Israel bans ‘Jenin, Jenin’ film, orders payment of damages to Israel soldier
MEMO – January 13, 2021
The Lod District Court in Israel on Monday banned the screening of a documentary about Israel’s brutal 2002 campaign in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.
‘Jenin, Jenin’ can no longer be aired in Israel after an Israeli soldier who was depicted in the footage stealing from an elderly Palestinian filed a lawsuit against the film.
The judge said Israeli soldier Nissim Magnaji had been “sent to defend his country and found himself accused of a crime he did not commit”. The court ordered director Mohammed Bakri to pay damages to Magnaji of 175,000 shekels ($55,000) as well as 50,000 shekels ($15,936) of court expenses.
In her ruling, judge Halit Silash went on to say some of the representation in the video was untrue.
Bakri, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, told the AFP news agency the decision was “unfair” and that the judge had acted on instructions “from above.”
“I intend to appeal the verdict because it is unfair, it is neutering my truth,” Bakri told the Walla News website.
Objecting to the court’s ruling, the chairman of the Balad faction in the Joint List party, Member of the Israeli Knesset Mtanes Shehadeh, was quoted by the Times of Israel saying: “It’s not the film that should be shelved, but the occupation and its crimes.”
The documentary shows footage and eyewitness accounts of the massacre committed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in 2002. At least 52 Palestinians, including women, children, and the elderly, were killed in the rampage that unfolded over a two-week period in a refugee camp, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigation.
Some 23 Israeli soldiers were killed at the time.
Israeli occupation forces close Ibrahimi Mosque for ten days
Palestine Information Center – January 8, 2021
AL-KHALIL – Israeli occupation forces (IOF) closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil to worshipers and visitors for 10 days, Thursday, under the pretext of combating the spread of the coronavirus.
Sheikh Hefzi Abu Sneina, the director of the Ibrahimi Mosque, told the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), “The occupation’s decision to close the Ibrahimi Mosque will start from nine o’clock this evening for 10 days. Worshipers and visitors will be banned from accessing any part of the holy site.”
Abu Sneina charged that these claims are not valid and that the IOF is denying Muslims access to the Haram.
He stressed that worshipers and visitors are committed to all health measures according to the preventive protocols in place, in addition to the fact that the IOF soldiers deployed at the military checkpoints surrounding the Haram have been allowing only 20 worshipers to enter the Haram at one time.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs condemned the decision. Hussam Abu al-Rub, the Undersecretary of the Ministry told Anadolu Agency, “This decision is rejected and we will not accept it.”
Abul-Rub added that this decision constitutes an encroachment and interference with the authority of the Palestinian government to supervise religious sites in Palestine.
He indicated that the ministry is following up on everything related to organizing the entry of worshipers and the preventive and precautionary measures related to coronavirus.
Since 1994, the Ibrahimi Mosque, which is believed to be built on the tomb of the Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him, has been divided into a special section for Muslims and another for Jews after a Jewish settler killed 29 Muslims while they were performing the dawn prayer on February 25, 1994.
The Ibrahimi Mosque and the Old City of the al-Khalil were listed by the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) in 2017 on the World Heritage List.
The Mosque is located in an area under full Israeli control but it is managed by the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments.
A New Year’s Wish
Let’s remove Israel from American politics
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 5, 2021
There has been one good thing about the COVID-19 virus – for the first time many among the general public are beginning to ask why a rich country like Israel should be getting billions of dollars from the United States taxpayer at a time when many Americans are struggling. Inevitably, of course, the press coverage of the questions being asked about the cash flow failed to discuss the real magnitude of the “aid,” trade concessions, co-production projects and dicey charitable contributions that our federal and many state governments shower on the Jewish state, which easily exceed $10 billion per year.
During his 2016 campaign Donald Trump swore that he would be the best friend that Israel has ever had in the White House, a pledge that some of us viewed skeptically as Trump was also committed to bringing the troops home from “useless wars” in Asia, most of whom were in the Middle East supporting Israeli interests. More recently Trump admitted that America was in the Middle East to “protect Israel” and he has indeed proven to be the great benefactor he promised to be in responding fully to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wish list. Trump has increased tension dramatically with Iran, moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, has recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, and has basically given Israel the green light to do whatever it wants on the Palestinian West Bank, including getting rid of the Palestinians. And as all that has played out the Israelis have attacked and killed thousands of civilians in Gaza, Syria and the West Bank with impunity, protected by the U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council against any consequences for their actions while a subservient Congress gives Netanyahu twenty-eight standing ovations and bleats that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Trump has made the United States completely complicit in Israeli war crimes and has committed a few of its own to include the widely condemned assassination of the senior Iranian official Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad one year ago.
Israel more-or-less openly admits that it controls the actions of the United States in its region, its leaders having boasted how the U.S. federal government is “easily moved” when it comes up against the Israeli Lobby. Nor is there any real secret to how the Lobby uses money to buy access and then exploits that access to obtain real power, which is then used to employ all the resources of the U.S. government in support of the Jewish state. The top donor to the Democratic Party, Israeli-American Haim Saban has stated that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel. This single-minded focus to promote Israel’s interests at the expense of those of the United States makes the Israel Lobby the most formidable foreign policy lobby in Washington and it recalls the warning once issued by George Washington in his Farewell Address, where he stated that “permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.”
The complete contempt that the Israelis and Israeli supporters in the U.S. have for other Americans and their interests was on full display last week when convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard flew “home,” meeting Netanyahu as he disembarked from a private plane that had departed from Newark New Jersey before being given a hero’s welcome.
Pollard is the most damaging spy in American history, having stolen the keys to accessing U.S. communications and information gathering systems. He was an unlikely candidate to become a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, and one review board determined that he had been hired in the first place under pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). A month after Pollard’s arrest in 1985, C.I.A director William Casey stated: “The Israelis used Pollard to obtain our war plans against the USSR – all of it: the co-ordinates, the firing locations, the sequences, and Israel sold that information to Moscow for more exit visas for Soviet Jews.” According to a C.I.A. after-the fact-damage assessment “Pollard’s operation has few parallels among known U.S. espionage cases…. his first and possibly largest delivery occurred on 23 January [1984] and consisted of five suitcases-full of classified material.”
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger wrote a forty-six page review of the case that remains largely classified and redacted to this day, detailing what incredible damage Pollard had done. Part of the document states: “In this case, the defendant has admitted passing to his Israeli contacts an incredibly large quantity of classified information. At the outset I must state that the defendant’s disclosures far exceed the limits of any official exchange of intelligence information with Israel. That being the case, the damage to national security was complete the moment the classified information was given over. Ideally, I would detail… all the information passed by the defendant to his Israeli contacts: unfortunately, the volume of data we know to have been passed is too great to permit that. Moreover, the defendant admits to having passed to his Israeli handlers a quantity of documents great enough to occupy a space six feet by ten feet… The defendant has substantially harmed the United States, and in my view, his crimes demand severe punishment… My foregoing comments will, I hope, dispel any presumption that disclosures to an ally are insignificant; to the contrary, substantial and irrevocable damage has been done to this nation. Punishment, of course, must be appropriate to the crime, and in my opinion, no crime is more deserving of severe punishment than conducting espionage activities against one’s own country.”
The Pollard trip to his “home” occurred because Donald Trump had obligingly lifted the travel restrictions on him the week before, one more favor to Israel. At the airport, Pollard and his wife knelt to kiss the Israeli soil before Netanyahu handed him an Israeli citizen ID and welcomed him. The 737 luxury-fitted executive jet Pollard and his wife flew on belongs to Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, chief donor to the Republicans and to Donald Trump. Adelson is married to an Israeli and famously has said that he regrets having worn a U.S. Army uniform when he was drafted, much preferring instead that he might have done military service in the Israel Defense Force.
I should point out that permitting dual nationals with singular loyalty to a foreign nation to have such significant influence over the two leading political parties in the U.S. by virtue of money alone is a recipe for disaster, and so it has proven. What were Trump and Hillary Clinton thinking when they tied themselves to Adelson and Saban? Or were they thinking at all?
