Russia refuses to blacklist Hamas as terrorist
“Occupation is in itself a form of terrorism”
Palestine Information Center – December 31, 2015
MOSCOW – Russia and the United States agree that Daesh, al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra are terrorist organizations but differ over blacklisting Hezbollah and Hamas, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Speaking to the Interfax news agency on Tuesday night, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said: “Our opinions coincide as regards to the main terrorist organizations. These are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra.”
But “we are not even discussing Hezbollah and Hamas with the Americans,” he added.
Moscow has routinely held senior-level contacts with Hamas officials and leaders.
Commenting on the Russian position, political analyst Abdul Sattar Qassem said: “Hamas cannot be compared to Daesh or al-Qaeda. It can only be viewed in terms of its resistance to the Israeli occupation.”
“The Israeli occupation and the USA are the real terrorists. They are fighting all those who stand in their way,” he added.
“Blacklisting Hamas as terrorist is unacceptable for Moscow. There is no evidence to corroborate the fact that Hamas is a terror group,” he said.
“Israel has been misleading the world into believing that Hamas is targeting Israeli civilians, which is not in fact the case,” the analyst stated.
“Hamas is a movement of national liberation that defends its people. It does not seek to wage wars for the sake of wars. It is engaged in a fight against an entity that colonized its motherland,” he explained.
However, “does Russia dare blacklist Israel as a terrorist entity for the crimes it has perpetrated against the Palestinians?” Qassem wondered. “It is not enough that Russia refuses to dub Hamas a terror group. It should dare include Israel on its terror list.”
“There is no colonizing power in the world but Israel. Occupation is in itself a form of terrorism,” the analyst further stated.
Coroner: Israel’s conditional release of bodies prevents autopsies
Ma’an – December 31, 2015
BETHLEHEM – A Palestinian coroner responsible for performing autopsies on the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces condemned on Thursday Israel’s conditional handover of bodies.
Head of Al-Quds University’s Institute for Forensic Medicine, Sabir al-Aloul, told Ma’an that the demand by Israeli authorities that Palestinian bodies be buried immediately after their return prevents autopsies from being carried out.
“Israel freezes the bodies of the Palestinian martyrs in mortuaries held at -35 degrees which prevents autopsy for 24 to 48 hours,” al-Aloul said.
The burial of the body of 38-year-old Baseem Salah — delivered on Tuesday — was reportedly delayed after coroners were unable to immediately autopsy his body, still frozen after the handover.
The Palestinian Ministry of Justice adopted a resolution to perform autopsies on the bodies of all Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in effort to document “Israeli crimes,” al-Aloul added.
Israeli authorities began holding the bodies of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks on Israeli military or civilians in October. The practice has not been used with such frequency since the Second Intifada, according to rights group Hamoked.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Nov. 5 that bodies would begin to be returned on a “case-by-case basis, where the main consideration is if there`ll be a massive funeral.”
Several bodies have been handed over since.
A number of Palestinian families on Wednesday refused in a letter the conditions proposed by Israel for the return of their relatives. One of several complaints issued by the signatories was that families should be allotted time to request an official autopsy on their dead.
Autopsy reports are used in official paperwork necessary to file cases against Israeli authorities at the International Criminal Court.
“The freezing prevents autopsy results that document the crime, which means a loss of important information for bringing Israel in front of the International Criminal Court,” al-Aloul told Ma’an.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Defense was not immediately available for comment regarding the return of frozen bodies.
Al-Aloul said that Israeli conditions also prevented autopsies that would resolve accusations that Israel has been “stealing” organs from the bodies of Palestinians withheld by the state.
Palestinian delegate to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, on Nov. 3 wrote a letter to the president of the UN Security council that included an accusation of organ harvesting by Israel.
The delegate referred to reports that the body of Muhannad Okbi — killed after reportedly killing an Israeli soldier in a Beersheba bus station — was returned to his family without corneas.
The allegations have yet to be confirmed.
According to autopsies al-Aloul had performed on Palestinians killed since Oct. 1 so far, the coroner said that those killed were “shot in the head and the chest many times from a very close distance.”
Some bodies also showed the use of expanding bullets — also known as “dum dum” bullets — the use of which is illegal under international law.
Israel has repeatedly denied claims that its forces use such bullets, though Palestinian medical examiners have on occasion documented their use.
The coroner also reported that a number of the bodies appeared to be returned in poor condition.
Only one military service inductee in Reni district of Odessa in autumn 2015
Timer-Odessa – December 29, 2015
During the autumn of 2015, the army recruitment office for the Reni district of Odessa region found only one inductee, the department head for military enlistment, Sergey Lazarev, has announced.
“According to the conscription plan for the Ukrainian military, the Reni district should have contributed ten conscripts suitable for passage into military service. However, there was only one inductee. That is, the plan was met by ten per cent only,” he reported.
“When contacting candidates or their relatives, recruiters find that people are not home or they do not open their door,” said said Lazarev. “Due to the difficult financial situation, many citizens of military age have gone to work outside the region and even the country.”
He added that his military enlistment office has asked police to assist in the search for 414 citizens called up for military service. But none have been found and delivered to the military commissariat.
The problem is being discussed at the board of the district administration in Reni. “People on military service are unable to work or study”, notes the head of the district, Sergei Belyuk.
The spring 2016 military call-up is projecting 195 young residents from Reni district.
Hidden Browsing Histories: Theresa May and the Snooper’s Charter
By Binoy Kampmark | CounterPunch | December 30, 2015
“‘Trust Me’ might be just the most manipulative thing a politician can say. It means leave me alone in secret to operate without proper challenge.” – Tom Watson, UK Deputy Labour Leader, Dec 18, 2015
Many government policies are advertised as useful for broader safety – till they are reversed to apply to the very officials who create them. The UK Home Secretary is very much of that school. Readers will be aware what Theresa May has done her invaluably bit to undermine privacy on the broader pretext of protecting security.
Central to this is the Home Office’s insistence on the Investigatory Powers Bill that seemingly insists on more intrusion than investigation. The bill, in rather futile fashion, will compel phone and web companies to retain records of every citizen for at least a year, providing a data pool which police and security services could access when required. The legislation goes further, enrolling the relevant service providers in a pseudo-police role that will override encryption if needed.
May has found herself having to sugar coat the bill with some decent premise, and has decided to go the cyberbullying card, a view she outlined to South Suffolk MP James Cartlidge.
The tactic is standard: if people are misbehaving on the internet, those on facilitating its use should be made responsible for moral behaviour. Accordingly, “Internet connection records would update the capability of law enforcement in a criminal investigation to determine the sender and recipient of a communication, for example, a malicious message such as those exchanged in cyberbullying.”
The response by The Independent has been an attempt to pull the history of Theresa May’s browsing history for the last week of October, a freedom of information request that purposely excludes any information directly concerned with security matters.
What is good for the goose of inquiry is also grand for the gander placed under the scrutinising eye of the state. In short, if you are going to be equal before the law, then by golly even ministers should have their browsing history on the internet made available for the public gaze.
Not so, according to the Home Office. The FOI request has been dismissed as vexatious. In other words, the request was dismissed on grounds of an action “brought without sufficient grounds for winning, purely to cause annoyance to the defendant.”
The Home Office’s response, drawing upon section 14(1) of the Act, insisted that the department had “decided that your request is vexatious because it places an unreasonable border on the department, because it has adopted a scattergun approach and seems solely designed for the purpose of fishing for information without any idea of what might be revealed.”
The response provides a suitable template for critics of the surveillance state, if only because it demonstrates the hopeless rationale for the entire metadata retention regime. If the request by The Independent was, by its nature, scattergun, one could hardly assume that the security state’s behaviour in this regard is anything but scattergun.
This legal excuse remains one of the least convincing in the area of information law. It is, however, used repeatedly by states who have freedom of information regimes, providing slivers when asked, but generally withholding the bulk of what is deemed too sensitive for release.
The point is often the same: we will have a regime to allow information for the public precisely because we are intent on disallowing much of it. Regulation, in other words, is constriction, measured in the name of protecting that great, inscrutable fiction known as the public interest. You are kept in the dark because ignorance is necessary bliss.
In the case of the Home Office, there could be few things more fundamentally vexatious than a metadata retention regime premised on the nonsense of combating trolls and bullies on the world wide web.
The efforts on the part of The Independent have at least demonstrated to British citizens that this regime has other purposes, managing to get some egg onto the faces of Home Office officials. It is by no means the only quarter targeting the potential consequences of the bill. Labour’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson has argued that the bill’s supposed self-guarding mechanisms and oversight simply do not go far enough in protecting privacy.
In Watson’s mind, there was merely a “very limited review of the Home Secretary’s warrants by a judge appointed by a Commissioner who is appointed by the prime minister.” It was a “false choice to say that these massive extensions of state power must be introduced without checks and balances.”
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook finds its provisions similarly repellent for privacy. “We believe it would be wrong,” went a company statement, “to weaken security for hundreds of millions of law-abiding customers so that it will also be weaker for the very few who pose a threat.” Given this government’s supposed love of the corporate sector, big business and all, David Cameron and his Home Secretary have their work sharply cut out for them.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
NYPD Crushed Man’s Testicle, Complaint States
By Alexandra J. Gratereaux | PINAC | December 27, 2015
A Brooklyn man has filed a complaint against the New York Police Department after claiming a cop in the NYPD savagely crushed one of his testicles with a boot, damaging his scrotum.
The Daily News says the department filed an Internal Affairs Bureau investigation after Corey Green, 33, had surgery at the local Bellevue Hospital in the Manhattan.
On Sunday, doctors worked tirelessly to restore the blood flow to Green’s groin, according to his attorney Sanford Rubenstein.
“This is certainly an outrageous example of wrongdoing and we are calling on the Brooklyn district attorney’s office to present evidence to a grand jury,” said Rubenstein.
Green’s version of what took place last Saturday evening differs completely from the officer’s tale of what happened last weekend in the bustling neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
An NYPD spokesperson says the Green was fleeing the police, who were allegedly looking into a robbery of a food deliveryman, when he ran into scaffolding.
But Green and his lawyer say this is not what occurred.
Rubenstein told the Internal Affairs investigators earlier this week that the officers violently broke into his client’s home at gunpoint and ordered him and the rest of the others in his apartment to exit the building where they wanted to include him in a lineup on the street for the robbery victim.
NYPD officers claim Green and four other gentlemen were already standing in front of the building when they came searching for the thief and approached them.
According to Rubenstein, the victim identified one of the gentleman in the lineup. Since Green was not identified, he began walking away thinking he was free to go and that is when things took a turn for the worse.
“One of the police officers grabbed him by the shoulder and the neck and threw him to the ground, and a second officer kicked him,” Rubenstein said.
Law enforcement officials claim Green was wanted for an outstanding warrant tied into a DWI arrest. He was transported to a nearby Precinct, where he voiced his discomfort and pain in his groin area. He was taken to Bellevue, where doctors later found his injuries to be more severe.
Israeli occupation authorities revoke ban on fanatic settler to enter al-Aqsa
Palestine Information Center – December 30, 2015
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Despite his dark past and his attempt oat bombing al-Aqsa Mosque in the 1980s, Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) allowed settler Yehuda Etzion to enter al-Aqsa Mosque after 30 years of prevention; he was also allowed to raise his hands as an aspect of worship while roaming the Mosque’s courtyards.
However, after the removal of the ban, Etzion breached the term of an agreement between Israel and Jordan with the sponsorship of the USA.
