Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

In Germany, burning the Israeli flag is a problem, but killing Palestinians isn’t

By Motasem A Dalloul | MEMO | July 6, 2021

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll met with the German Ambassador, Susanne Wasum-Rainer, on Monday along with visiting German parliamentarians. Roll thanked the German guests for their country’s strong support for Israel during its major military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza from 10-21 May.

Germany’s unlimited support and cooperation make it a special friend of Israel. Among EU members it is the second-biggest supplier of weapons to the occupation state. Between 2009 and 2020, 24 per cent of Israel’s arms imports came from Germany.

When Israel treats international law, human rights, democratic principles, and liberal beliefs with contempt, Germany automatically takes its side, even when the result is the killing of innocent children and women. During the latest Israeli offensive, Germany supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” although it was killing civilians and destroying civilian buildings and infrastructure. The fact that an occupying state has no right to claim “self-defence” against the people under occupation was ignored by the Germans.

On 12 May, a German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, refused to condemn Israel’s killing of 14 Palestinian children. He referred to the legitimate Palestinian resistance as “terrorist attacks” and that the resistance groups had to stop their action against Israel so that “people do not die”.

Seibert ignored the Israeli warplanes pounding the besieged Gaza Strip. He ignored the Israeli tanks firing indiscriminately towards densely-populated areas across Gaza. He ignored weeks of Israeli harassment and attacks on Palestinians worshipping in Al-Aqsa Mosque throughout Ramadan, and the residents of Jerusalem facing attacks by illegal settlers, which prompted the resistance groups to act. He ignored all of that.

On the same day, the deputy spokesman of the German Foreign Ministry, Christofer Burger, angered journalists when he said that the Palestinians had no right to self-defence. His claim that this right is only guaranteed by international law to sovereign states and Palestinians are not a state was palpable nonsense. All people living under occupation, collectively and individually, have the right to defend themselves and resist military occupation. Israel’s occupation of Palestine is a military occupation.

On day ten of the Israeli offensive, when the occupation state had killed 66 children, 40 women, and 16 elderly people out of 266 Palestinians killed in total, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insisted that, “Germany stands with Israel and its right to defend itself.” He even visited Israel to prove that his country’s support was not limited to words. “I came to Israel to show solidarity and support Israel. Israel’s security and that of the Jewish residents here are not negotiable.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin, Germany on June 23, 2021 [Abdulhamid Hoşbaş/Anadolu Agency]

German FM Heiko Maas, June 23, 2021 [Abdulhamid Hoşbaş/Anadolu Agency]

Two days earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and “sharply condemned the continued rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and assured the prime minister of the German government’s solidarity.” She showed great interest in Israel’s security and safety of its people and condemned only the legitimate Palestinian resistance.

Germany’s verbal support for Israeli brutality and aggression against the Palestinians was backed up by officials who claimed that peaceful protests during which Palestinian flags were flown and anti-Israel slogans were chanted were “anti-Semitic”. Calls for Israel to be held accountable for its breaches of international law were described as “hate speech”.

According to Seibert, “Anyone who uses such protests to shout out their hatred of Jews is abusing the right to protest [in Germany].” He described the pro-Palestine protests which raised awareness about the ongoing Israeli crimes as “anti-Semitic rallies”, and stressed that they “will not be tolerated by our democracy.”

During a debate in the German parliament during the Israeli offensive on Gaza, Maas condemned the pro-Palestine demonstrations and called for a violent crackdown on them. “There shouldn’t be one centimetre of space for anti-Semitism on our streets. Never again.”

Germany has since banned the Hamas flag in the country in response to pro-Palestine demonstrations. “We do not want the flags of terrorist organisations to be waved on German soil,” Thorsten Frei, a lawmaker for Merkel’s CDU, told Die Welt. A ban, he added, would send “a clear signal to our Jewish citizens.”

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Israeli daily Haaretz that Germany believes that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories because of the “absence of the Palestinian state”. Germany is not only unconcerned about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, but also does not even want those crimes to be investigated. Palestine was, of course, granted the status of a “non-member observer state” by the UN in November 2012, a move described as “de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine”.

Writing in Open Democracy, activist and sociologist Inna Michaeli said that Germans are against the entirely peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which seeks to end the Israeli occupation. Moreover, apparently, they do not like to hear anyone accusing Israel of killing children, despite this being “a description of horrendous reality — one in three Palestinians that Israel kills in Gaza are children.”

She asked rhetorically: “What should people chant when Israel is killing children? How can the victims express their rage and sorrow, how can they mourn their children who are killed again and again by Israel?”

Even the German mainstream media ignores Israeli brutality against the Palestinians. “Much of the mainstream media coverage of Nakba Day demonstrations did not even mention nor explain to the readers what the Nakba is, and its continuation in the form of ethnic cleansing and denial of Palestinians’ right to return,” Michaeli pointed out. “Berlin, with the largest Palestinian population in Europe, is home to people whose family members have been murdered by Israel in recent days. These protests are often framed as ‘anti’ Israel, but the fact that they are primarily ‘for’ Palestinian life is omitted.”

Omri Boehm is an Israeli philosophy lecturer in New York. “Whenever one attempts to raise this subject, one is immediately accused of anti-Semitism,” he noted. “It is impossible to simply state the facts. For example, that within Israel’s borders, three million Palestinians live under brutal military law without being recognised as Israeli citizens. The Germans do not want to see this.”

When pro-Palestine protesters burned an Israeli flag in Germany, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer described the act as “anti-Semitic” and said that Germany would crack down hard on anyone found to be spreading “anti-Semitic hatred” because “We will not tolerate Israeli flags burning on German soil.”

Commenting on this, Michaeli said: “Israeli flags matter, Palestinian lives do not. When people, politicians, and the media, care more about the burning of national flags than the burning of homes and neighbourhoods and the killing of entire families, they should really have a hard look at themselves.”

German support for Israel goes back to the early 1950s when reparations were paid to the state as the “heir” to the Holocaust victims who had no known surviving family. Billions of German marks and euros have been handed over in the intervening decades, helping to build Israel as a state. The fact that this is largely to the detriment of the people of occupied Palestine has, shamefully, been lost on successive German governments. Those parliamentarians who met Israeli officials earlier this week need to be educated about international laws and conventions, and the reality of Israel’s brutal military occupation which they and their colleagues in Berlin endorse so willingly.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Where the Abraham Accords are (and aren’t) going

Israel has improved its relationship with the UAE, but what about other Gulf countries?

By Giorgio Cafiero and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen | Responsible Statecraft | July 7, 2021

On June 29, Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid arrived in the United Arab Emirates, marking the first official trip by any chief Israeli diplomat to the Gulf country. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had wanted to visit Abu Dhabi while in office, so the timing of the visit so soon after the new Netanyahu-less government was sworn in was notable.

While Lapid was in the UAE, Israel inaugurated an embassy in Abu Dhabi and a consulate in Dubai, representing an important milestone in Emirati-Israeli relations nine months after the Abraham Accords were signed in Washington last September.

Lapid’s trip highlighted how the bilateral relationship has overcome challenges posed by the recent 11-day Gaza-Israel war. Although Emirati officialdom publicly condemned Israel’s conduct in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and called on both Hamas and Israel to halt attacks (which notably did not single out Israel) in May, the UAE is not cooling its relations with Israel. To the contrary, Abu Dhabi is keen to find ways to build on the Abraham Accords and enhance its ties with the Israelis notwithstanding the unresolved question of Palestine.

While with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Lapid signed an economic and commercial cooperation agreement. The two also co-authored a highly optimistic article in Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper where they outlined their outlook for the Emirati-Israeli relationship as well as for “peace” across the greater region: “Peace isn’t an agreement you sign – it’s a way of life. The ceremonies we held this week aren’t the end of the road. They are just the beginning.” (Technically, the UAE-Israel accord is not a “peace” agreement because the UAE, which gained its independence in 1971, has never been at war with Israel.)

Beyond the rhetoric and the symbolism, what are this relationship’s substantive elements and what does this partnership truly mean in practice nine months after the accord’s signing?

Bilateral trade since September 2020 has reached around $675 million. The two countries have signed a long list of trade and cooperation agreements. Media, education, and tourism are all promising sectors that are starting to take off. It is significant that amid the global pandemic, which greatly harmed the UAE and all other Gulf Cooperation Council states’ tourism sectors, 200,000 Israeli tourists visited the UAE with most flying to Dubai.

Technology may be the area where the Emiratis have the highest hopes for this relationship. The potential benefits of formalized ties with the region’s most technologically innovative and advanced country are clear to the UAE. This is particularly true with respect to cybersecurity and to the potential acquisition of offensive cyber-capabilities by the UAE. As Sheikh Abdullah stated, the Emiratis are pleased that the Israelis will participate in Expo2020, an event to be held later this year in Dubai that will bring 192 countries together through technology, innovation, science, and art.

Nonetheless, the Emirati-Israeli trade relationship has thus far not lived up to its expectations. There has also been a degree of disappointment among those who were expecting the partnership to take off much faster following then-President Donald Trump’s announcement of the Abraham Accords.

Some anticipated deals have not taken place. For example, there was the suspension of the 50 percent sale of Beitar Jerusalem (a Jerusalem-based professional football club with an anti-Arab image) to a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan. In addition, an Israeli energy firm that planned to sell its share of a gas field to Mubadala Petroleum (a subsidiary of the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company) missed a deadline for completing the agreement, although, according to the UAE’s side, the deal remains set to proceed. Time will tell how many and how soon major government-to-government and private sector transactions will indeed take place.

Abraham Accords, the Gulf, and Africa

Despite the political risks for any Arab state that normalizes relations with Israel, the UAE has vocally stood by the Abraham Accords, which, in the words of its ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, “move the region beyond a troubled legacy of hostility and strife to a more hopeful destiny of peace and prosperity.” But Abu Dhabi at this point does not appear to be leading any trend within the Gulf region toward the formalization of relations with Israel.

In Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative remains popular and the only viable means of reaching a fair and lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. This is true at the highest levels of government and among these countries’ general publics. But Tel Aviv almost certainly will not under any foreseeable circumstances agree to the API’s terms, which require Israel to return to the 1949-1967 borders and permit the Palestinians to have an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in exchange for opening diplomatic relations. Therefore, among GCC states, the UAE, along with Bahrain, will probably stand alone on the normalization question for some time.

As the GCC state with the most pro-Palestinian stance, Kuwait is most strongly opposed to normalization and unlikely to change its position. Oman maintains pragmatic, albeit unofficial, relations with Israel as highlighted by Lapid’s phone call with Oman’s foreign minister Badr al Busaidi on June 24, plus Netanyahu and other Israeli prime ministers’ visits to Muscat since the 1990s. But Oman remains committed to the API, as affirmed by Muscat’s chief diplomat at an Atlantic Council event held on February 11.

Qatar has a special role to play in Gaza that would be jeopardized by “abandoning” the Palestinians in exchange for normalization with Israel. Through Al Jazeera, which focuses heavily on the plight of Palestinians, and the tendency of Qatari diplomats to advocate on behalf of Palestinians in international forums, Doha’s regional and global image has much to do with its ability to take firm positions on certain international issues that contribute to the image of a pro-human rights foreign policy.

Finally, Saudi Arabia, due to its special role across the wider Islamic world, its authorship of the API, and its own internal dynamics that are fundamentally different than the smaller GCC states, will likely continue seeing normalization of relations with Israel as too risky, at least so long as King Salman remains on the throne.

Within this context, Israel will likely have its next diplomatic openings in the Islamic world not in the Persian Gulf, but instead in impoverished parts of sub-Saharan Africa where countries such as Niger, Mali, and Mauritania could have their economic interests advanced by joining the Abraham Accords. It will be important to see what actions Abu Dhabi might take to incentivize these African countries, many of which are major recipients of Emirati aid, to formalize ties with Israel. Enhanced Emirati assistance in exchange for normalization with Israel was already evident in Sudan’s decision to normalize ties with Israel, and the UAE may take a similar approach with these and other predominantly Muslim and poor African states.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US neocons Bolton & PNAC lay down weapons of war for protest signs with their new ‘Turkish Democracy Project’

By Helen Buyniski | RT | July 5, 2021

The aging neocons who have been practicing regime change ops in the Middle East for decades are now launching a project targeting Turkey – perhaps in honor of the deceased Don Rumsfeld.

Erdogan’s Turkey has long been something of a thorn in Washington’s paw, given its ongoing refusal to buy inferior US military equipment (it was booted from the US’ F-35 program for insisting on buying Russian S-400 missiles, making the Americans who still store their nukes at Incirlik somewhat nervous), its refusal to place the good of Israel above its own benefit, and its rumblings of discontent regarding the US’ pleas for support (or at least safe passage) to its Syrian ‘moderate rebel’ militant groups, which Ankara considers to be little more than terrorists.

Under the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become quite recalcitrant indeed, far from the ideal domesticated state keen to babysit American nukes and stage American missiles in exchange for coveted membership in the deteriorating NATO structure (not long ago fetchingly described by French President Emmanuel Macron as “brain dead”). Clearly what it needs is a shot in the bottom from that great big needle marked ‘Democracy’ – and who better to deliver that than the good old boys from the Project for a New American Century, many of them the old same men who led and lied the US, blindfolded, into the chaos of Iraq.

Enter the Turkish Democracy Project, a non-profit organization which – it should be clear from the name – has nothing to do with democracy or, really, Turkishness. The group’s website is about as subtle as a nuclear bomb, blaming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “dramatically alter[ing] Turkey’s position in the international community and its status as a free and liberal democracy” and calling for “a nonprofit, non-partisan, international policy organization that opposes its destabilizing behavior, supports genuine democratic reform, and holds the forces of corruption and oppression within Turkey to account.” In other words: “We want a piece of your country. Resist and be annihilated.”

It’s not that the US thinks Turkey is stupid. But they believe, and are likely correct, that the US will never have as good a time as now to strike. With its military still feared by many parts of the world (even though its bark is at this point far worse than its bite, and its image still suitably ferocious to put much of the actual war-fighting business to fleeing instead of fighting), the main business must be – if the US expects to do something other than flee home with its tail between its legs – “shock and awe.”

But given that these shock and awe tactics will be taking place in the Middle East, an area which has seen the worst the US can throw at its enemies over the last 20 years of perpetual warfare and realizes all the money in the world can’t give even the largest military on Earth the stamina of the gods, it’s likely these dyed-in-the-wool bloodshed-artists will have to change with the times. To invade a militarily competent nation like Turkey – especially one which, inconveniently, happens to be backed by NATO – is unlikely to be a walk in the park, no matter how many phony war crimes the PNAC crew manage to cook up. Gas attacks have become cliche, and any talk of “weapons of mass destruction” will elicit a chortle at best.

So the TDS, if recent events are any indication, has instead gotten to work with the kind of color revolution-style events that have largely replaced shock and awe in other regime-change hotspots. They’re cheap, they’re easy, and in this case – a protest in Istanbul against Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention? – they require exactly zero imagination. It’s much easier to con the rest of NATO if you don’t have to make them think.

Thousands of activists took to the streets on Thursday, either on their own or hailing from various NGOs, denouncing Turkey’s withdrawal from the European human rights treaty known as the Istanbul Convention. Erdogan’s executive order removing Turkey from the treaty, first adopted back in March, argued the country’s women are protected by domestic laws rather than the international human rights treaty – which he argued had been “hijacked” by the LGBTQ+ community.

The hoary old PNAC boys behind the TDS likely couldn’t believe their luck when something like this fell into their lap. But will they be able to modernize?

The group’s CEO is Mark Wallace, who’s also the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran – another unsubtly named regime-change operation (and a regime change that has failed repeatedly). An old hand at overthrowing Middle Eastern nations the old-fashioned way, Wallace held several positions with the George W. Bush administration while the nation was attempting to crush Iraq (apparently shocked the children had run forward with IEDs instead of handfuls of wildflowers to welcome their new rulers).

Indeed, numerous fellow veterans of the Iraq regime change effort and abortive attempts to overthrow Iran have bubbled up in the swamp gas to give regime change in Turkey a go. Wallace is joined by other bottom-feeders like former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman and UANI intel chief Norman Roule, as well as glorified mustache-carrier, would-be thug, and former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. Former Bush adviser Frances Townsend is there, as is former associate deputy director of operations for the CIA (and Blackwater vet) Robert Richer. At least a few members of the shadowy pro-Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies were listed and then memory-holed, and Bush’s brother Jeb is there, a speech bubble forever hovering above his head reading “please clap.”

Oddly enough, however, the only currently listed actual employee aside from CEO Wallace is a (presumably) former assistant English professor at Princeton University. No, that’s not suspicious at all. Carry on, I’m sure Turkey will welcome you (and your desired partitioning of the country) with open arms!

With Erdogan still trustingly paying his country’s NATO dues, Ankara is unlikely to expect any sort of real attack, though the leader is likely on guard, given former President Trump’s on-again, off-again announcement to clear out US soldiers from Syria. He is likely to be on the lookout for foreign meddlers among the protesters, however. And Erdogan’s allies with their ears to the ground both inside and outside Turkey have already pegged this absurd attempt at bringing back ‘democracy’ for what it really is. While some have linked it to the infamous Gulen movement, referring to the cleric who most recently was accused of trying to overthrow Erdogan in 2016, Gulen’s movement itself seems to have ties to the same ‘Greater Israel’ plan to redraw the lines on the map of the Middle East, a plan Israeli military strategist Oded Yinon devised decades ago (and which the neocons appear to have used as their foreign policy guide ever since). Former Turkish opposition lawmaker Aykan Erdemir, senior director for Turkey at the FDD, was accused of being connected to Gulen in 2017 and had his assets seized, strengthening the case for the connection between Gulen’s organization and the notoriously pro-Israel FDD.

But with all of NATO’s heads turned to this human rights drama, surely the other countries in the alliance also participating in the drawing-and-quartering of Syria won’t expect a military attack on Turkey as well – not without some warning. The map of Greater Israel shows Turkey losing a mere corner of their land compared to Syria, which takes quite a beating – one which Turkey clearly expects to be a part of, having already staked its claim effectively to certain border regions of Syria under the logic of keeping the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) away. But this is all temporary, and eventually the region must settle into its new form. An Israel-first arrangement will not go down well with any of the other combatants, and, unlike the US and its European partners, Turkey won’t just sit on its hands and sigh wistfully while its share of the Syrian pie is handed to the US by way of Tel Aviv.

Because that’s who the ultimate beneficiary of this mess is supposed to be. Named after the Israeli military strategist who devised it, the Yinon project hopes to balkanize the Middle East and assemble the shards into a single nation consisting of the choicest morsels of those countries in between the Euphrates and the Nile rivers. Iraq has already been cut in half, Syria has shrunk dramatically even as the war goes on, and Egypt is run by a pliant leader who will do what the US and Israel tell him – as General Wesley Clark said over a decade ago, the plan was to take out seven countries in five years. They’re running a bit behind, but never underestimate the abilities of a bunch of old war criminals with nothing to lose.

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Telegram.

July 5, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran: Israel legally, politically responsible for fate of diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon

Press TV – July 4, 2021

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says Israel and its supporters are politically and legally responsible for the fate of four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon in 1982.

“Since the Zionist regime occupied Lebanon in 1982, it bears political and legal responsibility for the abduction of [Iranian] diplomats and the Zionist regime and its terrorism-sponsoring supporters are liable for this measure. Unfortunately, the Zionist regime has not been accountable in this case, and this is why the process of revealing facts and various aspects of this incident has been so slow,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, which marked the 39th anniversary of the abduction of the four diplomats.

On July 4, 1982, the year Israel invaded Lebanon, Ahmad Motevasselian, Seyyed Mohsen Mousavi, Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam and Kazem Akhavan were kidnapped by a group of gunmen backed by Israel at an inspection post in northern Lebanon.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly announced that there is evidence to prove that the [kidnapped] diplomats were handed over to Israeli forces after the abduction and were subsequently transferred to the Zionist regime’s prisons,” the statement read.

Iran, it added, has gone to great lengths since the abduction, given the humanitarian, legal and political dimensions of the criminal incident, and has put on its agenda the pursuit of the issue through regional and international avenues.

The ministry once again called on the United Nations secretary general as well as international and human rights organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to pay more serious attention to the abduction of its diplomats by Israel.

In a letter to Secretary General Antonio Guterres in July 2020, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht-Ravanchi said Tehran believes the diplomats were handed over to Israeli forces immediately after the abduction in a region controlled by Israel at the time.

“Evidence shows they have been held in Israeli prisons, and are still alive,” the Iranian envoy said.

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Nakba and the Polish Law

By Gilad Atzmon | Almayadeen | July 4, 2021

“Israel” seems upset by a new Polish law that sets a 30-year deadline for Jews to recover seized property. The legislation is yet to be approved by Poland’s senate, yet Israeli officials already refer to it as the “Holocaust law.” They insist that it is ‘immoral’ and ‘a disgrace.’

Last week Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Yair Lapid insisted that the bill “is a disgrace that will not erase the horrors or the memory of the Holocaust.”

I fail to see which part of the legislation interferes with the memory and the horrors of the holocaust. I actually think that the crude attempt to squeeze billions of dollars from Poland in the name of a human tragedy may have a detrimental impact on this historical chapter and the way it is memorized.

The Poles didn’t approve of the Jewish ‘State’ interfering with their internal affairs. On Friday, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hit back at Lapid, stressing, “I can only say that as long as I am the prime minister, Poland will not pay for German crimes: Neither zloty, nor euro, nor dollar.”

Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs echoed Morawiecki’s position, arguing that Lapid’s comments were misguided. “Poland is by no means responsible for the Holocaust, an atrocity committed by the German occupant also on Polish citizens of Jewish origin.”

During the weekend, the crisis seemed to escalate. On Sunday, Poland and “Israel” summoned the other’s ambassador for meetings as the rift between the two countries didn’t seem to subside.

I am not in a position to judge what is right and who is wrong on restitution matters. Suppose the Polish new legislation is “a horrific injustice and disgrace that harms the rights of Holocaust survivors and their heirs,” as Lapid says. In that case, we should also expect Lapid to vividly support the Palestinians, their right of return, and their right to be compensated for the colossal crimes committed against them in 1948 and thereafter.

In 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians (the vast majority of indigenous Palestine) were ethnically cleansed by the newly born Jewish ‘State’. This catastrophic racially driven crime (that included a long list of massacres) is called the Nakba. It took place less than four years after the liberation of Auschwitz.

During the 1948 war and shortly after, young “Israel” wiped out Palestinian cities and villages. It then used legislation to prevent Palestinians from returning to their homes and applied any possible means to plunder their properties, dispossessing those few Palestinians who clung to their land. Yet, “Israel” never admitted its original sin of ethnic cleansing.

Applying to a moral cause, “Israel” claims to represent Jewish demands for restitution in Poland. I wonder, shouldn’t the same rule be applied to the Palestinians? Shouldn’t “Israel” put the same moral law into play and acknowledge the Palestinians’ right to their land, villages, cities, fields, and orchards?

While in Poland, it was Nazi Germany that brought a disaster on the county’s Jewry. In Palestine, young IDF and Jewish paramilitary groups committed colossal crimes against the indigenous population. While Nazi Germany ceased to exist in 1945, the IDF is still with us. The Labour party (which formed the first Israeli government directly) is still active and is even a member of the current governing coalition. The Likud Party, being the offspring of the Irgun and the Stern Gang (both complicit in some of the most brutal massacres in Palestine), is, by far, the biggest party in the Israeli Knesset. The Israeli and Zionist institutions that were responsible for the 1948 crime have never ceased to exist. They have never owned their crimes, let alone repented.

Holocaust survivors have been compensated by different means for the crime that was committed against them by Europeans. “Israel” benefitted from a large reparations deal with the German government. The Palestinians, however, are still living in open-air prisons and refugee camps, subject to blockades and constant abuse.

The time is ripe for “Israel” to own up to its horrendous past. By now, “Israel” should accept that the Palestinian cause is not fading away or evaporating into thin air. If “Israel” seeks to reconcile with the region, it must first apply to itself that moral code that it demands Poland to follow.

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Iran Unjustifiably Blamed for Another False Flag Attack?

By Stephen Lendman | July 4, 2021

Unlike repeated US-dominated NATO and Israeli rule of law breaches, Iran fully complies with its international obligations.

Yet time and again it’s falsely accused of things it had nothing to do with, including attacks on Israeli vessels — despite no evidence of its involvement.

In stark contrast, international outlaw Israel attacked Iranian cargo ships numerous times.

In March, the WSJ reported that Israel targeted at least 12 Iranian cargo ships in international waters.

It cyber-attacked its nuclear facilities, accountability for its criminal actions never forthcoming.

On July 3, Lebanese al-Mayadeen television reported the following:

Citing unnamed “reliable sources,” its report said “a fire erupted in an Israeli cargo ship in the northern Indian Ocean,” adding:

“(T)he…merchant ship was hit by an unknown weapon.”

It “was anchored in the port of Jeddah before moving towards the Emirati coast.”

“(N)o one has claimed responsibility for this targeting so far.”

“(T)he incident c(ame) a day after news of an Israeli drone attack west of Tehran.”

On June 23, Iranian media reported a drone attack on a city of Karaj building.

Since its 1979 liberating revolution from US/UK-installed fascist tyranny, US, Western and Israeli regimes have waged forever war on Iran by other means — wanting its government toppled, the nation weakened, partitioned and transformed into a pro-Western vassal state.

Was Saturday’s incident involving a formerly Israeli-owned vessel staged by the Bennett regime as part of its aim to kill the JCPOA nuclear deal — by once again falsely blaming Iran for what no evidence points to its involvement?

Was the incident a joint US/Israeli false flag to blame Iran like many times before unjustifiably?

Israeli political and military dark forces have been pressuring their Biden regime counterparts not to rejoin the landmark agreement as affirmed by Security Council Res. 2231, making it binding international law.

Ideally, they want the deal killed altogether. At minimum, they want it revised to include unacceptable provisions no responsible government would accept.

Saturday’s incident targeted the Liberian-flagged CSAV Tyndall cargo ship.

Haaretz said the vessel was “previously under Israeli ownership,” the attack “causing only mild damage and no casualties.”

Like time and again unjustifiably, Bennett regime officials blamed Iran for what happened, despite no evidence suggesting it.

No Israeli nationals were on board.

Formally owned by London-based Zodiac Maritime Ltd, a company source said the vessel was sold several months earlier.

No one claimed responsibility for the incident. The Jerusalem Post reported the following:

“On Friday, IDF chief of staff Gen. Aviv Kohavi hinted at an Israeli covert operation against Iran at the graduation of the IDF officers course at the Bahad 1 base,” quoting him, saying:

“Anyone who tries to harm the state of Israel (sic) knows that any offensive enemy activity (sic), near or far, will be answered with a significant, overt or covert response.”

The hostile-to-Iran NYT implied its responsibility for the Saturday incident.

Citing no evidence because there is none, it dubiously suggested what happened was “latest tit-for-tat (sic) in a shadowy regional conflict between Israel and Iran,” adding:

The vessel “was believed to have come under assault by an Iranian drone or naval commandos (sic),” citing an unnamed Israeli source with no credibility.

The Times falsely accused Iran of earlier attacks on Israeli-owned ships despite no evidence suggesting it.

On June 1, US intelligence dubiously warned of a possible Iranian attack.

Was it issued ahead of a planned US and/or Israeli false flag on Saturday to once again blame Iran for what it had nothing to do with?

Contact Stephen Lendman at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Europe court refuses to reopen case into Yasser Arafat’s death

MEMO | July 2, 2021

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected a case brought by the widow and daughter of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat requesting it reopen an investigation into his 2004 death.

After unsuccessful lawsuits in French courts, Suha and Zahwa Arafat filed a criminal complaint to the ECHR in 2017 claiming the former Palestinian Authority (PA), PLO and Fatah president had been the victim of premeditated murder.

However, in a ruling issued yesterday, the ECHR said there had been no infringement of the right to a fair hearing and the complaint was “manifestly ill-founded”.

The court unanimously declared the complaint inadmissible, according to the Guardian.

Three judges said that after reviewing the case, “at all stages of the proceedings, the applicants, assisted by their lawyers, had been able to exercise their rights effectively”.

“Judges did not appear to have reached arbitrary conclusions based on the facts before them and their interpretation of the evidence in the file or the applicable law had not been unreasonable,” they added.

In 2015, French judges closed an investigation into claims Arafat was murdered, without bringing any charges. The French court of appeal upheld the dismissal of the case, leading the former leader’s family to take their case to the ECHR.

The couple married secretly in Tunisia in 1990, when Suha was 27 and Arafat 61. Their daughter Zahwa was born five years later.

On 11 November 2004, Arafat died in France, under highly suspicious circumstances, at the age of 75. Until now, doctors have been unable to determine the exact cause of his death.

The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly insisted that Israel is behind his death, claims Tel Aviv denies.

July 2, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Knesset member calls for killing of people in mixed marriages

MEMO | July 1, 2021

 A member of the Israeli Knesset, Yitzhak Pindrus, is accused of inciting genocide after calling for the killing of people in mixed marriages. Pindrus belongs to the United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox party that believes in a homogenous Jewish state. The party won seven seats in Israel’s fourth general election in under two years which was held in March.

United Torah Judaism is part of the right-wing opposition camp headed by ousted Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s premier for the past 12 years.

Speaking about Jews that marry non-Jews, Pindrus called for the killing of what he called “people who contribute to miscegenatio ben de o siz merhaban.” He is said to have invoked a Biblical story about the murder of a Jewish man and non-Jewish woman while they were making love by lancing a spear through their engaged sexual organs.

Pindrus’ comments, which were made within the Israeli Knesset itself, was shared on social media by David Sheen, an Israeli journalist. A caption of his speech shows the 49-year-old calling for the murder of “people who cause assimilation” while looking directly at Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List party that joined the fragile coalition which ousted Netanyahu. It’s not clear if the call for the murder of Jews that intermarry non-Jews is a symbolic reference to the coalition led by far-right nationalist Naftali Bennett.

Leading advocates of Israel are often seen issuing stark warnings against intermarriage. While many religious groups and cultures look upon mixed marriages disapprovingly, elected officials rarely entertain the issue considering it to be a parochial matter. However, in Israel, where non-Jews are seen as a demographic threat, inter-marriage is a highly political issue.

Last year, prominent member of one of American Jewish Committee, one of the US’ most active pro-Israel advocacy group, said that marriage between Jews and non-Jews is a “tragedy” for the occupation state because it presents a “crisis” for the core of political support for the Zionist state.

July 1, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

The assassination of Nizar Banat means there’s only one solution for the Palestinians

By Feras Abu-Helal – Arabi21 – June 28, 2021

The assassination of political activist Nizar Banat during his arrest by Palestinian Authority security services is a turning point in occupied Palestine. It is no less important and dangerous than the shift represented by the recent Jerusalem uprising, which covered Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the territory occupied since 1948.

The occupied West Bank has not witnessed events like this before, and the PA has never appeared as strategically and morally stripped as it is now, because its failure in terms of managing internal affairs and human rights has also been exposed alongside its flawed approach to national affairs and resistance against the occupation. The only people who can’t see this are those who benefit from the status quo.

What made Banat’s killing different from all of the PA’s previous crimes, both on the national and internal level, is that all of its flaws were condensed into one operation. The first was the silencing of the anti-occupation voice, as the difference between the latter and the PA is not based on personal interest, or even to the management of domestic affairs, but is essentially a dispute over the PA’s performance and the way it deals with Israel and its occupation. His killing followed Banat’s criticism of the shameful vaccine deal, according to which the PA would hand over new vaccines to the Israelis in exchange for vaccines that expire soon. This showed clearly that the PA favours Israelis over its own people.

Another national paradox for the Palestinian people is that the same PA security forces that melt into the background when their Israeli counterparts are on the scene — not least during the recent events in Jerusalem — and never, ever, confront soldiers or armed settlers when they attack Palestinians and their land, are the same “security forces” which beat Nizar Banat to death after entering his home like thieves in the night and dragging him from his bed. This paradox confirmed to every Palestinian that the PA security forces exist solely to protect the occupation state and oppress the people of Palestine under occupation.

Banat’s assassination also revealed the PA’s indifference to human rights, and its intolerance of criticism. It behaved like every other repressive Arab regime that kills its opponents because of their opinions. Although repression and human rights violations must always be condemned, they are even more shocking and criminal when they come from a self-rule organisation against its own people struggling under a military occupation. The people face a double cycle of repression, at the hands of the Israeli occupation — which is inherently repressive — and the PA, which is supposed to represent their interests. The Palestinians can resist the occupation but are helpless in front of the PA’s repressive security forces, because they know that the occupation is the main issue. Hence, the PA not only adds to the repression of the people, but also distorts the national compass.

After the killing of Banat, the PA behaved like a typical Arab regime. The theory proposed by the late Yasser Arafat and applied to a large extent was dropped; the so-called democracy of the forest of guns, which had little to do with democracy, but was a slogan that allowed criticism and internal conflicts without resorting to weapons, within the framework of the Palestinian national movement. Arafat bore all criticism, accusations and even splits, even though he had national legitimacy to represent all groups of the Palestinian people at the time. The PA today not only coordinates its security repression with Israel, but also lacks any national or electoral legitimacy, and is incapable of accepting criticism. So it simply kills its political opponents.

The PA resorted to its base instincts which are a disgrace for a national liberation movement. It was in denial when it claimed initially that Banat’s was a natural death due to a pre-existing condition. Then it issued contemptable statements about the investigation after the uproar at the murder. It then sent in its security thugs in plain clothes to attack protesters, and issued tribal statements in support of the president, especially from Hebron, where Nizar Banat was from. All of this exposed the PA like never before, as nothing but a primitive authority that identifies with other repressive Arab regimes, with a leadership that is supposed to represent a “national liberation movement”.

Under normal circumstances, there is no “single” solution to any political crisis, as politics is the result of the interaction of several complex factors and profit and loss calculations. However, the killing of Nizar Banat and the events that preceded and followed it have made matters clear to every Palestinian. The national impasse has only one solution: delegitimise and close down this authority.

The Palestinian factions, especially Hamas, must bear their responsibility for this delegitimisation; they should refuse any dialogue with Fatah under the Oslo umbrella. Dialogue must be established on a national basis to agree on the way to resist the occupation, not on how to relieve Israel of its responsibility and grant it an occupation that carries no political, economic and security cost.

Ever since 2006, the Palestinian dialogue has been based on the wrong foundations, and was thus unable to break away from Oslo. If Hamas and the other factions are trying to end the division in this way, then they are making a big mistake. Fatah, meanwhile, must choose between being part of the people and their resistance, or standing with the occupier in an authority that has failed nationally, legally and in managing internal affairs.

This choice was clear in 2006, and many Palestinian writers and elites demanded that it be made. Now, though, it has become clearer after the Jerusalem Intifada and the victory of the resistance, as well as the assassination of Nizar Banat.

June 30, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestanian Protesters Recount Harrowing Details of Torture at the Hands of Israeli Police

By Jessica Buxbaum | MintPress News | June 25, 2021

NAZARETH, ISRAEL — In May, the world watched Israel’s brutal occupation on full display: The forcible displacement of Sheikh Jarrah residents was underway; Israeli security forces attacked Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan; Israeli rocket fire rained down on Gaza; and Jewish extremists chanted “Death to Arabs!” in the streets.

According to multiple testimonies, Israeli police in Nazareth ran a “torture room” where they ruthlessly attacked Palestinian detainees during the wave of demonstrations against Israel in May.

Now, as international headlines fade on Palestine, Israeli violence continues.

‘The floor of the room was covered in blood’

Faiz Zbedeiat was talking on the phone about 20 feet away from a protest in Nazareth. The moment the 21-year-old student hung up the phone, Israeli police threw a stun grenade into the street. An officer then charged at him and punched him in the nose. Zbedeiat was soon encircled by police who grabbed him, hit him, and pushed him toward a Border Police officer who tried to slam his head against a wall.

“I asked why they were hitting me when I’m not resisting,” Zbedeiat said. “I put my hands behind my back even though they didn’t handcuff me. Nevertheless, the same Border Police officer hit me in the nose with the walkie-talkie that he was holding.”

The officers dragged Zbedeiat by his head to the police station, beating him along the way.

“On the way, we met a policeman who appeared to be an officer, and he started laughing and said to them: ‘Did you only arrest him? That’s not enough. We need more,’” Zbedeiat said.

The beating continued inside the police station. Cops kicked, slapped, and hit detainees with batons, laughing as they struck them.

Zbedeiat detailed how one officer smacked detainees with an M-16 rifle. He watched as one man with a broken nose — face covered in blood — was continuously hit by officers. Then Zbedeiat described his own treatment:

A police officer approached me and whispered in my ear, threatening me. He cursed my mother, my sister, and my wife. He then asked, ‘Did you understand?’ I didn’t answer, and he immediately slapped me in the face. He asked me again: ‘Do you understand?’ I still didn’t answer and he slapped me again in the face. Finally, he said ‘Go explain to your friends.’ He pushed me back down to the floor and hit me again.”

Zbedeiat’s violent detention in May is one of many such, according to Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The advocacy group collected multiple sworn affidavits attesting to the abuse of Palestinian protesters by Israeli officers, attorneys, bystanders, and children inside Nazareth’s police station from May 9 to May 14. The majority of the violent arrests and most of the abuse were conducted by Israeli special forces, including undercover Mista’aravim (counter-terror units within the Israeli Army, Border Police, and Israel Police) officers pretending to be Palestinians.

Adalah submitted a complaint to Israel’s Attorney General and the chairman of the Police Investigation Department on June 7. In their letter, Adalah wrote:

Police officers led the detainees to a room located on the left side of the entrance corridor to the station, forcing them to sit on the floor handcuffed, to lower their heads towards the floor, and began to beat them on all parts of their bodies, using kicks and clubs, slamming their heads against walls or doors, and more. Officers wounded the detainees, terrorized them, and whomever dared to lift his head upwards risked more beatings by officers. According to affidavits, the floor of the room was covered in blood from the beatings.

Police violence amounting to torture

Under Israeli law, authorities must respond to the letter within 45 days. But Adalah attorney and co-author of the complaint, Wesam Sharaf, told MintPress that Adalah has not received a response from the Attorney General or Police Investigation Department. Adalah did receive a response from Nazareth’s Chief of Police, stating that he will cooperate if there’s an investigation and will take the appropriate disciplinary actions.

“What happened inside the police station in Nazareth amounts to torture and ill-treatment, and requires the immediate opening of a criminal investigation to examine the circumstances and conditions of the protesters’ detention at the station – including the investigation and prosecution of police officers involved in the violence,” Adalah attorneys wrote in their complaint.

Sharaf explained that the witness and victim accounts of police brutality inside the Israeli police station describe activity deemed torturous under international law:

What we have seen in the police station is that instead of investigating the people, the police would beat them up. [The police] deny [the detainees] in need of medical attention that medical attention and make them sign [false] affidavits as a condition to get medical attention… When this treatment is [directed at] detainees, it may amount to torture according to international law.”

Torture is defined under international law as intentionally inflicting severe pain or suffering in order to obtain a confession or information, intimidate or coerce the individual, or as punishment for alleged offenses. Torture is illegal and considered a war crime.

In a statement to MintPress News, Israeli Police said:

We emphasize that an investigation branch officer contacted the director of detention on behalf of the Public Defender’s Office and requested the presence of defense attorneys at the station, and accordingly, when the detainees arrived at the station, two defense attorneys were present to advise them. Unfortunately some of the lawyers complaining about the appeal were at the entrance to the station, tried to create provocations on the spot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, they were periodically allowed to enter the station and tour the facility in order to prove that the detainees were being treated properly.”

The police spokesperson also noted that medical staff was present at the station and detainees in need of medical care were promptly treated.

Israel’s mass-arrest campaign targeting Palestinians

In a move largely seen as squelching Palestinian dissent, Israel Police launched a mass-arrest campaign in May, targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel who participated in protests against ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, attacks at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Israeli police arrested 2,142 individuals and filed 184 indictments during “Operation Guardian of the Walls” and “Operation Law and Order.” According to Sharaf, more than 150 Palestinians were arrested in Nazareth in May, and about one in ten were indicted.

Ashraf Mahroum, an attorney representing nine people detained by police in Nazareth, said his clients and others were charged for protesting illegally, creating illegal organizations, and assaulting police officers. Maroum’s clients allege police fired rubber bullets at the upper parts of their bodies during the protests — a direct violation of the law governing use of rubber bullets. During their detention, officers struck them with batons and smacked them over the head with guns. Most of his clients’ injuries were on the head and face. Some were forced to sign affidavits stating they won’t disclose what happened to them in order to receive medical treatment.

Evidence of similar police violence against Palestinians appeared in other cities across 1948-occupied Palestine (modern-day Israel) including in Lydd, Akka, Yaffa and Haifa, Sharaf said, adding detainees in these localities arrived in court with visible signs of abuse. Sharaf concluded:

[Adalah] “has other testimonies about police brutality in different areas; some of this brutality was against protesters and some of it has been inside police stations against detainees. With the systematic ill treatment that we have witnessed from the 9th of May to the 14th of May, we can assume that more people have been subject to such kind of treatment.”

Israel’s expanding history of torture

The Israel Security Agency (ISA) has long used torture as a standard tactic during interrogations of Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories. Until the late 1990s, the ISA was allowed to use “psychological pressure” and a “moderate degree of physical pressure” in order to “prevent terrorism,” according to 1987 recommendations from a state commission. The commission’s opinion permitted the ISA to use methods of torture in their interrogations under the “necessity defense” clause found in Israeli penal law.

The Israeli Supreme Court banned the use of physical methods during interrogations in 1999 after a series of petitions were filed by human rights organizations and Palestinians who experienced ISA interrogations. However, the court ruled the practice of physical pressure could remain in urgent cases as part of the “ticking bomb” exception under the necessity defense. This legal loophole has allowed torture and ill treatment to persist in ISA interrogations, despite the Israeli Justice Ministry having drafted a law to criminalize torture.

Israel torture

An illustration from a 1991 B’Teslem report detailing torture methods used by Israeli forces

According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), 1,300 complaints regarding the use of torture against Palestinian citizens in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) by the ISA have been submitted to the Ministry of Justice since 2001. These complaints resulted in only one criminal investigation and no indictments.

PCATI receives dozens of complaints each year attesting to brutality occurring during arrest, detention, interrogation and imprisonment of Palestinians from the OPT. The nonprofit organization estimates 5% to 10% of these cases amount to instances of severe torture.

Severe interrogations increased sharply in 2020. “In the passing year, more people were tortured in Israel than in any other year in the past decade,” PCATI said in their 2020 situation report on torture of Palestinians by Israeli security forces. While cases of torture are prevalent within the OPT, Tal Steiner, Director General of PCATI, said 1948-occupied Palestine is now experiencing an escalation of torture incidents. Steiner told MintPress:

[PCATI] “has seen attributes that are usually found in the West Bank trickling into Israel. There’s administrative arrest, prevention of rights to seek counsel, to receive medical attention — those are things that are quite unfortunately common in the West Bank and the Occupied Territories that have now become more evident within Israel proper… This is not something that’s usual or routine within Israel for Israeli citizens — Palestinian or not. So it’s a turn for the worse.”

Israel torture

An illustration from a 1991 B’Teslem report detailing torture methods used by Israeli forces

Steiner attributed this surge within Historic Palestine to a culture of impunity spurred by Israeli politicians like former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explaining:

“When the police and military forces entered the mixed cities within Israel to so-call restore the peace, then-Prime Minister Netanyahu was quoted saying, ‘Go ahead and do your job and don’t worry about any commission of inquiry.’ These types of announcements by the prime minister and other Israeli leaders can also be a reason why police officers thought they could get away with it. They can use extreme force toward citizens, demonstrators, and especially toward people from minority groups, and go unpunished.”

“I thought I was going to die”

On May 13, the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, Nazareth resident Omaiyer Lawabne was out with friends to celebrate. As he approached an ATM to withdraw money, he saw an officer decked in full riot gear running toward him. Instinctively, he began running away.

“The cops started throwing grenades at me, and I kept running because I knew that if I stood still I could be badly wounded by the grenades,” Lawabne said. “While I was still running, one of the policemen raised his hand and hit me in the left eye, and I fell to the ground.”

Police surrounded Lawabne on the pavement, kicking him in the face and head. One officer pressed his boot into Lawabne’s head and shoulder. “I felt intense pain all over my body, from my head to my legs. One of them started kicking me in the artery behind the ear,” Lawabne said. “At that moment, I thought I was going to die.”

At the police station, Lawabne saw detainees stuffed into a room, resembling “prisoners of war.” They sat on the floor with their legs folded under them and heads bent. A masked officer paced around the room with a club-like object in his hand. Any detainee who lifted his head met the full swing of the officer’s bat on their head.

“They pushed me down into a corner and I lowered my head and curled up. Nevertheless, the same police officer hit me hard on the head with that object,” Lawabne said.

Days after his detention, Lawabne still felt excruciating pain throughout his body. He couldn’t sleep from the dizziness. He couldn’t eat without vomiting. He couldn’t speak coherently. He still doesn’t understand why he was arrested when he wasn’t participating in any nearby protests.

“It was the first time I had been arrested, an arrest that I believe was illegal, pointless, and very violent,” Lawabne said.

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.

June 29, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »