Jordanian Detained by Israel Says He was Used as ‘Bargaining Chip’ for Jordan Valley Lands
Heba al Labadi and Abdul Rahman Miri have been held in Israeli prisons without charges for over two months
Palestine Chronicle – November 10, 2019
A Jordanian man formerly detained in Israel has accused the neighboring country of using him and another prisoner as “bargaining chips” to prevent the loss of two Jordan Valley territories.
Abdul Rahman Miri, a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian descent, was held by the Israeli authorities for months without charge alongside fellow Jordanian Heba al-Labadi.
Their detention was not the only issue causing a diplomatic scuffle between Israel and Jordan over the past months, however.
The kingdom announced last year it would not extend a lease to Israel on two pieces of land in the Jordan Valley, ending 25 years of de facto Israeli authority over the Al-Baqura and Al-Ghamar areas.
Despite Jordan announcing its intention a year in advance of the leases’ expiration, Israeli officials and civilians in the valley have reportedly continued to hold out hope that Israeli farmers will continue to be able to live and work on the land.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting held by the National Committee for Jordanian Detainees and Missing Persons Held in Israeli Prisons on Friday, Miri alleged that the Israeli authorities had attempted to use his and Labadi’s detention as a “bargaining chip” with which to secure the continued lease of al-Baqura and al-Ghamar.
The Wadi Araba peace deal, signed in 1994, restored diplomatic and economic relations between Jordan and Israel. As part of the agreement, the kingdom leased Israel the Jordan Valley farmlands.
The agreement is highly contentious in Jordan, of which a significant number of citizens are of Palestinian descent. Anti-normalization activists in the kingdom have previously called for the cancellation of the Wadi Araba treaty.
Miri and Labadi returned to Jordan on Wednesday after months in detention, where they were allegedly tortured after being accused of links to Hezbollah and Hamas.
Their release came a week after Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel over their detention.
Jordan has said Israeli citizens will be banned from entering Baqura from Sunday onward.
The kingdom has not yet stated whether Israeli farmers will be allowed to access lands in al-Ghamar.
‘Israel’ Says US Sanctions Failed to Subdue Iran & Axis of Resistance, Warns of Rising Yemeni Threat
Al-Manar | November 10, 2019
The Israeli media considered that the US economic sanctions had failed to subdue Iran and all the axis of resistance, adding that Tel Aviv and Washington did not reach any achievement in this regard.
The Zionist reports pointed out that the attacks which targeted Aramoci oil facilities in addition to the tankers indicate that Iran will strike ‘Israel’ in response to any military operation in the region.
In the meantime, the Israeli media highlighted the vow of Yemen’s Ansarullah Chief Sayyed Abdul Malik Al-Houthi to respond to any Israeli assault on Yemen by attacking the Zionist entity, emphasizing that this is a new threat.
Israel Admits to Losing Sophisticated Missile in Syria, Recovered by Russian Forces
By Khaled Iskef | 21st Century Wire | November 7, 2019
Israel has admitted to losing a missile from its air defense system after it landed in Syrian territory. The item was apparently recovered by Russian reconnaissance units, before being transferred to its experts.
According to Israeli media reports, the IDF missile known as “David’s Sling” landed inside of Syria in July of this year, and was recovered by the Russian army before being transferred to Moscow to examine its technology. The missile is produced by a joint venture between Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Raytheon.
Media sources pointed out that, “the rocket landed in Syrian territory after failing to intercept one of the Syrian missiles.” It should be noted also that those missiles were launched in response to an Israeli attack which was targeting sites in Damascus and its countryside.
Israel has asked Russia to return the missile.
The missile is one of the most sophisticated missiles within the wider “Iron Dome” defense array system, with which the IDF was using to intercept Russian-made SS21 missile being deployed by the Syrian army.
Israel did not clarify whether there is any Russian response on its request to return the IDF missile. Likewise, there has yet to be any official Russian comment on the subject.
Presumably, fears on the Israeli side would include the possibility that “fragments and parts of the missile to Iran or the resistance Palestinian Authority,” thus enabling them to access the advanced technology.
Trump rejects Israel’s request to fund Palestine security forces
Press TV – November 7, 2019
US President Donald Trump has reportedly told his close assistants that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should pay millions of dollars in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority if he thinks Washington’s decision to cut it altogether was wrong.
New website Axios reported on Wednesday that Netanyahu had earlier this year asked the White House to resume transferring money to the Palestinian authority, citing concerns by Israeli experts that not doing so would affect the future of any attempts at “peace.”
Barak Ravid, a Channel 13 reporter in Israel, claimed that Tel Aviv made the request after it found out that the US State Department had discovered $12 million in funds earmarked for the Palestinians but not transferred to the PA.
Israel, which maintains security ties with the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, asked Trump to hand over the money, a request he swiftly turned down.
“If it is that important to Netanyahu he should pay the Palestinians $12 million,” Trump said according to the report, citing the PA’s decision to cut ties with his administration in the wake of Washington’s 2017 recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of the Israeli regime.
The Trump administration ended aid to the PA in January, just before the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA), passed by Congress and then signed into law by President Donald Trump last year, came into force.
The legislation allows Americans to sue those receiving foreign aid from the US government in American courts over alleged complicity in “acts of war.”
The PA reportedly asked the funding stop to avoid possible costly lawsuits in the face of long-running accusations by Washington and Tel Aviv about providing funds to the families of convicted or slain individuals whom they regard as “terrorists.”
The PA argues that the payments are a form of welfare to help the families who have lost their main breadwinner to cope with their absence.
The US State Department alleges that the annual aid of around $60 million was paid to support Palestinian security forces who cooperate closely with their Israeli counterparts against Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups in the West Bank
Since taking office, Trump has cut hundreds of millions of dollars of aid for Palestinians. This includes America’s entire support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees as well as another $200 million earmarked for humanitarian programs in the West Bank and Gaza.
The cuts abruptly ended food assistance to 180,000 Palestinians on behalf of the World Food Program last year and defunded a number of health initiatives and hospitals.
Trump’s aid cuts have also brought to halt infrastructure projects, including water treatment facilities in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli ministers moot war scenario with Iran: Ex-envoy
Press TV – November 6, 2019
Israeli ministers have reportedly held several meetings to review the likely scenario of a potential war with Iran, with the participants speculating that the Islamic Republic could deal paralyzing blows to the regime in the course of such a confrontation.
The meetings, two of which were held last week, discussed potential lead-ups and aftermath of a conflict, with Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the US, allegedly unveiling contents of the discussions in an opinion piece carried by The Atlantic on Monday.
Titled “The Coming Middle East Conflagration,” the feature claimed the ministerial gatherings had concluded that “fighting could break out at any time” by “a single spark.”
‘Dangerous Israeli miscalculation’
The Israeli ministers suspected that a conflict could come as a result of an “Israeli miscalculation,” such as erringly hitting “particularly sensitive targets” in the countries where the Islamic Republic provides advisory support against terrorists such as Iraq and Syria.
“The result could be a counterstrike by Iran, using cruise missiles that penetrate Israel’s air defenses and smash into targets like the Kiryah, Tel Aviv’s equivalent of the Pentagon,” Oren wrote. “And then, after a day of large-scale exchanges, the real war would begin,” he went on.
‘4,000 projectiles to rain on Israel’
The article said such a war triggered by Tel Aviv’s blunder could see as many as “4,000” projectiles being rained down on Israel every day, with the regime’s so-called Iron Dome missile system liable to miss 10 percent of them.
“All of Israel, from Metulla in the north to the southern port city of Eilat, would be in range of enemy fire,” the former official noted.
That threat, the piece added, is eclipsed by the one posed by Iran’s surgical and long-range missiles such as “the deadly Shahab-3” — which would reach Israel “from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran itself.”
Those missiles “a growing numbers of which are in Iranian arsenals, pose a far deadlier threat,” Oren cautioned, highlighting how the projectiles can switch flight routes airborne.
“The David’s Sling system, developed in conjunction with the United States, can stop them—in theory, because it has never been tested in combat. And each of its interceptors costs $1 million. Even if it is not physically razed, Israel can be bled economically.”
Oren said those missiles can reach Israel directly from Iran, while the Israeli Air Force itself lacks the type of strategic bombers, which are capable of flying as far as the Islamic Republic’s territory.
‘Israel to be paralyzed’
The former envoy also said in detail how a potential war could cripple Israel by killing international flights, shutting down lifeline ports, putting out the electrical grid, overwhelming hospitals, and sending millions into shelters.
The situation, he added, would only be compounded after “the skies darken with the toxic fumes of blazing chemical factories and oil refineries.”
Tel Aviv’s response would, meanwhile, see the regime attacking people in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon as well as other countries, which have been receiving the Islamic Republic’s support in the face of Israeli aggression, the article said.
This would face Israel with international repercussions, including by the United Nations and its legal arm, the International Criminal Court, it noted.
US support
However, Oren said the participants were wondering how the US, as a staunch ally of Israel, would respond to a potential war with Iran.
“And over all of them looms a pressing question: How will the United States respond?” he wrote.
These include stocking up and replenishing Israel’s ammunition stockpiles and shielding the regime at the UN by wielding its veto power, the piece concluded.
“Though the details remain top secret, the United States is clearly committed to helping protect Israel’s skies. Whether American troops would go on the offensive on Israel’s behalf, striking Iranian bases, remains uncertain,” the article concluded.
‘Israel’, Gulf States Preparing Non-aggression Pact
Al-Manar | November 6, 2019
In context of the process aimed at normalizing ties between the Zionist entity and the Gulf States, the Israeli media revealed that the two sides were preparing a non-aggression pact sponsored by the US administration.
Zionist analysts considered that Washington is trying to endorse the non-aggression pact as a substitute for the failed ‘Deal of the Century’, adding that the US Treasury Secretary conveyed the Israeli-prepared draft to the Gulf officials.
The Isralei media also unveiled the enemy’s participation in investment projects and expos in Saudi and Emirates, adding that Tel Aviv specialized hundreds of millions of dollars for this purpose.
Israel ‘aiding Kurds’ in Syria, advocating for them in talks with US – deputy FM
RT | November 6, 2019
Israel is assisting Syrian Kurds battered by a month-old Turkish incursion, and advocating for them in talks with the United States, the deputy Israeli foreign minister said on Wednesday.
Ankara launched its assault targeting the Kurdish YPG militia after the abrupt withdrawal of 1,000 US troops from northern Syria in early October. Israel sees Syrian Kurds as a counterweight to “Iranian influence.”
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu offered humanitarian aid to the “gallant Kurdish people” on October 10, saying they faced possible “ethnic cleansing” by Turkey and its allies in Syria.
Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, told parliament on Wednesday that the offer had been taken up, Reuters said. “Israel has received many requests for assistance, mainly in the diplomatic and humanitarian realm,” she said. “We identify with the deep distress of the Kurds, and we are assisting them through a range of channels.”
Hotovely did not elaborate on the Israeli assistance. Syrian Kurdish officials have not commented on the statement.
How Amazon Supports Israeli Atrocities
Produced by Chris Smiley of If Americans Knew | November 6, 2019
More news and headlines: https://israelpalestinenews.org/
At This Year’s J Street Conference, “Progressive” Pols Bow to Israel While Preaching Peace
By Miko Peled | MintPress News | October 30, 2019
My father, the late IDF general Matti Peled, called for a two-state solution in 1967, and as is stated in my book, The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, he continued to campaign for this “solution” until the day he died. It may have been a revolutionary idea then, especially coming from a retired IDF general. Some would even call it progressive, though I personally would not go that far. It presented a path for Israel to gain legitimacy for its 1948 conquest of Palestine while placating the Palestinian people by giving them a small, powerless state that would allow them to exercise their right to self-determination.
Two decades later, when it was clear that Israel would never allow this to happen, my father called for the U.S. to halt its financial and military aid to Israel. By 1992, he called for sanctions against Israel. So when Bernie Sanders and other so-called progressives like J Street talk about a two-state solution and the possibility of using aid to pressure Israel, they are decades late and billions of dollars short. Without full support for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, BDS for short, no progress can be achieved for Palestinian rights.
A Safe Bet
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was dangerous because there was a real possibility that it could happen. Today, after five decades in which consecutive governments of Israel have worked tirelessly to integrate the West Bank with the rest of the state of Israel, a Palestinian state is no longer possible and calling for it is a safe political move. Bernie Sanders knows it, the folks at J Street know it, and all the other so-called progressives know it too. A bold, progressive move would be to call for a democratic state with equal rights for all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
However, we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. One has to ask, where were these progressives when the possibility of a two-state solution was feasible? This is not to say it was a just or good solution, for it did legitimize the Zionist crimes of 1948 and earlier. Setting that aside for a moment, where were these so-called progressives when the possibility of an independent Palestine emerging in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was a real possibility? They were nowhere to be found.
While the official line of consecutive U.S. administrations was that UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 should be the basis of a peace agreement, neither the various administrations or other American politicians outside of the administration did a single thing to push this idea forward.
Now that is it too late, and it is clear that Israel never intended to allow the Palestinian right to self-determination to materialize, and now that we know that the “peace process” concocted by the Rabin-Peres duo was nothing more than a charade, the Bernie Sanders and J Street liberals decided to make a “bold” statement out of an old, outdated idea. But there is nothing bold about their support for Israel. There is nothing progressive about waiting five decades to support an idea that has no chance of becoming reality.
A Step in the Right Direction
The last thing that can be said about this very slow learning curve is that it is a step in the right direction. Recognizing and declaring today that the Palestinian people have been subjected to genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid for over seven decades is still slow, but it would signal a real step in the right direction. However, neither Sanders nor his hosts at the J Street conference are willing to go that far.
The farthest Sanders is willing to go is to say that he supports Israel and that Palestinians have been treated unfairly. Now, he is suggesting that some of the $3.8 Billion of aid money going to Israel should be diverted to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. How much? He didn’t say. So why not suggest halting aid to Israel altogether and sending those billions of dollars to the people who really need them in order to rebuild Gaza and provide medical care, water, and food.
The problem is that we have all become accustomed to believing that Palestinians should never ask for too much. Palestinians should be grateful for the scraps offered to them by white rich politicians in the United States and Israel. They should welcome the idea that Israel will “give” them a fraction of their homeland in which to build a mini-state. They should be grateful that a politician in the U.S. said publicly that they are treated unfairly. Palestinians should not be unreasonable and they should refrain from calling for anything that would bother Israel and its Zionist supporters around the world.
BDS
The call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel is a step too far for Sanders and J Street, the latter claiming that it is opposed to the call for a boycott and that “The Movement is not a friend to Israel.”
Palestinians, apparently, are required to prove that they are friends of Israel before their demands can be heard, much less accepted and also to recognize the right of Israel to exist, another absurd demand regularly made of Palestinians.
The fundamental problem lies in statements such as this by J Street: “J Street believes that maintaining a strong, vibrant US-Israel relationship […] US support for Israel as a democracy and a national home for the Jewish people is an historic and crucial commitment.”
As long as the U.S. relationship with Israel is viewed as more valuable than the human rights of the Palestinian people, justice for Palestinians will remain a distant dream. Without support for BDS and their declared demands, namely: ending Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land, equal rights and the right of refugees to return to their homes and their land, no progress can be made.
Hold the Champagne
Reading posts on Twitter while the J Street conference was taking place in Washington could give one the impression that justice for Palestinians is just around the corner. However, it is Israel that was the focus, not Palestinian human rights. The ongoing discussion of the two-state solution at the event acted as a fig leaf, shielding Israel from true criticism and allowing human rights violations in Palestine to continue unabated.
Statements like this one, made by Julian Castro, are indicative of a prevailing head in the sand, ostrich-like attitude: “We need a government in Israel that will get back on the path of the two-state solution.” No one bothered to ask if Israel was really ever on that path.
Bernie Sanders made a statement at the J Street conference that was also indicative of a desire to intentionally miss the target: “It is not anti-Semitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist – that’s a fact,” he said. Netanyahu is, without question, indeed a racist. Yet he is no different than any other Israeli prime minister. The issue is not a single prime minister, it is the entire Zionist settler-colonial project in Palestine which is the problem.
How Much Longer?
More than five decades had passed since my late father, one of the exalted IDF generals of the 1967 war, called for a two-state solution. A solution that favors Israel and recognizes very limited rights for Palestinians and is a poor excuse for a peace plan. A solution that ignores the crimes which my father, among others, committed in 1948. A solution, which in fact legitimizes those crimes. It is a “solution” behind which politicians who want to seem progressive can hide because it offers no solution. It is a solution popular among those who pretend to care for justice and human rights but that do not want real change. One must ask how much longer this charade will be allowed to continue.
Hamas: Iran Provided Palestinian Resistance with Weaponry & Money
Hamas leader Yehia Sinwar in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip January 7, 2016. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Al-Manar | November 4, 2019
Gaza’s Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar Monday gave Iran the greatest credit for supporting the Palestinian resistance and providing it with money, expertise and weaponry.
Sinwar stressed that the Palestinian resistance has developed anti-armored missiles, adding that it can fire missiles at Tel Aviv for six consecutive months.
Sinwar also reiterated that the Deal of the Century aims at eradicating the Palestinian cause, adding that the weekly Return Protests achieved many targets.
The UN exploits Palestinian children to further the two-state propaganda
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 23, 2019
There is one thing the UN and its personnel would do well to keep in mind when pontificating about the purported peace process and to promote Israel’s security narrative: Palestinian children are not props for exploitation. At a time when the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees is facing a severe crisis due to funding shortages, as well as the misdemeanour allegations concerning its staff, the last thing the UN should be doing is exploiting Palestinian children for the sake of upholding the obsolete two-state compromise.
Earlier this month, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov posted a photo on Twitter, of himself and UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, together with a group of female refugee students attending one of UNRWA’s schools. “I hope these young girls grow up to participate in democratic elections where Palestine, Israel live side-by-side in peace and security,” he tweeted.
Just because the colonial narrative makes Israel, peace and security synonymous doesn’t mean there are no inherent contradictions in the rhetoric. The UN, a collaborator since before the inception of Israel, is, of course, aware of the discrepancies, but it prefers to enforce historical cycles of dispossession upon Palestinians, including students, framing them as a warped peace process in which Israel’s existence is paramount, even at the expense of Palestinian lives.
Mladenov’s wish for Palestinian children is not that they exercise their right to live freely in all of historic Palestine. On the contrary, he is demanding perpetual subjugation and oblivion of the Palestinian right of return, and what better way to attempt indoctrination than with the younger generations, according to the UN’s delusional standards?
But Palestinians have remembrance, and that remembrance is political. Has Mladenov deigned to listen to the Palestinian children’s refugee narratives? Are Mladenov and the UN expecting future Palestinian generations to exploit themselves for Israel’s colonial plans? How do UN officials reconcile democracy with the colonialism inherent in the two-state paradigm, which is the purported solution envisaged for Palestinians by the international community?
Taking the latter one step further, since the UN knows that the two-state hypothesis is obsolete, it stands to reason that these Palestinian children, along with many others, will be witness to further colonial appropriation by Israel. Mladenov’s legacy to this group of students will be nothing other than a promotional photo taken for UN propaganda purposes, while in the background; Palestinian families are permanently ruptured and dispossessed by Israel.
UN antics are not impressive; they are endangering the lives of Palestinians and attempting to tarnish students with acquiescence. Parroting about democratic elections while envisaging perpetual colonialism is vile, all the more when involving students in UN propaganda. So, stop the rhetoric of hope, which is an illusion when there is factual support for the elimination of Palestinian rights. Mladenov never intended Palestinian students’ voices to reach the international arena. The promotion photo speaks volumes about how the UN coerces Palestinians into silence. When the focus is Palestinian children facing perpetual refugee status, it is clear the UN could not sink any lower.
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From the Archives
Jewish Guilt is the Discourse of The Goyim
By Gilad Atzmon | April 24, 2018
For quite some time the British have accepted that British Jewish organizations have hijacked the political discourse. As has happened in other Western countries, the British political establishment has engaged is a relentless rant against antisemitsm. Sometime the focus drifts for a day or two. An alleged ‘Russian nerve gas attack’ provided a 48 hour pause. Occasionally we bomb Arabs in the name of ‘human intervention’ only to realize a day or two later that we have, once again, followed a premeditated foreign agenda. But, somehow, we always return to the antisemitism debate, as if our media and politicians are a herd of flies gravitating to a pile of poop. … continue
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