Etzion appealed the decision of denying him access into al-Aqsa Mosque for 15 days. The decision was issued by the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, because he violated the “terms” of the recent Jordanian–Israeli agreement, which allows settlers to enter al-Aqsa Mosque but not to pray in it; however, Etzion raised his hands after entering the site as part of a religious ritual, prompting Israeli forces to remove him from the Mosque after Aqsa guards protested his act and insisted on him leaving the holy Islamic site.
In view of the serious unprecedented event after the Israeli judiciary allowed the settler to practice an act of worship violating the Jordanian-Israeli agreement, the Islamic Waqf management communicated with the Jordanian ambassador and Jordanian Ministry Of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs and informed them of the serious situation arising from storming the Mosque by such settlers who declare their intention to destroy the Mosque to build the alleged Temple in its place.
Escalation against al-Aqsa
The director of al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Omar Kiswani told Qpress that the District Court’s decision is a serious escalation and a flagrant attack on al-Aqsa Mosque that would affect the region, stressing that the Israeli occupation must stop those settlers if it wants peace as it claims.
Lawyer and specialist of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa affairs, Khalid Zabarqh, opined that the decision not to ban the settler Yehuda Etzion from al-Aqsa Mosque affects the legal rules that govern al-Aqsa Mosque, which acknowledge the entitlement of Muslims in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and praying there, and at the same time prevent others from doing that.
He charged that the Israeli judiciary has recently cohered with the Judaization schemes of the city of Jerusalem; as the judiciary began making decisions that help the settlement project, noting that, in conjunction with allowing Etzion to raise his hands as a signal of a prayer in al-Aqsa Mosque, the Israeli judiciary is looking into a decision to criminalize the chanting of Thakbir (Allah is the greatest) inside al-Aqsa Mosque.
Judaization dwarfs the Islamic right
Through his follow-up of the conduct of the Israeli courts, Zabarqh said that the occupation is trying through this device to widen the Judaization practice, in addition to dwarfing the Islamic right in al-Aqsa Mosque albeit in simple steps in order to endorse the occupation’s presence in it.
While the Israeli occupation allows the settlers to break into al-Aqsa Mosque knowing their plans and intentions to demolish al-Aqsa Mosque, it prevents many Palestinians from entering the Mosque, he pointed out.
Legitimize settlement
In this context, Sheikh Raed Salah, who has been barred from entering the city of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque since 2007, confirmed that it is not permissible for any Israeli court to judge in any issue pertaining to the al-Aqsa Mosque; because it does not have sovereignty over it. Sheikh Salah believes that the Israeli court’s decision is null and void.
Sheikh Salah explained that the court is trying to legitimize through its decisions the incursions of settlers into al-Aqsa Mosque, in addition to legitimizing the construction of the alleged temple in place of the Mosque.
Regarding the renewal of his ban decision yesterday for an additional six months, Sheikh Salah said that the occupation which pretends that it respects the judiciary, issues an administrative military decision to prevent him from entering the city of Jerusalem, which he described as blatant injustice and racism.
The Israeli occupation forces prevented 12 Muslim deputies in the Israeli Knesset from entering the al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as banning 60 Palestinian women from praying in it.
Yehuda Etzion had tried to blow up the Dome of the Rock but al-Aqsa Mosque guards thwarted his attempt when a guard on one of its gates stopped him and searched the bag he was carrying and found it filled with explosives.
Etzion was a member of the Jewish secret movement that planned to assassinate the mayors of the West Bank. It adopted the bombing of the Nablus mayor Bassam Shaka’s car; the bombing resulted in the amputation of his legs.
7-year-old girl chased by notorious Israeli settler in Hebron
Ma’an – December 29, 2015
HEBRON – A Palestinian father living in Hebron’s Old City told Ma’an that his 7-year-old daughter was injured while being chased by notorious Israeli extremist Baruch Marzel on Monday.
Raed Abu Irmeileh said that he had to take his daughter, Dana, to the Hebron Governmental Hospital “after she had fallen to the ground while being chased by Baruch Marzel near the Ibrahimi mosque.”
Irmeileh told Ma’an that Israeli forces present in the area did not stop Marzel from chasing his children, and assaulted his 10-year-old son Hutasem as well as two brothers Nabil, 14, and Farhat Nader al-Rajabi, 10.
An Israeli army spokesperson did not have immediate information on the incidents.
Irmeileh is one of thousands of Palestinians living in the Israeli-controlled center of Hebron — the largest city in the occupied West Bank — among hundreds of Israeli settlers living illegally in the area.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem regularly documents Israeli settlers attacking locals under the protection of Israeli forces in Hebron.
Marzel is well-known among Palestinians living in Hebron who fear the right-winger, follower of radical rabbi Meir Kahana and member to the Kach movement — outlawed by Israel in 1994 under anti-terrorism laws.
Hebron’s Old City was declared a closed military zone in November, banning entrance to the area to all except registered Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers.
Palestinian PM Rami Hamdallah following the ban called for the presence of Palestinian security forces in al-Shuhada Street and Tel Rumeida areas of Hebron in order to provide “security and protection” for Palestinians against Israeli settler assaults.
Sarah Colborne – A Solidarity Campaigner Or A Traitor
By Gilad Atzmon | December 29, 2015
PSC Director Sarah Colborne went out of her way to kosherize the UK PSC (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign) but now no longer holds her position in what is left of the diluted solidarity institution. The rumour is that Colborne had to go because evidence of her collaboration with the police against leading Palestinian activists was too embarrassing.
Back on 17 October two men were arrested at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in London after they refused to take down a Hezbollah flag they had hoisted on a pole.
Abbas Ali and Antonio Maniscalco, both prominent pro-Palestinian activists had been warned by the PSC that only Palestinian national flags would be welcome at the protest. Shortly after, Ali and Maniscalco were arrested by the police, their homes were raided, their PCs, laptops and memory cards were confiscated. They were questioned by counter-terrorism officers for 15 hours before being released with no charges.
Once free, Abbas Ali told 5Pillars “we were initially told to take down the flag by people on the podium and by someone at the demonstration (so) we moved across the road. We also told the police that we were in a public place so we saw no reason to take down the flag – we had as much right to protest as anyone else but the police kept hounding us.”
After the event Sarah Colborne admitted that the organisers of the event had made a clear request before the demonstration that only Palestinian flags should be raised. However, Colborne did not confirm or deny that any of the organisers had alerted the police of Mr Ali and Mr Maniscalco’s actions.
In her interview with 5pillars a few days after the arrest, Colborne produced the standard sound-bite outburst of diarrhea: “we welcome all who stand with us in our opposition to all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Supporters of Palestinian rights encompass all faiths and none. Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Atheist, religious and non-religious people all stand together on this protest… We stand with Palestinians in their struggle for a future free of racism, colonialism and apartheid. There is no place for racism in a progressive movement fighting for justice and human rights.”
No secret that PSC under the rule of the ‘progressive’ Sarah Colborne was mainly concerned with anti-Semitism, racism and other Jewish sensitivities. The question remains whether the PSC can resurrect itself, de-kosherize its act and support Palestine for real. I hope it can but I do not hold my breath.
Letter drafted by IHRC* to the PSC following the 17 October arrest
We the undersigned are deeply concerned about events at last Saturday’s demonstration called by yourselves (17 October 2015).
It is reported that two long-time activists were harassed by other protestors, and ultimately arrested after being told by the police that the organisers and others had complained to them about the flag they were carrying. This came after:
• organisers had called from the stage for all flags other than Palestinian flags to be lowered;
• various persons were sent on behalf of the organisers to ask the activists to remove the flag;
• and some protestors it would seem, emboldened by the organisers’ call, harassed both activists in a manner bordering on violence (one protestor was seen shouting abuse and breaking the flagpole used by one of the men eventually arrested).
The flag in question was the Hizbullah flag. At the time of writing we know that both of the protestors have been bailed pending a decision by the CPS on whether to charge them with supporting a proscribed organisation and encouraging others to support a proscribed organisation. When arrested they were questioned upon arrest by SO15 (the Counter Terrorism Command).
It has also been reported that police were asked by PSC to ask one of the men to remove banners in support of Palestinian prisoners from a previous demonstration.
As you are aware the anti-terrorism laws and regime are not only unjust, they have been used to target Muslims, and demonise some liberation movements, including some associated with the Palestinian struggle. This vicious curtailment of civil liberties, the removal of Muslims from equality before the law and the demonisation of political causes that run counter to UK foreign policy, are all surely things that PSC should at the very least eschew and at most actively oppose.
If these arrests have come as a result of the organisers’ request to the police, it is a matter of great shame for PSC. Those involved in making those calls from the platform and contacting the police should resign their positions forthwith.
As a note, it is worth recognising that the two men arrested have spent every other week over the last three years holding vigils for Palestinan prisoners. The conditions of their bail – of extraordinary disproportionality – prevent them from contacting each other, forbid them from going to demonstrations and require them to sign at a police station three times a week. It is truly disgusting that such committed pro-Palestinian activists and their activities have been stopped in their tracks. Whilst there is no legal case to charge and convict them under anti-terorrism laws, the threat that hangs over them is a form of harassment that has already had the effect of closing down regular pro-Palestinian protests organised by one of these men. As you are doubtless aware one of these men was one of the pioneers of BDS some fifteen years ago, and has suffered many threats and abuse from pro-Israel groups and indviduals.
Both these men should have been supported in their work by the organisers, not targeted. This sorry state of affairs has come through some level of instigtaion by the organisers. At the very least PSC must campaign for these two men. Please advise as to how you will be proceeding.
With deep regret,
• Massoud Shadjareh, Chair of Islamic Human Rights Commission
• Les Levidow, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities
• Francesca Viceconti, visual artist and member of Artisit Against Apartheid (USA)
• Fateh Party UK
• Brighton and Hove PSC
• John Tymon, Football Against Apartheid (Coordinator)
• Badee Dwaik, Human Rights Defenders – Palestine (Coordinator)
*IHRC- Isalmic Human Right Commission
Turkey blocks Carlos Latuff website: ‘This means I’m doing the right things’
RT | December 29, 2015
For over a decade Brazilian political cartoonist Carlos Latuff has championed what he calls “artistic activism” by animating world leaders and pressing global topics. No issue is considered too controversial by the artist, who has put his own spin on topics including the Gaza war, the rise of ISIS, Ebola, and the Scottish referendum. He’s also known for his bold cartoons depicting Turkey’s alleged links with ISIS.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (center R) talks to French President Francois Hollande (center L) during the Unity March ‘Marche Republicaine’ in Paris, France on January 11, 2014.
(Photo by Hakan Goktepe/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Chicago Police Kill Middle-Aged Woman While Responding to Call About Teenage Man, Whom They Also Killed
Bettie Jones, left, and Quintonio LeGrier
Carlos Miller – PINAC – December 26, 2015
Responding to a domestic violence call about about a teenage man threatening to hurt his father with a baseball bat, Chicago police arrived and shot a middle-aged woman dead after she opened the door to let them inside.
Then they shot the teenager dead.
Neither one of them was armed with a gun.
Chicago police offered scarce details other than telling the media they arrived at the building and “were confronted by a combative individual, resulting in an officer firing shots, fatally wounding two individuals.”
But dispatchers clearly told officers the situation involved a 19-year-old male with a bat, not a middle-aged woman who apparently was only trying to let them inside the building.
The woman’s name was Bettie Jones, a mother of five, who was either 55 or 57. She lived in the downstairs flat of the two-story building owned by the teen’s father, who lived in the upstairs flat with his wife and son.
Her daughter, Latesha Jones said police shot her from outside the door while her mother remained inside the door.
The teen’s father had told her to be on the lookout for police and to stay away from his son, who was having a mental episode.
The teen’s name was Quintonio Legrier, 19, a Northern Illinois University student studying engineering, who also suffered from mental illness and was prone to outbursts, but was not known to be violent.
“He was having a mental situation. Sometimes he will get loud, but not violent,” the teen’s mother, Janet Cookery, told ABC 7.
Early this morning, the teen began banging on their bedroom door with a bat, which is when the father called police.
Despite his mental illness, Legrier appeared to be studious and benevolent, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Legrier was admitted in 2014 to Northern Illinois University, where he majored in electrical engineering technology, according to the university’s website.
He had graduated last year from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy with honors, for having a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher, according to the school’s website.
Legrier, who weighed 150 pounds, was shot seven times. The name of the officer has not been released.
“You call the police, you try to get help and you lose a loved one,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “What are they trained for? Just to kill? I thought that we were supposed to get service and protection. I mean, my son was an honors student. He’s here for Christmas break, and now I’ve lost him.”
Jewish Terrorists Burned An Israeli Church, Now Israel’s Government Is Screwing The Church Out Of The Money It Needs To Rebuild
Failed Messiah | December 25, 2015
The Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes overlooking the Sea of Galilee in better times
National Geographic has a new article on Jewish extremist violence against Christians in Israel and the West Bank.
Much of it has already been long reported elsewhere, including here …
But one point made in the National Geographic report, which primarily focuses on the Church of Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes hate crime arson, hasn’t been made, and that point arguably shows how dishonest Israel’s government really is:
… Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly designated the fire as a terrorist attack, making the church ineligible to draw on insurance but paving the way for government compensation. Two months later, the Israeli Tax Authority declared that the violent event did not qualify as terrorism, and therefore could not receive government funding.
When Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the church in early September, just before meeting Pope Francis in Rome, he promised to help reverse that decision. “He was shocked by the extent of damage,” said Father Matthias. “Since then there have been a lot of meetings with the government, but no compensation.”
In the meantime, a group of Israeli rabbis started a crowd-funding campaign that raised $13,000 so that the church can start work on a new reception area for pilgrims. Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein, director of the Jerusalem-based Elijah Interfaith Institute, led the effort that included the head of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
“Israel still protects the rights of minorities, and events like this overshadow this fact,” said Rabbi Goshen-Gottstein, noting that Iraq and Syria are in the midst of ethnic cleansing. “These are disenfranchised youth with very few leaders who are messianic activists riding on waves of suspicion and ignorance.”
[These rabbis linked to Goshen-Gottstein are overwhelmingly non-Orthodox and make up only a small group. Despite public tittering against the hate crime by more mainstream non-Orthodox Jewish leaders, the US-based non-Orthodox movements and representative bodies like the UJA-Federation did not kick in to help this church (or, for that matter, any of the other vandalized churches and mosques) to be repaired.]
Some Israelis fear that the small group of violent extremists, made up mostly of young West Bank settlers, has been emboldened by the lack of prosecutions.…
Assaf Sharon, a philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University who has written about the history of Jewish terrorism, said the youth “are surrounded by institutions that condone, protect, and support them. And there is certainly authority behind them, including rabbis they look up to.”…
Follow the links posted below to read up on some of those rabbis the Jewish terrorists look up and follow.
As for the government, and especially Prime Minister Netanyahu (who is arguably the most dishonest man ever to hold high office in Israel), to use the Church of Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes hate crime arson for your own political ends and causing the church to lose its insurance money in the process, is truly vile. The Netanyahu needs to immediately pay to fully repair the church. If it doesn’t do so, no excuse – not even the standard (and often true) complaint about layers of Israeli government bureaucracy – should be accepted.
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Israel: Strategic Ally or Liability?
By Stephen Sniegoski | My Catbird Seat | June 12, 2010
The claim that Israel serves as a valuable ally for the United States is made by both pro-Zionists and much of the anti-war and anti-Zionist Left that is influenced by Noam Chomsky. As a result of the Gaza flotilla massacre, which has caused a world-wide uproar against Israel, the value of Israel to the United States is being publicly questioned in more mainstream foreign policy forums. … continue
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- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
