Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

CHD, Doctors Ask Supreme Court to Hear Medical Free Speech Case

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender |March 6, 2025

Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Physicians for Informed Consent and a group of doctors who sued the Medical Board of California after it disciplined them for allegedly spreading COVID-19 “misinformation” have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review their case.

The plaintiffs in Kory v. Bonta submitted their petition on March 1, following the November 2024 dismissal of their case by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is named in the suit, along with the state’s medical board.

The lawsuit, filed in January 2024, is a follow-up to a previous complaint filed in 2022 and an amended suit filed in 2023, which challenged California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 2098 — a law allowing the medical board to discipline doctors who give “false” information about COVID-19 for engaging in unprofessional conduct.

A federal judge blocked AB 2098 in January 2023, and the law was later repealed. However, according to the lawsuit, the Medical Board of California is still targeting “COVID misinformation” and is threatening physicians with disciplinary action.

Three medical professionals — Dr. Brian Tyson, a board-certified family practitioner who owns an urgent care facility; Dr. LeTrinh Hoang, a pediatric osteopathic physician; and Dr. Pierre Kory, president emeritus of the Independent Medical Alliance, launched the lawsuit.

According to the petition to the Supreme Court, the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California, “with the assistance of the California Legislature,” have threatened disciplinary actions against the plaintiffs and other physicians for offering information to patients that departs from official COVID-19 narratives.

In April 2024, a federal district court rejected the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction against the medical board. The 9th Circuit upheld the ruling in November 2024. In January, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs’ emergency application for an injunction.

Lawsuit hopes to set precedent that ‘informed consent is free speech’

The case seeks to resolve contradictory precedents from two federal appeals courts on whether the First Amendment protects physicians’ communications to patients — “a question that is particularly significant in a field like medicine, where scientific understanding is continually advancing and rarely settled.”

In a Physicians for Informed Consent press release, Rick Jaffe, who represents the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit “touches on the foundational rights of professionals to share knowledge and opinions essential for patient autonomy and informed consent.”

Tyson said patients cannot provide informed consent if their physicians are denied the opportunity to speak freely.

“We want doctors and all providers to be able to discuss risks and benefits with our patients, be able to speak out against things that are wrong, and be heard when breakthroughs are made,” Tyson said. “The hope is the Supreme Court will set the precedent that informed consent is free speech.”

Supreme Court asked to decide between competing legal precedents

According to the petition, federal courts have established competing legal precedents relating to medical free speech.

In a 2022 decision in Tingley v. Ferguson, the 9th Circuit upheld the ability of professional boards in Washington to restrict members’ speech, arguing this is similar to the boards’ enforcement of “other restrictions on unprofessional conduct.”

But in a 2020 decision in Otto v. City of Boca Raton, the 11th Circuit struck down local ordinances that limited the speech of therapists and counselors, finding that such content-based and viewpoint-based restrictions violate the First Amendment, which has no carveout for controversial speech.

Tyson said the California Medical Board’s disciplinary proceedings against him jeopardized his career. “I had to defend my position against the [board] and almost lost my license … That would have been devastating to the community I serve and to all those I employ.”

Jaffe said Kory v. Bonta is similar to another First Amendment case relating to medical speech, Stockton v. Ferguson. Filed in March 2024, the lawsuit seeks “to protect the right of physicians to speak” and the public’s right to hear such speech.

CHD is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, as are several doctors facing disciplinary proceedings by the Washington Medical Commission for their public statements criticizing mainstream COVID-19 narratives. Basketball legend John Stockton is also a plaintiff, advocating for the public’s right to access and listen to “soapbox speech.”

In January, the Supreme Court denied the plaintiffs’ emergency appeal in Stockton v. Ferguson. The case remains active before the 9th Circuit. Oral arguments are scheduled for May 14, Jaffe said.

“The two cases represent the entire spectrum of cases involving what physicians say and would allow the court to give a definitive and comprehensive answer to whether and how much the First Amendment protects professionals when they communicate to patients and the public,” Jaffe said.

According to Physicians for Informed Consent, four justices must agree before the full court can hear Kory v. Bonta. If the Supreme Court decides to take the case, it will hear Kory v. Bonta in October.

Jaffe said the Supreme Court may ultimately jointly consider Kory v. Bonta and Stockton v. Ferguson. He credited CHD with its role in supporting both cases.

“We hope to establish the constitutional right of healthcare providers to speak out against the prevailing medical and scientific consensus about COVID-19, as well as whatever public health challenges face the country in the future,” Jaffe said.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

March 9, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

St. Louis Schools Ordered to Pay $90,000 Each to Two Employees in COVID Vaccine Mandate Suit

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 7, 2025

A federal court on Thursday awarded $90,000 each to two former St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) employees who sued the school district after their requests for a religious exemption to the district’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate were denied, St. Louis Today reported.

The two employees were among 43 plaintiffs who sued the district in June 2022, alleging the schools violated their First Amendment rights and the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment and federal and state civil rights law.

Two other employees reached settlements with the district last month for undisclosed amounts. In July 2024, four employees received settlements of $25,000 each.

According to St. Louis Today, 35 other employees are engaged in mediation talks with SLPS. If those talks break down, a jury trial will follow.

In August 2021, St. Louis Public Schools announced the district’s vaccine mandate, which took effect on Oct. 15, 2021.

According to the policy, medical exemption requests would be considered “on a case-by-case basis” and the schools would offer “reasonable accommodations, absent undue hardship, to employees with sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, or practices that conflict with getting vaccinated.”

Fox 2 St. Louis reported in August 2021 that the school’s employees were required to get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine as it was the only fully licensed vaccine available.

According to St. Louis Today, 96% of employees complied with the mandate. However, according to a November 2021 Fox 2 St. Louis report, 47 unvaccinated employees — including 44 teachers, two custodians and a secretary — were placed on unpaid administrative leave and one principal resigned in opposition to the policy.

Restrictions infringing constitutional rights ‘spread across the country like a virus’

In June 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled in favor of the 43 employees who sued SLPS, opening the door for the employees to pursue settlements with the district.

According to Bloomberg Law, the court found that the employees had grounds to pursue most of their claims.

In its ruling, the court found the plaintiffs had demonstrated sufficient grounds to pursue their First Amendment and Equal Protection claims and their claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Missouri Human Rights Act.

“The District’s alleged Policy put Plaintiffs to a choice: compromise their convictions or lose their livelihoods,” U.S. Chief District Judge Stephen R. Clark wrote. “Restrictions impermissibly infringing on constitutional rights, like the right to freely exercise one’s religion, spread across the country like a virus.”

According to the ruling, while SLPS “granted the majority” of medical and disability exemption requests, it “categorically denied” all of the approximately 150-200 religious exemption requests it received, “apparently without the benefit of individualized review” — despite the district’s promises that all such requests would be reviewed.

“After submitting requests, Plaintiffs received substantially identical ‘Religious Vaccine Exemption Response’ letters in September of 2021,” the ruling stated. SLPS “eventually suspended without pay and/or terminated between 100 and 127 of those who applied for a religious exemption.”

However, in January 2022, the school district “changed course” according to the ruling and granted “most” of the previously submitted religious exemption requests, reinviting most of the employees who had previously been suspended or fired.

According to the ruling, SLPS argued that it could not accommodate the religious exemption requests because unvaccinated employees who came into close contact with a person infected with COVID-19 would have to quarantine for 14 days.

“But when the District suspended and/or terminated over 100 employees en masse for refusing the vaccine, the District may have imposed on itself a staff shortage of a worse nature than the one it sought to avoid in the first place,” the ruling stated.

The November 2021 Fox 2 St. Louis report quoted an unnamed school employee who said the remaining staff faced a “lot of added stress … because we are missing so many people.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Several other lawsuits have successfully challenged denials of religious exemptions

The settlements are the latest in a string of recent successes for plaintiffs across the U.S. who sued their employers for denying their religious exemption requests.

In November 2024, a federal jury in Detroit awarded nearly $12.7 million to a Catholic woman who sued her former employer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, after she was fired in 2022 for refusing on religious grounds to get a COVID-19 shot.

In August 2024, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney who said she was wrongfully denied a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine and was subsequently fired when she didn’t get vaccinated.

In June 2024, a federal grand jury in Tennessee decided in favor of a former BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee scientist who refused the COVID-19 shot, citing her religious beliefs. The jury awarded her $687,240 in back pay and damages.

In at least 10 other rulings last year, federal appellate courts ruled in favor of plaintiffs who had been denied religious exemptions by their employers.

More such lawsuits are in progress, including a lawsuit in Massachusetts by a former Tufts Medical Center emergency room doctor who refused the COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds, and a lawsuit in Oregon involving over 60 former employees of Asante who were fired after their religious exemption requests were denied.

A survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania in January found that public support in the U.S. for religious exemptions nearly doubled over the last six years.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

March 9, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Yemen gives Israel four-day ultimatum to stop blocking Gaza aid

The Cradle | March 8, 2025

The leader of Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced on 7 March a four-day grace period for Israel to resume ceasefire talks and lift its blockade on humanitarian aid for Gaza, threatening to resume Sanaa’s naval operations against Israeli-linked ships.

“We meet the siege with a siege,” Houthi emphasized, adding that Yemen “cannot stand by and watch the Israeli enemy’s aggressive approach in starving the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

“We do not just issue statements, but we can support the Palestinians in several areas,” the Ansarallah leader said, pointing out that “in the course of implementing the ceasefire in Gaza, it was clear that the Israeli enemy was procrastinating in fulfilling its obligations, especially those related to the humanitarian file.

The Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) ceased military operations in support of Palestine following the start of a US-sponsored ceasefire in Gaza earlier this year. Since November 2023, the YAF repeatedly targeted US, UK, and Israeli-linked commercial ships and western warships in the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea.

Sanaa’s efforts to stop the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza prompted an illegal war initiated by Washington and London, resulting in hundreds of airstrikes in the Arab world’s poorest nation.

Despite the western onslaught, the YAF were undeterred in their military campaign and forced several US aircraft carriers and European warships out of the Red Sea. The country has also downed 15 US MQ-9 Reaper drones and recently fired its air defenses on a US F-16 jet.

A year ago, the former US Special Envoy for Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, admitted that “there is no military solution” for Yemen.

“I don’t think people really understand just kind of how deadly serious it is what we’re doing and how under threat the ships continue to be,” Commander Eric Blomberg with the USS Laboon told US media last year.

Houthi’s warning comes almost a week after Israel reimposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid shipments for Gaza after obstructing the ceasefire agreement from moving forward by demanding an extension of the first phase.

Hamas has rejected any extension of phase one and is demanding strict adherence to the agreement and international pressure on Israel.

“The resumption of war on Gaza will be met with the entire [Israeli] enemy entity coming under fire … If the war returns to Gaza, we will intervene with support through various military means,” Houthi warned on Sunday.

March 8, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump cuts $400 million to Columbia Uni. over pro-Palestine protests

Al Mayadeen | March 8, 2025

US Federal Authorities announced on Friday a cut in grants and contracts with Columbia University in New York, citing pro-Palestine protests, which the Trump administration labels as “anti-semitic”.

The US Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Education, and the General Services Administration— all part of the Trump Administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism— announced the cuts in a statement, citing Columbia’s ongoing failure to stop pro-Palestine protests.

The statement adds that the cuts are the “first round of action” against the Ivy League university, emphasizing that more cancellations are anticipated as Columbia has more than $5 billion in federal grant commitments.

The agencies stated that they would issue stop-work orders for the grants and contracts, which will immediately freeze Columbia’s access to the funding without divulging details about the specific programs that will be affected.

Columbia under fire for alleged ‘anti-semitism’

Columbia University has been the battleground for threats and measures targeting pro-Palestine students who organized and shared in protests against “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza, which “Israel” supporters have labelled as anti-semitic.

The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce demanded in February that Columbia University submit disciplinary records by the end of this month for students involved in anti-“Israel” protests between April and January 2024, criticizing the Ivy League institution’s handling of the matter.

The House panel sent a six-page letter to Columbia University’s leadership on February 13, stating that the institution had failed to fulfill its promise to students, faculty, and Congress to address “anti-Semitism,” asserting that “Columbia’s ongoing failure to confront the widespread anti-Semitism on campus is unacceptable, especially given the university receives billions in federal funding.”

The university’s newly established Office of Institutional Equity launched multiple investigations to track down students who voiced their opposition to “Israel”, according to the Associated Press.

Columbia sent notices to dozens of students for activities ranging from sharing pro-Palestinian social media posts to taking part in protests that the school considers “unauthorized,” while the creation of the “disciplinary office” sparked concerns among students, faculty members, and free speech advocates who said Columbia caved in to Trump’s pressure.

March 8, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel demolishes 50 Palestinians homes in single day in West Bank

MEMO | March 7, 2025

The Israeli occupation army yesterday demolished 50 homes in Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarm city, in the northern occupied West Bank.

Local sources said occupation forces brought huge bulldozers to the refugee camp earlier in the morning and began the demolition operations.

According to the sources, the Israeli occupation army allowed some families to enter their homes in Nur Shams camp on Wednesday and retrieve some of their belongings before carrying out the large-scale demolition operation the following day.

The army detained a woman for a short period before releasing her, they added.

The Israeli military escalation in the camps in the northern occupied West Bank forced tens of thousands of families to flee their homes, amidst widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure.

March 7, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

German ministry dismisses lawyer for supporting Gaza, rejecting genocide

MEMO | March 4, 2025

The German federal ministry has dismissed a lawyer in Berlin due to her opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.

On Saturday lawyer Melanie Schweizer posted a video on X stating: “Yesterday I got fired as a civil servant working at the Federal Ministry in Germany. Why? In a nutshell because I was speaking out against the genocide in Palestine committed by Israel, against the German support thereof, against the violence and crimes happening there.” Highlighting the German government and police’s efforts to silence pro-Palestine voices, she added: “This is where we’re at in Germany. This is a blatant attack on our constitutional rights to freedom.”

She called on supporters of Gaza to make their stance clear and “keep speaking up, keep using your voice, losing your job is not the worst that can happen to you, losing your life is. Losing your freedom right is.”

https://twitter.com/Melaniebelizi/status/1895904365225058324

Many European and American companies have previously dismissed employees over their stance on the war on Gaza and their opposition to genocide.

In October 2024, Microsoft dismissed two employees after they organised a sit-in at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., in solidarity with the victims of the Israeli assault on Gaza.

On 22 January, the Washington Post reported that Google had dismissed more than 50 employees last year after they protested against the “Nimbus” contract, citing concerns that the technology could support military and intelligence programmes used by the Israeli occupation army in its war on Palestinians in Gaza.

In September 2024, the Noguchi Museum in New York announced the dismissal of three employees for allegedly violating the dress code by wearing keffiyehs, which have become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

March 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas: We will not be part of post-war Gaza on condition of national consensus

Palestinian Information Center – March 4, 2025

GAZA – The Hamas Movement said it will not be part of any administrative arrangements in the post-war Gaza Strip on condition of a national consensus.

“It is not necessary for Hamas to be part of the administrative arrangements in Gaza. It is not interested in that, and does not want to be in these arrangements at all,” Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told Anadolu agency.

“Any arrangements for Gaza’s future after the [Israeli] aggression must be based on national consensus, and we will facilitate this. Hamas will not allow any external force to interfere,” he added.

Qassem said these arrangements must lead to “launching a serious and genuine reconstruction process to save our people in Gaza from the catastrophe they have endured” due to Israel’s war.

The comments come as Arab leaders prepare to meet in Cairo to formulate a unified Arab stance on the Palestinian issue and present a counterproposal to US plans for the displacement of Gaza’s population

March 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Egypt unveils Gaza reconstruction plan ahead of emergency Arab summit

Al Mayadeen | March 4, 2025

On Tuesday, Egypt’s Al-Qahera Al-Ikhbariya channel published Egypt’s plan for rebuilding Gaza, which will be presented to Arab leaders at the emergency summit hosted in Cairo on Tuesday.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty previously stated that the plan was designed to ensure the Palestinian people’s dignity and rights, and would be presented on March 4.

According to Abdelatty, Egypt’s alternative reconstruction plan will not be solely Egyptian or Arab but will include international support and funding to ensure its effective implementation.

“We will hold intensive talks with major donor countries once the plan is adopted at the upcoming Arab Summit,” he stated during a press conference with European Union Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Suica.

Into Egypt’s plan

The plan, which is based on preserving the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people, includes the formation of a Gaza Administration Committee to oversee the governance of the territory during a six-month transitional period. This committee will be independent, composed of non-partisan technocrats, and will operate under the Palestinian government.

According to the plan, the committee will be established throughout the current phase and pave the way for the full return of the administration, which would manage the next phase under Palestinian decision-making.

The plan also states that Egypt and Jordan will train Palestinian police forces in preparation for their deployment in Gaza. It calls for mobilizing political and financial support to back Egyptian-Jordanian efforts in training Palestinian security personnel.

Additionally, the plan suggests that the UN Security Council consider an international presence in the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and Gaza, and issue a resolution to deploy international peacekeeping forces as part of a comprehensive framework for establishing a Palestinian state.

On stabilizing the ceasefire

The reconstruction statement also condemned the killing and targeting of civilians, as well as the high levels of violence and humanitarian suffering caused by “Israel’s” war on Gaza, claiming that the two-state solution is the most viable resolution under international law and consensus, emphasizing that Gaza is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory.

Egypt stressed the importance of safeguarding Palestinian rights and ensuring their continued presence on their land without displacement, calling on the international community to unite on a humanitarian basis above all else to address the catastrophic consequences of the war.

Any attempt to strip the Palestinian people of their hope for statehood or seize their land would only further fuel the struggle and instability, it also warned.

Additionally, the plan also underscored the need to maintain the ceasefire in Gaza, ensure the sustainability of the current truce, and secure the release of prisoners and detainees. It noted that successful reconstruction requires transitional governance arrangements and security measures that uphold the prospects of a two-state solution.

Furthermore, it urged the international community to support Egypt, Qatar, and the United States in stabilizing the ceasefire agreement, warning that a collapse of the truce would severely hinder humanitarian efforts and the reconstruction process.

The plan emphasized the importance of a gradual approach that ensures the Palestinian people’s right to remain on their land while also safeguarding their legitimate aspirations for an independent state with territorial continuity between Gaza and the West Bank. It called for handling Gaza’s situation through a political and legal framework that aligns with international legitimacy and UN Security Council resolutions.

The plan also stressed the need to begin planning for the early recovery phase in a way that guarantees Palestinian ownership of the process. It underscored the importance of continued efforts by the Palestinian Authority to take further steps in strengthening and developing Palestinian institutions and governance structures.

March 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Democracy does not ‘die in darkness,’ it is dying in the EU right now

By Tarik Cyril | RT | March 4, 2025

Quiz time: What do Germany, Moldova, and Romania (in alphabetical order) have in common? They look so different, don’t they?

Germany is a traditional, large, and at this point still relatively well-off (if less and less so due to obedient self-Morgenthauing for the greater glory of Ukraine) member of the Cold War “West” (give and take a “re-unification” and all that). Currently, it has a population of over 83 million people and a GDP equivalent to $4.53 trillion. Romania is an ex-Soviet satellite with just above 19 million citizens and a GDP less than a tenth of the German one (at $343.8 billion). Moldova, which emerged from a former Soviet republic, is the smallest: 2.4 million people and a GDP of $16.5 billion.

And yet, look more closely, and they are not so different: They are all either inside the EU and NATO (Germany and Romania) or attached to these two organizations as an outside yet important strategic asset (the case of Moldova – despite and in de facto breach of its constitutionally anchored neutrality, as it happens). And also, all three have serious problems with conducting fair and clean elections. What a coincidence. Not.

Let’s take a quick look at each case: In Germany’s recent federal election, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) failed to cross the threshold to representation in parliament – 5% of the national vote – by the thinnest of margins: The party officially garnered 4.972% of the vote. In absolute numbers, almost 2,469,000 Germans voted for the BSW (with the decisive so-called “second vote”). Only 0.028% – about 13,000 to 14,000 votes – more and the party would have passed the 5% barrier.

Even extremely tight results can, of course, be real and legitimate. The problem in Germany now is that there is steadily accumulating evidence that the elections were compromised by serious flaws and repeated errors. What makes this even more urgent is the fact that there seems to be a clear pattern with mistakes occurring not randomly but mostly at the cost of the BSW.

We already know about two key problems, although not much more than one week has passed after the election on February 23: First, about 230,000 German voters live abroad, but many of them could not cast their vote because the necessary documents reached them too late, sometimes even only after the elections. Of course, we cannot tell how exactly these voters would have voted if given the chance. But that is not the point. The fact alone that they could not participate casts severe doubt on the legitimacy of the results. And especially in the case of the BSW where so few additional votes would have been enough to principally change the outcome, that is, secure seats – and probably two to three dozen – in the next parliament.

The second even more disturbing issue is that there is ever more evidence of actual BSW votes inside Germany being allocated to another party. In the case of the major city of Aachen, for instance, a result of 7.24% for the BSW was registered for the “Bündnis für Deutschland” (an entirely different and much smaller party with no chance of parliamentary representation to begin with). The BSW vote was erroneously registered as 0%. Only protests by local BSW voters brought the scandal to light.

German mainstream media are trying to depict what happened in Aachen as an exception. Yet by now there are reports of similar “errors” from all over Germany – and don’t forget that the process of looking for these cases has only just started. In sum, there are good reasons – and they are getting better by the day – for believing that, for the BSW, the difference between correct and incorrect election procedures actually amounts to the one between being and not being in parliament. That implies, of course, that all those citizens who have voted for the BSW may well have been deprived of their proper democratic representation as foreseen by law.

Is there a motive for foul play? You bet. The BSW, an insurgent party combining leftwing social with rightwing cultural and migration-policy positions, has been hounded as too friendly toward Russia because it is demanding peace in Ukraine; it also has been outspoken about its opposition to basing fresh US missiles in Germany and to Israel’s crimes as well.

In Germany as it is now, these are all reasons for neo-McCarthyite smear campaigns and repression by – at least – dirty media tricks, all of which has already happened. It is entirely possible that a wave of deliberate local “mistakes” was added to that nasty tool box. And, a slightly different issue, asserting the BSW’s legal rights now will be especially difficult, in particular because a revision of the election result to include the party in parliament would immediately upset the complicated arithmetic of government coalition building. The BSW and its voters, in short, may well have been cheated, and they may be cheated again in case they seek redress.

The fact that one problem with those German elections has to do with voters living abroad rings a bell called Moldova, of course. There, last November, Maia Sandu narrowly won a presidential election that involved massively manipulating the outside-the-country vote. In essence, Moldovans abroad, especially in Russia, likely to vote against her were, in effect, disenfranchised by making it impossible for them to actually cast their vote; Moldovans more likely to vote for her, in the West, faced no such problems.

This crude trickery was decisive: Without it Sandu would have lost and her left-wing rival Alexandr Stoianoglo would have won. In the West, whose candidate Sandu has been, this outcome was, of course, hailed as a victory for “democracy,” a pro-EU choice, and a defeat of “Russian meddling.” As so often, it is hard to decide what is more jaw-dropping: the Orwellian reversal of reality or the Freudian projection of the West’s own manipulation on the big bad Russian Other.

That projection, in any case, is also in play in Romania. Indeed, at this point, the Romanian case of electoral foul play is clearly the most brutal one. There, the gist of a long saga beginning last November, too, is simple: Calin Georgescu, an insurgent newcomer is very likely to win presidential elections. Yet he is being denounced as a far-right populist and – drum roll – as somehow in cahoots with Russia, too.

The consequences were not surprising, except in how drastic things have gotten: First, when Georgescu was close to winning one election, the Constitutional Court abused its power to cancel the whole exercise. The pretext was a file of pseudo-evidence cobbled together by Romania’s security services that, by now, even Western mainstream media admit is ridiculously shoddy.

As you would expect, this open assault on their right to vote has made Romanians support Georgescu more, not less, as polls show. Since the next try at elections is now due to take place in May and Georgescu is still the frontrunner, the authorities have followed up with even more ham-fisted repression. This time, Georgescu was temporarily and dramatically detained – on the way to registering his renewed candidacy – and then accused of half a dozen serious crimes. His access to social media has been curtailed; his team and associates are being raked with searches, charges, and, of course, media attacks. It is possible that he will be deprived of his right to stand for the election.

Georgescu’s supporters have held large demonstrations; he himself has appealed for help in his struggle against Romania’s “deep state” to the Trump administration in Washington. Trump’s de facto right-hand man, tech oligarch Elon Musk, has used his X platform to signal support for Georgescu. And not long ago, US Vice President J.D. Vance warned the Europeans over the first round of attacks on Georgescu.

Yet Romania’s key role in NATO strategies is certain to be a key reason the NATO-skeptic and sovereigntist Georgescu has run into such massive trouble, not only from Romanian mainstream elites but also, behind the scenes, those still running the EU. With Washington now revising its approach to both Russia and its NATO clients in Europe, Georgescu’s fate could well hinge on one of the greatest geopolitical shifts of this century. And that shift might favor him.

Maia Sandu’s crooked victory in Moldova is not up for revision. The chances for the BSW of finding redress should be good, but, in reality, they are not, unfortunately. Georgescu’s luck, though, may turn again. He already has massive electoral support; he may well get even more precisely because of the escalation of dirty tricks used against him, and he has the US de facto on his side.

What is certain, in any case, is one simple fact: the “garden” West, with its endless talk of “values” and “rules” does not, in practice, believe in real elections. Instead, geopolitics prevail. And, tragically, those geopolitics are not only overbearing but stupid. Driven by an obsession with fighting Russia (and China, of course; and the Trumpist US, too, if need be) and rejecting diplomacy as such, this is a West ready to sacrifice whatever little democracy it may have left to a delusion of grandeur that will be its downfall.

Tarik Cyril Amar ia a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

March 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

UN demands answers from UK on terror law abuse

By Kit Klarenberg | The Grayzone | March 1, 2025

As the British state harasses and arrests a growing number of activists and dissident journalists, including the author of this piece, UN rapporteurs delivered a forceful letter of protest to London condemning its abuse of counter-terror legislation.

In December 2024, a quartet of UN rapporteurs focused on “peaceful assembly and of association” and the “right to privacy” delivered a strongly-worded letter to the British government. Expressing grave concerns about the potential “misapplication of counter-terrorism laws” to arrest, detain, interrogate and surveil dissident activists and journalists, including The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg, they demanded clarity on a number of serious issues. Given 60 days to respond, London remained suspiciously silent.

