UAE official accuses Palestinians of ‘ungratefulness’ after criticism of Israel ties
Press TV | October 14, 2020
A high-ranking United Arab Emirates (UAE) official has accused Palestinians of “ingratitude” and “lack of loyalty” after Ramallah’s envoy to France harshly criticized the Persian Gulf state and Bahrain over signing normalization agreements with the Israeli regime.
“I was not surprised by the statements made by the Palestinian Ambassador to Paris [Salman El Herfi], and his ungrateful discussion of the Emirates,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.
“We have grown accustomed to the lack of loyalty and the ingratitude. We proceed toward the future confident in all our actions and beliefs,” he added.
Earlier, El Herfi told French magazine Le Point in an interview that UAE and Bahrain “have become more Israeli than Israel” itself and are violating the Charter of the United Nations.
‘UAE dictator playing with fire’
The Palestinian diplomat said that the UAE had long abandoned the Palestinian cause and that he wasn’t surprised by Abu Dhabi’s decision to normalize with Tel Aviv.
“The only new thing was the formalization of this relationship. I thank them (UAE officials) for having revealed their true face,” he said.
“The truth is that the Emirates were never at the Palestinians’ side,” El Herfi went on, noting that the UAE froze aid for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) back in 1985.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is merely “a little dictator who wants to become known, and he’s playing with fire,” the veteran Palestinian diplomat said.
The UAE’s de facto leader “surrendered to Israel without a fight,” El Herfi added.
He said the UAE and Bahrain violated a long list of Arab League and UN resolutions by normalizing ties with Israel.
The Palestinian ambassador also denounced the two deals as “pure propaganda,” saying they had neither parliamentary approval nor public support.
“And with all due respect, how many Emiratis are there in the world, 800 thousand? And Bahrainis, 500 thousand? There are 340 million Arabs,” he said.
“In fact, these two countries have come more Israeli than the Israelis. But we have full confidence in the fact that their people will not accept this over the long term,” El Herfi pointed out.
Relations between the UAE and the Palestinians have soured ever since the Emirates and Israel agreed as part of a US-brokered deal to establish formal relations on August 13.
Emirati officials have described the normalization deal with the Tel Aviv regime as a means to stave off annexation and save the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians, however, dismiss the claims, saying the deal had long been in the works in the course of secret contacts between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.
Israeli leaders have lined up to reject the UAE’s bluff that Israel’s annexation plans were off the table. Netanyahu has underlined that annexation is not off the table, but has simply been delayed.
Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, view the deals as a betrayal of their cause and say they run counter to a long-standing Arab consensus over a “two-state solution” along the 1967 borders.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the agreements will be fruitless as long as the United States and the Israeli regime do not recognize the rights of the Palestinian nation and refuse to resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees.
Dying Alone: When We Stopped Caring for Palestinian Prisoners
By Ramzy Baroud | Dissident Voice | October 12, 2020
“No one cares about the prisoners.” Over the past few years, I have heard this phrase — or some variation of it — uttered many times by freed Palestinian prisoners and their families. Whenever I conduct an interview regarding this crucial and highly sensitive topic, I am told, repeatedly, that ‘no one cares.’
But is this really the case? Are Palestinian prisoners so abandoned to the extent that their freedom, life and death are of no consequence?
The subject, and the claim, resurfaces every time a Palestinian prisoner launches a hunger strike or undergoes extreme hardship and torture, which is leaked outside Israeli prisons through lawyers or human rights organizations. This year, five Palestinian prisoners died in prison as a result of alleged medical negligence, or worse, torture.
Even international humanitarian aid workers, like Mohammed el-Halabi, are not immune to degrading treatment. Arrested in August 2016, el-Halabi is yet to be charged for any wrongdoing. News of his plight, which originally received some media attention — due to his work with a US-based organization – is now merely confined to Facebook posts by his father, Khalil.
As of October 1, el-Halabi has been paraded before 151 military trials, yet unaware what the charges are. The cherished Palestinian man, who has played a major role in providing cancer medicine to dying children in Gaza, now holds the record of the longest military trial ever carried out by the Israeli occupation.
Desperate for some attention, and fed up with cliches about their ‘centrality in the Palestinian struggle’, many prisoners, whether individually or collectively, launch hunger strikes under the slogan: ‘freedom or death’. Those who are held under the draconian and illegal ‘administrative detention’ policy, demand their freedom, while ‘security prisoners’, who are held in degrading conditions, merely ask for family visitations or food that is suitable for human consumption.
Health complications resulting from hunger strikes often linger long after the physical ordeal is over. I have interviewed families of Palestinians who were freed from Israeli prisons, only to die in a matter of months, or live a life of endless pain and constant ailments for years following their release.
According to some estimates, over 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in June 1967.
Maher al-Akhras is currently writing the latest chapter in this tragic narrative. At the time of writing this article, he has just concluded 77 days of uninterrupted hunger strike. No medical opinion is necessary to tell us that al-Akhras could die any moment. A recent video released of al-Akhras on his Israeli hospital bed conveyed a glimpse of the man’s unbearable suffering.
With a barely audible voice, the gaunt, exhausted-looking man said that he is left with only two options: either his immediate freedom or death within the confines of Israel’s “phony justice system.”
On October 7, his wife, Taghrid, launched her own hunger strike to protest the fact that “no one cares about” her husband.
Once again, the lack of concern for the plight of prisoners, even dying ones, imposes itself on the Palestinian political discourse. So, why is this the case?
The idea that Palestinian prisoners are all alone in the fight for freedom began in the early 1990s. It was during this period that the various Oslo Accords were signed, dividing the Occupied Territories into zones governed by some strange Kafkaesque military system, one that did not end the Israeli occupation, but, rather, cemented it.
Largely dropped from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations agenda at the time, but permanently, eventually, were several pressing issues fundamental to Palestinian rights and freedom. One of these issues was Israel’s brutal system of incarceration and imprisonment without trial.
Certainly, some Palestinian prisoners were released in small batches occasionally, as ‘gestures of goodwill’; but the system, itself, which gave Israel the right to arrest, detain and sentence Palestinians, remained intact.
To date, the freedom of Palestinian prisoners — nearly 5,000 of them are still held in Israel, with new prisoners added daily — is not part of the Palestinian leadership political agenda, itself subsumed by self-interests, factional fights and other trivial matters.
Being removed from the realm of politics, the plight of prisoners has, over the years, been reduced to a mere humanitarian subject — as if these men and women are no longer political agents and a direct expression of Palestinian resistance, on the one hand, and Israel’s military occupation and violence, on the other.
There are ample references to Palestinian prisoners in everyday language. Not a single press release drafted by the Palestinian Authority, its main Fatah faction or any other Palestinian group fails to renew the pledge to free the prisoners, while constantly glorifying their sacrifices. Unsurprisingly, empty language never produces concrete results.
There are two exceptions to the above maxim. The first is prisoner exchanges, like the one that took place in October 2011, resulting in the freedom of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. And, second, the prisoners’ own hunger strikes, which are incremental in their achievements, but have, lately, become the main channel of resistance.
Sadly, even solidarity with hunger strikers is often factional, as each Palestinian political group often places disproportionate focus on their own striking prisoners and, largely ignores others. Not only has the issue of prisoners become depoliticized, it has also fallen victim to Palestine’s unfortunate disunity.
While it is untrue that ‘no one cares about Palestinian prisoners’, thousands of Palestinian families are justified to hold this opinion. For the freedom of prisoners to take center stage within the larger Palestinian struggle for freedom, the issue must be placed at the top of Palestine’s political agenda, by Palestinians themselves and by Palestinian solidarity networks everywhere.
Maher al-Akhras, and thousands like him, should not risk their lives to obtain basic human rights, which should, in theory, be guaranteed under international law. Equally important, Palestinian prisoners should not be left alone, paying a price for daring to stand up for justice, fairness and for their people’s freedom.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs, Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). Read other articles by Ramzy, or visit Ramzy’s website.
US forces must leave Iraq or will be forcibly expelled: Kata’ib Hezbollah
Press TV – October 10, 2020
Iraq’s anti-terror Kata’ib Hezbollah group, which is part of the country’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), has warned American forces against remaining in the Arab country, saying they will be forcibly expelled by means of resistance if they insist on maintaining their presence much to the dismay of Iraqis.
Muhammad Mohi, spokesman for Kata’ib Hezbollah, told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network on Saturday that the resistance will become stronger if the US insists on its obstinacy regarding its exit from Iraq.
Kata’ib Hezbollah is an anti-US unit operating under Hashd al-Sha’abi – an Iraqi umbrella group also known as PMU, which includes more than 40 militia groups fighting Takfiri terrorism.
He further slammed the US for making attempts to dissolve the PMU, saying Washington will fail to limit the role of the anti-terror forces.
The Iraqi forces, he said, are able to counter any possible threat against the country, adding that by remaining in the region, the US wants to guarantee the security of Israel and implement US President Donald Trump’s so-called deal of the century.
“The cause of the crises in the region is the American arrogance and its attempt to dominate the world,” he said, adding that the US” must respect the will of Iraq,” and immediately leave the country.
Reiterating the military capabilities of Iraqi resistance groups, Mohi called on the country’s parliament to implement its decision to expel American forces from Iraq.
Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters have played a major role in the liberation of areas held by Daesh terrorists ever since the Takfiri group launched an offensive in the country, overrunning vast swathes in lightning attacks.
In November 2016, the Iraqi parliament voted to integrate the PMU, which was formed shortly after the emergence of Daesh in Iraq in 2014, into the military.
The popular group, however, is a thorn in the side of the United States, which is widely believed to be managing an array of militant groups, including Daesh, to advance its Israel-centric agenda in the region.
In 2009, the US State Department blacklisted Kata’ib Hezbollah and imposed sanctions on the group, which has been the frequent target of American airstrikes in Iraq.
Iraqi lawmakers unanimously approved a bill on January 5, demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops following the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s PMU, and their companions.
Later on January 9, former Iraqi prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, called on the United States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the move.
The 78-year-old politician said Iraq rejected any violation of its sovereignty, particularly the US military’s violation of Iraqi airspace in the assassination airstrike.
The US has refused to withdraw its troops, with Trump balking at the idea with the threat to seize Iraq’s oil money held in bank accounts in the United States.
Non-Aligned Movement Demands Israel Withdraw to 1967 Borders With Syria
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 10.10.2020
The 120 member-strong Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has issued a political declaration whose demands include Israel withdrawing from occupied Syrian territories in the Golan Heights.
In a statement published Friday after a virtual ministerial meeting, the NAM said its members “condemn all measures taken by Israel to change the legal, physical and demographic status of the Occupied Syrian Golan, and demand once again that Israel should abide by the United Nations Security council resolution 497 (1981), and to withdraw fully from the Occupied Syrian Golan to the borders of 4 June 1967, in the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).”
In addition, the NAM reiterated that “a just, lasting solution to the question of Palestine in all its aspects must remain its priority and also a permanent responsibility of the United Nations until it is satisfactorily resolved in all aspects in accordance with international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions.”
The group of nations also reaffirmed the need to “respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty, the sovereign equality, political independence and inviolability of international borders of other states,” and to refrain from intervention in other countries’ internal affairs.
Established in 1961 at the height of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, the NAM was seen as an alternative to the idea of a bipolar world order of two competing military blocs. Today, the NAM consists of 120 member nations, with most countries in the Middle East and Africa, plus much of Latin America and Asia and several post-Soviet republics among its members. China, Mexico, Brazil and more than a dozen other countries serve as observers.
The Trump administration formally recognised Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights in March 2019. Dozens of countries, including the US’s European allies, condemned the decision. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called it a “conscious, deliberate demonstration of lawlessness.”
Earlier this summer, on the occasion of President Trump’s birthday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “practical steps” to create a so-called “Trump Heights” settlement in the area to honour the President’s recognition of Israeli control over the territory. The Israeli government plans to allocate some $2.3 million for construction of the settlement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the inauguration of a new settlement named after President Donald Trump in Golan Heights, Sunday, June 16, 2019.
Israel occupied the Golan Heights in June 1967 after launching a preemptive air strike against Egyptian airfields and thereby starting the Six Day War against a coalition of Arab states including Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In 1981, Tel Aviv formally annexed the territory, but the decision was not recognised by the Security Council, including the US, despite its alliance with Israel. In December 1981, the Security Council unanimously declared that Israel’s move was “null and void”. Behind the scenes, however, the Reagan administration did not press Israel to rescind its decision, and in January 1982 Washington and its allies vetoed a second resolution calling on the international community to take action to put pressure Israel.
Damascus has repeatedly stressed that it would never give up its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and has warned that it has the right under international law to regain its territories using any means necessary.
Along with the Golan Heights, Israel continues to occupy a 22 sq km strip of Lebanese territory known as Shebaa Farms, as well as the internationally recognised Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Rare maritime talks do not mean normalization with Israel: Hezbollah
Press TV | October 9, 2020
The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement says a UN-brokered indirect maritime negotiations with Israel do not signify “reconciliation” or “normalization” with the Zionist entity.
Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc said in a statement on Thursday that the talks have “absolutely nothing to do with either any reconciliation with the Zionist enemy… or policies of normalization recently adopted… by Arab states.”
“Defining the coordinates of national sovereignty is the responsibility of the Lebanese state,” it said in a statement.
Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri last week announced the talks would go ahead.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric has recently said Lebanon’s maritime border talks, to be held at the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL in the southern town of Naqoura, will start around mid-October.
The issue of the sea frontier is especially sensitive as Lebanon hopes to continue exploring for oil and gas in a part of the Mediterranean.
In February 2018, Lebanon signed its first contract for offshore drilling for oil and gas in two blocks in the Mediterranean with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI and Novatek.
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday strongly condemned normalization with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause, emphasizing that Arab rulers scrambling to establish diplomatic ties with the Tel Aviv regime have reaped nothing but humiliation and disgrace.
He underlined that Palestinians are at the vanguard of the resistance front seeking to liberate Jerusalem al-Quds, calling for support for them.
Qassem was reacting to the recent decisions by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to sign contentious US-mediated normalization deals with Israel.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the deals with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani during an official ceremony hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House on September 15.
Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, view the deals as betrayal of their cause.
Hezbollah is credited with ending two decades of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanon marks the Resistance and Liberation Day on May 25 each year. In May 2000, the Israeli regime was forced by Hezbollah to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, ending nearly two decades of occupation of the country’s south.
Hezbollah was established following the 1982 Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon.
Since then, the movement has grown into a powerful military force, dealing repeated blows to the Israeli military, including during a 33-day war in July 2006.
Facing Down Israel’s Stooges at the Heart of Our Parliament
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | October 6, 2020
A debate in Parliament recently on the Occupied Palestinian Territories drew some very silly remarks from the ‘usual suspects’.
It was opened in commonsense vein by Stephen Kinnock who said:
“It is so vital and urgent that the rule of law be brought to bear as the foundation upon which a viable and sustainable Palestine can be negotiated and built—a Palestine that protects the rights of its citizens and lives in peace with its neighbours.
“The illegal Israeli settlements… cause violence on a daily basis and they are a flagrant breach of international law, yet they continue and expand. In 2018, we marked 25 years since the signing of the Oslo accords. That moment in 1993 was meant to herald a new and lasting era of peace and co-existence—the beginning of a genuine two-state solution—but since then, the number of illegal settlers has increased from 258,000 to more than 610,000. Fifty thousand homes and properties have been demolished, and an illegal separation barrier has been built that carves up the West Bank and brutally disconnects towns, cities, families and communities from each other.”
‘This Israeli Government will continue on their current path.… further annexation‘
Labour’s Jeff Smith kept the show on a sane level by reminding the House that Israel’s accords with the UAE and Bahrain have led only to a suspension of trouble, not an end. “Netanyahu has said that the plans for annexation remain on the table, and many of us fear that his Government could still bring those plans into practice”.
You can count on it. That is the Zionist Project’s main purpose.
“The single message that I took away from a visit to the West Bank—the one thing that came from many human rights groups and a range of people on the ground including diplomats and strong supporters of Israel—is that unless there are consequences for their actions, this Israeli Government will continue on their current path. That means, ultimately, moves towards further annexation and the end of a two-state solution.”
But from there the debate went downhill to the extent that a colleague, Elizabeth Morley, decided to write to the most irritating participants. It’s a classic put-down and, I think, well worth sharing with readers. Elizabeth wrote:
Dear MPs,
Thank you all for taking part in this debate.
It was disappointing but not surprising that both the Minister and those who declare themselves Friends of Israel ostensibly pay only lip service to peace, justice, and the rule of international law where Israel is concerned. FoIs invariably shift blame onto the Palestinians, urging HMG to apply more pressure on them than on Israel.
To Mr Crabb, concerned about the threat of violence and death for Jewish Israeli citizens, I would suggest he force himself to try and extend his concern to non-Jewish Israelis too, let alone to Palestinians in the Occupied territory.
Mr Wakeford wondered if new elections in Palestine would “bring not only an impetus for negotiation, but hope for the Palestinian people to move forward and find peace in the middle east?” Has he forgotten what happened after Hamas won the legislative election in 2006 with an overwhelming majority? The so-called free world refused to accept that outcome, thereby facilitating a further 15 years of violence.
To Mr Howell I would say settlements are not just unhelpful, they are illegal. His remark that it is Palestinians ramming Israeli cars that makes the settlements necessary is nothing if not laughable.
Mr Moore, possibly blinded by his support of Israel, says “Violence against Jews in the region had been taking place even before the state’s establishment in 1948”. He should remember that in the same period the non-Jews of Palestine had suffered violence both from the British Mandatory and from the Jewish terror gangs who committed atrocity after atrocity right up to the declaration of the State of Israel. As for his remark that: “For millennia, Jews lived in the west bank, known as the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria”, he should recall that the proportion of Jewish to non-Jewish Palestinians in what was fondly known as the Holy Land before the Balfour Declaration was approx. 5% to 95%! Regarding his comments on Gaza, would he consider his life would have improved after Israel withdrew settlers but destroyed its infrastructure, polluted its land and waters, restricted access to electricity and water, made it unfit for human occupation and, to use David Cameron’s phrase, turned Gaza into “an open-air prison camp” surveilled night and day from land, sea and air? Finally, as for “Palestine—meaning modern-day Israel” – no, it does not!
Mr McCabe is worried about Palestinian text books. Has he ever studied Israeli textbooks? I assume not. So let him, and others who are similarly worried, read the recent study by Prof. Avner Ben-Amos of Tel Aviv University’s School of Education which shows that the occupation barely figures in Israeli school textbooks, in which Palestinians are all but invisible, while at the same time the Jewish control and the Palestinians’ inferior status appear as a natural, self-evident situation that one doesn’t have to think about. The Bible is used as a historical source and as a moral justification for Jewish occupation of the West Bank.
Mr Largan follows up his cynical remark about Palestine recognition by describing Hamas as “openly committed to the genocide of Jewish people”. I would suggest he and others of that persuasion (Mr McCabe included) brush up their somewhat flimsy knowledge about Hamas and its history.
Mr Clarke-Smith says: “Conflict is in no way as clearcut as it is so often presented, just as the settlements issue requires greater nuance than some are willing to provide.” To him I would say: On the contrary, “the conflict” IS clear cut! It started with the Balfour Declaration, which gave a free ticket to foreign Jews to take over Palestine. Let him “nuance” the history of Palestine beyond all recognition!
Good to see the Minister dismissed Mr Shannon’s puerile attempt to divert attention to Iran.
I have copied in my MP. Unfortunately he did not take part in the debate. Nevertheless, I am confident that he would have agreed with those who urged HMG to recognise Palestine, ban settlement goods and cease trade with companies profiting from the Occupation.
Thank you for your attention.”
Crabb is an especially sad case. He’s Parliamentary Chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a lobby group at the centre of UK government which in 2014 claimed to include 80% of Conservative Party MPs. An utterly shameful state of affairs when you consider what message is sent by eagerly waving the flag of a brutal, lawless and racist regime that has few friends outside the conceited Westminster and Washington ‘elites’.
He is also a Christian who believes in the practical value of prayer. But if he’s such a dedicated supporter of the Zionist Project which god does he pray to?
In 2017 he told the Jewish Chrinicle:
“My interest in supporting Israel through CFI is less to do with faith and much more to do with basic values about liberalism, tolerance, democracy and freedom. When you put yourself on the side of Israel you are putting yourself on the side of those values, which as a Conservative I believe are the essential underpinnings of prosperity in the modern world.
“You cannot fail to be impressed by Israel as a beacon of freedom and liberalism.”
Funny man. Israel’s ‘values’ don’t include letting the Palestinians have their freedom or even the slightest sniff at the underpinning of prosperity.
And he recently wrote:
“As I have emphasised to you on numerous occasions in the past, the way forward is for a renunciation of violence and terror by Hamas and a resumption of full peace talks. It was very encouraging to see Israel and the United Arab Emirates reach a ground-breaking peace agreement over summer and this has to be the way forward. It is tragic that the Hamas leadership remain determined to turn Gaza into a terrorist statelet, rather than a prosperous home for Palestinians.”
The way forward is, and always has been, compliance with international law and UN resolutions and an end to Israel’s illegal and vicious military occupation which, as even Crabb must see, deprives Palestinians of any hope of prosperity.
Mrs Morley, I think, would have pointed out to Crabb (as she did to someone else) that if he and his colleagues truly want peace – which I personally doubt because that’s the last thing their adored Israel wants – they are “doing all the wrong things, namely:
– failing to recognise Palestine;
– failing to sanction Israel for its decades long illegal occupation of Palestine and its ongoing crimes against Palestinian life;
– failing to hold Israel to its obligations under international law as regards the return of refugees;
– failing to stop selling lethal weapons to Israel which are used to maim and murder Palestinians, including children.
By not banning settlement products, HMG actively assist those who support the illegal Israeli settlements whose main aim is the displacement, disenfranchisement, elimination by any means of the Palestinian people on their own land.
In fact HMG are for ever tilting the balance in Israel’s favour in countless other ways. And no amount of peace deals with Israel’s other Arab nations will make any difference.”
Managing it, never solving it
And I’d be saying to Mr Crabb, if you are seriously interested in Christianity you should connect with the Christian churches out there instead of constantly hobnobbing with the Zionist Tendency. And I do mean the real Christians, those in the front line battling the jackbooted mayhem in the Holy Land.
And he ought to acquaint himself with the Kairos Document. Eleven years ago a group of Christian Palestinians issued “a cry of hope in the absence of all hope”, reflecting their country’s decades of suffering under brutal Israeli occupation.
They said they had reached a dead end in the tragedy of the Palestinian people because international decision-makers contented themselves with ‘managing’ the crisis rather than solving it. The situation was, and still is, destroying human life and that must surely be of concern to the Church.
“We call out as Christians and as Palestinians to our religious and political leaders, to our Palestinian society and to the Israeli society, to the international community, and to our Christian brothers and sisters in the Churches around the world.”
Eight years later, in 2017, came an Open Letter from Christian Palestinians to the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement. It was a heart-rending cry for help from the National Coalition of Christian Organisations in Palestine (NCCOP) saying the situation for Palestinians was “beyond urgent”.
They were concerned that States and churches were still dealing with Israel on a business-as-usual basis and ignoring the criminal reality of the military occupation. After all, the world’s churches had come together in opposition to apartheid in South Africa and helped to defeat it. So why hadn’t they done the same for Palestine?
Then came a third Red Alert “standing on the cliff-edge looking into an abyss”. On the 10th anniversary of their first warning document, Kairos Palestine reached out to world’s Churches yet again, saying that life in Palestine had deteriorated even further under another decade of illegal occupation.
- “The oppression is more aggressive and brutal.”
- “Our imprisoned and besieged sisters and brothers in Gaza, non-violently gathered for the March of Return, were the targets of a bloody and deadly response.”
- “Settlements continue to expand.”
- “Threats to annex the Jordan Valley and the settlements themselves grow without a word of condemnation from the major powers.”
- “We are experiencing the continued dispossession of our land, our freedom and our human rights.”
- “Add to this, three more appalling developments:
– US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel;
– the US Secretary of State’s announcement that the US government no longer deems West Bank settlements to be ‘inconsistent with international law’;
– and the State of Israel’s recent adoption of their Nation State Law which clearly reveals that de facto apartheid has become de jure apartheid.”
- “The failure of the peace process is further evidence that the current status quo is unsustainable.”
The statement went on:
“There are still many who use the Bible to justify the occupation and who unquestioningly support the State of Israel. And, for the most part, the global Church is failing us. We are standing as if on the edge of a cliff, looking into an abyss.”
The essential point of their 2017 Open Letter was that time had run out: it was beyond urgent. And it ended with the chilling words: “This could be our last chance to achieve a just peace. As a Palestinian Christian community, this could be our last opportunity to save the Christian presence in this land.”
So did the efforts of these Palestinian clergy, Christ’s front-line troops who daily face hostility, abuse and physical danger, finally get through to our comfy Holy Joes here in the UK’s leafy suburbs? Has the penny dropped that the wellspring of their faith, the birthplace of Jesus, is being stolen and may be lost forever if Israel gets its way?
How has the World Council of Churches responded to all those urgent pleas from Palestine? Did the message percolated down through the ranks? And have our spiritual leaders, those upstanding ‘men of the cloth’, been mobilising their troops? They promised to study and analyse. “We want churches in Palestine to know that their perspective is heard and it is vitally important,” said the WCC’s general secretary. “We will continue with the same passionate spirit to work on specific objectives, strategies and partners for advocacy to end the occupation and to work for just peace in Palestine and Israel.”
Or was it all bollox?
Rejecting Christian Zionism
Meanwhile, if Mr Crabb is the true, prayerful Christian he claims to be he’ll be eager to read The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches in Jerusalem in 2006. It says among other things:
“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message.
” We reject the alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States [add the UK] that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine.
“We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that support these policies as they promote racial exclusivity and perpetual war.
“We call upon all Churches that remain silent, to break their silence and speak for reconciliation with justice in the Holy Land.
” We call upon all people to reject Christian Zionism and other ideologies that privilege one people at the expense of others.
“We are committed to non-violent resistance as the most effective means to end the illegal occupation.”
And Palestinians – Muslim and Christian – are one people. Don’t anyone forget that.
“A man is known by the company he keeps”, said Aesop the legendary storyteller. So what is Mr Crabb, who prays a lot, doing wedded to an organisation that celebrates the Israeli regime’s cruel and criminal ambition to crush its Palestinian neighbours, including their Christian communities, who have always been in that land?
Hundreds of Palestinian children ethnically cleansed by Israel as world remains silent
An Israeli soldier detains a Palestinian boy during an anti-Israel protest in al-khalil in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on November 29, 2019. (Via Reuters)
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | October 8, 2020
Israel has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes, this year, leaving hundreds more without a place to live. Yet despite the fact that Israel is set for a record number of home demolitions in East Jerusalem al-Quds, the International Community not only refuses to act but also remains silent.
In East Jerusalem al-Quds alone, since 2004, Israeli home demolitions have left 3,459 Palestinians homeless (including 1,847 minors), which is concerning enough, without the added stress to local Jerusalemite Palestinians of this year being on track to break all previous records for the number of home demolitions since 1967.
What the refusal to confront this issue shows is the complete lack of care from the international community and also when it is properly investigated, that house demolitions in of themselves, reveal that inside of Israel itself, there is no democracy for Palestinians.
In order to understand the issue of house demolitions, we have to differentiate between the succinctly three different circumstances under which Palestinians experience this form of ethnic cleansing. The three key areas are inside of what is now Israel, inside of East Jerusalem al-Quds and inside of the West Bank. The Gaza Strip is not included due to the fact that these demolitions are not undertaken in the same way, but rather occur primarily due to airstrikes.
House demolitions in East Jerusalem al-Quds
So far this year, according to Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem, 89 housing units and 27 non-residential buildings were ordered to be demolished in East Jerusalem al-Quds by the Israeli regime. Israel is in fact on track for a record number of house demolitions in the occupied territory this year, according to Israeli paper Haaretz, which will inevitably cause a record number of homeless cases.
Something key to understanding cases of home demolitions in East Jerusalem al-Quds is the ongoing effort to Judaize the city. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem al-Quds do not have Israeli citizenship or Palestinian citizenship, but rather Jerusalem ID cards. If Palestinians choose to live outside of the territory for more than 7 years or claim citizenship of any country (normally Jordan), they can also be stripped of this right to their ID and be expelled. As a result of such policies, significant numbers of Palestinian Jerusalemites have been forced out of Jerusalem al-Quds. Also on top of this is the issue of illegal settlement expansion, with hundreds of thousands of settlers moving into the area.
Despite the oppressive policies, Palestinians make up 40% of the total population of Jerusalem al-Quds, yet are only granted roughly 7% of the total building permits for the city.
The issue of Israeli issued building permits is the main reason for the forced destruction of Palestinian properties in Jerusalem al-Quds. Palestinians have to pay, often unaffordable, prices to apply for permits, yet the approval is near impossible even when they do pay. The reason it is nearly impossible, is because of Israeli implemented building schemes, under which Israel has designed a system built to bolster Jewish construction and prohibit Palestinian construction.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds in 1967, later formally annexing it in 1980, meaning that Israel imposes its own law of Palestinians living in the territory and has even built a wall through areas which constitute part of the East Jerusalem al-Quds territory. However, the Israeli application of its own laws over Palestinians is in violation of International Law as the territory is still considered as occupied territory, meaning that the laws of occupation apply to the area.
When Palestinians build and are not granted a permit, or start construction whilst the permit is processing – sometimes delayed until years later before a decision is made by Israel to destroy the home – or are told an old building has not got updated papers, the building is ordered to be demolished.
When Israel orders a home demolition, the pain does not end there, Palestinians are required to pay for the Israelis to forcibly evict their family and demolish their home. This has forced many to pay for bulldozers themselves in order to destroy their own home, so that they do not have to pay for Israel to do it, which often carries a fee double or triple the amount. For Palestinians who cannot afford demolition costs, they are forced to destroy their own homes by hand.
House demolitions in al-Naqab
According to a report released in June, by ‘The Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality’, during the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, Israel ordered the demolition of 2,000 homes in the al-Naqab (Negev in Hebrew).
Key to this issue is the fact that Bedouin Palestinians living in the Naqab are Israeli citizenship holders, some of which serve in the occupation army, yet are still persecuted and pushed out of their home lands. At this point, Palestinian Bedouin’s can only inhabit 12% of their ancestral homelands and if they live in villages “unregistered” by the Israeli regime, they are “transferred” to overcrowded villages and camps, reminiscent of the way in which native Americans were crowded into reservations.
This year alone, hundreds of Bedouins have been made homeless, compounded by the fact that the pandemic is affecting these communities badly and they are still being crammed into overcrowded camps.
Some villages have even been demolished over 100 times. The 17th of September for instance was the last time an entire village was demolished for the 178th time in a row.
House demolitions inside West Bank
From the start of 2020 until the 31st of August, 78 housing units were demolished in the West Bank, leaving 320 people homeless, including 166 minors according to Human Rights Organization B’Tselem.
In the West Bank, according to the United Nations, roughly 1.5% of building permits are approved by Israel, making it nearly impossible to obtain one. This is despite the fact that Israeli settlements and outposts continue to rapidly expand into West Bank territory. If a Palestinian does wish to attempt to attain a permit, it will often cost roughly around $30,000 US just to file the application, a price most just cannot afford, or even for those who can afford the price, it’s too much of a gamble.
Often used propaganda, by Israel and its supporters, suggests that house demolitions are primarily done as a reaction to “Palestinian terrorism” and therefore they argue it’s justified. However, this is not the case. In fact, when Israel does blow up the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank, after the Palestinian in question has been alleged to have committed a violent attack against an Israeli occupation soldier or illegal settler, it is not him who suffers for it.
Palestinians that either attempt to attack an Israeli, or are wrongly accused of it, are almost always shot and killed by the occupation forces. Following this, the family is not able to even grieve in peace, as family homes, sometimes housing multiple families are blown up leaving the entire family homeless. This policy has been described by Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem as follows: “Demolishing the homes of relatives of Palestinians who harmed or attempted to harm Israeli civilians or security personnel is prohibited collective punishment, and is one of the most extreme measures used by Israel. Over the years Israel has demolished hundreds of homes, leaving homeless thousands of people who had done no wrong and were not suspected of any wrongdoing. It is an immoral and unlawful policy. The fact that the High Court of Justice has upheld it does not make it legal, rather, it makes the justices accomplices to the crime.”
Despite the fact that these Israeli policies of house demolitions, ultimately aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians, are ongoing and have grown more aggressive over the past year, the story is relatively untouched by West Media and largely ignored by the International Community.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.
Israel sets its sights on the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandeb
Dr Adnan Abu Amer | MEMO | October 6, 2020
Day after day, the magnitude of the Israeli benefits from normalisation with the Gulf become clearer, especially on the military and strategic levels. The latest benefit is talk about establishing Israeli military bases in the Gulf, the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandab, or benefiting from the Emirati bases scattered in these areas, and the military benefits for Israel brought about by controlling these international seaports.
The Emirati-Israeli agreement included many clauses with security and military aspects, which stipulate bilateral cooperation in these areas, and their commitment to take important measures to prevent the use of their territories to carry out a hostile or “terrorist” attack targeting the other party, and that each side will not support any hostile operations in the territory of the other party. It also stipulates bilateral security coordination and strengthening the military security relationship.
These carefully worded texts have increased the assumptions regarding the possibility of Israel benefitting from the Emirati military bases in the region, whether in the Gulf, Bab El-Mandab, or the Red Sea. This may lead to the establishment of Israeli military base in the Emirates, as well as its use of Emirati waters, and the possibility that it will continue down this path to increase its foothold in Socotra, the Bab El-Mandab Strait and Djibouti.
It is worth noting that the possibility of establishing Israeli military bases in the Gulf, or Israel benefiting from the Emirati military bases, is not easy, but very dangerous. This is because as much as it may give hope to the Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, to defend itself against the threat of any imagined attack from Iran, it, at the same time, exposes it to danger. This is because the fulfilment of this premise means that Israel can strike Iranian targets in the Gulf waters, or in the heart of Iran itself, which will be matched by Iran targeting these Israeli bases in the Gulf.
The agreement allows Israel to get geographically closer to Iran and allows it to improve ties with the Gulf which is a strategic area in terms of trade and oil.
Iran will not stand idly by and remain silent regarding the Emirati-Israeli move, which means the situation in the Gulf region is likely to grow tense and suffer. Iran is present everywhere through the Revolutionary Guard and its sleeping armed cells.
Security of maritime navigation in the Gulf is a purely Israeli interest within the strategy of “curbing the Iranian threat” and strengthening the relationship with the Gulf states, former Israeli Foreign Minister, Yisrael Katz, has said.
Israel aims to gain control over the most important sea straits in the region, which belong to the Emirati and Saudi bases, which enhances the expansion of Israel’s military and strategic influence.
A document by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence revealed that the agreement with Abu Dhabi paves the way for intensifying military cooperation between them in the Red Sea. This is because it is interested in expanding security cooperation in the region, leading to strengthening the military alliance between them. This includes intensive Israeli military movement, especially through the countries of the Horn of Africa, most notably Ethiopia, at a time when Israeli arms companies are seeking to increase their exports to the Emirates.
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that the UAE and Israel had agreed to build a security and military alliance against Iran to protect American interests and the Middle East, and to increase security and intelligence cooperation to confront what he referred to as “terrorism”.
But Israel has not left Yemen out of its view, the country offers a gateway to the Bab El-Mandab Strait. Tel Aviv aims to crack down on the Palestinian resistance to prevent it from receiving the weapons that reach it from Iran through the Red Sea, reaching the Sinai, and then the Gaza Strip.
As long as the most important provisions of the Emirati-Israeli agreement are related to security and military relations, Israel will work to exploit the agreement to increase its influence in the Gulf. Meanwhile, the UAE is looking for control in the Gulf with the support of the US and Israel, so there is joint Israeli and Emirati work in Yemen to establish joint military bases and areas of influence, specifically on the island of Socotra, which would allow it to completely control the path that passes from India to the West, and penetrates into Africa, which is a strategic location for Israel.
Israel founders were ‘thieves’, Israeli historian says
MEMO | October 6, 2020
Early Jewish settlers in Palestine “looted Arab property”, a new book by an Israeli historian has said, adding “authorities turned a blind eye”.
In what has been described as the “first-ever comprehensive study” by an Israeli historian, Adam Raz described “the extent to which Jews looted Arab property” during the Jewish gangs’ attack in 1948 on Palestinians and their homes, and explains why Ben-Gurion said “most of the Jews are thieves.”
Writing in Haaretz, Ofer Aderet’s review of Raz’s book was entitled: “Jewish soldiers and civilians looted Arab neighbors’ property en masse in ’48. The authorities turned a blind eye.”
Another senior writer at Haaretz, Gideon Levy, commented that the words “most of the Jews are thieves”, “wasn’t uttered by an antisemitic leader, a Jew hater or a neo-Nazi, but by the founder of the State of Israel, two months after it was founded.”
Levy said that the Israeli authorities “turned a blind eye and thus encouraged the looting, despite all the denunciations, the pretense and a few ridiculous trials.”
“The looting served a national purpose: to quickly complete the ethnic cleansing of most of the country of its Arabs, and to see to it that 700,000 refugees would never even imagine returning to their homes” he explained.
The Israeli writer added: “Even before Israel managed to destroy most of the houses, and wipe from the face of the earth more than 400 villages, came this mass looting to empty them out, so that the refugees would have no reason to return.”
Levy also said that the looters “were motivated not only by ugly greed to possess stolen property right after the war was over, property belonging in some cases to people who were their neighbors just the day before, and not only by the desire to get rich quick by looting household items and ornaments, some of them very costly…, but they served, consciously or unconsciously, the ethnic purification project that Israel has tried in vain to deny all through the years.”
“Almost everyone took part” in the looting, he added, which “was the small looting, the one that proved if only for a moment that ‘most of the Jews are thieves,’ as the founding father said. But that was mini-looting compared to the institutionalized looting of property, houses, villages and cities – the looting of the land.”
“Denial and repression” were part of the reasons why heads of Jewish community allowed the looting of Arab property in Palestine. He said: “Thirst for revenge and drunkenness with victory after the difficult war might perhaps explain, even partially, the participation of so many.”
Levy said that “the looting reflects not only momentary human weakness but is intended to serve a clear strategic goal – purifying the country of its inhabitants – words fail.”
Concluding his article, Levy said: “Anyone who believes that a solution will ever be found to the conflict without proper atonement and compensation for these acts, is living in an illusion.”
He asked Israel to “think about the feelings of the descendants, the Arabs of Israel and the Palestinian refugees, who are living with us and alongside us. They see the pictures and read these things – what crosses their minds?”
He answers: “They will never be able to see the villages of their ancestors: Israel demolished most of them, to leave not a shred,” noting that “one small stolen souvenir from the home that was lost might cause a tear to fall.” Adding: “Just ask the Jews enraged over any stolen Jewish property.”
Israel army recruits ex-intelligence officers to spy on Arab Israelis
MEMO | October 6, 2020
The Israeli army is recruiting former intelligence officers from the Shin Bet to spy on Palestinians living in Israel under the pretext of combating the coronavirus, Israel’s Walla news site revealed.
The site quoted senior sources in the Home Front Command as saying that the army has contacted former officers in the Shabak, who are known for their knowledge of Arabs living in Israel, and asked them to join a new “security body” tasked with tracking coronavirus infections.
A former army officer, who had been contacted by the army, told the news site that while the official aim of the new “security body” is to help obtain information about coronavirus infections within the Palestinian community in Israel, he fears the new body has greater plans for the future.
A member of the Israeli Knesset, MK Aida Touma-Solomon of the Arab Joint List said the report paves the way for more legal violations against Arab citizens.
Israel views the Palestinians who remained in their homes in historic Palestine and who later became citizens of Israel as a demographic threat.
The former Director of Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, publicly said that his apparatus would pursue every Israeli- Arab who refused to recognise Israel as a Jewish state while Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly described them as “demographic time bomb”.
Today, Palestinian citizens of Israel represent 21 per cent of the country’s population.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
Inside the life of the ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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