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Decrepit Biden Props Up Decrepit Abbas

The “PA will run Gaza solution” is a non-starter

BY KEVIN BARRETT | DECEMBER 27, 2023

Interview for IRIB

1) Despite Gazans’ demand and desire, the USA is trying to impose the Palestinian authority to rule over Gaza in substitution for Hamas. How do you assess this policy? 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is universally despised. Palestinians hate it because it’s a tool of the Occupation. Netanyahu’s government also hates it because it carries the torch, however feebly, of the two-state solution.

So why is the USA trying to unite Gaza and the West Bank under the authority of a group that everyone loathes? A humorist might answer: “Because the PA resembles Biden: A walking corpse with no meaningful support. When Biden looks at the unpopular, decrepit, sold-out-to-Israel, monumentally corrupt 88-year-old Abbas, he sees himself in the mirror.”

Aside from Biden’s narcissistic projection, there are also political considerations. To assuage both wings of his party—the pro-Palestine and pro-peace forces on the left, and his Zionist billionaire donors on the right—Biden has to pretend to be both pro-peace and pro-Israel. And that is impossible. Israel’s very existence and identity rests on its nonstop war of extermination against the Palestinian people. Indeed, “Israel” is just a euphemism for the genocide of Palestine. And its population and government have steadily gotten more extremist and openly genocidal.

Since it is impossible to be pro-peace and pro-Israel at the same time, Biden has to deal in vague impressions rather than hard realities. Most Americans don’t know much about Palestine, and have a general sense that the Palestinian Authority is “moderate” and “supports the two-state solution.” So Biden uses rhetorical support for the PA to stake out a supposedly centrist position that he hopes will mollify both the activists to his left and the Jewish billionaires to his right. He hopes the former will say: “Well, at least Biden isn’t as bad as Trump.” Since the latter realize that the PA is dead in the water, they know that Biden’s apparent support for it is only rhetorical, and doesn’t pose any meaningful obstacle to Zionist genocide. So the billionaires have no problem with Biden’s position, and will continue to fund him.

2) Americans always emphasize democracy and free elections. Then why (in practice) are they doing the opposite in Gaza? And moreover, why is Hamas so popular in Gaza?

American support for democracy is purely rhetorical. In reality, the US empire has been, since World War II, the world’s biggest enemy of democracy. Why? Because the US empire wants every other country on Earth to be its vassal. And it wants the vassal states run by obedient puppets who obey the empire’s orders to plunder their own people and hand over their nations’ wealth to the empire and the banks that own it. Naturally this program isn’t popular with ordinary people, who generally vote against Washington’s puppets and in favor of “anti-American” candidates who want to serve their own people rather than the empire. So to keep its puppets in power, the US has to prevent, corrupt, and sabotage free and fair elections.

The best-known quote illustrating the US empire’s opposition to democracy was a bon mot from the late Henry Kissinger: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” So Kissinger’s US murdered  democratically-elected president Allende and installed a vicious dictator, Pinochet, to obey the empire’s orders.

The same situation happened in Gaza in 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in a landslide, despite US and Israeli vote-rigging and chicanery. Like Kissinger in 1973 with respect to Chile, the Bush Administration, and later the Obama Administration, tried to kill Hamas’s leaders and overthrow the democratically-elected government. But they failed miserably, because Hamas has widespread support in Palestine and throughout the region. Due to Hamas’s popularity in the West Bank as well as Gaza, the Americans, the international bodies they control, and the Israelis have not allowed any more elections since 2006. They know that if they did, Hamas would win, take over all of Palestine, and administer it in the interests of the Palestinian people rather than the Zionist occupation.

Hamas’s popularity stems from its reputation for honesty and competence. Unlike the ultra-corrupt PA, Hamas does not take bribes from America and Israel to participate in the slow-motion genocide of its own people. And unlike the PA, Hamas gets things done—whether it’s feeding the poor, taking care of the sick, or organizing armed resistance to genocide.

Additionally, Hamas, unlike the PA, is living in the real world. The PA inhabits an illusory world in which we all pretend that Israel is a benign entity that will withdraw from all the land it stole in 1967 and allow a viable Palestinian state to come into being. Hamas honestly faces the stark reality that “Israel” is an illegitimate and inherently genocidal entity that has zero interest in any “two-state solution” and will continue to grow like a malignant tumor on the region, eliminating not just the Palestinians but ultimately all the peoples between the Nile and the Euphrates, if the tumor is not forcibly excised.

A final reason for Hamas’s popularity is its religiosity. Palestinian Christians as well as Muslims respect the piety and selfless devotion to doing good “in the path of God” that they see among the members and leaders of Hamas. And they love and respect Hamas fighters for their willingness to put their lives on the line against a much more powerful and cruel enemy. As Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida says:

“Disgrace, shame and defeat for the Zionist Nazi enemy. Indeed it is a struggle of victory or martyrdom.”

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel a ‘terrorist state’ – Cuba

RT | December 27, 2023

Israel is a terrorist state committing genocide in Gaza, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on social media on Tuesday. He was commenting on the ongoing military operation that West Jerusalem launched against Hamas in retaliation following the militant group’s deadly October 7 surprise attack, in which approximately 1,200 were killed in the south of the country.

The Caribbean nation, which has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel, has been highly critical of Israel’s war on the militants, which maintain de facto rule over Gaza. During the military operation, large swathes of the enclave have been devastated and more than 20,400 Palestinians have been killed, according to local officials.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Diaz-Canel called Israel’s actions “a humiliation for all humanity” and lamented that the nation was getting away with it.

“Cuba, which will never be among the indifferent, raises its voice for Palestine again and again,” he added.

Last week, the Cuban parliament passed a declaration expressing support for the Palestinian people and its aspiration for statehood. The document branded Israel’s conduct “genocide,” condemning its “barbaric acts” that highlight the failures of international diplomacy.

“We denounce in the strongest terms the responsibility and complicity of the government of the United States in this genocide,” the declaration said, referring to Washington’s use of its veto power at the UN Security Council on Israel’s behalf.

“The impunity with which Israel has historically acted can only be explained by its confidence that there will be no consequences due to the backing of the US government,” the lawmakers stated.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has expressed discontent due to the high number of civilian casualties in Gaza and claims that behind closed doors it is pressuring Israel to correct its approach.

Senior Israeli officials have repeatedly denied being under US pressure. Tal Heinrich, the spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC last Friday that the two nations are “in lockstep.”

Israel claims that it is doing everything possible to minimize risks for civilians and argues that Hamas is ultimately responsible for every such death.

A report published by the Tel Aviv-based +972 Magazine in late November claimed that the Israeli military is purposefully bombing “power targets” in Gaza, such as public buildings and high-rise blocks, in order to “create a shock” in the general population. The rationale is that it will somehow turn Palestinians against Hamas.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Elbit 8’: Palestine Action activists conclude legal fight for disrupting Israeli arms trade

By Reza Javadi | Press TV | December 27, 2023

In a significant development, a group of Palestine Action activists, known as the ‘Elbit Eight’, have been acquitted for their role in shutting down UK Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms producer, whose lethal weapons are being used against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Elbit Systems’ weaponry prompted the Palestine Action activists to face a total of 12 charges, including criminal damage, burglary, blackmail, and encouraging criminal damage.

The charges were related to anti-Israel protests held between July 2020 and January 2021, immediately after the pro-Palestinian network was founded in early 2020.

The trial, which commenced on November 13, saw the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) amending the indictment, eventually bringing thirteen counts against the activists: seven counts of damaging property (criminal damage), three counts of burglary with intent to commit criminal damage, one count of possessing articles with intent to damage property, one count of threatening to damage property, and one count of encouraging others to commit the offense of criminal damage.

Since the group’s inception in 2020, and in protest against the Israeli regime’s atrocities against the Palestinians, they have led several mobilizations in the UK as well as in the US, targeting the factories and offices of firms that supply munitions used in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Their protest methods have included sit-ins, blockades and paint jobs.

The group’s actions, including occupying Elbit Systems’ drone and weaponry factories in Shenstone and Oldham, aimed to challenge Elbit’s operations in Britain and prevent the manufacturing of weapons destined for the Israeli regime.

The defense case

At the beginning of the trial that lasted six weeks, the eight activists received a plea deal: if Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard pleaded guilty, others would be acquitted.

Rejecting the plea deal, the activists spent six weeks in Snaresbrook Crown Court pleading not guilty, asserting that Elbit and Israel bear responsibility for the offenses, not Palestine Action.

Echoing the defense’s narrative presented during the trial, Richard Barnard, co-founder of Palestine Action, underscored the group’s primary goal to terminate British complicity in the Israeli apartheid regime’s crimes against Palestinians.

Barnard was convicted by a 10-2 majority of one count of criminal damage, for an action at the now-closed Elbit Ferranti factory in Oldham. The jury failed to reach a majority decision regarding the remaining 23 charges.

“The idea was – and the idea still is – to end the British complicity in the Israeli apartheid regime,” he told the jury. “I am trying to prevent war crimes … I am trying to stop bombings and trying to stop drones [in Palestine].”

Meanwhile, two of the Elbit Eight activists, Genevieve Scherer and Jocelyn Cooney, were unanimously acquitted on all charges faced.

Other activists highlighted their personal experiences and the urgency driving their direct actions, contending that conventional means, such as divestment campaigns, were insufficient in addressing the ongoing human rights violations in Gaza.

Huda Ammori, charged with six counts including damaging property and burglary, stressed her Palestinian-Iraqi background, narrating formative experiences such as the Iraq War and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians in Gaza.

She stressed that direct action was the only viable solution to end such atrocities perpetrated by the occupying regime, given the ineffectiveness of legal avenues and divestment campaigns.

“All other attempts fell short. Our exports to Israel are against our own license rules and against international law, but they can’t be stopped by the courts,” Ammori said.

“Divestment campaigns, after years of work, were taking way too long; it wasn’t matching the reality of the urgency of the situation. Every day, Palestinians were being killed, imprisoned – surveilled under these drones 24/7.”

Direct action is the only option

Ammori, a co-founder of the Palestine Action network, hastened to add that if the UK government continues to ignore facts and violate rules, then the only option is “direct action”, which means to “stop weapons from going there.”

“After pushing back our case for two years, the state has failed again to deter an ever-growing global direct-action movement. Every day we’ve been on trial, more Palestinians have been massacred using Elbit’s weaponry,” she asserted.

“The duty of the people is clear – to take all direct action possible to Shut Elbit Down wherever you are. Justice will be complete when Palestine is free.”

Robin Refualu, another activist of the group, charged with burglary and damaging the drone factory UAV Engines, shared his experiences from Palestine and spoke of the direct action he was involved in there to stop home demolitions and illegal settlements and emphasizing the trial’s relevance to the broader Palestinian struggle over the past 75 years.

“This trial is not about us, it’s not even about Palestine Action, in my opinion,” Refualu said. “It’s about what’s happening in Gaza at the moment and what’s been happening in Palestine for the last 75 years.”

Genevieve Scherer, drawing on her upbringing in Uganda, criticized the futility of criminal damage charges when Elbit Systems and those they arm cause havoc in Gaza.

She underscored how British law prioritizes property over human lives.

Caroline Brouard emphasized the obligation to prevent an ongoing genocide and stated that when governments fail to uphold duties, it falls on the people to act. She believed that actions at UAV Engines in Shenstone could immediately impact stopping bombings in Gaza.

“The drones malfunction all the time, needing replacement parts, and UAV Engines has a 24hr dispatch policy – we stopped these engines getting to Israel and so stopped the drones from flying,” Brouard asserted.

Urgency of stopping crimes

Jocelyn Cooney, a frontline social worker, joined Palestine Action to address the urgency of stopping crimes. She referred to Elbit Systems as the “muscle” enabling genocide in Palestine.

“So I think we all have a responsibility as humans to step up and take direct action to stop this company from producing weapons to murder people,” she said.

Emily Arnott, charged with damaging property and burglary, spoke about her time in Palestine, highlighting the impact of apartheid and the Israeli regime’s brutal domination over Palestinian lives.

Nicola Stickells, charged with criminal damage, emphasized the necessity of action when other efforts were ineffective. She pointed to ongoing war crimes in Gaza and questioned why activists faced legal consequences while those responsible for genocide profited freely.

The Israeli regime forces are “rounding up men.. and taking them to undisclosed places, stripped, kneeling blindfolded, this genocide is occurring as we speak,” said Stickells, a mother of two who was raised in a working-class family in the English county of Kent.

“How can we be the criminals when the perpetrators of… [what] we now know is a genocide … are free to profit and we have to spend weeks and weeks in court for an action that we took three years ago?” she asked.

“When you try and stand for human rights, you become the criminal. This is not right.”

Palestine Action UK has escalated actions against Elbit Systems since October 7, including activists climbing factory roofs in various cities.

“Palestine Action activists occupy the roof of the Israeli weapons factory Elbit Systems in the town of Shenstone, England, in protest of its production of equipment used in Israel’s murder of innocent Palestinians,” Palestine Action UK said in a statement on October 31.

UK complicity in Israeli crimes

The trial comes on the heels of nationwide protests in the UK in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the genocide in Gaza. These demonstrations have been met with intensive state monitoring, harassment, and muzzling of pro-Palestinian voices and actions.

The trial also draws attention to the broader issue of the UK’s arms sales to the Israeli regime, given Elbit Systems’ significant role as a major supplier to the Israeli military.

The weapons company is Israel’s largest private arms company in the UK that supplies the Israeli military with 85 percent of the drones used against Palestinians. The British government has been criticized for being “complicit in Israeli crimes” due to its relations with this company.

Two of Israel’s biggest weapons factories, Elbit and Rafael, both have operations in the UK.

Declassified UK recently revealed that the British government has approved at least £472m in arms sales to the Israeli regime in the past eight years, ignoring the genocide in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel provokes Iran with assassination in bid to draw the US into war

By Trita Parsi | December 25, 2023

Some brief analysis of the implications of the assassination of Iran’s top commander in Syria, Radhi Mousavi, presumably by Israel.

Bottom line: Israel either killed Mousavi as a warning to Iran, given Tehran’s support for the Houthis’ targeting of ships in the Red Sea, as a provocation to beget an Iranian response that would give Israel the pretext to enlarge the war, or as a preparatory move to enlarge the war regardless of Iran’s response.

It is very likely that Israel is behind the assassination of Mousavi since it is the only power with both a motive and capacity to pull off such a killing – not to mention a long history of assassinating Iranian operatives. The US has the capacity but not necessarily the motive. The analysis below rests on the rather safe assumption that Mousavi was assassinated by Israel.

US intelligence believes that Iran has been actively involved in the Houthi movement’s targeting of ships in the Red Sea, which has effectively closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for Israel and cost the Israeli economy billions of dollars. The Houthis insist they will continue the attacks – despite threats of retaliation from the US – until Israel ceases its bombardment of Gaza. Israel, of course, refuses and Biden is loath to press Israel for a ceasefire. From Israel’s perspective, Iran is not paying a price for its alleged role in the Red Sea attacks. The assassination may, as a result, be a warning to Iran that Israel has the capacity and willingness to exact a price from Iran – even in areas where the Iranians may have presumed that they are safe.

In a second scenario, the assassination may be a deliberate provocation to beget an Iranian response that would give Israel the pretext to enlarge the war. While the Biden administration has given Israel a complete green light to bomb Gaza to smithers, Biden opposes an expansion of the war since that very likely could drag the US into it. The debate inside the Israeli government is increasingly leaning toward expanding the war – they have already mobilized +300,000 troops and there is a growing belief in Israel that it simply is intolerable for Israel to live next to Hezbollah. They thought they could manage the threat from Hamas – and they couldn’t. Even though it wasn’t Hezbollah that attacked Israel on Oct 7, the Israeli argument is that next time it might be Hezbollah, and as a result, Israel has no choice but to expand the war. But unless there is an attack from Iran or Hezbollah itself, the US may continue to oppose such a move.

But the assassination of Mousavi may cause Iran to retaliate against Israel via Hezbollah, the reasoning goes, and Israel can then use Hezbollah’s action as a pretext to not only expand the war to Lebanon – but also force the US to go along with it.

There is also a third explanation. According to Amwaj Media, Mousavi was in charge of facilitating the entry of Iran-led forces and arms shipments to Syria as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. If Israel intends to attack Lebanon, taking out Mousavi could be a logical first step to disrupt the arming of Hezbollah as well as its supply lines. As such, the assassination may be a preparatory move to enlarge the war regardless of Iran’s response to the killing of Mousavi.

All of these scenarios point to one undeniable reality: As long as Biden refuses to pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire in Gaza, tensions in the region will continue to rise and the Middle East will gravitate towards a regional war that very likely will engulf the US as well. Biden may think that he can control these events and allow Israel to slaughter the people in Gaza while keeping a lid on the escalation risk. He is likely wrong – and the American people may soon find themselves in yet another unnecessary war in the Middle East because of Biden’s strategic incompetence.//

December 26, 2023 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

India deploys warships to Arabian Sea following attack on Israeli-linked ship

The Cradle | December 26, 2023

The Indian Navy has deployed three guided missile destroyers to the Arabian Sea in response to an alleged drone attack on an Israeli-linked chemical tanker last week.

New Delhi also uses long-range maritime patrol aircraft for “domain awareness,” the defense ministry reported Monday night.

On Saturday, the Liberian-flagged MV Chem Pluto, a Japanese-owned tanker traveling 370km off the coast of India, was reportedly hit by a kamikaze drone, according to the Pentagon.

The Israeli-linked tanker had been on its way from Saudi Arabia to India, according to maritime security firm Ambrey.

The Indian Navy says they are examining the specifics of the attack on the MV Chem Puto, which managed to anchor in Mumbai on 26 December.

Although Indian officials say a preliminary evaluation suggests a drone strike, they emphasize that additional forensic and technical examinations are necessary to determine the exact method of attack.

Washington blamed the attack on Iran, saying the drone had been launched “directly” from the Islamic Republic.

“We declare these claims completely worthless,” said Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, on Monday.

“Such claims are aimed at projecting, distracting public attention, and covering up for the full support of the US government for the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” he added.

Saturday’s drone attack came less than a week after the US announced the formation of the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, described by US officials as a new “coalition of the willing” that seeks to counter the threat posed by Yemen in the Red Sea.

Although the Yemeni armed forces have been conducting the attacks against Israeli-linked vessels of their own accord, the Pentagon insists Iran is somehow involved.

“The [Yemeni] resistance has its own tools […] and acts by its own decisions and capabilities,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri told Mehr News Agency on Saturday.

“The fact that certain powers, such as the US and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement […] should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region,” he added.

December 26, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s plan to ‘revive Palestinian Authority’ fizzles out: Report

The Cradle | December 26, 2023

The US government has run into a significant hurdle in its campaign to “revitalize” the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) as possible successors to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, failing to convince Israel to unblock funds necessary to prevent the PA from total collapse.

“Even if we agreed [to take over for Hamas in Gaza], how can we implement it? The policy of Israel is to weaken the authority, not strengthen it,” PA Deputy Prime Minister Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Washington Post. “We cannot even pay the salaries of our soldiers, our employees,” he added.

Despite round-the-clock visits to the heavily fortified PA headquarters in Ramallah and meetings with Israeli authorities, US officials have made little progress in securing the release of millions in Palestinian tax money that Israel has blocked since 7 October.

Two months ago, the Israeli finance ministry – led by Jewish supremacist official Bezalel Smotrich – froze the transfer of tax revenues amounting to some $188 million monthly to the PA.

“The PA didn’t see fit to distance itself from these barbarian actions, and officials in the authority even expressed support for the awful massacre […] Furthermore, the PA is acting against Israel at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice,” Smotrich said on 30 October.

The tax revenues – known in Palestine as maqasa – are collected by the Israeli government on behalf of the PA on Palestinian imports and exports. Israel earns a commission of 3 percent of collected revenues.

On Friday, the European Commission said it was preparing a $130 million aid package to help plug the gap.

According to Sabri Saidam, a member of the central committee for the Fatah party and close adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, plans for Palestinians to receive their tax revenue have “collapsed.”

Besides finding ways to avert the financial collapse of the PA, US officials have also been pushing for “changes and new faces in key positions” in a last-ditch effort to improve the public image of the deeply unpopular organization.

According to a recent poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 88 percent of Palestinians want Abbas to resign as PA President, up 10 points from three months ago.

Meanwhile, the popularity of Hamas has soared in the occupied West Bank, from 12 percent to 44 percent.

“It’s always this colonizing mentality, whereby, ‘We decide your leadership, we are the ones basically designing your strategy for the day after, we tell you how to live, we tell you how to breathe, and we tell you how to run your land,’” Saidam told the Washington Post.

The PA was established in 1994 based on the first Oslo Accords (1993) between Tel Aviv and the now-defunct Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It was initially established as a temporary governing body to lay the foundation for an independent Palestinian state.

However, after decades of corruption allegations, collaboration scandals, and a poor human rights record, the PA was in a state of “total inertia” before the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation unfolded on 7 October.

Complicating matters further for Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is staunchly opposed to a PA-controlled Gaza.

“Expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream,” Netanyahu says in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Monday.

“[The PA] has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza,” the premier added, claiming that Ramallah “currently funds and glorifies terrorism […] and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel.”

“For the foreseeable future, Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza,” Netanyahu stressed.

December 26, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Paying a Heavy Price for Its Crimes

BY KEVIN BARRETT | DECEMBER 25, 2023

So Netanyahu is now saying that (Israel is paying) is a heavy price. How heavy is the price?

Netanyahu is not admitting how heavy the price really is. The actual number of Israeli casualties is much higher than the official count. We know that because we’ve actually seen that the resistance fighters have filmed themselves taking out tanks and trucks and other military vehicles by the hundreds. They’ve filmed many of their other operations as well. So we can see that just based on what’s out there in the resistance film footage, the casualty count has to be a lot higher than Netanyahu is admitting.

He also is ignoring the fact, at least publicly, that Israel has lost something like 7% of its population. They haven’t been killed, they’ve fled the country. This has happened occasionally before, but this time it’s not certain that they’ll be coming back, because the Israeli economy is in shambles. The northern edge of the country is now uninhabited, as they’ve all been evacuated due to the northern front of Hezbollah.

And the Israeli economy may not come back. It’s heavily dependent on tourism, and that’s completely shut down now. The usual tourist hotels are full of Israelis who fled the war zones in the north. And so that of course is bad enough. But (the main reason) the future of the Zionist entity looks incredibly bleak is because of the way that they’ve managed to commit the most horrendous genocide ever seen on live television, and they’ve sickened and appalled pretty much the entire world. Their only supporters now are in Washington DC. And even in the United States of America polls show that the majority of young adults want the resistance to win and put an end to Israel.

So they have lost the military battle. They can’t get their hostages back. They can’t succeed in their ground operations. They can’t stop Hamas as they say they are going to. They’ve lost their economic battle. They’ve lost in their propaganda war, where they’re making up ludicrous stories about beheaded babies that nobody believes. Nobody believes anything they say any more. They’ve blown all their credibility, blown up their economy, and shown that they’re a military paper tiger. The end of the Zionist entity is near. And Netanyahu knows that his own political end is even nearer.

December 26, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US jets strike resistance sites in Iraq

The Cradle | December 26, 2023

US warplanes launched airstrikes against several sites belonging to the Kataib Hezbollah faction early on 26 December, in Washington’s latest response to ongoing drone and missile attacks launched by the Iraqi resistance on US bases in Iraq and Syria.

The strikes resulted in large explosions south of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, an Al-Mayadeen correspondent reported. One was killed and over a dozen wounded, according to an official statement.

The US hit “three locations utilized by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups focused specifically on unmanned aerial drone activities,” a US National Security Council spokesman said in a statement.

The attack “likely killed several Kataib Hezbollah militants,” according to CENTCOM.

The Iraqi government said in a statement that the attack “harms bilateral relations between the two countries and represents an unacceptable violation of sovereignty,” which “harms” Baghdad’s bilateral ties with Washington. The statement added that an Iraqi service member was killed, while 18 were injured, including civilians.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the attack was a response to ongoing Iraqi operations targeting US bases, in particular one attack on the Erbil air base on Monday, 25 December, which left three US soldiers wounded, including one in critical condition.

An Iraqi Ministry of Interior official told AFP that the US airstrikes targeted a Popular Mobilization Forces’ site in the city of Hillah, the capital of Babylon Governorate in central Iraq. A site in the Wasit Governorate was also targeted, resulting in the wounding of at least four people.

In a statement, leader of the Nabni Coalition Hadi al-Amiri stressed his “strong condemnation and denunciation of the repetition of the sinful American attacks that were embodied at dawn this day in the provinces of Babil and Wasit.”

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, the Islamic Resistance coalition in Iraq said in a statement that it targeted “the occupied Harir base near Erbil Airport in northern Iraq with drones.”

The statement vowed that the Iraqi resistance would continue the “destruction of enemy strongholds” in line with its goals of “resisting the American occupation” in Iraq and responding to “the Zionist entity’s massacres against our people in Gaza.”

The Iraqi resistance also struck the US Green Village base in northern Syria, the group said in a separate statement earlier that day.

Following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the start of the Gaza-Israel war in October, Iraqi resistance groups banded together under a single coalition. They launched near-daily attacks on US bases in both Iraq and Syria in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and in rejection of Washington’s support for the Israeli assault on Gaza.

The attacks also aim to hasten the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

The US air force has launched several attacks in response. One strike in early December resulted in the killing of five Iraqi resistance fighters.

While the US presence in Iraq is coordinated with the government of Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, a political alliance of Shia parties represented in his parliament are staunchly opposed to it.

In 2020, following the assassination of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Iraq’s parliament voted in favor of expelling the US from Iraq. The resolution specifically called for the cancellation of Iraq’s formal request for US military assistance against ISIS, which was issued in 2014.

Washington rejected the resolution and threatened to impose sanctions on Baghdad.

December 26, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel massacres at least 70 Palestinians in airstrike on Gaza refugee camp

Press TV – December 25, 2023

An Israeli airstrike targeting a refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip has killed at least 70 Palestinians as the regime’s genocidal war across the besieged territory continues unabated.

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported the massacre in a late Sunday statement, saying the fatalities came after the regime’s air raid hit a number of houses at the al-Maghazi refugee camp.

According to the ministry’s spokesman, the strike destroyed a “residential block” and the “toll is likely to rise” given the large number of families residing there and the fact that many people are still under the rubble.

“What is happening at the al-Maghazi camp is the annihilation of an entire residential square,” Ashraf al-Qudra said.

The ministry also noted that another Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza has killed 10 members of the same family.

The ministry’s spokesman said the regime’s forces “are bombing the main roads between the [refugee] camps … to impede the arrival of ambulances and civil defense vehicles to the targeted locations.”

“Most of the martyrs who arrived from the Maghazi camp were children, women, and the elderly,” the spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was quoted by the Palestinian media as saying.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said the Israeli strike saw the regime’s military bombing “four inhabited homes” at al-Maghazi.

“We call on all countries of the world to put pressure on the criminal occupation in order to stop the genocidal war … against our Palestinian people and against children, women and civilians,” it added.

The Gaza-based Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also reacted to the Israeli attack, describing it as a “horrific massacre.”

Hamas called the strike “a new war crime extending the genocide” that the Israeli regime “commits against children and unarmed civilians.”

The movement said Israel perpetrated “this treacherous and cowardly bombing…in an attempt to renovate the image of its defeated army.”

Hamas noted that Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is being “supported by [US] President [Joe] Biden’s administration, [which is] the primary partner of the Zionist entity in its crimes and fascist aggression” against the blockaded territory.

The Israeli war machine launched its military aggression on October 7 following an operation by Gaza’s resistance movements, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm. Over 20,400 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in the Israeli genocide so far.

As the regime’s most dedicated ally, the US has supplied it with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment since the onset of the aggression.

Washington has also cast its veto against all the United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for implementation of an immediate ceasefire across Gaza.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Outsmarted by ‘Wily’ Biden? No, Biden Is the One Being Played

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 25, 2023

Biden smirked and responded, “I know”, when told by a guest that Netanyahu is drawing the U.S. into a civilisational conflict – and further that Netanyahu blames him (Biden), complaining that the White House wants to block Israel from getting at the root of the problem, by harping on about Gaza and the ‘day after’.

In practice, what Netanyahu is doing is simply mounting a classic flanking manoeuvre – attempting to circumvent Biden by pointing to the ‘broader conflict’ with Iran: ‘Why are you pestering me about Gaza when there’s a monumental conflict raging’, suggests Bibi in exasperation?

“This is not only ‘our war’ but in many ways your war… This is a battle against the Iranian axis… now threatening to close the maritime strait of Bab Al-Mandeb… It is the interest … of the entire civilized community”, Netanyahu has said – not very subtly.

Biden’s reaction is a smug smile, hinting that he thinks he can outplay Netanyahu (‘the fox’). This is Biden’s approach: He aims to disarm Netanyahu’s allegation of an obstructionist U.S. through a parade of top-level visits that reiterates his unstinting support Israel – and to pre-empt Bibi, through insisting that he (Biden) will take care of the non-Gaza issues (Hizbullah, Yemen etc.).

So, the U.S. is assembling a maritime force to confront AnsarAllah in Yemen; the Biden Admin will act to sanction violent settlers in the West Bank; it is warning Baghdad to rein-in the Hashad al Sha’abi; and his envoys in Beirut are trying to forge a ‘diplomatic agreement’ that will include the withdrawal of Hizbullah’s Radwan Forces to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, and also deal with the unresolved border disputes between Israel and Lebanon.

Biden prides himself on being a hugely experienced foreign policy actor – and thinks himself too wily for Bibi’s tricks. But maybe, Netanyahu – for all his many faults – better understands the Region?

Biden clearly is being played. Even though he fails to recognize it.

Netanyahu knows that ‘no way’ will Hizbullah disarm, and withdraw to north of the Litani. He knows this, and thus can wait out Biden’s diplomatic failure, before saying that the approximately 70,000 Israeli citizens displaced from the northern towns in the wake of 7 October need to ”go home”, and that if the U.S. cannot remove Hizbullah from the border-fence, then Israel will do it.

Netanyahu is using Biden’s diplomatic Lebanese initiative to build European justification for an Israeli operation in a few weeks’ time to push Hizbullah away from the border with Israel. (An Israeli operation against Hizbullah has been in the works from the outset of the Gaza war).

Netanyahu knows too that control over settler violence in the West Bank lies not with him, but is in the hands of his partners: i.e., Ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Neither he, nor Biden can dictate to them – they have been quietly increasing the squeeze on West Bank Palestinians for months.

And finally, Netanyahu knows the Houthis: They will not be deterred by Biden’s maritime flotilla. They will, rather, relish drawing the West into a Red Sea quagmire.

Like it or not, Biden’s tactic of containing and pre-empting regional escalation through the U.S. itself becoming lead actor – in lieu of Israel – is clearly drawing the U.S. deeper into conflict. Does Biden believe that the Houthis will just quietly ‘roll-over’ because the Gerald Ford is anchored off Bab Al-Mandeb, or that Hizbullah will accept instruction from Amos Hochstein?

The second way that Biden is being outplayed is through him seeing the Israeli problem as ‘just Bibi’ – indulging in personal politics. Of course, it is true that the Israeli PM is moulding Israeli politics to his own survival needs; yet pause a moment to consider what President Herzog said on Tuesday during an interview facilitated by the Atlantic Council, a leading Washington-based think tank.

Herzog has long been viewed as distinctly ‘dovish’ and ‘Leftist’ by the Beltway foreign policy establishment – prior to the war – compared to Netanyahu.

In the interview, Herzog said: “We intend to take over the entire Gaza Strip and change the course of history”. He said that the current conflict is a clash of “a set of civilizational values” and he cast Hamas (in pure Manichaean terms) as a “force of evil”, adding that Israel would no longer tolerate Gaza being a “platform for Iran – driving everyone into the abyss of bloodshed and warfare”.

Not much daylight then between him and the PM then.

The convergence between Herzog and Bibi reflects, perhaps, a more substantive change taking place in Israel – a strategic shift that extends far beyond Biden’s personal obsession with Bibi:

Since 7 October, the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post report that 36% of Israelis have moved decidedly to the right on a number of political issues, including support for settlers in the West Bank, endorsements for far-right politicians, and even settlements again inside the Gaza Strip. And while public opinion of Netanyahu himself is faltering, his government is not expected to fall.

And even were that to occur, the more important point to grasp is that support for the policies upheld by Netanyahu’s radical Rightist government is growing, and rapidly.

Israel’s Right generally believes in Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, with many right-wing Israelis opposed to the principle of a Palestinian state existing at all alongside Israel. This can be seen in many of the current government’s policies, which have worked toward expanding Israeli settlement of the West Bank and rendering Gaza unlivable for Palestinians.

On the opposite side of the spectrum sits Israel’s Left. The Jerusalem Post notes that the Left largely believe that Israel is ‘occupying’ the West Bank, and that an end to the conflict can only be achieved by ending the occupation and enabling a two-state solution. But no one is explicit on where that second state – a Palestinian state – would be situated. Legally it would be Gaza, the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. But who could enforce that? Who would expel settlers from the West Bank?

For many Israelis, the separation ‘apartheid’ Occupation state of the past 30 years was the workable ‘two-state solution’ – but its pillars (structural separation, military enforcement and deterrence) which had for many Israelis seemed to promise the ‘quiet’ that many hoped for – blew apart on 7 October.

“The trauma of what happened on Oct. 7 shifted Israeli society. It made them question the most basic tenets of whether they were safe in their homes”, said Israeli columnist, Tal Schneider:

“They are calling now for more — more military, more protection, more hard-line policies”.

“Many right-wing people,” Ariella Marsden writes in the Jerusalem Post, “and a minority of left-wingers, saw 7 Oct as proof that peace with the Palestinians is impossible”. Not surprisingly, thinking has turned to population removal which chimes with Netanyahu’s ‘new war of Independence’ theme.

In short, Biden may believe that his ‘long experience’ puts him on the ‘right side’ in judging events. His experience however, is drawn from another era. The political Israel he knew is over: It has reached the end of the road in respect to the old paradigm of its Palestinian modus vivendi. Demography no longer pushes towards ‘giving’ the Palestinians a state, but rather to a clearing of the land of all ‘hostile populations’.

Israelis are rummaging now for their new solution.

And just as Hamas’ resistance has pointed to new ways of conducting warfare, so Biden’s ‘long experience’ exemplified in the sending of 1960s era carriers and vessels to sit offshore, in an age of smart nimble, often untraceable drones and pinpoint missiles, points to something also passé.

The U.S. is directly engaged today in Yemen, Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq and Syria. And as the war widens, so the U.S. will be held at least partly responsible – You deliberately let Gaza break, and what’s broken, you own. What further gets broke, you own that too.

A destitute 2 million Gazans will be all refugees with no government to provide basic functions and services. Does Netanyahu get it? Of course. Do the vast majority of Israelis care? Nope. But the rest of the world does, and sees a dark stain spreading across the map, and leeching into the West.

And does the U.S. Red Sea flotilla; does the diplomatic effort in Lebanon; do the frantic calls to China to ask for help to rein-in Iran, and the efforts in Baghdad – will this suffice to bring an end to the Axis’ plan?

No – the Resistance must see the U.S. floundering and that Israel – suffused with anger – is positively inviting the next ascent up the escalatory ladder of diffused incremental wider conflict.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s disregard for truce speaks volumes of US heartless approach to Gaza genocide: CAIR

Press TV – December 25, 2023

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has slammed US President Joe Biden’s administration for “actively supporting” Israel’s ongoing “genocide and ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and indifference to the genocide there.

In a statement on Sunday, CAIR national communications director of the US-based Muslim advocacy group said Biden’s actions will “stain” the US “international reputation.”

“The Biden administration’s callous indifference to – and active support for – the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by [Israel] will stain our nation’s international reputation for generations to come,” Ibrahim Hooper said.

“The fact that President Biden admits that he did not even ask for a ceasefire in a recent conversation with [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks volumes about the administration’s heartless and immoral approach to the genocide in Gaza,” he added.

On Saturday, Biden told reporters that his conversation with Netanyahu over the war on Gaza was a “long talk,” but he did not ask for a ceasefire in that call.

“Israel has now killed probably more than one in every 100 people in Gaza. That shocking figure alone should be all the evidence that is needed to finally acknowledge the truth of the ‘genocide’ label,” Hooper said.

The statement came as Israel’s deadly air raid on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least 70 people, including pregnant women and children on Monday.

An Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza interviewed eyewitnesses who said Israeli forces killed pregnant women “without mercy.”

“The women were reportedly raising white flags as they were attempting to reach the Al-Awda Hospital when they were shot by Israeli forces,” the reporter said.

On Saturday, CAIR called on Americans of all backgrounds to demand that the Biden administration act to “end the slaughter, starvation and ethnic cleansing.”

The call came after several reports revealed that Israeli forces massacred 76 members of an extended family in Gaza, Israeli-imposed famine is widespread, and that bodies are decaying in the streets and are being dug up by Israeli bulldozers.

The group said more than 110,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and occupation.

Previously, CAIR called on the Biden administration to stop sending what it called “genocide bombs” to Israel after the New York Times revealed that US-supplied 2,000-pound bombs were “routinely” used against Palestinian civilians in so-called “safe areas” in Gaza.

CAIR also said the Biden administration must stop “justifying war crimes” Israel has perpetrated against hospitals after an investigation by the Washington Post debunked claims that Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital had to be attacked because it was a military command center.

Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of death and destruction against Palestinians.

The Israeli attacks have so far killed at least 20,400 Palestinians, including 6,200 women and 8,200 children, and wounded 53,688 others in the besieged territory, where the Zionists cut off fuel, electricity, food, and water to Gaza’s 2.3 million population.

December 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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