As a result, the UN’s correspondence with the British government has now been made public. The rapporteurs were clearly disturbed by reports of Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, and Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act, which covers “hostile” state threats, “being used to examine and obtain data from journalists and activists Johanna Ross, John Laughland, Kit Klarenberg, Craig Murray and Richard Medhurst in circumstances where they appear to have no credible connection to ‘terrorist’ or ‘hostile’ activity.”

While awaiting a reply that never came, the UN “urged” British authorities to undertake “interim measures” to prevent any recurrence of potential human rights breaches under counter-terror legislation, and “ensure the accountability” of anyone responsible for “alleged violations.” Evidently undeterred by pressure from the UN, Britain has continued to escalate its war on dissidents.

Since the UN issued its letter of protest, British activists and journalists have since been arrested, raided, and prosecuted, including Asa WinstanleyTony GreensteinSarah WilkinsonPalestine Action cofounder Richard Barnard, and academic David Miller.

The UN letter focused on how “powers under counter-terrorism legislation have been used on multiple occasions to examine, detain, and arrest journalists and activists, particularly at the UK border.” Individuals “who are critical of Western foreign policy in the context of the conflict in the Middle East and the Russia-Ukraine war are especially affected by the reported misuse of these powers,” the rapporteurs wrote.

Ominously, the UN rapporteurs suggested this could amount to “over-use [or] misuse” of British counter-terrorism legislation “to target legitimate freedom of expression and opinion, including public interest media reporting, and related freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, and political dissent or activism.”

“Vague and broad” laws mean mass-persecution

The UN rapporteurs were especially scathing in their critique of the powers used to harass and potentially incarcerate targets. They charged that Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act “may be unjustifiably used against journalists and activists who are critical of Western foreign policy.” In each case they investigated, detentions under this legislation were “premeditated [and] examination, confiscation of devices, and DNA prints were conducted despite the apparent absence of a credible ‘terrorist’ connection” with the individual in question.

Such promiscuous application of ostensible counter-terrorism laws creates the unavoidable “risk of intimidating, deterring, and disrupting the ability of journalists to report on topics of public importance without self-censorship” in Britain. This “serious chilling effect,” the rapporteurs cautioned, could extend well beyond media, and “unjustifiably interfere with the rights to freedom of expression and opinion and participation in public life” across “civil society and legitimate political and public discourse.”

The UN took repeated aim “at the vagueness and overbreadth” of the 2000 Terrorism Act’s criminalisation of “expressing an opinion or belief…supportive of a proscribed organisation.” The legislation’s terms provide no definition whatsoever of the term “support”, an “ambiguous” deficiency that “may unjustifiably criminalize” legitimate opinions “not rationally, proximately or causally related to actual terrorist violence or harms.” They noted this prohibition “goes well beyond the accepted restrictions on freedom of expression under international law concerning the prohibition of incitement to violence or hate speech.”

Indeed, “speech that is neither necessary nor proportionate to criminalize, including legitimate debates about the de-proscription of an organization and disagreement with a government’s decision to proscribe” could be categorized as “supporting” a terrorist group under the 2000 Terrorism Act’s sweeping terms. This is especially problematic given certain factions proscribed by Britain, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, may be “de facto authorities performing a diversity of civilian functions, including governance, humanitarian and medical activities, and provision of social services, public utilities and education”:

“Expressing support for any of these ordinary civilian activities by the organization could constitute expressing support for it, no matter how remote such expression is from support for any violent terrorist acts by the group.”

Working for “hostile” governments without knowing

Similar alarm was sounded about the wording of Schedule 3 of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, under which The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was detained upon returning to his home city of London in May 2023. It stipulates that anyone entering British territory suspected of “hostile activity” on behalf of a foreign power can be held against their will and interrogated for up to six hours, while the contents of their digital devices are seized and stored. Non-compliance automatically results in arrest.

See the notice of detention issued by British state security to journalist Kit Klarenberg under Schedule 3 of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act of 2019 here.

Ever more disturbingly, Schedule 3 is suspicionless. Under the legislation’s terms, “it is immaterial whether a person is aware that activity in which they are or have been engaged is hostile activity, or whether a state for or on behalf of which, or in the interests of which, a hostile act is carried out has instigated, sanctioned, or is otherwise aware of, the carrying out of the act.” In other words, no conspirator in a suspected conspiracy has to have consented to potentially illegal activity.

“Hostile acts” are defined as any behavior deemed threatening to London’s “national security” or “economic well-being.” Again, the rapporteurs condemned this language as “vague and over-broad.” They concluded the phrasing granted British authorities “extraordinary discretion” to engage in “unnecessary, disproportionate or otherwise arbitrary interferences in the rights to liberty and privacy” of individuals detained under these powers. Moreover, as the Act’s targets are not formally under formal criminal investigation or arrest, or suspected of having committed any offense, they have no right to remain silent.

The UN branded this distinction as “artificial… given the punitive sanctions for non-compliance,” branding it as “inconsistent with the accepted meaning of ‘arrest’ or ‘detention’” under Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The “extreme breadth” of Schedule 3 also “enables unnecessary, disproportionate, arbitrary or discriminatory interference with an individual’s rights, including freedom from arbitrary detention, freedom of movement…and the rights to leave and enter one’s own country.” Article 17 of the ICCPR also states:

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with [their] privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on [their] honour and reputation.”

This is explicitly contrary to Klarenberg’s May 2023 experience at Luton airport. There, as the rapporteurs documented, he was “fingerprinted, subjected to oral DNA swabs, and photographed by the examining officer,” while asked excessively invasive questions about his financial affairs, personal and professional relationships, and living situation in his adopted home country of Serbia. His belongings were extensively “searched and he was compelled to provide the passwords to his digital devices, which included a smartphone, tablet, and two cameras.”

Not only was all data on these devices copied, but “the memory cards and SIM cards of the electronic devices were copied outside the interrogation room” and “retained by the police.” As of the letter’s dispatch, one of Klarenberg’s memory cards had “been retained for a period exceeding a year and five months” by British authorities, suggesting he “remains under criminal investigation” for uncertain offenses he did not knowingly or willingly commit.

The rapporteurs noted Klarenberg was among several journalists detained by British border officials whose “electronic devices [were] confiscated for a significant period of time and have not been updated on the use, retention or destruction of their data, or advised in relation to their personal data protection rights.” In many cases, these seized items have never been returned, without satisfactory explanation or seeming legal justification.

New British laws further criminalize dissent

In closing, the UN rapporteurs “encouraged” London to repeal legislation under which dissidents have been persecuted, or “amend it to protect freedom of expression, and…develop prosecutorial guidelines for its appropriate use to avoid the unnecessary or disproportionate incrimination of political dissent.” They further implored London to “indicate how the application of counter-terrorism laws” against activists and journalists “is consistent with international human rights law, and an appropriate application of the law,” while providing “an update on the retention of data taken from the journalists.”

They went on to “urge” the British government to “consider the growing number of instances” where laws purportedly intended to deal with violent terrorist threats “may have been inappropriately directed towards journalists and activists, and to consider addressing this through amendments to the legislation, guidance for relevant officials, and training of border security officers.” Britain’s failure to respond to the UN’s letter, and ever-ratcheting attacks on domestic dissent subsequently, amply indicate these entreaties have fallen on determinedly deaf ears.

In December 2023, Britain rammed through a new round of draconian legislation reinforcing and further codifying the “vague and over-broad” terms of the laws condemned by the UN, under the auspices of the National Security Act. Its terms introduce a number of completely new criminal offenses with severe penalties, and wide-ranging consequences for freedom of speech. Explicitly enacted to neutralize investigative journalism and prevent the emergence of a new WikiLeaks, the Act is so expansive, individuals will almost inevitably break the law without wanting to, intending to, or even knowing they have.

British journalist Johnny Miller seeks asylum in Russia following campaign of harassment

At almost exactly the same time when UN rapporteurs complained to the British government about its abuse of “counter-terror” legislation to persecute dissidents, independent journalist Johnny Miller was granted asylum in Russia. Miller, a British citizen, had reported from the front lines of the Ukraine proxy war for two-and-a-half years. During this period, supporters of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky subjected him to a campaign of intensive harassment, hacking his digital devices and Telegram account, bombarding him and his family with anonymous death threats, and publicly stalking him.

Miller told The Grayzone he’s not sure who or what was ultimately behind the campaign of harassment, but strongly suspects British and/or Ukrainian intelligence played a role. He says it was evident from the start of 2024 his movements in Moscow were being closely tracked while he travelled around the city, and seemingly in advance. At repeated meetings with friends and sources in bars, cafes and restaurants in the Russian capital, individuals would be waiting there for him, staring at him menacingly:

“It might sound crazy, but I think that’s the point. The purpose was to drive me insane, and make me look insane if I ever spoke up about this publicly. But these intimidating encounters from afar happened too many times to be a coincidence, and were witnessed by those I met with. One of them was George Dusoe, a US diplomat who quit out of protest over Gaza, after growing disillusionment with US government policy, and then moved to Russia.”

Miller met with Dusoe for a coffee a day before a formal interview. Afterwards, as they headed for the central Moscow metro, Dusoe quietly informed him they were being followed by multiple people. “He’d not only experienced that personally while posted abroad, but was specially trained in how to spot and evade it,” Miller noted. While the pair eventually eluded their stalkers, losing them in the metro, the experience shook Miller.

