The Cradle | May 3, 2024
The Yemeni armed forces announced on 3 May the start of the “fourth phase” of escalation against Israel and in support of Palestine, threatening to target Israeli-linked ships “anywhere within our reach.”
Sanaa highlights in a statement that the attacks, which have successfully locked Israel out of the Red Sea, will expand to the Mediterranean Sea. Earlier this year, the Yemeni armed forces expanded the scope of their pro-Palestine operations to include the Indian Ocean, severely affecting the Israeli economy.
Friday’s statement from the Ansarallah-led government also warns Tel Aviv against launching their assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, saying that, with immediate effect, any ships “linked to the provision of supplies and entry into the Palestinian ports under occupation” would be subject to “severe penalties.”
The statement stresses that these ships will not be allowed to “sail through the area of military operations, regardless of their destination.”
The escalation by Yemen was made public by armed forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, who made the announcement in front of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis who continue to gather in the capital every week to show their support for the Palestinians in Gaza.
Since mid-November, Yemen has maintained a naval trade blockade against Israel. The armed forces’ operations remain mostly unaffected despite an illegal US bombing campaign and the heavy militarization of the Red Sea by NATO countries.
“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” Jerome Henry, the commander of France’s Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace, told Le Figaro last month.
Ansarallah leaders have repeatedly stated that the Yemeni operations will continue until Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza comes to a stop and a lasting ceasefire is implemented.
In the face of its failure to deter Yemen, Washington recently offered the country “an acknowledgment of its legitimacy” in exchange for its neutrality in the war on Gaza.
“[Washington] pledged to repair the damages, remove foreign forces from all occupied Yemeni lands and islands, and remove Ansarallah from the State Department’s ‘terrorism list’ – as soon as they stop their attacks in support of Gaza,” according to Yemeni sources who spoke exclusively with The Cradle.
The offer also included “severely reducing” the role of the Saudi-appointed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and “accelerating the signing of a roadmap” with the Saudi-led coalition to end the nine-year war that has decimated Yemen.
By Kit Klarenberg | Active Measures | May 3, 2024
On April 13th, Iran, alongside Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s AnsarAllah, executed Operation True Promise, a vast wave of drone, cruise and ballistic missile strikes on the Zionist entity, launched in retaliation to Tel Aviv’s criminal bombing of Tehran’s Damascus embassy less than two weeks earlier, which killed two Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) generals. As a result, history was made, and the world – in particular West Asia – will never be the same again.
Iran’s first ever strike on the entity, following decades of provocations, escalations, assassinations, incendiary threats, and determined lobbying for U.S.-led war against Tehran by Tel Aviv officials, the effort targeted airbases, Israeli Air Force intelligence HQ, and a constellation of air defense systems. The U.S., Britain, and France scrambled jets to help shoot the vast payload down – unsuccessfully – while Jordan controversially permitted Western powers to use its airspace for the purpose. The entity claimed a 99% interception rate.
However, extensive photo and video material shows many missiles hit their targets, and wrought much damage. In the process, Iran demonstrated to Tel Aviv and its Western backers a hitherto unknown ability to circumvent layer upon layer of protective measures, including top tier fighter jets, NATO-supplied air defense systems, and the much-vaunted Iron Dome. One by one, they largely failed in their duty, leading to the astonishing sight of Iranian missiles soaring unmolested over the Knesset.
This righteous scene no doubt sent untold chills scouring around Western and Israeli corridors of power, searching vainly for spines to run up. It also dispatched a palpable message – Tehran could, if it wished, have struck the Zionist legislature, but didn’t do so. For the time being, at least. The floor was now Tel Aviv’s, to decide whether – and how – to retaliate. A response came on April 19, in the form of pre-dawn drone sorties across Iran.
Initially framed by Western media as hugely impactful, in reality a small swarm of Israeli quadcopters attempted to breach Tehran’s air defenses, but ultimately couldn’t. An Iranian spokesperson subsequently referred to the effort as “failed and humiliating.” This characterization surely applies more widely to the pathetic state to which Tel Aviv has been reduced, following Operation True Promise’s seismic success. As we shall see, the Zionist entity now has little time remaining, and no good choices left to make.
‘New Equation’
Despite its astonishing optics, and unprecedented nature, some West Asian observers were disappointed that the attack on Israel wasn’t a decapitation. Such perspectives overlook the Islamic Republic’s longstanding commitment to caution. Devastation of Tehran’s Syrian embassy was without historic parallel, and clearly concerned with eliciting a major escalation, in order to drag the U.S. into total war. A measured, well-advertised show of strength deterred wider response, while signaling a major shift in Iranian policy towards the entity. IRGC commander Hossein Salami has said:
“We have decided to create a New Equation, and that is if from now on the Zionist regime attacks our interests, assets, personalities, and citizens, at any point we will attack against them.”
Those are fighting words, and Operation True Promise plainly demonstrated they can be backed with action. Iran has shown it can strike the entity directly from its own soil, its fleets of missiles and drones capable of traveling thousands of kilometers over both friendly and hostile airspace, separate timezones, and multiple countries. Along the way, Tehran will have gleaned an enormous amount of invaluable intelligence on the defensive capabilities, and vulnerabilities, not only of Israel, but the local Western infrastructure upon which its defenses depend.
Any future Iranian strike would make the most of whatever was learned on April 13th, and the data yield was likely enormous. Since Russia’s “Special Military Operation” began in February 2022, defense cooperation between Moscow and Tehran has reached extraordinary levels – and intensive learning and on-the-go refinement of battle strategy is core Russian military doctrine. As a nameless Ukrainian Army officer bitterly told Politico on April 3, Western weapons systems sent to Kiev “become redundant very quickly because they’re quickly countered by the Russians”:
“For example, we used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles [supplied by Britain and France] successfully – but just for a short time. The Russians are always studying. They don’t give us a second chance. And they’re successful in this.”
If there’s a next time too, Iran’s missile and drone fleet is likely to be considerably more sustained, playing out over several days, weeks, or even months, wave after wave, burst after burst. Estimates suggest around 300 separate projectiles fired at the entity during Operation True Promise. Largely unsuccessful attempts to repel the blitz by Tel Aviv alone cost $1.08 – 1.35 billion, according to an Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) general.
“One Arrow missile used to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile costs $3.5 million, while the cost of one David Sling missile is $1 million, in addition to the sorties of aircraft that participated in intercepting the Iranian drones,” they told local media. Meanwhile, an Israeli think tank researcher calculates the costs “were enormous”, comparable to what Israel spent during the entire 1973 Arab/Israeli war, which lasted almost three weeks.
Those sums were spent on missile interceptors, missiles, jet fuel, and other military equipment and infrastructure. It is uncertain how much Iran spent on the Operation, but it is undoubtedly orders of magnitude less. Some sources have suggested $30 million, which could well be accurate. This massive cost discrepancy is a very, very grave issue for the entity, as the U.S. can attest, given its embarrassing experiences attempting – and completely failing – to end AnsarAllah’s anti-genocide blockade of the Red Sea.
Almost immediately, Politico reported that the Pentagon was aghast that it was squandering missiles costing millions to shoot down $2,000 AnsarAllah drones. “That quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit, even if we do shoot down their incoming missiles and drones, is in their favor,” a CIA officer lamented. “We, the U.S., need to start looking at systems that can defeat these that are more in line with the costs they are expending to attack us.”
‘Israel Goes Under’
There is no sign publicly yet of Washington having rectified this concern, which may account for why US officials at the start of April offered AnsarAllah a sweeping offer of total surrender in return for ending the Red Sea blockade, which was rejected. But in the event of a subsequent Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, Tehran’s Shahed drones will not be used to deter shipping, but tie up, smoke out, and exhaust the entity’s air defenses.
This tactic was used to significant effect on April 13th, as it has been by Russia since its airstrikes on critical Ukrainian infrastructure began in late 2022. Now, Kiev is on the verge of being de-electrified, which will cause a battlefield and population displacement, with potentially devastating knock-on effects on neighboring countries, and states trying to keep Kiev’s lights on. It seems safe to say neither Israel nor its Western allies could sustain a serious defense to a protracted assault by Tehran, economically or materially.
That conclusion is supported by an April 22nd Wall Street Journal report, which revealed the Biden administration was shocked at the scale of Iran’s barrage. It “matched worst-case scenarios” outlined by U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon, an unnamed senior official despairing, “this was on the high end… of what we were anticipating.” White House Situation Room attendees on the day allegedly feared Israel and its allies would not be able to repel the assault. And they couldn’t.
On top of a mass crime against humanity amounting to a 21st century Holocaust, the entity’s genocide in Gaza has been utterly destructive to its own economy. A Financial Times investigation of November 6th 2023 documented how the assault has ravaged personal finances, job markets, businesses, industries, and the Israeli government itself. “Thousands” of companies were teetering on the brink of collapse, with entire sectors plunged into an unprecedented crisis. One in three businesses had either shuttered or were operating at 20 percent capacity.
One can imagine how much worse things have gotten in the six months since, and Israel isn’t yet embroiled in an all-out war. An extended period of mass strikes from Iran, AnsarAllah and Hezbollah could completely paralyzse the entity economically, render entire areas of the entity uninhabitable – or, at least, uninhabited – destroy infrastructure, and much more. Among the infrastructure in Tehran’s crosshairs could well be the Dimona nuclear power plant, which would unleash deadly chaos on a grand scale.
Resultantly, the entity’s “Samson Option”, under which it is committed to launch a mass nuclear strike if its existence is threatened, should no longer be taken very seriously. Israeli military theorist Martin van Creveld once boasted, “we have the capability to take the world down with us, and I can assure you that will happen before Israel goes under.” But Tehran’s hypersonic missile capabilities are in every way an effective counter-deterrent. They could even deliver a nuclear, or chemical/biological payload of their own.
‘Whoever Moves’
The Zionist entity’s Iranian drubbing is further exacerbated by its attempt to crush Hamas being an absolute disaster, in every conceivable way. The fiasco’s consequences are and will remain wide-ranging and grave, to the extent of fatal. This may account for Netanyahu’s flailing bid to draw Tehran into all-out war. After all, the scale of Israeli Occupation Forces’ defeat is such that in an absolutely scathing op-ed for Haaretz on April 11th, Zionist “journalist” Chaim Levinson lamented:
“We’ve lost. Truth must be told… It’s unpleasant to say, but we may not be able to safety [sic] return to Israel’s northern border… No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing was dealt a beating. Our leadership’s weakness was revealed to the outside. For years we managed to fool them into thinking we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In truth, we’re a shtetl with an airforce, and that’s on the condition it’s awakened in time.”
Even the Western media, which since the genocide began has been at best silent and at worst complicit – and much more active in the latter sphere than the former – has acknowledged Tel Aviv’s battlefield cataclysm. The Economist, a nakedly Zionist publication that has whitewashed, diminished, or outright justified every conceivable crime committed by the IOF, has condemned the Forces’ “military and moral failures”, and how “its generals botched the strategy, and discipline among troops has broken down”:
“[Israel is] accused of two catastrophic failures. First, it has not achieved its military objectives in Gaza. Second, it has acted immorally and broken the laws of war. The implications for both the IDF and Israel are profound… Hamas fighters are still ambushing Israeli forces throughout Gaza and the group is reasserting itself in areas the IDF has left… Accusations that Israel has broken the laws of war are plausible.”
The Economist went on to slam a “lack of enforcement” of already virtually non-existent “rules of engagement” under which the IOF operate. A “veteran reserve officer” was quoted as saying commanders could arbitrarily “decide that whoever moves in his sector is a terrorist or that buildings should be destroyed.” A sapper in another unit admitted, “the only limit to the number of buildings we blew up was the time we had inside Gaza”:
“Soldiers have filmed themselves vandalising Palestinian property and, in some cases, put those videos online. On February 20 the IDF’s chief of staff published a public letter to all soldiers warning them to use force only where necessary, ‘to distinguish between a terrorist and who is not, not to take anything which isn’t ours – a souvenir or weaponry – and not to film vengeance videos.’ Four months into the war, this was too little, too late.”
That The Economist printed such things at all reflects how far the Zionist entity has fallen since October 7th. Now, it is a global pariah, viscerally loathed by the overwhelming majority of the world’s citizenry. Its once-vaunted military is not feared by adversaries, and their ability to unilaterally strike Muslim countries with total impunity, and no comebacks, is over. Tel Aviv’s claim to “defense” and security primacy, upon which much of its exports were successfully marketed for decades, has been amply demonstrated to be bogus.
Meanwhile, the entity has suffered population collapse, with concomitant mass brain drain and workforce freefall as settlers flee or get conscripted. Demand for mental health services has reached all-time highs, as the trauma of perpetrating genocide, and living under the daily threat of attack as Palestinians have since 1948, ravages soldiers and civilians alike. But scores of psychiatrists have relocated elsewhere due to stressful workloads, and likely won’t return. Such are the foundational flaws of a settler colonial state.
For many, these developments may be little consolation, coming as they do off the back of thousands of murdered and mutilated Palestinian children. Yet, they are unambiguous indicators that the Zionist entity is on the brink of extinction, which wasn’t the case before Hamas breached Gaza’s concentration camp walls on October 7th 2023. Palestine is now closer to being free than at any point since Israel’s creation. And there is no going back to “normal”.
Time is now and forever on the side of the indefatigable, undefeated Resistance – so too justice, and virtue. We should never forget the immortal, galvanising words of Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, slain in cold blood by a targeted IOF airstrike on December 6th 2023:
“If I must die, let it bring hope.”
Al Mayadeen | May 2, 2024
The Conservative Party of the UK has repeatedly protected Israeli politicians, spies, and forces from arrest on charges of committing war crimes when they visit Britain, Declassified UK reported.
According to the report, Benjamin Netanyahu and war cabinet member Benny Gantz were among 10 Israeli officials who “received special immunity from prosecution.”
On March 6, the Foreign Office issued a “special mission” certificate to Israeli war minister Benny Gantz, who was traveling to Britain to meet with UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron.
General Herzi Halevi, the current commander of the IOF who has authorized preparations for an attack on Rafah, was granted permission to visit the UK while serving as military intelligence director.
Israeli authorities have become more anxious in recent weeks since reportedly the names of Netanyahu, Security Minister Yoav Gallant, and Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi have been circled as suspects of war crimes that the ICC will look to prosecute.
The British government allowed dozens of Israeli diplomats “special mission” immunity, allowing them to visit the UK without fear of arrest for their accusations of serious violations of international law.
Then Foreign Secretary William Hague expressed that Britain could not be in a “position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country,” essentially proving the law was altered for Israeli officials.
According to Declassified, this might violate Britain’s commitment to universal jurisdiction laws such as the Rome Statute, which allows the most serious crimes to be tried regardless of where they occurred.
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 2, 2024
Well friends, the verdict is in! If you are opposed to Israel’s slaughter of something like forty thousand Palestinians, mostly women and children, or the clearly enunciated plans by that nation’s government to ethnically cleanse the rest of historic Palestine, making the developing Eretz or Greater Israel a legally Jewish state, and are prepared to protest or speak up about it, then you are an antisemite Jew-hater and probably even a holocaust denier. If you are a student demonstrating against the slaughter you are increasingly being referred to by talking heads and the media as a pro-Hamas terrorist. That you must be condemned and sanctioned or even criminalized as a consequence of the labels is only fair in a country that apparently has come to believe that Jews and Israel, uniquely, cannot be criticized due to their cited ad nauseam victimhood and their anointment by God no matter what the First Amendment to the US Constitution relating to freedom of speech might say. After all, it’s just an old piece of paper though it might strike some as a bit odd that a group of people carrying out a genocide are being given a pass while those trying to stop it are being beaten, going to jail and, in some cases, being denied that degree they earned from four years at college.
That antisemites and even evil foreign governments like China are behind the recent student demonstrations over the atrocities in Gaza is gradually becoming part of the new Gospel, ritually endorsed by the cowering university administrators themselves as well as by a large majority in Congress, the White House and the mainstream media. Pro-Palestinian groups are being routinely shut down and their supporters clubbed, gassed and arrested while Jewish groups supporting Israel’s “right to defend itself” are being allowed to express their rage violently, as occurred at the University of California in Los Angeles last Tuesday night with police standing by to let the pro-Israel attackers (who were mostly non-students) have access to beat on the pro-Palestinian campers. It was an alignment of hearts and minds that apparently serves both justice and God, who has declared Jews to be his “chosen.” The University of Southern California’s administration has labeled pro-Palestinian groups as “homegrown violent extremists” as an excuse to shut down graduation ceremonies later this month. Governors in Texas and Florida have declared war on those despicable antisemites, insisting that there will be no Jew haters in their states and expressing a willingness to use police and national guard to make sure that that is the case. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has vowed that any student who speaks up or demonstrates against Israel will be expelled from college. National Guard troops have also been called in to clear campuses in a number of other states, with more than a thousand demonstrators being arrested and removed on Tuesday alone.
Some jest how it is Israel that controls much of US foreign policy “wag the dog,” not to mention interfering in elections and dictating what must be taught about world i.e. Jewish history in public schools together with mandatory trips to taxpayer funded holocaust museums that are sprouting up like mushrooms throughout the land. The United States is pledging itself to become antisemitism free as quickly as possible, which is surely the right thing to do given all those holocaust survivors who are living down in Miami and apparently starving to death according to all those ads one sees on TV and hears over the radio featuring dispensationalist hucksters like Mike Huckabee, who should move to Israel immediately since he loves the place so much, taking those of a like mind in Congress with him when he goes.
America under Joe Biden and also undoubtedly under Donald Trump if re-elected is pledged to take the lead in protecting Jews worldwide and will sanction anyone who violates that trust. Who else, for example, is so uber sensitive to Jewish issues as to have a Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and an Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism entrenched with ambassador status and full staffs and budgets in their Foreign Ministry? Not even the cringing Krauts who routinely let Israel lie to them and intimidate them while still sending millions to the apparently endless series of so-called holocaust survivors in Israel as they also are shipping arms to Tel Aviv to assist in killing more Palestinians. That’s what true friends and allies are for! Britain has Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel which together constitute a majority in Parliament. Both UK party leaders do their best to make love to Israel on a regular basis. And France, Canada and Australia? There is no space between them and Netanyahu. They are as “ironclad” on Israel as Joe Biden constantly professes himself to be!
Greater love hath no man nor no woman to compare to the love of American politicians for Israel! Look what Papa Joe Biden has done for Israel over the past four years out of appreciation for the more than $4 million in donations that he has received from the Israel Lobby in political donations in his career. The $26 billion in the pipeline for Netanyahu is certainly an appropriate reward for the great man who single handedly has prevented Iran from getting a nuclear arsenal, something he has been warning about for the past twenty-five years! Biden’s first rule in politics, which he has been observing for forty years, is always do what Israel wants no matter what the cost because the Jewish state and the Jewish US domestic lobby together with its media wing are crucial to getting nominated and elected!
Only American politicians have the gall to call in heads of major universities and berate them or even call for their firing if they are not doing enough about antisemitism! During an April 17th House hearing on antisemitism US Congressman Rick Allen asked Columbia University President Minouche Shafik if she was concerned that God might “curse” the university. Allen had first quoted a passage from the Bible that says God will curse those who curse Israel and added that he personally views Jerusalem as the “center of the universe”. He also suggested the university should create a course teaching students about the Bible so they can learn about “the wrath of God” and how “indoctrinating” professors fail to tell students that don’t know how they “will be cursed by God”.
If Israel is truly America’s greatest friend in the world and best ally there should be some positive evidence of that in the interaction of the two countries. So let’s take a look in terms of reciprocity relating to what has been happening over the past couple of weeks! First of all, at the macro level, i.e. continuing the fighting, Biden has warned the Israelis that if they invade Rafah they will not be supported. Netanyahu has responded, “We will enter Rafah and obliterate all the Hamas battalions there — with or without a deal, to achieve total victory” lest there be any confusion about what he intends to do no matter whether a temporary ceasefire with a hostage exchange is arranged or not. Biden and his amazing talking horse Anthony Blinken did not respond apart from pushing even harder for a ceasefire on Israel’s terms, which would be bad for the Gazans in any event given the key word “temporary” in front of “ceasefire.” Israel will be free to resume killing even though more fighting will be bad for Biden’s electoral prospects in November and he knows it. So does Netanyahu.
Blinken has called for an impartial international investigation of the two mass graves recently discovered at the bombed hospital sites in Gaza, containing four hundred or more bodies, many of which were tortured and/or executed with their hands tied behind their backs or dragged out of hospital beds to be buried still alive in deep pits. Some bodies showed signs of hasty surgery indicating that their organs, a valuable commodity, were removed, a regular signature piece appearing on victims of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Most Moral Army in the World according to that strange looking Franco-Jewish so-called intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy. The Netanyahu and the IDF replied that Israel would do its own investigation saying “What is there to investigate?” Blinken did not object.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is preparing to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and two other senior Israeli officials in connection with war crimes. Netanyahu is reportedly wildly reaching out to his many “friends” to prevent such a development. He tweeted that Israel “will never accept any attempt by the ICC to undermine its inherent right of self-defense. The threat to seize the soldiers and officials of the Middle East’s only democracy and the world’s only Jewish state is outrageous. We will not bow to it.” ICC deliberations are secret so it appears that an American or British jurist has leaked the story to enable Netanyahu to mount a campaign against it. The White House and Congress are already moving full speed ahead to make the warrants go away up to and including threats to directly take on and discredit the court if the Israelis are actually punished. Zionist Speaker Mike Johnson has pressured the White House and State Department to “use every available tool to prevent such an abomination.” The US has never before threatened the ICC and has nothing to gain and much to lose in so doing. Rule of Law anyone? There are reports that prosecutors from the ICC have interviewed medical staff at two of Gaza’s largest hospitals their investigation of other possible war crimes committed by Israel in connection with the mass graves.
To be sure some pushback from inside the US government as well as from voters is developing. Fully 92% of Israelis fully support the slaughter of the Palestinians by Netanyahu and his psychopaths but 72% of Americans do not approve of what is taking place in Gaza, for which Biden will likely pay a heavy electoral price. A group of American lawyers, at least 20 of whom work in the Biden administration, are also calling on the US government to stop selling arms to Israel and are, of course, being ignored. There have also been other lawsuits as well as resignations of senior government officials who have been shocked by the US support of the genocide being conducted against the Palestinians.
Congress has just passed by an overwhelming vote pf 320 to 91 the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which will, inter alia, place antisemitism monitors in American colleges and universities. Criticism of Israel, defined as ipso facto antisemitism, will be part of their brief. It is being pushed by groups like the infamous Anti-Defamation League (ADL) whose leader Jonathan Greenblatt has called pro-Palestinian demonstrators “Jew haters” and has demanded criminal charges. Several congressmen have likewise called for all Palestinians to be killed, but there seems to be no demand for an Anti-Palestinian Act to protect the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu has also called out the demonstrators saying “What’s happening on America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. The response of several university presidents was shameful.” By shameful Netanyahu means that the presidents did not crawl enough and beg forgiveness from himself, Israel, and all diaspora Jews as well as from a Zionist Congress and White House.
Joe Biden intends to sign the anti-antisemitism legislation in spite of its direct assault on the First and Fourth Amendments to the US Constitution. The new legislation will join the recently approved FISA renewal that will allow the US government to spy on citizens without a warrant. It should surprise no one to learn that the FISA bill was particularly pushed by Greenblatt and ADL to “protect Jews” by making it easier to spy on suspected antisemites. The US government ban on TikTok was also promoted by ADL due to the fact that the site includes too much information critical of Israeli behavior. Clearly, the US Congress does what Greenblatt wants.
Finally, a US pledge to determine responsibility and sanction perpetrators for the killing of American citizens in Israel, as well as the harassment and killing of Palestinian civilians on the West Bank, has not gone anywhere. The State Department investigation found that five IDF units had committed “individual incidents of gross violations of human rights” prior to October 7th, including the beating to death of an 80 year old Palestinian-American and the sniper execution of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh. The investigation determined that there was one particularly nasty extremist-fundamentalist Netzah Yehuda battalion which had killed the octogenarian and others whose capital offense consisted of walking in their town on the West Bank. They could have joined the roughly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners held in “preventive” detention without any charges by the Israeli government, but instead they were picked up on the street, were not charged with anything, and were then beaten and killed. The killing should surprise no one. On Monday Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the death of Gaza saying “There are no half measures. Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat – total annihilation. ‘You will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven’ – there’s no place under heaven.” The reference to “Amalek” was from a line in the Hebrew Bible where Amalek was a nation that the Israelites were commanded to destroy, God telling them to “slay both man and woman, infant and suckling.” Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir came up with a similar genius solution to the country’s overcrowded prison problem – many of the Palestinians should be released and then killed to make more room.
Blinken, who has not commented on either the Smotrich or Ben-Gvir suggestions, has been sitting on the IDF report but was confronted with a challenge by House Speaker Mike Johnson who threatened to take steps to block any White House action directed against our best friend in the whole world Israel. As a result, the State Department will now neither restrict military aid nor in any way sanction the punishment of any of the units in question, even though it is actually illegal under US law to provide arms to governments committing human rights violations and war crimes. The US backdown also came after Netanyahu stated that the US would not be allowed to in any way punish or interfere with IDF units. Blinken then rolled over completely when confronted by the power of the Jewish state with a State Department spokesperson saying the units “have effectively remediated these violations,” whatever that is supposed to mean.
So killing Americans does not even merit a slap on the wrist if Israel is involved… That is where we Americans now find ourselves: fundamental rights are disappearing and our government and society are victims of Israel and its army of paid-up friends here in the US. Will Americans wake up in time to stop the rot? Not likely, as the mainstream party choices Biden and Trump will do whatever the Jewish state demands. That is our dilemma.
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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
The Cradle | May 1, 2024
Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar published on 1 May what it says is the document detailing the latest Egyptian–Israeli proposal for a truce and prisoner exchange in the Gaza Strip.
The Al-Akhbar report details the “basic principles for an agreement between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side in Gaza on the exchange of detainees and prisoners between the two sides and the return of sustainable calm.”
The initiative is made up of three stages.
The first stage lasts 40 days and calls for a temporary cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Israeli troops “eastward and away from densely populated areas” towards the border in all areas of Gaza. Israel would cease aerial surveillance of the strip for eight hours a day, and 10 hours on days when prisoners are released.
It also calls for the return of some of the displaced civilians to their homes. Israeli troops would withdraw from Al-Rashid Street to the east near Salah al-Din Street, and the Netzarim Corridor in a manner that allows the delivery of aid and the return of the displaced to their homes.
Israel would allow 500 aid trucks to enter the strip each day, including 250 for the north and 50 fuel trucks. The fuel will be used to operate power stations and equipment for clearing rubble. Efforts to renovate hospitals and bakeries will be ongoing throughout the three stages of the initiative.
Hamas must release at least 33 living Israeli prisoners, including female soldiers, children under the age of 19, the elderly, the sick, and the injured.
For every Israeli female or child released by Hamas, Israel should release 20 minors and female Palestinian prisoners. For every elderly, sick, and injured prisoner, Israel would have to release 20 prisoners over 50 years of age who are also sick and injured, as long as they are not serving a sentence of over 10 years.
For every female soldier released by Hamas, Israel would have to release 20 prisoners serving a life sentence, and another 20 serving up to 10 years, who could be released to Gaza or abroad.
Hamas would provide a list of up to 20 prisoners it wants to be released.
After 16 days, indirect negotiations on a deal to restore “sustainable calm” will take place.
The second stage, lasting 42 days, will see the arrangements for “sustainable calm,“ along with the remaining prisoner exchanges. It also calls for preparation for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the reconstruction of the strip.
The third stage calls for exchanges of bodies from both sides, a five-year reconstruction plan, and a Palestinian vow to refrain from “reconstructing military infrastructure and facilities, and not importing any equipment, raw materials, or other components used for military purposes.”
Al-Akhbar notes in another report released the same day that the initiative falls short of Hamas’ demand for a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the strip. Israeli forces are already not present in residential and densely populated areas, where the truce paper says Israel must withdraw from.
The initiative also fails to guarantee a full and permanent ceasefire, another of the resistance group’s main terms.
“The problem with the mediators in the file of negotiations with the resistance in Gaza is that they act from the position that the enemy is the victor, and that the resistance is in a weak position that requires it to concede and accept whatever is offered to it,” Al-Akhbar writes.
Hamas has not yet issued a formal response to the proposal.
Press TV – May 1, 2024
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry has said two Jordanian aid convoys carrying food and flour have been attacked by Israeli settlers on their way into the besieged Gaza Strip.
The convoys, one taking the Beit Hanoon crossing and another taking the Karem Abu Salem crossing into Gaza, were targeted by the settlers on Wednesday morning.
The assailants dumped some of their cargo and damaged the trucks.
The Jordanian ministry strongly condemned the assault and held the Israeli authorities fully responsible for the crime.
Jordan News Agency (Petra) reported that the “failure of the Israeli authorities to provide protection” for the convoys undermine the regime’s “claims and commitments to allowing aid to enter Gaza.”
Israeli settlers have been repeatedly blocking the humanitarian aid trucks heading to Gaza.
The settlers are calling on the regime to prevent the flow of aid supplies to the besieged strip, despite signs of famine across the territory.
People in Gaza are dehydrated and suffering from malnutrition.
The vast majority of humanitarian convoys have been inspected by the Israeli military in order to guarantee that there is no kind of material that can be smuggled into the besieged Palestinian territory.
A senior Hamas official has said any ceasefire in Gaza needs to be permanent. The senior official said reaching a ceasefire deal could not be at any cost.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged that the invasion of the southernmost city of Rafah would go ahead as planned.
MEMO | May 1, 2024
Workers and trade unionists shut down major UK sites involved in arms supplies to Israel this morning in response to a call to mobilise from Palestinian trade unions for workers to take action.
United under the banner “Workers for a Free Palestine” (WFFP), over 1,000 staffers and trade unionists blockaded the UK Department for Business and Trade in London and three BAE Systems’ arms factories in Wales, Scotland and North-West England to mark International Workers’ Day.
Today marks the 208th day of Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza, which has seen over 35,000 Palestinians killed. The British Government has not implemented an arms embargo on Israel, in contrast to actions taken by its allies, including Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium. In response, British workers are engaging in direct action by initiating their own embargo against arms supplies to Israel.
A trade unionist and organiser for WFFP taking part in the London blockade, Tania, said: “If arms company bosses and Britain’s political elite won’t impose an arms embargo, we, the workers, will enforce it from below.”
“In our most disruptive action yet, a wave of People’s Arms Embargoes is sweeping across England, Scotland and Wales on May Day, as workers and trade unionists shut down arms factories and a government which enables this genocide profiteering and makes the UK directly complicit in these crimes against humanity.”
The blockade at the Department for Business and Trade was organised in support of civil servants who have urged the government to “cease work immediately” on arms export licences to Israel, citing concerns that the administration is complicit in war crimes being committed in Gaza. Their union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), is considering legal measures to protect its members from being compelled to engage in unlawful acts.
The establishment of these “People’s Arms Embargoes” across the UK coincides with a recent decision by a High Court judge to allow a legal challenge against UK arms exports to Israel to proceed, with a hearing scheduled for later this year.
This surge of activism also comes in the wake of a letter signed by 600 lawyers, academics,and retired senior judges, including former Supreme Court justices, which cautions that the UK government’s ongoing arms sales to Israel may violate international law, referencing the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s finding that Israel’s actions in Gaza could constitute genocide.
“When Israel massacres entire families and razes cities to the ground, companies like Elbit Systems, BAE, Leonardo, Thales and Raytheon make vast profits. When we see hospitals turned into mass graves of over 300 people and many of those killed having been stripped of their clothes and had their hands and feet tied, the knowledge that British-made weapons which enable such atrocities are being manufactured on my doorstep makes me feel complicit,” said Aisha, a community worker blockading the arms factory in the north of England.
Aisha added: “I’m taking this action because I simply can’t stomach arms to Israel’s murderous regime being supplied in our name by companies which are subsidised by our taxes – if the company bosses and the government continue to refuse to listen to us, we will keep shutting them down and impose our own arms embargoes.”
Three British aid workers were killed in early April in an Israeli drone strike, parts of which were manufactured in the UK, highlighting the significant impact of UK-made arms in the attacks on Gaza. Since 2015, the UK has authorised arms sales to Israel totalling £487 million ($608 million), a figure that excludes weapons exported under open licences. Additionally, a considerable amount of US military aid is funnelled to Israel via a British air force base in Cyprus, while British military forces have conducted surveillance flights over Gaza to assist Israel’s ongoing military offensive.
The Cradle | May 1, 2024
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med) released a report on 30 April urging an investigation into Israel’s potential use of illegal thermal weapons.
“An international committee of experts must be established to look into the weapons Israel has been using as part of its genocide in the Gaza Strip … including the potential use of bombs that produce such high heat that victims’ bodies evaporate,” the Euro-Med report said.
The rights group cites testimonies received from Gaza which revealed a “horrific new level of killing in the Strip.” The bodies of Palestinian victims appear to have been vaporized by the weapons Israel used against residential buildings.
“Thousands of victims remain missing, either because it was impossible to recover them from under the debris in light of insufficient equipment and technical know-how, or because their bodies were either hidden by the Israeli army or no longer exist,” the Euro-Med report reads.
The report continues to say, “A number of the victims killed in these horrifying Israeli raids on residential buildings have vanished and may have turned to ashes, raising questions about the type of bombs used in the attacks.”
Thermobaric weapons, also referred to as vacuum bombs, are two-stage munitions. The first charge disperses a fine aerosol cloud of materials ranging from carbon-based fuel to metal particles. The second charge ignites the materials used, creating a fireball, shock wave, and vacuum as it sucks up the surrounding oxygen.
The blast from these weapons can last significantly longer than conventional explosives, enabling it to vaporize human bodies.
Mass graves in Gaza hospitals previously raided by Israel show that civil defense staff found “bodies without skin,” according to Gaza’s Government Media Office.
According to the Euro-Med report, “The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and international humanitarian law all forbid the use of thermal bombs against civilians in populated civilian areas. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also classifies the use of thermal bombs as a war crime.”
Israel has also illegally deployed white phosphorus weapons on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon.
According to a Washington Post analysis, the white phosphorus munitions used in Lebanon’s south were supplied to Israel by the US.
Palestine’s Agricultural Work Committees Union said that Israel intentionally uses chemical weapons on farmlands in the Gaza Strip to contaminate its soil, posing an increased cancer risk to farmers.
The agricultural union’s lobbying director, Moayyad Bsharat, also points to Washington as the supplier of such munitions to Tel Aviv in an interview with Anadolu Agency.
Bsharat stressed how chemical attacks render Gaza’s soil unusable for five years, and effectively harm its food security and public health.
By Noura Erakat and Josh Paul | Just Security | April 24, 2024
In early February, we formed the Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 to Israel, whose report we provided to the Biden Administration on April 18. The National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20), adopted by President Joe Biden, directs the Department of State to seek assurances from partners involved in conflict and receiving U.S. military grant assistance that they would abide by U.S. and international law and also requires the Departments of State and Defense to report to Congress within 90 days on the extent to which such partners are abiding by their assurances.
Though delegated as a task to the Executive Branch, the administration’s disregard for credible media reporting as well as recommendations from its own experts within the State Department, alleging Israeli abuses, catalyzed us to act.
The Task Force, which has worked on a voluntary basis, consists of experts on U.S. and international law, U.S. security assistance, and U.S. military best practices. For the past two months, we have combed through thousands of lines of data from credible nongovernmental organizations, ranging from human rights watchdogs to aid organizations working on the ground in Gaza.
The final report features sixteen clear, credible, and compelling incidents that should certainly be included in the administration’s upcoming reporting to Congress as well as an 18-page appendix of additional incidents worthy of examination. It also identifies multiple restrictions on humanitarian assistance, including strikes by the IDF, that trigger Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act (which bars military assistance to states impeding U.S. humanitarian aid) and should be reportable to Congress by the Departments of State and/or Defense under the terms of NSM-20.
Our findings were striking. Though Israel has attributed the 34,000 Palestinian casualties, 70 percent of whom are women and children, to alleged human shielding by Hamas, we found that in 11 out of the 16 incidents we analyzed, Israel did not even publicly identity a military target or attempt to justify the strike. Of the remaining five incidents, Israel publicly named targets with verification in two incidents, but no precautionary warning was given and we assess the anticipated civilian harm was known and excessive.
In one of the worst incidents in a strike on Gaza City on October 25, 2023, Israel nearly flattened the entire neighborhood of Al Yarmouk, including seven residential towers. In just the Al Taj residential tower, the bombing killed 91 Palestinians, including 28 women and 39 children. Israel’s only explanation was that a Hamas tunnel ran beneath the neighborhood. Not only did this attack disregard the duty to take precautionary measures and the duty to refrain from an attack where the civilian harm exceeds the military objective to be achieved, it suggests that Israel had the authority to bomb nearly all of Gaza in similar fashion which lay above 350 miles of subterranean tunnels.
Aware of the controversial terrain of international humanitarian law in asymmetric warfare, two-thirds of our report documents violations under applicable U.S. law or policy, including civilian harm mitigation in U.S. military best practices and Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act mandating no military support be given to states restricting access to humanitarian aid. In his analysis, our expert on U.S. targeting came to the same conclusion as did Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who said that the U.S. military would “absolutely not” systematically conduct strikes with a well understood high risk of civilian casualties, as the IDF have continuously.
Our aggregate data demonstrates a broader context of systematic disregard for fundamental principles of U.S. and international law, due to reliance on the steady and sure flow of U.S. armaments. According to a high ranking former IDF officer, Israel’s combat could have achieved similar military outcomes “with 10 percent of the destruction [Israel has] caused.” He attributes this “reckless conduct” to” an absolute assumption that the U.S. will continue to arm and finance [Israel’s military operations].” Indeed, since October 7, the United States has approved over 100 Foreign Military Sales arms transfers to Israel, two of them using an emergency authority to bypass Congressional review, and none of them accompanied by any conditions or “red lines” on usage despite conditionality inherent in U.S. laws and policies.
Our findings echo the concerns recently articulated by forty House Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who have demanded that Biden halt weapons transfers to Israel. As their letter noted, “it is critical to ensure that the U.S. government is fully utilizing the expertise of State Department and DoD officials and legal experts, [including] important intelligence community assessments and data, in thoroughly assessing Israel’s actions in Gaza.”
It is our hope the Task Force’s work facilitates the drafting efforts currently under way within the administration to meet the reporting requirements of NSM-20, resulting in the overdue enforcement of applicable U.S. law as it relates to arms transfers and security assistance, and using all available means to remove all restrictions on the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
The mounting evidence before the Biden administration now pales only in comparison to the humanitarian crisis afflicting Palestinians in Gaza. As the Task Force’s work demonstrates, the facts could not be more clear. It is now up to the Biden administration to act on them.
Sputnik – 30.04.2024
ANKARA – Several Western countries have proposed introducing cuts in weapons sales and impose restrictions on delivering technologies to Israel in a package of measures discussed during a two-day meeting in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the League of Arab States and a number of European countries discussed measures that may be applied against Israel and countries supporting the Jewish state in the Gaza conflict at the meeting in Riyadh on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, the newspaper reported.
The discussion aimed to involve as many countries as possible in the package of “pressure elements” that contains a proposal on airspace restrictions, among other things, the report said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Politico reported that a group of more than 90 US lawyers, including at least 20 from the presidential administration, called on US President Joe Biden to stop military aid to Israel because of its actions in the Gaza Strip, which they said contradict US and international humanitarian law.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale rocket attack against Israel and breached the border, attacking both civilian neighborhoods and military bases. Nearly 1,200 people in Israel were killed and some 240 others abducted during the attack. Israel launched retaliatory strikes, ordered a complete blockade of Gaza, and started a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave with the declared goal of eliminating Hamas fighters and rescuing the hostages. Over 34,400 people have been killed so far by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, according to local authorities.
The Cradle | April 30, 2024
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has threatened the International Criminal Court (ICC) with “retaliation” if international arrest warrants are issued against senior Israeli officials for war crimes committed in Gaza.
According to officials who spoke with Axios, “legislation to that effect is already in the works.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul told the US publication that the legislation would call for sanctions against ICC officials “involved in investigating the US and its allies.“
Representative Brad Sherman is quoted as saying that Washington should “think of whether we stay a signatory“ to the Rome Statute — the treaty that established the ICC and established four core international crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
Neither Washington nor Tel Aviv are among the 124 states that remain signatories of the ICC Rome Statute of 1998.
“We have to think about talking to some of the countries that have ratified [the treaty] as to whether they want to support the organization,“ he added.
“If unchallenged by the Biden administration, the ICC could create and assume unprecedented power to issue arrest warrants against American political leaders, American diplomats, and American military personnel,“ House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement issued on 29 April.
The Republican lawmaker also called on the White House to “immediately and unequivocally demand that the ICC stand down” and “use every available tool to prevent such an abomination.”
Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICC has been investigating war crimes committed by the Israeli military in Gaza. The court says it is also probing alleged violations by Palestinian resistance groups.
After reports broke earlier this month saying the ICC was looking to issue arrest warrants against top Israeli officials – including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – the US and its allies began pressuring the court to back out, claiming the warrants could “jeopardize” a ceasefire deal for Gaza.
“Group of Seven nations have begun a quiet diplomatic effort to convey that message to the Hague-based court,” diplomatic sources who spoke with Bloomberg are quoted as saying.
Israel has been accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also based in The Hague.
An interim ruling at the start of the year determined that Israel was plausibly guilty of the crime of genocide and ordered it to stop genocidal acts during its war on Gaza and take measures to guarantee the efficient provision of humanitarian aid to the strip.
In 2002, two years after Washington withdrew from the Rome Statute, then-president George W Bush signed into law the “American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002,” which authorizes the use of military force in the Netherlands to “liberate” any US citizen or citizen of a US-allied country held by the ICC.
Press TV – April 30, 2024
The Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has denounced the United States over its role in scuttling UN-brokered peace efforts in the impoverished Arab nation, and its failure to stop the Israeli military’s onslaught against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“The United States constitutes an obstacle to peace in Yemen, and prevents the ongoing criminal massacre in Gaza from coming to an end,” the ministry said in a statement released on Monday.
Pointing to the Yemeni pro-Palestine maritime operations in the Red Sea, the ministry said they “have humanitarian objectives, and are meant to pressure the Zionist regime into stopping its vicious aggression and lifting its all-out blockade on Gaza.”
The ministry went on to note that the resolution of the Yemen conflict will not stop the country’s naval units from carrying out anti-Israeli operations, emphasizing that the United Nations has been reminded that the agreement with Saudi Arabia for the Yemeni peace roadmap has nothing to do with unfolding developments in Gaza, and that neither Americans nor Britons should be involved in it.
The statement added that the latest remarks by Tim Lenderking, the US special envoy for Yemen, about Yemeni attacks on Israeli-affiliated commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in response to the war on Gaza show that the US is preventing the establishment of peace in Yemen, and is blocking an end to the killings in Gaza and the removal of the siege.
Lenderking told Saudi English-language daily newspaper Arab News in an interview published on April 25 that “the onus (is) on the Houthis to stop the Red Sea attacks, adding, “That can prompt us all to begin to dial back, to de-escalate, to return the situation in Yemen to where it was on Oct. 6, which had considerably more promise and possibility than what exists now, and that’s where we want to return the focus.”
On the Gaza war, Lenderking said, “We cannot escape what’s happening in Gaza,” adding, “Not one single day goes by when the people I talk to about Yemen don’t also talk about Gaza. So we know this is a searing and very, very important situation that must be dealt with.”
The Yemeni foreign ministry statement further criticized Washington for standing “against the will of all world nations, including its own people who are expressing fierce opposition to the involvement of the Biden administration in the heinous crimes that Zionists are committing against Gazans.”
“The US has rather resorted to the brutal suppression of pro-Palestine protests at its own university campuses than to respond to global demands [for an end to Gaza war]. Such conduct has exposed the hollowness of its slogans about democracy,” the ministry pointed out.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have staged numerous pro-Palestinian strikes since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the Gaza war.
American and British warships have been carrying out attacks against the Arab Peninsula nation as means of trying to halt strikes that it has been conducting against Israeli vessels or those heading towards the ports lying in the occupied Palestinian territories.
At least 34,488 Palestinians have been killed and 77,643 others wounded in the brutal Israeli military onslaught that was launched following Al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups.
The US has been the main supporter of Israel, proving it with munitions and political support in its brutal war on Gaza. Washington has also used its veto power to protect Israel against UN resolutions.
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By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
Aletho News 