By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | May 12, 2023
The Israeli regime’s new assassination campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip has essentially sought to isolate the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance movement from Hamas, in what Palestinian resistance leaders, across the board, believe is a miscalculation.
The Israeli occupation military carried out a barrage of deadly strikes on the residences of PIJ leaders in the Gaza Strip in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
The strikes were carried out just after 2:00 AM local time and claimed the lives of Khalil Bahtini, Jihad Ghanem and Tariq Ezz Ad-Din, three senior leaders of the Gaza-based PIJ movement, along with their spouses and children.
The three resistance leaders were reportedly supposed to head to the Egyptian capital Cairo that day to discuss rising tension in the occupied territories and the regime’s relentless aggression, due to which PIJ had loosened its state of emergency a day earlier.
On Thursday, two more PIJ officials, part of the al-Quds brigades, were assassinated in Israeli drone strikes, prompting a massive barrage of rockets from Gaza towards Tel Aviv and other occupied areas in retaliation.
According to a PIJ military source, who spoke to the Press TV website on the condition of anonymity, Zionists launched the attack to “save their image” and to “isolate the resistance groups”.
“They wanted to see Islamic Jihad isolated from our brothers in Hamas. This has failed and we fight as one force, an attack on one is an attack on all,” he said.
Divide and conquer fails
This statement reflects the sentiment of the PIJ leadership too, who view this battle as a means to demonstrate unity among the resistance movements, which has been established through the Joint Room for the resistance factions in Gaza, which rose to prominence during the Battle of Saif al-Quds in May 2021.
Head of the Islamic Jihad’s political department, Muhammad al-Hindi asserted that there is political communication at the highest level between the two movements and “attempts to drive wedge will fail”.
Hamas has also explicitly said that it is part of the response and its armed wing, the Qassam brigades, is the most powerful force in the Palestinian Joint Room.
The Joint Room also released a statement affirming that the resistance “will remain on all fronts of the homeland as one unit, a sword and a shield for our people, our land, and our sanctities.”
The component of dividing the Palestinian resistance factions has been integral to the Zionist entity’s assassination campaign in Gaza, with the Israeli military warning Hamas to stay out of the confrontation after it carried out its initial strikes.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of war, stated after the first extrajudicial killings were carried out that “the goals of the operation have been achieved; the leadership of Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been eliminated”, without mentioning Hamas.
Calculated response
However, the resistance forces managed to flip the script on their enemy, waiting for over a day before retaliating, despite continued Israeli missile strikes.
The decision to make the Israelis wait for the response caused hysteria, keeping bomb shelters open for settlers throughout occupied Palestine, as they waited for the anticipated response to high-profile assassinations.
Notably, the response of the resistance forces was not anticipated in the way that it happened. Although there were preparations made for rocket fire toward Tel Aviv, many Israeli analysts believed that past strategies of slowly expanding the range of fire would be adopted.
The wait was perhaps the most important component of the initial retaliatory rocket fire, building anticipation and causing bickering amongst Israelis.
Another key component of the Israeli offensive has been the game of political point scoring, claiming imaginary victories and making tall and deceptive statements following the assassination strikes.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners – Likud and Otzma Yehudit – had been in dispute over what was labeled by Israel’s security minister Itamar Ben Gvir as a “feeble” response to the PIJ rocket fire last week.
Adnan’s murder
The rocket fire came as a response from the Joint Room to the custodial murder of Palestinian political icon and PIJ West Bank spokesperson, Khader Adnan, who was allowed to die a slow death inside his cell in an Israeli military prison, denied basic medical aid.
Adnan went on hunger strike for 86 consecutive days and according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society organization his custodial murder came as a result of deliberate medical negligence by prison authorities, therefore making it an assassination, or as one Palestinian group said, “cold-blooded execution”.
Before the killing of Adnan, another exchange of fire occurred between the occupation forces and Gaza’s resistance groups during the holy month of Ramadan.
After the Israeli forces stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, attacked worshippers, desecrated the holy site, and arrested and injured over 400 Palestinians, rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip.
The following day, a barrage of rockets also came from southern Lebanon, followed by two batches of rockets fired from Syria into the occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli strikes in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria were lackluster against the backdrop of major threats from the Zionist entity at the time. In both Gaza and Lebanon, Israeli strikes hit open areas of no strategic value, which even made it to social media memes.
Wary of backlash
It is because of the two previous exchanges that the Zionist regime has gone through a process of repeated embarrassments. Its leadership is wary of the political backlash that would come with the outbreak of a real war with all sides, so it settled for a low-scale battle.
In the case of the latest aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip, the PIJ movement has been chosen as what Israel believes to be an easier target, however, as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh stated this Tuesday, the regime has “severely miscalculated” and instead of being able to isolate PIJ, they have been dragged into a battle with a unified resistance front this time.
On November 12, 2019, the Zionist regime carried out a brief military operation that targeted only the PIJ movement, assassinating the group commander Baha Abu Atta, which sparked days of fierce fighting.
At that time, Palestinian Islamic Jihad fought separately from Hamas even though the relations between both groups remained friendly, contrary to the hideous Israeli propaganda.
Last year, in August, under former Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, the Zionist military launched another military operation to assassinate leading members of PIJ, managing to kill Khaled Mansour and Tayseer Jabaari.
In response, the PIJ movement, as part of the Joint Room, launched “Operation Unity of Squares”, which involved heavy coordination with Hamas throughout.
The aim of dividing the groups failed, yet the Zionist regime managed to keep Hamas from getting involved with full force.
It was using this model that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu launched an attack this time, however, what was planned to be a short assassination campaign failed to isolate the PIJ movement from the other resistance groups and rather unified the resistance front against the occupying entity.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied West Bank.
MEMO | May 11, 2023
The Israeli occupation authorities have been preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza since the start of its offensive on Tuesday night.
In a press release, Head of Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza, Salameh Maarouf, said: “The Israeli occupation has been closing Beit Hanoon Crossing and preventing foreign media crews from entering the strip to cover its offensive.”
Maarouf called on the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and all other bodies concerned with the freedom of the press and freedom of speech to take practical measures against the Israeli occupation so that it lifts its restrictions on the entry of media crews.
He considered the Israeli ban on the entry of foreign media as a “violation of the freedom of journalists to practice their work, as well as a violation of their right to free movement.”
At the same time, he pointed out that the Israeli occupation bans foreign journalists from entering Gaza during every offensive it carries out against the besieged coastal enclave.
Maarouf stressed that the “silence of the international bodies concerned with media is the reason that encourages the Israeli occupation to repeat and continue its oppressive and suppressive violations.”
The Cradle | May 11, 2023
US officials blocked an effort led by China at the UN Security Council (UNSC) on 10 May to condemn Israel’s latest onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to senior Israeli officials that spoke with the Times of Israel.
Washington’s interference reportedly came at the request of Tel Aviv, who feared the motion at Tuesday’s emergency meeting “would draw an equivalence” between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) resistance group.
Over the decades, the US has consistently stepped in to protect Israel from facing the consequences of rampant human rights abuses, the military occupation of Palestinian land, and the imposition of an apartheid system targeting Palestinians.
The only exception to this rule came earlier this year, when Washington allowed a statement to pass at the UNSC blasting Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. Nonetheless, the US went on to block a binding resolution against Israel.
Former US President Harry Truman was the first world leader to recognize Israel when it was created in 1948 following the ‘Nakba,’ or catastrophe, during which at least 700,000 Palestinians were violently evicted from their lands by Jewish settlers.
Israel is also the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid in the post-World War II era and enjoys unequivocal political and diplomatic cover from both the Democratic and Republican parties as well as from US corporate media.
However, US influence in the region has started to wane in recent months, pushing Israel further into isolation.
Last month, Beijing offered to help facilitate peace talks between Israel and Palestine as part of a larger effort to mediate historic conflicts in West Asia.
In December, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed support for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and voiced frustration over the “historical injustice” suffered by Palestinians.
He also called for granting Palestine “full membership in the United Nations” and said Beijing “supports the two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The Asian giant has slammed recent comments by a Jewish supremacist government minister, who in March said, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”
“The Israeli senior official is wrong and irresponsible to deny Palestinian people’s existence and to display an ‘Israel map’ including Jordan and Palestinian places occupied by Israel at an event in Paris,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry.
MEMO | May 9, 2023
The Israeli occupation authorities jailed former Jerusalem Minister Khaled Abu Arafa for four months on Monday under an administrative detention order. The order was imposed a week after he was kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces from his temporary residence in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
Abu Arafa and three other Jerusalemites were stripped of their Israeli identity documents when they won seats in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election. They were all jailed under administration detention orders which were renewed regularly with neither charge nor trial until they were released in May 2010. They were then expelled from Jerusalem after staging a protest in the office of the International Red Cross in the city that lasted until September 2011, and were forbidden from returning to the occupied city.
Since then, they have been living in temporary homes in the occupied West Bank. This has not stopped the occupation authorities from harassing and now detaining them under new administrative detention orders.
RT | May 9, 2023
The Israel Defense Forces launched operation ‘Shield and Arrow’ against the leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza on Tuesday morning, allegedly killing several high-ranking militants – as well as their wives, children and other civilians nearby.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qedra, told RIA Novosti that one of the victims was a citizen of Russia, Jamal Abu Haswan, who “died in Gaza City as a result of shelling by the Israel Defense Forces.”
A neighbor and friend of the deceased told the agency that “a rocket hit the apartment where Abu Haswan lived, which led to his death along with his wife and son.” According to RIA, Abu Haswan worked at a medical facility that “specializes in physical therapy and medical rehabilitation.”
The air raid took place at around 2am local time and left at least 20 people injured in addition to the 12 killed, according to the latest estimates.
The IDF has issued a rare statement confirming its military operation against the PIJ, claiming to have neutralized three top members of the group.
The Palestinian Health ministry said the militants’ families and other civilians were killed in the strikes on an apartment building in Gaza City and a house in the southern city of Rafah.
In early summer 1992 I caught the documentary film Manufacturing Consent when it opened in San Francisco’s Castro Theater. That film changed my life. It showcased Noam Chomsky, an accomplished linguistics professor, and his analysis of corporate media propaganda. Manufacturing Consent convinced me that the American academy could tolerate, and indeed celebrate, serious social criticism. If Chomsky, a radical opponent of America’s most powerful institutions, could not only survive but thrive in academia, speaking truth to power and building a huge audience along the way, why couldn’t others do the same?
Before that screening, I had been a profoundly alienated bohemian haunting the margins of academia, so disgusted by all of America’s institutions that I could scarcely have imagined working for them. (Learning the facts about the JFK assassination at age 16 can do that to a person.) But Chomsky’s example inspired me. It made me want to join him and the other academic critics of US empire, convince our colleagues of the truth of our arguments using logic and evidence, and help the USA return to its anti-imperial roots and then some.
So it was largely thanks to Chomsky that I entered a Ph.D. program in 1995. But by then I had noticed two glaring anomalies in his political thought. The first, and most important, was that his analysis of the JFK assassination seemed insane. Chomsky argued that the assassination was obviously a conspiracy, and not the work of a lone nut as the official story has it—but that it didn’t matter who killed JFK, because the assassination didn’t change any policies! Since he felt it was so utterly unimportant that the president was murdered by conspirators powerful enough to force their ludicrous cover story on the world, Chomsky evinced no interest whatsoever in identifying the perpetrators, and discouraged his followers from further interest in the topic.
“Take for example all this frenzy about the JFK assassination. I mean I don’t know who assassinated him and I don’t care, but what difference does it make?” – Noam Chomsky
The other anomaly involved the question of Palestine. Though Chomsky has verbally sympathized with Palestinian suffering, and admitted the justice of the Palestinian cause, he has vociferously obstructed the two most promising strategic efforts that could help Palestine defeat Zionism: The boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement, and the campaign to expose Zionist control over US Mideast policy.
Alison Weir once asked Chomsky why he opposed BDS and why he had falsely claimed that it was bad for Palestinians (who almost unanimously support it). “The reason is very simple. It’s so utterly hypocritical that it’s basically a gift to the hardliners. They can say, ‘Look, you’re calling for a boycott of Israel, but you’re not calling for a boycott of the United States which has a much worse record…’”
Would Israeli hardliners ever actually say such a thing? And would it matter even if they did? Of course not. Here again, Chomsky is spouting sheer nonsense, prefaced by the obligatory disclaimer “it’s very simple.” When someone as seemingly intelligent as Chomsky says such things, there are really only two possible interpretations: Either he is suffering from some bizarre mental dysfunction, or he is lying and gaslighting us.
Chomsky’s occasional habit of emitting streams of discombobulated blather repeatedly surfaces when he is asked about Israel’s control of US Mideast policy. As James Petras writes, “Noam Chomsky has long been one of the great obfuscators of AIPAC and the existence of Zionist power over US Middle East policy.” The nonsensical gnome ludicrously argues that US policymakers’ enslavement to Israel actually serves US national and imperial interests. For him, Israel is basically a powerless appendage of US empire. Chomsky’s implicit subtext is that anyone who notices Israel’s death grip on US foreign policy, including Walt and Mearsheimer, Alan Hart, James Petras, J. William Fulbright, James Abourezk, Paul Findley, and indeed every honest and informed analyst who has considered the question, must be “anti-Semitic.”
My issues with Chomsky’s repeated bouts of apparent insanity came to a head after 9/11. In November 2001, Chomsky published a “surprise” bestseller. Entitled 9/11 and republished ten years later as 9/11: Was There an Alternative?, the book basically repeats Chomsky’s vacuous diatribes about the JFK coup d’état—“it doesn’t matter who did it, do NOT look behind the curtain”—and applies them to 9/11.
“If if it were true [9/11 conspiracy theories], which is extremely unlikely, what difference does it make? I mean, it doesn’t have any significance.” –Noam Chomsky, interview with David Barsamian
While I was participating in the rise of the 9/11 truth movement from 2004 onwards, I noticed that Chomsky was growing ever-more-strident in attacking truth-seekers and insisting that it didn’t matter who did 9/11. In 2008 I invited him on my radio show, which led to an exchange of emails culminating in his last-minute refusal to appear. I was flabbergasted by Chomsky’s seemingly insane statements and positions. When he finally started lying outright, I concluded that he must be acting in bad faith. I published the private emails in their entirety because I thought the world needed to know the truth about the evident gross immorality (or, charitably, insanity) of America’s most celebrated (fake) dissident.
Then in 2016 I gave a talk at the Left Forum on “Why Chomsky Is Wrong About 9/11.” Though my criticisms of Chomsky were quite restrained in tone, given his appalling betrayals, I was banned from the Left Forum the following year. Apparently going to the Left Forum to criticize Chomsky is like going to the Vatican to criticize the Pope.
Read the full text of “Why Chomsky Is Wrong About 9/11”
Over the years, it dawned on me that if Chomsky were deliberately leading people astray, there would have to be some sort of method in his apparent madness. Why would he herd the critical thinkers and idealists of the left away from the truth about the JFK assassination, 9/11, Zionist control of US policy, and the best strategy for saving Palestine? Whose interests would be served by those four acts of deception?
The question, of course, answers itself. As Michael Collins Piper, Laurent Guyénot, Ron Unz, Alan Hart, and so many others have suggested, the leading suspect in both the JFK and 9/11 coups is the state of Israel and its “American” acolytes. Chomsky has been consistently, systematically gaslighting his followers on the four issues most crucial to the preservation and expansion of Zionist power. As Jeffrey Blankfort writes:
“At the end of the day, it is evident that Chomsky’s affection for Israel, his sojourn on a kibbutz, his Jewish identity, and his early experiences with anti-Semitism to which he occasionally refers have colored his approach to every aspect of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and explain his defense of Israel. That is his right, of course, but not to pretend at the same that he is an advocate for justice in Palestine.”
Since our ill-starred 2008 email exchange I have leaned towards acknowledging the likelihood that Chomsky is a lying, gaslighting Zionist scumbag. But I wasn’t sure until a few days ago, when the news broke that Chomsky had repeatedly hobnobbed with then-convicted-sex-criminal Jeffrey Epstein, including meeting Epstein together with pervert and 9/11 suspect Ehud Barak, apparently even flying on Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express. Characteristically, Chomsky dissembled: “If there was a flight (with Epstein), which I doubt…” If Chomsky hadn’t flown with Epstein, of course, he would just say so. His mealymouthed evasions of the truth, whether of JFK, 9/11, Israeli occupation of America, or his relations with Epstein and Barak, have a vacuously passive-aggressive tone that is inimitably Chomsky-esque, but jarringly incommensurate with his reputation as one of the world’s greatest linguists.
Chomsky’s response to journalists’ questions about his relationship with Epstein began: “First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s.” That is, of course, exactly what many people would say when questioned about their sexual activities with consenting adults. So why is Chomsky proffering a stock “don’t ask me about my sex life” response when questioned about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his stable of underage prostitutes?
Methinks the gnome doth protest too much.
More troubling than whether Chomsky (statutorily) raped young girls is the question of why he was meeting with Israel’s top blackmailer of American leaders, Jeffrey Epstein, alongside the likely mastermind of 9/11, Ehud Barak. Barak resigned as Prime Minister of Israel in May of 2001 and disappeared from public view, presumably spending June through early September working on plans to demolish the World Trade Center, attack the Pentagon, and blame the carnage on Israel’s enemies. Barak’s work on the lead-up to 9/11 recalls Ben Gurion’s resignation as Israeli Prime Minister and disappearance from public view in June, 1963, after which he went underground and presumably orchestrated the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November. The moral: When Israeli PMs resign in the spring, get ready for something big come fall.
Ehud Barak was conveniently pre-placed in BBC’s London studios so he could go live an hour after 9/11, where he recited what would become the official story:
Barak’s coercion was aimed at the masses, who were traumatized by the horrific images they had just seen on TV and open to hypnotic suggestion—which Barak obligingly provided, implanting the pre-scripted official version deep in their subconscious minds. Chomsky, by contrast, was deployed a few months later against leftists and intellectuals, who were understandably suspicious and predisposed to mistrust the Bush Administration and its rush to war against Israel’s enemies. (That Chomsky’s coverup-propaganda broadside 9/11 shot up the bestseller lists in November 2001 was hardly surprising, given the realities of power in America’s media, book publishing and distribution industries.)
Many languages have one or more proverbs that roughly translate as “A man is known by the company he keeps.” By simultaneously meeting Epstein and Barak, Noam Chomsky has unmasked himself as a top-level Zionist sheepdog tasked with keeping the dumb American goyim cattle blind, ignorant, and cooped up in their pens, bleating out the platitudes they are taught by their Zionist betters. To say that the scandal will tarnish Chomsky’s legacy is inaccurate, because there is no legacy to tarnish. Chomsky is a charlatan and a fraud. He stands revealed as an agent of the world’s most genocidal and most systematically terrorist state—a state that has attacked the United States of America repeatedly since 1954, assassinating its best leaders, murdering its sailors and civilians, looting its nuclear arsenal and its treasury, and generally assuming much of the responsibility for its impending destruction.
So what did Chomsky talk about with Israel’s top blackmailer Epstein and 9/11 perp Barak? Did the conversation sound like Netanyahu’s talk with his cronies at Fink’s Bar in Jerusalem in 1990?
At the head of the table was Netanyahu. The group at the table had just stolen 5 American KG 84 cryptographic devices with the help of Canadians serving with the UNTSO on the Golan Heights, giving this Israeli-led cabal real-time access to all US State Department, Naval and NATO communications. This is a transcribed quote taken from an audio recording of Netanyahu at that meeting:
“If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do, America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the will of God, and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.”
Chomsky’s contempt for Americans, and for the intelligence of his American audience, is every bit as palpable as Netanyahu’s. And Epstein’s. And Barak’s.
Maybe it’s time for him to make aliyah… and thank Yahweh that Israel won’t sign extradition treaties.
The Cradle | May 2, 2023
Israel launched fresh airstrikes on Syria’s Aleppo in the late hours of 1 May, killing one soldier and once again putting Aleppo International Airport out of service.
“At about 11:35 PM, Israel carried out an aerial aggression using waves of missiles from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting its airport and several sites in its vicinity,” a military source told SANA.
“The Israeli aggression claimed the life of a military personnel and caused the injury of seven others [including two civilians],” the source added.
This is the second time in less than two months that Aleppo International Airport has been crippled as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
On 7 March, Israeli jets bombarded Aleppo airport, damaging its runway and forcing aid deliveries for quake-struck Syria to be redirected to Latakia and Damascus airports.
A few days later, the UN issued a statement condemning the strikes and saying that such attacks “impede humanitarian access and could have drastic humanitarian consequences for millions of people who have been affected by the earthquake.”
“Attacks must never be directed against civilians or civilian objects. The humanitarian community has been responding to one of the worst crises that hit Syria since 6 February against the background of 12 years of conflict, economic decline, and a desperate humanitarian situation,” the UN statement said at the time, adding that Aleppo is “one of the worst earthquake-impacted governorates in Syria.”
Both Damascus and Aleppo airports have been regular targets for the Israeli air force. At the start of this year, Israeli strikes left Damascus International Airport crippled and out of commission.
This is the eleventh Israeli attack against Syria since the devastating earthquake ravaged much of the country in February. Just two days ago, Israeli strikes in Homs left several injured.
Israel’s airstrikes on Syria are illegal under international law but frequently happen under the pretext of targeting Iranian and Hezbollah targets. More often than not, however, the strikes target the Syrian army.
As a result, Tehran has expressed its willingness to bolster Syria’s air defenses to counter the continuous Israeli attacks better.
Christian and Muslim persecution in Israel ignored by the White House
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 25, 2023
The United States government, in its incessant bullying of foreign nations to get them to see the world the way that the cabal that runs Washington sees it, ironically often cites such fictions as the “rule of law” that guarantees such “rights” as “free speech” and “freedom of religion” to justify its illegal actions. Right at the moment, the United States maintains garrisons illegally in both Iraq, where the country’s parliament has asked it to depart, and also in neighboring Syria where the government is fighting an insurgency that seeks regime change and is supported by both the US and Israel. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is analogous to what Russia has done in Ukraine though Moscow certainly had stronger compelling national security reasons for doing what it did while the United States had to construct a series of lies to provide as an excuse to topple Saddam Hussein, an objective strongly supported by Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who added his own fabrications to the exchanges.
One has to look to the media to discern the reasons why some developments are wrapped in “religious freedom” or “democracy promotion” while other actions are ignored or even covered-up. Currently the right-wing Jewish extremists who have gained control of Israel’s government are engaging in something like genocide directed against the Palestinian population, many of whom are actually Israeli citizens though possessing second class rights when they are enforced at all. Israel regards itself legally as a Jewish state, so what is the “rule of law” for those who are not Jews and how does it perceive “religious freedom?” Considerable government pressure is being exerted to force the “terrorists,” as the Arab residents are frequently called, to emigrate or face the consequences if they choose not to. It is directed most particularly against those Palestinians who are leaders in their community and it has therefore focused on the major Arab religious groups, both the Christians and the Muslims.
Ironically, though one can read in the US media almost daily accounts of alleged surging anti-semitism and the myth of perpetual Jewish victimhood, the ongoing brutality against the Palestinians, including their religious foundations and practices, is hardly noticed. That is the fundamental problem as the silence or perhaps the willful connivance of the American media and entertainment industry, firmly in the grip of the Jewish community and its “standards,” has shaped the narrative and limited any propagation of contrary opinion. It is a process that is similar to what has taken place with any discussion of the Ukraine war in the mainstream media, where there is also a heavy Jewish footprint.
There have been two major incidents involving Jewish assertion of its occupation of and control over all of Jerusalem that have recently impacted on the country’s religious minorities during their holy seasons, Easter and Ramadan. The first consisted of two consecutive middle-of- the-night attacks by Israeli police and soldiers in full riot gear armed with stun grenades and clubs on Palestinians spending the night at the al-Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims. The Palestinian men were there in part to protect the building from Jewish settlers who have been threatening to destroy it. The Palestinians inside were beaten by police, who had broken into the mosque, and as many as 350 mostly young men were later arrested for resisting.
The second incident was an order by Israeli police limiting the regular Christian gathering on Holy Saturday, referred to as the “Holy Fire” celebration, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which normally attracts 10,000 worshippers, to no more than 1,800 attendees. On the day of the ceremony, Israeli police reacted with heavy-handed tactics to block hundreds of Orthodox Christians from gathering at the church, which is at the center of the old Christian quarter of the city. Several Coptic Orthodox priests were particularly targeted in front of the church and beaten with batons. Israeli forces closed off access to the site with roadblocks and barriers at the gates of the Old City, permitting only small numbers of Christians and those with government permits to enter.
Both steps restricting freedom of religion were taken without any consultation with the respective communities and without any evidence that there would be disorder or violence without the police interventions. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli action as a “blatant attack on the freedom of worship” and a “flagrant attack on the existing political, historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem and on Israel’s obligations as an occupying regime in Jerusalem” that
“violate international law, international humanitarian law and signed agreements.” The Christian churches’ leadership also separately objected to no avail and responded to the threat by observing that Palestinian Christians are themselves under increasing pressure from the Israeli government to force them to emigrate. Christians constituted 20% of the Israeli population in 1947 but now are fewer than 2%.
Indeed, since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history, Palestinian Christians frequently experience Jewish Israeli discrimination at all levels. They directly observe how their 2,000-year-old community in the Holy Land has come under increasing attack. In March, two Israeli men assaulted and beat a priest in the church sited at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary. In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalized by an American Jewish tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Jesus was flogged and sentenced to death while a month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were desecrated by two Jewish teenagers at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion, where Jesus’s Last Supper took place. In November, two soldiers from the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade spit at the Armenian archbishop and other pilgrims during a procession in the Old City. Christian clerics living in Jerusalem claim that they are frequently physically assaulted and spat on by settlers and other Jewish Israelis when they are walking in the streets. The Israeli government has also been increasingly confiscating church properties for various projects that benefit only the Jewish community. When Christians seek redress from the Israeli courts they are almost always denied justice.
Now one would think that the United States, with its dedication to “rule of law” and religious freedom would at a minimum condemn the Israeli actions, particularly the unprovoked violent attack on peaceful Muslims during their high holy days at al-Aqsa. But no, and this is how a State Department spokesman Vedant Patel described it: “We are concerned by the scenes out of Jerusalem. And it is our viewpoint that it is absolutely vital that the sanctity of holy sites be preserved. We emphasize the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardizes the status quo to us is unacceptable. We call for restraint, coordination and calm during the holiday season.”
So the State Department believes that Israel did not initiate the violence, which is, of course, false. And Patel felt compelled to add an additional comment on recent home-made rocket attacks coming from Lebanon in the wake of the police and army actions: “We condemn the launch of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza at Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and we recognize that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression.” Don’t you love the frequent assertion of the claim that Israel has a “right to defend itself?” Patel was in fact wrong about Gaza firing missiles – that was a fiction invented by the Israeli government to explain why it had responded with a bombardment of its own directed against the long-suffering Gazans. The hostile rockets, which did little damage and injured no one, actually came from a Palestinian group in Lebanon. Apparently, the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors do not have the right to defend themselves or to respond to Jewish violence. Rule of law and religious freedom appear to depend on who is attempting to exercise those rights and under what circumstances.
Interestingly, the New York Times had its own bizarre description of what took place at al-Aqsa. Their correspondent wrote how the crisis started when Palestinians “barricaded themselves” overnight inside the building before being “cleared” by police from the mosque in the middle of the night, to “protect Jewish worshippers” who were reportedly observing the Passover holiday in the vicinity. In other words, the violence was initiated by the Israelis but it was to prevent any threat against Jews, even though there is no evidence that anything like that was intended and why Jews were present at close quarters to a Muslim holy site is not clear. By one report, extremist Jews may have been preparing to sacrifice a goat.
On April 14th, to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Joe Biden demonstrated the he is not as brain dead as is often claimed. He knows exactly who owns him and knows how to pile it on. His proclamation reads: “During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Together with courageous survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our solemn vow: ‘never again.’”
Clearly Joe had not gotten the message that in America every day is de facto holocaust remembrance day as measured by the frequent appearance of that expression in the media. But he makes sure of the trans gay vote by including the LGBTQI+ folks as victims of the Nazis. Perhaps Joe should pay some attention to the Americans murdered by the Israelis, to include the 34 crewmen of the USS Liberty killed by the Israeli military in 1967, activist Rachel Corrie crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 and most recently Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israeli army last May. Israel has not been held accountable for any of those deaths and it knows it can get away with anything, including targeting and killing US citizens.
Next week, the GOP will be doubling down on the message as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy leads a delegation of twenty bipartisan fawning congress critters to Israel. He has carefully billed it as his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining what an important ally Israel is. He will address the Knesset on May 1st and there will no doubt be a lot of kissing and hugging with Bibi and many pledges of undying commitment to the Jewish state. The Israeli government is already describing it as “Speaker McCarthy’s speech in the Knesset will be a sign for the strong and unbreakable bond between Israel and the US.” And no doubt lots of money will appear in the pipeline so Israel can defend itself. Just don’t mention Israel’s recent premeditated murder of Shireen Abu Akleh back or “religious freedom.” And to hell with the Palestinian Christians. They have been hanging around for 2,000 years but are on their way out.
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.
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | April 23, 2023
Israeli regime forces covered up a failed mission to penetrate the Jenin refugee camp and arrest or kill a resistance fighter, sources in contact with the Jenin Brigades in the northern occupied West Bank revealed to the Press TV Website.
If true, this marks a significant failure that matches up with various other cases of botched Israeli military operations across the occupied territories.
On April 18, the Israeli occupation army hatched a plan to target two “most wanted” West Bank resistance fighters, connected to the Jenin Brigades armed group, inside the Jenin refugee camp.
The plot choreographed to apprehend them was significant as this was the first raid in months that sought to penetrate the refugee camp itself, an area that has become a fortress since late last year.
The Jenin Brigades was officially formed in September of 2021, after having operated unofficially as early as May of that year under the command of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Jamil al-Amoudi.
Since its formation, the group has significantly grown in numbers and strength inside the Jenin refugee camp, referred to locally as the “Hornet’s Nest”, emerging initially with around a dozen fighters and now operating in the hundreds.
Since 2022, the Jenin Brigades fighters have set up effective roadblocks at the entrances to the camp, using what is known as Chechen hedgehogs to block the passage of Israeli military vehicles.
The roadblocks force Israeli occupation soldiers to exit their vehicles in order to remove the blockages, exposing them to the fire of resistance fighters.
Several other security precautions have been taken, like covering certain areas with tarps in order to prevent enemy drones from locating resistance fighters.
These tactics have also been extended to other areas in the Jenin governorate, and have proven successful in deterring the Israeli regime’s incursions into the hub of the resistance for some time.
On January 26, a massacre was committed against Palestinians from the Jenin refugee camp. Ten Palestinians were murdered by the occupying forces in cold blood, including an elderly woman.
However, this Israeli raid was not carried out inside the refugee camp itself but happened on the periphery. The reason for the avoidance of entering deep inside the camp is that an armed battle on that terrain poses an extreme risk of the loss of forces for Zionists.
Zionist forces botch Jenin raid
The first attempt was made this year to enter the camp itself, on Tuesday the 18th of April, but seemingly only sought to penetrate a perimeter close to the entrance of the camp.
The official narrative in the Zionist Hebrew press is that three Palestinians were arrested within minutes of the mission’s initiation after Israeli forces stationed themselves there for around an hour.
According to Tal Lev Ram, the chief military correspondent for the Zionist media outlet called Maariv, three Palestinians arrested were part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement and were planning to carry out an explosive attack.
Tal Lev Ram is a former spokesperson for the Zionist military’s Southern Command. He also formerly worked as a military correspondent for the official Israeli army radio station.
This context to the Zionist reporter is important because he peddles the line of the Zionist armed forces.
Two informed sources — one who is on the ground in Jenin and another who has direct contact with a resistance fighter from the Jenin Brigades inside the camp — disputed the Israeli narrative and claimed that the Zionist narrative is a cover-up.
The first source, who was in Jenin camp when the raid occurred, explained that key facts had been distorted or completely invented by Israelis.
The source said that an undercover Israeli unit stationed itself at the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, traveling in a truck used for plumbing services.
Gunfire was heard, and they heard from camp residents that someone wanted by the Israelis had fled from al-Tawalbeh Mosque.
The source emphasized the claims that the occupation forces had actually penetrated the camp were wrong and that this would have resulted in a massive clash, asserting that they only operated at the entrance area, analyzing that this was likely a strategic decision.
Furthermore, the source spoke about the use of a woman as a human shield by one of the Israeli units, who used her in order to prevent Palestinian resistance fighters from shooting at them.
The second source, who had directly contacted a fighter in the Jenin Brigades to understand their take, gave details at length.
According to this source, only one of the three Palestinians arrested was a target for the Israelis and none of them was in the possession of any weapons.
The first two men arrested were Amjad and Ahmad Jaradat. While Ahmad was wanted by the Israelis and had an affiliation with PIJ, his brother Amjad was taken after being briefly interrogated inside a house at the camp’s entrance.
Amjad was not actually a target and it seemed as if Israeli forces had taken him out of anger.
The third Palestinian arrested was Abdul Kareem Abu Nasseh. He was also not wanted by Israeli forces and was allegedly picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He is not part of the PIJ movement. Instead, he is part of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an unofficial Fatah party-affiliated armed group.
This fact was carefully omitted from Zionist media reports that claimed that those arrested were all part of PIJ. Abu Nasseh has been detained by the Palestinian Authority security forces before, meaning that the Israelis knew he is not part of PIJ, as the PA shares intelligence and security information with the occupation army.
The source also claimed that a Palestinian fighter named Hamed Naaseh was the main target, but he had fled the scene of the al-Tawalbeh mosque and evaded capture. He is well known to the Zionist military, which seeks to capture or kill him.
If this account is to be believed, it means that out of three fighters who were kidnapped, only one was actually a target, with the main target getting away.
The source also stated that Israeli forces had positioned themselves in two vehicles, one at the entrance to the camp and another just outside the camp.
The Jenin Brigades had been monitoring one of the vehicles, identified as a minivan, that was stationary for around 50 minutes, opening fire at it as soon as Israeli soldiers exited the vehicle.
The occupation forces then called in reinforcements, deploying military bulldozers and a truck, after gunfire erupted.
The source revealed that the reinforcements sent had indicated that Israeli forces sought to set up a checkpoint and apply the pressure cooker tactic.
The pressure cooker tactic is to besiege resistance fighters inside a building from all angles and fire shoulder-mounted missiles at the structure, before eventually raiding it with special forces.
Despite bringing in the vehicles and troops necessary, the Israelis were unable to pull this off as their target had already fled.
Both sources agreed that if there was an imminent threat of a bombing attack emanating from Jenin camp, as suggested by the Israeli military, they would have surely seized explosives or weapons, yet they did not recover any weapons from those arrested.
Israelis oblivious to the truth
The old tactic of hiding military failures, along with the loss of troops, has become a well-documented feature of the Zionist entity, as noted by all close observers.
This has even cost Israeli rulers politically in the past, the most prominent case being when the Salah al-Deen brigades released a video showing a military operation they had conducted in February of 2018, months later in November of that year.
An Israeli undercover unit that had penetrated the Gaza Strip in 2018 was uncovered by the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, thwarting a plot to kidnap one of its commanders, Nour Baraka.
The video released on Al-Mayadeen TV at the time showed a group of Israeli soldiers approaching the Gaza separation fence to pull down a Palestinian flag pole, which then exploded and killed a number of them.
The Israeli military had not revealed to its public that such a military operation had occurred back in February. The situation was so embarrassing that the then-Israeli minister of war, Avigdor Lieberman, was forced to resign from his position.
The Zionist armed forces also frequently claim to hit high-value Hamas resistance movement targets in Gaza, which frequently turn out to be open agricultural areas and empty training sites.
In the latest escalation between the resistance forces and the Israeli regime during Ramadan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have hit targets belonging to Hezbollah and Hamas in southern Lebanon.
The reality was that the strikes only caused material damage and hit banana trees, provoking satirical reactions inside Lebanon, with some locals referring to the Israeli strikes as “Operation Banana Split”.
It is likely that the Israeli regime conceals its failures and military losses for fear of backlash from the Israeli public who interpret such failures as political weakness on the part of ruling coalitions.
A recent poll conducted by the Zionist ‘Channel 13 News channel indicated that 71 percent of Israeli respondents indicated that Netanyahu’s performance as prime minister was “not good”.
Taking into account his poll, the ruling far-right coalition led by Netanyahu, which is already facing an unprecedented existential crisis amid raging anti-regime protests, may be cautious in what information it lets surface about the failures of its military.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied West Bank.
MEMO | April 20, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Saudi Arabia could regret its rapprochement with Tehran as Iran is the reason for most of the problems in the Middle East, which he believes the US should be more involved in.
In statements made on Wednesday night to CNBC, Netanyahu said that 95 per cent of the Middle East’s problems emanate from Iran.
He added that the proof of the “misery” that Saudi Arabia may experience due to its rapprochement with Iran is evident in “Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq”. He also explained that he views the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, agreed on 10 March when Saudi Arabia and Iran announced the restoration of their diplomatic relations and reopening of embassies, as having more to do with the war in Yemen.
“I think that Saudi Arabia, the leadership there, has no illusions about who are their adversaries, and who are their friends,” he said.
“We’d like very much to have peace with Saudi Arabia. Because I think it would be another huge quantum leap for peace. In many ways it would end the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Netanyahu, adding: “I think the sky’s the limit. And even the sky’s not the limit, because there are many opportunities in space as well.”
Asked about China’s manoeuvres in the Middle East, Netanyahu said that he had no knowledge of a Chinese proposal to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but said: “We respect China, we deal with China a great deal. But we also know we have an indispensable alliance with our great friend the United States.”
He called for increased US involvement in the Middle East, and said: “I think that not only Israel but I think in many ways most of the … countries in the Middle East would welcome an American, not merely the American involvement in the Middle East which has been ongoing, but a greater engagement of America in the Middle East.”
“I think it’s very important for the United States to be very clear about its commitment and engagement in the Middle East.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts that his country was ready to help facilitate peace talks between the two sides, the latest mediation effort in the region, in separate phone conversations on Monday.
Gang expressed China’s concern over the escalating tensions between the two sides and its support for the resumption of peace talks.
The restoration of diplomatic relations, which were severed between Tehran and Riyadh in 2016, was a major turning point for China’s diplomacy and acted as evidence of its ability to play a role in changing the Middle East.
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | April 18, 2023
Scotland is one of the smallest countries in the world but you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that last month Humza Yousaf became the first Muslim to be elected as a leader in Western Europe.
You’d also have to live somewhere very remote to be unaware his political party, the Scottish National Party (SNP), was plunged into chaos within hours of his appointment as Police Scotland conducted a raid on the home of his predecessor, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as the party’s headquarters in Edinburgh.
Her unexpected resignation as the leader of the Scottish Government was widely reported around the world but the speculation over her departure gave way to euphoria in large parts of Scotland’s vibrant Muslim community who support the country’s independence movement.
However, one of the most powerful Muslim political pressure groups in the UK reckons his appointment is not a cause for celebration. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, MPACUK has accused Yousaf of wanting “to break Scotland away from England’s chains, yet denies the same right for Palestine”.
In a damning article on its website, MPACUK wrote: “As the new leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, he is supposed to embody their mission objective, ‘a fair society where no-one is left behind’. But if Yousaf is not willing to call out an unjust society when he sees one, it calls into question either his integrity or his intelligence; whichever is found to be deficient, it spells poor leadership from the new First Minister.”
The unjust society referred to by the group is Israel which has also been called an “apartheid state” by US President Jimmy Carter as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and Israeli-run B’Tselem .
Researchers in the group unearthed media claims going back to May 2014 in which Yousaf publicly stated “Israel is not an apartheid state.” Two months later Israel massacred over 2,100 Palestinians in one of its many wars in the Gaza Strip. Thanks to the silent complicity of politicians like Humza Yousaf the story barely made headlines in Western media.
I should declare an interest at this stage as I was a member of the SNP back then and shared platforms with Yousaf and Sturgeon to promote the case for independence. Back in 2021 I left, disillusioned, to join the ALBA Party formed by another former First Minister Alex Salmond whose Palestinian supporting credentials have been well documented by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).
And so, returning to Yousaf’s unseemly support for Israel, he is quoted as saying: “I can give you the Scottish Government’s vow that it is our policy not to boycott Israel…” and he went on to admit the SNP’s position on the Middle East “doesn’t vary much from the UK Government.”
I did write to him at the time and warned him that Palestinian supporters in the SPSC would never forgive or forget what they saw as a betrayal of the Palestinian people.
I do wonder if he has changed his position since then, and, if so, then he must tell us. The change could’ve been influenced by his second wife, Nadia El-Nakla, who is also an SNP politician and a local councillor, who just happens to be Palestinian. She is undoubtedly proud of her Palestinian roots and her family still resides in Gaza.
Humza certainly found his voice when the Zionist State launched a brutal bombardment on Palestinians in Ramadan of 2021. In newspaper articles he was critical of the violence which threatened the lives of his in-laws in Gaza and said he would “pray and hope they are alive in the morning” – that hope specifically being that “the international community intervenes and actually tackles the root of this conflict.”
This statement incurred the wrath of MPACUK which demanded: “Intervenes how, Yousaf? Tackle what root of the conflict? You have already indicated you will not hold Israel accountable. You refuse to stand for Palestine – can you really be trusted to stand for Scotland?”
Mick Napier, co-founder of SPSC, said: “As a first step, we urge the new First Minister to reaffirm the 2014 call from the Scottish Government, repeated in 2015, for an arms embargo on Israel.”
“He also needs to recognise that all major human rights groups have created a situation where sticking to his denial that Israel is an apartheid state will cut him off from progressive currents in Scotland. He will find that he can never placate the pro-Israel lobby except by praising Israeli crimes and condemning those who resist its barbarism against the Palestinian people. He can easily find out the depth of depravity of Israeli crimes but if he’s too busy he can just call his family in Gaza and get them to point their phones at the drones above, grey warships patrolling the shore, or the wall with robot machine guns keeping them under constant surveillance.”
Napier’s and MPACUK’s cutting observations will pile on more pressure on the under-fire First Minister who stands accused of supporting the oppressive state and, even worse, to the detriment of his own family. He won the leadership contest in a closely fought battle with female politicians Kate Forbes and Ash Regan under the ticket of being the “continuity candidate”.
But as critics have already pointed out, as long as Humza Yousaf is viewed as an ally to Israel, he cannot be a champion of independence.
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By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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