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Demystifying Myths of the Six-Day War

By Miko Peled | American Herald Tribune | June 14, 2018

The war that Israel initiated in June of 1967 became the stuff of myths and legends on many levels. Now, after fifty one years it may be time to unravel and demystify what took place during those fateful six days in June. There is the myth of the existential threat which called for Israel to engage in a preemptive strike which started the war, then there is the myth of the greatness of the Israeli army and its remarkable abilities, and there is a claim which one can argue is also a myth, that it was this war that changed the face of the Middle East forever. Then, there is an even greater myth and that is that Palestine was occupied as a result of the 1967 war. That the West Bank and The Gaza Strip, which are no more than two small parts of Palestine artificially created when Israel was established, are The Occupied Palestinian territories, as opposed to two areas within occupied Palestine. It can be no coincidence that most immediately after the war of 1967 these areas were named “The Occupied Territories” and the fact that the greater part of Palestine had been occupied for almost twenty years at point had somehow slipped the collective memories of all but the Palestinians themselves.

It was almost immediately after the war that liberal minded Zionist figures like Uri Avneri, Meir Pa’il and my own father, Matti Peled – who was a general and a member of the Israeli army high command in 1967 – began talking about the Two State Solution as a solution to the question of Palestine. However, they did not mean the partition of Palestine into two states as was mandated by the November 1947 United Nations resolution, resolution 181. They had something very different in mind. They and others like them saw an opportunity to solve the Palestinian question by dividing the country on terms that were far more favorable to Israel. The Two State Solution they envisioned meant a small, weak and demilitarized Palestinian state on 22% of Palestine that would be totally dependent on Israel.

The rationale behind their thinking could not have been clearer. Keeping territories with such a large Arab population would upset the Jewish majority and was detrimental to the Jewish state. In the aftermath of the war the Arab regimes surrounding Israel were weaker and more demoralized than ever before, the Palestinians had no allies on which to rely and so, what choice did they have? For Israel this meant solidifying the conquest of 1948 and securing the borders it established in 1949 which were in violation of UN resolutions and international law. It also allowed Israel to keep the western part of Jerusalem, which also was taken in 1948 even though the city was not to be under the sovereignty of any state. These liberal Zionists, even with their impeccable Zionist credentials were pushed aside and ridiculed to the point that they were considered radicals and even traitors for suggesting that Israel should allow the creation of a Palestinian state anywhere in mandatory Palestine, or the Land of Israel.

From that moment on however, the conversation on Palestine had shifted to those two small pieces of Palestine and whether or not Israel should agree as part of a future peace agreement to “give” them to the Palestinians. As this question was being debated, both in Israel and on the international arena, Israel embarked on a dedicated campaign of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and destruction of Palestinian towns and communities all over East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and at the same time invested heavily in building for Jews only. The new conquests within Palestine were tossed in with the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights which Israel also occupied in 1967 and even though the circumstances of each of these territories were different, all three fell under the general title of “The Occupied Territories.”

In 1979 Israel eventually returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of a peace agreement and a commitment from the UN for $3 billion in foreign aid. However, even though Israel made a few gestures pretending that it might be willing to negotiate other “land for peace” deals, the Golan Heights and the West Bank and Gaza were never negotiable and remain firmly in the grip of the State of Israel which continues to develop and settle them like any other region in Israel. Today it is clear that neither war torn Syria nor the Palestinians are able to make any demands of Israel at this point.

Fifty one years after the 1967 war the time has come to dismantle the myths and undo the legends that were created in its aftermath. Israel was not under an existential threat, this was made clear by the generals who headed the IDF, as is chronicled in my book, The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. The Israeli army was able to defeat the Arab armies not because of some extraordinary powers but because the Arab armies were in disarray and the Israeli generals knew it. It was not the 1967 war that changed the Middle East but rather the war on 1948, which is more accurately defined as the ethnic cleansing campaign of Palestine. The West Bank, has all but become Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip is an enclosure with two million people cooped up in what can only be described as a humanitarian catastrophe and the two combined only make up 22% of Palestine. Palestinians in other parts of Palestine, what has become known as pre-1967 Israel, live below the poverty line with little access to resources and under laws that discriminate against them specifically. There can be little doubt that all of Israel is occupied Palestine and that there are no Palestinian territories which are not occupied. A just solution must realize the right of all Palestinians to a life of freedom and dignity without discrimination in their own country and must include the right of all Palestinians to return to their homes and their lands.

Miko Peled is a writer and human rights activist. He is an international speaker and the author of “The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine”.

June 14, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

The World Must Work to Peacefully De-nuclearise the “Israeli” Regime

By Adam Garrie | EurasiaFuture | June 14, 2018

Now that the DPRK, a former signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which later withdrew has agreed to a full de-nuclearisation process, it is time to focus on other nations that possess nuclear weapons that have yet to sign the NPT.

Of all the world’s nuclear powers only “Israel”, India and Pakistan have refused to sign the NPT and of these three only “Israel” refuses to officially declare its nuclear capability even though unofficially, officials of the Tel Aviv regime have boasted of their illegal nuclear arsenal. While India and Pakistan only became nuclear capable in the late 1990s, Tel Aviv’s first successful nuclear tests came in the early 1960s and were privately a bone of contention between US President John F. Kennedy and the Tel Aviv regime. Even more worryingly, Tel Aviv maintains a plan to launch a large scale nuclear war on its neighbours and the wider region should it fear that it is on the verge of losing a traditional conflict. The award winning journalist Seymour Hersh first revealed the existence of the Samson Option – a classified “Israeli” military doctrine advocating for the use of nuclear weapons on a wide scale should the regime feel sufficiently threatened. As the regime recently stated that it feels threatened by the kites and balloons being flown by Palestinains to attempt and disrupt airstrikes on Gaza, it is clear that Tel Aviv has a very low threshold for what it considers “threatening”. Against this background, the existence of the Samson Option should be incredibly worrying to the so-called international community.

Not only has “Israel” had its illegal stockpile of nuclear weapons for longer than India or Pakistan, but “Israel” has been at war with and has occupied more countries over the last 50 years than either south Asian nuclear power. Since its inception, the Tel Aviv regime has been at war with Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. It has occupied Palestine since 1947 and part of Syria since 1967.

The regime also occupied part of Egypt between 1967 and 1982. 1982 was also when “Israel’s” full scale occupation of southern Lebanon began while hostile regime forces only vacated in 2006, subsequent to a  partial withdrawal in the year 2000. The regime had also occupied parts of Lebanon as early as 1978 while in 1981 the “Israeli” air force launched an illegal aerial assault on Iraq. While continually occupying Syria, recent years have seen ever more unprovoked “Israel” bombardments of south-western Syria which have increased in terms of their frequency and intensity in recent months.

While India and Pakistan have had a hostile relationship ever since both nations became independent of UK imperial rule, they have nevertheless engaged in fewer conflicts than those inaugurated by “Israel” and this fact in and of itself is quite remarkable. Furthermore, in spite of an alliance dating back many decades, “Israel” has also engaged in hostilities with the United States.

In 1967, the American Naval Ship USS Liberty came under a sustained attack from the “Israeli” air-force and torpedo boats without any warning or justification. In spite of Liberty’s commanders sending communications informing “Israel” that they were an “allied” US ship, the attack persisted for hours. Archival material has revealed that some of the pilots were aware that the ship was American, but that they were ordered by their superiors to keep attacking. Ultimately, 34 Americans died in the attack while 171 were severely wounded. The incident was systematically hushed up by the US government and media. Many researchers suspect that “Israel” had attempted to stage a false flag incident that would later be blamed on Egypt, in order to coerce the US into attacking Egypt and its Soviet ally. Because “Israel” was not able to kill all the men on board, the plan failed as the survivors knew full well that it was “Israel” and not Egypt nor any other Soviet ally that had attacked their ship.

While the ultimately non-lethal incident of the American Navy ship USS Pueblo being captured by the DPRK in 1968 received a great deal of attention in the US media, the USS Liberty incident from the prior year was quickly hushed up. Later, many scholars and journalists accused then US President Lyndon B. Johnson of covering up “Israel’s” wanton aggression upon a US flagged ship.

With Donald Trump publicly declaring that the DPRK no longer poses a threat to the United States, it remains clear that the undeniably aggressive “Israeli” should be the next nation to de-nuclearise for the benefit of wider global peace. While nuclear weapons in south Asia are indeed a worrying prospect, no regime has been so wantonly aggressive, so frequently in violation of UN resolutions and so threatening to all of its neighbours than the “Israeli” regime has been since its dubious inception.

With the DPRK out of the equation, it now remains a matter of focusing on countries which continue to stockpile nuclear weapons without signing the NPT. Of all such nations, “Israel” is by far the most dangerous and should be the next to be pressured by the wider world to give up its nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, the close and frequently sycophantic US relationship with Tel Aviv means that this might not happen until it is too late. Such a worrying prospect ought to galvanise a wider support throughout the world for such a peaceful de-nuclearisation process to begin at once.

June 14, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s CRAZY offer to Iran: we’ll give you water, you give us your LAND

Israeli PM Netanyahu offered Iranian people irrigation technology in PR Video

By Matfey Shaheen | The Duran | June 14, 2018

Israeli PM Netanyahu made a bizarre offer to the Iranian people – if it can even be called an offer.

His “offer”, came in the form of a youtube video, which was also re-uploaded with Arabic and Farsi (Persian/Iranian) subtitles. In the video, he says Iran is suffering from major lack of water, and Israel wants to help by providing the Iranian people irrigation technology with seemingly no catch. In the video, he says that “The Iranian regime shouts “death to Israel”. In response, Israel shouts, “Life to the Iranian people”.

The video seems to be a PR scheme, in which he is trying to frame himself as the Savior of the Iranian people, saying that Israel stands with them, and cares about them more than their own government.

If you watch the video, and understand the situation, you realize however that his “offer” is a thinly veiled PR scheme at best.

In the video, he talks about how Iran is challenged with major drought, and water issues, which he claims threatens the lives of regular Iranians. He says that Israel has developed state of the art irrigation technology, to circumvent their own water issues, which he wants to share with Iranian people.

He seems to blame the water issues, or rather, an implied lack of Iranian solutions on the Iranian government. It must be said, that even parts of the US can suffer from irrigation issues  This is not an unheard of problem in hot or difficult climates, for even powerful countries to struggle with.

A major part of his so-called “offer“, to appear like a hero for Iranian people, is he claims to create a Farsi website to share this irrigation technology with the Iranian people.

The devil is as always, in the details, however, and we will examine these details with biblical levels of scrutiny.

The offer is obviously very suspicious, but not simply because it’s an obvious deception. The reason why I have written “offer”, in quotations, is aside from him calling it an “unprecedented offer”, nothing about it seems like an actual offer for several reasons.

First of all, he spends the majority of the video talking about how terrible the Iranian government is, and how they allegedly don’t help their own people with their water issues. Then he claims he is going to step in and save the Iranian people by offering them this technology, but his offer seems entirely for the purpose of publicity. There seems to be nothing real at all behind these words.

First of all, it is framed as a totally free offer, a gift, yet the very use of the word “offer”, in politics, implies there is to be an exchange. He does not specify what he wants in exchange for this offer, unless he truly wants it to be believed, that he will give cutting-edge technology for free. It seems obvious he is trying to influence “hearts and minds” be they Iranian or not, in a propaganda campaign, rather than to actually give technology

This is because, despite making an offer, if you dig deeper, he is actually not giving anything concrete as of now. There does not seem to be any way for the Iranian people to take this offer.

The website is propaganda

As noted, he claims he will create a Farsi website with the irrigation info, yet this doesn’t seem to actually happen.

Specifically, he says:

We will lanch a Farsi website with detailed plans on how Iranians can recycle their waste-water.

Those words clearly imply he will create a comprehensive Farsi language site, with the irrigation technology provided there. The way he describes it in the video, this is his offer, it’s not about the conflict or politics, it’s about saving Iranians by giving them the technology. Once again, the devil is in the details.

If you look at the actual sites given in the video, and linked in the description, they don’t appear to match what he is describing.

The first site that he links to, is a Farsi language, two-page archive of a total of 15 irrigation and water-related articles, on the main site of the Israel Foreign Ministry. It doesn’t even seem to come close to what he is describing.

First of all, he said he would launch a Farsi language site. The word launch in modern internet terminology clearly implies creating a website. If we were going to put together a series of articles in Russian about Russian infrastructure on The Duran, we would not likely say we are going to “launch a Russian language site designed for infrastructure engineers”. This implies we are creating a totally different site under our umbrella.

He implies this isn’t about politics, he is creating a website to bring Iranians life-saving irrigation technology, yet he simply links to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which instead contains, if not direct propaganda, essentially what amounts to PR advertisements for Israeli technology.

The site also conveniently contains links to other official government propag and… um… I mean… information, unrelated to water at all. So you can start reading about water, and find yourself reading official Israeli foreign relations info with a few clicks. It’s essentially product placement, but with information.

At this point, one could claim this is all too picky and unfair, a matter of semantics. One can argue so long as he is delivering what he promised, what does it matter on which site.

The issue is the site itself IS essentially propaganda, and moreover, it’s a Potemkin village, there is nothing really there OTHER than propaganda.

Even if you don’t speak Farsi, you can click on some of the articles, use a simple online translator, and see they don’t match what he is offering. They are not comprehensive scientific pieces on how Iranians can fix their water issues They are blatant advertisements for Israeli innovations and technology.

How does a video that talks about how wonderful Israeli irrigation can actually help farmers in a drought? That is like showing an advertisement for the Cleveland Clinic to a sick person in Iran, and expecting them to magically be healed by simply watching it. There is nothing wrong with ads. Their purpose is to sell a product, but the issue is he is claiming to give in-depth irrigation know how, and instead, delivers propaganda.

Look for yourself at some of the articles, they’re very short, sometimes no more than a few sentences, with short 2-3min video advertisements talking about how great Israel and Israeli technology is. One can hardly see how this would help anyone.

Indeed, they are relating to water, but they don’t provide anything substantial, beyond a substantial amount of propaganda. Some of the short PR and testimonial style videos are even in English, with Farsi subtitles, so you can clearly tell this was not originally designed for Iranian people.

There is nothing of value in the videos, certainly nothing comparable to his great unprecedented offer.

This would be the equivalent of a major food company saying they wanted to tackle hunger in Africa, and saying they will help starving, impoverished Africans, by providing their technologies and products to them, saying they will link below to resources, but the links provided are just advertisements for their company.

The ads talk about how they are using automation to speed up packaging, how they use the best products, and the videos will show happy people in major first world cities enjoying their meals and their luxurious lifestyles. That is an advertisement, and it does literally nothing to help the people, and that is exactly what this website is.

It would be like someone trying to end world hunger by filming themselves making gourmet meals, and putting the videos on youtube for free.

He also links to an official Israeli telegram channel, where it can only be imagined you can get these type of Israeli ads sent directly to your devices, which is surely what Iranian farmers need the most.

A Propaganda Campaign intended for whom?

It’s obvious the Israeli PM’s offer, in its current form, as everything appears from the youtube videos, is not genuine. It is very easy to say its just a propaganda campaign, but who is it intended for? Is it really even directed against only Iranians in the first place?

The languages the video were made in are most telling. The English language video is uploaded first, and the Farsi version comes afterward, separated by one of his cabinet meetings on his youtube channel.

One wonders why he made an English language video? Indeed, English is the Lingua Franca, but what is the purpose if he is speaking to Iranians? Why not just make a Hebrew language video, with Farsi subtitles?

Some may say because he prefers to speak English and can not speak Farsi… fine… but then why title the video in English? He does not have to speak Farsi, to have his translators title the video in Farsi. But his English video does not even have Farsi subtitles at all, it’s a separate video.

He makes separate English, Farsi, and Arabic videos and the English video has the most views, currently at 113,916, while the Farsi version (below) currently has only 7,474 views.

He would only make an English video, let alone title it in English, for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes. Clearly, he wants an international audience to view his video. While he pretends he is speaking to the Iranian people, Iranians mostly do not speak English, instead, he wants the world to see his “good deed”.

Most telling, as noted, he created a video subtitled in Arabic.

If this is only intended for Iranians, that makes no sense, as they don’t speak Arabic as their primary language. In this case, it is clear he is not just targeting an intentional audience, he is targeting an Arab, including Palestinian audience.

All of that is not needed, if he just really loves the Iranian people so much, that he wants to help them. True acts of altruism are best without the need for attention…unless of course…it is thinly disguised propaganda. In this case, you would want as many people as possible to view it.

In conclusion, Netanyahu’s videos pretend to care for Iranians, but in reality, they are a publicity scheme intended to:

  • Make Israel, and himself personally seem like a hero for Iranian people
  • Bash the Iranian government.
  • Pretend to offer irrigation technology, while instead linking to propaganda

In theory, he could even try to convince Iranians he truly cares about them more than their government. While it is highly unlikely anyone, including Bibi believes this will achieve regime change, it’s possible and likely that was his most ideal fantasy. At the very least, this is probably a tiny component of that ultimate goal.

Bibi’s irrigation offer could really be about testing the waters, as to whether or not he can get Iranians to turn on their government. He seems to feel that offering the Iranian people irrigation technology is enough to drive them to a revolution. He is basically saying:

Dear Iran,

We’ll give you water, in exchange for your land, lives, and freedoms.

P.S. If you could send us your souls too… that would be great.

Apparently, he thinks it’s that easy. The Persian people will have to decide for themselves, if that’s a good offer. My guess, their answer is going to be NO.

June 14, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Press TV interview with Syria’s President Bashar Assad

PressTV | June 13, 2018

June 14, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN General Assembly condemns Israel for ‘excessive use of force’ on Gaza border

RT | June 13, 2018

The UN General Assembly has adopted a nonbinding resolution condemning Israel’s use of ‘excessive force’ against Palestinian protesters in Gaza. A US amendment to condemn Hamas did not get enough support.

The resolution condemns Israel for “excessive use of force” against Palestinian demonstrators on the Israeli-Gaza border and calls for the “protection of the Palestinian civilian population” in Gaza. It was adopted with 120 votes in favor and eight votes against, with 45 abstentions.

The amendment offered by US envoy Nikki Haley sought to condemn Hamas, which runs the elected government in Gaza, for firing rockets at Israel. The amendment received 62 votes in favor, with 58 nations opposed and 42 abstaining. It needed a two-thirds majority to pass, however, so it was not included in the final resolution.

The nearly identical resolution proposed by Kuwait was vetoed by the US in the Security Council on Tuesday. Unlike the Security Council resolutions, those adopted in the General Assembly are non-binding.

Haley condemned the adopted resolution as “morally bankrupt.”

“The resolution is one-sided, makes not one mention of Hamas which routinely initiates violence,” the US envoy said during the debate preceding the vote, adding that “What makes Gaza different is that attacking Israel is their favorite political sport.”

Israeli ambassador Danny Danon slammed the resolution as “empowering Hamas” and the countries that support it as “colluding with a terrorist organization.”

“I have a simple message for those who support this resolution. You are the ammunition for Hamas’s guns, you are the warheads for its missiles,” he said.

Over 130 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during the protests along the border with Gaza that began on March 30. The deadliest day so far has been May 14, when the US embassy officially moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“We cannot remain silent in the face of the most violent crimes and human rights violations being systematically perpetrated against our people,” said Riyad Mansour, Palestinian envoy to the UN.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Pro Israel Neocons Pushed for War in Iraq (Alison Weir)

If Americans Knew | June 11, 2018

Israel partisans in the Bush administration played a central role in pushing the U.S. into the disastrous Iraq war. The video gives specifics and cites the following resources:

“White Man’s Burden,” by Ari Shavit, Ha’aretz, April 3, 2003: http://iakn.us/2ggApnF

“Perles of Wisdom for the Feithful,” by Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz, October 1, 2002: http://iakn.us/2hkzdzo

“The Bush Neocons and Israel,” by Kathleen and Bill Christison, Counterpunch, December 2002: http://iakn.us/2h1ajEi

“Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration,” by Stephen Green, Counterpunch, February 2004: http://iakn.us/2ggBcVi

“The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel​” by Dr. Stephen J Sniegoski: http://iakn.us/2geT2mJ​

“The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War” by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad: http://iakn.us/2hoz4Hn

“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt: http://iakn.us/2gfPFAR

Some additional books with information on this topic:

“Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market​” by Janine R. Wedel: http://iakn.us/2hoBKEW

“Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton”​ by Diane Johnstone: http://iakn.us/2gojmhO

Wedell discusses the “massive and concerted ​’information​’ effort conducted by the Neocon core and their associates, with crucial participation from certain columnists and reporters, that was essential in taking the United States to war in Iraq​.”​

“​….​ beginning in the mid-1970s, they employed methods ranging from the creation of alternative intelligence; to might-be-authorized, might-not-be authorized diplomacy; to setting up pressure groups; to suspending standard government process, always contesting government information, assessments, and expertise. These methods—perfected over the years—would be deployed in full force in the Neocon core’s effort to take the United States to war in 2003.​”

Johnstone states: “… the neocons gained notoriety as architects of the disastrous invasion of Iraq. The main thinker behind this war was Bush’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz​…”

“… two veterans of the defunct PNAC, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, returned in 2009 to found the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI). Robert Kagan is the current leading neocon theorist and the husband of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, instigator of the Ukrainian coup in early 2014.​​​”

For information on the early roots of the Israel lobby, please see Alison Weir’s book, “Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel”: http://iakn.us/AOBJ-book

More information at http://ifamericaknew.org/us_ints/neoc…

For information on the efforts against Iran, please see http://iakn.us/2gUjFif and http://iakn.us/2gUls6T

UPDATE: On December 11, Code Pink said they would post Alison’s testimony on their website. Although we are disappointed that this information was not included in the live-feed testimonies given on Dec. 1-2 in Washington DC, covered by some news media, we’re pleased that it will be on their site.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Oil for Israel: The Truth about the Iraq War, 15 Years Later:
http://iakn.us/2FPFpaF

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces take over archaeological house in Hebron, turn it into outpost

WAFA | June 13, 2018

Israeli forces Wednesday took over an archaeological house in the Old City of Hebron and turned it into a military outpost.

The house is located in an area that has been under full Israeli military control for over 15 years now.

The house, which is located in an area that was declared a closed military zone and belongs to two Palestinian families; al-Qudsi and al-Kard, is considered one of the oldest heritage houses in the area.

Hebron Rehabilitation Committee said Israeli forces blocked the windows with sand bags and turned the roof into a military outpost.

Director General of the committee, Imad Hamdan, said archaeological buildings in Hebron’s Old City are considered a strategic target for both the Israeli authorities and settlers.

He explained that Israeli authorities take over the archaeological buildings in the area, turn them into military outposts and prevent Palestinians from living there and from rehabilitating them, while settlers steal their stones and use them on their own homes to give the houses a historic landmark status in an attempt to falsify history.

 

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

HP Faces $120 Million Potential Loss Due to Complicity in Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Human Rights

IMEMC News & Agencies | June 13, 2018

Hewlett Packard (HP) faces over $120 million in potential losses since India’s largest student federation passed a resolution to support the BDS movement and to boycott Hewlett Packard companies over their well-documented complicity in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian human rights.

Apoorva Gautam, the India-based South Asia coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights, explained:

The Students Federation of India (SFI) is more than 4 million members strong, and on June 9, they joined the global campaign to boycott HP. This means that Hewlett Packard companies now risk losing over 4 million potential clients in India because of their complicity in Israel’s gross violations of Palestinian human rights.

Given that the cheapest HP laptop in India costs about $300, this means that HP may be losing a potential student market of over $120 million. This is enormously significant.

What Palestinians and Indian students are showing is that companies seeking to profit from Israel’s military occupation and discriminatory regime face growing popular opposition and risk a serious hit to both their reputations and pocket-books.

HP has provided technology and services that support Israel’s military occupation and racial discrimination policies, including its devastating siege suffocating nearly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, and illegal settlements built on stolen Palestinian land.

Today, HP-branded companies provide the Israeli government with the servers that house its notorious population registry, a key component in the apparatus of apartheid. Records also indicate that HP-branded companies are still responsible for selling computers to the Israeli military. As such, HP products and services enable racial segregation and denial of basic rights.

In its resolution to boycott HP, the Students Federation of India (SFI) condemned Israel’s recent violence against unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, where Israel killed at least 121 Palestinians and injured more than 13,000 in just the last two months. It also criticized the current right-wing government in India for its “close security and military ties with Israel” and for having become “the largest arms buyer from Israel.”

Vikram Singh, the federation’s General Secretary, promised that the campaign to boycott HP in India would grow:

Our federation will spread the BDS movement and the HP boycott campaign in college and university campuses across India. We will work to convince university administrations to adopt procurement policies that prohibit doing business with HP companies until they prove that they are no longer complicit in Israel’s egregious violations of Palestinian human rights. Until then, this boycott will continue and will grow even stronger.

Abdulrahman Abunahel, a Gaza-based community organizer and coordinator for the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) welcomed the resolution:

Palestinian students and youth movements deeply appreciate the solidarity expressed by our counterparts in the Students Federation of India. As a young Palestinian in Gaza, I know first hand how difficult it is to study, and to simply live, under decades of Israel’s brutal military rule and devastating siege. And I’m heartened by this important gesture of support from India, which reaffirms that where governments fail, people have the the power to act and make a difference.

In the past few years, US church denominations such as the US Presbyterian Church and the United Church of Christ have divested from HP. Friends Fiduciary Corporation, the socially responsible investment firm serving over three hundred Quaker institutions in the United States, divested from HP in 2012. Most recently, the Dublin City Council joined the BDS movement and called for ending ties with HP because of the company’s complicity in Israeli apartheid.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine denounces Indonesian clerics’ participation in interfaith conference

Palestine Information Center – June 13, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, has strongly denounced the participation of some Indonesian religious figures in the Zio-American interfaith conference in Occupied Jerusalem.

In press remarks, Sheikh Hussein described the conference as part of Israel’s systematic misleading campaigns that are intended to embellish it and make it appear as a country that advocates for peace and rapprochement between religions.

He condemned the Indonesian delegation’s visit as “a crime against the Palestinian cause and against the Muslim nation,” and said it ignored the international boycott campaigns against the occupation and its racist practices, especially after the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

The Mufti also slammed the visit as “shameful and unacceptable” and “contradicting the official and popular Indonesian position that support the Palestinian people and their just cause.”

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

NYT Carries IDF Attack on Murdered Medic–Reveals It’s a Smear in 20th Paragraph

By Adam Johnson | FAIR | June 11, 2018

A reporter at the most influential paper in English-language media appears to not know the difference between a government “tightly editing” and selectively editing video.

New York Times reporter Herbert Buchsbaum (6/7/18) wrote up a propaganda video posted by the Israeli Defense Force, showing Rouzan al-Najjar–a 21-year-old medic the Israeli Defense Force shot and killed earlier this month—apparently throwing a tear-gas canister, along with a brief clip of her purportedly saying, “I am here on the front line and I act as a human shield.”

The video seems to suggest that throwing a device spewing caustic gas away from people into an empty field is a sort of violence. (“This medic was incited by Hamas,” the video reads as she grabs the canister.) But the primary problem with the IDF video is that it deceptively edits her comments to distort what she said—a fact not noted by the Buchsbaum until paragraph 20, when he threw in this crucial piece of information:

In the longer video, the comment that the military translated as “I act as a human shield” was part of a sentence in which Ms. Najjar said, “I’m acting as a human rescue shield to protect the injured inside the armistice line.”

“Acting as a human shield to protect the injured inside the armistice line” has a radically different meaning than the commonly understood canard about Palestinians using “human shields” to protect “terrorists.” This hugely consequential fact should have led the story; instead, it’s casually tossed out in the third-to-last paragraph. The story here is that the IDF—as it has been doing for decades—casually lies and distorts facts to suit its narrative. Like all militaries, the Israeli military is not presenting a “dueling narrative” in good faith, as a New York Times tweet suggested; it’s manipulating video, hoping credulous journalists help them muddy the waters, as Buchsbaum did.

Indeed, the bizarre IDF press release write-up serves no other purpose than to reframe the gunning down of the unarmed medic from a clear crime committed by Israel to a Fog of War “dueling narratives between Israel and Hamas” tale of “both sidesism.” Buchsbaum vaguely alludes to—but strangely omits—the deceptive editing in the opening with his risible turn of phrase in paragraph two:

The tightly edited video shows a woman identified as the medic, Rouzan al-Najjar, throwing what appears to be a tear-gas canister.

“Tightly edited”? What does this mean, exactly? “Tight” editing is generally considered a compliment in the film and TV world, and says nothing about deliberate omissions for the purposes of misleading the viewer. When videographer Tate B. James confronted Buchsbaum about this fact, Buchsbaum appeared to think he had covered his bases:

Either Buchsbaum doesn’t know he’s being misleading, and is thus severely unqualified to be writing for a major paper, or he knows he’s spinning in Israel’s favor, but was hoping no one would really notice. Either way, the New York Times is once again (FAIR.org, 7/14/17, 5/17/18, 5/15/18) using its pages to confuse readers to the benefit of the Israeli military.

You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTOpinion). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.

June 13, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Authorities Demolish Graves at Historic Palestinian Cemetery

Sputnik – June 11, 2018

Israeli authorities were caught on video excavating portions of the historic Bab al-Rahma cemetery next to Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. The cemetery is believed to contain the final resting places of two companions of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Video from June 5 shows about a dozen men, presumably members of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority, at a work site in the Bab al-Rahma cemetery, through which Israel is planning to build a national park trail.

​The cemetery sits adjacent to Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. It is believed to hold the graves of Ubada ibn as-Samit and Shadad ibn Aus, two of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions. The cemetery has remained in use for more than 1,000 years.

Israel plans to seize about 40 percent of the cemetery for the national park under murky legal pretexts, Sputnik News recently reported. The plan has supposedly been in place since 2015, but Palestinian lawyers and conservation activists claim Israel is jumping the gun, as court cases over the fate of the cemetery remain pending.

Israeli authorities have recently resumed work on the park and have been seen digging up and marking graves, removing trees and fencing off areas to halt future burials. During the first weekend of June, several Palestinians were injured and arrested while protesting the desecration of the cemetery.

Outside of Jerusalem proper, in the West Bank, authorities are also clearing the way for a new settlement over the village of al-Khana Ahmar, a village mostly inhabited by Bedouin refugees who were expelled from southern Israel in 1952. In 2009, an Italian aid organization constructed a school there, but Israel ordered it to be demolished one month after it opened. After that, residents in neighboring Israeli settlements petitioned the courts to demolish the community, which has been slated for destruction since February 2010. In 2015, authorities confiscated solar panels that provided the only source of electricity to the village.

​Israel plans to relocate them yet again, this time north to a village called An-Nuway’imah, allowing Jewish settlers to claim the strategically significant spot. Building an Israeli settlement there would allow the government to connect the urban Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem and to control the gateway between northern and southern parts of the West Bank.

Abu Khamiss, a spokesman for the current Khan al-Ahmar villagers, told France 24 in 2014 that “the place where Israel wants us to ‘relocate’ would be like a prison for us. We’d be surrounded by Israeli settlements, a checkpoint and military training camps.”

The demolition is expected to begin any day now. Already, Israeli authorities have been accused of poisoning locals’ dogs under cover of night, robbing the villagers of the “faithful shepherds.”

Palestinian schoolchildren queue outside a tent where they attend lessons after Israeli troops confiscated caravans used as school classrooms, due to the lack of an Israeli-issued construction permit, in the West Bank village of Jubbet Al Dhib, near Bethlehem August 24, 2017

© REUTERS / Mussa Qawasma

For Palestinian children living in the West Bank, getting to school is an incredibly difficult task because of their scarcity and the difficulty of traveling due to the abundance of Israeli checkpoints that control movement around the territory and can take hours to pass through. Israel is slated to destroy the Palestinian school in al-Khana Ahmar as well, a move the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said in 2011 “would effectively deny the children of the community their education and jeopardize their future.”

According to a January report from the the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 61 schools in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have pending demolition orders or stop work orders against them from the Israeli government.

See Also:

Israel’s Demolishing of West Bank Schools May Amount to Int’l Crime – Watchdog

June 12, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel to build new outpost in W. Bank for evacuated settlers

Palestine Information Center – June 12, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The Israeli government intends to build a new settlement outpost for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank after a court verdict recently ordered the dismantling of Netiv Ha’avot outpost, which was built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

According to Haaretz newspaper, Israeli security forces are expected to demolish 15 structures in this outpost Tuesday morning.

In the presence of right-wing Israeli ministers, thousands participated on Monday in a mock protest against the evacuation of settlers from the outpost.

Israeli army sources told Haaretz that an agreement had been reached with the settlers under which they accepted to only resist the demolition of two structures in the outpost. The source added that the evacuation would go smoothly and with no problems.

The Israeli government has allotted 60 million shekels (approximately $16.5 million) for the slated demolitions and the construction of a new outpost. The sum will be used to compensate evacuated settlers and reconstruct stone structures for them on a nearby tract of land that is not privately owned.

June 12, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

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