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Abbas’s la-la land and the evolution of the American love affair with Israel

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 5, 2019

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is ready to “go to the White House and continue what [he] started with [US President] Donald Trump.” With this and other confusing statements, Abbas tried to articulate the new Palestinian political agenda to foreign reporters in Ramallah last month.

According to Abbas, the PA is ready to return to negotiations with Israel if two conditions are met: Washington is to reverse its stance on East Jerusalem, thus recognising it as an occupied Palestinian city; and there is a renewed commitment to the so-called two-state solution. “I will not accept a one-state solution because one state will be an apartheid state,” Abbas insisted.

Aside from the Palestinian leader’s insubstantial logic, the official Palestinian discourse emanating from Ramallah these days seems oblivious to the massively changing political reality in Washington over the past two years or so. Remarks by Abbas, his recently-appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh or other PA officials are apparently based on the logic of a bygone era, one in which the US claimed, however falsely, to be an honest broker for peace; a period that lasted for nearly 25 years and during which PA officials benefited from the massive “peace process” racket, bankrolled by the US and other countries.

However, the jig is up. The PA has ceased to serve any useful purpose for the Israelis and their American benefactors, apart from the continued and shameful “security coordination” aimed largely at suppressing any Palestinian resistance to Israel’s brutal occupation.

Everyone seems to acknowledge this seismic change, except the PA. While failing to understand the nature of the new challenge and redeem its past mistakes, the PA insists on remaining a major stumbling block to a new Palestinian strategy, one that should counter relentless US-Israeli efforts aimed at circumventing international law and, as a result, dismissing all Palestinian rights entirely.

Listening to PA officials speak makes one wonder if they are truly aware that the language coming out of Washington has shifted unmistakably, not only in its degree of bias towards Israel, but also in its complete adoption of the Israeli narrative in terms of nuances, religious fervour and political priorities. US officials now speak as one with members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing extremist coalition. The following examples illustrate the new US rhetoric that requires a complete Palestinian departure from their tired and clichéd language of the past.

On 6 December, 2017, Donald Trump said in a White House statement: “Jerusalem is not just the heart of three great religions, but it is now also the heart of one of the most successful democracies in the world. Over the past seven decades, the Israeli people have built a country where Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and people of all faiths are free to live and worship according to their conscience and according to their beliefs. But today, we finally acknowledge the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do.”

Trump’s infatuation with Israel is paralleled by complete disrespect and disregard for Palestinians. On 2 January 2018, he tweeted: “We pay the Palestinians HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue peace treaty with Israel. We have taken Jerusalem, the toughest part of the negotiation, off the table, but Israel, for that, would have had to pay more. But with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

US Vice President Mike Pence concurs. On 15 May last year, Pence said in celebration of Israel’s independence that Trump had done more to bring the US and Israel “closer together in a year than any president in the past 70 years.” He referred to him as “the greatest defender the Jewish state has ever had.” According to Pence, “President Trump made history now.”

For her part, former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley played a major role in trying to marginalise Palestinians on the international stage. On 6 October last year she insisted that, “The Palestinians are not a UN Member State or any state at all. The United States will continually point that out in our remarks at UN events led by the Palestinians.”

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, meanwhile, has the perfect blend of Pence’s religious fanaticism and Haley’s political opportunism. In an interview with the New York Times published on 8 June, he said that, “Under certain circumstances, I think Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

Friedman’s open support for Israeli colonialism was matched by comments made by US Middle East “peace” envoy Jason Greenblatt two weeks later: “We might get there [to a peace deal] if people stop pretending settlements, or what I prefer to call ‘neighbourhoods and cities’, are the reason for the lack of peace.” He brushed aside the fact that all of Israel’s colonial-settlements are illegal under international law since they have been built on Palestinian land under Israeli military occupation since 1967.

When the PA dared to protest against such political bullying, Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner lashed out on 3 July at the “hysterical and erratic” Palestinian leadership. “The door is always open for the Palestinian leadership… If they stop saying crazy things,” he added.

According to the new American political lexicon, Palestinians have absolutely no rights; international law has no relevance; and supposedly democratic Israel is a model state incapable of erring. In Washington’s la-la land, there can be no room or tolerance for discussions about military occupation, illegal settlements, genocidal wars, sieges and apartheid if they involve even the slightest criticism of Israel.

Considering America’s complete and unconditional adoption of the Israeli agenda, Abbas should stop talking about negotiations and conditions. Instead, he should revitalise and unite the Palestinian front to counter the US-Israeli menace and its political lackeys across the Middle East.

August 5, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

UK teen claims forced to retract rape accusation against Israelis

MEMO | August 5, 2019

A 19-year-old British teen who was allegedly gang raped by 12 Israelis at a resort town in Cyprus has claimed she was forced to retract her accusation under pressure from local police.

Last month, 12 Israelis aged 15 to 18 were arrested on suspicion of raping a British teen in their hotel room in the popular tourist resort of Aya Napa, Cyprus. However, little over a week later all 12 teenagers were released and allowed to return to Israel after the British woman admitted to having fabricated her accusations against them.

The teen confessed that she had engaged in consensual sex with several of the Israelis but was filmed by them in the process, making her feel “angry and insulted” enough to file the rape accusation. She was subsequently arrested and could face up to a year in prison for misleading local authorities.

However, the unnamed British teen has now claimed that she was forced to retract her initial accusation against the Israelis under duress, arguing she was denied access to a lawyer and that Cypriot police threatened to arrest her friends if she did not recant her testimony.

According to an exclusive yesterday by British newspaper the Sun, the teen “says she was denied a lawyer and then pressurised to withdraw her complaint by [Cypriot] detectives, who threatened to arrest her friends for ‘conspiracy’ if she did not comply”.

“The teenager claims officers then dictated a statement in which she admitted faking allegations,” the British daily added, “and she reluctantly signed only because she was exhausted after eight hours at the police station.”

The British teen’s lawyer, Michael Polak, argued that “[the girl’s] confession was obtained under oppression given the threats made. She was not cautioned and was not given access to a lawyer as was her right under the European Convention on Human Rights.”

“It is also understood that unfortunately none of the proceedings at the Cypriot police station were recorded,” Polak added.

The Sun also claims to have seen police reports of the incident, including medical examinations of two Israelis which found “suspicious scratches” and “bruises on their backs and chests, as if they had been in a struggle”.

The newspaper added that the Israeli teens then “told detectives they had been attacked at the hotel by the girl’s friends,” but added that “the hotel’s manager insisted no such fight took place”.

The girl’s allegations add yet another element to an incident fraught with discrepancies and conflicting narratives, which has raised questions about the Cypriot authorities’ handling of the case and the early release of the Israeli teens.

Last week, seven of the accused teens returned to Israel, being greeted by fanfare and celebration at the country’s Ben Gurion Airport. As Israeli daily the Times of Israel reported at the time, the “teens were jubilant when they were greeted by their cheering families” and “loudly celebrated their release by opening champagne bottles, chanting ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ [the people of Israel live] along with ‘the Brit is a whore’.”

The teens did not express any regret about the incident, with one telling Hebrew-language media: “I feel great. The truth came out and I am happy.” Another teen called his release “a miracle from God” and vowed to sue the British teen for libel.

Meanwhile Israeli journalists, social media activists and onlookers criticised the boys’ “hero’s welcome”, pointing out that had the alleged incident taken place in Israel, the teens would have faced criminal charges for filming the sex act, which was made illegal in Israel in 2014.

It is not yet clear whether there is now any recourse to re-investigate the Israelis should the British teen’s accusations against the Cypriot police be proven. She currently remains in custody and is slated to appear in court on Wednesday, though could wait several months until being brought to trial.

August 5, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

New Trend in Israel: Military-Themed Summer Camps for Kids

The “new trend in summertime fun” for Israeli schoolchildren is “military-themed summer camps and courses. (Photo: Twitter)
Palestine Chronicle | August 5, 2019

The “new trend in summertime fun” for Israeli schoolchildren is “military-themed summer camps and courses”, reported Israeli publication Calcalist on Friday.

In one center – “The Squadron” – a reservist brigadier general provides children with “briefing rooms” and flight simulators, where participants recreate the 1981 Israeli attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor.

During week two, the children “have their first taste of air battles and air strikes”. One of the camp leaders told the paper:

“They are not here to pass the time, they are here to receive values.”

Another summer activity includes martial arts training – Krav Maga – for children as young as 12-years-old, with tasks named “preparation for operational fire” and “counterterrorism 101”.

A paintball company, meanwhile, offers daily activities based on the Israeli army’s “enlistment process and basic training”, moving children “through a military-style obstacle course and teaching them how to fire semi-automatic (paintball) weapons”.

One a recent day, Calcalist reported, “150 summer camp kids arrived here for Bootcamp training”. Older children “come for daily activities in a special set designed for urban warfare: densely-built houses burned vehicles, and sniper posts.”

Other centers offer courses in cyberwarfare for “tech-leaning kids”, with one child telling the reporter:

“I want to serve in Unit 8200 [the military unit which conducts surveillance of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory].”

“I want to be a white hat, the one who stops the hackers with the black hats. White hats hack, say, for the Mossad, to find out things needed to protect the country, unlike black hats that are interested in criminal things like money or world domination,” he added.

According to Kobi Michael, a senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute of National Security Studies (INSS), “these summer camps are an expression of the cultural militarism that characterizes Israeli society”.

August 5, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Israel government to honor extremist rabbi calling for killing non-Jews

Palestine Information Center | August 5, 2019

NAZARETH – The Israeli government intends to honor an extremist rabbi who has applauded the killing of non-Jews, especially the Muslims and Palestinians.

According to Haaretz newspaper, education minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz and transportation minister Bezalel Smotrich will honor rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, who praised the 1994 massacre in al-Khalil city and was previously charged with inciting racism.

The ministers will speak at a Thursday event during which a prize will be awarded to Ginsburgh.

The US-born rabbi is known for publishing a pamphlet praising the actions of terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 carried out the massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque, in which he killed 29 Muslims and injured dozens as they were praying.

Ginsburgh is also among the rabbis who endorsed the book “The King’s Torah,” which discusses circumstances in which Jews may kill non-Jews according to Jewish law.

The prize will be awarded under the auspices of an institution called the “Cathedra for Torah and Wisdom,” which receive financial support from the education ministry’s department for Jewish culture.

August 5, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

London council cancels pro-Palestine event over anti-Semitism claims

MEMO | August 5, 2019

London Borough of Tower Hamlets refused to host the closing rally of the annual bike ride raising money for Palestinian children in the besieged Gaza over claims it would breach the IHRA’s anti-Semitism criteria, the Guardian reported on Saturday.

The council told the Big Ride for Palestine, which was established on the first anniversary of Israel’s 2014 offensive on Gaza and which has raised nearly £150,000 for sports equipment for children in the enclave, that the event could not go ahead in the borough “without problems”.

However, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign won a Freedom of Information battle in an effort to discover the reasons behind the council’s refusal to host the event. Internal emails revealed that council staff agreed not to make public “anti-Semitism concerns”.

While the council officials, according to the Guardian, told the organisers that there was a risk speakers might express views which contradicted the council’s policies on community cohesion and equality, behind the scenes the council attributed the reasons to “real risk” of violating IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism.

The council’s concerns were linked to the Big Ride’s website describing Israel’s illegal occupation and siege of the Gaza Strip as “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing”.

When considering how to explain the decision, the Guardian said, one council official said it would be wise to “avoid the anti-Semitism aspect… as this could open a can of worms and come back to bite us”.

The Guardian reported a council spokesman saying: “The council gave the application careful consideration and decided not to host the event, because we do not host rallies with political connotations, albeit without direct links to political parties.”

However a spokesperson for the charity said its work was focused on helping the 300,000 children in Gaza showing signs of severe psychological distress.

The spokesperson added: “It’s a dreadful thing when an over-scrupulous interpretation of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is used behind closed doors to prevent awareness raising of the situation in Palestine and the need for humanitarian support.”

It’s not too late to donate, follow this link and give what you can.

August 5, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestine’s UN Delegation Criticizes Secretary-General for Not Including Israel on ‘List of Shame’

By Ali Salam | IMEMC | August 4, 2019

To the dismay of Palestine’s delegation to the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres did not include Israel in his new “list of shame”, which includes states committing grave violations against children, despite the figures and statistics in the report about serious violation of rights of children in Palestine, said Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent representative to the UN.

The UN Security Council held in New York yesterday an open debate on the annual UN report on situation of children in times of conflict, which Guterres released on Wednesday.

According to the report, the number of Palestinian children killed or injured reached its highest level in 2018 since 2014. It said 59 were killed in 2018, 56 of them by the Israelis army, nearly a four-fold increase over 2017. In the West Bank, Israeli forces injured 1,398 children in 2018, while in Gaza they injured 1,335 children. The Injuries included permanent disabilities and limb amputations.

It also said 203 children are held in Israeli prisons, most of them in administrative detention, without charge or trial. By the end of December 2018, 87 children were sentenced to serve time in Israeli prisons for resisting the occupation, said the report, and these children are subjected to harsh conditions of detention and ill-treatment.

“The UN secretary-general should include Israel in the ‘list of shame’ and add it to the countries that commit horrendous acts, especially against children,” said Mansour before the start of the session.

He said that not including Israel on the list undercuts efforts to put an end to criminal violations against children around the world and questions the credibility of the list while making it open for criticism and endangers the lives of Palestinian children due to the lack of any kind of accountability to Israel.

Gutierrez instructed his personal representative, Virginia Gamba, to visit the region and occupied Palestine to further investigate what came in the report regarding the injuries and maiming of Palestinian children.

The Palestinian delegation called on Guterres to take into account that the Israeli violations in Palestine were caused by the military occupation, which should be mentioned in the section on Palestine in the report, and to make sure that Israeli practices amount to collective punishment, particularly the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2006.

They also said that since 2000, Israel, the occupying Power, had arrested 10,000 Palestinian children.

“We call on the international community to save an entire generation. The difficult circumstances, humiliation, panic and trauma caused by the detention of the Palestinian child are impeding society and aim at weakening it,” said the delegation.

It attributed Israel’s persistence in its inhuman practices to its enjoyment of international impunity, which protects it from sanctions and accountability.

Human Rights Watch has also criticized the UN secretary-general for not including Israel in the list.

“The UN secretary-general simply refuses to hold to account all warring parties that have inflicted tremendous suffering on children,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “By listing selected violators but not others, Secretary-General Guterres is ignoring the UN’s own evidence and undermining efforts to protect children in conflict.”

Guterres failed to list the Israeli army in the new report as responsible for grave violations against children, including killing and maiming, despite considerable evidence of violations by these parties, said HRW in a press release issued last week.

“Previous reports have also found the Israel Defense Forces responsible for killing and maiming Palestinian children, but the secretary-general has yet to include the Israeli forces in his list of abusers,” it said.

August 4, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Predators United

By Gilad Atzmon • Unz Review • August 4, 2019

In this part study I intend to delve into a deeply troublesome topic. Due to the growing sensitivity concerning ‘anti-Semitism’ and new legislation designed to restrict discussion of topics related to Jewish politics, culture and history, I have limited myself to sources that are Jewish, Israeli or mainstream news.

From Weinstein to Epstein and Beyond

“Not Just Weinstein: The Year #MeToo Rocked and Shocked the Jewish World” was the title of a 2018 Haaretz article that reviewed the large number of Jews involved in sex scandals that year. “Over the past year,” Haartez wrote, “a high number of powerful Jewish men have been accused of sexual misconduct. While it has provided fodder for anti-Semites, activists say addressing the problem is vital.”

Haaretz listed some of the prominent Jewish men accused of predatory sexual behaviour. “In addition to (Harvey) Weinstein and (Leon) Wieseltier, the list of Jewish men implicated in #MeToo over the past 12 months includes former Democratic senator Al Franken; ousted CBS chief Les Moonves; actors Dustin Hoffman, Jeffrey Tambor and Jeremy Piven; directors Woody Allen, James Toback and Brett Ratner; playwright Israel Horowitz; journalists Mark Halperin and Michael Oreskes; conductor James Levine; and radio show hosts Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz.”

Apparently someone decided to ‘clean the swamp’. Harvey Weinstein was just an early bird. In 2018 we also learned about the Nxivm sex cult and the role of Clare Bronfman at its centre. The Jewish Forward wrote that Nxivm’s leader attracted “several prominent figures to his group, including heiress Clare Bronfman, who pleaded guilty in April to credit card fraud and harbouring an undocumented immigrant who provided unpaid “labor and services.” Bronfman is the daughter of the legendary ultra Zionist billionaire Edgar Bronfman (1929 –2013) who was president of the World Jewish Congress. In his obituary, Edgar Bronfman was described by Haaretz as “prince of the Jews.” His daughter has been ordered to pay a penalty of $6 million out of her $200 million fortune, and she faces up to two years in prison.

In November 2017, genius comedian Larry David admitted on Saturday Night Live that he was uncomfortable with the fact that so many of those accused of sexual harassment in Hollywood are Jewish. David allowed he would much prefer Jews to be associated with the theory of relativity and the cure for polio.

When it seemed the Jewish universe couldn’t cope with any more scandals involving predatory sexual behaviour, the Epstein affair resurfaced. The Jeffrey Epstein spectacle is one of the biggest of its kind in the history of America ensnaring presidents and prime ministers. Some of the world’s most influential men in cultural, financial and academic fields are allegedly implicated in predatory behaviour with underage girls. And it doesn’t take a genius to observe that the Epstein drama is, unfortunately, a ‘Jewish drama.’

Bloomberg, not exactly an ‘anti-Semitic’ outlet, dug into The Complicated Orbit of Jeffrey Epstein. Zionist enthusiast Leslie Wexner was identified as Epstein’s ‘patron’. The Jewish virtual library informs us that Wexner “often support[s] … Jewish projects. He serves as Honorary Vice Chairman of the Board of Congregation Aguda Achim… [And] established the Wexner Foundation, which runs both a Graduate Fellowship and an Israel Fellowship Program.”

Bloomberg lists the following as amongst Epstein’s ‘business partners’: Harvey Weinstein, Mort Zuckerman, Donny Deutsch, Nelson Peltz, Ehud Barak and Ponzi aficionado Steven Hoffenberg.

Ghislaine Maxwell, the daughter of notorious Zionist pension plunderer Robert Maxwell, is described by Bloomberg as Epstein’s ‘Inner Circle.’ And then there is Alan Dershowitz who has been labouring tirelessly to try to convince the American media and anyone else willing to listen that he didn’t have sex with underage girls.

Again I find myself admitting that the list of Jewish names surrounding an unsavoury character, this time Epstein, resembles my Bar Mitzvah’s guest list: a lot of Jewish names with just a few goyim at the margin.

This raises critical questions, the most elementary of which is, why? Why are so many Jewish men currently in the news in connection with sexually predatory behaviour? What is it about these rich and influential people that pushes them over the edge?

And there are deeper questions that beg attention. Why is it that with so many Jews in academia and media ordinarily so clever in explaining in a ‘professorial manner’ the psychology and sociology behind every world development and political shift, not one has volunteered to explain the cultural, ideological and spiritual continuum between Weinstein and Epstein and beyond? How is it that the academics and think tanks that are so adept in analysing ‘cultural clashes’ and, as they call it, ‘Islamofascism,’ are unwilling to analyse the roots of the cultural crisis at the core of the Epstein saga? And I must extend this inquiry just one step further, why does the Jewish solidarity industry that cares so much for Palestine, Immigrants, the Civil Rights Movement and LGBT issues remain silent when it comes to the crimes committed, and on a mass scale, against underage girls just a few blocks from JVP’s New York headquarters?

I tend to think that it is just a question of time before we see the formation of ‘Jews against Epstein’ or some other racially exclusive ‘Jews only’ group of that sort. Dominating the dissent is a Jewish survival instinct. ‘As Jews’ they will protest against Epstein, Maxwell, Barak, Weinstein and Dershowitz just to make sure that the boundaries of criticism are kept within the safety zone. If this happens, the battle against pedophilia will slowly evolve into an internal Jewish dispute. Gentiles will be assured that Jews can safely take care of their problems.

Some may argue that the sickening stories to do with Weinstein, Epstein et al have nothing to do with Jewishness, Judaism or the Jews. It is a legitimate contention that what we are actually dealing with are the predatory symptoms that can be associated with money and power. The argument is that capitalism and greed corrupts the rich and the powerful and that because Jewish men are over represented in these circles, they only appear to be disproportionately prone to such predatory symptoms. I could easily buy into such a theory. It certainly explains why sex crimes are prevalent within the Jewish elite as Haaretz was brave enough to admit. But it fails to explain the widely spread predatory behaviour within Rabbinical communities. It is even less successful in explaining why a bunch of Israelis were caught recently in Columbia apparently running a human trafficking network that specialised in marketing underage sex tourism packages for Israelis.

Not just the Rich and the Influential

In March 2017 Israeli police arrested 22 ultra-Orthodox Jews for sex crimes against minors and women. In April 2019 Haaretz admitted that “There’s a Hole in the System. Israel Became a Haven for Suspected Jewish Sex Offenders.” The Israeli paper reported that “65 suspected sexual offenders [are] allegedly seeking refuge in Israel.”

In July 2019 The Times of Israel reported that “Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman was alleged to have improperly intervened to aid at least 10 sex offenders from Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community.” Litzman, who is himself ultra-Orthodox and the leader of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party, “had been questioned by police over suspicions that he had attempted to prevent the extradition of accused child molester Malka Leifer to Australia.”

Malka Leifer was formerly the principal of an orthodox Jewish girls school in Melbourne and has been charged with as many as 74 assaults against minors. The extradition battle over Malka Leifer, who fled Melbourne in 2008 with the help of some in the local ultra-Orthodox community, has dragged on for several years, frustrating her accusers.

In 2015 Michael Lesher, an orthodox Jewish attorney, published a book titled “Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Jewish Communities.” In the introduction Lesher writes that his book isn’t “about sexual abuse per se but on the dismal history of how far too many of those cases have been assiduously concealed both from the public and from the police: how influential rabbis and community leaders have sided with the alleged abusers against their victims; how victims and witnesses of sexual abuse have been pressured, even threatened, not to turn to secular law enforcement for help; how autonomous Jewish ‘patrols,’ displacing the role of official police in some large and heavily religious Jewish neighbourhoods, have played an inglorious part in the history of cover-ups; … how some Jewish (orthodox) communities have even succeeded in manipulating law enforcement officials to protect suspected abusers.”

Lesher finds the Jewish media culpable. Jewish media outlets steer clear of stories about such predatory behaviour or at most publish them only sparingly. It would be reasonable to postulate that we are dealing with an institutional operation to conceal sex crimes that concern the ‘Jewish orthodox ghetto.’

Far away from the Jewish orthodox ghetto, in Ayia Nap, Cyprus, next to the sunny Mediterranean Sea, a bunch of young Israelis described by the Israeli press as ‘the salt of the Jewish earth,’ were falsely accused this month of a brutal gang rape of a young British citizen. The Israeli youngsters were eventually cleared and sent home. The 19 old British woman is now facing charges for falsifying a rape account.

Unlike Orthodox Jewry whom Lesher claims conceal sex crimes and often take the side of the predator, as did Israeli Deputy Health Minister Litzman, the alleged Israeli gang rape was a headline article in every Israeli media outlet for almost two weeks. Israel didn’t attempt to conceal the story. Israelis were discomfited by the saga and engaged in soul searching. In fact, the Israeli press was alone amongst the media to follow this horrible story closely.

The Daily Mail was probably the only British paper to produce a detailed account of the alleged gang rape. The British tabloid described the attitude of Israeli tourists to others on the Mediterranean island as beyond unacceptable. “Other girls living at the Pambos Napa Rock hotel have told how they were constantly pestered for sex by Israeli men staying at the budget hotel. ‘One of my friends was asleep in her room an Israeli came in and demanded sex. She screamed at him to get out, but the management do not seem to care.’ Another male worker said a friend of his was followed into the ladies toilet and proposition for sex. ‘He just held out some Euros and said he wanted sex. It is disgusting.’ ‘The Israeli men come up behind you and just stand there. Not many of them speak English and it is creepy. I had no idea what it was like here. I do not feel safe.”

Many in Israel were relieved to read that the young Israelis were cleared of the serious allegations. And others may claim that the Daily Mail’s description of the behaviour of young Israelis in Ayia Napa is not representative of Israel or of Jewish culture. After all, the Ayia Napa saga shares little in common with the Epstein/Weinstein continuum. The Israeli suspects were not particularly rich or influential. The British woman who claimed she was raped wasn’t underage. Yet the Ayia Napa story shares a peculiar similarity to the Epstein saga. When the Cypriot police examined the mobile phones of the Israeli suspects, they found a large number of videos of the event.

One may wonder what people video themselves engaged in intimate intercourse and even share such footage with others? Is it possible that they believe that the world surrounding them is a porn set? What kind of gratification is found in such images? Is it romantic memorabilia, libidinal enthusiasm or does it provide some other type of ‘self assurance’? Harvey Weinstein allegedly insisted that his victims watch him indulging himself. We may be tapping here into one of the most intimate aspects of narcissism. The Daily Mail wrote that Epstein is “believed to have used the cameras to tape his famous friends in sex acts with underage girls for blackmail purposes.” And I wonder. Does this explanation also apply to the cinematic enthusiasm of the young Israelis?

In December 2018, law enforcement authorities in Colombia suspected 12 Israelis of running a sex-trafficking network. Haaretz reported that the “alleged sex trafficking ring provided Israeli travellers with ‘tourism packages’ that included prostitutes, some of whom were minors, who received between 200,000 pesos ($63) to 400,000 pesos ($126) in return for sexual services.” Ynet revealed that the Israeli “suspects reportedly scouted local schools, recruiting underage girls as sex workers for drug-fuelled parties, attended largely by Israeli businessmen and discharged IDF soldiers.”

These Israelis are alleged to specialise in the wide scale exploitation of minors. The consumers of these ‘tour packages’ are ordinary Israelis not Wall Street’s financiers or Harvard professors.

Here we may be detecting a significant and disturbing similarity among Epstein, the Israelis at Ayia Napa and their brethren in Columbia. While orthodox Jewish sex criminals target members of their own community, Epstein, the boys at Ayia Napa (as described by the Daily Mail ) and the alleged criminals in Columbia prey on others. These others aren’t necessarily Jewish or more likely, aren’t Jewish at all.

This may be the right point to introduce the problematic notion of the Shikse.

Shikse is a derogatory term for a gentile woman or girl. The word, which is of Yiddish origin, is widely used by Jews and others many of whom do not speak Yiddish. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word came into English usage in the late 19th century. It is derived from the Hebrew word sheqeṣ (שקץ ) meaning ‘a detested thing.’ In fact, the Oxford Dictionary is taking a light approach to the pejorative term. Sheqes is a Biblical Hebraic term that expresses abomination and disgust, especially towards a small animal that is unclean.

The notion of the Shikse and the way in which it is utilised in reference to non-Jewish woman is as revealing as it is devastating. You might ask what crime non-Jewish women have committed to be labelled with such a horrendous and disrespectful term.

Once again it is the genius work of Larry David who together with Jerry Seinfeld, brought to light the embarrassing as well as irritating fact that at least culturally, the Shikse is basically a Jewish sex object. It is a subject of Jewish male fascination and libidinal phantasy. The Shikse is an ideal date, a one night stand, a mistress, but not a wife. As you will notice in this short video, this applies to thirteen years old Bar Mitzvah boys, their fathers and even the local Rabbi. Sometime Jewish humour tells us more than we should know.

Also watch this reaction of a gentile woman to being called shikse.

 

Genital Utopia from Shabbatai Zvi to Jeffrey Epstein

Jews didn’t invent predatory sexual behaviour nor do they collect royalties for pedophilia. Most Jews are likely embarrassed and disgusted by Epstein, Maxwell, Weinstein and Malka Leifer. And despite Israel’s notorious record of human trafficking in the 1990s, the country is now one of the leaders in the battle against human trafficking. As I noted in Part 1, the Israeli media published clear and reliable accounts of the Ayia Napa saga as well as all the other embarrassing stories of predatory sex scandals involving Israelis and Jews. On top of that, Tel Aviv is a gay capital, famous for its liberal approach to gender and LGBTQ.

Yet, in contradiction to the openness described above, in the Jewish State women are segregated and essentially barred from certain streets for ‘religious reasons.’ In the Jewish State women are segregated on public transport for the same ‘religious reasons.’ Haaretz writes “In the ultra-Orthodox community today, not only do men and women not sit together at celebrations, there are even separate entrances to the places where the events are held.” Haaretz explains the Jewish orthodox community is fearful of the corrupting powers of women and continues, “there is this fear they (male orthodox Jews) will not be able to withstand the temptation of being near women, and therefore they must remove even the smallest doubt – lest the evil urge cause them to commit a sin.”

Jews are amongst the leading advocates on issues to do with women’s rights yet Harvey Weinstein is at the centre of the #MeToo scandal. Many Jews claim to uphold the most precious universal humanist values yet prominent Jewish characters such as Wexner, Maxwell, Barak and Dershowitz are regularly in the news for their association with the Epstein sex trafficking affair.

How can we encapsulate the contradictions presented by humane, progressive and liberal attitudes towards gender, rabbinical dark religious morbidity and the current chain of spectacular predatory criminal affairs with so many famous Jews at their centre?

The issues to do with Jews, sexuality and abuse are confusing, ambivalent and multi layered. Although in the Jewish orthodox home it is the mother who has the dominant and most significant educational and spiritual role, rabbinical Judaism treats women as walking menaces. How are we to interpret that fact that the Judaic morning blessing includes a praise to God “who has not made me a woman”?

Jewishness and Judaism can be realised as existing on fierce dialectical battle grounds. Jews are people distinguished by their relentless inclination towards self-negation. Some have observed that Jews can be defined (politically and culturally) as people who strive to stop being themselves while continuing to be themselves. Early Zionism promised to fix Diaspora Jews by means of a homecoming. It promised Diaspora Jews that it could heal their symptoms and make them ‘people like all other people’ and still stay Jews. Bolshevism promised to fix the Jews by proletarianization, it promised the Jews they could integrate into the working class, be proletarians like all other proletarians and still sustain their Jewishness. Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment) and Assimilation gave Jews the ability to look like goyim in the street while sustaining their Jewish identity behind doors. Judah Leib Gordon illustrated this idea with a simple problematic mantra: “Be a Jew in your home and a man outside it.” Liberalism and progressivism offer similar promises. Jewishness can be realised as a rebellious form of self-rejection, whose revolutionary inclinations are set in measured terms and restricted by overarching tribal interests and agendas.

This radical trait of self-rejection is as old as the Jews. The Biblical prophets’ harsh critiques, guided by their thorough self-reflection, offer us a glimpse into Judaic revolutionary dialectics. Judaism and Jewishness can be realised as the medium of the battle between those who adhere to the religion, the politics, the culture, the primacy of the tribe, the spirit of Judaism and Jewish revolutionary dissenters who oppose the above. This Biblical dialectic and rebellious spirit is embedded in Jewishness and Judaism and has never faded.

Shabbtai Zvi was born in Izmir, Turkey in 1625 and became a Muslim in the 1660s. In between he managed to become a Jewish messiah and attracted the admiration of the vast majority of Jews around the globe.

The movement that developed around Shabbetai Zvi became known as Shabbetaianism. It evolved into a secret yet influential sect of Muslim Jewish converts called the Donme. The Shabbetains and the Donme embraced the theory of “sacred sin.” They believed that the Torah could be fulfilled only by amoral acts representing its seeming annulment.

Zvi replaced the Ten Commandments with a new religious order based on 18 precepts that the Donme called ‘Las Incommendensas.’ Las Incommendensas included the Ten Commandments although the formulation of the prohibition on adultery is ambiguous, resembling a suggestion of prudence.

One of the Donme’s distinctive rituals was the Festival of the Lamb, celebrated in the spring. At least two married couples and often many more participated in the ceremony. For the first time that year, they ate the meat of spring’s newly born lambs. After the meal, the lights were extinguished and couples made love without distinguishing among their partners. Children born from these encounters were considered sacred. The practice had its roots in pagan beliefs and orgiastic rituals known from other ancient cultures of the Middle East. The analogy between this practice and messianic rebirth after the days of the apocalypse is clear: the existing order will be abolished and instinctive needs will be freely enjoyed.

The primary concept of Sabbatean theology was that when Zvi entered the Jewish arena, the messianic era had begun. In this new world, everything was turned upside down: the old law was cancelled, all the ‘do not’ commandments, including the strong prohibitions against incest, became ‘do’ mitzvahs.

Jacob Frank was born in Podolia in 1726 to a wealthy Jewish Sabbatean family. Around the year 1755 it dawned on Frank that he was the true successor of Shabbetai Zvi. He gathered a sect of believers who were attracted by his charismatic personality. Frank formed a new, improved Sabbatean theology based on radical mystical symbols that were infused with destruction and nihilism. Frank addressed his followers: “I came not to elevate your spirits, but to humiliate you to the bottom of the abyss…” By ‘abyss’ he meant sexual rituals that included sacred orgies with just a touch of incest.

Both Zvi and Frank’s theology, history and influence deserve deeper analysis. I touch upon them briefly to illustrate the dialectic force within Judaism. It was the rebellious Judaic spirit that opposed rabbinical rigidity. It was the detachment from nature, the human body and soil that brought about its counter movement and the obscene theology promulgated by Zvi and Frank. Zvi managed to excite the majority of his contemporaneous Jews. He offered them the opportunity to emancipate themselves from themselves while being themselves.

The revisionist populist messianic Shabbetianism that arose in opposition to rabbinical Judaism’s prudish obsession with sex and gender central didn’t disappear after Jewish secularization and emancipation in the 19th century, quite the opposite. It morphed into a set of authoritarian pseudo scientific discourses.

The ‘Oedipal Complex,’ a notion introduced by Freud, was at least as sick as it was revolutionary. The idea that love between mother and son involves an ‘oedipal complex,’ an erotically driven murderous intent on the infant’s part, is deeply troubling and has never been scientifically verified. Freud’s theoretical attempt to reduce love, intimacy and compassion to mere (sexual) ‘drives’ suggests that Freud and his cult of avid disciples may have had severe deficits on the human side.

Freud didn’t resolve the complex Jewish relationship to sex and gender, he opened a Pandora’s Box, and at least for a while, inflicted his own morbidity on the entire West.

When Wilhelm Reich was ten years old, his parents allegedly hired tutors to prepare him for the gymnasium entrance exams. According to Reich, his mother had an affair with one of his tutors and the young Reich became jealous. Reich later claimed that he briefly thought of blackmailing his mother to have sex with him by threatening to tell his father about the affair. Eventually, Reich confided in his father, who reacted harshly. In 1910, after a protracted period of beatings from his father, his mother committed suicide, a consequence for which Reich blamed himself.

That an influential man such as Wilhelm Reich, one who rightly claimed a major role in the sexual liberation of western women and children, had such a problematic ‘beginning’ interested me and led me to look into the origin of his ‘Oedipal’ confession.

In Being in Time I wrote that the person who brought attention to this disturbing incident was Wilhelm Reich’s biographer, Myron Sharaf, an American psychotherapist and a Harvard academic. Sharaf was a student, patient, and colleague of Reich’s from 1948 to 1954, and his book, Fury on Earth is widely regarded as the definitive biography of Wilhelm Reich.

After reading Sharaf’s account of Reich’s ‘blackmail’ fantasy, I realized that it raised issues far more disturbing than the alleged incest incident (which I doubt actually occurred).

The manner by which the affair came to light is itself rather peculiar. In late 1919 or early 1920, when Reich was about twenty-three and already a practicing analyst within Freud’s circle, Reich wrote his first published article , The Breakthrough of the Incest Taboo in Puberty. In this article, Reich reported on ‘a patient’ who displayed certain ‘Oedipal patterns.’ The ‘patient’ was attracted to his mother, he was jealous of a visiting tutor who slept with his mother so he informed his father about his mother’s affair, his mother was beaten and eventually committed suicide. According to Sharaf, there is little doubt that the ‘patient’ was Reich himself. Many years later Reich “told his elder daughter that the article was a self-analysis.” (Myron Sharaf: Fury on Earth, pg. 40)

This is a disturbing revelation. First, young Reich published a fabricated patient account in a scientific magazine. This alone is enough to discredit him, and there is more. Reich was under the spell of Sigmund Freud when he penned his ‘revelation.’ This suggests that Reich might have fabricated a patient’s story in order to verify or validate his master’s ‘Oedipal complex.’ Were fabricated tales of incest the path to gaining a position within the Freud academic orbit? Scientists and academics attempt to form theories that correspond with reality and facts: Reich, then a member of the cult of Freud, apparently reversed the scientific method, contriving ‘facts’ to correspond with a theory.

In the 1930s when things turned sour for German and Austrian Jews, the Jewish ‘left’ was quick to diagnose what was wrong with ‘the Germans.’ Wilhelm Reich claimed it was their ‘repressed sexuality.’

Reich posited that sexual liberation on a mass scale would save Marxist dogma and the working people as well. In chapter five of The Mass Psychology of Fascism, he declared war on the traditional patriarchal family which he saw as maintaining the core of mass conservatism: “From the standpoint of social development,” Reich wrote, “the family cannot be considered the basis of the authoritarian state, only as one of the most important institutions which support it.” The traditional family is a “central reactionary germ cell, the most important place of reproduction of the reactionary and conservative individual. Being itself caused by the authoritarian system, the family becomes the most important institution for its conservation.”

Reich, a neo-Marxist, found both romanticism and traditional family values obstacles to socialist reform. Reich’s vehicle towards the new world order was ‘orgasm’! In his 1927 study, The Function of the Orgasm, he reached the conclusion that: “there is only one thing wrong with neurotic patients: the lack of full and repeated sexual satisfaction.” In the hands of Reich, the Marx-Freud hybrid led to what some critical cynics dubbed “genital utopia.” And isn’t ‘genital utopia’ a fair description of the universe Weinstein and Epstein built around themselves?

Reich’s ideas evolved and spread rapidly in America and the West. Probably the most prominent proponent of such liberal ideas was the Frankfurt School and its primary star as of 1968, Herbert Marcuse.

Marcuse focused on resolving the Freudian conflict between the Reality Principle (work orientated and leisure-less) and the Pleasure Principle (Eros). According to him, the conflict was between alienated labour and Eros. Sex, he declared, was freely accessible to those in power, namely the capitalists, but was available to workers only when it did not disturb their performance. Marcuse contended that in a proper socialist world we will manage without the labour of the “poor” and without the suppression of sexual drives. He predicted that “non-alienated libidinal work” would replace “alienated labour.” Marcuse’s theories offered a post Marxist interpretation of Reich’s genital utopia.

Of course, both Marcuse and Reich were totally delusional. As we know, sex and sexualization didn’t liberate the working class. It did the opposite. Pornography is a distraction that helps blind the workless class from detecting the root cause of their plight. In reference to Marx’s most misinterpreted adage, I allow myself to say, that at least in the post political era in which we live, “pornography is the actual opium of the people.”

I doubt college dropout Jeffrey Epstein has read Marcuse, Reich, Zvi or Frank but he certainly put Reich-Marcuse’s philosophy into practice. As it now seems, Epstein wasn’t really a ‘financier.’ He hardly engaged in labour in any form and was totally consumed by the ‘pleasure principle.’ According to recent reporting, Epstein was dedicated to Eros except when he was amassing footage of his best friends fiddling with underage girls.

The centrality of prominent Jewish names in the current predatory scandals can’t be denied, but I do not at all contend that predatory behaviour or sexual morbidity is a Jewish trait or even something predominantly Jewish. Instead these incidents are consistent with a Jewish as well as Judaic revolutionary continuum driven by sexual obsession. This continuum includes Zvi, Frank, Freud, Reich, the Frankfurt School, Marcuse and many contemporary gender activists such as Jonathan ‘Jessica’ Yaniv who made the state of his/her hairy testicles into main stream news. This continuum may well also include Epstein, Weinstein and the many other Jewish celebrities implicated in these far too many nasty predatory acts.

Jewishness, as I see it, is a dynamic dialectical morphing spirit. It contains a bold critical attitude that often evolves into a sense of empowerment, grandeur, impunity and narcissism. This self-confidence often produces sensational scientific and social revolutions as well as spectacular artistic achievement. But it can equally help cause global disasters, social-disorder, financial meltdowns, spiritual confusion and spectacular criminal endeavours.

August 4, 2019 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

‘There’s no law in the world that says you can cut water from humans’

This is the second of a series of reports documenting the control and devastation of water sources by Israel as a tool of oppression.*

A bulldozer destroys water wells while a Regavim drone hovers above
International Solidarity Movement | August 3, 2019

South Hebron Hills, occupied Palestine – Israel is escalating its war on water in the South Hebron Hills, demolishing wells, ripping out kilometres of pipeline and even confiscating trucks carrying emergency water tanks to parched villages.

In the sweltering month of July, five demolitions targeting water infrastructure were carried out, leaving Palestinian farming villages without access to water.

The latest took place on Wednesday July 31, when the Israeli Civil Administration – the body that governs Area C in the West Bank – cut pipes supplying water to houses and farmland in the area of al-Jaway near At-Tuwani.

Tariq Hathaleen, a local activist from the South Hebron Hills, says that the number of demolitions on water sources has “more than doubled,” this year compared to previous years.

He told ISM: “Now in the summer it sounds like the Civil Administration has a plan to restrict Palestinian access to water in the South Hebron Hills, in Area C in general, and that’s actually to put more pressure on those people to move them away from those villages.

“Because the Civil Administration don’t have a direct excuse to expel those people from their land but the plan is to put more pressure to make them leave by cutting their water sources.”

On July 4, bulldozers destroyed three water wells outside the town of Dkeika, a day after they came to the same area and uprooted over 500 olive trees.

The destruction of the wells and trees have affected around 1,200 people, 60 per cent of them registered as refugees. according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Four water cisterns were also destroyed on July 24 in a park between the villages of Umm al-Kheir and Umm Daraj

“I know the reality of these people,” Tariq, who was at the demolition, adds. “I call them the enemies of life and they prove this by cutting trees, by cutting water pipes, by cutting the lives of people.”

The Good Shepherd Collective, a group that advocates human rights predominantly in the South Hebron Hills, puts the escalation of demolitions down to the actions of far-right settler NGO Regavim.

Regavim, which receives Israeli tax-payers money and has charitable status, spies on Palestinian communities, looking out for structures built without a permit and reporting them to the ICA. They then speed up demolition cases in the courts through petitions.

Their devastating impact can be seen by the steep rise in demolitions in the South Hebron Hills; 65 structures have been bulldozed or confiscated so far this year, compared to 23 structures in the same period last year, according to OCHA.

The al Dababsh family watches as their home is razed to the ground in the village of Khalet al Dabeh

“For anyone who still has qualms about the placement of blame on the state or Civil Administration for the act of demolitions, the message of these continued demolitions in natural areas should serve as a clarifying message,” the Good Shepherd Collective said.

“The state, the settlers and the organizations like Regavim that push forward the destruction of these areas, structures and resources for Palestinians are not motivated by the preservation of humanitarian rights, environmental laws, or the protection of the natural environment.”

The series of attacks on water sources in July comes after Israel ripped out a huge pipe network earlier this year that had supplied 12 Palestinian towns in the South Hebron Hills with running water.

The pipes were built in secret and took four months to install. But just six months later, Israel destroyed them, cutting the 20km lifeline.

The 12 villages have had to return to the old method of accessing water – by transporting tanks on tractors along poor roads which wears down the tyres and wastes precious work days.

Transporting water in this way adds to the economic burden of the area’s small villages, costing 30 shekkles for one cubic metre. In contrast Israelis pay just 8 shekkles per cubic metre.

And even the trucks are not safe from Israel’s war on water; on July 15, 18 water tanks were confiscated by Israeli soldiers. In the same raid, several thousand dollars of water pipeline and drilling equipment to install the pipes were also taken.

“The feeling is hard to accept, the fact that those people, those humans out of blood and flesh agree on themselves to cut other peoples’ lives by cutting the water,” Tariq tells ISM.

“It’s far from doing something legal. There’s no law in the world that says you can cut water from humans and forbid him from having water access. Its insane.”

The South Hebron Hills is in Area C of the West Bank which means it is under full Israeli control. Palestinians in this region are denied building permits even to install water pipelines or wells, and are not allowed to hook up to the water network that Israel has laid across Palestinian land to supply illegal settlements.

As a result, villages in the area are subject to unrelenting attacks on not only their water sources but farmland and homes.


* Water Series: IOF destroy farmland east of Hebron – ISM speaks to owner Ghassan Jaber

August 3, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel lobbied US to drop F-35 deal with Turkey

MEMO | August 2, 2019

Israel secretly lobbied the US to block Turkey from purchasing its F-35 fighter jets in an effort to maintain its military edge in the region, according to Israeli media reports.

Tel Aviv began urging the White House to drop Ankara from its F-35 program soon after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan approved the purchase of the S-400 missile defence system from Russia, Israeli Channel 12 reported yesterday.

“It put pressure on Washington to cancel the sale of advanced aircraft to Turkey,” it said.

Turkey was suspended from the F-35 program in July, with the US administration claiming the Russian S-400 would compromise the security of its F-35 jets. Turkey denies the claim, adding that for years it tried unsuccessfully to buy US Patriot missile defence before it turned to the S-400s.

While US President Donald Trump has resisted penalising Turkey over the S-400 issue, there has been pressure from Congress as well as his own administration to take measures against Turkey, including sanctions.

In the last two years, Israel started purchasing F-35s from the US, making it the only country in Middle East to own this type of fighter jet.

The Israeli government has signed agreements with US defence contractor Lockheed Martin to purchase at least 50 F-35 aircraft using US aid.

The aircraft will be delivered in batches of twos and threes through 2024.

August 2, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Protesters urge Israel to admit abduction of Yemeni children

MEMO | August 2, 2019

Israelis of Yemeni origin protested in front of the residences of both Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They were urging Israel to recognise what they described as state-sponsored kidnapping of Yemeni children during the early years of the establishment of the state of Israel.

On Thursday, Haaretz said that about 200 people took part in the march, on Wednesday evening, near the residences of Rivlin and Netanyahu.

“The demonstrators carried posters displaying pictures of the children, and the dates when they claim, the children were kidnapped,” said the newspaper.

A government commission was assigned in 2001 to look into allegations of children disappearances. The commission later concluded that “there is no proof for the systematic abduction of Yemeni children.”

According to the paper, “the committee and two previous committees concluded that most of the children died as a result of the disease.”

Families and legal experts questioned the performance and professionalism of the committee and the media that published a series of investigative reports about the issue.

In 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “the issue of Yemeni children is an open wound that continues to bleed. Many families do not know the fate of the missing children and are looking for the truth.”

The demonstration was organised by Amram Foundation to mark, “a day of awareness-raising regarding hundreds or thousands of missing children born to Jewish immigrants from Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries and the Balkans.” Amram had cancelled a planned meeting with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin when “[he] refused to call for official recognition of what the foundation described as an injustice to these communities,” Haaretz said.

Minorities usually complain in Israel about what they describe as “discrimination official Israeli institutions practised against them.”

August 2, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

‘Clear and Decisive Win’: Why Netanyahu Needs a War on Gaza More Than Ever Before

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | August 1, 2019

Media reports of an impending Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip are now a regular occurrence. The frequency of these reports fluctuates based on Israel’s own political landscape.

Empirical experience has taught us that when Israeli leaders are in trouble, they wage a war on Gaza. Now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the greatest challenge in his political career, Gaza is bracing for another Israeli war.

The war rumors are no longer just that. Rightwing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post recently reported that Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, “has already approved operational combat plans and recently set up an administrative unit to handle the formation of a list of potential targets in the coastal enclave for when the next war breaks out.”

The Post’s own military correspondent, Anna Ahronheim concurs, that, indeed, war on Gaza “is not far away.” But unlike previous wars, the upcoming war must “have a clear and decisive win” by Israel so that “the other side will think twice about going to war in the future.”

The fallacy in Ahronheim’s analysis is obvious. Israel always approaches its wars in Gaza with the aim of having a “clear and decisive win”, aims that are often thwarted by strong Palestinian resistance in the besieged and impoverished Strip.

Second, Gaza never initiates wars. The Strip has no army or military strategy beyond self-defense tactics carried out by organized resistance factions, including Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and various PLO groups. However, if Israel thinks that a ‘decisive win’ would eradicate Palestinian resistance, it will be greatly disappointed. Gaza’s resistance, in all of its forms, against Israel and Israeli occupation goes back to the late 1940s. No amount of firepower will ever end this kind of determined resistance.

However, it is likely that Israel measures the decisiveness of its ‘victory’ based on the amount of destruction it is able to inflict on Palestinians.

Marvel at these numbers from the last major Israeli war on Gaza, in 2014, to understand the real target of Israeli wars on the Strip:

According to United Nations figures, more than 2,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s so-called “Operation Protective Edge”. The causalities, most of whom were civilians, included 551 children. Moreover, 11,231 were also wounded, and more than 20,000 homes were destroyed. The massive destruction was also aimed at the already ailing infrastructure of impoverished Gaza, reaching schools, hospitals, mosques and even UN shelters.

How more “decisive” must the next Israeli war be so that Israel’s warmongers may feel satisfied that their war achieved its intended objectives?

Israel wants Palestinians to accept their perpetual besiegement, embrace their fate as an occupied nation with no rights, subject to the whims of Israel and its racist, deadly policies.

However, Israeli leaders are now driven by a second objective: winning the upcoming elections.

There is much at stake for Netanyahu and his prospective coalition of rightwing ideologues and religious zealots. Israel has never held two national elections in one year, but this year is an exception.

The April 9 elections failed to achieve a decisive victory for either camp. After weeks of attempting to form a coalition government, Netanyahu accepted the inevitable: another election, which is set for September 17.

But Netanyahu is not only politically embattled. He, along with his family and close aides have been embroiled in a series of corruption charges that could potentially end his political career.

On June 6, Israel’s attorney general Avichai Mandelblit rejected Netanyahu’s bid to postpone for the second time the pre-indictment hearing in the several corruption cases concerning his misconduct while in office.

However, Netanyahu hopes to secure his position at the helm of Israeli politics a while longer, to evade corruption charges, and to eventually strike a deal to drop the charges altogether.

He is desperate to remain a prime minister. For that to happen, he will do whatever it takes to appeal to the most powerful constituency in Israel: the right wing and their religious allies.

For Israel’s right, a war is a normal state of affairs. They seem to acquire their sense of collective safety when Palestinians suffer. And, for months, Israeli rightwing voices calling for war against Gaza have massively amplified.

Even the supposedly sensible political center has joined the chorus, knowing that an anti-war stance in Israel is a losing strategy.

Head of the Blue and White party, Benny Gantz, who remains Netanyahu’s strongest opponent said in an interview released last May with Channel 13: “We must strike hard, in an uncompromising manner … We must restore the deterrence that has been eroded catastrophically for more than a year.”

Of course, there will be a next war on Gaza. It will be as “decisive” and deadly as Israeli leaders need it to be, to serve their political calculations.

But they must also be aware that wars on Gaza are no longer the cakewalks of the past. The resistance in that small, but unbreakable region, is tougher than it has ever been in the past, a natural outcome of 12 years of a relentless siege, interrupted by massively destructive and lethal military onslaughts.

A war on Gaza will also come with a price for Israel. Are Netanyahu and his government willing to endure the political fallout of another failed war? It all depends on how truly desperate the corrupt Netanyahu is to remain in power and out of prison, at least for a while longer.

 – Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His last book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’ (Pluto Press, London).

August 1, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment