Rothschild Rap Video
He Could Pay Over €170,000 in Fines and Compensation
A French writer and publisher will be jailed for sharing this meme
By Guillaume Durocher • Unz Review • September 26, 2019
The French civic-nationalist and anti-Zionist intellectual Alain Soral was sentenced to two years prison last week for sharing a rap video entitled “Gilets-Jaunes.”
The music clip (watch it while you still can) is typical of the Yellow Vests in denouncing French media, political, and financial elites, and making a plea for direct democracy, notably the famous proposed Citizen’s Initiative Referendum (Référendum d’Initiative Populaire or RIC).
The video also argues for the abrogation of the banking law of June 1973 – known as the “Pompidou-Rothschild Act,” after the then French president and the investment bank he used to work for. Critics claim the law has reduced France to debt slavery by making her dependent on financial markets for loans rather than self-finance through the national bank.
The video also features a pyre where various figures are symbolically burned: President Emmanuel Macron, various media (TF1, Le Monde, BFMTV . . .), the Rothschild bank, and, most problematically, powerful elite Jews (Jacques Attali, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Patrick Drahi).
The rapper points out: “And if we talk about the media and Macron, we’ll have to talk about Drahi. His bank account is in Israel and he pays no taxes here.” Drahi, a Franco-Israeli-Portuguese oligarch born in Morocco and residing in Switzerland, has bought up large swathes of French media in recent years.
In case the denunciation of Jewish-globalist and Jewish-Zionist power elites in the financial and media spheres were not explicit enough, the video also states: “We’re not talking about a so-called oppressed minority. We’re talking about the deliberately neglected majority [of workers, farmers, and pensioners] . . . France has decided to free itself from the Rothschilds.”
President Macron speaking before the powerless lobby you will be destroyed for criticizing
As the words “so-called oppressed minority” are uttered, images are flashed of the annual dinner of the CRIF – the influential official French Jewish lobbying organization – an event where the crème de la crème of the French politico-media elite regularly come to genuflect.
The rapper lauds the “prolo patriotes” (patriotic workers) who are rising up and denounces the oligarchic “parasites” who are enriching themselves all the while demanding austerity from the masses. The song concludes: “The French are fed up with these parasites. The French are fed up, it ain’t racist. National uprising!” The author is a certain “Rude Goy.”
There are various pro-Arab and pro-Muslim symbols included. Drahi is mentioned while a pro-Palestine hoody is flashed. The rapper wears a fashionable keffiyeh. As a mainstream journalist anxiously warns that the French State is bordering on collapse in the face of the protesters, the rapper answers: “Inshallah” (God willing in Arabic).
The video then artfully interweaves mainstream yellow-vest concerns about French democracy’s subversion by high finance with a denunciation of the specific role of Jewish elite power in this process. There is no blanket anti-Semitism or attack on day-to-day Jews.
The images of Jewish oligarchs and intellectuals being symbolically burned – along side mainstream media and the French president, mind you – angered a certain number of Jewish activist and (mostly Jewish-run) “anti-racist” organizations. I imagine these images felt downright Auschwitzian to them.
The groups sued Soral for “granting enormous visibility to this video by publishing it on his website” and thus promoting the anti-Semitic theory of a “Jewish conspiracy.”
Note Soral did not create the video: he merely shared it on his website, as he did innumerable other yellow-vest videos. One wonders if linking to the video is also considered a criminal act. Probably not, or only if your name is Alain Soral. This tells you something about the legal arbitrariness of these censorious laws and liberticidal ethnic lobbies.
Soral will also be required to pay a 45,000-euro fine and tens of thousands of euros in “compensation” to the various aggrieved Jewish and/or professional “anti-racist” activist organizations. That’s called good business.
Coincidentally, or not, the bank BNP Paribas simply closed the bank account of Égalité & Réconciliation, Alain Soral’s influential counter-cultural organization.
Presumably the court decision will be appealed. However, the noose is apparently tightening around Soral. Earlier this year, he was also sentenced to a year in jail for sharing a cartoon highlighting various holocaust hoaxes (lampshades, soap, etc).
Soral has always said that true intellectuals must inevitably come up against the authorities sooner or later. An intellectual who really stands up for his ideals “passera par la case prison” (will go to jail, do not pass-go), as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Charles Maurras did.
Whatever happens, more people than ever are being sensitized to a certain ethnic group’s considerable power and privilege by the very fact of jailing a French intellectual on their lobbying organizations’ behalf.
Israel arrests Palestine’s Jerusalem minister
Israeli forces detain Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi al-Hadami. (Photo: via Social Media)
MEMO | September 25, 2019
Israeli forces detained Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi al-Hadami of the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday, according to an official statement, reports Anadolu Agency.
In a statement, the Jerusalem Affairs Ministry said Israeli forces raided the minister’s home and searched it before taking him into custody.
There was no comment from the Israeli military on the arrest.
This is the second time Israeli forces arrested the Jerusalem minister in the last three months.
Israeli forces have escalated their actions against Palestinian activities in Jerusalem since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized the occupied city as Israel’s capital in 2017.
Jerusalem remains at the heart of the decades-long Middle East conflict, with Palestinians hoping that East Jerusalem – occupied by Israel since 1967 – might one day serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.
“Israel” razes Palestinian house in the 1948 occupied lands
Palestine Information Center | September 22, 2019
NAZARETH – Israeli authorities in the 1948 occupied lands on Sunday morning demolished a Palestinian house under construction in Qalansuwa city at the pretext that it was built with no license.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli bulldozers escorted by municipal employees and police forces stormed al-Sahel al-Gharbi area of Qalansuwa and later embarked on razing the house, which belonged to the family of Abu Arrar.
The Israeli authorities had already demolished two homes belonging to the same family in the area about four years ago.
Like in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel systematically demolishes Palestinian homes and structures in the Palestinian towns and cities in the 1948 occupied lands at the pretext of unlicensed construction, while it prevents the local residents from obtaining permits or make it difficult for them to meet construction conditions.
BDS founder unable to attend UK Labour event due to visa delay
MEMO | September 22, 2019
Co-founder of Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) will be unable to speak at an event at the UK Labour Party’s upcoming annual conference due to his visa request being delayed, according to Palestine Post 24
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), a pro-BDS group hosting the event on the sidelines of the Labour conference in Brighton, said on Friday that Omar Barghouti would instead address the gathering by video due to the UK government’s “unexplained, abnormal delay” in issuing him a visa.
“The unprecedented delay in processing Barghouti’s travel visa application by the British government is part and parcel of the growing efforts by Israel and its allies to suppress Palestinian voices and the movements for Palestinian rights,” PSC said in a statement.
Barghouti had been set to speak at the “Palestine in the age of Trump” event alongside Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and Unite union chief Len McCluskey, both allies of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“They fear our shining a light of truth that reveals their lies. They dread our tireless quest for freedom, justice and equality,” Barghouti said, according to the PSC statement.
There was no immediate comment from the UK Home Office, which handles visa requests.
Earlier this year, Barghouti was denied entry to the US for a multi-city speaking tour.
The Arab American Institute said at the time that Barghouti, a resident of Acre who is married to an Arab Israeli and holds Israeli permanent resident status, was not provided an explanation for his denial of entry beyond being told it was an “immigration matter.”
James Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute, called Barghouti’s ban an “arbitrary political decision,” and accused the Trump administration of working to “silence Palestinian voices.”
Israel has barred Barghouti from leaving the county a number of times in recent years by refusing to renew travel documents granted to Palestinian residents of Israel who do not have full citizenship.
The BDS campaign, a non-violent movement, advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Not a free speech platform: Facebook declares it’s a ‘publisher’ & can censor whomever it wants, walking into legal trap
RT | September 20, 2019
Facebook has invoked its free speech right as a publisher, insisting its ability to smear users as extremists is protected, but its legal immunity thus far has rested on a law which protects platforms, not publishers. Which is it?
Facebook has declared it has the right, as a publisher, to exercise its own free speech and bar conservative political performance artist Laura Loomer from its platform. Even calling her a dangerous extremist is allowed under the First Amendment, because it’s merely an opinion, Facebook claims in its motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Loomer.
But Facebook has always defined itself as a tech company providing a platform for users’ speech in the past, a definition that has come to appear increasingly ridiculous in the era of widespread politically-motivated censorship. Now, the not-so-neutral content platform has redefined itself as a publisher equipped with a whole new set of rights, but bereft of the protections that have kept it safe from legal repercussions in the past.
“Under well-established law, neither Facebook nor any other publisher can be liable for failing to publish someone else’s message,” Facebook’s motion to dismiss Loomer’s defamation suit reads, justifying its decision to ban her from the platform. It also points out that terms like “dangerous” or “promoting hate” cannot be factually verified and are thus constitutionally protected opinions for a publisher, while also claiming it never applied either term to Loomer, despite banning her from its platform under its “dangerous individuals” policy.
Defining itself as a publisher opens Facebook up to lawsuits for defamation and other liability for the content users publish, something they were previously immunized against. All the lies, personal attacks, and smears launched by users going forward can now be laid at Facebook’s feet. That’s a Pandora’s box they might not want to open, legal analyst and radio host Lionel told RT.
“Whatever they say – platform or publisher – their words will haunt them legally from now on.”
Platforms like Twitter, Google, and – until now, apparently – Facebook are protected from the legal consequences of their users’ speech by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Facebook even makes reference to section 230 later in its motion, suggesting that it is trying to have its cake and eat it too.
Lionel points out that Facebook could go back to life as a platform, if it was willing to sacrifice its usefulness to those in power by allowing some political speech to reach users and blocking the rest.
“All Facebook has to do is do what it says it is! But… you can’t be an agent of the ‘deep state’ anymore if you can’t pick and choose which information is allowed.”
Israeli occupation forces raid office of Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | September 19, 2019
Israeli occupation forces raided today, Thursday, 19 September 2019 at around 2:00am the office of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah.
The Israeli forces stole five laptops, memory cards, three laptop memories, one laptop card, several books and additionally searching through the belongings of the office.
This is the third incident where the Israeli soldiers have raided the office, the first was in 2002 and the second incident was in 2012.
Addameer reassures that those constant raids will not stand in the face of any duties the organization has for Palestinian political prisoners. The organization will continue to support Palestinian prisoners to flight all human rights violations they suffer from including torture, arbitrary detention and unfair trails.
Addameer sees this raid as a part of ongoing and systematic attacks against the Palestinian civil society organization. Those attacks are targeting the organizations that have a role in facing the occupation’s violations and claiming accountability for those violations. This is additionally a part of the occupation’s campaign to shrink space, delegitimize and de-fund those human rights and civil society organizations.
On Criticism of Palestinian Resistance
By Eve Mykytyn | September 18, 2019
The Oxford definition of ‘terrorism’ is: “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” Although the term could apply to the belligerents in many wars, the term ‘terrorism’ takes on its everyday meaning when violence is perpetuated by the weak in resistance to the powerful.
What other form of resistance is available to an oppressed people? One does not have to search hard to find a Jewish source begging for the peaceful resistance of a Palestinian Gandhi or King.
The request itself is odd, it invites a comparison to the conditions Gandhi and King fought, and is an implicit, although perhaps unintended, admission that Israel represents another oppressive racist regime.
It takes chutzpah to complain about the form of resistance employed by the people you are oppressing. Why are the Palestinians obliged to meet violence with nonviolence? Certainly you have to take your victims as they are.
Gandhi wrote about the uses of nonviolent resistance and King referred to Gandhi’s writings. For Gandhi and King nonviolence was not an end in itself, it was a strategy, a means to achieve a goal. Despite later deifications, neither Gandhi nor King was a saint, they were leaders who employed non violent resistance because it was effective under their circumstances.
Both men were vastly outpowered by the brutal regimes they opposed. Nonviolence did not allow them or their followers to escape injury or death, their battles required at least as much physical bravery as for any soldiers.
Both Gandhi and King deliberately provoked their enemies and then refused either to back down or to physically fight back. The decision to meet violence with nonviolent resistance was a powerful tool used to expose the brutality of the regime. The march to Selma would have amounted to little without the press. What they ‘achieved’ was an unforgettably painful display of violence. To the extent nonviolence succeeded for King, it was because the ‘soldiers’ on the other side gave Americans a clear picture of the savagery to which blacks were subjected. It became increasingly difficult for those who had long averted their eyes to claim ignorance.
One reason the Palestinians are portrayed as ‘failing’ to meet the standard set by Gandhi or King is that their use of the tactic of nonviolence has not attracted sympathetic coverage, it has not been effective enough in exposing Israel’s brutality. There are, of course, numerous examples of peaceful Palestinian resistence. One example is commemorated on ‘Land Day’ remembering the day in 1976 that Israel killed peaceful Palestinian protestors. Another occurred during the first intifada, as Neve Gordon writes in 972, when the “Palestinians adopted massive civil disobedience strategies, including daily protests” against Israel’s occupation. Israel responded with violence and mass incarcerations. While they could easily provoke violence through peaceful protest, the Palestinians could not win the media nor shame the Israelis into change.
This, of course, begs the question of control of the media. King was extensively covered in the media. Do the Palestinians have access to the same? At best, Haaretz might decry the proportionality of Israel’s violence, but will it explore the true meaning of Palestinian protest, both the original and the ongoing taking of their property and destruction of their society? Would the international press do any better?
As I was writing this I realized that Palestinian nonviolent protests in Gaza have had perhaps a small effect on public opinion. The mainstream media in the US is universally favorable to Israel, but although they tried, the media was not entirely successful in creating sympathy for the Israeli snipers. For example, The Guardian, in reporting that one year into the protest, the Israelis had killed 190 and wounded 28,000, noted that, “Children, journalists and medics have been killed, even when they were standing far back from the fence.” Spin that one. Here’s an attempt by Eric Yoffe, a self-described ‘liberal’ American Jew, to justify killing protestors who had not killed a single Israeli. “If 100 Jewish bodies were strewn across southern Israel, would the American left more readily forgive Israel’s defensive actions against an angry mob of tens of thousands propelled by the murderous, anti-Semitic terrorists of Hamas?” This is simply a variation on the “I thought he was going to hit me so I hit him back first” defense. Perhaps the need to resort to such a feeble rationale helps explain why we finally have a tiny Congressional support group for the Palestinians. Seventeen were so daring as to vote against an anti BDS bill.
Further, Israel has shown little sign that it is willing to change its basic oppressive policies in response to any actions or restraint by the Palestinians. This is an interesting video in which Israeli ‘settlers’ are asked if they would move if told to do so by their government and knowing the move would mean peace in the region. Their responses are variations on “No, I would not, it is my land.” Perhaps they are merely following the lessons of their religion.
In the story of Exodus, recounted annually even by many secular Jews at Passover, Moses unsuccessfully begs the Pharaoh for his peoples’ freedom. The lesson to be learned: Jewish liberation comes only after Egyptian civilians are subjected to terrible brutality.
UK minister vows to pressure councils and universities to adopt IHRA definition of anti-Semitism
MEMO | September 18, 2019
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s newly appointed Communities and Local Government Secretary, Robert Jenrick, has pledged to come down hard on local councils and universities that fail to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
Jenrick made the pledge in a speech to the British Board of Deputies on Sunday, while also promising over $100,000 from the government to tackle anti-Semitism on social media and to go after supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
He said he will come down heavily on both local councils and universities that did not adopt the IHRA definition, which has been the source of controversy in the UK. Critics say the definition conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and undermines free speech. Jenrick dismissed these concerns. He insisted that the “suggestions that the IHRA definition curtails legitimate criticism of the Israeli government is wrong and must be countered.”
The Representative for Newark said that he “will be writing to all councils insisting that they adopt the IHRA at the earliest opportunity and use it at all appropriate occasions — including in their disciplinary proceedings.”
In his comments regarding BDS, Jenrick alleged that the global non-violent movement was “divisive” and promised not to tolerate supporters of the movement on his watch. He expressed unease about the annual Israel Apartheid Week on campuses, and said he would look at the issue in his department.
Jenrick assured the Board of Deputies that he can be relied on to contact local councils as well as vice-chancellors of Britain’s universities who should expect to get a phone call from him to oblige them to adopt the IHRA definition.
Facebook will bankroll an ‘independent supreme court’ to moderate your content & set censorship precedents
By Helen Buyniski | RT | September 18, 2019
Facebook has unveiled the charter for its ‘supreme court,’ a supposedly independent content moderation board that will take money from, and be appointed by, Facebook itself – while making binding decisions. What could go wrong?
Facebook has released preliminary plans for an “Oversight Board” tasked with reviewing content disputes. The 40-member body, referred to previously as Facebook’s “supreme court,” will have the authority to make binding decisions regarding cases brought to it by users or by the social media behemoth itself, according to a white paper released Tuesday, which stresses that the new board will be completely independent of Facebook, by popular request.
The company has clearly taken pains to make this new construct look independent, the sort of place a user might be able to go to get justice after being deplatformed by an algorithm incapable of understanding sarcasm or context. But board members will be paid out of a trust funded by Facebook and managed by trustees appointed by Facebook, while the initial board members will also be appointed by Facebook.
“We agreed with feedback that Facebook alone should not name the entire board,” the release states, proceeding to outline how Facebook will select “a small group of initial members,” who will then fill out the rest of the board. The trustees – also appointed by Facebook – will make the formal appointments of members, who will serve three-year terms.
Facebook insists it is “committed to selecting a diverse and qualified group” – no current or former Facebook employees or spouses thereof, current government officials or lobbyists (former ones are apparently OK), high-ranking officials within political parties (low-ranking is apparently cool), or significant shareholders of Facebook need apply. A law firm will be employed to vet candidates for conflicts of interest, but given Facebook’s apparent inability to recognize the conflict of interest inherent in paying “independent” board members to make binding content decisions, it’s hard to tell what would qualify as a conflict.
How will Facebook decide which cases get the democracy treatment? Cases with significant real-world impact – meaning they affect a large number of people, threaten “someone else’s voice, safety, privacy, or dignity,” or have sparked public debate – and are difficult to parse with regard to existing policy will be heard first. “For now,” only Facebook-initiated cases will be heard by the board – Facebook users will be able to launch their own appeals by mid-2020. Is the company merely reaching for an “independent” rubber-stamp to justify some of its more controversial decisions as the antitrust sharks start circling? Decisions will not only be binding, but also applicable to other cases not being heard, if they’re deemed similar enough – potentially opening a Pandora’s box of far-reaching censorship.
In a letter accompanying the white paper, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims the company’s moderators take into account “authenticity, safety, privacy, and dignity – guided by international human rights standards” when they make a decision to take down content. Given that the company’s own lawyers have questioned the very existence of users’ privacy, what does this bode for the other “values,” let alone international human rights standards?
Perhaps most ominously, Zuckerberg seems to have bigger things in mind for his Oversight Board than merely weighing in on Facebook content moderation decisions. “We expect the board will only hear a small number of cases at first, but over time we hope it will expand its scope and potentially include more companies across the industry as well” (emphasis added). Not exactly a throwaway line from the man who said he wanted Facebook to become an internet driver’s license. The private-sector social credit score may be closer than we think – and Zuckerberg would very much like to be the scorekeeper.
Dutch court starts hearing in war crime case against Israel’s Gantz
Press TV – September 17, 2019
A Dutch court has held a hearing on a war crime case against a former Israeli general challenging incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in ongoing general elections.
The Hague District Court weighed on Tuesday whether it should hear a lawsuit brought by a Palestinian man seeking compensation from Benny Gantz for his role in the killing of six of his relatives during the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip in 2014.
On July 20, 2014, Ismail Ziada lost his mother, three brothers, a sister-in-law, and a 12-year-old nephew when their family home was bombed by the Israeli air force.
A visitor was also killed in the Israeli bombardment.
“I was shot at a very close range with a rubber coated metal bullet in the head. I witnessed another boy being shot in the head next to me, dying on the spot,” said Ziada about his encounters with the Israeli army.
Ziada, who now lives in the Netherlands, filed a civil lawsuit in 2018 seeking damages from Gantz, who was the chief of staff of Israel’s military at the time of the bombing, and the then-air force commander Amir Eshel.
Ziada says the attack violated international humanitarian law because it deliberately targeted civilians.
The Tuesday session addressed a motion filed by Gantz and Eshel’s lawyers asking the court to dismiss the case. They argued the ex-commanders were immune because the Dutch court had no jurisdiction over the case.
Ahead of the hearing, Ziada’s lawyer, Liesbeth Zegveld, said Palestinians from Gaza could not receive fair treatment in Israeli courts.
Dutch courts can exercise universal jurisdiction over war crimes, provided the accuser cannot get a fair trial elsewhere.
Israel launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.
The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
Apartheid Made Official: Deal of the Century is a Ploy and Annexation is the New Reality
By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | September 17, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving quickly to alter the political reality in Palestine, and facing little or no resistance.
On September 10, Netanyahu declared his intentions to annex swathes of Palestinian land adjacent to the Jordan River, an area that covers 2,400 square kilometers, or nearly a third of the Occupied West Bank. That region, which extends from Bisan in the north to Jericho in the south, is considered to be Palestine’s food basket, as it accounts for an estimated 60 percent of vegetables that are produced in the West Bank.
While Israel has already colonized nearly 88 percent of the entire Palestinian Ghoor (or Jordan Valley), dividing it between illegal agricultural settlements and military zones, it was always assumed that the militarily occupied region will be included within the border of a future Palestinian state.
Netanyahu’s announcement has been linked to Israel’s general elections of September 17. The Israeli leader is desperate, as he is facing “unprecedented alliances” that are all closing in to unseat him from his political throne. But this cannot be all. Not even power-hungry Netanyahu would alter the political and territorial landscape of Israel and Palestine indefinitely in exchange for a few votes.
Indeed, talks of annexation have been afoot for years and have long preceded the September elections or the previous ones in April.
A sense of euphoria has been felt among Israel’s rightwing officials since the advent of Donald Trump to the White House. The excitement was not directly linked to Trump but to his Middle East team, like-minded pro-Israel US officials whose support for Israel is predicated on more than personal interests, but religious and ideological beliefs as well.
White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, selected his team very carefully: Jason Greenblatt as special envoy for Middle East peace, David Friedman as United States Ambassador to Israel, and layers of other second-tier officials whose mission was never aimed at resolving conflict or brokering peace, but supervising a process in which Israel finalizes its colonization of Palestine unhindered.
Kushner’s masterstroke is epitomized in the way he presented his objectives as part of a political process, later named “Deal of the Century”.
In all fairness, Kushner’s team hardly labored or even pretended to be, peacemakers, especially as they oversaw the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of the occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territories. Indeed, none of these officials tried to hide their true motives. Just examine statements made by the just-resigned Greenblatt where he refused to name illegal Jewish settlements as such, but as “neighborhoods and cities”; and Friedman’s outright support for the annexation of parts of the Occupied West Bank, and much more.
The US political discourse seemed in complete alignment with that of Israel’s right-wing parties. When right-wing extremist politicians, the likes of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, began floating the idea of annexing most or all of the Occupied West Bank, they no longer sounded like marginal and opportunistic voices vying for attention. They were at the center of Israeli politics, knowing full well that Washington no longer had a problem with Israel’s unilateral action.
It could be argued, then, that Netanyahu was merely catching up, as the center of gravity within his right-wing coalition was slipping away to younger, more daring politicians. In fact, Israel, as a whole, was changing. With the Labor Party becoming almost entirely irrelevant, the Center’s political ideology moved further to the right, simply because supporting an independent Palestinian state in Israel has become a form of political suicide.
Therefore, Netanyahu’s call for the annexation of Palestinian land east of the Jordan River must not be understood in isolation and only within the limited context of the Israeli elections. Israel is now set to annex large parts of the West Bank that it deems strategic. This is most likely to include all illegal settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley as well.
In fact, Netanyahu said on September 11 that he was ready to annex the Jordan Valley region even before the election date, but was blocked by the Attorney General’s office. Netanyahu would not have taken such a decision if it represented a political risk or if it faced pushback from Washington. It is, then, sadly, a matter of time.
Suspiciously absent in all of this are the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Arab League, the European Union and, of course, the United Nations and its many outlets and courts. Aside from a few shy statements – like that of the spokesperson of the UN, Stéphane Dujarric, decrying that “unilateral actions are not helpful in the peace process” – Israeli leaders are facing little or no hindrance whatsoever as they finalize their complete colonization of all Palestinian land.
Unable to stage any kind of meaningful resistance against Israel, the Palestinian leadership is so pathetically insisting on utilizing old terminologies. The official Palestinian response to Netanyahu’s annexation pledge, as communicated by Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh, came only to underscore the PA’s political bankruptcy.
“Netanyahu is the chief destroyer of the peace process,” Shtayyeh said, warning that annexing parts of the West Bank would have negative consequences.
For his part, the PA leader Mahmoud Abbas resorted, once more, to empty threats. Abbas said in a statement, “All agreements and their resulting obligations would end if the Israeli side annexes the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea, and any part of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.”
Neither Abbas nor Shtayyeh seem troubled by the fact that a “peace process” does not exist, and that Israel has already violated all agreements.
While the PA is desperately hanging on to any reason to justify its continued existence, Netanyahu, with the full support of Washington, is moving forward in annexing the West Bank, thus making apartheid an official and undisputed reality.
The Palestinian leadership must understand that the nature of the conflict is now changing. Conventional methods and empty statements will not slow down the Israeli push for annexation nor Tel Aviv’s determination to expand its apartheid to all of Palestine. If Palestinians continue to ignore this reality altogether, Israel will continue to single-handedly shape the destiny of Palestine and its people.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His last book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’, and his forthcoming book is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a non-resident research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Zaim University in Istanbul. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
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From the Archives
US murdering 1 million Iraqis is democracy, Iran giving yogurt to Iraq is “domination”
By Ali Salaam | American Herald Tribune | July 31, 2017
The New York Times, owned by the Zionist Jewish supremacist Ochs-Sulzberger family, has no problem with Iraqi suffering as long as Iran is not the one behind it.
The Iraq War was a genocide of the Iraqi people by Zionist supremacists in the Bush administration. Over 1 million innocent people were killed based on a lie. American soldiers died in an Israeli war and now an average of 22 soldiers commit suicide every day because their consciences cannot cope with the fact they committed crimes in an illegal war that served no purpose other than to benefit Israel, not America.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, once said “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
Paul Wolfowitz had his sights on Iraq since his time in the first Bush administration. Former Israeli official and Bush administration official Richard Perle had his eyes on Iraq since at least his authorship of the Clean Break white paper. The Zionist regime had their eyes on Iraq since the 1980s when strategist Oded Yinon wrote his white paper in support of dividing the Arab-Muslim world along ethnic and sectarian lines. The global Zionist lobby has had their eyes on Iraq since Theodor Herzl stated that Eretz Israel’s true borders go from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. … continue
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