Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

President Carter: Congress should reject unconstitutional anti-BDS laws

Carter Center – April 5, 2019

In the past year, 26 states in the U.S. have adopted legislation to discourage support to the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) campaign advocated by Palestinian activists. The campaign aims to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian rights. These laws apply to individuals and business entities, and prevent them from receiving U.S. government contracts. Courts in Kansas and Arizona have struck down anti-BDS laws, declaring them unconstitutional as they infringe on rights protected by the First Amendment to freedom of expression.

On February 5, 2019, the US Senate adopted a bill to safeguard the right of states to adopt such anti-BDS laws. While stressing that they do not support the BDS movement, 23 senators opposed the anti-BDS provision on grounds that it is unconstitutional. The bill is now pending in the House of Representatives.

“Under our Constitution, people and legal entities have the right to express political views without fear of consequences,” stated former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. “U.S. courts have protected the right of individuals to participate in boycotts as a form of political protest. The same protection applies to the right to advocate or oppose BDS. The House of Representatives should reject this unconstitutional bill.”

[Read the text of the bill here. The bill would also decree that the U.S. give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the coming ten years, over $7,000 per minute – approximately $23,000 per Jewish Israeli family of four]

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook Pulls Plug on Anti-Immigration News Site Ahead of Danish Elections

Sputnik – 12.04.2019

The Danish alternative news outlet 24Nyt has had its Facebook page with over 34,000 followers closed. State-owned Danish Radio (DR) has acknowledged its role in the shutdown.

According to 24Nyt, Facebook announced that its page “doesn’t follow Facebook’s policy”, which is the standard message for users and organisations who have their profiles switched off. “It is known that people and media critical of immigration are exposed to Facebook’s censorship”, 24Nyt suggested.

The same day, 24Nyt started a new Facebook page that was also subsequently shut down.

Later, state-run Danish Radio acknowledged its part in the shutdown of their independent competitor.

A week ago, DR contacted Facebook and presented a dossier of 24Nyt’s actions on their platform, triggering an investigation. Facebook later confirmed that 24Nyt’s page had been closed with info from that exact investigation, but without disclosing the reason.

Danish Radio described 24Nyt as a page “that urged to fight against established media and left-wing bias”. Danish Radio also admitted that over the past two years, 24Nyt had had a “significant impact” on Facebook, which is now “over”.

Social media expert Johan Farkas of Malmö University called the measure “extraordinary”.

“It is highly unusual that Facebook throws out a Danish media. As far as I know, this is a first”, Farkas said.

24Nyt was banned from Facebook only weeks or months before the Danish election, which is to be held no later than June this year.

“We have discovered that Facebook chose to close our site. Immediately afterwards, I was called by a journalist from Danish Radio. He wanted to know if I knew what the basis for Facebook’s decision was. I didn’t. Shortly afterwards, DR published an article on his website where they wrote that Facebook closed us down based on the material they received from them. We believe that this is very problematic, of course, because DR is a tax-financed media that does not have the task of silencing independent network media, or otherwise engaging in political activism”, 24Nyt’s editor-in-chief André Rossmann told the Swedish news outlet Samhällsnytt.

24Nyt is was founded in 2017 by Jeppe Juhl of the New Right party. The site is run by private enthusiasts and is funded by advertising revenues and donations. 24Nyt makes no secret that they are an opinion-based media. It bills itself as a “system-critical online newspaper with ‘dangerous opinions’ opposed to mainstream media”. Admittedly, they attempt “through strong opinions to open up the social debate trapped in an echo-chamber”. Their website informs that they are against “open EU borders and Muslim mass immigration”, “Islamisation of Danish society”, “totalitarian EU”, and “political correctness”.

Leading tech companies have been repeatedly accused of quietly suppressing conservative political views. Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers publicly accused the “big three” (Facebook, Google, Twitter) of political bias and suppression of free speech. The way Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) put it, tech companies abuse their de-facto monopoly to promote left-leaning values.

Dozens of alt-media pages with millions of subscribers, including InfoWars and the Free Thought Project were previously banned from Facebook.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Over 450 Refugees Left Syria’s Rukban Camp in Past 24 hours – Russian Military

Sputnik – 11.04.2019

MOSCOW – More than 450 refugees have left the Rukban camp in Syria through the humanitarian corridor in the past 24 hours, Maj. Gen. Viktor Kupchishin, head of the Russian centre for Syrian reconciliation, said Thursday.

“A total of 459 refugees left the Rukban camp through provided humanitarian corridor in the past 24 hours”, Kupchishin said at a daily news briefing. The Russian general added that almost 2,300 people have been able to leave the camp and reach the territory controlled by the Syrian authorities since 19 February 2019.

Russia and Syria have repeatedly tried to draw the attention of the international community to the deplorable conditions at the camp, which houses more than 40,000 internally displaced people, mostly women and children. Both Moscow and Damascus have criticized the United States over its reluctance to allow people to leave the camp, which lies in a US-controlled zone near its unauthorized military base in At Tanf.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Moscow intends to continue negotiations with the United Nations, the United States and Jordan on the Rukban refugee camp.

Nebenzia pointed out that tens of thousands of internally displaced persons in the camp are being kept on “humanitarian drip” in unacceptable conditions and the vast majority of them wishes to leave the settlement and return to their places of origins.

Russia, the ambassador noted, had already opened up two humanitarian corridors to allow the passage of refugees from Rukban to chosen places of residence, including Latakia, Homs, Palmyra, suburban Damascus and Aleppo, among others.

On Sunday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Amman is ready to cooperate both with Russia and the United States in a bilateral and trilateral format in order to reach an agreement on the resettlement of the inhabitants of Rukban camp.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

The Unfinished Gaza War: What Netanyahu Hopes to Gain from Attacking Palestinian Prisoners

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | April 10, 2019

The current violence targeting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails dates back to January 2. It was then that Israel’s Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan declared that the “party is over.”

“Every so often, infuriating pictures appear of cooking in the terrorist wings. This party is coming to an end,” Erdan was quoted in the Jerusalem Post.

Then, the so-called Erdan’s Committee recommended various measures aimed at ending the alleged “party”, which included placing limits on prisoners’ use of water, banning food preparations in cells, and installing jamming devices to block the alleged use of smuggled cell phones.

The last measure, in particular, caused outrage among prisoners, for such devices have been linked to severe headaches, fainting, and other long-term ailments.

Erdan followed his decision with a promise of the “use of all means in (Israel’s) disposal” to control any prisoners’ protests in response to the new restrictions.

The Israel Prison Service (IPS) “will continue to act with full force” against prison “riots”, he said, as reported by the Times of Israel.

That “full force” was carried out on January 20 at the Ofer Military Prison near Ramallah, in the West Bank, where a series of Israeli raids resulted in the wounding of more than 100 prisoners, many of whom sustaining bullet wounds.

The Nafha and Gilboa prisons were also targeted with the same violent pattern.

The raids continued, leading to more violence in the Naqab Prison on March 24, this time conducted by the IPS force, known as the Metzada unit.

Metzada is IPS’ ‘hostage rescue special operation’ force and is known for its very violent tactics against prisoners. Its attack on Naqab resulted in the wounding of many prisoners, leaving two in critical condition. Palestinian prisoners fought back, reportedly stabbing two prison-guards with sharp objects.

On March 25, more such raids were conducted, also by Metzada, which targeted Ramon, Gilboa, Nafha and Eshel prisons.

In response, the leadership of Palestinian prisoners adopted several measures including the dismantling of the regulatory committees and any other form of representation of prisoners inside Israeli jails.

The decentralization of Palestinian action inside Israeli prisons would make it much more difficult for Israel to control the situation and would allow prisoners to use whichever form of resistance they may deem fit.

But why is Israel provoking such confrontations when Palestinian prisoners are already subjected to a most horrid existence and numerous violations of international law?

Equally important, why now?

On December 24, embattled Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders of Israel’s right-wing government dissolved the Knesset (parliament) and declared early elections on April 9.

A most winning strategy for Israeli politicians during such times is usually increasing their hostility against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, including the besieged Gaza Strip.

Indeed, a hate-fest, involving many of Israel’s top candidates kicked in, some calling for war on Gaza, others for teaching Palestinians a lesson, annexing the West Bank, and so on.

Merely a week after the election date announcement was made, raids of prisons began in earnest.

For Israel, it seemed like a fairly safe and controlled political experiment. Video footage of Israeli forces beating up hapless prisoners, accompanied by angry statements made by top Israeli officials captured the imaginations of a decidedly right-wing, militant society.

And that’s precisely what took place, at first. However, on March 25, a flare in violence in Gaza led to limited, albeit, undeclared war.

A full-fledged Israeli war on Gaza would be a big gamble during an election season, especially as recent events suggest that the time of easy wars is over. While Netanyahu adopted the role of the decisive leader, so determined to crush the Gaza resistance, his options on the ground are quite limited.

Even after Israel accepted Egyptian-mediated ceasefire terms with the Gaza factions, Netanyahu continued to talk tough.

“I can tell you we are prepared to do a lot more,” Netanyahu said about the Israeli attack on Gaza during a video speech beamed to his supporters in Washington on March 26.

But, for once, he couldn’t, and that failure, from an Israeli viewpoint, intensified verbal attacks by his political rivals.

Netanyahu has “lost his grip on security,” the Blue and White party leader, Benny Gantz proclaimed.

Gantz’s accusation was just another insult in an edifice of similar blistering attacks questioning Netanyahu’s ability to control Gaza.

A poll, conducted by the Israeli TV channel, Kan on March 27, found that 53% of Israelis believe that Netanyahu’s response to the Gaza resistance is “too weak.”

Unable to counter with more violence, at least for now, the Netanyahu government responded by opening another battlefront, this time in Israeli prisons.

By targeting prisoners, especially those affiliated with certain Gaza factions, Netanyahu is hoping to send a message of strength and to assure his nervous constituency of his prowess.

Aware of the Israeli strategy, Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh linked the ceasefire to the issue of prisoners.

We “are ready for all scenarios,” Haniyeh said in a statement.

In truth, the Netanyahu-Erdan war on Palestinian prisoners is foolish and unwinnable. It has been launched with the assumption that a war of this nature will have limited risks, since prisoners are, by definition, isolated and unable to fight back.

To the contrary, Palestinian prisoners have, without question, demonstrated their tenacity and ability to devise ways to resist the Israeli occupier throughout the years. But more importantly, these prisoners are far from being isolated.

The nearly 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails represent whatever semblance of unity among Palestinians that transcends factions, politics and ideology.

Considering the direct impact of the situation in Israeli prisons on the collective psyche of all Palestinians, any more reckless steps by Netanyahu, Erdan and their IPS goons will soon result in greater collective resistance, a struggle that Israel cannot easily suppress.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His forthcoming book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’ (Pluto Press, London).

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Canada Needs to Develop More Rules to Control its Spying Operations – Watchdog

Sputnik – 10.04.2019

According to a government watchdog’s report, the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) and Armed Forces (CAF) have no rules when it comes to intelligence operations, and they do not answer to any independent body for their actions.

Canada needs to consider developing a legislation that will regulate how the military and the DND conduct intelligence operations, a national security watchdog committee in Canada’s parliament suggests.

In its report, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians says the DND and the CAF have “one of the largest intelligence programs” in Canada, yet their operations face little to no outside scrutiny.

The DND and CAF enjoy a freedom known as the “Crown prerogative,” The Globe and Mail reports. This allows the Canadian government to make decisions as it sees fit unless its hands are somehow tied by statutes or the courts.

“Once a statute occupies the ground formerly occupied by the prerogative power, the Crown must comply with the terms of the statute,” the report quotes the Supreme Court of Canada as ruling.

This means that while Canada does have certain administrative directives and rules that govern defence intelligence operations, no legislation explicitly guides these activities. At the same time, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) are subject to laws that say what they can and cannot do, the Globe and Mail reports.

“DND/CAF is an anomaly in conducting its intelligence activities under the Crown prerogative. Those activities are similar in kind, risk, and sensitivity to those conducted by other Canadian security and intelligence organizations, which operate under and benefit from clear statutory authorities, limitations and requirements for ongoing review, tailored to the requirements of their specific mandates,” the Committee’s report says.

Besides, the Committee points out that, unlike CSIS and CSE, military intelligence is not subject to review by an independent and external body, meaning that military intelligence operations are not only unregulated, but also do not report to anyone.

Therefore, the Committee suggests developing legislation that would restrain the DND and CAF, as well as oblige them to report annually on their intelligence operations.

In the meantime, Committee chairman MP David McGuinty said the watchdog found “no evidence of wrongdoing” by defence personnel during its investigation.

Naturally, both the CAF and DND objected to the proposal, saying more oversight would make the military less flexible when it comes to operations; it would also undermine information sharing with Canada’s closest allies, they argued, according to the Globe and Mail.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has said that his department would look at the Committee’s suggestions.

“There are internal processes that we have in place. Can we improve those? Of course we are looking at those,” he said after a cabinet meeting Tuesday.

However, he also noted that caution must be exercised in order to keep the military flexible, so that it “keep our soldiers safe.”

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Palestinian prisoners launch collective hunger strike to demand justice and dignity

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – April 8, 2019

Palestinian prisoners have announced the launch of a collective hunger strike in Israeli prisons on Monday, 8 April to demand an end to the ongoing and escalated repression inside the prisons. The strike is being led by a number of leaders from all of the Palestinian political parties and organizations inside Israeli prisons, with 120 prisoners launching the open hunger strike as a first step toward a collective hunger strike of all prisoners, in a declaration of a “second battle of dignity (Karameh).”

The Handala Center for Prisoners and Former Prisoners said that the strike was launched in response to the Israel Prison Service’s reneging on previously agreed-upon understandings to lessen the level of repression imposed on the prisoners. Specifically, Allam Kaabi said, the prison administration had previously agreed to make telephone calls available to all except for those classified by the occupation as “security matters,” but then disavowed that understanding.  The prisoners are represented by a leadership group representing all political forces; Ahmad Sa’adat, Palestinian national leader and the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is part of this coordinating committee.

The strike comes one day before the Israeli elections, in which a slew of right-wing candidates have competed with one another to pledge harsher attacks against the Palestinian people, including Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian political prisoners.

As part of his own campaign efforts, Gilad Erdan, Israeli Minister of Internal Security, has imposed even more harsh repressive measures on Palestinian prisoners alongside public announcements and displays in an attempt to boost support for the Likud. (It should be noted that Erdan is also head of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, responsible for global campaigns against the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) and Palestine solidarity. In this context, Erdan has focused specific attacks on human rights organizations and solidarity groups supporting Palestinian prisoners, including Samidoun.)

These repressive attacks have included multiple invasions of prisoners’ cells, rooms and sections by heavily armed repressive units. Prisoners’ belongings have been searched and confiscated, while multiple prisoners have been transferred from section to section. Prisoners have been beaten by these forces, who have also fired tear gas within the confined space of prison sections, leading to multiple injuries. Thousands of books have been confiscated from the prisoners, while family visits have been banned for many prisoners, especially those associated with the Hamas movement. In addition, devices such as surveillance cameras and alleged mobile-phone jammers have been installed in the prisons, further elevating the level of surveillance faced by the prisoners.

These attacks have come under the banner of Erdan’s committee to “examine the conditions of the prisoners” in order to “impose a new reality” on Palestinian prisoners – precisely designed to roll back the rights that the prisoners have only won through years of struggle, including hunger strikes and other protests. The prisoners’ demands include: the installation of public telephones in the prisons to allow them to communicate with their families, the removal of the jamming devices, the return of family visits to normal and the abolition of all of the repressive measures, sanctions and penalties imposed on the prisoners.

According to breaking news reports from Palestine, key leaders of the prisoners’ movement and the Palestinian national liberation movement as a whole have joined the strike and hundreds are planning to join the strike in the coming days. The strike is planned to escalate on 17 April, marked in Palestine and internationally as Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. There are currently around 5,500 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including 48 women, 230 children and nearly 500 held without charge or trial under indefinitely renewable administrative detention orders. … more at Samidoun

April 8, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Minnesota Committee Passes Bill to Reform Asset Forfeiture Laws, Opt Out of Federal Equitable Sharing Program

By Mike Maharrey | Tenth Amendment Center | March 27, 2019

ST PAUL, Minn.  – A bill moving through the Minnesota House would reform the state’s asset forfeiture laws to require a criminal conviction in most cases and close a loophole allowing state and local police to circumvent the more stringent state asset forfeiture process by passing cases off to the feds.

A bipartisan coalition of representatives introduced House Bill 1971 (HF1971) on March 4. The legislation would effectively end civil asset forfeiture in the state and replace it with a criminal procedure. Under the proposed law, prosecutors would not be able to move forward with asset forfeiture proceedings without first obtaining a criminal conviction in most cases.

HF1971 also addresses the policing for profit motive inherent in the current forfeiture process. Under the proposed law, forfeiture proceeds would be deposited in the state’s general fund after payment of certain expenses. Under the current law, law enforcement agencies keep up to 90 percent of forfeiture proceeds in most cases.

On March 13, the Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Division Committee approved HF1971.

A companion bill (SF2155) was introduced in the Senate on March 7.

NECESSARY

While some people believe the Supreme Court “ended asset forfeiture,” the recent opinion in Timbs v. Indiana ended nothing. Without further action, civil asset forfeiture remains. Additionally, as law professor Ilya Somin noted, the Court left an important issue unresolved. What exactly counts as an “excessive” in the civil forfeiture context?

“That is likely to be a hotly contested issue in the lower federal courts over the next few years. The ultimate effect of today’s decision depends in large part on how that question is resolved. If courts rule that only a few unusually extreme cases qualify as excessive, the impact of Timbs might be relatively marginal.”

Going forward, opponents of civil asset forfeiture could wait and see how lower federal courts will address this “over the next few years,” or they can do what a number of states have already taken steps to do, end the practice on a state level, and opt out of the federal equitable sharing program as well.

FEDERAL LOOPHOLE

Passage of HF1971/SF2155 would take a big step toward closing a loophole that allows state and local police to get around more strict state asset forfeiture laws in a vast majority of situations. This is particularly important in light of a policy directive issued in July 2017 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the Department of Justice (DOJ).

A federal program known as “Equitable Sharing” allows prosecutors to bypass more stringent state asset forfeiture laws by passing cases off to the federal government through a process known as adoption. The DOJ directive reiterates full support for the equitable sharing program, directs federal law enforcement agencies to aggressively utilize it, and sets the stage to expand it in the future.

Law enforcement agencies can circumvent more strict state forfeiture laws by claiming cases are federal in nature. Under these arrangements, state officials simply hand cases over to a federal agency, participate in the case, and then receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds. However, when states merely withdraw from participation, the federal directive loses its impact.

Until recently, California faced this situation. The state has some of the strongest state-level restrictions on civil asset forfeiture in the country, but state and local police were circumventing the state process by passing cases to the feds. According to a report by the Institute for Justice, Policing for Profit, California ranked as the worst offender of all states in the country between 2000 and 2013. In other words, California law enforcement was passing off a lot of cases to the feds and collecting the loot. The state closed the loophole in 2016.

HF1971/SF2155 features language to close the loophole in most situations.

A local, county, or state law enforcement agency shall not refer, transfer, or otherwise relinquish possession of property seized under state law to a federal agency by way of adoption of the seized property or other means by the federal agency for the purpose of the property’s forfeiture under the federal Controlled Substances Act, United States Code, title 21,section 881; or the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, Public Law 91-513, section 413.

In a case in which the aggregate net equity value of the property and currency seized has a value of $50,000 or less, excluding the value of contraband, a local, county, orstate law enforcement agency or participant in a joint task force or other multijurisdictional collaboration with the federal governmentshall transfer responsibility for the seized property to the state prosecuting authority for forfeiture under state law.

If the federal government prohibits the transfer of seized property and currency to the state prosecuting authority as required by paragraph (a) and instead requires the property be transferred to the federal government for forfeiture under federal law, the agency is prohibited from accepting payment of any kind or distribution of forfeiture proceeds from the federal government.

As the Tenth Amendment Center previously reported the federal government inserted itself into the asset forfeiture debate in California. The feds clearly want the policy to continue.

Why?

We can only guess. But perhaps the feds recognize paying state and local police agencies directly in cash for handling their enforcement would reveal their weakness. After all, the federal government would find it nearly impossible to prosecute its unconstitutional “War on Drugs” without state and local assistance. Asset forfeiture “equitable sharing” provides a pipeline the feds use to incentivize state and local police to serve as de facto arms of the federal government by funneling billions of dollars into their budgets.

WHAT’S NEXT

HF1971 was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. SF2155 was referred to the Judiciary and Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee.

April 7, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption | , | Leave a comment

US Government’s Refusal to Confirm or Deny It Put American Journalist on Drone Kill List Called ‘Chilling’

“The government seeks to shield itself from all inquiry into the process by which it acts as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.”

By Julia Conley |Common Dreams | April 2, 2019

Lawyers for an American journalist who believes he was placed on the government’s infamous “kill list” warned Tuesday that the rights of all U.S. citizens are at stake if the country’s drone assassination program is allowed to continue.

The organization’s comments came as part of a response to the U.S. government’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit regarding its use of the list. Reprieve is representing Bilal Abdul Kareem, a journalist and U.S. citizen who claims he was repeatedly targeted —and nearly killed on five separate occasions—by drone and missile attacks in 2016 when he was reporting on the ongoing conflict in Syria.

Kareem joined an Al Jazeera journalist in 2017 in a lawsuit against the government, demanding that the Trump administration remove their names from the “kill list” of potential targets for the U.S. drone program.

If the government manages to have the lawsuit dismissed, legal experts warn it would allow the Trump administration and future presidents to secretly place any American on a kill list without telling them why, therefore stripping them of their constitutional right to due process.  

“The right to due process has been a bedrock of the judicial system, and one of the pillars that support a free society going back eight centuries to the Magna Carta,” wrote Tom Emswiler and Will Isenberg in the Boston Globe last summer. “It is the birthright of every American. Gaining a tactical advantage is not worth losing that heritage.”

As Common Dreams reported at the time of the filing, Kareem believes the Obama administration placed him on the kill list and wants President Donald Trump to remove his name, asserting that his inclusion “is the result of arbitrary and capricious agency action, accomplished without due process, and in violation of the United States Constitution and U.S. and international law.”

The government responded that if those included on the U.S. kill list were to be informed and given a trial, national security could be jeopardized during the court case.

Such a claim suggests that the right of the U.S. to operate its drone program trumps Kareem’s—and all Americans’—Fifth and 14th Amendment rights, Reprieve said.

“By invoking the state secrets privilege in the context of designating a U.S. citizen for lethal action, the government seeks to shield itself from all inquiry into the process by which it acts as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner of plaintiff Bilal Abdul Kareem,” said Reprieve and the law firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, which is also representing Kareem, in a statement Tuesday.

The government, in its motion to dismiss, said that Kareem’s due process rights would be satisfied simply by allowing him to present evidence that he has been wrongly placed on the kill list, and that the government was under no obligation to repond.

Reprieve rejected that argument, saying it was akin to “limiting the accused to unilaterally contending that he is innocent of unknown charges in the hopes of persuading a silent, opaque coterie of government officials not to kill him.”

“The government’s assertion that it has the right to mark its own citizens for death, based on secret information, without affording them the legal protections offered by the Constitution, is chilling,” said Jennifer Gibson, co-counsel for Kareem.

“The consequences of this action are too severe,” Reprieve added, “and the right [to due process] too foundational to a constitutional democracy, to allow the government to secretly condemn an American citizen to death.”

April 7, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

The One Jewish State Solution

By Gilad Atzmon | April 7, 2019

Some of the more advanced Israel/Palestine commentators have agreed amongst themselves that the ‘one-state solution’ amounts to empty talk for the simple reason that Palestine is ‘one-state’ already: It has natural borders, one electric grid and even one international pre-dial number (+972). But this beautiful and historic land, stretched from the river to the sea, is dominated by a foreign and hostile ideology that is racially supremacist and vile towards the indigenous people of the land.

Some of those perceptive analysts have been bewildered following a peculiar shift in Israeli politics: while the so-called Israeli ‘Left’ has been advocating racial and ethnic segregation between Jews and Palestinians by adopting the two-state solution, it is actually the Zionist ultra-right that has been pushing constantly for an integration of the ‘land’ by means of Israeli annexation.

While very few within the Israeli Left joined the call for a one-state solution, it seems as if PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire Israeli Right are thrilled by the idea.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Saturday to extend Israeli sovereignty to the settlements of the West Bank if he is re-elected in Tuesday’s poll.

Netanyahu’s declaration shouldn’t take us by surprise. Two weeks ago, a Haaretz poll revealed that 42% of Israelis back West Bank annexation. Apparently, 16% of those polled support annexing the entire West Bank without giving any political rights to the Palestinians who live there. I guess that it is hard not to see the political reasoning behind PM Netanyahu’s promise to annex settlements. Netanyahu, who is likely to form the next Israeli government, is attempting to appeal to the Israeli ultra-right voters. He wants them to vote Likud on Tuesday rather than ‘wasting’ their vote on a small ultra-right party or another.

There is obviously a big difference between the one-state call that has been pushed by Palestinian solidarity activists and Netanyahu’s politics of annexation.  While Palestinian rights advocates are referring to one democratic state, Netanyahu is not committed to democracy at all. He is solely faithful to the Jewish population and what he offers in practice is a ‘One Jewish State Solution.’ After all, Israel defines itself as ‘the Jewish State’ and it is there to serve one people while denying others their most elementary rights. Israel, as we know, is not a state of its citizens, it is a state of its Jewish citizens. By the time Israel comes to term with its sin and transcends into a state of its citizens regardless of their race, ethnicity or religious belief it will be renamed. It may as well be called Palestine.

April 7, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Brunei Has Never Executed Anyone And This is Unlikely to Change

By Adam Garrie | Eurasia Future | 2019-04-07

Since 2014, the small south east Asian Sultanate of Brunei has been amending its penal code to reflect letter and spirit of Islamic law. Crucially, the Islamic law that forms the basis of the revised penal code will only apply to instances involving Muslims. This means that non-Muslim tourists in Brunei will still be subject to the same British penal law that Brunei had erstwhile enforced throughout its territory since becoming an independent state in 1984.

Most notably, because the British penal laws of many post-colonial states were never amended to reflect contemporary developments in the UK itself, countries like Brunei prohibited homosexual relations not due to Islamic law but due to post-colonial British laws. It was only in 1967 that homosexual relations were made legal in England and Wales. In 1980, homosexual relationships were made legal in Scotland whilst in 1982 the same became law in Northern Ireland. Even today, the UK’s legal system is not monolithic when it comes to the issue of same-sex rights under the law. Most notably, whilst same-sex marriage is legal in Great Britain, it remains illegal in Northern Ireland.

It is against this context that one must view contemporary legislative developments in Brunei. It is likewise true that just as Brunei inherited Britain’s laws regarding homosexuality, the country also inherited British laws regarding capital punishment. In fact, the last time that someone was executed on the soil of Brunei it was whilst the Sultanate was under British rule. This hanging took place in 1957 and there has not been a single execution in Brunei since. This means that in the history of Brunei as a post-colonial independent state, the death penalty has never been used and there is no reason to believe this will change.

It is a further misnomer that Brunei revised its penal code to specifically target homosexuals. The year-by-year shift from a British corpus of criminal law to an Islamic one has been one that covers all areas of the law. It just so happens that the Islamic legal view on homosexual relations has caught the eye of the international media whilst other elements of Brunei’s revised penal code have not. That being said, the illegality of same-sex relations is not new in Brunei, the issue has simply gone from one that was governed by a largely Victorian British conception of justice to one governed by a strict Islamic conception of justice.

For all intents and purposes however, the situation on the ground in Brunei will not change. Just as technically homosexuality remains illegal in Singapore although the law is openly not enforced, in Brunei there will not be any acts of violence against homosexuals in the small Sultanate whose indigenous population is a mere 428,697 people.

These are the facts – facts which have been woefully misinterpreted by so-called responsible media outlets.

April 7, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Ben Shapiro Destroyed On Gaza Protest Propaganda

Press TV | April 4, 2019

What is really happening in Gaza’s Great Return March demonstrations? The mainstream media will tell you many things, but what is the truth?

Robert Inlakesh takes on Ben Shapiro and the mainstream media’s take on what is happening in the Gaza Strip and explains the context that they leave out of their analysis.

April 7, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

“The Essence of Being Palestinian”: What the Great March of Return is Really About

By Ramzy Baroud | Dissident Voice | April 2, 2019

The aims of the Great March of Return protests, which began in Gaza on March 30, 2018 are to put an end to the suffocating Israeli siege and implementing the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled from their homes and towns in historic Palestine 70 years earlier.

But there is much more to the March of Return than a few demands, especially bearing in mind the high human cost associated with it.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, over 250 people have been killed and 6,500 wounded, including children, medics and journalists.

Aside from the disproportionately covered ‘flaming kites’ and youth symbolically cutting through the metal fences that have besieged them for many years, the March has been largely non-violent. Despite this, Israel has killed and maimed protesters with impunity.

A UN human rights commission of inquiry found last month that Israel may have committed war crimes against protesters, resulting in the killing of 189 Palestinians within the period March 30 and December 31, 2018.

The inquiry found “reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot at children, medics and journalists, even though they were clearly recognizable as such,” the investigators concluded as reported by BBC online.

Many in the media, however, still do not understand what the Great March of Return really means for Palestinians.

A cynically titled report in the Washington Post attempted to offer an answer. The article, “Gazans have paid in blood for a year of protests. Now many wonder what it was for,” selectively quoted wounded Palestinians who, supposedly, feel that their sacrifices were in vain.

Aside from providing the Israeli military with a platform to blame the Hamas Movement for the year-long march, the long report ended with these two quotes:

The March of Return “achieved nothing,” according to one injured Palestinian.

“The only thing I can find is that it made people pay attention,” said another.

If the Washington Post paid attention, it would have realized that the mood among Palestinians is neither cynical nor despairing.

The Post should have wondered: if the march ‘achieved nothing’, why were Gazans still protesting, and the popular and inclusive nature of the March has not been compromised?

“The Right of Return is more than a political position,” said Sabreen al-Najjar, the mother of young Palestinian medic, Razan, who, on June 1, 2018, was fatally shot by the Israeli army while trying to help wounded Palestinian protesters. It is “more than a principle: wrapped up in it, and reflected in literature and art and music, is the essence of what it means to be Palestinian. It is in our blood.”

Indeed, what is the ‘Great March of Return’ but a people attempting to reclaim their role, and be recognized and heard in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine?

What is largely missing from the discussion on Gaza is the collective psychology behind this kind of mobilization, and why it is essential for hundreds of thousands of besieged people to rediscover their power and understand their true position, not as hapless victims, but as agents of change in their society.

The narrow reading, or the misrepresentation of the March of Return, speaks volumes about the overall underestimation of the role of the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, justice and national liberation, extending for a century.

The story of Palestine is the story of the Palestinian people, for they are the victims of oppression and the main channel of resistance, starting with the Nakba – the creation of Israel on the ruins of Palestinian towns and villages in 1948. Had Palestinians not resisted, their story would have concluded then, and they, too, would have disappeared.

Those who admonish Palestinian resistance or, like the Post, fail to understand the underlying value of popular movement and sacrifices, have little understanding of the psychological ramifications of resistance – the sense of collective empowerment and hope which spreads amongst the people. In his introduction to Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Jean-Paul Sartre describes resistance, as it was passionately vindicated by Fanon, as a process through which “a man is re-creating himself.”

For 70 years, Palestinians have embarked on that journey of the re-creation of the self. They have resisted, and their resistance in all of its forms has molded a sense of collective unity, despite the numerous divisions that were erected amongst the people.

The March of Return is the latest manifestation of the ongoing Palestinian resistance.

It is obvious that elitist interpretations of Palestine have failed – Oslo proved a worthless exercise in empty clichés, aimed at sustaining American political dominance in Palestine as well as in the rest of the Middle East.

But the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993 shattered the relative cohesiveness of the Palestinian discourse, thus weakening and dividing the Palestinian people.

In the Israeli Zionist narrative, Palestinians are depicted as drifting lunatics, an inconvenience that hinders the path of progress – a description that regularly defined the relationship between every western colonial power and the colonized, resisting natives.

Within some Israeli political and academic circles, Palestinians merely ‘existed’ to be ‘cleansed’, to make room for a different, more deserving people. From the Zionist perspective, the ‘existence’ of the natives is meant to be temporary. “We must expel Arabs and take their place,” wrote Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion.

Assigning the roles of dislocated, disinherited and nomadic to the Palestinian people, without consideration for the ethical and political implications of such a perception, has erroneously presented Palestinians as a docile and submissive collective.

Hence, it is imperative that we develop a clearer understanding of the layered meanings behind the Great March of Return. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza did not risk life and limb over the last year simply because they required urgent medicine and food supplies.

Palestinians did so because they understand their centrality in their struggle. Their protests are a collective statement, a cry for justice, an ultimate reclamation of their narrative as a people – still standing, still powerful and still hopeful after 70 years of Nakba, 50 years of military occupation and 12 years of unrelenting siege.

April 3, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »