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Israel: DNA Tests May Provide Answers on Missing Babies

By Jonathan Cook | Al Jazeera | February 9, 2018

Thousands of Israeli families who have been searching in vain for answers since their babies mysteriously disappeared in the early 1950s – shortly after Israel’s creation – have been thrown a lifeline.

The mystery of the missing children has plagued Israel for decades, with evidence mounting that at least some of the babies were trafficked by hospitals and orphanages – possibly with the connivance of Israeli officials.

Other documents indicate some children may have died during experiments conducted by hospitals without the parents’ knowledge or consent.

The families hope two new initiatives based on DNA testing – including the opening of graves – will reveal whether their children were abducted, as many have long suspected, or died of natural causes, as Israeli officials maintain.

The vast majority of the children – potentially as many as 8,000 – were from Jewish families that had recently immigrated to Israel from Arab countries such as Yemen, Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco.

The Arab Jews, known in Israel as the Mizrahim, have faced well-documented racism and discrimination from Israeli authorities.

Three official inquiries have concluded that most of the babies died, even though many families lack death certificates and were not told where their babies were buried. A number of mothers have told of nurses seizing a healthy baby from their arms, only to inform them shortly afterwards that the baby had died.

Israeli law has also hampered efforts to reunite families by making it nearly impossible for adopted individuals who suspect they were abducted to find out who their biological parents were.

Now the two separate gene-testing initiatives promise to shed light on what happened to the babies.

Stolen babies?

The creation of a DNA database of Mizrahi Jews led to the first breakthroughs recently in matching adopted children to their long-lost families, strengthening suspicions that a significant proportion of babies were given away or sold.

Varda Fox, 67, discovered through a gene test that she had been taken from Yemeni parents in 1950 when she was a few months old. She was sent to an orphanage run by the Women’s International Zionist Organisation (WIZO), a semi-governmental charity, where she was put up for adoption.

Both Fox’s biological parents are now dead. As she was reunited with a surviving sister late last month, she told Israeli media: “I so wanted to meet my mother. It was a lifelong trauma. Tearing an infant from his mother and father causes an internal rupture.”

MyHeritage, the company overseeing the database, said Fox was one of three missing children it had located so far.

Fox’s experiences echo the findings of an investigation in 2016 by Al Jazeera into the missing babies.

It reported on Gil Grunbaum, who discovered by accident in the early 1990s that his parents, who were Holocaust survivors, were not his biological family. A few years later, and over opposition from Israeli officials, he tracked down his original family, Arab Jews who immigrated from Tunisia.

There have been a number of similar cases reported in the Israeli media.

Grunbaum told Al Jazeera: “Thank god for DNA – it is now our best hope of getting to the truth.”

He added: “The hole in the dyke cannot be closed. It will only grow bigger. There is now a huge public demand [in Israel] for information on these missing children.”

Demanding answers

Pressure has been mounting on Israel’s right-wing government to provide answers in what Israelis call the Yemenite Babies Affair. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu relies heavily on support from Mizrahi Jews.

Last summer thousands protested in Jerusalem for more urgent steps from the government to provide answers and reunite families. Organisers have also demanded that the state acknowledge its responsibility for the children’s abduction.

In response, the Israeli parliament recently passed a law allowing the families of missing babies to seek permission to open graves for DNA tests.

The first 17 families received approval to take DNA samples from the disinterred remains late last month.

A small minority of the families who suspect their babies were taken have been notified of the official burial site since a state inquiry, the Kedmi Commission, issued its findings in 2001, said Yael Tzadok, an Israeli journalist and member of the Forum for the Families of the Kidnapped Children, a group helping the families find answers.

“This is an important first step,” she told Al Jazeera. “Now we can check if a grave in the name of a specific child actually contains that child’s remains. We can test whether the state has been telling the truth in these limited number of cases.”

Experts, however, have warned that the DNA tests on the remains may prove inconclusive. Given the long delay, the DNA samples may not be viable.

Tzadok noted in the case of a mass children’s grave in Jerusalem, containing 400 bodies, new corpses were interred above the children’s graves, effectively denying the families any hope of identifying the remains.

She added that some of the children’s burial sites were already known to be bogus. Some 20 years ago, as part of the Kedmi inquiry’s investigation, a handful of graves were opened. There proved to be no correlation between the missing children and the remains found in the graves.

Grunbaum observed: “Even if all the graves we know about are opened and if all the families find their children inside – which is unlikely – that will only be a small fraction of the total. Lots of families will still be no closer to finding answers.”

Baby trade

Some 50,000 Yemeni Jews were airlifted to Israel in the state’s first 18 months alone. They and new Jewish immigrants from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and the Balkans were housed in temporary absorption camps for long periods.

Officials have argued that in this chaotic period, with its low standards of hygiene, many babies died of disease. The problem was compounded by medical services that were overwhelmed and failed to keep proper records.

The case of Fox, who was reunited last month with her sister, Ofra Mazor, however, bolsters claims that a significant number of babies were abducted.

According to Mazor, their mother had often spoken of how she was told by the hospital where she gave birth that her baby had died.

A year ago, under public pressure, the government released thousands of documents relating to the three state inquiries that had been scheduled to remain under lock for another 50 years.

The files included testimonies from officials and medical staff indicating a trade in babies had taken place, with some given away or sold to childless European Jews in Israel and abroad.

Last October 83-year-old Shulamit Mallik, who was a child-care worker in an absorption camp in the 1950s, came forward to corroborate those accounts. She told a public meeting that delegations of overseas women visited, and shortly afterwards babies disappeared.

As well as an apparent trade in Mizrahi children, evidence has emerged that hospitals took some of the missing children for medical experiments.

According to documents unclassified last year, George Mendel, head of the Rosh Haayin hospital’s children department, testified to the Kedmi inquiry that he and colleagues performed experiments to determine if Yemeni children had “black blood” – an apparent reference to whether they were racially inferior.

A parliamentary committee found documents indicating some of the studies were paid for by the US National Institutes of Health. Mendel told the inquiry he had heard rumours that documents relating to the experiments were destroyed several years later.

‘Great crime’

The committee also uncovered a letter written in 1950 by a female physician by the name of Rothenberg to a senior official at the Rosh Haayin hospital warning that her colleagues were “murderers” of the children.

Photographs produced by the committee showed Yemenite children, apparently used in the study, with their internal organs marked on their skin.

The parliamentary committee’s chair, Nurit Koren, heavily criticised the Kedmi inquiry for not referring to the experiments in its conclusions. “It is increasingly apparent that the bodies of the children were used for research. … There was a great crime here that was never reported.”

Tzadok said racism was rampant against the Mizrahim among the European Jews who led the government at the time, including Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Quotes show him calling the Mizrahim “primitive” and “without a trace of civilisation”.

“The racism came from the very top, making it legitimate in the wider society,” she said. “The general view of the time was that we are taking babies from bad parents to give them to much better parents.”

Tzadok added that the government’s reluctance to come clean in the face of mounting evidence was out of concern for Israel’s “international image”. She said: “Just a few years after the Holocaust, the state that was supposed to offer Jews sanctuary was stealing babies on a racist basis.”

Grunbaum said he suspected economic considerations were behind the government’s reluctance both to be more transparent and to issue an apology.

“They are worried that there will be a flood of compensation claims that could reach billions of dollars if the truth comes out,” he said.

• See related articles here and here

February 10, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Egypt begins major military operation in Sinai, Nile Delta

Press TV – February 9, 2018

Egypt has begun a sweeping military operation against the militants active in violence-torn North Sinai Province in the extreme northwest and the nearby Nile Delta.

The army announced the launch of ‘Operation Sinai 2018’ on Friday, putting the police and military forces on “maximum alert,” AFP reported.

The goal is to tighten control of border districts and “clean up areas where there are terrorist hotbeds,” it added.

The campaign involves the air force, navy and army as well as police, he said.

“The armed forces calls upon the Egyptian people in all parts of the country to closely cooperate with law enforcement forces to confront terrorism, uproot it and immediately report any elements threatening the security and stability of the country,” the military spokesman, Colonel Tamer al-Rifai, said in a televised address.

Last week, The New York Times reported that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had kept northern Sinai a closed military area, barring reporters from the region.

The Associated Press has reported that the Egyptian army was bulldozing homes and olive groves to build “a buffer zone” around North Sinai Province’s only airport in the city of el-Arish.

The report said the buffer zone will destroy dozens of hamlets around the airport, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes for an unknown future, sparking some protest by residents despite the government promises of compensation.

Sisi, who is preparing to seek a second term in the upcoming March elections, has vowed that the army will employ “absolute force” in a bid to eliminate terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula.

The Sinai Peninsula has been under a state of emergency since October 2014, after a deadly terrorist attack left 33 Egyptian soldiers dead.

Over the past few years, terrorists have been carrying out anti-government activities and fatal attacks, taking advantage of the turmoil in Egypt that erupted after the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup in July 2013.

The Velayat Sinai group, which is affiliated with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, has claimed responsibility for most of the assaults.

February 9, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

Afghanistan War Spending, In 2018 Alone, Could End US Homelessness—TWICE

While the United States government spends $45 billion on the 17th year of the Afghanistan War, it ignores the fact that just half of that money could be used to virtually end homelessness in the U.S. annually.

By Rachel Blevins | Free Thought Project | February 7, 2018

Defense Department officials are claiming that the cost of the United States’ longest war in history will be $45 billion in 2018, which is actually double to estimate of what it would cost to end homelessness in the U.S. annually.

Randall Schriver, the assistant secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said that he expects the Afghanistan war to cost American taxpayers $45 billion this year, which in addition to logistical support, will include about $13 billion for U.S. forces, $5 billion for Afghan forces, and $780 million for economic aid.

Schriver made the announcement during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan also spoke, and said he believes the United States’ policy “acknowledges that there isn’t a military solution or a complete solution.”

“I understand it’s America’s longest war, but our security interests in Afghanistan, in the region are significant enough … to back the Afghan government in their struggle against the Taliban,” Sullivan said.

Over 31,000 civilian deaths have been documented in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan began documenting civilian casualties in 2009, and the combined number of civilians who were killed and injured that year was nearly 6,000. The number has steadily increased over the years, and in 2016, it reached a record high with nearly 3,500 killed and nearly 8,000 injured.

A report from the UNAMA noted that in 2017, the death rate for children increased by 9 percent over the previous year, and the death rate for women increased by 23 percent. The report also claimed that an increase in airstrikes has led to a 43 percent increase in causalities.

The Hill reported that the Defense Department officials did receive some criticism from senators such as Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, who questioned why the Taliban would want a political settlement now when they already “control more territory than they did since 2001” when the U.S. invaded the country—claiming the purpose was to defeat the Taliban.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, also criticized the massive 2018 budget for the Afghanistan War, and argued that after 16 years, Afghans still “don’t seem to be able to defend themselves,” and for U.S. taxpayers, billions of dollars are “just being thrown down a hatch in Afghanistan.”

“I think there’s an argument to be made that our national security is actually made more perilous the more we spend and the longer we stay there. … We’re in an impossible situation,” Paul said. “I just don’t think there is a military solution.”

Paul has a history of criticizing the amount of money the U.S. government spends in foreign countries, especially on wars in the Middle East. After Trump vowed to continue the longest war in U.S. history in August 2017, Paul criticized the move and asked when the U.S. would start focusing on its own country.

“We spent billions of dollars—I think it’s over $100 billion—building roads in Afghanistan, blowing up roads in Afghanistan, building schools, blowing up schools, and then rebuilding all of them,” Paul said. “Sometimes we blow them up, sometimes someone else blows them up, but we always go back and rebuild them. What about rebuilding our country?”

Paul has a point, and the money that is being used to kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan is desperately needed in the United States. According to estimates from Mark Johnston, the acting assistant housing secretary for community planning and development, “homelessness could be effectively eradicated in the United States at an annual cost of about $20 billion.”

If the United States government cut its budget for the Afghanistan War in half, and put half of the money towards ending homeless in America, it could make a difference. If the government gave the entirety of the money it is using for endless proxy wars in the Middle East back to the taxpayers it was originally stolen from so that they could invest it in helping the individuals in need in their own communities, it could work wonders.

Rachel Blevins is an independent journalist from Texas, who aspires to break the false left/right paradigm in media and politics by pursuing truth and questioning existing narratives. Follow Rachel on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Steemit and Patreon.

February 8, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Associated Press Double Standard in Israel-Palestine Reporting

By Kathryn Shihadah and Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | February 8, 2018

More than half the world’s population reads Associated Press content every day.

But a study of news reports so far in 2018 indicates that this trusted news source has been presenting the deaths of Israelis at the hands of Palestinians, and of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis, in two completely different ways.

This pattern may be a factor in how readers perceive the players in this decades-old issue. It is also, quite likely, a factor in how editors all over the U.S., who read AP stories daily, view the conflict.

So far in 2018, eleven Palestinians have been killed and two Israelis.

(Since December 4th, when President Trump announced that the US would recognize Israel as “the capital of Israel,” overturning decades of US policy, 27 Palestinians and 9 Israelis have died.)

In AP’s 2018 news reports, Palestinian deaths have been reported in far shorter news articles than Israeli deaths, averaging 181 words in length vs. 551.

In addition to the number of words, AP’s choice of words, context, and which facts to report and which to omit appears to tell two totally different kinds of stories for Israelis and Palestinians.

Reports on Israeli deaths included statements by high officials condemning the attacks. These were often strongly worded, politically charged statements that conveyed the Israeli narrative: “[Israel will] do everything possible in order to apprehend the despicable murderer”; “There is no justification for terror… This is not the path to peace!” “Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards. Look no further to why there is no peace.”

By contrast, these AP reports rarely included statements by Palestinian officials condemning the killing of Palestinians, which would have provided another perspective for readers. For example, Fatah spokesman Osama Qawassmeh released a statement that Israel was guilty of a long list of actions that “contravene international law.”

Another Palestinian official condemned Israel’s “extrajudicial killings” and warned of Israel’s tendency to turn the West Bank into a “scene for escalation and security tension so as to pressure our people and leaders, and divert attention from colonialist expansion in our state.”

Such Palestinian viewpoints, largely accurate and readily available, were never reported in the AP articles on deaths.

A Palestinian boy weeps during the funeral of Hani Wahdan, killed during “clashes.”

Israeli victims are human beings, Palestinian victims are “gunmen” or anonymous

Israeli victims were also personalized in AP reports: one was characterized as “a 29-year-old father of four”; the attempted rescue of another was described: “immense efforts were made to save the man’s life, but his wounds were too severe.”

On the other hand, AP reported Palestinian victims with impersonal, often negative descriptions: “armed protester,” “instigators,” and “protesters who were hurling massive amounts of rocks.”

Nowhere did AP describe efforts to save the victims’ lives, although certainly those efforts were made. Elsewhere there were reports of noteworthy turns of events from the scene. This is unfortunately a common occurrence at the scene of Palestinian injuries and deaths: “Eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers …. fired gas bombs at the Palestinian ambulances and medics that arrived on the scene.” In another incident, “soldiers refused to allow ambulances and firefighters to enter the area.” These descriptions would have been valuable additions to the AP reports.

Palestinian relatives of 16-year-old Layth Abu Naeem weep during his funeral, Jan 31, 2018. The boy was killed by Israeli soldiers who had invaded his village.  (EPA-EFE/ALAA BADARNEH)

To its credit, AP did identify the five Palestinian teenagers killed as “teens” – in the past this has not always been the case, where the youth of Palestinian victims has often not been mentioned.

The actual killings of the Palestinians were often reported passively, e.g. “shot in the head during a stone-throwing confrontation” or “died in the violence.”

In two of the Palestinian deaths, AP reported that the Israeli military “denied using live fire.” The men were still dead, and no questions were asked.

In fact, other sources paint entirely different pictures of the killing of the Palestinians. For example, one young man named Ali was only described by AP as “shot in the head” during a violent riot.

But according to eyewitnesses, as reported elsewhere, a number of armed Israeli settlers had infiltrated a Palestinian town, and Ali was part of a group that were forcing them out of town – at which time Israeli soldiers began firing at the group. Ali was reportedly killed by an army sharp-shooter.

In another incident, Israeli soldiers were searching for the man who had killed a settler a few days earlier. The AP article explains that they found and killed a suspect and then demolished three homes belonging to his extended family.

The article does not reveal that they killed the wrong man. It also does not mention that at least 30 vehicles participated in the invasion of the wrong home, and that soldiers confiscated surveillance videos from stores in the area.

AP headlines give Israeli spin

The headlines of the news reports are tellingly different as well.

In the cases of Israeli deaths, the headlines indicate one innocent party and one guilty party: “Israeli killed in West Bank shooting attack”; “Israeli killed by Palestinian in West Bank stabbing attack.”

On the other hand, most of the Palestinian death headlines suggest two equal parties in conflict: “Palestinian teen killed in clashes”; “2 teens killed in clashes with Israeli army”; “Troops kill Palestinian teen in West Bank clash.”

In one case, “Palestinians say Israeli army kills 19-year-old rock thrower,” the victim was at least acknowledged as an individual, but the situation in which Ahmad’s death occurred was misrepresented. The article claims that he was “shot in the head during a stone-throwing confrontation,” but there is much more to the story.

Israeli forces raid the village of Wadi Burqin. [Mohamad Torokman/Reuters]

According to IMEMC, Ahmad was killed

during a massive military invasion…carried out by twenty-two armored military vehicles, and two bulldozers…the soldiers also shot two other young Palestinian men with live rounds in their legs, and six with rubber-coated steel bullets, in addition to causing dozens to suffer the severe effects of teargas inhalation…soldiers broke into and searched many homes, and used K9 units in searching the properties, causing anxiety attacks among many Palestinians, especially children…

Some of the villagers protested this aggression, and it was in this context that  an Israeli soldier shot Ahmad in the head.

In this incident, the Israeli army was searching for the killer of a settler named Rabbi Raziel Shevach, who had been killed three weeks earlier, and AP again recounted this older death. In fact, there was more about the settler’s death, which had already been reported on several times, than about the innocent man killed in the manhunt.

According to AP, “The Israeli military had no immediate comment about the casualty.”

AP stories about Shevach reported that he taught in a religious school in Yitzhar and lived in the outpost of Havat Gilad. None, however, bothered to mention that Yitzhar has long been known as “an extremist bastion” of settler violence against Palestinians, home of the notorious Yitzchak Ginsburgh, and that Havat Gilad is similarly notorious for violence against Palestinians.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported in 2014, for example, that close to 100 people had been been involved in “a wave of hate crimes against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Most of the culprits are known as far-right activists from the Yitzhar settlement and hilltop outposts north of Ramallah and the south Hebron Hills in the West Bank.” This is just one of many such incidents (see video here).

Such context likely would have been included by AP if it had been about Palestinian violence.

AP omits essential context

Palestinian women attempt to pass the Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Aug. 12, 2011. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

AP reports often leave out critical facts. For example, its news reports on a Palestinian girl imprisoned by Israel for slapping armed Israeli soldiers, almost always left out or minimized the fact that her anger was triggered by the fact that shortly before the incident, an Israeli soldier had shot her cousin in the face.

Perhaps more significant, essential facts about the greater issue are virtually never included.

Nowhere in these reports does AP tell readers that the U.S. gives Israel over $10 million per day. Without this information, American readers will incorrectly feel this is a foreign issue that has nothing to do with them.

Basic information that would give the reader an understanding of the context of the hostility is absent.

Nowhere in any of the articles does the word “occupation” occur, although the illegal Israeli occupation is a 50-year-old fact of life that affects every aspect of Palestinian life. Omitting the fact that Palestinians are living under Israeli military control leaves readers ignorant of one of the most significant aspects of the conflict.

Nowhere in these reports does AP note that many Palestinian families in the West Bank and Gaza were pushed out by Israel during the 1948 war that created the Jewish state, their properties confiscated by Israel. These refugees have not been allowed to return and reclaim their homes, a violation of international law. This, too, is essential information.

Israelis soldiers arrest Palestinian teen Fawzi Muhammad Al-Juneidi in Jerusalem, Dec. 8, 2017

Nowhere does AP use the word “resistance,” the usual term for people fighting against military occupation. Instead, Palestinians are always “militants,” “gunmen,” “stone throwers,” etc. Americans fighting against the British in the 18th century, French fighting against the German occupation in the 20th century, etc. were resistance forces. So are Palestinians.

The word “settlement” is used 19 times in the AP reports. According to international law these settlements are illegal. However, only once does AP mention this fact, and even here it does so in a somewhat diluted manner: “most of the international community considers settlements illegal.”

Nowhere in these reports does AP inform readers that Israel is steadily stealing Palestinian land and imprisoning Palestinians who object to this. Nowhere do these report that Palestinians have virtually no freedom of movement, that some 70 percent of Palestinian families have had one or more family members serve time in an Israeli prison, that hundreds of Palestinian children are in prison, and that Israel is known for its physical abuse of prisoners.

Maali, daughter of jailed Islamic Jihad spokesman Khader Adnan, stands next to a picture of her father outside Israel’s Ofer prison.

Without these and other critical details, it is impossible for readers to have a clear picture of the basis of the conflict and the context of the deaths.

At the end of one AP article is this statement:

Since 2015, Palestinians have killed over 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings and other attacks. Over 260 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in that time. Israel says most were attackers and the others died in clashes.

To many editors and readers around the country, this means that 260 guilty Palestinians were killed. “Attackers” are guilty by default (“alleged attackers” might be innocent); people in “clashes” are reckless mobs, confronting soldiers and policemen allegedly working to keep the peace. Readers are left to glean on their own, with next to zero evidence, that these Israeli forces are one of the world’s most powerful militaries putting down protests by an occupied, unarmed population.

Astute, knowledgeable readers might wonder how many of those dead Palestinians were really attackers? How many were cases of mistaken identity? And what about those who actually were attacking heavily armed soldiers and settlers… why were they doing this?  Could it be because Israel was stealing their land and had killed, injured, and/or imprisoned hundreds of Palestinian children?

And what about the unarmed protesters so often shot in the head by Israeli soldiers? Did they have families who grieve for them? Children who are now orphans? Widows who will weep and struggle? Parents who will forever miss them? We will never know.

A Palestinian boy in Gaza weeps for dead family members.

How many of those dead Palestinians were children themselves? Answer: Since January 2015, at least 100 Palestinian children and 1 Israeli child have been killed in the hostilities. (Between 2000 and 2014, 2,079 Palestinian children and 133 Israeli children lost their lives.)

In the time it has taken to write this article, sadly another Palestinian has been killed.

The headline for this death, “Israeli troops kill Palestinian suspect in settler’s killing,” refers to Rabbi Raziel Shevach’s death in early January. Apparently this time the Israeli military finally found the person they “suspected of being behind the killing” that they had been pursuing. They stormed the house where he was staying, and shot him dead (this may be referred to as “trial by assassination” or “extrajudicial killing”).

The AP article recalls that Israeli troops had already demolished the suspect’s residence (and those of his extended family), but somehow neglects to mention that they had also killed his cousin, who had done nothing wrong, as well as another innocent man, during the course of the aggressive manhunt.

And once again, the article mostly discusses the death of the Israeli settler (as well as repeating details about the other Israeli death that occurred in 2018), and mentions nothing about the Palestinian who had just been killed. Did he have children? Parents? A wife? And if he actually was “behind the killing,” what had motivated him?

In the very last paragraph of the article, AP finally mentions that “19 Palestinians have been killed in the violence since Trump’s announcement.” In reality, it was Israelis who killed these people, and it was actually 24 Palestinians at that time, seven of them teenagers, plus a small boy who died on the day of the announcement.

The Associated Press claims on its website:

For 170 years, we have been breaking news and covering the world’s biggest stories, always committed to the highest standards of objective, accurate journalism.

It is possible that the time has come for AP to take a good, hard look at its objectivity and accuracy when it comes to reporting in Israel-Palestine.

AP’s system of reporting

AP Bureau Chief Josef Federman speaking on C-Span.

AP’s main bureau for Israel-Palestine is in Israel. Reports from Gaza and the West Bank are phoned in to this bureau, where its editors choose and write the news stories that are sent out.

Many (possibly most) of the journalists in this main bureau are Israeli citizens or have partners who are. Some (possibly most) have served in the Israeli military and/or have relatives that have done so. While this doesn’t guarantee pro-Israel bias (some Israeli journalists for Ha’aretz, for example, are excellent, accurate writers on this issue) it does suggest the possibility of partiality influencing their work, either consciously or unconsciously.

It is essential that AP be transparent about its reporting on this extremely important issue.

Whatever the cause of the distortion that continuously characterizes its reporting on this region (see this 2005 report on AP reporting on deaths), it is critical that AP remedy it. Americans, who give Israel over $10 million per day, need full, accurate, unbiased reporting.

Last-minute updates: Two more Palestinians killed

Sadly, during the final edit of this piece, two more Palestinians were killed.

IMEMC, the International Middle East Media Center, has posted the following:

“Israeli soldiers killed, on Tuesday at night, a young Palestinian man, and injured 110, including 32 who were shot with live ammunition, in Nablus city, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Health Ministry has identified the Palestinian as Khaled Waleed Tayeh, 22, from Iraq-Tayeh village, east of Nablus. Khaled succumbed to his wounds, after being shot with a live round in the chest.”

Khaled Waleed Tayeh, 22

AP also reports the story: “Israeli guard kills Palestinian after West Bank stabbing” but fails to report the victim’s name, age, or anything else about him.

A few hours later Israeli guards in front of an Israeli outpost shot dead 19-year-old Hamza Yousef No’man Zama’ra, who had attacked one of the armed guards with a knife, cutting the man’s hand. AP reported the death but again failed to give Hamza’s name, age, or additional information about him.

Hamza Yousef No’man Zama’ra, 19

AP also fails to mention that Israel plans to level dozens of Palestinian schools in the West Bank, that Israeli forces have just detained a 52-year-old Palestinian mother and shot a teenager in the face, and that 54 Palestinian patients in critical need of specialized medical care patients died in 2017 when Israel wouldn’t let them leave Gaza.

Perhaps to to AP editors, these stories are of no importance.

However, for many Americans, most of whom believe in justice, fair play, and human rights, such information might diminish the willingness to give Israel massive amounts of their tax money.

*   *   *

For a list of all Palestinians and Israelis who have been killed by the other side since 2000, see this timeline.

For 2-minute videos of recent Palestinian victims, go here.

February 8, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-Egypt envoy: Evacuation of Sinai serves ‘deal of the century’

MEMO | February 8, 2018

A former Egyptian ambassador said that the current displacement of residents of the Sinai Peninsula sets the stage for the implementation of “the deal of the century”, adding that the Egyptian authorities are spreading “lies” by saying that the displacement is being carried out in the context of the fight against  Daesh.

Abdallah Al-Ashaal told Al-Resalah that there is no explanation for the displacement operations except that there is a conspiracy taking place at the hands of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority.

The conspiracy, according to Al-Ashaal, aims at establishing an entity and not a state for Palestinians under the pretext of expanding the Gaza Strip.

A Saudi-backed developmental plan seeks to establish infrastructure projects in Northern Sinai, such as the King Salman University and desalination and power plants, he added. These projects are “definitely not being worked on for those who are being displaced in the Sinai.”

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is part of the deal, Al-Ashaal said. “If this was not the case, there would be a search for another person who would accept it, and [dismissed Palestinian Liberation Organisation member] Dahlan is related to … this deal.”

In Al-Ashaal’s view, the plan also includes the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi handed over to Saudi Arabia in 2016.

The developmental plan that Sisi talks about includes expanding the Gaza Strip, Ashaal said. “Why the expansion and how can it be useful for Gaza that its borders stretch to the border of Arish [the Sinai city]?” Ashaal asked.

Using “security concerns”, Egypt has been emptying Sinai of its residents beginning with the border town of Rafah near the besieged Gaza Strip.

Local media reported yesterday that the Egyptian Ministry of Defence has asked the Ministry of Health to be ready for a state of emergency and for all hospitals in Ismailiyah to be prepared for a wide-scale military operation in northern Sinai.

February 8, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

British court acquits campaigners against arms trade

MEMO | February 7, 2018

A British court today threw out charges against campaigners protesting against a London arms fair.

In the fourth in a series of trials at Stratford Magistrates Court involving demonstrations against Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in London last year, the judge threw out the charges, describing the protestors’ actions as “reasonable”.

In a decision that is seen as a boost to the right to peaceful protest against the arms fair, District Judge Hamilton acquitted all four defendants of charges of obstructing the highway.

The decision marks a significant u-turn from last month’s decision by judges at the Stratford Magistrates Court who sentenced five protesters from the same group for demonstrating against the 2017 arms fair.

Following their victory, Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors said in their press release that all of the defendants had accepted that they had “locked on” in the middle of the road that leads to the arms fair. Describing the moment prior to their arrest, the solicitors said that the protest was “symbolic” and the group, who were all “committed Christians wanted to turn a road that was carrying weapons of destruction into a safe space for prayer for a short time. However, all were arrested after a matter of minutes by the police”.

Hodge Jones & Allen solicitors confirmed that more than 100 people were arrested in September 2017 outside the Excel Centre in east London during the DSEI arms fair which takes place every two years. It’s thought to be the largest event in the world attracting international arms dealers from countries including Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the UAE.

Charges against most of the protestors were dropped but the remaining 46 activists have faced trial throughout January and February.

In further defence of their clients, the solicitors mentioned that opponents to the arms fair have accused the exhibitors of promoting unlawful weapons, specifically in 2007 and 2011. These breaches were discovered by external bodies such as Amnesty International and other NGOs. Since 2015, DSEI has banned such organisations from the fair.

Denouncing the arms fair, the solicitors said: “[The] world’s most repressive regimes buy weapons at DSEI. Saudi Arabia, for example, is accused of committing breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity in Yemen, with the aid of weapons purchased from UK companies.  Arms sales to Saudi Arabia have increased by nearly 500 per cent since the start of the war in Yemen, with more than £4.6bn worth of arms sold within the first two years of bombings.”

Read also:

Do British courts really need to protect the world’s most corrupt industry?

February 7, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

PM vows to clamp down on online abuse… despite spending millions vilifying Corbyn

© Joel Goodman/ Global Look Press
RT | February 7, 2018

Prime Minister Theresa May was applauded on Monday when she pledged new measures to tackle online abuse against politicians. But has the Tory leader forgotten about the millions her party spent on smearing Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn?

In a speech marking the centenary of women gaining the right to vote in Britain, the Tory leader said new measures aimed at tackling online abuse will include a new annual report comprising of data on how social media giants moderate alleged abusers.

Speaking in Manchester, May said: “While there is much to celebrate, I worry that our public debate is coarsening. That for some it is harder to disagree, without also demeaning opposing viewpoints in the process.”

She said she will also ask the Law Commission to shake up legislation so it ensures abuse is illegal online just as it is offline.

“In the face of what is a threat to our democracy, I believe that all of us – individuals, governments, and media old and new – must accept our responsibility to help sustain a genuinely pluralist public debate for the future,” May added.

The comments appear to be a bit rich, however, as they come from the leader of a party which reportedly spent millions on a smear campaign against Labour during the 2017 general election.

The Conservatives were accused of circulating ‘dark ads’ on YouTube and Facebook to deter voters in marginal constituencies from voting for Labour. One of the last installments was an 85-second video made up of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s speeches circulated on Facebook with the caption: “On June 9th, this man could be Prime Minister. We can’t let that happen.”

The ad featured a snippet of an interview with Corbyn, given to Sky News in May 2016, received a widespread backlash as it erroneously framed the Labour leader as condoning IRA bombings. The Labour boss had argued: “All bombing is wrong, of course I condemn [IRA bombings].”

The video was only built to show the channel’s news anchor Sophy Ridge asking, “but you’re condemning all bombing, can you condemn the IRA without equating it to…?” to which Corbyn is heard adding “no.”

In the full footage, however, Corbyn goes on to say: “No, I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process. Listen, in the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution, it clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British Army at the time… I condemn all the bombing by the loyalists and the IRA.”

Corbyn representatives said the Tories were “running a hateful campaign based on smears, innuendo and fake news.”

Labour also sent out ads, but they focused on policies to appeal to the party’s supporters rather than attacking their rivals.

February 7, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

UK regime caught ‘censoring’ report that suggests it’s using drones to assassinate people

RT | February 6, 2018

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) attempted to censor a document showing it has assassinated people outside of armed conflict zones using drones, it has been reported. The government is now under pressure to come clean.

The ministry removed a passage from its report on drone use, titled ‘Joint Doctrine,’ which was published in September 2017, according to the Canary. In the report, it acknowledged that critics have raised concerns about the legality of unmanned and remotely piloted aircraft missions and their potential for misuse.

The MoD acknowledged it was targeting people outside of war zones, and said arguments against drones “may also arise from the recent UK practice of targeting suspected terrorists outside of the armed conflict itself, and the meaning and application of a state’s right to self-defence.”

This passage was missing, however, in the updated doctrine that the department uploaded late last year. Scottish National Party (SNP) spokesperson Stewart McDonald wrote to the MoD in December about the issue.

Minister of State for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster responded by saying that the September document contained “erroneous drafting.” He claimed the report had “misleadingly” noted that MoD policy was to use drone strikes outside of armed conflicts.

The head of human rights organization Reprieve said the government appears to be in “complete chaos” over the issue. Head of Reprieve’s Assassinations team Jen Gibson told the Canary: “We had a long overdue, official document saying the government have a ‘practice’ of killing people outside of armed conflict zones.

“And now we have a minister claiming there is no policy at all and their own document was ‘misleading.’ The public has a right to know the government’s policy on taking lethal strikes in our name,” she said.

Leaks have revealed that drone strikes have an appalling record in terms of accuracy. During one five-month period of a US operation in Afghanistan, for example, nine out of 10 people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.

February 6, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Teacher on Leave After Allegedly Assaulting Student Who Refused to Stand for Pledge of Allegiance

By Jon Queally | Common Dreams | February 3, 2018

A teacher in Colorado this week was suspended after it was alleged that she assaulted a young child who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance—a troubling example of educators who refuse to acknowledge that students have the right to refuse participation in the daily ritual still found in many U.S. schools.

According to CBS News:

A teacher with Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District was placed on paid administrative leave following an alleged incident at the middle school, the school district said Thursday. CBS Denver confirmed the Lafayette Police Department is investigating reports that teacher allegedly assaulted a student who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Karen Smith, [the school’s] physical education teacher, was placed on leave Thursday.

The school’s principal, Mike Medina, sent a letter home to parents Thursday evening notifying them there had been an “incident” involving Smith but said he could not elaborate.

Last year, as Splinter News reported at the time, a teacher in New Jersey was suspended after he bragged about failing students who refused to participate in the pledge.

“They refused to stand, saying ‘they didn’t have to[.]’ I told them that is true and that what makes this country great is ‘that I didn’t have to pass them either,'” Steven Solomon, the teacher, confessed. He was later suspended for his actions.

Though many public schools in the country continue to treat standing as the pledge as compulsory, the U.S. Supreme Court has said forcing students to do so is a violation of their constitutionally-protected rights. The court, as the ACLU explains in an on-line manual directed at students, “has held that it is just as much a violation of your First Amendment rights for the government to make you say something you don’t want to say as it is for the government to prevent you from saying what you do want to say.” All students, the civil liberties group says, “have a right to remain silently seated during the pledge.”

In a 2009 column  that appeared on Common Dreams, entitled ‘The Pledge of Allegiance Is Un-American,” Michael Lind put it this way: “In a republic, the people should not pledge allegiance to the government; the government should pledge allegiance to the people.”

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces kill 19-year-old with bullet to the head

IMEMC | February 3, 2018

Ahmad Samir Abu ‘Obeid, 19, was killed by Israeli soldiers with a live round in the head, during a massive military invasion into Burqin town, west of Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that the soldiers shot Ahmad with a live round in his head, causing a very serious injury, before medics rushed him to Jenin Governmental Hospital, where he died from his wounds.

The Ministry added that the soldiers also shot two other young Palestinian men with live rounds in their legs, and six with rubber-coated steel bullets, in addition to causing dozens to suffer the severe effects of teargas inhalation, after the army attacked locals, who protested the invasion.

The army also arrested four young Palestinian men, and demolished a room and a barn, in addition to causing damage to several structures and cars, before withdrawing from the town.

The invasion was carried out by twenty-two armored military vehicles, and two bulldozers, before the soldiers broke into and searched many homes, and used K9 units in searching the properties, causing anxiety attacks among many Palestinians, especially children.

After the army withdrew from the town, hundreds of Palestinians marched in Ahmad’s funeral procession, while chanting against the ongoing Israeli military occupation.

The Israeli invasion into several areas in the Jenin Governorate started when the soldiers invaded Kafeer village, south of the Jenin city, after surrounding it and declaring it a closed military zone.

The soldiers conducted extensive military searches of homes and detained two siblings, identified as Thieb Walid Ershaid, 43, and his brother Qa’qaa, 42, after surrounding their homes.

The shooting death of Abu Obeid came during the invasion of Wadi Burqin by the Israeli military early Saturday morning to besiege the home where the army believed that the wanted man Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, was hiding.

Ahmad Nasr Jarrar was wanted by the Israeli military for allegedly killing an Israeli settler on January 8th.

Following that killing, the Israeli military invaded many nearby villages and conducted house-to-house searches.

On January 18th, the Israeli army besieged a home where they mistook Ahmad Ismail Jarrar for his cousin, and killed him. Ahmad was from Burin, west of Jenin.

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sumoud

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Army Surrounds A Home Near Jenin, Sets off Explosives

IMEMC News | February 3, 2018

Israeli soldiers invaded al-Kafeer town, southeast of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, on Saturday at dawn and surrounded a home where a Palestinian who is believed behind death of an Israeli colonialist settler last month was alleged to be hiding.

Media sources in Jenin said a large military force, including 22 military vehicles and 2 armored bulldozers, invaded the town and surround the home of Walid Ershaid, and started using loud speakers demanding that Ahmad Jarrar surrender. The Israeli military said they thought Jarrar was hiding out in the house.

It should be noted that on January 18th, Israeli soldiers executed the cousin of Ahmad Jarrar after mistaking him for Ahmad.

The sources added that the soldiers imposed a strict siege on the entire area, and completely blockaded the main Tubas-Jenin road.

Sounds of explosions could be heard in and around the surrounded home, and its vicinity.

Media sources in Jenin said the troops eventually withdrew without finding Jarrar.

Furthermore, the soldiers invaded Burqin and ‘Aqaba town, near Jenin, after isolating them, and abducted Ibrahim Obeidi, Nader Masad, Mubarak Jarrar and Mostafa Antar Jarrar.

The soldiers invaded and ransacked dozens of homes in Burqin at around 4:00 in the morning, and used K9 units during the search, while interrogating scores of residents.

February 3, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

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