To this day, he can’t help but wonder, “what if I was alone, and this happened at night?,” citing the example of Adrian Bocquet. A French military veteran, he travelled to Ukraine in April 2022, witnessed Kiev’s forces commit countless grave war crimes, publicly testified to these atrocities while disputing Western claims of Russian atrocities in Bucha after returning home, then was stabbed in Turkey by Ukrainian nationalists. Miller is understandably relieved to finally be granted a degree of legal protection, personally and professionally:

“Their aim was to make me so scared for my life I stopped my work, and they almost succeeded. The psychological impact was massive, it was a form of warfare, and it stressed me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” he commented. “It’s a sick irony that one of the main reasons I sought asylum in Russia is [in order] to apply for a new passport, I would’ve had to give the British embassy in Moscow my address. No way!”

While detained in Luton airport in May 2023, The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg was not only forced under threat of arrest and prosecution to provide British counter-terror police his apartment address in Belgrade, but its location within the building, how much he paid for rent, and whether energy bills were included in that price. To what malign ends this information was put isn’t clear. From Miller’s point of view, British intelligence is determined to harass dissidents wherever they are, inside the country or thousands of miles away.

March 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Hamas explained why it attacked Israel on October 7, 2023

If Americans Knew | March 3, 2025

On January 20, 2024 Hamas, the Palestinian Resistance Movement, issued a 16-page document entitled “Our Narrative–Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” that explains their plans and actions.

This helps to answer the question some Americans ask: Why did Hamas launch the attack?

As Americans read and consider the following, perhaps they will consider an equally important question: Why did we allow our government to enable Israel’s violent, decades-long ethnic cleansing project against Palestinians?

To see the full document and its images, click the PDF here. Below is the document’s text (IAK has bolded some portions and added a few editor’s notes).

TEXT:

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Our steadfast Palestinian people,

The Arab & Islamic nations;

The free peoples worldwide and those who advocate for freedom, justice and human dignity

In light of the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and as our people continue their battle for independence, dignity and breaking-free from the longest-ever occupation during which they have drawn the finest displays of bravery and heroism in confronting the Israeli murder machine and aggression. We would like to clarify to our people and the free peoples of the world the reality of what happened on Oct. 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective.

Why Operation Al-Aqsa Flood?

1. 1- The battle of the Palestinian people against occupation and colonialism did not start on Oct. 7, but started 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation. In 1918, the Palestinian people owned 98.5% of the Palestine land and represented 92% of the population on the land of Palestine.

While the Jews, who were brought to Palestine in mass immigration campaigns in coordination between the British colonial authorities and the Zionist Movement, managed to seize control of not more than 6% of the lands in Palestine and to be 31% of the population prior to 1948 when the Zionist Entity was announced on the historic land of Palestine. [Editor’s note: See this]

At that time, the Palestinian people were denied from the right to self- determination and the Zionist gangs engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people aimed at expelling them from their lands and areas. As a result, the Zionist gangs seized control by force of 77% of the land of Palestine where they expelled 57% of the people of Palestine and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and towns, and committed dozens of massacres against the Palestinians which all culminated in the establishment of the Zionist Entity in 1948. Moreover, in continuation of the aggression, the Israeli forces in 1967 occupied the rest of Palestine including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem in addition to Arab territories around Palestine.

2. 2- Over these long decades, the Palestinian people suffered all forms of oppression, injustice, expropriation of their fundamental rights and the apartheid policies. The Gaza Strip, for example, suffered as of 2007 from a suffocating blockade over 17 years which turned it to be the largest open-air prison in the world. The Palestinian people in Gaza also suffered from five destructive wars\ aggressions all of which “Israel” was the offending party.

The people in Gaza in 2018 also initiated the Great March of Return demonstrations to peacefully protest the Israeli blockade, their misery humanitarian conditions and to demand their right-to-return. However, the Israeli occupation forces responded to these protests with brutal force by which 360 Palestinians were killed and 19,000 others were injured including over 5,000 children in a matter of few months. [Editor’s note: See this]

3. According official figures, in the period between (January 2000 and September 2023), the Israeli occupation killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156,768 others, the great majority of them were civilians. Unfortunately, the US administration and its allies did not pay attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people over the past years but provided cover to the Israeli aggression.

They only lamented the Israeli soldiers who were killed on Oct. 7 even without seeking the truth of what happened, and wrongfully walked behind the Israeli narrative in condemning an alleged targeting of Israeli civilians. The US administration provided the financial and military support to the Israeli occupation massacres against the Palestinian civilians and the brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, and still the US officials continue to ignore what the Israeli occupation forces commit in Gaza of mass killing. [Editor’s note: see this.]

4. The Israeli violations and brutality were documented by many UN organizations and international human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and even documented by Israeli human rights groups. [See this.]

However, these reports and testimonies were ignored and the Israeli occupation is yet to be held accountable. For example, on Oct. 29, 2021, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan insulted the UN system by tearing up a report for the UN Human Rights Council during an address at the General Assembly, and threw it in a dustbin before leaving the podium. Yet, he was appointed in the following year – 2022 – to the post of vice-president of the UN General Assembly.

5. The US administration and its western allies have always been treating Israel as a state above the law; they provide it with the needed cover to maintain prolonging the occupation and cracking down the Palestinian people, and also allowing “Israel” to exploit such situation to expropriate further Palestinian lands and to Judaize their sanctities and holy sites. Despite the fact that the UN had issued more than 900 resolutions over the past 75 years in favor of the Palestinian people, “Israel” rejected to abide by any of these resolutions, and the US VETO was always present at the UN Security Council to prevent any condemnation to “Israel’s” policies and violations. That’s why we see the US and other western countries complicit and partners to the Israeli occupation in its crimes and in the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. [See this.]

6. As for “the peaceful settlement process”. Despite the fact that the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stipulated the establishment of a Palestinian independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; “Israel” systematically destroyed every possibility to establish the Palestinian state through a wide campaign of settlements’ construction and Judaization of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. The backers of the peace process after 30 years realized that they have reached an impasse and that such process had catastrophic results on the Palestinian people.

The Israeli officials confirmed at several occasions their absolute rejection to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Just one month before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a map of a so-called “New Middle East,” depicting “Israel” stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea including the West Bank and Gaza. The entire world at that – UN General Assembly’s – podium were silent towards his speech full of arrogance and ignorance towards the rights of the Palestinian people.

7. After 75 years of relentless occupation and suffering, and after failing all initiatives for liberation and return to our people, and also after the disastrous results of the so-called peace process, what did the world expect from the Palestinian people to do in response to the following:

♦ The Israeli Judaization plans to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, its temporal and spatial division attempts, as well as the intensification of the Israeli settlers’ incursions into the holy mosque.

♦ The practices of the extremist and right-wing Israeli government which is practically taking steps towards annexing the entire West Bank and Jerusalem into the so-called “Israel’s sovereignty” amid plans on the Israeli official table to expel Palestinians from their homes and areas.

♦ The thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails who are experiencing deprivation of their basic rights as well as assaults and humiliations under direct supervision of the Israeli fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

♦ The unjust air, sea, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip over 17 years.

♦ The expansion of the Israeli settlements across the West Bank in an unprecedented level, as well as the daily violence perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians and their properties.

♦ The seven million Palestinians living in extreme conditions in refugee camps and other areas who wish to return to their lands, and who were expelled 75 years ago.

♦ The failure of the international community and the complicit of superpowers to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

What was expected from the Palestinian people after all of that? To keep waiting and to keep counting on the helpless UN! Or to take the initiative in defending the Palestinian people, lands, rights and sanctities; knowing that the defense act is a right enshrined in international laws, norms and conventions.

Proceeding from the above, Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 was a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their cause. It was a defensive act in the frame of getting rid of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming the Palestinian rights and on the way for liberation and independence like all peoples around the world did. 

Second

The events of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and responses to the Israeli allegations

In light of the Israeli fabricated accusations and allegations over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 and its repercussions, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas clarify the following:

1. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.

2. Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite the fact that the resistance does not possess precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces. [Editor’s note: when the barrier that had been imprisoning Gaza for over 20 years was breached, many people not part of Hamas’ trained fighters, including other armed groups not under Hamas, also escaped.]

Since its establishment in 1987, the Hamas Movement committed itself to avoiding harm to civilians. After Zionist criminal Baruch Goldstein in 1994 committed a massacre against Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied Hebron City, the Hamas Movement announced an initiative to avoid civilians the brunt of fighting by all parties, but the Israeli occupation rejected it and even did not give any comment on it. The Hamas Movement also repeated such calls several times, but received by a deaf ear from the Israeli occupation which continued its deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian civilians.

[Editor’s note: The precursor to Hamas was different from extremist groups that we think of today, like Al-Qaeda or ISIS. It started out by focusing on social welfare programs, providing education, food and other social services to Palestinians. It eventually began to engage in resistance activities against the Israeli occupation and expanded land theft, such as attacks on military posts and capturing Israeli soldiers. After an extremist Israeli killed 29 Palestinians while they were praying, Hamas also began targeting civilians. See this and this and this and this.]

3. Maybe some faults happened during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s implementation due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza.

As attested by many, the Hamas Movement dealt in a positive and kind manner with all civilians who have been held in Gaza, and sought from the earliest days of the aggression to release them, and that’s what happened during the week-long humanitarian truce where those civilians were released in exchange of releasing Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails. [Editor’s note: For how this was reported to Americans see this.]

4. What the Israeli occupation promoted of allegations that the Al-Qassam Brigades on Oct. 7 were targeting Israeli civilians are nothing but complete lies and fabrications. [Editor’s Note: See this]  The source of these allegations is the Israeli official narrative and no independent source proved any of them. It is a well-known fact that the Israeli official narrative had always sought to demonize the Palestinian resistance, while also legalizing its brutal aggression on Gaza.

Here are some details that go against the Israeli allegations:

♦ Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion. [See this.]

♦ It has also been firmly refuted the lie of the “40 beheaded babies” by the Palestinian fighters, and even Israeli sources denied this lie. Many of the western media agencies unfortunately adopted this allegation and promoted it.

♦ The suggestion that the Palestinian fighters committed rape against Israeli women was fully denied including by the Hamas Movement. A report by the Mondoweiss news website on Dec. 1, 2023, among others, said there is lack of any evidence of “mass rape” allegedly perpetrated by Hamas members on Oct. 7 and that Israel used such allegation “to fuel the genocide in Gaza.” [See this.]

♦ According to two reports by the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on Oct. 10 and the Haaretz newspaper on Nov. 18, many Israeli civilians were killed by an Israeli military helicopter especially those who were in the Nova music festival near Gaza where 364 Israeli civilians were killed. The two reports said the Hamas fighters reached the area of the festival without any prior knowledge of the festival, where the Israeli helicopter opened fire on both the Hamas fighters and the participants in the festival. The Yedioth Ahronoth also said the Israeli army, to prevent further infiltrations from Gaza and to prevent any Israelis being arrested by the Palestinian fighters, struck over 300 targets in areas surrounding the Gaza Strip.

♦ Other Israeli testimonies confirmed that the Israeli army raids and soldiers’ operations killed many Israeli captives and their captors. The Israeli occupation army bombed the houses in the Israeli settlements where Palestinian fighters and Israelis were inside in a clear application of the Israeli army notorious “Hannibal Directive” which clearly says that “better a dead civilian hostage or soldier than taken alive” to avoid engaging in a prisoners swap with the Palestinian resistance.

♦ Furthermore, the occupation authorities revised the number of their killed soldiers and civilians from 1,400 to 1,200, after finding that 200-burnt corpses had belonged to the Palestinian fighters who were killed and mixed with Israeli corpses. This means that the one who killed the fighters is the one who killed the Israelis, knowing that only the Israeli army possesses military planes that killed, burned and destroyed Israeli areas on Oct. 7.

♦ The Israeli heavy aerial raids across Gaza that led to the death of nearly 60 Israeli captives also prove that the Israeli occupation does not care about the life of their captives in Gaza.

5. It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army.

6. When speaking about Israeli civilians, it must be known that conscription applies to all Israelis above the age of 18 – males who served 32 months of military service and females who served 24 months – where all can carry and use arms. This is based on the Israeli security theory of an “armed people” which turned the Israeli entity into “an army with a country attached.”

7. The brutal killing of civilians is a systematic approach of the Israeli entity, and one of the means to humiliate the Palestinian people. The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza is a clear evidence of such approach.

8. The Al Jazeera news channel said in a documentary that in one month of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the daily average killing of Palestinian children in Gaza was 136, while the average of children killing in Ukraine – in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war – was one child every day.

9. Those who defend the Israeli aggression do not look at the events in an objective manner but rather go to justify the Israeli mass killing of Palestinians by saying there would be casualties among civilians when attacking the Hamas fighters. However, they would not use such assumption when it comes to the Al-Aqsa Flood event on Oct. 7.

10. We are confident that any fair and independent inquiries will prove the truth of our narrative and will prove the scale of lies and misleading information in the Israeli side. This also includes the Israeli allegations regarding the hospitals in Gaza that the Palestinian resistance used them as command centers; an allegation that was not proven and was refuted by reports of many western press agencies. [See this]

Third

Towards a transparent international investigationrd

1. Palestine is a member-state of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it acceded to its Rome Statute in 2015. When Palestine asked for investigation into Israeli war crimes committed on its territories, it was faced by Israeli intransigence and rejection, and threats to punish the Palestinians for the request to ICC. It is also unfortunate to mention that there were great powers, which claim to be holding values of justice, completely sided with the occupation narrative and stood against the Palestinian moves in the international justice system. These powers want to keep “Israel” as a state above the law and to ensure it escapes liability and accountability.

2. We urge these countries, especially the US administration, Germany, Canada and the UK, if they are meant for justice to prevail as they claim, they are ought to announce their support to the course of the investigation in all crimes committed in occupied Palestine and to give full support for the international courts to effectively do their job.

3. Despite having doubts from these countries to stand by justice, we still urge the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently come to occupied Palestine to look into the crimes and violations committed there, rather than merely observing the situation remotely or being subject to the Israeli restrictions.

4. In Dec. 2022, when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution seeking opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of “Israel’s” illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, those (few) countries who back “Israel” announced their rejection to the move that was approved by nearly 100 countries. And when our people – and their legal and rights groups – sought to pursue prosecutions against the Israeli war criminals in front of the European countries courts – through the system of universal jurisdiction – the European regimes obstructed the moves in favor of the Israeli war criminals to remain running free.

5. The events of Oct. 7 must be put in its broader context, and that all cases of struggle against colonialism and occupation in our contemporary time be evoked. These experiences of struggle show that in the same level of oppression committed by the occupier; there would be an equivalent response by the people under occupation. [See this.]

6. The Palestinian people and peoples across the world realize the scale of lies and deception these governments that back the Israeli narrative practice in their attempts to justify their blind bias and to cover the Israeli crimes. These countries know the root causes of the conflict which are the occupation and the denial of the right of the Palestinian people to live in dignity on their lands. These countries show no interest towards the continuation of the unjust blockade on millions of Palestinians in Gaza, and also show no interest towards the thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails held under conditions where their basic rights are mostly denied.

7. We hail the free people of the world from all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds who rally in all capitals and cities worldwide to voice their rejection to the Israeli crimes and massacres, and to show their support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their just cause.

Fourth

A reminder to the world, who is Hamas?

1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.

2. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

3. The Palestinian people have always stood against oppression, injustice, and the committing of massacres against civilians regardless of who commit them. And based on our religious and moral values, we clearly stated our rejection to what the Jews were exposed to by the Nazi Germany. Here, we remind that the Jewish problem in essence was a European problem, while the Arab and Islamic environment was – across history – a safe haven to the Jewish people and to other peoples of other beliefs and ethnicities. The Arab and Islamic environment was an example to co-existence, cultural interaction and religious freedoms. The current conflict is caused by the Zionist aggressive behavior and its alliance with the western colonial powers; therefore, we reject the exploitation of the Jewish suffering in Europe to justify the oppression against our people in Palestine.

4. The Hamas Movement according to international laws and norms is a national liberation movement that has clear goals and mission. It gets its legitimacy to resist the occupation from the Palestinian right to self-defense, liberation and self-determination. Hamas has always been keen to restrict its fight and resistance with the Israeli occupation on the occupied Palestinian territory, yet, the Israeli occupation did not abide by that and committed massacres and killings against the Palestinians outside Palestine.

5. We stress that resisting the occupation with all means including the armed resistance is a legitimized right by all norms, divine religions, the international laws including the Geneva Conventions and its first additional protocol and the related UN resolutions e.g. The UN General Assembly Resolution 3236, adopted by the 29th session of the General Assembly on Nov. 22, 1974 which affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including the right to self-determination and the right to return to “their homes and property from where they were expelled, displaced and uprooted.”  [See this.]

6. Our steadfast Palestinian people and their resistance are waging a heroic battle to defend their land and national rights against the longest and brutalist colonial occupation. The Palestinian people are confronting an unprecedented Israeli aggression that committed heinous massacres against Palestinian civilians, most of them were children and women. In the course of the aggression on Gaza, the Israeli occupation deprived our people in Gaza of food, water, medicines and fuel, and simply deprived them from all means of life. In the meantime, the Israeli warplanes savagely struck all Gaza infrastructures and public buildings including schools, universities, mosques, churches and hospitals in a clear sign of ethnic cleansing aimed at expelling the Palestinian people from Gaza. Yet, the backers of the Israeli occupation did nothing but kept the genocide ongoing against our people. [See this.]

7. The Israeli occupation’s use of the “self-defense” pretext to justify its oppression against the Palestinian people is a process of lie, deception and turning the facts. The Israeli entity has no right to defend its crimes and occupation but the Palestinian people who have such right to oblige the occupier to end the occupation. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory opinion in the case concerning the “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” which stated that “Israel” – the brutal occupying force – cannot rely on a right of self-defense to build such wall on the Palestinian territory. Furthermore, Gaza under the international law is still an occupied land, thus, the justifications for waging the aggression on Gaza is baseless and lacks its legal capacity, as well as lacks the essence of the self-defense idea.

Fifth

What is needed?

Occupation is occupation no matter how it describes or names itself, and remains a tool to break the will of the peoples and to keep oppressing them. On the other side, the experiences of the peoples\nations across history on how to break away from occupation and colonialism confirm that the resistance is the strategic approach and the only way to liberation and ending the occupation. Have any nation been liberated from occupation without struggle, resistance or sacrifice?

The humanitarian, ethical and legal imperatives necessitate all countries around the world to back the resistance of the Palestinian people not to collude against it. They are supposed to confront the occupation crimes and aggression, as well as to support the struggle of the Palestinian people to liberate their lands and to practice their right to self-determination like all peoples across the globe. Based on that we call for the following:

1. The immediate halt of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population, to open the crossings and allow the entry of the humanitarian aid into Gaza including the reconstruction tools.

2. To hold the Israeli occupation legally accountable for what it caused of human suffering towards the Palestinian people, and to charge it for the crimes against civilians, infrastructure, hospitals, educational facilities, mosques and churches.

3. The support of the Palestinian resistance in the face of the Israeli occupation with all possible means as a legitimized right under the international laws and norms.

4. We call upon the free peoples across the world, especially those nations who were colonized and realize the suffering of the Palestinian people, to take serious and effective positions against the double standard policies adopted by powers\countries that back the Israeli occupation. We call on these nations to initiate a global solidarity movement with the Palestinian people and to emphasize the values of justice and equality and the right of the peoples to live in freedom and dignity.

5. The superpowers, especially the US, the UK and France among others, must stop providing the Zionist entity with cover from accountability, and to stop dealing with it as a country above the law. Such unjust behavior by these countries allowed the Israeli occupation over 75 years to commit the worst crimes ever against the Palestinian people, land and sanctities. We urge the countries across the globe, today and more than before, to uphold their responsibilities towards the international law and the relevant UN resolutions that call for ending the occupation.

6. We categorically reject any international or Israeli projects aimed at deciding the future of Gaza that only serve to prolong the occupation. We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs, and thus no party in the world has the right to impose any form of guardianship on the Palestinian people or decide on their behalf.

7. We urge for standing against the Israeli attempts to cause another wave of expulsion – or a new Nakba – to the Palestinians especially in the lands occupied in 1948 and the West Bank. We stress that there will be no expulsion to Sinai or Jordan or any other place, and if there is any relocation to the Palestinians, it will be towards their homes and areas they were expelled from in 1948, as affirmed by many UN resolutions.

8. We call for keeping the popular pressure around the world until ending the occupation; we call for standing against the normalization attempts with the Israeli entity and for a comprehensive boycott to the Israeli occupation and its backers.

March 3, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Arrest of activist Yves Engler and unchecked growth of Zionist network in Canada

By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | March 3, 2025

Attempts to harass and intimidate pro-Palestine voices through fabricated and politically-motivated legal cases have intensified in the West, further revealing the dangerous tactics and mechanisms adopted by the organized Zionist network.

Numerous such cases have emerged recently, including in recent weeks, involving prominent journalists and activists such as Ali Abunimah in Switzerland, Richard Medhurst in Austria, David Miller in England, and Yves Engler in Canada.

What is common between these cases is a pattern of prolonged detentions, often lasting hours or even days, on false charges or vague suspicions. Those targeted are treated as criminals, subjected to incoherent interrogations, and in many instances, thrown in jails.

Press TV recently published firsthand accounts from Medhurst and Miller, both longtime contributors to Iran’s leading international news network, detailing their experiences.

Miller emphasized that activists and journalists are prime targets of the Zionist lobby, which exerts pressure to harass or detain pro-Palestine voices across Western countries.

This was further corroborated by the recent case of Yves Engler in Canada, where the prominent author and activist was detained for five days.

Engler, who occasionally appears on Press TV as a commentator, in a statement posted on his website outlined the methods employed by Zionist lobbyists to intimidate people like him.

Based in Montreal, Engler has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli regime and its lobbyists. He has authored 13 books on Canadian history and foreign policy, including Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, which exposes Canada’s longstanding support for the Israeli regime.

Legal harassment of Yves Engler

On February 18, Engler received a call from a Montreal police officer named Crivello, who instructed him to appear at the downtown police station two days later, where he would be charged with harassment and indecent communication.

The officer explained that a complaint had been filed against him months earlier by a legal firm representing Dahlia Kurtz, a well-known Zionist rabble-rouser and outspoken supporter of the 16-month-long genocide in Gaza.

Engler had previously criticized Kurtz’s racist and violent anti-Palestinian posts on X in a polite and measured manner. He recalled her first – and only – reaction.

“Tomorrow the Montreal police will arrest me for posting to social media against Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Engler wrote in an article police reached out to him over Kurtz’s complaint.

Pointing out that he had “responded to Kurtz’s racist, violent, anti-Palestinian posts on X”, Engler said he had not harassed the influencer, who “supports killing Palestinian children” and “openly calls for state violence against those challenging Canadian complicity in genocide.”

“I’ve never met Kurtz. Nor have I messaged or emailed her. Nor have I threatened her. I don’t even follow her on X (Twitter’s algorithm puts her posts in my feed).”

In early July 2024, Kurtz quoted one of his posts and wrote: “Hello, Engler Yves. I’m advising you in this one message only that you are harassing me. You’re threatening and you’re making me afraid for my safety. You must stop this harassment – and communication with me. Stop now.”

His statements that she referenced, posted a few days earlier, read: “Racist Dahlia supports killing Palestinian children. 20,000 is not enough, she wants even more Palestinian blood spilled.”

Her response was a blatant lie. Engler had never threatened, harassed, or contacted her—neither publicly nor privately via messages or emails—nor was he following her on X.

Despite this, her exaggerated claims of victimhood escalated beyond false public accusations to the extent of hiring a law firm to pursue criminal charges against him.

On the morning of February 20, Engler was taken into custody at the police station, where an officer informed him that he would be detained overnight or until he was brought before a judge.

Citing the alleged risk of recidivism, authorities held him in custody for a total of five days.

Public support for Engler

Engler’s imprisonment drew widespread anger and outrage among pro-Palestinian and human rights activists, who staged protests outside the police station and courthouse for several days.

A day before his arrest, an article on his website in which he detailed the situation, prompted the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute to launch an email campaign.

In response to his initial call, over 4,000 people emailed Montreal police inspector Crivello, demanding the charges be dropped. Soon after, more than 6,000 others sent emails to the Montreal police chief and mayor, echoing the same demand.

Organizations such as PEN Canada and PEN America, Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, and journalists Ali Abunimah, Glenn Greenwald, Caitlin Johnstone, and Aaron Maté all spoke out about the case, either through statements or articles, expressing deep concern over the charges.

Singer David Rovics composed the song “What’s Going On Here, Montreal?” in response to Engler’s imprisonment and Kurtz’s violent anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

Musician Roger Waters created a short social media clip on Engler’s arrest over pro-Palestine advocacy, which garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

According to Engler, the presence of protesters during the final hours of his detention may have influenced the judicial decision to acquit him and order his release.

He also suggested that their activism contributed to more respectful treatment from the guards.

Yves Engler celebrates his release

Key Zionist rabble-rousers

After his release, Engler expressed gratitude to his supporters for their consistent backing and shared further details about the legal manipulations he encountered during his five-day detention.

He emphasized that his brief imprisonment was insignificant compared to the suffering of thousands of Palestinian abductees languishing in Israeli jails, some of whom endure incarceration for decades.

When questioned by police investigator Crivello, Engler did not deny that he had referred to Kurtz on the X platform as a “genocide supporter” and a “fascist”, labels he asserted were accurate based on their relevant definitions.

He further clarified that he had never met Kurtz nor communicated directly with her via text or email, suggesting that her claims of receiving “threats” and fearing for her safety were outright fabrications.

As a condition of his release, the investigator required him to agree to cease all interaction with Kurtz, a condition Engler stated he was willing to accept to regain his freedom.

In other words, he would no longer reference her content on social media, critique her chauvinistic outbursts and insults toward individuals or groups, or expose her attempts to play the victim.

Additionally, the investigator asked Engler’s lawyer, John Philpot, to agree that Engler would refrain from discussing the case – a request he believed was intended to shield the police, Kurtz, and her legal team from public scrutiny and embarrassment.

However, it appeared that the primary objective of the Zionist network was to completely silence Engler and apply similar tactics to other uninformed pro-Palestinian activists.

Engler had already rejected this condition before his detention, calling it “a flagrant violation of his freedom of expression” and stating he was willing to remain incarcerated until a judge ruled on whether such a restriction was legally permissible.

After spending five days in detention, he was released on February 24 without any restrictions on his ability to discuss the charges against him for his anti-Zionist activism.

He described this as “a small win for free expression and Palestine campaigning.”

“In court, the judge effectively forced the Crown to drop its bid to prevent me from mentioning arch anti-Palestinian Dahlia Kurtz. The Crown [government] sought to restrict my ability to name the Jewish supremacist who instigated a police complaint against me,” he said.

Rather than granting them anonymity, he publicly exposed those suing him, the legal firm they hired, their methods, and all related details – boldly refusing to be silenced.

Dahlia Kurtz proudly poses in the occupied territories as columns of smoke from Israeli bombing rise over Gaza Strip

Who is Dahlia Kurtz?

Dahlia Kurtz is a Canadian Jewish Zionist hate-monger who positioned herself as the leading advocate for the Israeli regime in Canada during the West-backed Israeli genocidal war against Gaza.

She unconditionally defends all Israeli military actions and has never condemned their crimes against Palestinians, instead dismissing their suffering as if it does not exist.

Yet, she has been seen proudly posing in the occupied Palestinian territories with plumes of smoke rising from an Israeli bombing on the Gaza Strip in the background.

On her website, Kurtz openly flaunts these images and reveals that she was on a “media mission” to the occupied territories, where she met with Israeli officials, implying direct ties to the regime’s vast propaganda apparatus.

She has organized events where she trained Zionist settlers and other lobbyists to operate according to a specific six-point plan she obtained during these visits.

Her social media rhetoric is saturated with Israeli disinformation, fact distortion, manipulative techniques, and the dehumanization and demonization of Palestinians. Yet she has never faced legal consequences for her actions.

Among the countless examples, she has claimed that Palestinians “know only terror,” suggested that there are no innocent Palestinians even in images of thousands of gathered Gazans, and mocked Palestinian children suffering from hunger and freezing temperatures – calling their parents “genocidal” and “obese,” among other remarks.

Following the ceasefire, she declared, “Gaza is still standing. The world has never witnessed such restraint” – a statement completely at odds with UN reports documenting destruction of civilian infrastructure on an unprecedented scale.

Regarding Jewish anti-Zionist protesters outside the Canadian Parliament, she claimed they “love Gaza too much,” using quotation marks to suggest they were fake Jews, and added that she would personally fund their deportation to Gaza.

Kurtz aggressively cultivates a victimhood narrative, frequently emphasizing that she is a short, weak woman, allegedly the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and an independent actor. She presents herself as the ultimate symbol of the “victim” while branding critics and dissenters as “threateners.”

As Engler highlights, her image-building and propaganda efforts are bolstered by certain Canadian media outlets and politicians who seek to persuade the public that Canadian Jews are the real victims, with Kurtz positioned as a heroic figure pushing back against Canada’s so-called Jew-hate problem.

She also receives direct legal support from the Montreal-based law firm Spiegel Sohmer, particularly from litigation lawyer Neil Oberman, who is involved in Engler’s case.

Despite her claims of acting independently and financing her efforts on her own, all evidence suggests that she is merely the visible face of a well-organized Zionist network.

Neil Oberman (right) gives a political speech

Who is Neil Oberman?

Neil G. Oberman is not just a randomly selected lawyer to sue Engler. He is a key figure in the Zionist network, with deep ties to the Israeli regime and its lobby groups in Canada.

A Canadian Jewish Zionist like Kurtz, Oberman is a founding member of the Quebec Jewish Legal Alliance (QJLA), an organization that has recently made headlines for its desperate attempts to suppress local pro-Palestinian protests.

The QJLA works closely with Federation CJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and other Zionist advocacy groups, engaging in numerous pro-Israeli initiatives and programs.

Oberman has personally delivered pro-Israeli lectures, instructing audiences on strategic positioning, activism tactics, and the politicians and universities to target.

He is also a board member of Technion Canada, the Canadian branch of the Haifa-based university long criticized by international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists for its collaboration with the Israeli military and leading arms manufacturers.

Since last year, Oberman has been the Conservative Party of Canada’s candidate for the Mount Royal riding in the upcoming federal election.

His campaign is backed by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi, two of Canada’s most fervent Zionists, who reportedly helped raise $200,000 for his campaign late last year.

Engler notes that he is merely Oberman’s latest target, as the lawyer has already launched a series of lawsuits in recent months against various institutions and individuals who oppose Israel’s genocidal policies against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Oberman’s legal targets

Among his first individual targets in late 2023 was journalist Max Blumenthal, whom he threatened with a frivolous lawsuit on behalf of Lauren Wise – a Zionist author who notoriously wished for a woman to be “raped and dragged in the streets in front of her kids” for flying a Palestinian flag.

In the first six months of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Oberman and the QJLA actively worked to suppress pro-Palestinian protests in Montreal, sending legal threats to Mayor Valérie Plante and denouncing her for allowing what he called “hate festivals.”

He also attempted to dismantle a pro-Palestinian encampment at McGill University through various legal maneuvers, but a Quebec Superior Court judge rejected an injunction request filed by two Zionist students represented by Oberman.

However, he did secure an injunction banning protests at a Jewish community building and synagogue and later expanded the ruling to include two dozen institutions for six months.

Oberman also issued legal warnings to Concordia University regarding pro-Palestinian rallies, but after being rebuffed, he lashed out at the institution, declaring: “You don’t know Neil Oberman, you don’t know the Alliance [QJLA], and you don’t know what’s coming next. This is a war!”

Frustrated by his failure to impose a 100-meter protest ban around 154 university buildings, he and other Zionists went so far as to accuse Iran of orchestrating the demonstrations at a Canadian university.

In November 2024, he collaborated with pro-Israeli pressure groups to block a visit by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese at McGill Law School. Despite their efforts, she delivered a speech commending pro-Palestinian students.

On this occasion, Oberman openly acknowledged his cooperation with several Zionist organizations, including the Jewish Law Students Association (JLSA), Israel on Campus, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), and UN Watch.

Neil Oberman (right), UN Watch’s head Hillel Neuer (center) and Hamstead Mayor Jeremy Levi (left) campaigning against Francesca Albanese’s speech at McGill University

Engler confronts Oberman

Engler personally confronted Oberman in order to question him about Israeli genocidal crimes against Palestinians in Gaza – a moment he documented on the X platform.

Oberman initially tried to evade the exchange by falsely claiming that Engler was addressing the “wrong person.” However, when Engler pressed him about the 15,000 Palestinian children killed by the Canada-backed regime, Oberman snapped aggressively, ordering him to back off and threatening to sue.

According to Engler’s lawyer, John Philpot, Oberman played a crucial role in Engler’s five-day detention. Kurtz’s original complaint from last summer had been dismissed by police, and charges were only pursued after Oberman intervened.

Philpot noted that in a minor case like Engler’s, the standard police response would typically be to instruct the accused to avoid contacting the complainant.

However, the authorities imposed additional conditions on Engler, including an unusual demand that he refrain from revealing the identity of those suing him.

The latest victim of false accusations from Kurtz and Oberman is Canadian Senator Yuen Pau Woo, known for his vocal criticism of the Tel Aviv regime and advocacy for Palestinian rights.

As in Engler’s case – where Woo had publicly expressed support during his detention – Kurtz now alleges that Woo “incited hate, aggression, and violence” against her through a series of X posts.

The Zionist modus operandi

The duo’s actions, legal maneuvers, and overall conduct illustrate the broader strategy used by the Zionist network to suppress pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist voices.

In an April 2023 lecture to pro-Israeli agents, Oberman urged them to rethink their approach to advocacy, warning: “If you act like sheep, you’re going to get treated like a sheep. If you don’t want to be a sheep, be a wolf. Stand up and be heard. You have to be heard, and to be heard, you have to take action.”

Oberman exemplified this doctrine when confronted by Engler about the mass murder of Palestinian children, refusing to address the issue and instead resorting to intimidation and legal threats.

Kurtz follows a similar pattern. Despite being publicly called out hundreds of times for glorifying Israeli crimes, she consistently ignores the criticism, sticking to her narrative.

Justifying the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians is both demanding and time-consuming. Instead, Zionist advocates and their allies in Western media often opt to ignore these atrocities altogether, pretending they do not exist.

When a dissenter gains too much visibility and disrupts their propaganda efforts, they shift tactics –playing the victim, issuing veiled threats, and ultimately resorting to baseless legal action.

Both Kurtz, online, and Oberman, in person, portrayed themselves as victims – falsely implying that Engler had privately threatened them, when in reality, they were the ones harassing him.

The charges they file have no real legal merit and serve purely as intimidation tactics. However, they still drain their targets’ time, resources, and mental energy.

These lawsuits are also leveraged in parallel smear campaigns, with media headlines falsely implying that Engler was arrested for harassment.

For activists, filing counter-charges for false accusations, a lesser offense legally, requires hiring a lawyer and securing financial resources. Meanwhile, well-funded Zionist legal groups face no such obstacles.

The attempt to condition Engler’s release on refraining from criticizing Zionist activists or discussing the lawsuit, according to observers, is a clear indication that the Zionist network in Canada has a premeditated strategy to silence other pro-Palestinian activists in the same manner.

March 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment