For a country that practices apartheid, defies international law, and engages in ethnic cleansing, Israel is popular in the US Congress. During just about 125 days in session, the houses of Congress managed to entertain more than 70 new pieces of legislation pandering to Israel.
It is no coincidence that the pro-Israel lobby is arguably the most pervasive and influential lobby in the U.S. – and that Israel partisans, many of them billionaires, make massive campaign donations to both parties.
This year’s legislative items include plenty of military aid and non-financial perks for Israel, and scoldings for those who speak ill (if truthfully) of the Jewish state.
Americans need to know how generous our legislators are with our tax dollars – toward a country that is universally known to be a human rights abuser. Below is a list of legislation currently under consideration in Congress (and there will be more in the coming days). Also find links to plenty of facts about Israel – illustrating that Israel may not be the sort of state that Americans should bankroll.
(Note that the three bills in support of Palestinian rights – one quite robust, and two marginally beneficial – at the bottom of the article.)
A fire rages at sunrise in Khan Yunis following an Israeli airstrike on targets in the southern Gaza strip, May 12, 2021. During the recent violence, Israeli military forces killed 260 Gazans, while Palestinian resistance forces killed 13 Israelis – sources & more information here. (YOUSSEF MASSOUD | Credit: AFP via Getty Images)
LEGISLATION TO PROVIDE MONEY FOR ISRAEL
This first batch of legislation seeks to provide the standard annual $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel ($10.8 million a day), and then some.
Since 1946, two years before Israel’s founding on 78% of mandatory Palestine, the US has given Israel $154.7 billion in total military aid (adjusted for inflation: $243.9 billion) – more US assistance than any other country since World War II – this in spite of US laws that forbid military aid to countries committing gross human rights violations (like Israel).
Some of the legislation listed here ensures the flow of the usual sum of $3.8 billion a year; others seek to fund Israel through less direct ways. If these pass, taken together they may bring our daily contribution on behalf of Israel closer to $20 million.
H.R.4373 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022
This bill provides the largest chunk – $3.3 billion – in military aid to Israel, and encourages Arab states to end their boycott of Israel and normalize relations.
This bill also earmarks $3 billion more in expenditures not to Israel itself, but for Israel’s benefit.
Read about the billions of taxpayer dollars earmarked for Israel in this bill here.
H.R.4432 – Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2022
This bill provides FY2022 appropriations to the Department of Defense (DOD) for military activities, including $500 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system (despite the fact that Israel, a human rights abuser, sells military technology to other states that are human rights abusers, and refuses to share some technology with the US, even though we subsidized its development).
Read the details of funding to Israel in this bill here; read about the massive US investment in Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system here (and US expenditures overall in Israel here); read about the minor effects of Gazan rockets on Israel here; read about Israel’s refusal to share technology with the US here.
These bills call for an additional $1 billion in emergency funding for Israel’s Iron Dome (on top of the standard $500 million/year), with various fiscal strategies, including taking money earmarked for Gaza or the Palestinian authority.
Several of the bills were introduced following the removal of the “emergency” $1 billion in Iron Dome funding from the budget bill. The removal of the funding demonstrated America’s waning support for Israel; the flurry of separate bills demonstrates Congress’ ongoing infatuation with Israel.
Israel “needed” the funding because its military had depleted its Iron Dome materiel during an attack on Gaza – in which Israel killed 260 Gazan Palestinians (vs. 13 Israelis killed).
H.R.5305 may be in a league of its own because of the deviousness with which its Iron Dome funding appeared as a line item. Read about it here.
Read about the massive US investment in Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system here (and US expenditures overall in Israel here); read about the minor effects of Gazan rockets on Israel here; read about Israel’s recent attack on Gaza that resulted in depletion of Iron Dome supplies here and here.
S.Con.Res.14 Setting forth the congressional budget for the US Government for fiscal year 2022 and budgetary levels for fiscal years 2023 through 2031 and S.Con.Res.5 – A concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2021 and budgetary levels for 2022 through 2030
An amendment in S.Con.Res.14 establishes a reserve fund for preventing terrorist attacks and ensuring that no US tax dollars benefit terrorist organizations “such as Hamas or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad”; part of S.Con.Res.5 relates to funding for the US Embassy in “Jerusalem, Israel.”
Read about Israel’s (and America’s) controversial use of the word “terrorist” here, here, and here.
Read about the controversial move of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem here, and about the Palestinian struggle to hold onto East Jerusalem here.
S.1193 &H.R.2659 US-Israel Cybersecurity Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2021 and S.2120 &H.R.5148 United States–Israel Artificial Intelligence Center Act
These four bills propose that the US partner with Israel to facilitate (and pay for) cybersecurity research and development. The Dept. of Homeland Security would provide “not less that $6 million” a year; the State Dept., Commerce Dept., and National Science Foundation would provide another $10 million a year.
The legislation is framed as part of the fight against Russian, Iranian, and Chinese technological advances and/or cyberattacks – but ignores the fact that Israeli cyber technology has gone rogue again and again, is suspected in a high-profile murder, and has been caught multiple times spying on the US. Israel’s most notorious US spy exhorted young Jews to spy on America for Israel (“if we’re Jews, we will always have dual loyalty”).
S.221 & H.R.852 United States-Israel PTSD Collaborative Research Act (also mentioned in H.R.4350–NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act)
These bills establish a grant program (no dollar amount indicated) for collaboration between the US and Israel to advance research on post-traumatic stress disorders. “Our ally Israel, under constant attack from terrorist groups, experiences similar issues with Israeli veterans facing PTSD symptoms.” (The bill overlooks the fact that Palestinians have suffered from Israel’s devastating attacks at a much higher rate than Israelis have suffered from Palestinians’ meager attempts at resistance.)
Read about Gazan trauma here (especially for children) here and here; read a comparison of Israeli airstrikes and Gazan rockets here and here (video here).
S.1518 To authorize appropriations for the US-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development (BARD) Fund
This bill would create a blank check (“such sums as are necessary”) to support agricultural R&D activities mutually beneficial to the US and Israel – embracing Israel’s “legitimacy” in the international community, in spite of its rampant human rights abuses that have drawn censure from most of the world.
Read about Israel’s destruction of the natural environment of Palestine here.
Non-monetary legislation for Israel includes recognition of Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East.” Pictured: view of segregated road (Route 4370), northeast of Jerusalem, which separates vehicles of Israeli citizens and non-citizens. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/JNS)
LEGISLATION TO PROVIDE NON-MONETARY PERKS FOR ISRAEL
As always, Congress members lined up to introduce legislation in support of what they claim is America’s “greatest ally.” The facts don’t support this claim – see this, and this, and this and this.
S.Res.226 Expressing the sense of the Senate that the US supports Israel, our greatest ally in the region, and its right to defend itself against terrorist attacks
This resolution denounces Hamas rockets (but not Israeli airstrikes), mourns the loss of 13 Israeli lives caused by the rockets (but not the 260 Palestinian lives lost due to airstrikes), and urges “steadfast support for Israel” (but not for justice and self-determination for Palestinians).
Read about Israel’s alleged “right to self defense” here, about Hamas rockets here and here, and about Israel as America’s supposed “greatest ally” here.
This bill authorizes the President to introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities or to direct immediate transfer of defense articles or services to ensure the survival of Israel and its people from an existing or imminent threat. The President thus would act without oversight or limitation, and could tell Congress about such actions after the fact.
Israel’s “existential threat” ideology rests on its “vulnerability”; it claims to be threatened by the Palestinian-led boycott movement (BDS), by the rising Palestinian population, by Iran and Gaza, and by the “delegitimization” caused by factual reporting on its human rights abuses.
Read about a high-ranking Israeli who insists that Israel no longer faces any existential threat here; read the deconstruction of the nonviolent BDS movement as an existential threat here; read about Israel’s response to the growing Palestinian population (“demographic threat”) here; read about Israel’s disproportionately powerful military here; Israel’s “secret” nukes here; and Israel’s decades of human rights abuses here, here, and here.
H.Res.394 Expresses support for Israel’s efforts of self-determination and collective security against external forces, recognizes Jerusalem as the legitimate capital city of Israel, and condemns actions by Hamas against the people of Israel
This resolution, introduced during Israel’s attack on Gaza, purports to support both Israelis’ and Palestinians’ right to live in peace and security, then condemns Hamas rockets only (not Israel’s aggression that prompted the rockets), recognizes Israel’s (but not Palestine’s) claim to Jerusalem and right to self-determination.
Read about Israel’s attack on Gaza here and here; about Hamas rockets here and here, and Israel’s actions in Jerusalem here and here.
This resolution declares that Israel is a crucial ally of the US, and that antisemitism and hostility against Israel should be rejected. The language claims that Israel “is the only democracy in the Middle East”; that Gazan resistance rockets are “unprovoked”; and that boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) is used by “radical, racist, and extremist organizations.” All of these claims are inaccurate.
Read about the myth that Israel is a democracy here; read a few examples of why the people of Gaza resist Israel here and here; read about Gaza rockets here and here; read about the nonviolent Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement here and here, and why BDS is not antisemitic here.
One piece of pro-Israel legislation seeks to halt the resumption of aid to the UN agency providing food for Gaza’s poorest. (Pictured: UNRWA food distribution for Palestine refugees in Gaza during the COVID-19 pandemic is being conducted through home deliveries.) (Khalil Adwan UNRWA)
LEGISLATION CENSURING PALESTINIANS (HAMAS AND OTHER “TERRORISTS”), THEIR ALLIES, AND OTHER NE’ER-DO-WELLS
A supply of new legislation in 2021, as always, takes the form of threats and punishment of Israel’s adversaries.
H.R.1543 No Social Media Accounts for Terrorists or State Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2021
The purpose of this bill is to provide authorities to prohibit the provision of services by social media platforms to certain individuals and entities on the Specially Designated Nationals List and senior officials of governments of a state sponsor of terrorism. The bill provides 4 examples of foreign leaders who have used their social media accounts to promote hate – 3 of them involved alleged “antisemitic” rhetoric; the 4th names a regime “responsible for multiple gross violations of human rights.”
Read about Israeli officials’ use of social media to spread hate and racism here and here, and their manipulation of social media here and here; read about Israel’s appropriation of “antisemitism” to cover its atrocities here; read about Israel’s gross violations of human rights here and here.
S.2479 & H.R.4721 UNRWA Accountability and Transparency Act
The purpose of these bills is to withhold US contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). As the Biden administration makes plans to restore funding to UNRWA cut by Trump, the bill alludes to the Israel-centric IHRA definition of antisemitism, seeks to limit refugee status, and recommends withhold funding from UNRWA unless every employee passes an extreme vetting process (e.g. conveying information that calls Israelis “occupiers” or “settlers,” supports BDS or the Palestinian right of return, or shows a map that does not include Israel).
Read about UNRWA cuts here and here, the IHRA definition of antisemitism here, and the Right of Return here.
S.1904 & H.R.261 Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act of 2021; H.R.3685 Hamas International Financing Prevention Act; S.1899 Stop Taxpayer Funding of Hamas Act
These bills impose sanctions on individuals and groups (including governments and the UN) that support Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and any affiliate or successor groups, or that encourage “anti-Israel or antisemitic ideas or propaganda.”
Read the little-known facts about Hamas’ and Israel’s weapons here and here (video here); read about the severity of Israel’s impact on Gazan life here and here; read about the United Nations and Israel here.
H.Res.396 Condemning the rocket attacks perpetrated against Israel by Hamas in May, 2021, and expressing that the US must continue to invest in and support Israel’s security and sovereignty
This resolution declares Israel’s right to self-defense and denounces Hamas rockets, while ignoring Gazans’ right to self-defense and overlooking Israel’s 14-year blockade, its many brutal attacks, and the preventable humanitarian disaster Israel has caused for the people of Gaza.
Read about Israel’s attack on Gaza here and here; about Hamas rockets here and here, and about Israel as America’s supposed “greatest ally” here.
H.R.2374 Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act
This is a repeat of a bill that was introduced in the last session of Congress (H.R.2343), about the alleged failure of the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA to “eliminate all content and passages encouraging violence or intolerance” from textbooks, perpetuating the falsehood that Palestinians teach their children to hate Jews. Studies have found that Palestinian textbooks are largely neutral (as they have been monitored closely for years) – unlike Israel textbooks which, according to Israeli scholar and academic Nurit Peled-Elhanan, regularly “marginalize Palestinians, legitimize Israeli military action and reinforce Jewish-Israeli territorial identity.”
Read about studies of Palestinian textbook content here (also book, video) and here; read about the ADL, which itself prepares educational materials for US schools on equality – but silence calls for equality when it comes to Palestinians, here.
This bill would hold corporate officers personally liable when actions they take on behalf of the corporation are considered political, “un-American,” or in some other way not in the best interests of the shareholders. It specifically mentioned the act of “boycotting a state.”
As Foundation for Middle East Peace explains, “the bill would on the one hand open up companies to shareholder lawsuits if they take business decisions that reflect their progressive political views/ideologies/conscience, while on the other hand, it would explicitly exempt from this same shareholder accountability companies that act to punish other companies for boycotting Israel/settlements.”
This proposed restriction on free speech ignores the fact that Americans in general are very supportive of boycotts: only about 1 in 5 agree with such anti-BDS legislation.
Read more about S.2829 here; read about the nonviolent Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement here and here, and why BDS is not antisemitic here.
LEGISLATION SEEKING TO LIMIT OR CENSURE FREE SPEECH WHEN USED TO CRITICIZE ISRAEL (SOMETIMES ERRONEOUSLY CALLED “THE NEW ANTISEMITISM”)
A number of bills and resolutions were introduced during and after Israel’s attack on Gaza in May – some were related to alleged and actual antisemitic incidents triggered by the attack; others targeted Congress members who criticized Israel’s actions.
S.Res.250, S.Res.252, H.Res.428, S.1939, H.R.3515, H.Res.557 (all of these resolutions are built on an inaccurate, Israel-centric reading of current events, in which pro-Palestine or pro-Hamas Americans attacked or harassed Jews (allegedly antisemitic acts), triggered by “violence against Israel” at that time)
S.Res.250 is Israel-centric, mentioning Israel 16 times. S.Res.250 affirms Israel’s “right to self-defense” and labels the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as antisemitism. The title of S.Res.250 places blame for Israel’s attack on “terrorists” from the Gaza Strip. S.Res. 252 focuses more on actual antisemitism, and mentions Israel twice, although the “antisemitic violence and harassment” it refers to have been disputed.
Three of the bills refer to alleged antisemitic incidents tracked by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – an organization with a strong pro-Israel bias.
Read about Israel’s dangerous misappropriation of the term “antisemitism” here; read about Israel’s alleged “right to self defense” here; read about why BDS is not antisemitic here and here; read a comparison of the weapons of Gazan “terrorists” vs. Israel here; read a rebuttal of the alleged antisemitic nature of incidents in May here; read about the ADL, which claims to fight for human rights everywhere but ignores Palestinian rights, here and here; Read about the run-up to Israel’s attack on Gaza here (note the warnings Israel was given in the timeline), Israel’s attack here and here.
S.Res.232, H.Res.474, and H.Res.431 accuse Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) of various “antisemitic” statements (see below) in relation to Israel’s attack on Gaza in May.
The resolutions describe the reps’ comments – all of which were factual and not antisemitic – as “poisonous rhetoric,” and accuse them of “defending foreign terrorist organizations and inciting antisemitic attacks across the United States,” and declare that “blaming Israel for Hamas rocket attacks…is a form of antisemitic speech.”
Some of the statements the legislation denounces:
Cori Bushtweeted, “The Israeli military’s occupation continues. The blockade continues. The ethnic cleansing continues.” These statements are accurate: see this, this, and this.
Rashida Tlaib tweeted that the Israeli military was killing “babies, children and their parents,” and asserted that Palestinians are “being massacred” in a form of “ethnic cleansing.” These are also accurate statements. See this and this.
Ayanna Pressley said in a House speech, “We cannot remain silent when our government sends $3.8 billion of military aid to Israel that is used to demolish Palestinian homes, imprison Palestinian children, and displace Palestinian families,” and “the pain, trauma and terror that Palestinians are facing is not just the result of this week’s escalation, but the consequence of years of military occupation.” See this.
Pramila Jayapal stated in a CNN interview, “we condemn Hamas’ firing of those rockets, but I think you have to look at what prompted even that behavior…this has been a pattern of action from Israel that…has led to increased hopelessness from the Palestinian people…we have to look at the power balance here, or imbalance as it were, and we have to put more responsibility on Israel in maintaining peace in the region.”
Read about Israel’s appropriation of “antisemitism” to cover its atrocities here; read about Israel’s May attack on Gaza here and here.
LEGISLATION THAT PROMOTES ISRAEL INTERNATIONALLY
This session of Congress has seen a slew of bills that, rather than giving Israel “special” treatment, seek to position Israel as just another state like all the rest. This tacit acceptance of Israel as a “normal” state ignores the fact that it was established in 1948 by a war of ethnic cleansing, has been violating international laws for decades, has been censured by the United Nations hundreds of times, and is therefore considered a rogue state by much of the world.
The purpose of this bill is to support security and law enforcement training and cooperation between the US and Israel, specifically by supporting the inclusion of Israel in the International Law Enforcement Academies in Europe (ILEAs are training facilities run by the US Department of State, to instruct local police on counterterrorism and other practices).
Read about how Israeli police teach American forces militaristic, often violent techniques, and Israeli officers’ use of torture and other cruel methods against Palestinians here. (video here).
S.1061 & H.R.2748 Israel Relations Normalization Act of 2021
This bill requires the Department of State to take certain actions promoting the normalization of relations between Israel, Arab states, and other relevant countries and regions, building on the so-called Abraham Accords of 2020.
Read about the Abraham Accords here; read about the “normalization” of Israel here and here.
S.Res.344 Expressing support for the State of Israel joining the African Union under observer status
This resolution encourages heightened cooperation between the State of Israel and African nations, particularly in areas such as economic growth, sustainable agriculture, and humanitarian development – in spite of the fact that many African nations object strongly to Israel’s presence.
This resolution declares that Israel, “in the span of a few decades, has emerged as a developed nation and therefore offers an example of a path to economic progress for developing countries” – a statement that belies the fact that the US has ensured Israel’s “development” with subsidies to the tune of $243.9 billion (adjusted for inflation); the statement also ignores the fact that Israel joined the AU without approval from the 55 member states, and the move has been described as a breach of the AU’s own protocols.
Read more about Israel and the African Union here and here.
S.1260 United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, or Endless Frontiers Act
This bill seeks to establish programs to strengthen US leadership (over China) in critical technologies. One amendment solicits “cooperation with our close friends and allies,” specifically including Israel, and excluding “nations that engage in discriminatory boycott, divestment, and sanctioning (BDS) efforts” against Israel – including “Jews living anywhere in Israel.”
The Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) explains this last phrase as targeting “the mere act of differentiation between sovereign Israel and the occupied territories…to coerce the entire world into treating the West Bank and Israeli settlements in it as part of Israel.
Read about illegal Israeli settlements here; read about the nonviolent Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement here and here, and why BDS is not antisemitic here; read about Israel’s de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank here and here.
This bill is a repeat of legislation that died in the last session of Congress (H.R.7900). Its purpose is to clarify parts of the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act. In addition to citing statistics showing how economical organ transplants are, the bill singles out Israel for the “sweeping changes” it made to its national organ donation program in 2010, and as a result saw organ donation approximately triple over a 10-year period. The bill neglects to mention Israel’s history on the subject of organ trafficking.
Read a review of the 2020 version of this bill (including Israel’s history of organ trafficking) here.
S.2000 U.S.-Greece Defense and Interparliamentary Partnership Act of 2021
The bill encourages ongoing partnership between Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and the US.
Read about global condemnation of Israel’s human rights abuses here and here, read about US failure to join in that condemnation here.
S.Res.271 Affirming that the United States supports the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum and the Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline.
The Forum includes Israel, Greece, and Cyprus.
Read about the background of the pipeline here and here.
Among the legislation being proposed in Congress so far this year is the “Combating BDS Act of 2021,” which would limit Americans’ free speech regarding Israel. (Pictured: a woman yells while holding a sign “#BDS,” referring to “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions,” in front of the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles on May 14, 2018.) (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
This bill seeks to block the Biden administration from reversing the Trump-era policy requiring goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank to be labeled as “Made in Israel.”
The bill fails to take into account the fact that, under international law, Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are not part of Israel.
Read more about the bill here; read about illegal Israeli settlements here.
S.Res.237 Approving of the sales of defense items to Israel notified to Congress on May 5, 2021; S.J.Res.19 & H.J.Res.49 Disapproving of the same sale
These resolutions are responses to an almost-unnoticed approval by the Biden administration for the sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel. In days when Israel enjoyed bipartisan support, such an arms sale would sail through Congress; today, however, no-strings support is under scrutiny. All three pieces of legislation were introduced within a few days after Israel attacked Gaza, killing 260 Palestinian men, women, and children.
Read more about the arms sale here, and about the changing climate in Congress vis-a-vis Israel here and here.
“To provide for non-preemption of measures by State and local governments to divest from entities that engage in certain boycott, divestment, or sanctions activities targeting Israel or persons doing business in Israel or Israeli-controlled territories…Nothing in this Act shall be construed to infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Read about the nonviolent Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement here and here, how anti-BDS laws do in fact infringe on First Amendment rights here and here, and why BDS is not antisemitic here.
S.1641 & H.R.3190 Israel Sovereignty Reassurance Act of 2021 (ISRA)
This legislation seeks to prohibit rescinding the recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights – a region that Israel captured from Syria in 1967, and has illegally occupied ever since. During the 50+ years of occupation, most of the world has never recognized the region as Israeli.
Read about former president Trump’s ill-informed decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights here; read about mainstream media’s inaccurate coverage of the Golan Heights here.
S.1182 SECURE F–35 Exports Act of 2021; H.R.5302 U.S.-Israel Military Technology Cooperation Act
S.1182 requires specified assessments and certifications related to the sale of F-35 aircraft to countries in the Middle East to ensure that the sale, export, or transfer of these aircraft does not present a significant danger of compromising the critical military and technological military advantage of Israel or the U.S. Armed Forces (this in the context of the fact that Israel, a human rights abuser, sells military technology to other states that are human rights abusers, and refuses to share some technology with the US, even though we subsidized its development).
H.R.5302 directs the US Secretaries of Defense and State to provide a forum in which the US and Israel can work together in developing weapons technology.
Read about the costs (in lives and tax dollars) of American support for Israel’s military here and here; read about Israeli sales to human rights abusers here and here; read about Israel’s refusal to share technology with the US here; read about Israeli weaponry compared to Palestinian weaponry here.
H.R.4712 Desalination Development Act; H.R.3404 Furthering Underutilized Technologies and Unleashing Responsible Expenditures (FUTURE) for Western Water Infrastructure and Drought Resiliency Act
These bills seek to subsidize desalination project development and drought resilience in US states, with several requirements – one of which is that the state “demonstrably leverage the experience of international partners with considerable expertise in desalination, such as the State of Israel.”
It is entirely possible that Israeli consultants or companies will be paid American taxpayer dollars through this program.
Read about the failure of Israel’s own desalination efforts here; about Israel’s withholding of water from Palestinians here and here; about the “normalization” of Israel here and here; and about global condemnation of Israel’s human rights abuses here and here.
H.Res.558 & S.Res.377 Urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization
These resolutions ask the EU, which already considers Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organization, to also include its political wing in the designation. The legislation calls attention to Hezbollah’s violence against Israelis in the past and its destabilizing effect on the region – ignoring the immense damage that Israel has done to Lebanon, Hezbollah’s home base.
Not everyone agrees that Hezbollah is a terror group – read about it here; read about Israel’s devastating 2006 attack on Lebanon here, Israel’s 1982 invasion here, and its 1978 invasion here – also here.
This bill outlines alleged ties between Iran and China, and imposes certain requirements on Iran (vis-a-vis its relationships with China and Hamas) before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action relating to Iran’s nuclear program may be renegotiated.
The bill includes the curious statement, “The United States Government unequivocally condemns the Hamas-incited terrorist attacks originating from Israeli land currently occupied by Hamas.” This may be a reference to the most radical Zionist belief that all of Mandatory Palestine is actually part of Israel.
Read about the alleged threat Iran poses to Israel, and Israel’s meddling in US-Iran relations here; read about Israel’s transfer of U.S. weaponry and technology to China here and here.
“The purpose of this Act is to preserve conditions for, and improve the likelihood of a two-state solution that secures Israel’s future as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people, a viable, democratic Palestinian state, an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, and peaceful relations between the two states, and to direct the Department of State and other relevant agencies to take steps to accomplish these ends.”
While this description seems promising, leaders in Palestinian rights organizations remain unconvinced: the bill offers no mechanism for ensuring Palestinian rights, and fails to hold Israel responsible for its decades of human rights abuses; it also locks the US into two states as the only solution – in spite of the growing popularity in some circles of the one-democratic-state solution.
Read about the problems with the two-state solution, and the benefits of the one-democratic-state solution here.
LEGISLATION ACKNOWLEDGING THAT BOTH PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI LIVES MATTER
S.Res.225 & H.Res.429 Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the value of Palestinian and Israeli lives and urging an immediate ceasefire and diplomatic efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
These resolutions are the only pieces of legislation that make an attempt to assign equal value to Palestinian and Israeli lives.
The resolutions, introduced during the May attack by Israel on Gaza, urge an immediate cease-fire and support diplomatic efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, uphold international law, and protect human rights.
Read about the United States’ complicity in Israel’s atrocities here, and President Biden’s pandering to Israel here.
LEGISLATION SEEKING JUSTICE FOR PALESTINIANS
H.R.2590 Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act
This is the only bill so far in the 2021-2022 Congress that specifically advocates for justice for the people of Palestine. The purpose of this bill is to promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the Government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation, and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law.
Read about the significance of this bill here; read about previous versions of the bill, and why such legislation is needed, here and here.
If it seems to you like our Congress is spending too much of its time – and too many of our tax dollars – on Israel, please contact them and tell them so.
Kathryn Shihadah is an editor and staff writer for If Americans Knew.
Iran has written to the United Nations Security Council over a sharp increase in Israeli threats against the country, warning against any “miscalculation” or “military adventurism” on the part of the regime against the Islamic Republic, including its nuclear program.
In a letter submitter to the current president of the Security Council on Wednesday, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht-Ravanchi warned that the frequency and severity of the regime’s provocative and adventurous threats had steadily increased over the past months and reached an alarming level.
Such blatant systematic threats against one of the founding members of the United Nations are a gross violation of international law, in particular Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter, he added.
As a case in point, the diplomat referred the recent comments by the Israeli military chief, Aviv Kochavi, who said earlier this month that the regime was in constant preparations for an attack on the Iranian nuclear program.
Kochav had said, “The operational plans against Iran’s nuclear program will continue to evolve and improve,” and that “operations to destroy Iranian capabilities will continue, in any arena and at any time.”
The fact that the Tel Aviv regime continues to try to “destroy Iran’s capabilities” proves without any doubt that it had been responsible for terrorist attacks against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program in the past, Takht-Ravanchi said.
Given the ominous history of the Israeli regime’s destabilizing practices in the region and its covert operations against Iran’s nuclear program, it is necessary to counter the regime and stop all its threats and disruptive behavior, the top diplomat added.
Israel prevents realization of nuke-free Middle East: Iran
Meanwhile, Iran’s Representative to the UN General Assembly First Committee Heidar Ali Balouji also said at a Wednesday session on “Nuclear Weapons, Other WMDs, Outer Space, and Conventional Weapons” that the Israeli regime is the main hurdle to a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.
“We reiterate our call on the international community to compel Israel to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, promptly accede to the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon party without any preconditions and place all of its nuclear facilities under the IAEA’s full-scope safeguards,” he said.
He described the Islamic Republic as one of the countries “with the highest record in accession to the international instruments banning” weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
“Achieving global nuclear disarmament remains one of the most long-lasting goals of the United Nations. Today, international security is under threat by the existence of almost 14,000 nuclear weapons with well-funded, long-term plans to not only modernize but also strengthen the arsenals of NWSs (nuclear weapons states) and so nuclear arms race,” he said.
He said the United States’ withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and its unwillingness to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the 2015 nuclear agreement signed between Iran and major world powers — have inflicted immense damage on international disarmament measures.
The diplomat said chemical weapons remain a grave concern, with the United States as the only possessor, urging Washington to meet a 2012 deadline for the destruction of its stockpile of such weapons.
Balouji said the ratification of a legally binding protocol would be the most effective way to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, urging the United States to withdraw its objection to the adoption of such a measure.
Similarly, a legally binding instrument is required to prevent an arms race in outer space, he said, saying the United States already has a space force with a $17 billion budget, which will increase by 13 percent, he noted.
Iran believes that the arms race in space should be stopped through a binding legal document, he emphasized.
The Iranian diplomat defended countries’ right to possess conventional weapons, warning that massive and irresponsible production and transfer of such weapons in the Middle East pose a threat to the entire region.
“Israel is the largest recipients of US arms aids in the region. Using these weapons, it is committing different crimes and causing destabilization and insecurity that must be stopped,” he said.
Employees of the tech giants, Google and Amazon, have condemned the companies for their contract with the Israeli military to develop cloud-based cybersecurity services, and have called on their employers to cut their ties with the occupation forces.
As part of the major $1.2 billion contracts signed with the Israeli military in May, following a bid in which it beat other giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are to provide cloud services technology to Tel Aviv and its armed forces.
In an article published yesterday in the Guardian newspaper, however, hundreds of anonymous employees of the companies, who described themselves as “employees of conscience from diverse backgrounds”, condemned the program named ‘Project Nimbus.’
Referencing their belief “that the technology we build should work to serve and uplift people everywhere,” the employees stated that “we are morally obligated to speak out against violations of these core values.”
They wrote that “we are compelled to call on the leaders of Amazon and Google to pull out of Project Nimbus and cut all ties with the Israeli military,” revealing that the signatories of the letter-number over 90 at Google and over 300 at Amazon.
The employees, who confirmed that they “are anonymous because we fear retaliation,” acknowledged that “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights, force Palestinians out of their homes, and attack Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
If Google and Amazon continue with the project which would “sell dangerous technology to the Israeli military and government”, then it would only enable the “further surveillance of and unlawful data collection on Palestinians, and facilitate the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian land.”
Aside from urging the companies to abandon the project and their ties with Israel’s occupation forces, the employees also “call on global technology workers and the international community to join with us in building a world where technology promotes safety and dignity for all.”
15-year-old Sama A. and 11-year-old Rahaf N. share what was it was like to live through the Israeli military’s latest aggression in the Gaza Strip during May 2021. Each of them have lived through several Israeli military assaults and agree that the May aggression was the most intense.
Israeli forces stopped ambulance carrying injured Palestinian boy for nearly an hour
Israeli forces shot 13-year-old Nashat in the stomach with live ammunition then held up the ambulance, carrying Nashat to the hospital, at a military checkpoint for 45 minutes.
The intimidating power of Australia’s pro-Israel lobby limits what mainstream media outlets dare publish about Israel and forces self-censorship on editors and journalists alike, writes John Lyons in his latest book Dateline Jerusalem: Journalism’s toughest assignment. Kim Wingerei reports.
In 2019, Fairfax Media’s Sydney and Melbourne mastheads made an error. In the daily crossword section, the answer to the clue “Holy land” turned out not to be six letters starting with an I, as some would expect, but nine letters: Palestine. So affronted was the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) that they demanded an investigation.
Fairfax acceded, blamed the error on an external contractor and apologised to Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the AIJAC.
This is just one of many examples which John Lyons uses to illustrate the power of a lobby group so influential it can force changes to Government policy, hound journalists out of their jobs and pressure the ABC board to justify the appointment of foreign correspondents.
… there are only three people who can tell the editors of The Australian what they can or can’t use: Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch and Colin Rubenstein. – John Lyons
John Lyons is an experienced journalist. Currently the head of investigative journalism at the ABC, his 40 years in the media include being editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Middle East correspondent for The Australian and winning one of his three Walkley Awards for “Stone Cold Justice”, a Four Corner’s episode which exposed the human rights abuses in Israel military courts.
His earlier book Balcony over Jerusalem covered his six years of witnessing the tragedies and contradictions of a region which has suffered more armed conflict than any other since World War II.
In his latest book released this weekend (at 85 pages, it’s closer to essay size), Lyons focuses entirely on the Israel-Palestine conflict and specifically how pro-Israel lobbyists seek to control the narrative for the Australian audience.
He makes the point several times that the press in Israel is far more overtly critical of the policies of Israel’s Government than is the media in Australia, including how the regular flare-ups in the West Bank are covered.
To the AIJAC it’s a war of words. It is a battle to control how and what is said.
For example, Colin Rubenstein and his fellow lobbyists are particularly sensitive about using the word “occupation” in reference to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories. But as the lieutenant colonel responsible for Israel’s army operations in the occupied territories quips:
If this is not occupied then the media has missed one of the biggest stories of our time, (Israel’s) withdrawal from the West Bank! – LC Eliezer Toledano, Israel Army
The pro-Israel lobby has even developed a special dictionary. The Global Language Dictionary was funded by The Israel Project to “guide politicians and journalists on the language to use to win support for settlement expansion.”
Merely using the word Palestine can land a journalist in trouble. Jennine Khalik, a Palestinian Australian and former journalist at The Australian recounts in the book how she was yelled at by a sub-editor for referring to a refugee and singer as coming from Palestine:
PALESTINE DOES NOT EXIST … Palestine is NOT a place … What kind of journalist are you, using the word Palestine?
For Jennine Khalik this was the last straw, she left the paper shortly after, following what had been a concerted campaign by the pro-Israel lobby, including diplomats from the Israel embassy questioning her editors about the appointment of “a Palestinian activist”.
In another example of the tactics used to control the narrative, Lyons refers to a story told by former The Age editor, Andrew Holden, where Colin Rubenstein and Mark Leibler – lawyer and well known leader of the Jewish business community – marched into his office and complained loudly about the paper’s coverage of the 2014 Gaza war.
Anyone who thinks that such a display by an esteemed member of the Australian community doesn’t have a chilling effect is kidding themselves. I have seen its effect in the years since in hesitancy on the part of editors and trepidation about any story which may show Israel in a negative light. – John Lyons
Lyons himself has also been subjected to threats and intimidation over the years for his reporting on Israel and Palestine. Like many who have dared to criticise the Israeli Government, he has been called an anti-semite, but also a “Goebbels” and “a Hamas smelly used tampon”.
It is a tactic he says is used persistently by those in Australia agitating for positive coverage of Israeli government actions.
I think the aim is to make journalists and editors decide that, even if they have a legitimate story that may criticise Israel it is simply not worth running, as it will cause more trouble than it’s worth. – John Lyons
As a result, most Australians don’t know much about the plight of the Palestinian people. They don’t know about the 101 permits that Palestinians need to obtain from Israel to be able to work and live in what they believe is their own land. They don’t know that Palestinians don’t enjoy free speech, freedom of movement or equality before the law.
In April 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released its landmark report “A Threshold Crossed: Israel Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution”. It was largely ignored by mainstream media in Australia. “Including by my own organisation, the ABC,” says Lyons.
The pro-Israel lobby is so effective it has achieved the ultimate aim of information suppression – self-censorship.
John Lyons: Dateline Jerusalem: Journalism’s Toughest Assignment – now available from Monash University Publishing
Kim Wingerei is a businessman turned writer and commentator. He is passionate about free speech, human rights, democracy and the politics of change. Originally from Norway, Kim has lived in Australia for 30 years. Author of ‘Why Democracy is Broken – A Blueprint for Change’.
Five Palestinian factions called on Wednesday for the cancellation of the Oslo Accords and the adoption of a national agenda agreed upon by their secretaries general in September last year, Sama has reported.
According to the news agency, the five factions are the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, the Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.
They warned against what they called the blackmailing of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and undermining of its status at the expense of the rights of the Palestinian refugees. The EU’s “extortion” against UNRWA to make school textbooks and curriculums “Israel friendly” is intended to make Palestinian students grow up without knowing their national identity, they said.
The factions also reiterated the importance of fast-tracking the adoption of a national resistance strategy instead of Oslo and its related Paris Economic Protocol. The formation of a united leadership for a comprehensive popular resistance effort to push the Israeli occupation out of Palestine is also a priority, they insisted.
“Betting on the delusional international proposals” and dependence on the International Quartet led by the United States “is an extension of a three-decade of failure,” they added. “Political escalation is not achieved through illusory and empty statements, but through the accumulation of material power on the ground.”
US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has introduced a bill, the Mind Your Own Business Act (S.2829), that would hold corporate officers personally liable when actions they take on behalf of the corporation are considered political, “un-American,” or in some other way not in the best interests of the shareholders.
Among other things, Mind Your Own Business would hold corporate officers personally liable for the act of “boycotting a state” – undermining their freedom to boycott Israel over its endemic human rights abuses. This is in spite of the fact that Americans in general are very supportive of boycotts: only about 1 in 5 agree with the anti-BDS legislation of the type that Rubio and others (including many Democrats) have been trying to pass. The BDS movement (boycott, divest, and sanctions) is based on “the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.”
The practice of boycott in the 1990s was instrumental in the toppling of apartheid in South Africa, and is a growing movement today. Numerous experts have documented Israel’s profoundly discriminatory system, which amounts to apartheid.
The BDS Movement has declared that “states have a legal responsibility to end complicity and dismantle apartheid” in Israel; all over the US, universities, local governments, and unions are considering BDS actions.
Israeli impunity
Interestingly, while laws in 32 states forbid the boycotting of Israeli companies, these same states are in favor of boycotting under different circumstances.
That is, businesses (and in some cases, individuals) that participate in boycotts of Israel are often themselves boycotted. The difference is simply that in the first case, the action is taken on moral grounds (for example, in protest of Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians); the second is merely punishment for the entity’s exercise of free speech.
Last month, several states boycotted Unilever, parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, when the ice cream company decided to stop selling its products inside illegal Israeli settlements.
Human rights organizations argue that penalizing those that oppose Israel’s policies has enabled Israel to continue violating international law. Human Rights Watch maintains that “States should encourage, not sanction, companies that avoid contributing to rights abuses.”
Supporting Israel is damaging to Americans on many levels.
In addition to providing arms to a country that abuses human rights (and that in turns provides arms to other human rights abusers), the US has lost respect globally for its complicity; foreign agents are controlling much of our country’s foreign policy; pro-Israel donors hold many politicians hostage; and American freedoms are being eroded in the name of protecting Israel from criticism. Israel also often spies on Americans and steals our technology.
Congressional impunity
Sen. Rubio himself, like many other senators, refuses to take responsibility for his actions in Congress that are not in the best interest of his constituents: his support for Israel (and Israel partisans’ support for him) is well-known; Rubio has prioritized Israel over his own country, and worked against American free speech.
Only a quarter of Americans consider themselves Zionists, yet the vast majority of our Congress members vote pro-Israel.
In addition, Americans are increasingly in favor of limiting and/or conditioning aid to Israel, while the majority of our legislators are willing to send Israel $10 million a day (and much more besides) with no strings attached – even though we have laws that prohibit such aid to countries that commit large-scale human rights abuses.
This would suggest that perhaps these Congress members – not corporations wanting to boycott Israel – may be acting in an un-American way, not according our best interests.
The European Commission is set to incorporate the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as part of Europe’s strategy to combat anti-Jewish racism. Details of the Commission’s plan were outlined yesterday in a 26-page programme. The three central goals are to prevent anti-Semitism in all its forms; protect and foster Jewish life; and promote Holocaust research, education and remembrance.
None of this, of course, is particularly controversial. Indeed, we would expect the Commission, if it were likewise to adopt a programme for combating Islamophobia, to include the protection and fostering of Muslim life as a goal while also promoting research and education to expose groups peddling anti-Muslim bigotry.
“We want to see Jewish life thriving again in the heart of our communities,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “This is how it should be. The strategy we are presenting today is a step-change in how we respond to anti-Semitism. Europe can only prosper when its Jewish communities feel safe and prosper.”
European Union member states are encouraged to develop national strategies by the end of 2022 to tackle anti-Semitism, or include measures in their national action plans against racism and provide sufficient funding to implement them.
More controversially, but unsurprising nonetheless, the EU said that it will strengthen its cooperation with Israel and use the IHRA “working definition” to determine what constitutes anti-Jewish racism. It will also encourage local authorities, regions, cities and other institutions and organisations to do the same.
Putting aside the obvious contradiction in working with a state practicing apartheid and promoting Jewish supremacy, in order to combat racism, the incorporation of the highly contested IHRA definition of anti-Semitism into a programme as important as this risks undermining the very goal that the Commission has set out to achieve.
The problem with the IHRA is not the actual definition. No one opposes the text at the heart of the document: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” Nevertheless, the IHRA and the European Commission’s strategy are good examples of how well-meaning endeavours are hijacked for use as weapons in someone else’s propaganda war.
Seven of the 11 illustrative examples within the IHRA definition conflate racism towards Jews with criticism of the state of Israel. It is this that is having a chilling effect on free speech across Europe and elsewhere, despite the insistence by its supporters that the IHRA text has no legal force and is meant to serve only as a guide. If the Commission were to adopt a programme to combat Islamophobia, would it incorporate a definition that included criticism of “Islamism” or any so-called “Islamic” countries as examples of anti-Muslim racism? I doubt it. Just as it would reject China’s insistence that criticising Beijing is in any way anti-Chinese.
Recent high-profile cases illustrate why critics are right to fear that the IHRA has been weaponised for Israel’s benefit. The University of Bristol, for instance, has dismissed a leading British critic of Israel and its lobby, Professor David Miller, following a long “pressure campaign by Israel’s assets in the UK.” An expert in propaganda and political pressure groups, Miller has been a key critic of the pro-Israel lobby for the past decade, as well as of Zionism, the state’s racist official ideology.
Some 200 academics and public intellectuals signed an open letter to the university in support of Miller and his work. Denouncing the attack against him as the “weaponisation” of anti-Semitism, the signatories said: “We oppose anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism. We also oppose false allegations and the weaponisation of the positive impulses of anti-racism so as to silence anti-racist debate. We do so because such vilification has little to do with defeating the harms caused by racism. Instead, efforts to target, isolate and purge individuals in this manner are aimed at deterring evidence-based research, teaching and debate.”
Bristol University claimed that it was committed to an environment preserving “academic freedom” and admitted that Miller’s anti-Israel remarks did not constitute “unlawful speech”. Nonetheless, the university apparently caved in under pressure from groups describing themselves as “proud” Zionists that have been leading the campaign to have him sacked. The very same groups are also pushing for the blanket adoption of the IHRA definition in order to protect Israel from legitimate criticism.
In America, the latest example of the chilling effect of the IHRA definition has seen Israeli diplomats reportedly put pressure on the dean of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to have Kylie Broderick, a teacher critical of the occupation state, removed from her job. The intervention by the Israeli officials followed a campaign by right-wing, pro-Israel websites and an advocacy group who highlighted Broderick’s Twitter account and posts which criticised Israel and Zionism. They cited the posts as evidence of anti-Semitism. The university said it followed guidelines in the IHRA definition to assess whether Broderick’s remarks were anti-Semitic or not.
These are just two of the most recent examples of how the IHRA definition has been used to crackdown on free-speech. It has had the impact about which its many critics have warned, including the drafter of the IHRA text, Kenneth Stern. “Jewish groups have used the definition as a weapon to say anti-Zionist expressions are inherently anti-Semitic and must be suppressed,” wrote Stern in a sensational article in the Times of Israel. He claimed that pro-Israel lobby groups have weaponised the definition in an attempt to silence critics of Zionism.
As the European Commission was busy adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, the Senate in France, which in recent years has adopted a number of laws slammed by critics as Islamophobic, duly adopted the working definition. The decision has been applauded by anti-Palestinian groups, which have urged other European parliaments to follow suit.
Freedom of speech is often described as one of the pillars of liberal democracy but not, it seems, when that freedom is used to express legitimate criticism of the Zionist state of Israel and its pernicious, racist ideology. As many pro-Palestine activists have said, “Anti-Semitism is a crime; anti-Zionism is a duty.” The two should never be conflated.
Tensions are running high as Iran holds war games along its northern border, warning it won’t tolerate its neighbour providing a safe haven for the “anti-security activities of the fake Zionist regime.”
Iranian war games held along its northern border with Azerbaijan, leading to Baku threatening military deployment in retaliation, has sparked fear of war between the two countries.
But any such war would not end up being won by Tehran or Baku, but rather the United States and Israel, who would likely seize such an opportunity to fuel a Syria-style proxy war against the Islamic Republic.
The tensions that have arisen between Azerbaijan and Iran, as of late September, have seemingly popped up out of nowhere, but such an escalation was only a matter of time. The recent political quarrel has come about as a product of last year’s war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, over the Nagorno-Karabakh area, which resulted in a victory for Baku and allowed it to take over Karabakh from Armenia.
Iran had previously used its access through Armenian-controlled Karabakh to reach West Asia and Russia, sending its trucks and other means of transportation through the area, often free of customs.
Since Azerbaijan established its sovereignty over Karabakh, it has cracked down harshly on Iranian trucking and sought to establish itself as the leader of the Caucasus, intending to make itself the primary connection hub between Europe and Asia.
In order to undermine Baku, Iran has now announced that it will help Armenia establish a new bypass road that will cut out Azerbaijan. Although Tehran denies it initiated the recent war games along the Iran-Azerbaijan border with the intent of escalation, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev criticised the military drills, asking, “Why now, and why on our border?”
The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Ground Force offered one answer when he said last week that Iran would not tolerate its neighbors becoming “a safe haven and a base for the presence and anti-security activities of the fake Zionist regime.”
In the event that a clash does occur between Iran and Azerbaijan, it is likely that the Islamic Republic has the upper hand, being a regional military powerhouse. Yet Azerbaijan has more potential for causing Iran trouble through its allies and potential proxies than it does through its military might. Iran’s military drills, named Fatehan-e Khaybar (Conquerors of Khaybar), are also clearly not just aimed at sending a message to Baku, but also to Israel.
Israel armed Azerbaijan with roughly $825 million in armaments between 2006-2019. Although it would seem strange to some that Iran claims an Israeli presence on its northwestern border, as Israel is not even close geographically and its relationship with Azerbaijan looks on the surface to be mainly business based, it does have a point when it claims this, as the relationship runs far deeper than weapons trade.
A WikiLeaks-released cable sent by Donald Lu, the deputy chief of mission for the US embassy in Baku, to the US State Department revealed the nature of Azerbaijan-Israel ties, stating: “The relationship also affects U.S. policy insofar as Azerbaijan tries, often successfully, to convince the U.S. pro-Israel lobby to advocate on its behalf,” indicating a much closer connection than publicly admitted between the two sides. The document also revealed that, “with some humor, the Israeli DCM told us that Israeli businessmen expressed to her that they prefer corruption in Kazakhstan to that of Azerbaijan because in Kazakhstan one can expect to pay exorbitant fees to do business but those are generally collected at once, up front, whereas in Azerbaijan the demands for bribes never cease.”
Foreign Policy Magazine published a piece in 2012 in which they claimed that a senior US official confirmed that Israel had secured an airfield in Azerbaijan and that Israel could be using the country for a staging ground against Iran, a charge that Baku denies. Beyond this, Tehran has accused Azerbaijan of encouraging separatists groups inside of Iran, many of which staged demonstrations last year during the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, calling for the re-establishment of what they call “Southern Azerbaijan.”
If any war was to be initiated between Baku and Tehran, this would be the greatest opportunity for Israel and the US to back ethnic Azeri separatists in a similar way to how the Obama administration funded and trained Syrian militants to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad. Out of Iran’s 83 million citizens, between 10-15 million of them are believed to be ethnic Azeris, meaning that just a small portion of them are needed to form an extremely problematic military force that could fight in urban warfare settings.
The United States and Israel have for long been hesitant to launch direct strikes against Iran, likely for fear of the regional war which it could spark, along with Iranian retaliation, yet a proxy war would be much less costly. During any such war, they could also launch strikes against Iran, especially Israel, which constantly threatens Tehran.
Turkey has already pledged its support to Azerbaijan, and during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, even sent ex-Syrian Jihadist mercenaries to aid Baku’s forces; some of these ex-Syrian militants are reportedly present along the Iranian border now.
Iran may be able to handle such a proxy war, but it would certainly be a tough challenge, while Azerbaijan would likely suffer badly. The war would benefit no one but regional players and super powers seeking regime change in Tehran, which is unlikely to succeed, as was the case in Syria. Such a war would result in perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths and cause any number of unforeseen consequences. Iran knows the strategy which the likes of Israel is attempting to employ against it, meaning that such a war could lead to retaliatory action committed against Tel Aviv.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News and Press TV.
Images published on social media exposed Panama’s police officers shooting at targets dressed in traditional Arab clothing, including a headdress, during an Israeli-run training course.
The images, which caused controversy online, were published on Twitter by the National Police and the local Israeli chamber of commerce but were later deleted.
The controversy also drew criticism from the Panamanian Committee of Solidarity with Palestine, which said that the course promoted “violence and racism, so that anyone who wears a hijab or something similar can be classified as a terrorist.”
They added a request to the government in Panama to discontinue the intervention of foreign countries in training security forces.
“This training constitutes a violation of the protocols referring to the shooting courses that prohibit the use of distinctive figures of the Arab peoples as objects of hatred and persecution,” the statement said.
In response, the Panama police force issued an apology: “We are respectful of cultural, religious and ethnic differences. We regret that … a situation arose outside the nature of our mission and duty.”
The deleted Twitter posts claimed that the training was organised by the Israeli embassy in Panama
One of the great tragedies of Palestine is that almost every day there is a commemoration of one massacre or another, the death of a child or destruction of a home or village, leading one to think that the Palestinian narrative is one of death and destruction, which is what Israel wants people to think. But the truth is that this is not the case. The Palestinian narrative is one of a glorious history with periods of great sadness and tragedy. It is the Zionist story that is full of killing, stealing and destruction and not, as they try to sell it, one of creation and growth.
September 16, 2021, marked 39 years since the massacres at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. As people remember and mourn the thousands of unarmed civilians who were butchered and the countless who survived suffering terrible injuries and emotional scars, we must also remember the man that stood behind this bloodbath.
This was a man whose complicity even the Israeli authorities could not ignore, the former general and renowned war criminal Ariel Sharon. And although he was momentarily penalized and banished from politics, he very quickly returned, and for a quarter of a century, he was the most powerful and influential man in Israeli politics.
Narratives
At the end of the day, it is all about the narrative, and we know all too well that Israel has done an outstanding job of erasing the Palestinian narrative and injecting its own mythical, false narrative in its place. In the media, in movies, in literature, in public education, and in politics the false Zionist narrative rules supreme and we who oppose racism and violence are faced with an enormous task as we engage in the work of reversing the narrative – a task without which it is hard to imagine Palestine ever becoming free.
Over the last 100 years, the Zionist movement managed to take the truly incredible history of Palestine and turn it into a historical footnote, replacing it with a mythical story that relies heavily on a Protestant-Zionist, literal reading of the Old Testament, which allowed them to create what is known as “return history.” In other words, the Zionist version of the history of Palestine creates the impression that the Jews returned to their ancient homeland after 2,000 years, making it an unprecedented historical event that overshadows anything else that occurred in Palestine over that bimillennial span.
The Zionist narrative is designed to turn the ancient history of Palestine into a small, unimportant story that cannot be compared with the grandeur of the narrative that is presented by the Old Testament. This is highlighted when Israeli politicians like the current prime minister, Naftali Bennett, refer to the Bible as the source of legitimacy for Israel.
A four thousand-year history
Thanks to the historian Nur Masalha, we now know that the name Palestine goes back close to 4,000 years. We know that the name Palestine was used in Egyptian sources going back to the Bronze Age, more than 1,000 BCE. Later, the name was used by the Assyrians in inscriptions from that era. The Greek historian Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BCE and who is considered to be the father of history as we know it, visited the country and referred to it as Palestine. The Greek scientist and philosopher Aristotle also refers to Palestine by name in his writings.
The cities of Lyd, Ramle, and Yaffa all had remarkable histories, as did the cities of Akka, Haifa, and, of course, Nablus, Gaza, and Al-Quds-Jerusalem. Throughout the Muslim rule of Palestine, cities grew, cultures flourished, economic conditions and trade with Europe allowed people to prosper. Dhaher Al-Umar, who ruled over large parts of Palestine during the 18th century, is seen as the founding father of Palestinian modernity and, according to Nur Maslaha, he was the most influential figure in the modern orientation of Palestine towards the Mediterranean. During his reign in Palestine, there were agricultural and technical innovations introduced that “benefited the majority of Palestinian peasantry.” Thanks to Dhaher Al-Umar, there was considerable growth in the export of cotton, olive oil, wheat and soap.
Other, lesser-known parts of Palestine also flourished throughout history, such as the Palestinian town of Khalasa, which was founded by the Nabatean Arabs in the fourth century and then depopulated by the Zionist militia in 1948. It was known to be on what is called the “Arab incense route” and, according to Nur Masalha, under Arab-Islamic rule, the town, which sits just southwest of the city of Bi’r Al-Saba, was a major urban center.
According to Mansur Nasasra, the Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab had a very profitable export of barley to England for the production of beer. Aerial photos from the early British occupation of Palestine also show large tracts of cultivated land in the Naqab. These lands are now mostly depopulated and the Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab are prohibited from cultivating their ancestral lands. All of this stands in the face of Zionist claims that they came to a barren land and made it bloom.
The Zionist narrative is arguably responsible for the welcoming and forgiving attitude the entire world has towards the horrendous, unforgivable crimes committed by Israel since its founding in 1948. In order to prevent the next massacre by Israel, a state that seems to have an insatiable thirst for Palestinian blood, we have to reverse the narrative and delegitimize Zionism.
Israeli diplomats reportedly put pressure on the dean of a US university to have a teacher critical of the occupation state removed using allegations of anti-Semitism. Details of the intervention by Israeli consular officials, in what has been slammed as another example of the gross interference by a foreign state, were reported by the Intercept.
Israeli consular officials in the southeast US arranged meetings with a dean at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remove graduate student, Kylie Broderick, from teaching the history department course called ‘The Conflict over Israel/Palestine’. Details of the visit by Israeli officials are said to have been exposed by two UNC professors who had knowledge of the meeting.
The intervention by the Israeli officials followed a pressure campaign by right-wing pro-Israel websites and an advocacy group who pointed to postings Broderick had made on Twitter that criticised Israel and Zionism and, without evidence, cited the postings as evidence of anti-Semitism.
Over the past few years there has been a concerted campaign to conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel using the adoption of a highly controversial definition of racism known as the International Holocaust Definition of anti-Semitism. Seven of the 11 examples of anti-Semitism cited in the IHRA conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Critics have argued that its adoption has had a chilling effect on all levels of society especially in universities and campuses.
The two UNC professors revealed that in addition to the intervention by the Israeli government, the university faced pressure from a member of the US House of Representatives.
“It is not a new phenomenon where outside parties have tried to stifle academic freedom on this subject,” Broderick is reported saying. “But these people have never seen me teach, never seen my past evaluations which have said that I treat students fairly, and thus have no right to dictate what I say inside the classroom.”
“I think that a representative of a foreign government attempting to police an academic class is, in the first place, ridiculous, and an obvious overreaction to what is essentially an issue that started on Twitter,” Broderick added. “I also think it is strange that the Israeli consulate general was granted an audience. If this was a class on Hungary or Australia, would the university have permitted the attempted interference of a foreign government? The fact that this meeting happened at all is clearly a threat to academic freedom.”
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.
A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.
The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. … continue
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John Lyons is an experienced journalist. Currently the head of investigative journalism at the ABC, his 40 years in the media include being editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Middle East correspondent for The Australian and winning one of his three Walkley Awards for “Stone Cold Justice”, a Four Corner’s episode which exposed the human rights abuses in Israel military courts.![Panama police shoot targets in Arab clothing in Israel-run training course [@PedroUnderdog09/Twitter]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FAnuhfPWQCEtOgo.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
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