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Over 160 civilians, including unborn child, killed in Turkish crackdown on Kurds – report

RT | January 11, 2016

In five months of battling the Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey, Ankara has killed over 160 civilians, according to a rights group report. Among them was an unborn child, whose mother was shot.

In August, Ankara launched a ground operation to crack down on Kurdish fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The violence ended a two-year truce with the Kurdish militants, who have been fighting a guerrilla war for independence for decades. An estimated 10,000 Turkish troops armed with heavy weapons and armored vehicles, including tanks, were deployed.

Since August 16, Turkish troops have imposed at least 58 curfews in Kurdish regions, disrupting the lives of some 1.4 million people living in the affected provinces, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) said. Some lasted 10 hours or less, but others went on for days and weeks, and some are still ongoing. The curfews affected 19 districts in the provinces of Batman, Diyarbakır, Elazıg, Hakkari, Mardin, Mus and Sırnak.

While the curfews have been in place, at least 162 civilians have been killed. The death toll includes 29 women, 32 children, and 24 elderly people. One of the victims in the city of Cizre in Sırnak Province was an unborn child, who was killed by a gunshot to his mother’s womb, the group said. The mother, Guler Yanalak, was seven month’s pregnant at the time and reportedly survived the injury.

The HRFT said at least 22 people were killed in their homes, some of them from heavy weapons used by the fighting sides. Four people were reported to have been killed in areas where no curfews had been declared. The violence against civilians appears to have escalated since December 11, the group said, with 79 civilian deaths reported since then.

The PKK, founded in 1978, has been fighting the Turkish state for Kurdish self-determination since 1984. Kurds make up between 10 percent and 25 percent of Turkey’s population. In late December, a congress of Kurdish non-governmental organizations called for Turkey’s southeastern regions to be granted autonomy via constitutional reforms.

The escalation of violence in Turkey came two months after the Kurdish militia in Syria, known as the YPG, as well as the Turkish pro-Kurdish party, the HDP, accused Ankara of aiding Islamic State in their offensive on Kurdish territories in Syria. At the time, the terrorists were laying siege to the Kurdish border town of Kobani.

Ankara has been stepping up its military operations on the border with Syria and Iraq since December. The area is a stronghold of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to continue the operation until the area is cleansed of Kurdish militants.

January 11, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Albuquerque Police Public Records Clerk Sues Chief for Ordering Him to Withhold Public Records

By Joshua Brown | PINAC | January 10, 2016

The Albuquerque Police Department has found its way into another lawsuit. This time a former employee is suing on grounds of wrongful termination for not complying to Police Chief Gorden Eden’s orders to find ways to deny public records request.

The New Mexico police agency has been a long-time violator of public records requests. Just last month, PINAC News reported on the many lawsuits that have been brought against the department for violating public records laws or increasingly delaying public records request.

The lawsuit, which can be read here is being brought by Reynaldo Chavez, who is the former records custodian for the police department.

Chavez is seeking monetary damages for conspiracy, breach of contract, spoliation and violations under New Mexico’s Whistle Blower Protection Act.

Reynaldo Chavez
Reynaldo Chavez

Named in the suit is Albuquerque Police Department Police Chief Gorden Eden, Assistant Chief Robert Huntsman, Legal Counsel Kathryn Levy, and the Executive Director of its Administrative Support Bureau William Slausen.

According to the suit, Chief Eden constantly ordered Chavez to find ways to avoid releasing public information to requesters such as the media, private individuals and bloggers.

The suit specifically states Chavez was ordered to, ” deny, withhold, obstruct, conceal, or even destroy records.”

Chavez goes on to say in the suit that he was told to:

“Creatively identify an allowable exception [of] the Inspection of Public Records Act to withhold production of responsive public records in an effort to “baffle” or frustrate the requestor or otherwise burden them,” and ” to fabricate reasons to burden requestors with additional requirements when such requirements were not needed such as case numbers or increased particularity in a given request.” and “arbitrarily delay production of responsive public records without justification supporting such delay.”

The Albuquerque Police Department released the following statement:

“[We] carefully evaluate document requests to ensure that it does not release sensitive information, such as social security numbers, documents that are confidential by law, or evidence that could compromise an investigation. Albuquerque Police Department is committed to transparency and strives to improve how quickly it is able to respond to requests from the public.”

Chavez eventually became fed up with the Chief’s unlawful demands and as a result Chavez complained to upper level police officials. Once word got back to the Chief, Chavez was fired.

In the lawsuit, Chavez included 11 exhibits of proof showing how the police department gave incomplete reply’s to records requests; one of which included a quote from Police Department Legal Counsel Kathryn Levy saying, “There are items we just will not release and we will just pay the fines or lawsuits.”

In another instance, Levy instructed Chavez to give a KRQE reporter a box of records that had nothing to do with the requested information regarding the Department of Justice’s investigation into the beleaguered police department.

Recently, Eden’s department has been under scrutiny by even the United States Department of Justice, which usually gives a free pass to departments with excessive force issue.

According to TIME :

A federal investigation into the Albuquerque police department found “a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, including deadly force” that violated the Fourth Amendment, the Justice Department said Thursday. The probe, launched in 2012, found that the Albuquerque Police Department too often uses deadly force, applies less lethal force—like Tasers—unnecessarily, and too often uses force against people with mental illness. The report also details problems within the department that include inadequate training and lack of accountability.

Chavez also claims the defendants do not qualify for immunity, because they were acting outside of their official duties when they instructed him to impede various requests and then retaliated against him by firing him.

All states have Freedom of Information Act Laws, so complying with those laws was the main scope of Chavez’s duties.

After the shooting death of a mentally ill man, James Boyd, which made national headlines, Chavez received numerous records requests seeking email correspondence, a list of personnel involved in the incident, forensic ballistic reports, audio and video tape as well as many other requests pertaining to the murder of Boyd. The video involving the shooting death of Boyd can be seen below.

Chavez’s lawsuit also alleges that, “Defendants individually and collectively reviewed responsive information and instructed Mr. Chavez to withhold or delay production of certain materials to requesters without a lawful exception allowing such withholding or delay.”

Chavez says the department was “tactically coordinating” which records requests would be fulfilled and which ones would be delayed, or not fulfilled at all, so certain requests would not be granted to the media. In other requests, Chavez was instructed to give them so much material that the requester would tire from sifting through it all, and never actually find what they were requesting.

Also implied in the lawsuit is that, “Upon information and belief, responsive material, including video footage, relating to the shooting of Mr. Boyd remains unproduced to requesters.”

But perhaps even more alarming than withholding unseen video footage in the Boyd case are claims that APD monitored following protests against the officers who shot Boyd and that, “APD deployed as many as four detectives dressed in plain clothes to observe the protesters. One of these detectives surreptitiously recorded various citizens.”

Chavez’s lawsuit also claims that when he went to his superiors and told them that he believed in good faith that their actions were improper, and in violation of the law, that he was retaliated against–and then fired, which is where the violation of New Mexico’s Whistleblower Protection Act comes in to the suit.

Ultimately, according to Chavez, the defendants worked in concert with one another for the purposes of retaliating against him for standing up to his superiors who apparently still have something to hide regarding the Boyd shooting.

After much outrage and many protests from the public, the two officers involved in Boyd’s shooting were finally charged with 1st degree murder, but that was later reduced to 2nd degree murder for both of them. Keith Sandy retired over a year ago. And Dominique Perez was ultimately fired. Their trials are set tentatively for August of 2016.

Back in June of 2015, PINAC reported that officer Keith Sandy planned and premeditated to shoot Boyd in the penis before he even arrived on the scene where the mentally ill, homeless man was camping. His statements were captured on his own dash cam recording.

An attorney seeking justice in the Boyd case claims that Sandy would have indeed shot Boyd in or near the penis, except for Boyd turned around after officers tossed a flash grenade in his direction and began shooting him. Ballistic reports show Boyd was shot in the buttocks instead.

They also claim Boyd was a threat, even though he was standing at least 30 ft away from the heavily armed officers. Boyd was holding two knives, but never came towards the officers before they shot him.

Not surprisingly, APD claimed, as every department does, that the shooting was justified because Boyd was making “threatening gestures” with the knives he was holding, although the video shows that obviously isn’t the case.

While police unions are indeed a problem for departments that would like to ferret out the so-called bad apples, one could also conclude that so is a chief who talks out of both sides of his mouth.

On one hand, Chief Eden admits there are bad apples and the police union protects them, so he can’t fire them to clean up his department. On the other hand, Chief Eden [allegedly] encourages his records custodian to impede public records requests so the public isn’t able to see the problems within his department.

In light of the lawsuit filed by Reynaldo Chavez, perhaps it’s reasonable to conclude that Chief Eden falls into the category of police who are on the force who don’t belong on the force. The public deserves transparency from the government that is supposed to serve it, and that’s much of what PINAC is all about. A media outlet shouldn’t fear standing their ground on records requests for fear that they may lose access to news in the future. This lawsuit highlights how that often happens, and not just with the Albuquerque Police Department.

PINAC writer Ben Keller contributed to this report.

January 11, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

All Alone: US Tortures Children for ‘Excessive’ Number of Books

Sputnik – January 10, 2016

Despite a recent trend in the US to decrease the use of solitary confinement as a punishment for children, Nebraska, a state of almost 2 million people, considers the method appropriate and has applied it broadly.

Solitary confinement, as a form of torture, has been practiced in the US since the early 19th century but was later halted nationwide after reported negative psychological effects on children.

Human rights activists expressed concern over the trend as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, said in 2011 that “even 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and 15 days is the limit after which irreversible harmful psychological effects can occur.”

Mendez, the Argentinian human rights advocate tortured by local forces almost 50 years ago, called for an “absolute prohibition” on solitary confinement for children and those afflicted with mental illness.

Recent years have seen mounting reports of some states’ efforts to eliminate or at least reduce the significantly spread practice. Rikers Island, well known for its abuse-related practices with detainees, ruled out the use of solitary confinement for under-21s. The Pelican Bay State Prison based in California was slammed last year as its detainees filed a successful class lawsuit against the state for using prolonged solitary confinement system at the large scale.

Recommended to be used for no more than 240 minutes per day by the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, Nebraska officials appear to bypass the rules.

Constitutional rights violations and negative effects of solitary confinements for juveniles have never been considered enough by Nebraska officials to put an end the use of torture.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)-Nebraska discovered numerous reports of abuse in solitary confinements across different detention centers in the state and issued open records to get more information of the practice.

According to the ACLU, “a young Nebraskan’s experience with solitary confinement is completely arbitrary and dependent upon the facility in which he or she is placed.”

The Douglas County-based Correctional Youth Facility set records of having a detainee stayed for 90 days, whereas the usual maximum of stay for adults doesn’t exceed 15 days. A Madison County detention facility had at least one solitary sentence lasting 52 days.

The ACLU report explained the possible jaw-dropping consequences solitary confinement detainees might have.

“For adults, the effects can be persistent mental health problems, or worse, suicide. And for children, who are still developing and more vulnerable to irreparable harm, the risks of solitary are magnified — protracted isolation and solitary confinement can be permanently damaging, especially for those with mental illness.”

The punishment often excludes the child from attending educational classes or so from communicating with other children, further cutting their opportunity to develop and learn. Two instances of solitary confinement were prompted after it was found that the juveniles involved had an “excessive” number of books.

January 10, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Europe: Demoralized, invaded and violated

By Sam Gerrans | RT | January 9, 2016

While the liberal media is working on damage limitation as the fairy dust on its childlike delusions is blown away by the harsh winds of reality in places like Cologne, it is time for European nations to ask themselves whether they believe in their own right to exist.

Just because post-WWII European liberals have been culturally neutered doesn’t mean that the armies of young men pouring in from Arab countries and sub-Saharan Africa have been, too.

The liberals are in denial at the dissonance between their theses and actual reality, and engaged in damage limitation – or simply blaming the victims – to make up the shortfall.

But rape and pillage – such as we have seen across Europe – is what invading armies do. It’s what our invading armies do – why should anyone else’s be different?

The young men themselves understand exactly what’s going on, even if the fools around them do not.

Meanwhile, the poor white Europeans are so afraid of calling a thing by its proper name, it requires second generation immigrants to do it for them.

European demoralization

The idea popular – not least among liberal Europeans – is that Europeans’ influence in the world has been an unmitigated evil. Associated with this assumption is another assumption: that any instinct towards self-survival among members of European cultures is evil, too.

While it is true that Britain, for example, (along with other key European countries) had empires and some (perhaps much) of what those empires did was bad, none of that loot trickled down to the common man.

The reality is that Britain has been run by a banking cartel since the creation of the Bank of England, and its indigenous peoples have been mowed down in their millions in wars to fill the coffers of the rich. Untold numbers were also worked to death in fields and mines.

While that was the business model, the people were inculcated with a sense of ‘them and us’ – the clansman and the outsider – because it was useful to the rulers.

Now, the ingenuity and hard work of European men is no longer so much in demand. The known world has been conquered, and the banks own all of it apart from a few hold-outs – and those are currently being bombed. But the main job was pretty well done by the end of WWII.

At that point, a new doctrine was handed down. Under this doctrine, Europeans no longer have any business being tribes. Wars, naturally, were not the fault of the banking oligarchy which now owned the entire world thanks in the main to the labors and gullibility of Europeans. No, wars were the fault of the European peoples themselves.

So, rather than peoples falling neatly into friends and foes as they had before, the world was Dale Carnegie-ized.

The Newthink dictated that if you simply refused to acknowledge any sort of differences between your group and anyone else’s long enough, you could ‘Make Friends And Influence People’ until the world was a big, happy smorgasbord – all holding hands round a tree, singing Kumbaya and sharing a Coke and a smile.

This, in essence, is what liberals believe. They think that if you pretend what you want to be the case is the case long enough, the lion will lie down with the lamb, and they will enjoy a nice vegetarian nut roast together.

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Warm and cuddly and gooey. A bit like the denouement of a saccharin chick-flick.

But it has a problem. And that problem is that it is complete nonsense.

Even our rulers have to admit this, because every now and then they – via their owned media – fire us up with nationalism in bursts whenever there’s a need for a quick (or not-so-quick) genocide somewhere to take down a country, install a compliant central bank, and get that country back to handing its assets over to the banks rather than to its own people. Then tribalism is fine.

Limited tribalism during the World Cup is also fine since it gives the males a chance to work off their instinct to protect their own – in a loud yet managed, sterile and futile way.

But the rest of the time, if you so much as notice differences between you and any other group, political correctness will leave you a social pariah – or, increasingly, lose you your job or send you to prison.

What this means – to go back to the lion and lamb motif – is that you are now the lamb, and any teeth you had have been removed, and you secretly went vegan after reading some books Deepak Chopra lent you.

And now as you snuggle up next to the lion your entire survival strategy is predicated on the lion having read the same books and feeling the same way about what he read as you do.

European invasion

If I want to go to New Zealand, for example, there is a process. Quite a strict one. And if I turn up in that country without the correct documentation, then I will not be getting in.

But not so in Europe. At least not now. And not for certain people.

There are genuine asylum seekers in the world. And there is a process for assessing them.

But that is not what is happening here. What is happening, is that the European nations themselves are being kettled by their own governments’ policies and occupied by gangs of unknown young men, many of whom have simply joined the bandwagon because the word is out that the Europeans have lost the will to fight.

But porous borders and financial support when you get in do not extend to everyone.

Almost 18,000 British citizens are denied access annually for their spouse to join them in the UK by the government if that spouse comes from outside the EU.

So this ‘compassion’ is extremely selective.

The laws of legal physics have been magically suspended. And the governments – whose primary duty and justification for existing in the first place – is to maintain the integrity of a nation’s borders are, seemingly, helpless.

I don’t need mainstream media to explain to me what I can see happening. Any time I see an army of young men marching into a foreign country in the face of supine, defeated troops who have lost the will or the wit to fight for those people who pay their wages, then I know what is happening: an invasion is taking place.

As usual, the justification for this insanity is the very ‘compassion’ which has become both de rigour and legally enforceable in all countries where noticeable numbers of Europeans reside – but nowhere else, it seems.

Our leaders have no scruples about murdering a million Iraqis or bombing Fallujah with phosphorous bombs or providing media and financial support for the eradication of the Palestinians, but now – all of a sudden – we are told to be squeamish: the doors simply must not be closed; we have to help.

This new-found compassion and glaring contradiction should tell you everything you need to know: the fix is in. Europe is slated to be ethnically cleansed.

No-one voted for this. Few people want it. Yet everyone has to pay for it. And until the governments do their duty and protect their nations from invasion, it is beyond me why there isn’t a tax revolt.

The wars against Syria and Iraq are criminal. And so is the dereliction of basic duty of the European governments to maintain the integrity of our borders.

And those who are the decision-makers in both scenarios are marching to a drum none of us have any part in beating.

Thus, we are living under a tyranny. So let’s just admit as much.

Liberal insanity

Politically correct liberal insistence upon things being – in fact – how some in socialist think tanks might wish them to be has gone beyond the point of tolerable insanity; it has the aspect of a death wish; of an enforced, self-service, pay-as-you-go ethnic cleansing of Europe’s indigenous peoples. And no amount of pleading the compassion card is going to diffuse this reality.

If we are looking for causes of the crimes against Syria and Iraq, they are to be found in the nature and acceptance of usury, and the policies of think tanks designed to further the interests of a very few people.

The vast majority of European peoples did not create either problem. They certainly do not benefit from them. There is no reason why they should pay for them.

My nation’s forebears laid down their lives in their millions to defend their land. I do not believe I am alone in regarding as pernicious, criminal, treacherous and evil that collusion between politics, education, media and business which treats any instinct for survival among indigenous European peoples as a disposable and distasteful commodity.

Voices of reason are coming to the fore – from Hungary and Slovakia, for example.

We should listen to them.

@SamGerrans

January 10, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Although 2016 looks bleak for Gaza, there is a chink of light

By Dr Daud Abdullah | MEMO | January 5, 2016

Throughout the whole of 2015 the Rafah Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was open for just 21 days. On 31 December, the Egyptian authorities opened the border to deliver the corpse of a 28 year-old mentally-ill Palestinian, Ishaq Khalil Hassan, who was shot in full view of the cameras after he had strayed into Egyptian waters while swimming in the Mediterranean. As the Israeli-led — and Egyptian-backed — blockade of Gaza enters its tenth year, there is little hope that the Rafah Crossing will be opened for any meaningful number of days in 2016.

In fact, a combination of domestic and external factors are likely to continue to prevent an early end to the siege. The cold-blooded killing of Hassan by the Egyptian army in late December was indicative of a hardening of Cairo’s attitudes toward the Palestinians in Gaza. As a result, many more will pay with their lives, either through being denied unrestricted passage through Rafah to get essential medical treatment, or by attempting to smuggle basic needs through the tunnels once described as Gaza’s “lifeline”; or by falling victim to Israeli or Egyptian state violence.

For now, there is no shortage of excuses for keeping the Rafah Crossing closed; the usual excuse given to the Palestinians is that the security situation in north Sinai necessitates the closure. While it is true that there is a deadly insurgency in the Sinai which is taxing the resources of the Egyptian security forces and needs a massive political effort to resolve, that does not justify the demonisation and extrajudicial killing of Palestinians.

It has not gone unnoticed that on every occasion that the crossing was open last year there was a major security incident on the Egyptian side of the border. Coincidence? Perhaps, or maybe such incidents were planned in order to provide the Egyptian authorities with an excuse to keep Rafah closed. We will probably never know.

Israel’s role in prolonging Gaza’s humanitarian ordeal, however, is far more clear-cut. Soon after Hamas was elected to run the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 the Israelis imposed economic sanctions against the enclave. At the time, Dov Weisglass, an advisor to the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

The following year, Israel declared Gaza to be a “hostile entity” and tightened further its sanctions regime. By adopting this designation, the Israeli cabinet had in effect voted to keep Gaza under a permanent state of siege.

Repeated calls by world leaders, including UN chief Ban Ki-moon, to end the blockade have all fallen on deaf ears. In 2010, Mr Ban condemned the blockade, saying that it caused “unacceptable sufferings.” Today, international aid agencies have confirmed that 80 per cent of Gaza’s inhabitants are aid dependent because of unemployment and poverty created by the Israeli siege.

It has now become abundantly clear that the aims of the blockade have gone well beyond the near-starvation proposed by Weisglass; it has been extended to ensure that young Palestinians in Gaza are even denied the basic right to an education. According to the Palestinian ministry of education, the blockade is currently impeding the building of 55 schools in the territory.

Internally, political analysts and observers in Gaza don’t expect 2016 to be any better than last year. There is a general sense among most that without a resolution of the differences between the two main factions, Fatah and Hamas, things will not improve. Perhaps the most intractable factor in this dossier is who controls the Rafah Crossing.

This week, a new formula has been proposed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Islamic Jihad and other factions to resolve the issue. It suggests the appointment of an independent body of technocrats to oversee the border with the reappointment of those Fatah officials who were removed when Hamas took over the territory in 2007. At the same time, it stipulates that those officials employed by Hamas should retain their positions. An agreement on this formula between Fatah and Hamas could pull the rug from under the feet of the Egyptian government and nudge it to reopen the crossing.

Another ray of hope comes from the ongoing talks between Turkey and Israel, both of whom have now decided to normalise relations. While Israel has agreed to some of the Turkish conditions —notably an apology for the Freedom Flotilla attack in 2010 and compensation for the victims’ families — one condition remains hanging in the balance: Ankara’s demand for an end to the blockade of Gaza. As it has done so many times in the past, Israel has agreed to an “easing” of the restrictions but, as before, it has not actually defined what that means. If past experience is anything to go by, it means very little.

Sources close to the talks, though, have told MEMO that Turkey has proposed the construction of a sea port in Gaza and offered to administer it. So far Benjamin Netanyahu and his government remain implacably opposed to this. Nevertheless, although it will be a bitter pill to swallow it may actually be the best face-saving device for the Israelis to accept. After all, Israeli commentators and intelligence officials alike have realised that instead of weakening Hamas the blockade has strengthened the movement.

While it is hard to imagine a year worse than 2015, Gaza is caught in a downward spiral from which it will be difficult to escape. However, this Turkish proposal provides a chink of light that, with goodwill, could lead to 2016 not being as bad as last year after all. Some courageous steps are needed to make it work, but it is possible. to 2016 not being as bad as last year after all. Some courageous steps are needed to make it work, but it is possible.

January 10, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Male-dominant migrant wave threatens Europe’s gender equality’

RT | January 8, 2016

As European nations continue to accept thousands of refugees, officials are failing to consider that most young adults entering are males, a fact that could have a huge impact on gender equality, says Valerie Hudson, professor at Texas A&M University.

Critics of Europe’s loose and liberal policy towards refugees flooding its shores were galvanized by the harrowing news out of Cologne, Germany on New Year’s Eve.

According to an internal report by Germany’s state police, the Bundespolizei, obtained by DER SPIEGEL, it was written by an official that “[W]omen, accompanied or not, literally ran a ‘gauntlet’ through masses of heavily intoxicated men that words cannot describe.”

RT spoke with Professor Valerie Hudson on a subject that European leaders are apparently ignoring as they continue to open the door to thousands of migrants from North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East with little or no concern for the sex-ratio makeup of the arrivals.

RT:  The majority of migrants arriving in Europe are young unmarried males. How could that affect the overall social and cultural landscape on the continent?

Valerie Hudson: Over two-thirds of the migrants in this wave are male. As far as Sweden is concerned, I put to one side adult males because one never knows if adult males may be bringing a family subsequently. I looked primarily at older teens – 16-17 years old – and what I found is that most of these are unaccompanied and over 90 percent are male and that means a significant alteration in the sex ratios for Sweden for that age group. My calculations show that there are now approximately 125 boys aged 16-17 for every 100 girls aged 16-17 in Sweden. That is highly abnormal. It is significantly more abnormal than China, whose sex ratio for this age group – due to the problems of the one-child policy – is only 117 boys for every 100 girls aged 16-17.

RT:  Norway has a government-run program teaching migrants how to treat women. Meanwhile in Germany, we now have the Cologne mayor calling on women to alter their behavior around men. Which is the way to go?

VH: That’s an excellent question. What boggles my mind is that no one in Europe has been asking this question. I’ve been studying societies with abnormal sex ratios favoring males for over 20 years… and I can tell you on the basis of my research that societies with highly masculinized sex ratios, that is, with far more men than women in the young adult age group, are unstable. They have higher rates of violent crime, property crime, crimes against women. Women’s freedom to move about in an unconstrained manner is curtailed and there is also a very high demand for prostitution and trafficked women to fill that need, that demand. And so I think someone should be asking whether the alteration in the sex ratio for Europe is not a tragic loss for the women of Europe, for ideals of gender equality in Europe and so forth.

RT:  One attacker in Cologne was quoted as saying that “they should be treated kindly as Merkel has invited them”. Could it be that migrants indeed have a sense of entitlement when coming to Europe?

VH: There are two issues here, and they’re separate issues. One is the question of assimilation, the idea that many of the migrants are coming from cultures in which women are perhaps not viewed as the equals of men, and standards of modesty, standards of male-female interaction in public spaces is vastly different. So yes, anything that one can do to ease assimilation would be helpful.

But there’s a second problem, and it’s the second problem that I’ve been dealing with, which is: It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about migrants from Afghanistan or Greek Orthodox migrants or Hindu migrants. When you get masculinized sex ratios – even if it has nothing to do with migration, like we see in India – you’re going to get these same problems of crime and instability and curtailment of movement for women. So it’s not simply an assimilation issue; it’s also a sex-ratio issue. Canada for one has taken a different approach to migration… it will not allow in unaccompanied males unless they are of a particularly vulnerable group, like gay men. They are refusing to allow these alterations in their sex ratio to take place, and I think it behooves European countries to think about similar measures.

RT:  Could there be any backlash from local politicians pushing citizens to change their ways for accommodating migrants?

VH: Well, there ought to be backlash to this. The rest of the world looks to North and Northwestern Europe as the shining example of how a society can achieve gender equality. On any measure of women’s rights or gender equality, nations like Sweden and Norway are at the top of the heap. What a tragic loss it would be not just for those countries, but for the world. For those nations to now say their women: ‘You know, maybe you should stay home on nights of public festivals; maybe you should dress differently.’

Women in Europe fought not for decades but centuries to create the kind of culture where gender equality could flourish. Sweden prides itself on having a feminist foreign policy; Sweden prides itself on having a complete abolitionist approach to prostitution. These are countries that have embraced feminism. So to now turn around and say ‘You know women, maybe you should alter your behavior,’ isn’t that a stunning loss for these nations?

What has been missing in this debate is that a normal balanced sex ratio is a very precious thing. It is a public good. And the state government has an absolute obligation to its citizens to attempt to preserve that normal balanced sex ratio. So to the extent that they have neglected this issue, that it has not even made it onto their radar screen, is actually an indictment of the leadership.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Taking on the Nuclear Goliath

By Robert Koehler | CounterPunch | January 8, 2016

“Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century. And . . . as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.

“So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Uh…

These words, the core of President Obama’s first major foreign policy speech, delivered in Prague in April 2009, now resonate with nothing so much as toxic irony — these pretty words, these words of false hope, which disappeared into Washington’s military-industrial consensus and failed to materialize into action or policy.

James Carroll, writing at Mother Jones in 2013, describes what happened in the wake of this extraordinary policy declaration:

“In order to get the votes of Senate Republicans to ratify the START treaty, Obama made what turned out to be a devil’s bargain. He agreed to lay the groundwork for a vast ‘modernization’ of the US nuclear arsenal, which, in the name of updating an aged system, is already morphing into a full-blown reinvention of the arms cache at an estimated future cost of more than a trillion dollars. In the process, the Navy wants, and may get 12 new strategic submarines; the Air Force wants, and may get a new long-range strike bomber force. Bombers and submarines would, of course, both be outfitted with next-generation missiles, and we’d be off to the races. The arms races.”

And the cause of global nuclear disarmament, once a dream with geopolitical cred, may wind up entombed in eternal apathy. As Carroll put it: “Nuclear abolition itself is being abolished.”
But I refuse to believe that. What I do believe is that change of such magnitude simply cannot emerge from the actions of top-down leadership, even sentimentally sympathetic leadership like Obama’s, until a counterforce for disarmament is able to stand eyeball to eyeball with world decision makers and the military-industrial matrix in which they operate.

Say hello to the Marshall Islands, the tiny, heroic island nation in Micronesia, with a population just over 70,000. This former U.S. territory, which still bears the terrible scars of 67 above-ground nuclear blasts between 1946 and 1958, when this country used it as an expendable nuclear test site, has engaged the United States — and, indeed, all nine nations that possess nuclear weapons — in lawsuits demanding that they comply with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and begin the process of negotiating global nuclear disarmament.

Specifically, the lawsuits — filed both in the International Court of Justice in the Hague and U.S. federal court — are demanding compliance with Article VI of the treaty, signed by the U.S. in 1970, which reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

General and complete disarmament…

Do these words actually have meaning? Right now the Marshall Islands stand alone among the nations of Planet Earth in believing that they do.

The U.S. suit was filed in April 2014 and dismissed as “speculative.” This ruling was appealed, the appeal was contested, and last month the attorneys for the Marshall Islands filed their reply brief, challenging, among other things, the U.S. government’s contention that an international treaty is the province of the Executive Branch to comply with (or ignore) as it chooses.

The brief is demanding that the Judicial Branch assert itself in this matter and rule on the island nation’s claims that A) as a signatory to the treaty, it is owed U.S. compliance to negotiate disarmament in good faith and dismantle its own nuclear weapons cache rather than upgrade it; and B) U.S. failure to do so creates a “measurable increased risk of nuclear danger” for the Marshall Island (and, of course, everyone else on the planet).

There’s no clear time frame for what will happen next, but at some point, a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will either uphold the case’s dismissal or call for oral arguments to proceed.

“Under the treaty, they are obligated to do what they said they were going to do,” David Krieger, president of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which is working with the Marshall Islands on its case, said to me. The case alerts the public to how its interests are “being jeopardized by the failure of nuclear-armed countries to fulfill their obligations.”

Today, as I write this, North Korea is claiming that it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb; if true, this is seriously disheartening news for the rest of the planet, and the claim is reaping universal condemnation. But the nuclear-armed nations aren’t condemning themselves for doing the same thing. Clearly, such enormous power is difficult — if not impossible — to give up on one’s own.

Is there a force for peace that can break this impasse? A tiny, wounded nation, which is still reaping the consequences of being forced to serve as a nuclear testing ground, says yes there is. The challenge is real, not symbolic. It’s also unprecedented. Multiply their effort by the hopes of almost everyone on the planet and maybe we could produce a leader who means what he says:
“So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

BDS in the Crosshairs

By Lawrence Davidson | To The Point Analyses | January 9, 2016

Most readers will know that the United States has served as the patron of Israel for decades. Why has it done so? The commonly given reasons are suspect. It is not because the two countries have overlapping interests. The U.S. seeks stability in the Middle East (mostly by supporting dictators) and Israel is constantly making things unstable (mostly by practicing ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, illegally colonizing conquered lands and launching massive assaults against its neighbors). Nor, as is often claimed, is the alliance based on “shared Western values.” The U.S. long ago outlawed racial, ethnic and religious discrimination in the public sphere. In Israel, religious-based discrimination is the law. The Zionist state’s values in this regard are the opposite of those of the United States.

So why is it that a project that seeks to pressure Israel to be more cognizant in foreign affairs of regional stability, and more democratic and egalitarian in domestic affairs, is now under fire by almost every presidential candidate standing for the 2016 election?

That project in dispute is BDS, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, promoted by civil society throughout the Western world. BDS is directed at Israel due to its illegal colonization of the Occupied Territories and its general apartheid-style discrimination against non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular.

The Candidates and BDS

With but two exceptions, every presidential candidate in both parties is condemning the BDS Movement. Lets start with the two exceptions. The first exception is the Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has taken the accurate position that “the United States has encouraged the worst tendencies of the Israeli government.” She has pledged to use both diplomatic and economic means to change Israeli behavior, behavior which she rightly believes is in contravention of international law and violates human rights.

The second exception is the Republican candidate Donald Trump, who recently told a meeting of Jewish Republicans that he didn’t think Israel is serious about peace and that they would have to make greater efforts to achieve it. When he was booed he just shrugged and told the crowd that he did not care if they supported him or not, “I don’t want your money.” Unfortunately, this appears to be the only policy area where Mr. Trump is reasonable [Russia relations? MENA interventions?].

Jill Stein gets absolutely no media coverage and Donald Trump gets too much. And neither is in the “mainstream” when it comes to American political reactions to BDS. However, the rest of the
presidential candidates are. Here is what is coming out of the “mainstream”:

— Jeb Bush (Republican), 4 December 2015: “On day one I will work with the next attorney general to stop the BDS movement in the United States, to use whatever resources that exist” to do so.
— Ted Cruz (Republican), 28 May 2015: “BDS is premised on a lie and it is anti-Semitism, plain and simple. And we need a president of the United States who will stand up and say if a university in this country boycotts the nation of Israel than that university will forfeit federal taxpayer dollars.”
— Marco Rubio (Republican), 3 December 2015: “This [BDS] coalition of the radical left thinks it has discovered a clever, politically correct way to advocate Israel’s destruction. As president,

I will call on university presidents, administrators, religious leaders, and professors to speak out with clarity and force on this issue. I will make clear that calling for the destruction of Israel is the same as calling for the death of Jews.”

Hillary Clinton (Democrat), 2 July 2015: In a letter to Haim Saban, who is a staunch supporter of the Zionist state and also among the biggest donors to the Democratic Party, she said, “I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority, I am seeking your advice on how we can work together – across party lines and with a diverse array of voices – to fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel.”

Bernie Sanders (Democrat), 20 October 2015: “Sanders’ fraught encounter with BDS supporters who challenged his defense of Israel at a town hall meeting in Cabot [Vermont] last year was captured on YouTube.” Sanders told them to “shut up.”

The Legitimacy of Boycott

This hostility to the tactic of boycott runs counter to both U.S. legal tradition and the country’s broader historical tradition.

For instance, advocating and practicing BDS can be seen as a constitutionally protected right. It certainly is more obviously protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech than is the use of money to buy elections. Thus, if Zionist lobbyists can use money to buy support for Israel, why can’t anti-Zionists use their free speech rights to challenge that support? It should be noted that, in this regard, most Americans of voting age think it is the Zionists, and not the anti-Zionists, who have gone too far.

According to a December 2015 Brookings Institute poll, 49% of Democratic voters and 25% of Republican voters think that Israel has too much influence with U.S. politicians. Those supporting BDS in the United States might give some thought as to how to use these numbers to uphold their cause.

Then there is the fact of well-established historical tradition. The war for American Independence was build upon a framework of boycott. In November 1767, England introduced the Townshend Acts, requiring the colonists to pay a tax on a large number of items. The reply to this was both a boycott of British goods by many colonial consumers which was eventually followed by a boycott on the importation of such goods on the part of colonial merchants.

Subsequently, Americans have used the tactic of boycott against:

— (1930s) Goods produced by Nazi Germany
— (1960s and 1970s) California-grown grapes in support of the United Farm Workers
— (1970s and 1980s) All aspects of the economy and cultural output of South Africa
— (1980) The Moscow-hosted Olympics of 1980
— Myriad number of boycotts of various companies and products ranging from Nestle (baby formula) to Coca Cola. See the list given by the Ethical Consumer.

The reality is that the tactic of boycott has long been as American as the proverbial apple pie.

Conclusion

Apple pie not withstanding, the legal and historical legitimacy of boycott no longer has much impact on the attitudes of presidential candidates or, for that matter, members of Congress. Nor does the fact that the changes the BDS movement seeks to make in Israeli behavior would be to the benefit of U.S. interests in the Middle East.

Instead what the positions of the candidates seem to indicate is that there will be an almost certain attack on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, coming from the very highest levels of U.S. power, sometime soon after the 2016 elections.

How is it that such a contradiction between national interests and established tradition on the one hand, and imminent government policy on the other can exist? The answer is not difficult to come by. It is just a matter of fact that constitutional rights, historical tradition, and indeed the very interests of the nation, can be overridden by special interest demands. The demands of what George Washington once called “combinations and associations” of “corrupted citizens” who would “betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country” in favor of those of some other “favorite nation.” It is exactly such demands that are now given priority by the politicians in Washington.

This form of corruption will go on as long as the general public does not seem to care that it is happening. And it is sadly clear that the BDS activists alone cannot overcome this indifference. Thus, the politicians can dismiss the Brookings Poll numbers mentioned above. They can shrug and say, So what? As long as that majority does not express their opinion by actively demanding a change in the situation, as long as they are not successfully organized to do so, their opinion cannot compete with the millions of special interest dollars flowing into political campaigns.

In many ways our greatest enemy is our own indifference to the quiet erosion of important aspects of the democratic process. Allowing the attack on BDS only contributes to this disintegration of rights. A combination of localness and ignorance sets us up for this feeling of indifference. However, in the end, there can be no excuse for not paying attention. One morning you will wake up to find that valued rights and traditions are no longer there for you.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Welfare Ministry, Foster Agencies, Traffic in Palestinian Children

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | January 9, 2016

adel vaknin

Daniella Vaknin’s daughter, Adel, at her settlement pre-school

A few months ago, I wrote about a shocking Israeli Supreme Court decision which ratified the officially-sanctioned theft of children from a mixed Jewish-Palestinian couple and their adoption by an Orthodox Jewish couple who planned to raise the children with no access to their birth identity. The decision was flagrantly racist and defied many Israeli child welfare regulations. But it was the decision of the highest court in the land. One which foreign observers continue to mistakenly credit with being a beacon of western democratic values.

Tonight brings a new saga of judicially-sanctioned racism and woe perpetrated again by the Israeli Welfare Ministry (run by Minister Haim Katz) and its child services agency.

daniella vaknin

Daniella with daughter, Adel at younger age

Over a decade ago, Daniella Vaknin was a troubled teenager living in an Orthodox home in the settlement of Avney Heifetz. Daniella was labelled as rebellious, violent, aggressive, and sent to an institution for troubled youth.  She was abused at this facility and ran away. She stayed away till she became an adult and could make her own decisions. At that time, she met a Palestinian man, Ala’a Suliman, whose family lived in the West Bank village of Zetta. They fell in love.  Against her parents wishes, she moved to his village, married him, and became pregnant. They had a daughter they named Adel.

Daniella’s mother continued to pressure her to abandon her marriage and return to live with her parents among Jews. She warned her daughter that the Israeli social welfare system would frown on her decision and might take her child away.  Even then, despite living among Palestinians in the West Bank, child welfare officials summoned her to a meeting where they pummeled her with questions about her baby, the care she was providing, etc. Among the first questions they asked was why she wore a hijab to meet with them. Daniella responded that she did this out of respect to her husband’s family. The social workers clearly disapproved of this and saw it as a rejection of her Jewish roots.

Eventually, Daniella understood the immense pain she was causing her mother and decided to return home. But that is when the trouble really began. A neighbor of her parents reported falsely that Ala’a had threatened Daniela. That permitted them to further question her. She denied that her husband had ever threatened her.  But it didn’t help matters.

Her parents and the child welfare officials persuaded her to place Adel in a pre-school program. This enabled Daniella to work. She got two jobs and commuted many hours to work each day.  Luckily, her mother’s best friend agreed to provide care to the child and the arrangement seemed to suit everyone. Except child welfare. They argued that her long hours of work meant she had abandoned her baby, another false claim.

One day, the authorities came to Adel’s pre-school and took her into custody. Daniella had not been provided any warning of their intent.  And they had obtained no judicial order approving the removal as is required by child welfare regulations (they obtained an order ex post facto). They justified taking Adel away from Daniela by dredging up her wayward childhood. They claimed she was an unfit mother because she had not changed her ways.  That she abandoned her daughter. That her biological father was a threat to mother and daughter.

Adel was not taken into emergency protective services as would be normal in such cases.  She was given directly into the hands of her foster parents, Yehuda and Shoshana Damri. This raises serious questions of a conspiracy between the Damris and child services. In effect, this is child trafficking. How can a government agency assign a child to another family before it even has legal custody of the child? It’s the worst violation of the rights of the mother.

Ala’a also tried to intervene in the legal process to assert his paternal rights. But when the case came before an Israeli Palestinian judge in Nazareth, he astonishingly ruled that no Palestinian father could have any parental rights when the adopted child was to raised by as a Jew.  The ruling had little or no basis in law. But that hardly mattered. If you ask why a Palestinian judge would rule against a Palestinian father remember, just as with security cases, judges are tightly bound to those who appear before them regularly: government officials.  They tend to rule in favor of authority and against individual citizens who have little or no power. People just like Daniella and Ala’a. This a perfect example of a Palestinian Muslim judge ruling against a Palestinian father in order to curry favor with the Jewish judicial power structure. Divide and conquer.

In a separate ruling, the authorities found that Ala’a had “abandoned” Adel because he had not visited her. In truth, no Palestinian may enter Israel legally without a permit. Permits are given exceedingly sparingly and Ala’a could not get one to visit his daughter. To official Israel, this didn’t matter. The fact that he did not visit his daughter, regardless of the reason, permitted them to steal his parental rights from him.

System Rigged Against Kids, Parents

None of the accusations against either parent is true. But it hardly matters in the Israeli welfare system. Social workers have absolute power. Their actions are unchecked. Parents have no recourse. And judges always go along with the child welfare authorities. They rarely side with parents, even biological parents.  They often make decisions that directly contravene official regulations. But no one takes notice.

The entire process of foster care is hugely rewarding for the many agencies involved in it. One of the largest is Orr Shalom. It supervised Adel’s own foster care arrangement with the family which fostered her after she was removed from her mother’s care. In fact, child welfare authorities would have consulted with Orr Shalom even before taking Adel away from Daniella. The agency also would’ve identified prospective foster parents.

Orr Shalom and other such agencies receive more than $4,000 per month from the Welfare Ministry for every child who enters their custody. If you multiply this by the hundreds of children in foster care, it becomes a lucrative business. Nor is it beneficial for them to return foster children to the biological parents care. As such, you’ve created a system which works diametrically opposite to what should be the societal interest in having children raised by their natural parents.

This may explain why they targeted Adel. Not to mention that foster parents as well earn up to $500 per month for their role. So social workers working for these child welfare agencies are always on the look-out for vulnerable young mothers from whom they may wrest a child. In short, it’s a racket and the children trafficked and their biological parents are often the victims.

Of course, there are myriad justifications authorities and social workers offer for separating children from their mothers. Think about the Christian missionaries who forcibly removed Native American and Aboriginal children from their parents in order to “civilize” the children and introduce them to “modern ways.” Israeli social workers believe they are doing a social good by removing children from ‘troubled homes’ and finding more stable homes for them. There are, of course, hundreds of Jewish couples who cannot conceive and desperately seek to adopt a baby.  They are often willing to pay handsomely for the privilege.

fighting to return adel

Daniella’s Facebook group, “Fighting to Return Adel.”

Orthodox Settlers Foster Palestinian Child

Such a couple were Yehuda and Shoshana Damri. They were Orthodox Jews who lived in the West Bank settlement of Elkanah. Once Adel was taken from her mother, she was placed in foster care with the Damris.  Daniella of course objected strenuously to all of this, but to no avail. She created a Facebook page vowing to fight for her rights to Adel.  She plastered hundreds of flyers seeking information about where her baby had been taken.

The Damris wanted to adopt because Yehuda was sterile and could not produce a child. This is particularly traumatic for an Orthodox family because one of the most important Biblical commandments is: “Be fruitful and multiply.”  Under halacha, infertility of either spouse is grounds for divorce. The couple would’ve been highly motivated, since they couldn’t have their own child, to find one to adopt.

Adel was a beautiful child with black hair and piercing dark eyes. Their prayers seemed to be answered when the social workers gave her to them. But later, Shoshana decided she wanted her own child and not to raise the child of a stranger. She and her husband could not work out their fundamental differences. Eventually, they divorced.

That raised problems with the adoption agency. By regulation, single parents may not be foster parents nor may they adopt.  By rights, they should have returned Adel to her mother for that reason alone. But naturally that didn’t happen. Officials winked and nodded at regulations and Adel remained in Yehuda’s care. To return Adel to her mother would’ve ended Orr Shalom’s gravy train.  So he had to find a wife to marry as quickly as possible in order to retain custody of Adel.  It took him nearly two years.  But he finally did and now he is ‘kosher l’mehadrin.’

In the meantime, Daniella had no idea where her daughter lived. Though regulations permitted short twice monthly meetings with Adel, they never happened.  So she did some detective work and discovered where her daughter lived and which pre-school she attended. She brought along her smart phone and took a few blurry pictures of Adel in her classroom. For her troubles, the teachers swarmed all over her and sent her packing.  She left the premises without raising a fuss.

But the next day, Damri sicced the police on Daniella. They accused her of attempting to kidnap her daughter. Though this never happened, it’s precisely the sort of accusation that officials can use to bolster a fabricated case against a mother to justify stealing her daughter.

Daniella is further concerned about her daughter’s well-being when she discovered the medication record for Adel at her local medical clinic. You can see from the prescription form that she’s being pumped full of Ritalin (20mg per day), a commonly over-prescribed drug for young children. Adel’s emotional state is terrible and the instability of her circumstances weighs heavily on her. She was uprooted from her biological mother and grandmother; inserted into a family she didn’t know with a foster-mother who rejected her and decided to divorce her foster-father. Then, after he remarried she was forced to come to know yet another maternal figure, the third in only a few year’s time. Adel has endured far more than her share of emotional upheaval. All thanks to a system designed to benefit the bureaucracy and the foster agencies, rather than her.

The Damri family is quite well-connected among the settler movement. A relative, Yochai Damri, was recently elected the official leader of the Mt. Hebron settler community council. He had the support of Naftali Bennett’s Bayit Yehudi Party. Though I don’t know the political or ideological leanings of the Damris, it’s almost goes without saying that, given their Orthodox religious beliefs and living in Elkanah, that they are ultra-nationalists.

This raises another problem under child welfare regulations. When children are adopted, officials must respect the religious and ethnic traditions of the child’s biological parents. The idea of having a child with a Palestinian Muslim father adopted by an Orthodox Jewish couple living in a West Bank settlement is a serious violation of adoption regulations.

There can be only one explanation for the adoption agency’s decision to place Adel with the Damris.  They object to miscegenation.  They further object to a child of a Jewish parent who might be raised as a Palestinian; or even by a mother who was once married to a Palestinian.  When offered a choice between having Adel raised by a single mother who had rejected her own Orthodox upbringing; or an Orthodox Jewish couple living in a settlement, there was no question which was preferable.

Borderline banned book cartoon

Education Minister Naftali Bennett dressed as policeman forbids Israeli reader from entering a bookstore to buy Borderline, the banned novel. (Eran Wolkowski)

Just as the Supreme Court decision I referred to above displayed Israeli racism resplendent, Adel’s theft from Daniela confirms that Israel is a State in which religious identity trumps individual or democratic rights.  It further confirms that Israel is not a democracy, but a theocracy in which Jews reign supreme.

The trampling of the rights of parents in the social welfare system is but one symptom of a disease ravaging the Israeli body politic. That the system can kidnap children and wrench them from the arms of loving parents merely because it disapproves of a lifestyle or marital choice, is part of the sickness afflicting Israel. In a society respecting the rule of law such grave violations of human rights would never be tolerated. In Israel, they are de rigueur.

I called the Welfare Ministry press office, the government child welfare agency (Sherut LaYeled), and several social workers assigned to Adel’s case for comment. I reached one of the social workers twice and each time she hung up on me without uttering a word. I also sent them an e mail requesting comment.  No one has yet responded.

Banning Books and Miscegenation, Israel-Style

On a related note, an Israeli novelist published a young adult book recently called Borderline.  It deals with an Israeli Jewish woman who meets a Palestinian man and falls in love with him.  The book was recommended for inclusion in the national high school reading curriculum. However, the education ministry under the ‘able’ direction of Naftali Bennett, decided that it must protect the tender, confused identities of Israeli teenagers. The pedagogic specialists determined that reading such literature would confuse them about their own Jewish identity and give them the mistaken impression that miscegenation was a desirable phenomenon.

This is only a slightly more elegant approach than that of the thugs of Lehava, who prefer to beat Palestinian men who dare to dream they may soil the purity of Jewish maidens. So you see that the evils of this system permeate all: from child adoptions to the public schools. It is riddled with the concept of Jewish racialism and superiority. These are values derived directly from the ideology of Meir Kahane, who is, to my chagrin, the patron saint of the contemporary Israeli State.

NOTE: Please read my latest article on the Duma murders published at Mint Press News, State Department’s Silence Deafening After U.S. Citizens Engage In Israeli Settler Violence.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen: A US-Orchestrated Holocaust

By Stephen Lendman | Peoples Voice | January 9, 2016

Millions of lives are at risk from violence, starvation, lack of vital medical care, and overall deprivation.

A new UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) report downplayed the ongoing catastrophe, shamelessly undercounting civilian casualties since conflict began last March.

It’s likely in the tens of thousands from Saudi terror-bombing heavily populated areas and absence of vital essentials to life.

Claiming it’s only 2,800, another 5,200 wounded mocks the unbearable suffering of millions of Yemenis, victims of US imperialism.

The world community remains largely indifferent, ignoring an entire population at risk. Millions may perish before conflict ends. Nothing is being done to prevent it.

Fighting shows no signs of abating. Obama’s orchestrated war complicit with Riyadh is another high crime on his rap sheet, major media scoundrels giving it short shrift.

Famine stalks Yemen, around 20 million at risk, children, the ill and elderly most vulnerable. War without mercy continues.

Secure sources of food, potable water, fuel, electricity and medical care are absent or in too short supply in most of the country – impossible conditions to survive for many.

Malnutrition is rampant, near-starvation commonplace. So are preventable diseases claiming unknown numbers of lives for lack of treatment. Body counts exclude nonviolent deaths.

A phantom mid-December ceasefire ended in the new year. Saudis escalated terror-bombing US selected targets, including densely populated residential areas, hospitals, refugee camps, vital infrastructure and other non-military sites.

A blockade remains in force, preventing vital to life essentials from getting to people in need in amounts enough to matter.

Washington and Riyadh want war, not peace. Ceasefire was more illusion than reality – Houthis irresponsibly blamed for imperial crimes. Yemenis continue suffering horrifically.

Their country is being systematically ravaged and destroyed – increasingly looking like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.

US imperialism bears full responsibility, destroying life on earth one country at a time, making things unbearable for survivors.

Last September, a largely Saudi-drafted (US/UK supported) UN Human Rights Council resolution on Yemen excluded an independent international war crimes investigation, whitewashing imperial high crimes.

It authorized only UN provided technical assistance to a Yemeni inquiry headed by illegitimate president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi – US-installed in a 2012 election with no opposing candidates.

Yemen remains a black hole of endless violence and instability, no relief in sight for its suffering millions.

-###-

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III“.

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Istanbul police raid district office of pro-Kurdish opposition party

Press TV – January 8, 2016

Police in Istanbul have raided a district office of Turkey’s main opposition pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Turkish media reports said on Friday that several people were detained and party documents seized during the two-hour raid at the Beyoglu headquarters of the HDP.

The co-chair of the district branch, Rukiye Demir, was among the detainees.

Turkish authorities have stepped up pressure on the HDP while Ankara’s military apparatus has been engaged in a security operation against suspected militants in the Kurdish-majority south and southeast of the country in the recent past, running offensives against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants all the way into northern Iraq.

Turkish authorities accuse the HDP of acting as the political arm of the PKK.

Turkey and countries such as the United States and Britain consider the PKK as a terrorist group. The HDP strongly denies any links with the militants.

On July 20, 2015, a bomb attack in the southern Kurdish-majority town of Suruc claimed more than 30 lives. The Turkish government blamed it on the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. After the bombing, the PKK, accusing the government of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, in turn prompting the Turkish military operations.

Ankara said Thursday that 305 PKK militants have been killed since December 14, 2015, when its security operation intensified.

The militant group has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since 1980s.

January 8, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Secret’ police files relating to Green Party peer ‘deleted in highly irregular cover up’

RT | January 8, 2016

A Scotland Yard intelligence unit that spies on political campaigners, shredded files relating to Green Party peer Jenny Jones to stop her from discovering the extent of the police monitoring of her activities, an officer has claimed.

Exposing a “highly irregular” cover-up, whistleblower Sgt David Williams claims the police unit improperly destroyed Jones’ files stored in its secret database of “domestic extremists.”

In a four-page letter addressed to the peer, the ex-officer said: “I didn’t become a police officer to monitor politicians or political parties, nor to pay casual disregard to policy and procedure.”

“This letter to you may not be in my best interests but not sending it would be unconscionable for me. I fear it may initiate a series of escalating actions against me designed to discredit me or lead to my suspension from duty or my dismissal,” he said.

He then revealed that he saw three officers engaged in “physically destroying” a number of police records.

“I believe all of these records related to you. There were in excess of 30 reports,” he told Jones in the letter.

“One of these officers then began to electronically delete a number of police records from a police database. Again, I believe these records related to you.”

The whistleblower said the peer’s records were erased immediately without being retained on the unit’s back-up database. “This process would thwart any freedom of information request within a 28-day period from the initial deletion.”

Williams said he reported his concerns to the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) but the internal department responsible for investigating misconduct told him it had been unable to find any evidence to support his claims.

In the personal letter, Williams also alleged that another officer who complained about drunken behavior, racism and alleged fraud, was removed from the unit.

Commenting on the allegations, the Metropolitan Police insisted it did not delete the files “inappropriately,” adding they were destroyed as part of a legitimate program to improve record keeping.

“In fact the lead detective in the case, who spoke to all potential witnesses as part of their investigation, found that the unit was responding positively to demands to improve its document retention procedures by destroying information that it had no need to retain and that therefore should not be retained,” they told the Guardian.

Two years ago, Jones used the Data Protection Act to obtain records showing how the police had kept a log of her political movements between 2001 and 2012.

During that period, she had been a member of the official committee scrutinizing the Metropolitan Police Service.

“I would describe myself as many things, but domestic extremist is not one of them. In the eyes of the Metropolitan Police, however, that is what I am; and that’s why my name is on a file in their secret database of ‘domestic extremists,’” she wrote in the Guardian in June 2014.

January 8, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

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