The Israeli boosters in the United States have flat out corrupted our political process to get where they are. They have bought or intimidated every politician that matters to include presidents, congressmen and even those in state and local governments. Anyone who criticizes Israel or Jewish collective behavior in support of the Israeli state is subject to character assassination and blacklisting a la Mel Gibson and Rick Sanchez. Those who persist are denounced as anti-Semites, a label that is used liberally by Zionist groups.
Anyone who is bold enough to either criticize the Israelis or defend the Palestinians is targeted, and if they happen to be in Congress like Cynthia McKinney, Pete McCloskey, Paul Findlay, James Traficant, William Fulbright and Chuck Percy they are first vilified in the media and then set up against a very well-funded candidate to drive them from office. The end result is that when Israel kills civilians and rampaging armed settlers destroy their livelihoods the United States government chooses to look the other way and shower the rogue state with money so it can continue to do its dirty work.
The corruption extends to the state level, where twenty-six governments have passed Israel lobby-promoted legislation that limits free speech rights if anyone seeks to criticize Israel. This sometimes includes forcing employees, under threat of dismissal, to sign a pro-Israel oath and promise not to support any boycott of the Jewish state. The massive interference in the internal governance of the United States by Israel and its U.S. born lackeys far exceeds that of any other country, including inappropriately vilified Russia or China.
It is well past time to get rid of the Israel parasite that feeds on the American government and people. The special relationship with Israel, sanctified in the halls of Congress and by a Jewish dominated media, does nothing good for the United States and for the American people. Israel’s constant interference in the U.S. political system and economy comes at a huge cost, both in dollars and in terms of actual American interests.
And then there are the hot buttons which, if the U.S. actually had a functional government that is responsive to the people, should have been pushed long ago. Israel is ranked by the FBI as the number one “friendly” country in terms of its spying against the United States. Pollard is an exception, but Israeli spies are routinely slapped on the wrist when caught and never face prosecution. The Mossad agents who were the “Dancing Shlomos,” celebrating while the twin towers went down on 9/11, were allowed to go home. And Israel has never truly paid any price for the horrific bombing and torpedoing of the U.S.S. Liberty fifty-three years ago, which killed 34 Americans and injured over one hundred more. The completely unprovoked attack took place in international waters and was later covered-up by President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Congress. May they burn in hell. The surviving crew members are still waiting for justice.
So, let’s all resolve for 2021 to do whatever we can to pull the plug on Israel. Let Israel pay its own bills and take care of its own defense. American citizens who prefer the Jewish ethno-religious state to our constitutional republic should feel free to emigrate. Lacking Washington’s backing, Israel will also be free to commit atrocities and war crimes against all of its neighbors but without the U.S. United Nations veto it will have to begin facing the consequences for its actions. But most of all, as Americans, we will no longer have to continue to carry the burden of a country that manipulates and uses us and also has a certain contempt for us while doing so. And maybe just maybe freeing the United States from Israel could lead to an end to all the wars in the Middle East that Washington has been waging in spite of the fact that we Americans are threatened by no one in the region and have no real interest whatsoever in prolonging the agony of staying there.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
UAE rejects ‘wholly false’ reports of foiling Iranian attack against Israeli visitors
Press TV | January 5, 2021
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has vigorously rejected Israeli media reports that its security services arrested a number of Iranians purportedly conspiring to carry out an attack against Israeli tourists visiting the Persian Gulf country.
“The Government of the United Arab Emirates has denied media reports circulating today regarding the foiling of an alleged attack in Dubai,” it said in a statement on Monday.
The Emirati government described the rumors as “wholly false” and urged accuracy in reporting.
It also called upon the public and media outlets “to refer to official sources for information and to avoid circulating unverified reports.”
On Sunday night, Israel’s Hebrew-language broadcaster Channel 12 alleged that Emirati intelligence authorities had arrested a number of Iranians in Dubai and Abu Dhabi over the previous few days on suspicion that they planned to carry out an attack against Israelis.
Thousands of Israelis have traveled to the UAE after Israel’s cabinet ratified a mutual visa exemption agreement with the Arab country on November 22 last year. The UAE had earlier that month given its final okay to the agreement, which was signed after the two sides normalized ties.
The latest reports appear to be yet another attempt by Israeli news outlets to set off a media frenzy following Iran’s pledge to exact revenge for the assassination of one of its most senior nuclear scientists by suspected Tel Aviv-tied terrorists late last year.
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of the Iranian Defense Ministry’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, was targeted in a multi-pronged terrorist near Tehran on November 27.
Iran says it has substantive evidence that the Tel Aviv regime has been behind the terror attack and vowed to take revenge, but it has repeatedly clarified that, unlike Israel and the US, assassinations and targeted killings have no place on its political agenda.
The Israeli report also comes at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Iran as the latter marked the first anniversary of the assassination of its top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani by the American military in Iraq in January, 2020.
Washington has once again stepped up its campaign of military threats against Iran through deployments of warships and bombers to the Middle East under the pretext that the Islamic Republic may be seeking revenge.
Israel Grants Settlers Millions to Monitor Palestinian Construction in West Bank
Israeli forces carry out a demolition in the Massafer Yatta area. (Photo: via Twitter)
Palestine Chronicle | January 2, 2021
Israel has granted illegal settlements more than $6 million to fund drones and patrol units to monitor “unauthorized” Palestinian building in the occupied West Bank.
The Settlement Affairs Ministry published on Thursday the criteria for settlement councils to gain access to the $6.2 million in funding, Haaretz reported.
The councils will be able to buy drones, vehicles and electronic monitoring equipment and pay the salaries of inspectors with the funding.
Those inspectors will monitor Palestinian construction in Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under full Israeli control.
Palestinians living in Area C must acquire Israeli permission to build, but such permits are near-impossible to get. Just 1.4 percent of requests were approved between 2016 and 2018, according to official data.
Buildings constructed without an Israeli permit are regularly demolished by the military.
The funding will also go to erecting fences to close-off areas.
It is the first time settlement councils will have access to such funds as part of the state budget.
Under the arrangement, settlement councils will then report to an “Area C situation room” to report to officials what Settlement Affairs Minister Tzachi Hanegbi described as the “hostile takeover of land in Area C”.
More than 400,000 Israelis live in settlement communities in the occupied West Bank which are considered illegal under international law.
Report: Israel army carried out 300 attacks on Gaza Strip in 2020
MEMO | January 1, 2020
The Israeli army announced on Thursday that it had attacked 300 targets in the Gaza Strip during 2020.
The army revealed in a statement documenting its activities in 2020, that nearly 300 targets were raided in the Gaza Strip, while its armed forces thwarted 38 attempts to infiltrate through the security fence of the besieged enclave.
According to the statement, as many as: “176 rockets and mortars were launched from the Gaza Strip, 90 per cent of them landed in empty areas, as the Iron Dome system intercepted 80 shells and rockets that were targeting civilian areas.”
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army stole 675,000 shekels of Palestinians’ money, compared with 972,000 shekels in 2019. More than one million shekels were stolen in 2018, and 541 weapons confiscated, compared with 603 during the previous year.
As stated in the report, Israeli combat aircraft carried out 1,400 sorties on various fronts, while the spy drones recorded 35,000 flight hours.
Palestinian resistance stands united with joint military exercises in Gaza
The following report is largely translated from the original French at Collectif Palestine Vaincra
On Tuesday, 29 December, the Joint Chamber of the Palestinian resistance factions organized military drills in the Gaza Strip, on land, sea, and air. The joint military drills brought together 12 Palestinian armed branches of organizations, including the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, the Al-Quds Brigades of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as the National Resistance Brigades of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – Al-Amoudi Brigade, Asifah Amy, Martyr Ayman Jouda Brigades, Martyr Abdel Qader al-Husseini Brigades, Mujahideen Brigades, Ansar Brigades and the Martyr Jihad Jibril Brigades.
In a statement issued the day prior to the military drills, the Palestinian organizations affirmed that this effort came “as part of the strengthening of cooperation and joint action between the resistance factions, embodying their efforts to increase their combat readiness in a permanent and continuous way.”
At a press conference, a representative of the Palestinian military resistance organizations spoke, appearing with his face covered with a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh and with a Palestinian flag patch on his arm, without the logo or flag of any of the factions. In his address, he emphasized Palestinian national unity in the resistance: “This effort clearly expresses the joint decision and unity between the wings of the resistance factions in all of their aspects…It is a simulation of what could happen in any real confrontation with the occupation, and a representative example of the capacity of the resistance to confront and respond to such events.” He added that “long years of struggle against the Israeli occupation have developed a unique experience of resistance, resting on solid foundations.”
Regardless of the scale of the military drills, the resistance spokesperson underlined that the program was defensive in nature, with its objective “to confirm the readiness of the resistance to defend our people in all cases and in all circumstances.” Hundreds of fighters from all organizations took part in the drills, during which several types of missiles were tested. Rockets were fired toward the sea and underwater exercises took place. In anticipation of the drills, fishers were prohibited from accessing the sea during the maneuvers, and the main coastal road was closed. The Israeli occupation army was on maximum alert during the exercises.
This show of force by the Palestinian resistance is also a message to the reactionary Arab regimes engaged in normalization with the Israeli occupation. Despite an inhuman siege on Gaza, all of the Palestinian resistance organizations in Gaza affirmed their united stance, emphasizing that the Palestinian people must rely on their own capacities for self-defense in order to confront colonialism, racism and apartheid.
The US money tree: The untold story of American aid to Israel
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | December 29, 2020
On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel.
While unemployment, thus poverty, in the US is skyrocketing as a result of repeated lockdowns, the US found it essential to provide Israel with $3.3 billion in ‘security assistance’ and $500 million for US-Israel missile defence cooperation.
Although a meager $600 dollar payment to help struggling American families was the subject of several months of intense debate, there was little discussion among American politicians over the large funds handed out to Israel, for which there are no returns.
Support for Israel is considered a bipartisan priority and has, for decades, been perceived as the most stable item in the US foreign policy agenda. The mere questioning of how Israel uses the funds – whether the military aid is being actively used to sustain Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, finance Jewish settlements, fund annexation of Palestinian land or violate Palestinian human rights – is a major taboo.
One of the few members of Congress to demand that aid to Israel be conditioned on the latter’s respect for human rights is Democratic Senator, Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who was also a leading presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. “We cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government … We have the right to demand respect for human rights and democracy”, Sanders had said in October 2019.
His Democratic rival, now [claimed to be] President-elect, Joe Biden, soon countered: “The idea that I’d withdraw military aid, as others have suggested, from Israel, is bizarre,” he said.
It is no secret that Israel is the world’s leading recipient of US aid since World War II. According to data provided by the US Congressional Research Service, Israel has received $146 billion of US taxpayers’ money as of November 2020.
From 1971 up to 2007, a bulk of these funds proved fundamental in helping Israel establish a strong economic base. Since then, most of the money has been allotted for military purposes, including the security of Israel’s illegal Jewish settlement enterprise.
Despite the US financial crisis of 2008, American money continued to be channeled to Israel, whose economy survived the global recession, largely unscathed.
In 2016, the US promised even more money. The Democratic Barack Obama Administration, which is often – although mistakenly – seen as hostile to Israel, increased US funding to Israel by a significant margin. In a 10-year Memorandum of Understanding, Washington and Tel Aviv reached a deal whereby the US agreed to give Israel $38 billion in military aid covering the financial years 2019-2028. This is a whopping increase of $8 billion compared with the previous 10-year agreement, which concluded at the end of 2018.
The new American funds are divided into two categories: $33 billion in foreign military grants and an additional $5 billion in missile defence.
American generosity has long been attributed to the unmatched influence of pro-Israeli groups, lead among them American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The last four years, however, required little lobbying by these groups, as powerful agents within the administration itself became Israel’s top advocates.
Aside from the seemingly endless ‘political freebies’ that the Donald Trump Administration has given Israel in recent years, it is now considering ways to accelerate the timetable of delivering the remainder of US funds as determined by the last MOU, an amount that currently stands at $26.4 billion. According to official congressional documents, the US “also may approve additional sales of the F-35 to Israel and accelerate the delivery of KC-46A refuelling and transport aircraft to Israel.”