Israeli Cluster Bomb Kills Lebanese Child in South Lebanon
Eight-year-old Ali Abbas Maatouk was martyred when a cluster bomb submunition detonated (Wednesday, August 14, 2019).
Al-Manar | August 15, 2019
A bomb left over from Israeli 2006 July War on Lebanon exploded Wednesday, killing a child in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Eight-year-old Ali Abbas Maatouk was martyred and another child injured when the cluster bomb submunition detonated as they played in the village of Toul in Nabatieh.
They were rushed to Toul’s Sheikh Ragheb Harb Hospital.
Maatouk succumbed to his wounds upon arrival, Hasan Bourgi, an emergency room doctor, told The Daily Star.
“His head injury was too severe, despite resuscitation attempts,” Bourgi said. He added that the other child suffered shrapnel wounds to the stomach but was in stable condition.
The tragedy struck on the 13th anniversary of the end of the 33-day war, during which the Israeli warplanes “rained an estimated 4 million submunitions on south Lebanon, the vast majority over the final three days,” a Human Rights Watch report said.
It called Israel’s use of cluster bombs “indiscriminate and disproportionate, in violation of [international humanitarian law], and in some locations possibly a war crime.”
Some 40 percent of the munitions did not explode, NGO Mines Advisory Group said.
US Axis of Aggression in Gulf
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 15, 2019
When Washington announced a few weeks ago the formation of a maritime “international coalition” to “protect shipping” in the Persian Gulf, many observers were skeptical. Now skepticism has rightly turned to alarm, as the proposed US-led “coalition” transpires to comprise a grand total of just three nations: the US, Britain and Israel.
The term “coalition” has always been a weasel word used by Washington to give its military operations around the world a veneer of international consensus and moral authority. If the US goes ahead with deploying forces in the Persian Gulf the guise of “coalition” is threadbare. It will be seen for what it is: naked aggression.
Iran promptly warned that if the US, Britain and Israel move on their intention to deploy in the Persian Gulf, it will not hesitate to defend itself from a “clear threat”.
Britain has ordered this week another warship, HMS Kent, to the Gulf. The move, significantly, occurred as Trump’s hawkish national security advisor John Bolton was in London for two-day official meetings with PM Boris Johnson and other senior ministers. Bolton praised Britain’s decision to join the US-led Operation Sentinel mission, rather than an alternative proposed European naval mission. It’s not clear if HMS Kent is simply replacing another British warship in the Gulf, HMS Duncan, or if this is a further buildup in force. Either way, the line up of US, Britain and reportedly Israel is a foreboding potential offensive.
Israeli leaders have in the recent past repeatedly called for military attacks on Iran, claiming without evidence that the Islamic Republic is secretly building nuclear weapons, thus allegedly posing an existential threat to the Jewish state, despite the latter possessing an estimated 200-300 nuclear warheads.
Given the Trump administration’s manic hostility towards Tehran, which it labels a “terrorist regime”, and given the long history of US-British treachery against Iran, it is understandable the alarm being aroused if Washington, London and Tel Aviv proceed with their flotilla in the Gulf.
Major General Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, slammed the proposed US-led trio of forces as a “coalition of demons”.
Iranian defense minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami warned that any such US deployment involving Israel in a waterway contiguous with Iran’s southern coast would have “disastrous consequences for the region”. Tehran would view it as an act of war.
Will Washington light the fuse? President Donald Trump and his psychotic war advisor John Bolton have certainly talked tough on several occasions over recent weeks about attacking Iran and “destroying” the Persian nation with overwhelming force. Combined with the depraved Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu and the lackey British premier Boris Johnson, the “axis of insanity” is perplexing.
However, Trump’s threats have often turned out to be empty. Washington has said before it would “defend” its interests when cargo ships were sabotaged in recent weeks. Iran was blamed by the US without evidence for the sabotage incidents, but Washington’s bellicose rhetoric didn’t materialize in military action. Even when Iran shot down a US $220-million spy drone over its territory on June 20, Trump balked at ordering “retaliatory” air strikes.
Another deterring factor is Iran’s formidable anti-ship missiles and air defenses which are augmented by the latest Russian technology, as documented by John Helmer.
There is thus a fair chance that the Trump administration will back off from its plans for a maritime incursion in the Persian Gulf. Even the intellectually challenged White House must know that any such move – especially involving a blatant axis of aggression of the US, Britain and Israel – will be tantamount to declaring war. The consequences for the war-torn region, the global economy and world peace would indeed be potentially calamitous. Surely, the unhinged American, British and Israeli leaders know this?
International consensus and world opinion may also be a vital check on the US-led folly of antagonizing Iran. The refusal by Germany, France and other European nations to participate in the US maritime force dealt a significant blow to Washington’s subterfuge of forming a coalition camouflage for its aggression against Iran.
The Americans were infuriated. US officials have reportedly lobbied the Berlin government to change its mind, to no avail. One American official was reported to have complained: “German officials keep telling us that they’re on our side, but they have to side with Iran on nuclear related issues because of the nuclear deal. Iran is attacking tankers which has nothing to do with the deal. So what’s Germany’s excuse for not siding with us this time?”
Richard Grenell, the pesky US ambassador in Berlin, displayed exasperation over Germany’s rebuff to the naval coalition plan, dubbed Operation Sentinel. Employing his best double-think, Grenell said: “German participation would help deescalate the situation. The Iranians would see a united West.”
This comes against a background of various rows between the Trump administration and Berlin, including on NATO spending, trade tariffs and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project with Russia.
Washington is peeved by the Europeans and Germany in particular for not giving its purported naval coalition in the Gulf the desired appearance of international mandate.
As Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif remarked, the US is “isolated”, apart from having the British and Israelis riding shotgun on its now-evident adventure of aggression. From political, legal and moral viewpoints, it will be difficult for the Trump administration to proceed with its plan to “protect shipping” in the Persian Gulf because it is abundantly clear that the plan is a flagrant war footing.
If the US and its allies were genuine about forming a protection arrangement for commercial shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf – where 20-30 per cent of globally shipped oil passes each day – then they would do well to take on board the Russian proposal presented at the UN on August 8.
Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s acting envoy to the UN, set forth a multilateral security concept. He emphasized that the partnership would be a genuine international coalition acting within the framework of the UN Security Council. The proposal, which China has backed, would include all stakeholders for the safety of shipping through the vital Persian Gulf, including Iran. This is surely the way to go towards de-escalating the dangerous tensions in the region. The key is that any such initiative must be formulated in keeping with UN principles and international law. It is not for one, two or three nations to assume the role of naval “policemen” in an area of international waterways. Even if we take Washington’s rhetoric about “protecting shipping” at face value, its deployment of force in the Gulf is an illegitimate assumption of power. It is outside UN principles and without Security Council mandate. In a word, illegal.
European and Asian nations would be advised to back the Russian initiative in order to maintain peace in the Gulf. By contrast, Washington’s plans are a reckless and reprehensible provocation for war.
We must boycott Israeli sports as we did with Apartheid South Africa
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 14, 2019
The Palestinian Football Association is struggling to survive. Combined US-Israeli pressure on Palestinian organisations that provide aid and support to the Palestinian people is now felt in the field of sports as well. In recent months, the association’s budget has been slashed by more than half, and the new football season may be cancelled entirely.
In Palestine, football in particular, represents more than just a game. It provides respite, continuity, hope, and unity.
The Palestine Football Association has been in existence since 1928, that is 20 years before Israel was founded on destroyed Palestinian cities, towns and villages. But, not even the tragic Nakba would end the sport in Palestine. When Palestine was admitted as a full member of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in 1998, a rare moment of triumph prevailed over the sense of political stagnation. The Palestinian national team became a representation of a collective sense of pride and defiance. It meant that despite Israeli military restrictions, the targeting of Palestinian athletes and the bombing of stadiums and sports facilities, Palestinians continue to embrace life and thrive.
Even after the factional clash between Fatah and Hamas and the subsequent political disconnect between Gaza and the West Bank, sports continued to provide a critical outlet for unity. While Gaza and the West Bank have their own football leagues, they still competed in a final match to determine the winner of the Palestine Cup.
Alas, last month, Israel prevented the Rafah football team from reaching the West Bank, to meet its Balata Youth Centre rivals in the Cup’s final match.
Israel’s restrictions on Palestinian sports is relentless and is part of a long record of making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to pursue activities that should have no bearing on “Israel’s security”.
The Palestine national team is possibly the most beleaguered football team in the world today.
“Due to Israeli restrictions, the Palestinian national team has been banned from playing their home games in Palestinian stadiums for many years and is forced to host them in nearby Arab countries,” wrote Hazem Balousha in Arab News. Effectively, this means that all Palestinian football training camps have to be held outside Palestine, often with the team’s Gaza squad unable to join their peers. Meanwhile, no foreign trainers are allowed to enter besieged Gaza.
Moreover, the occasional news of a Palestinian footballer being shot, beaten or imprisoned, though tragic, is routine news for Palestinians.
Israel has, however, hardly received any serious reprimand for its unlawful actions. Despite Tel Aviv’s constant violations of Palestinian sports rights, FIFA and other international sports federations continue to treat Israel with kid gloves. Worse, instead of being punished for violating international law regarding sports, Israel is often rewarded. The fact that Israel’s Football Association includes six teams from illegal Jewish settlements (colonies that are built on stolen Palestinian land) seems to be of no consequence to FIFA’s bosses.
Recently, the sports brand, Puma has replaced Adidas as the sponsor of Israel’s national football teams. The decision indicates that the company is completely oblivious to sports apartheid in Israel. Puma’s lack of sportsmanship is now the subject of a major international boycott campaign led by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Over 200 Palestinian sports clubs support the call on Puma to end its dealings with Israel, in an attempt to pressure Israel to put an end to its violations of Palestinian human rights.
In fact, Israel should be boycotted in every possible way until it relents and respects international law regarding the rights and freedom of the Palestinian people. Often, however, we overlook the centrality of sports boycott in the overall boycott strategy.
Sports boycott engages, not only politicians and intellectuals but also ordinary people around the world. “The case for football boycott of Israel is just as compelling as that of football boycott of South Africa,” BDS wrote on its homepage. For one, “boycott would spread awareness of Israeli racism and abuse of Palestinian human rights across the football community worldwide.”
Moreover, boycotting Israeli sports, especially football, will deny Israel an important tool aimed at normalising its military occupation, apartheid, and racism. It will force ordinary Israelis to think about the consequences of their support of right-wing racist governments. It could, in fact, it will espouse a serious debate in Israel.
This same logic worked in Apartheid South Africa and was a powerful tool in the international support for the anti-Apartheid movement in that country.
But with FIFA and others turning a blind eye to Israeli violations, Palestinians continue to suffer while Israel continues to sell itself as a sports-loving member of FIFA and other sports organizations.
“Divestment and boycotts are familiar tactics from the international anti-apartheid movement, but they didn’t match the psychological power of the sports boycott,” wrote Tony Karon in the National.
“Rugby was an essential part of the identity of the South African regime’s base, and denying their ability to compete on an international stage was one of the most painful sanctions in the minds of many apartheid supporters.”
As for FIFA, it suspended the membership of the Football Association of South Africa in 1961, followed by a decision, in 1968 by the United Nations General Assembly that called for boycotting all sports bodies in South Africa that practiced apartheid. The pressure continued to mount, uniting international solidarity around clear and achievable objectives.
Many organisations have taken the lead in their respective countries to create a similar movement for Palestine. Israel must not be allowed to participate in international sports while simultaneously cementing its apartheid, racist regime in Palestine.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Israel’s man in the House of Representatives
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 13, 2019
It is astonishing that in the wake of the two mass killings in Dayton and El Paso that have been attributed both by the media and the Democrats to “racism,” a senior U.S. Congressman has led a delegation of 41 of his Democratic Party colleagues plus spouses on a week-long luxury all-expenses-paid trip to Israel, which is one of the few countries in the world that defines its full citizenship as a matter of race and religion. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland is, however, apparently tone deaf to some critics of the annual excursion, having made the pilgrimage to Israel more than fifteen times. “I am pleased to join so many House Democrats in traveling to Israel to reaffirm our support for a critical U.S. ally and to continue learning about the opportunities and the challenges facing Israel and the Middle East,” he said shortly before departing for Tel Aviv.
Hoyer did not mention how he had managed to pull together such a large group of co-conspirators in spite of critical issues that need to be confronted at home during recess in town hall meetings, which, due to the trip, will operate on a short schedule if at all. As Majority Leader, he is reported to be skilled at strong-arming new colleagues to compel them to make the trip to demonstrate the loyalty of the U.S. Congress and the Democratic Party to the Jewish state, which is his top priority. According to The Intercept, “Hoyer… uses his power over the House floor agenda to coerce participation. A member who refuses an invitation can find it difficult to have their bills brought to the floor for a vote. ‘His senior staff lock down cooperating members by getting their bills to the floor and punishing non-cooperators,’ said one former representative who rejected the invitation. ‘I was tortured for a decade because I refused to go on that trip…’”
Of course, the Israelis are themselves seasoned professionals when it comes to mass shooting, something that they do every Friday across the fence into Gaza, but they are unlikely to demonstrate their marksmanship to the visiting congressmen. They in any event know that Israel will never be condemned in fora like the United Nations Security Council because of the exercise of Washington’s veto. Hoyer and company are the reason that there is such a veto even though Israel is a serial war criminal and human rights violator, so in a sense he and his Democratic Party friends are the reason why the Jewish state believes itself empowered to behave so badly. And, lest anyone is worried about bipartisanship, the Republicans too have a delegation in Israel headed by House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy consisting of 31 congressmen. The 72 congressmen from both parties constitute one of the largest delegations ever to travel to to the Jewish state.
Hoyer is a bought and paid for Israeli puppet and a big part of his job is to make sure that new Congressmen and women are adequately brainwashed regarding what is going on in the Middle East. Maryland’s Democratic Party has long been dominated by Jews from Baltimore and Montgomery County and Hoyer has successfully cultivated Jewish congressmen to advance his career. He has benefited directly from $320,025 pro-Israel PAC donations to fund his reelection campaigns and has undoubtedly also received generous donations from individual Jews and from organizations not organized as PACs.
Steny Hoyer’s foreign policy votes in Congress have not surprisingly mirrored positions taken by the Israeli government. He supported the attack on Iraq and was in fact very possibly the most prominent promoter of the war among Democrats. When the war became a foreign policy disaster, he muted his approval of it but has continued to vote for funding of U.S. military involvement in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Hoyer’s support of Israel is unshakable and he has often appeared and spoken before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual summit. At his most recent appearance this past spring his keynote speech included “I stand with Israel, proudly and unapologetically. So, when someone accuses American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: accuse me. I am part of a large, bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel. I tell Israel’s detractors: accuse us.” Well, he got that right. He and many other congressmen do suffer from dual or even singular loyalty when it comes to Israel.
In 2007 Hoyer notably called out fellow Democrat Representative Jim Moran for stating correctly that AIPAC “has pushed (the Iraq) war from the beginning.” Hoyer called the statement “factually inaccurate,” which was not the case. He is a supporter of the Israeli illegal settlements, which up until recently was contrary to both U.S. official policy and a number of United Nations resolutions. In January 2017, he was a leading advocate of a House of Representatives resolution condemning the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, which called both the settlements and the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as a “flagrant violation of international law and a major obstacle to peace.” Hoyer also has supported President Donald Trump’s move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Israel’s enemies are also Hoyer’s enemies whether or not they threaten the United States. He has declared that an Iran with nuclear weapons is “unacceptable” and supports the use of American military force to deter such a development, ignoring the fact that Israel already has a nuclear arsenal which President John F. Kennedy tried to prevent before he was assassinated. Hoyer also supports keeping a U.S. military presence in Syria in spite of the lack of any threat to the United States from that direction, part of an Israeli plan to divide that country into its constituent tribal and religious parts.
Hoyer’s trip is paid for by the “educational” affiliate of AIPAC called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). One might reasonably ask why an organization connected to AIPAC, which describes itself on its website as having the “mission” to “… strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel,” should be able to fund the annual mass migration of congress-critters to promote Israeli interests without having to register as an agent of the Jewish state’s government? The answer is actually quite simple. Congress and the Justice Department have been so corrupted by pro-Israel money and other manifestations of Jewish power that they do not enforce the law when it comes to Israel. Steny Hoyer and venal creatures like him are a large part of why that is so.
Nevertheless, analysis provided by Josh Ruebner at Mondoweiss cites “Dr. Craig Holman, Government Affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, who drafted the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), designed to curb the influence of lobbyist money in congressional travel” as saying that it ‘… is unequivocal that the arrangement between AIEF and AIPAC ‘defies the spirit as well as the letter of the law’.” The law itself prohibits Members of Congress from accepting from any organization with income of at least $13,000 per quarter “that retains or employs 1 or more registered lobbyists… funds earmarked directly or indirectly for the purpose of financing” travel by congressmen or women for longer than one day.
According to Holman, AIPAC, which spent $700,000 in lobbying during the second quarter of 2019 alone, gets around the prohibition by having AIEF, which is a 501(c)3 educational foundation that does no lobbying, do the funding. The loophole to permit congressional junkets beyond the one day is referred to as “the AIPAC loophole,” as its intent was clearly to permit congressional paid-for-by-lobbyists travel to Israel to continue. That the arrangement is essentially fraudulent is revealed by examination of the two entities’ tax returns, which reveals that AIPAC pays the AIEF employees.
The solution to the problem remains simple. Tighten up the Congressional travel rules to eliminate the “AIPAC exemption” while at the same time requiring AIPAC and the other prominent organizations that are part of the Israel Lobby to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would open up their finances and lobbying to more intense scrutiny. But, of course, Steny Hoyer and his friends will never allow that to happen.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?
By Helen Buyniski | Helen of desTroy | August 14, 2019
Infamous pedophile and likely intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly found dead in his jail cell this past weekend. An autopsy has allegedly been done, but its results are “pending,” leaving the curious with only the initial reports claiming he hanged himself and was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest in the hospital shortly thereafter. The 72 hours following his death have done little to clear up the matter of what actually occurred in Epstein’s cell on Saturday morning, though law enforcement sources on Monday told the New York Post he had hung himself with a bedsheet from the bunkbed frame in his cell – no mean feat for a six-foot, 200-pound man supposedly being checked on by guards twice an hour, and a physical impossibility owing to the paper-thin sheets, according to a former inmate of that prison.
What we do know is that he was officially alone in his cell when he died, having been taken off suicide watch at his lawyers’ urging less than a week after he was found unconscious with marks on his neck last month. Epstein reportedly claimed someone tried to kill him during that incident, though others speculated he had “choked” himself in order to convince a judge to allow him bail or secure a transfer to a nicer facility. Did “someone” come back to finish the job, merely paying the guards to look the other way? An assassin would have had to spread his money around handsomely – like most areas of Manhattan, the Metropolitan Correctional Center where Epstein was confined is heavily surveilled – but that’s not difficult for the caliber of person who had reasons to want Epstein dead. So who killed him?
The convicted sex offender had blackmail material on dozens if not hundreds of powerful people. Epstein’s homes and aircraft were monitored with cameras and microphones, and his private island was completely wired for video, according to a friend of his alleged procuress, Ghislaine Maxwell. Safes found on his property contained piles of video discs marked young (name of girl) + (name of VIP) – alongside the diamonds, piles of cash and Saudi passport. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of his victims, says she was “debriefed” after sex sessions with Epstein’s famous friends, supplying him with the intimate details of their encounters in order to potentially weaponize the information. Even New York Times columnist James Stewart reports Epstein boasted to him about the trove of “potentially damaging or embarrassing” information he had on the “supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use” of the rich and famous. Epstein had mountains of dirt on presidents, princes, prime minsters, and lesser politicians. Any one of these (and probably more than one of these) could have taken out a contract on him, concerned that he might give away their little secret. If Epstein was not an intelligence asset, with connections high up in the Israeli and US governments, he would have been disposed of long ago, but it’s possible that one of the reasons he was not “suicided” earlier is because those who did want him dead had clashed with another faction concerned he had a “dead man’s switch” that would release even more incriminating material to the press.
Comparisons to the JFK assassination are apt. While Epstein was even more loathed by the American public than Kennedy was beloved, he had as many powerful enemies, and those speculating about his murder are already being smeared as irresponsible conspiracy theorists for demanding answers on the year’s most unlikely “suicide.” When the forces of the media establishment are so quickly marshaled against any attempts at investigating a full-of-holes “official story,” even declaring that such malignant conspiracy-mongering “hurts kids” (Epstein’s own child-trafficking apparently pales in comparison), it’s safe to assume that official story is a pack of lies. So without further ado, let the (responsible, well-sourced) speculation begin. Coincidence theorists need not apply.
SUSPECTS
As soon as Epstein’s death was announced, the hashtag #ClintonBodyCount started trending on Twitter along with #Arkancide and other names for the phenomenon that has seen dozens of Clinton enemies, witnesses, and other liabilities die under mysterious circumstances since the early days of the former president’s political career. As a frequent flyer on the Lolita Express (26 times, according to flight logs, at least five of those without his Secret Service retinue), Bill Clinton had good reason to be concerned about Epstein’s continued existence. Certainly, the couple were an early favorite for Epstein’s killer – even Donald Trump retweeted a Clinton Body Count meme.
However, Epstein is currently under investigation for sex trafficking. In court documents unsealed earlier this week from Giuffre’s lawsuit against alleged madam Ghislaine Maxwell, Giuffre testifies that Clinton was not involved in the actual trafficking of girls – though there seems to be little doubt he enjoyed the fruits of Epstein’s evil deeds. Epstein even had a hand in the founding of the Clinton Global Initiative, according to his lawyers. That Clinton has been accused of rape by too many women to count and is known for being unable to keep it in his pants is not exactly a secret, in Washington or anywhere else, but he is unlikely to be placed at legal risk by the current Epstein probe. Unless Epstein had dirt on Hillary as well – who is rumored to be plotting a move to insinuate herself back into national politics, most likely through her daughter – the family accomplishes little by icing Epstein except calling more attention to the #ClintonBodyCount. One guerrilla commentator even chalked “XOXO Hillary + Bill” on the sidewalk outside Epstein’s New York home.
The FBI immediately declared a probe into the suspicious circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. Regardless of whether this makes them dangerous domestic extremists by their own reasoning – since any foul play would have had to be accomplished through conspiring with the guards to sneak into the jail and do away with the pedophile, and the FBI has unilaterally declared ‘conspiracy theorists’ to be dangerous extremists in need of heavy surveillance – the FBI’s interest does not rule out a US intelligence role in his murder. As 9/11 proved, the government’s right hand rarely knows what the left is doing even within a single agency, let alone where rival agencies are concerned. And Attorney General William Barr, the former CIA general counsel who specialized in helping intelligence assets caught with their hands in the cookie jar get off scot-free, has already made it clear he is treating the death as a terrible miscarriage of justice by the prison, one which might even prove financially remunerative for Epstein’s relatives (he has a brother).
When former Florida prosecutor Alex Acosta was asked why he OK’d the appalling 2007 non-prosecution agreement with Epstein’s lawyers which saw the wealthy sex fiend spend just 13 months on work-release in a Palm Beach jail after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of soliciting underage prostitutes despite a 53-page federal indictment including 36 alleged victims hanging over his head, Acosta told the Trump transition team he was ordered to leave Epstein alone because “he belonged to intelligence.” That was sufficient reason for the Trump team to give him the green light for appointment as Secretary of Labor. While Epstein provided information to the FBI in 2008, according to their own documentation, individuals involved with the case who spoke to the Palm Beach Post don’t recall any cooperation.
“The Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office was willing to let Epstein walk free. No jail time. Nothing,” Acosta claimed by way of explanation during a press conference last month after he was forced to resign as Labor Secretary for his (mis)handling of the 2007 case. He insisted the sweetheart deal the wealthy pedophile’s lawyers crafted was the lesser of two evils – that a slap on the wrist was better than nothing. And Palm Beach police told the Miami Herald they were hounded, harassed, and otherwise pressured in the service of getting Epstein’s case downgraded to a misdemeanor during the original 2007 investigation, with State Attorney Barry Krischer ultimately ignoring their recommendation to prosecute Epstein on high level child sex charges.
In the days preceding Epstein’s death, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ordered the state to take over a probe into Epstein’s non-prosecution deal and the terms of his work release, an investigation that would presumably lead to the Palm Beach State Attorney’s office, which was conspicuously handed to Fort Pierce State Attorney Bruce Colton. While Krischer is no longer in that position – in a nauseating irony, he trains law enforcement in prosecuting crimes of sexual violence and oversees placement of children in foster care – his apparent collusion with Epstein’s attorneys will likely come to light, as well as the forces higher up that dictated the terms of the plea deal. Whatever US “intelligence” shared Epstein with the Mossad could have been motivated to take him out to prevent him from talking. While DeSantis – who has promised to be the most pro-Israel governor in the country – would likely pull the plug on that investigation before it got out of hand, the Justice Department opened its own investigation in February into whether prosecutors committed professional misconduct during the 2007 case. If Trump were to lose the 2020 election, Barr – the man who arguably saved the CIA from much-deserved extinction and an expert memory-holer of inconvenient inquiries – would be powerless to fix any federal probe, replaced by a Democratic appointee.
And what of Trump himself? For every three “ClintonBodyCount” hashtags, there was a “TrumpBodyCount” hashtag (which isn’t a thing, but don’t tell the #Resistance), insisting Trump was up to his neck in trafficked children and had good reason to ice the molest-happy millionaire. This is as doubtful as the Clinton hypothesis. If Epstein is being wielded as a weapon by Netanyahu against Barak, Netanyahu would not kill the golden goose that is Trump, who has obeyed his foreign policy dictates magnificently. And the documents unsealed from Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s lawsuit suggest that Trump did not physically engage with Epstein’s retinue of underage sex slaves. The president’s reported germ phobia is somewhat incompatible with girls who were being passed around from blackmail target to blackmail target like party favors, and he allegedly had Epstein booted from Mar-a-Lago for sexually assaulting a girl, suggesting that despite the chummy pictures of Epstein and Trump that surface on googling “Jeffrey Epstein Bill Clinton” (!), the real estate magnate realized early on that Epstein was a honeypot and kept his distance. Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, whose own record as a blackmailer is legendary; if he wasn’t involved in the Epstein ring himself, he certainly would have recognized its nature early on.
Epstein is extremely well-connected to the Israeli intelligence apparatus, and these are people with both means and motive to remove him from the chessboard. Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak has been photographed entering and exiting Epstein’s East 71st St residence in Manhattan, hiding under a jumble of hats and scarves, and has admitted to visiting the pedophile’s private island, though insists he never went to parties or met girls with Epstein despite photographic evidence to the contrary. Barak and Epstein have been friends for over a decade, the Israeli having been introduced to the wealthy sex offender by his fellow former PM Shimon Peres. Barak has thrown his hat into the ring to challenge Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, who has made it clear he considers the PM post to be his by divine right and won’t give it up easily. Speculation has swirled that the reopening of the Epstein case is tied to the battle of the Israeli titans – that Netanyahu is sacrificing a Mossad asset to destroy his rival.
Barak, then, has plenty of reasons to want Epstein out of the way. Having formed a company with the mysterious financier as a vehicle to invest in Carbyne911, a company founded by high-level veterans of Israeli intelligence that allows a remote operator to surveil a person not only through the target’s own phone but also through all the internet-connected devices around them, Barak has put other dubious financial dealings at risk of coming under the Epstein probe’s microscope. Worse, Carbyne911 – which its opportunistic owners have marketed as the solution to mass shootings – has been exposed as a horrifying surveillance tool. Similar software has already been weaponized by the Chinese government to spy on its citizens, and Carbyne’s advisory board includes former Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, the Patriot Act co-author who reliably surfaces on the boards of every Orwellian initiative from the Atlantic Council to CyberDome to NewsGuard, ready to leverage his unique blend of experience and sociopathy to strip Americans of their privacy and civil liberties. Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder whose company Palantir openly “uses war on terror tools to track American citizens” on behalf of anyone with the funds to pay for their own private intelligence agency, is also an investor in Carbyne911. The idea that a company run by Israeli intelligence, advised and funded by a who’s-who of police-state cheerleaders, that sells a powerful surveillance tool isn’t using it to spy on Americans is too absurd to seriously consider, and such a program is too valuable to be sacrificed merely because Epstein’s stink suffuses it (and it does suffuse it – he and Barak are the company’s largest investors, and most of Barak’s stake was in fact put up by Epstein).
The electoral face-off between Barak and Netanyahu is scheduled for next month, by which time the frenzy over the Epstein case will have ebbed significantly, especially with no defendant as the focus of click-driving salacious speculation. While Netanyahu has demanded an investigation of his rival, it’s not clear that Barak did anything financially illegal in accepting millions of dollars of Epstein’s money. Investigators may still pursue other loose ends – that Maxwell has remained unindicted for so long beggars belief, for example, and victims’ lawyers have promised to go after Epstein’s “enablers” – but the sensationalistic coverage from mainstream news will peter out absent a body in the courtroom. Barak can thus get back to the business of attacking Netanyahu, who is currently facing indictment in multiple corruption probes, and potentially wresting Israel from his grasp. He has much to gain from snuffing Epstein and little to lose – unless Epstein’s dead man’s switch would unleash enough compromising material to end his political career for good. Certainly, Barak has a bad track record of associating with sexual predators – his president, Moshe Katsav, spent five years in prison on rape charges, and the vice-consul to Brazil during his tenure, Arie Scher, fled to Israel to avoid prosecution on child pornography charges.
WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
The only certainty is that Epstein did not “commit suicide” without significant outside help. He had been taken off suicide watch less than a week after the previous month’s “suicide attempt,” contrary to standard procedure, which would require authorization (and documentation thereof). One source told the New York Post the suspicious marks discovered on his neck after he was found unconscious curled up in his cell last month appeared more like evidence he had been choked than evidence that he had attempted to hang himself, but his beefy ex-cop cellmate, an accused quadruple-murderer charged with shooting and then burying four men in his backyard after a coke deal gone wrong, insisted he had not only not harmed his notorious roommate and not heard anything, but that he had saved Epstein’s life by discovering him unconscious and alerting a guard. How this happened if they shared a cell is unclear, and Tartaglione’s lawyer has only said they shared the unit – two other sources told NBC they shared the same cell. Epstein spent just six days on suicide watch, receiving daily psychiatric examinations, according to a law enforcement source who spoke to the New York Times. Thanks in part to the strenuous lobbying of his defense attorneys, whom he met with for up to 12 hours a day while under suicide watch, Epstein was soon moved back to his protective housing unit with a new cellmate where he was supposed to be checked every 30 minutes by guards instead – a procedure which was not followed the night of his alleged death – and that cellmate was mysteriously transferred just hours before the “suicide,” according to a source who spoke to Fox News.
Despite rumors of a “camera malfunction” that surfaced immediately following the announcement of Epstein’s death – traced back to a “social media entrepreneur” specializing in “information warfare” whose clients include American politicians – a corrections union representative has confirmed there were no cameras inside the individual cells in Epstein’s unit, creating perfect conditions for whatever happened the morning of August 10th. A former Brooklyn jail warden has confirmed that for Epstein to “commit suicide,” a cascade of errors would have been necessary – starting with removing him from suicide watch. While the officers staffing MCC are supposedly the cream of the crop, at least one of the officers tasked with watching Epstein was not “a regular guard,” according to corrections union head Serene Gregg. Epstein’s ‘guards,’ both working overtime, falsified records of the half-hour checks they had failed to conduct, an anonymous source told the AP – because they were asleep, the New York Times added. Those two at the very least would have to be paid off for any operation to go smoothly, and any investigation interested in finding out – as opposed to covering up – what really happened to Epstein should interview and monitor all of those working on the unit for financial changes, especially the guards who would normally have been working that night but opted not to, allowing the drowsy duo to step in and claim their overtime. Those two have reportedly been placed on administrative leave as of Tuesday, while the presiding warden has been reassigned to Philadelphia.
Epstein’s suspicious demise has several parallels with the “suicide” of Maxwell’s father, British newspaper baron (and Israeli spy) Robert Maxwell. Despite years of valuable service to the Mossad, Maxwell died after falling off his boat, allegedly committing suicide, as his newspaper empire was collapsing, and after attempting to pressure his Mossad connections to bail him out of the financial hole he’d dug himself into. Two of Maxwell’s biographers claim he was killed, three months after demanding the bailout and threatening to expose certain Mossad operations if he didn’t get it, because he simply became too much trouble; ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky has explained how this was accomplished. The dead man was then feted with a star-studded funeral in Israel, attended by six Israeli intelligence chiefs and complete with eulogies by then-PM Yitzhak Shamir boasting he had “done more for Israel than can today be said,” and future PMs Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres, who also praised his “services” for Israel. Those “services” included peddling an Israeli-backdoored version of the software program Promis to government agencies, a Trojan horse purporting to improve government efficiency which instead funneled information on government activities back to Tel Aviv – a 1980s equivalent of Carbyne911.
EPSTEIN IS DEAD; LONG LIVE EPSTEIN?
The possibility exists that Epstein isn’t actually dead. A 4chan post purporting to be from an MCC employee, posted before news of Epstein’s alleged demise was made public, claims the disgraced financier was taken to the jail’s medical unit just hours before his alleged suicide and points to a suspicious van coming and going, undocumented per the prison’s usual procedures, at the same time as his potential route of escape. Comparisons of “Epstein”’s corpse to images of the living Epstein appear to show completely different ears, a unique and difficult-to-fake body part. Others have questioned why there was a photographer on hand to snap photos of the body leaving the prison in the first place and pointed out the article accompanying the photo referred to a “body believed to be Epstein’s.” Epstein’s brother allegedly identified his body, but if there was a plot, he’d be in on it, ready to milk the jail for millions in a wrongful death suit – a possibility Barr seems to be setting in motion by attacking MCC for “failing to adequately secure” their famous charge. The “celebrity pathologist” who observed the autopsy on behalf of Epstein’s lawyers also “helped investigate” the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. There is no smoking gun, but there is an Epstein-sized plausible-deniability gap to slip through.
What would be the purpose of keeping Epstein alive? He’s too high-profile to use as an asset any further, and could be a liability if he becomes resentful for having lost his privileged position as the Mega Group’s #1 Honeypot and being left to rot in jail – a particularly nasty jail, at that (“Guantanamo was nicer,” said an inmate who’d stayed in both). But any good blackmailer worth his salt has a dead-man’s switch with reams of sensitive material ready to go in event of death or accident. Epstein hasn’t actually betrayed his intelligence backers, at least not publicly – though he has been disavowed by everyone from Trump to Clinton to Barak, even to his one-time mentor, Les Wexner, who after setting Epstein up with his Manhattan den of iniquity now claims the disgraced “money manager” for whom he has been the sole client since 1987 ripped him off. Even Alan “I kept my underwear on” Dershowitz has backed away from the radioactive pedophile. Epstein, on the surface, has no friends left. Yet he appears to have had advance knowledge of his own arrest, selling the evidence-laden “Lolita Express” jet just a few weeks before he was apprehended at Teterboro Airport. Why did he conveniently fly home to do the time the public so desperately wanted him to do – a situation that could have been avoided if he wasn’t certain of having an escape route? Epstein was said to be in unusually good spirits before he “suicided.”
But according to Ostrovsky, Robert Maxwell went to his death believing he’d get what he wanted, as well. And if Epstein was the raging sex addict his victims say – one girl claimed he told her he required three orgasms a day, that it was biological “like eating,” while another confirmed that even if she brought him new girls “at breakfast, lunch, and dinner… it was never enough” – keeping him alive, even with a new face in a new country, would be highly risky. Meanwhile, Ghislaine Maxwell has reportedly vanished, suggesting she’s either worried about her “loose end” status making her a target for whoever killed Epstein or she’s concerned Epstein’s victims will finally have their revenge on her in the courtroom. Certainly, the media are turning against her, and with prosecutors vowing to go after Epstein’s “enablers,” she’s number one on the list. Will justice prevail? Has it ever?
US inks deal to purchase Iron Dome missile systems from Israel
Press TV – August 13, 2019
The US army has formally signed a contract to purchase two Iron Dome missile systems from Israel, according to a report.
America’s military magazine, Defense News, said in a report on Tuesday that the US Defense Department had finalized a deal to buy two batteries of the Israeli-made Iron Dome missile system for its interim cruise missile defense capability.
The report said the contract was signed in the last few weeks and that Israel and the US are currently in talks on transferring the systems to America.
“Now that the contract is set in stone, the Army will be able to figure out delivery schedules and details in terms of taking receipt of the systems,” the military magazine said.
Defense News added that the Israeli-made Iron Dome is meant as an interim missile defense solution for the US but it could turn into a permanent one depending on its performance in the field.
The purchase deal, initially announced earlier in the year, has been hailed as historic, marking the first time Israel has sold a standalone weapons system to Washington.
“A great achievement for Israel, this is yet another expression of the strengthening of our strong alliance with the US,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in February.
The Iron Dome has been co-developed by American company Raytheon and Israeli defense firm Rafael. It is partly manufactured in the United States.
The Iron Dome is claimed to be capable of detecting, assessing and intercepting a variety of shorter-range targets such as rockets, artillery and mortars.
The system was originally developed to counter small rockets that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups fired into Israeli occupied territories in retaliation for the regime’s crimes against Palestinians.
The Iron Dome has proven largely ineffective in serving that purpose.
Dangerous Bill in Congress to Crush the PLO and PA
By Zaha Hassan | Al Shabaka | August 13, 2019
A bipartisan US bill currently being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee puts at stake the ability of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to engage diplomatic and legal channels to support Palestinian national aspirations and to seek accountability through international mechanisms, as well as the future of the US-Palestinian bilateral relationship.
The Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019, Senate Bill 2132, revises the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA) so that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA) may be made to pay over $655 million in damage claims to American victims of political violence in Israel that had previously been dismissed by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016. The bill goes well beyond an attempt to obtain compensation for victims’ families. If the bill is successful, the US would revert to treating the PLO as a mere terrorist organization without national representative character.
What is ATCA and Why Did it Need to be “Fixed”?
ATCA, which became law in October 2018, enables American citizens to sue foreign entities for acts of terrorism occurring before the effective date of the Act if those entities accept US assistance. ATCA was a response to the failed attempt by the Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center to hold the PA and PLO liable in US courts for the deaths of American citizens killed between 2002 and 2004 during the Second Intifada. A lower court had awarded over $655 million to 11 US families; however, the 2nd Circuit Court ordered the claims dismissed on the grounds that the attacks took place entirely outside US territory without evidence that Americans were specifically targeted. The Supreme Court denied Shurat HaDin’s request for review of the appellate decision.
Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley fast-tracked ATCA without debate by using a process known as “hotlining.” Under normal circumstances, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee would have had time to analyze the legislation and foresee how it would force the PA to reject all US aid, including funds for Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation. Grassley’s procedural stratagem of pushing ATCA through the Judiciary Committee, at a time when members were preoccupied with the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, precluded careful consideration of the ramifications. The need to “fix” ATCA became clear to Congress when the Palestinian prime minister sent a letter to the US secretary of state refusing to accept any future US assistance.
How the ATCA “Fix” is a Game Changer
The Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019 amends ATCA by allowing the PA to accept security assistance without triggering jurisdiction for terrorism-related claims. However, it introduces new avenues for the PLO and PA to be held liable: If the PLO continues to hold state status in UN agencies and bodies or at the International Criminal Court (ICC), or if PLO or PA officials enter the US on official business or maintain offices on US territory, then the previously dismissed damage claims will become due and future claims may be heard in US courts. The operation of Palestine’s mission to the UN in New York is excepted to the extent official UN business is being carried out; no other advocacy on behalf of Palestine or Palestinians may be conducted in the US.
Palestinians and those in the solidarity community may not appreciate how the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act could impact their human rights advocacy Click To TweetA more limited bill passed in the House of Representatives in July 2019 that also seeks to amend ATCA to ensure victims’ compensation for terrorism claims: The United States-Israel Cooperation Enhancement and Regional Security Act. This bill links jurisdiction to whether the PLO advances an application for membership in the UN or reopens an office on US territory. The different House and Senate amendments to ATCA will have to be reconciled.
If the Senate version of the ATCA fix becomes law, the PLO and PA will have to make a choice:
- Maintain their status at the UN and be held liable for previously dismissed terrorism claims, or
- Downgrade their status at the UN, forgo pursuit of war crimes claims against Israelis by withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the ICC, and resume receiving US security assistance.
In the former case, the PA will bankrupt itself and the US will treat the PLO as nothing more than a terrorist organization. In the latter case, the PLO will have relinquished any pretense that it can effectively represent the rights and interests of the Palestinian people. Either case means the end of a Palestinian negotiating partner for any future peace talks.
Upholding Palestinian Rights to Representation
While many Republicans may have just this outcome in mind, Democrats, who still claim to support the two-state solution, may not understand the implications of the ATCA fix, just as they failed to understand the impact of ATCA in the first place.
Moreover, with all the focus on the anti- and pro-boycott resolutions in the House, many Palestinians and those in the solidarity community may not fully appreciate how the international delegitimization or bankrupting of the PLO – the body still recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people – could impact their human rights advocacy in the US and globally. Whatever one’s views about the PLO or PA, no longer having an address for the national aspirations of the Palestinian people will make international and US advocacy much more difficult.
Palestinians and those interested in a just peace should alert members of Congress to the impact of the Senate bill on the future of US-Palestinian bilateral relations and the possibility of finding a diplomatic resolution to the Palestine-Israel conflict. The Palestinian quest for self-determination and accountability for victims of war crimes should not be undermined to score short-term domestic political points that will have far-reaching implications for Mideast peace.
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Zaha Hassan is a human rights lawyer and visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focuses on Palestine-Israel peace, the use of international legal mechanisms by political movements, and U.S. foreign policy in the region. She previously served as coordinator and senior legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for UN membership from 2010-2012. She received her J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and an LLM in Transnational & International Law from Willamette University.
Iraq rejects Israel’s role in Persian Gulf mission, warns of West’s presence
Press TV – August 12, 2019
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali al-Hakim has expressed his country’s opposition to the Israeli regime’s possible involvement in a US-led mission in the Persian Gulf, warning that the presence of foreign forces, including Western countries, in the strategic water body will be fueling tensions.
“Iraq rejects the participation of Zionist forces in any military force to secure the passage of ships in the [Persian] Gulf. The [Persian] Gulf littoral states can together secure the transit of ships,” Hakim wrote in a post published on his official Twitter page on Monday.
“Iraq is seeking to reduce tension in our region through peaceful negotiations,” he said, warning that “the presence of Western forces in the region will increase tension.”
The remarks came a day after Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) warned that any Israeli presence in the Persian Gulf may result in a war in the region, and that the responsibility for the consequences of such illegal presence lies with the United States and the United Kingdom.
“The United States and the United Kingdom must assume responsibility for the Zionist regime’s illegal presence in the Persian Gulf waters,” IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri told Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network on Sunday.
“Any presence of the Zionist regime in the Persian Gulf waters is illegal, as it may result in war and confrontation in the region,” the top commander warned.
Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on August 7 that the regime would be part of the US-led coalition to “protect the security of the Persian Gulf.”
Katz claimed that Israel was determined to stop “Iranian entrenchment” in the Middle East region and strengthen Tel Aviv’s relationship with the Persian Gulf countries, Israeli news website Ynet reported.
On August 9, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Moussavi highlighted that the Islamic Republic regards possible Israeli presence in a US-led coalition in the Persian Gulf as a clear threat to its national security, and reserves the right to counter it.
“Within the framework of the country’s deterrence and defensive policy, the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right to counter this threat and defend its territory,” Moussavi noted.
“The US regime and the illegitimate Zionist regime are responsible for all the consequences of this dangerous move,” the spokesman added.
US Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on July 9 that the US was proceeding with plans to assemble the coalition purportedly aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation in waters off Iran and Yemen.
“We’re engaging now with a number of countries to see if we can put together a coalition that would ensure freedom of navigation both in the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb,” Dunford said.
“And so I think probably over the next couple of weeks we’ll identify which nations have the political will to support that initiative and then we’ll work directly with the militaries to identify the specific capabilities that’ll support that,” he added.
Gentle and Loving but Still a Settler
By Jeremy Salt | American Herald Tribune | August 11, 2019
Last week a car drew up alongside Dvir Sorek outside the West Bank settlement of Migdal Oz. Dvir was on his way back from Jerusalem where he had bought a book, a novel by David Grossman, as a gift for his teacher. He was almost home when a man jumped out of the car and stabbed him to death.
David Grossman did not know him but did not hesitate to add to the eulogies: the young man was clearly “a kind, sensitive youth who loved others and loved peace with the soul of an artist.” Netanyahu declared that the murderers would soon be found. Soldiers swooped on the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Fajjar, raiding houses and confiscating security camera footage. Later four Palestinians were arrested in another village.
Grossman’s son was killed during the invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and Sorek’s grandfather on his mother’s side, a rabbi, also a settler of occupied land, killed in an attack near Nablus in 2000. These other deaths made the killing of Dvir Sorek seem even more poignant. “Death as a way of life,” declared the Times of Israel, blaming Hamas for the attack, even though the identity and possible ideological affiliations of the attacker/s were not known, as if the death of others was not a way of life for the state of Israel.
The media described Sorek as a student at a yeshiva, or religious school, in his case the hesder (‘arrangement’) yeshiva at Migdal Oz. The programs in the hesder schools blend advanced religious instruction with military service. Government funding makes an application to be listed as a hesder yeshiva an attractive option. Not all courses are of the same duration. They may last for three, four or even five years, with the active military service component varying from about 17 months to two years. Almost all hesder yeshiva students join combat units.
Officially, the peace-loving Dvir Sorek was an IDF soldier even though he had not yet begun the military component of his course. No doubt this is the reason he was not armed when he was attacked.
In the West Bank yeshiva students, or former yeshiva students, especially those who fall under the heading of the ‘hilltop youth,’ are in the forefront of anti-Palestinian violence, from beating and occasionally killing to attacks on mosques, the destruction of olive trees and crops and the harassment, intimidation and abuse of the general population in general, women and children included. Their hatreds extend to all non-Jews and even ‘Hellenized’ or secular Jews, including those representing the state, including the soldiers who protect them. One has to wonder where this comes from if not religious instruction at the hands of their rabbis.
The history of the hesder schools go back to the 1960s. More recently, the lack of enthusiasm for war among Israel’s secularized youth, especially wars fought on the other side of what they regarded as Israel’s borders, has increased the appeal of religiously indoctrinated hesder zealots to the military command.
For secular Israeli Jews the enemies are Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and behind them, Iran, but for orthodox religious Jews, the enemy is Amalek, existential, taking different shapes and different forms at different stages of history but always there.
The injunction to destroy the tribe of Amalek is laid down in several passages of the Bible. According to Deuteronomy: “The Lord said to Moses ‘Write this down in a book to be remembered and tell it to Joshua: (God) will completely blot out any memory of Amalek … Remember what Amalek did to you on the road as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the road, attacked those in the rear, those who were exhausted and straggling behind when you were tired and weary. He did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies in the land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance to possess you (Israelites) are to blot out all memory of Amalek from under heaven. Don’t forget!’ (Deuteronomy 25/17-19).
The message to the first king of Israel and Judah, Saul, from the prophet Samuel is even more forceful: “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them: put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ (Samuel 1:15.3). Saul went to war against the Amalekites but did not kill them all, allowing their king to live and preserving the best of the livestock.
Learning of this, Samuel tells him he has been rejected by God and will lose his kingdom. He then kills the Amalekite himself. Saul lives until defeated by the Philistines in the battle of Gilboa, after which he either commits suicide or is killed by an Amalekite, according to differing Bible accounts but his death is seen as the consequence of having disobeyed God’s injunction to kill all the Amalekites.
All of this might have happened thousands of years ago – or did not happen as described – but it remains as fresh as yesterday in the thinking of orthodox religious scholars. In the modern age these injunctions are subject to numerous interpretations, partly based on what ‘blotting out’ could mean. Maimonides (12th-13th century) explains the commandment as meaning that if the Amalekites accepted Jewish law and agreed to pay a tax there would no need to kill them. There are numerous variations on the theme that ‘blotting out’ did not mean physical annihilation.
Steven Leonard Jacobs points out that the overwhelming majority of the world’s Jewish population does not draw such deadly conclusions, “much less the implication that they [the Palestinians] must be genocidally destroyed.” While those who do take the Biblical injunctions literally “are in the minority … they do exist and [they] present an ongoing challenge to how one reads history and sacred texts.” They keep the door open to violence: however wrongly understood, “there is an understanding that the enemies of the Jewish people are the literal and lineal descendants of the past.”
These genocidal invocations – as they would be regarded now – are read in synagogues at certain times of the year (during the ‘reading cycle’) and are emphasized again during the festival of Purim, celebrating the delivery of the Jews from Haman, the high Persian court official who planned to kill them all.
For the most extreme Jewish settlers, Amalek is still out there, waiting. According to Benzi Lieberman, former head of the Yesha settler council, “The Palestinians are Amalek … we will destroy them. We won’t kill them but we will destroy their ability to think as a nation. We will destroy Palestinian nationalism.”
However, Amalek is frequently invoked in the political mainstream, which has steadily shifted further to the right since the election of Menahim Begin in 1977 and now includes those once regarded as extremists if not outright fanatics. In the 1950s David Ben-Gurion referred to “the hosts of Amalek from north, east and south.” Begin opposed reparations from Germany, which he regarded as Amalek. During the siege of Beirut in 1982 he described PLO leader Yasser Arafat as Hitler hiding in his bunker, thus another manifestation of Amalek. Speaking in Cracow in 2010, without naming names but clearly thinking of Iran, Netanyahu said “A new Amalek is appearing and once again threatens to annihilate the Jews.” According to the ‘libertarian’ Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin “the Arabs engage in typical Amalek behaviour … I can’t prove this genetically but this is the behaviour of Amalek.”
Throughout history, while identifying Amalek as the existential enemy, Jews never had the power to destroy Amalek but now they do, in a state of their own that has an arsenal of nuclear weapons. According to Steven Jacobs “the propensity of rightwing settlers to identify the Palestinians with the Amalekites has sometimes had deadly consequences” The commandment to exterminate the Amalekites has been preserved by the rabbis “and for that reason, it remains a potential source of conflict.” Needless to say, Mr Jacobs does not regard the Palestinians as Amalekites.
Dvir Sorek was 18 and only a few days short of his 19th birthday when he was killed. He had not begun the military component of his course but in his religious studies he would have had to consider the injunctions to ‘blot out’ the Amalekites. What impact this would have had on his development as a soldier no-one can say.
In the eulogies Dvir was described as a gentle soul, as innocent and full of love for family and friends, all of which he probably was, but he was also living in occupied territory. Ofra, the settlement in which he lived, is illegal even under Israeli law because it was largely built on privately owned Palestinian land.
While a Palestinian drove in the knife, who must take ultimate responsibility for his death, if not the state which seized the land and the settler-colonists who have moved there, including Dvir’s parents? They may have shared the belief that the land was God’s selective gift to the Jewish people; they may have decided to live there because of subsidised housing and tax breaks but whatever their motives, they were living on the West Bank in breach of international law and they would have known it.
The UN General Assembly has passed numerous resolutions affirming the right to resist colonial domination and occupation by all means. It is only putting into print what has been human practice since the beginning of time. An occupied people will resist with all the means at their disposal. In the 1950s the white settlers of Kenya no doubt included loving gentle souls, but they were killed just as ruthlessly as anyone else by the Mau Mau. In the last stages of the Algerian war of independence (1964-62), the FLN (National Liberation Front) slaughtered many French settlers, including women and children innocent of any crime but part of a white settler community which had established itself through violence, collective punishment, the expropriation of land and the ‘purchase’ of land on the basis of forged or spurious documents. Needless, these are the precise tactics used by the Zionists in their occupation of Palestine.
For those whose land is being occupied, it is immaterial whether the colonial settler is a gentle soul or a ranting religious bigot or a family looking for subsidised housing and tax breaks. The settler is always the settler, the usurper of someone else’s lands and rights, to be resisted as long as possible.
It was the Zionists who began the cycle of violence in Palestine and logic demands that they must take the first steps to end it but for the Israeli government, logic is the logic of force and not the logic of justice, law, ethics and morality. The wrong, fateful, irreversible decisions Israel has made will mark its history forever: occupation instead of withdrawal, injustice instead of justice, war instead of peace, including more war, inevitably, beyond the borders of Palestine.
Israel has never had such a degree of military, economic and political support from its great benefactor, the US. Drugged with the sense of its own power it builds even more settlements as it moves steadily towards annexation, thereby guaranteeing that there will be more Dvir Soreks, and far more Palestinian men, women and children killed in the struggle against occupation. Israel is dragging itself and the region into a future even darker than the past.
Jeremy Salt has taught at the University of Melbourne, Bosporus University (Istanbul) and Bilkent University (Ankara), specialising in the modern history of the Middle East. His most recent book is “The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.)
Syria warns US-Turkey safe zone deal is a plot for “expansionist ambitions”
By Sara Abed | August 11, 2019
After three days of intense negotiations in Ankara, US and Turkish officials reached an agreement on Wednesday to create a joint operations center and set up a safe zone east of the Euphrates in north eastern Syria. Deal details have not yet been disclosed.
This last minute deal between Washington and Ankara is in response to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement on Sunday that Turkey was prepared to carry out a unilateral cross-border operation to push back Kurdish militias on the Syrian Turkish border east of the Euphrates river, if Washington didn’t cut ties with the Kurdish militias and create a safe zone in northern Syria.
The two NATO allies agreed that the Turkish based joint operations center would be created as soon as possible to address Turkey’s security concerns. The safe zone would become a “peace corridor”, and efforts would be made so that Syrian refugees could return home.
However, wanting peace is just a front for Erdogan’s true motives. The Syrian government categorically rejects the deal as a blatant attack on Syria’s territorial sovereignty and warns of Erdogan’s real reasons for establishing a so-called safe-zone on Syrian soil.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry said “The agreement constitutes a partnership between the US and Turkey over aggression against Syria that would serve the interest of the Israeli occupation entity. It also reflects how evasive and misleading the policies of the Turkish regime are.”
On Thursday an official Syrian source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told SANA “Syria expresses categorical rejection of the agreement announced by the US and Turkish occupations on establishing the so-called [safe zone] which constitutes a blatant aggression against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the UN Charter.”
Turkey is using the excuse of protecting its borders against the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who Turkey views as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), to fulfill its long-term mission of expanding its territory by invading and balkanizing its sovereign neighbor.
Many nations including the United States, who designated the PKK as a terrorist group in 1997, and Turkey who has been in conflict with the PKK since their inception in 1984, consider them to be a terrorist organization.
Another Turkish goal is to replace the indigenous diverse ethnic population in northern Syrian with extremists that are sympathetic to Erdogan, like we have seen in Afrin and other towns on Turkey’s border in northern Syria.
Erdogan’s plans for invasion and annexation will put Christian minorities in danger, some of whom can trace their lineage back to the original inhabitants of this land. However, Kurdish militias have also targeted them by using forced conscription and other Daesh-like intimidation tactics. The Kurdish Connection: Israel, ISIS And U.S. Efforts To Destabilize Iran explains more about how Kurdish militias have been used by the US to achieve their own objectives in the Middle East.
A statement issued by the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs states “This agreement has very clearly exposed the US-Turkish partnership in the aggression against Syria which serves the interest of the Israeli occupation entity and the Turkish expansionist ambitions and it unequivocally exposed the misleading and evasiveness which govern the policies of the Turkish regime.”
“Syria calls on the Arab people to be aware of the dangers of the expansionist ambitions of the Turkish regime which is spreading the killing and chaos in different parts of the Arab world from Syria to Libya and the Sudan and it will not stop till it will satisfy its illusions on reviving the Ottoman Sultanate,” the source said.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative concluded by saying that “Syria calls on the international community and the UN to condemn the US-Turkish flagrant aggression which constitutes a dangerous escalation and poses a threat to peace and security in the region and the world and hinders all positive efforts for finding a solution to the crisis in Syria.”
All the major players involved in the proxy war in Syria, including Turkey, Russia, and Iran want the US to leave, except of course the US-backed Kurdish SDF which are just a rebranding of the YPG.
US President Donald Trump has expressed interest multiple times in a swift troop withdrawal, and to let the local regional players figure things out. However, the war hawks surrounding him in Washington, along with the Pentagon have derailed his plans since last December. They have stressed that US interests need to be protected by having a long-term presence in the oil-rich, agriculturally rich, breadbasket of Syria, to keep an eye on Iran while protecting their ally, Israel.
As I have stated previously establishing an independent Kurdish state in Syria is just part of the decades-long Israeli-American plan to weaken and divide all the nations neighboring Israel.
Although it might seem like Russia has been uncharacteristically quiet this week regarding the latest developments with Turkey and the US in north eastern Syria, Russia has consistently stood by the Syrian government’s right to protect its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Whether its occupation and annexation by the Kurds or Turks, Kurdification or Turkification, the Syrian government and military categorically reject any infringement on their land, and have adamantly stated they will take back every inch of Syrian territory from terrorists or occupiers.
Jeffrey Epstein RIP: But Many More Questions Remain to be Answered
By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | August 10, 2019
The Jeffrey Epstein saga goes on even though convicted pedophile Epstein himself has been found hanged in his jail cell in Manhattan. One has to wonder how he managed to kill himself, if that is indeed the case, as he was reportedly on suicide watch at the prison and it is to be presumed that he had been stripped of any clothing or accoutrements that would have been usable to that end. So, he is dead but did he do it himself or was he helped? There are many prominent individuals and powerful government agencies that will be very pleased that he is gone as most of his secrets will have gone to the grave with him.
There was certainly a warning that something might happen. Two weeks ago, he was reportedly found unconscious in his jail cell with marks around his neck. It was suggested that he might have tried to kill himself or, alternatively, had been beaten up by another inmate. There was also considerable speculation that some aggrieved part of the Deep State was trying to kill him to silence him.
The subsequent press reports revealed that Epstein had been taken to a hospital, but there has been no follow-up about his condition or status apart from a brief note that he had been returned to the same jail under suicide watch. In any event, the story had pretty much died, which is precisely what a lot of the high rollers and politicians who became involved with Epstein would have liked to see happen. Nevertheless, investigations of the “Affair Epstein” reportedly were continuing at the federal level as well as in New York State and Florida.
The most recent elaboration of the Epstein saga prior to his death came from his former patron Leslie Wexner, the canny Jewish business tycoon who built an Ohio based fashion empire called L Brands from scratch. L Brands, by the way, includes Victoria’s Secret, which features young women strutting around in their underwear. The 81 year old Wexner claimed in a 564 word letter that the wily Epstein “misappropriated vast sums of money” from him. In the letter Wexner admitted to having lost at least $46 million from his family money, but some media accounts are suggesting that the fraud amounted to much more, possibly as much as $500 million. And the alleged theft also extended to property, to include the series of transactions that left Epstein possessing the Upper East Side mansion where he resided and did his filming of celebrities having sex with young girls, estimated to be worth $56 million, as well as the commercial airliner that became the Lolita Express and a yacht.
*(Leslie Wexner. Credit: American Academy of Achievement/ YouTube)
Now, either sum of purloined money is not exactly pocket change even for multi-billionaire Wexner, even if rag trade magnate was enamored of the massages he was getting at Epstein’s house. It would take an extremely poor businessman to be unaware of losing that kind of money and that much property unless his name were Donald Trump.
Wexler claimed that he began to sever ties with Epstein in 2007, after Florida authorities charged Jeffrey in early 2006 with multiple counts of molestation and unlawful sexual activity with a minor. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution from a minor and was required to register as a sex offender, but he received an astonishingly mild jail sentence of eighteen months with a private cell, unlimited visitors including young women, and daily release so he could be picked up by his driver to go to work in his Palm Beach office, a bit of incomprehensible leniency that is currently being subjected to criminal investigation by the state of Florida. After the sentence was handed down the county sheriff observed that “He was astonished that [Epstein] had to go to prison at all.”
Indeed, the entire Florida side of the Epstein story seems to have disappeared down some memory hole. Epstein was convicted for his involvement with prostitution, but the only remaining issue was the consequences that he faced. That is where other players stepped in, including Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, Palm Beach county state attorney Barry Krischer, and the Miami office U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta.
*(Barry Krischer (L) Alex Acosta (R)
My belief that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence agent is based principally on Acosta’s comments when being cleared by the Trump transition team. He was asked “Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?” … “Acosta testified that he’d had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He’d cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys because he had ‘been told’ to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ‘I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone.’”
The questions about Epstein remain even though he is gone, but one fears that the authorities will be disinclined to further investigate a dead man. It appears that no one in the various investigative agencies or the mainstream media has been interested in what Acosta meant, even though it would be simple enough to ask him. Who told him to back off? And how did they explain it? And then there is Epstein’s Austrian passport. Was it fake or real, with a real name and photo substitution or alternation of both picture and name? How did he get it? Austrian passports are highly desirable in intelligence circles because the country is neutral and its holders can travel just about everywhere without a visa.
And there’s more. As a former intelligence officer myself, there is little doubt in my mind that what Epstein did and how he did it was an intelligence operation. There is no other viable explanation for his filming of prominent politicians and celebrities having sex with young girls. And as for the question of whom Epstein might have been working for, the most likely answer is Mossad. The CIA would have had no interest in compiling dossiers on prominent Americans, but American movers and shakers like Bill Clinton, with his 26 trips on the Lolita Express, former Governor Bill Richardson, or former Senator George Mitchell are precisely the types of “agents of influence” that the Mossad would seek to coerce or even blackmail into cooperation.
Other compelling evidence for a Mossad connection came from Epstein’s relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, who reportedly served as his key procurer of young girls. Ghislaine is the daughter of Robert Maxwell, who died or possibly was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 1991. Maxwell was an Anglo-Jewish businessman, very cosmopolitan in profile, like Epstein, a multi-millionaire who was very controversial with what were regarded as ongoing ties to Mossad. After his death, he was given a state funeral by Israel in which six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence listened while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized: “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.”
Israel and high-profile Jewish players also have continued to turn up like bad pennies in the Epstein case, but no one seems to be interested in pursuing that angle. Epstein clearly had contact with former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak and Wexner also had close ties to the Jewish state and its government. Barry Krischer, who may have been the source of the comments to Acosta, has received the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) award. Evidence also suggests that Krischer, cooperating with rabidly pro-Israel Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz, played a key role in the failure to adequately punish Epstein for his conviction for pedophilia. According to a recent New Yorker story, the police investigators of the Epstein case observed that “the tone and tenor of the discussions of this case with Krischer changed completely” after his meetings with Dershowitz. At that point, the two detectives most involved in the case found themselves under extreme pressure. They were surveilled constantly by private investigators and they even had their household trash snatched and searched. And the resulting plea agreement with Krischer “…was due to the efforts of Dershowitz, who had proceeded to attack and smear the victims.”
Krischer claims that his office “subpoenaed witnesses took evidence to a Grand Jury, which returned a single felony count indictment against Epstein of soliciting prostitution,” but the reality appears to be that he worked with the defense to get Epstein off. There was plenty of evidence based on more than forty interviews with victims to convict Epstein, but instead of having him arrested, Krischer instead set up the Grand Jury with no mention of underage victims to mitigate the possible consequences. He also did not inform the victims of what he had arranged so they could challenge the verdict and penalty, a violation of Crime Victims Rights Act.
The Palm Beach police who worked the case at the time told The Miami Herald as part of an investigation published in November that they felt pressured by Krischer to downgrade Epstein’s case to a misdemeanor, or to drop it entirely. They said “the fix was in.” Acosta, more recently, did not refer to Krischer by name during an early July news conference, but spoke of the Palm Beach County state’s attorney. He described his own office as stepping in to ensure Epstein faced some form of punishment. “Simply put, the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office was willing to let Epstein walk free. No jail time. Nothing,” Acosta said. “Prosecutors in my former office found this to be completely unacceptable, and we became involved.”
After thirteen months in country club jail in Palm Beach, Epstein was released. At his mansion in New York City, he subsequent had an artist paint a mural of himself in jail, evidently as an insider joke for those who knew about his time behind bars. End of story? Not exactly, even though Epstein is now dead. But the key questions go unanswered including was he a spy for Israel? And what about the Krischer-Dershowitz connection that kept him from being punished commensurate with his crimes? Did those instructions also come from Israel or from its friends in the U.S. Justice Department? Will the three simultaneous investigations currently taking place even continue and ask the right questions now that the target of the investigation is gone? Given the high stakes in the game, quite likely, there will be a cover-up both of how Epstein lived and how he died. We the public will never know what Epstein was all about.
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests.
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