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US Mainstream Media Attacks North Korea for Supporting Palestine in a Disgusting Display of Nuclear Hypocrisy

By Adam Garrie | Eurasia Future | April 22, 2018

While Donald Trump is busy giving himself credit for the efforts of Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in to reconcile the two Korean states in the hope of ending the Korean War/Fatherland Liberation War, Trump’s domestic opponents are busy saying that the man who threatened to “destroy” North Korea in front of the UN General Assembly just seven months ago is somehow going “soft” on North Korea. Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to respond with his customary bombast.

But while the typical back-and-forth between Trump and his media critics continues, one mainstream media publication in the US has taken things a step further by trying to damage the spirit of good will surrounding the DPRK’s rapprochement with Seoul. Newsweek has quoted form an official Korean source Minju Joson, regarding Pyongyang’s condemnation of the slaughter of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators who have been attacked by the military of the Tel Aviv regime during the Great March of Return.

Newsweek published the following statement from the government of the DPRK:

“Israel’s wild act of destroying Mid-east peace and mercilessly killing Palestinians is a hideous crime that deserves denunciations thousands of times. If the U.S. is interested in protecting human rights, it should keep pace with the efforts of the international community to denounce and check Israel’s human rights abuses. But, the U.S. chimed in with Israel in the eyes of the international community, fully disclosing that it is applying double-dealing standards in human rights and politicizing it”.

While the intention of the Newsweek piece was clearly to sow resentment towards the DPRK among Zionist Americans, Newsweek may not achieve the desired result. As the treatment of Palestinians becomes ever more barbaric at the hands of a regime intent on spilling blood in Gaza and the West Bank, even many Americans with Zionist sympathies including actress Natalie Portman have expressed their condemnation of the regime’s activities. While Portman’s stand has been applauded by many, the regime’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz has said that Portman’s remarks “border on antisemitism”. This charge is clearly ridiculous for obvious enough reasons, but it is nevertheless being proffered by a regime desperate for legitimacy.

But while the Tel Aviv regime continues to cling on to its illegal nuclear weapons, the DPRK has expressed a willingness to cease testing its weapons while promising the goal of de-nuclearisation in order to achieve peace between Pyongyang and Seoul in line with the desires of the DPRK’s northern neighbours China and Russia.

While North Korea has not actively enraged in the long cold Korean War since 1953, “Israel’s” wars have been endless since 1948. The regime continues to occupy Palestine and part of Syria while it has recently threatened Lebanon with a new invasion.

While North Korea’s uneasy truce with South Korea has not resulted in catastrophe even at the lowest ebbs in relations, the same cannot be said for the Tel Aviv regime’s relations with its neighbours. The Newsweek piece which was intended to slander North Korea has actually helped to raise the important issue of double standards in the US where North Korea’s defensive nuclear programme is presented as something which threatens the world while “Israel’s” offensive and illegal nuclear programme is virtually never discussed. As none of “Israel’s” neighbours have nuclear weapons and as none of the world’s nuclear powers have directly threatened the regime, no country in the world has less of a justification for nuclear weapons than “Israel”. Even in the case of Pakistan and India, two of the world’s most confrontational neighbours with nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan can always justify the presence of its weapons based on the threat posed by the other. “Israel” has no such justification available.

The US hypocrisy regarding the DPRK vis-a-vis the “Israeli” regime is nothing new. These morosely unjust double standards go back decades. 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.

By contrast, the US media could not stop talking about the DPRK’s capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968. There is still no consensus as to whether the US Naval ship that was captured by the DPRK was in North Korean or international waters. Unlike the allied USS Liberty in the Mediterranean, the USS Pueblo was an enemy ship conducting espionage activities against a communist Asian state at the height of the US war in Vietnam. The incident therefore ought to be viewed in this wider content. In any case, the DPRK captured the ship where it remains to this day as a museum piece. One American died during the capture and the rest of the crew were eventually released into US allied South Korea.

Objectively, any American should be able to see that what “Israel” did to the USS Liberty is a vastly bigger issue than what the DPRK did to the spy-ship USS Pueblo. Yet decades later, it is an ever more militaristic “Israel” that is given billions by the United States, while North Korea continues to be sanctioned and threatened by the United States, in spite of the fact that 2018 has seen Pyongyang and Seoul reach a new detente which will see Koreans from both sides of the 38th parallel marching together in the Olympics under a flag of unity.

The events mentioned in this piece are one of the reasons that Palestinians and North Koreans alike, have no faith whatsoever in the United States and the so-called international community it endlessly asks to unite against North Korea, while equally imploring it to abandon Palestine.

So while Newsweek seeks to condemn North Korea for its consistently principled stand as a friend of Palestine, the truth of the matter is that while North Korea has never been a legitimate threat to the wider world, “Israel” not only remains a threat, but has a history of confrontation with almost every country in the region. The fact that the regime continues to slaughter Palestinians protesting for rights to their stolen land is proof positive that while North Korea is embracing peace, the Tel Aviv regime remains more militant than ever.

April 22, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Middle East, North Korea, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

A Brilliant Early Defender of Palestine – Book Review

(Colin Andersen, Balfour in the Dock. J.M.N. Jeffries and the Case for the Prosecution. Bloxham, Oxon: Skyscraper Publications, 2017)

Reviewed by Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | April 18, 2018

J.M.N (Joseph) Jeffries was an outstanding British journalist whose book Palestine: The Reality (1939) is described by Colin Andersen as ‘a masterwork of history and a scathing indictment of British policy in Palestine from 1914 to 1938.’

George Antonius’ seminal work, The Arab Awakening, had been published only the year before but it is a more general account of British betrayal of the Arabs, whereas the value of the Jeffries book lies in his single-minded focus on Palestine and the force of his arguments. Few copies of the book were printed, and it is now almost impossible to find even in libraries. By Edward Said and many others, however, its value as an early exposure of British perfidy has long since been recognized.

Zionism itself was a wicked idea from the start. Herzl was not ignorant of the realities on the ground in Palestine. In the form of the people, he wanted to remove them and in the form of the land he wanted to turn Palestine into something else. Chaim Weizmann was no better. He lied, deceived and dissimulated as a matter of course. By 1914, with one exception, Zionism had no support anywhere. The Ottoman sultan, the Kaiser, and the Tsar’s government had all turned their backs on it. By Jews around the world, the Zionists were regarded as cranks, fanatics, and heretics but the one exception was critical. In Britain, the seed of imperial support for this mad idea had been sown by Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, when in 1903 he backed Zionist settlement in East Africa.

By 1917 Zionism had been absorbed into British imperialism. The motive was not gratitude for Weizmann’s chemical research in support of the war effort or anything as fanciful as sympathy for a persecuted people bent on returning to their ancient homeland but the recognition that Zionism was a tool Britain could use. The chief villains of the piece, in Jeffries’ reading, were the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, and his Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, both of whom, to use a term now current, ‘weaponised’ Zionism, first to bring the US into the war and then to turn Palestine over to their Zionist proxies, much as the US, Britain, France and their ‘allies’ have tried hard over the past seven years to put Syria in the hands of their takfiri proxies.

It was Jeffries, an outstanding correspondent for the London Daily Mail, who in 1923 exposed the deception deliberately built into Sir Henry McMahon’s correspondence with the Sharif Husayn of Mecca in 1915. The Sharif had outlined the area in which the Arabs were to be granted independence in return for supporting the British war effort. McMahon made specific exceptions for Mersin and Alexandretta (Iskanderun) and ‘portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, which cannot be said to be purely Arab.’ The excluded region had a substantial Christian percentage, but in line with its imperial tactics of divide and rule Britain chose to regard only Muslims as ‘Arab’ despite the role Christians played in the formulation of the Arab national idea.

This region ‘west of Damascus’ was the coastal littoral Britain intended to allocate to France in Sykes-Picot the following year but on no map, can Palestine be found west of Damascus. Homs and Hama are mentioned but not Jerusalem, for the obvious reason that the British knew that the Sharif Husayn would never agree to its exclusion from the area set aside for ‘Arab independence.’ Although Antonius is given the credit he deserves for exposing the depth of deceit in the McMahon letters to the Sharif Husayn, it was Jeffries, in articles written for the Daily Mail in 1923, based on a copy of the text he had been given by King Feisal, who first brought this deception to the attention of the British public.

The Husayn-McMahon correspondence was followed in 1916 by the treachery of Sykes-Picot and in 1917 by the further treachery of the Balfour declaration, a pledge not just made to the Zionists but largely written by them. Behind the caviling and declarations of nothing but good intentions, Jeffries knew exactly what they were up to the formula of a ‘national home’ was adopted for the time only because pressing for statehood would be regarded even by the British government as too provocative. The ‘country without a people for a people without a country’ was a brazen lie which the Zionists pretended to believe because they did not want the Palestinians to be there. They were being wished away psychologically long before they could be removed physically. As Jeffries was to write, they were nobodies who would eventually ‘vanish like mist before the sun of Zion.’

Behind his lofty, somewhat detached philosophical exterior, Balfour was as remorseless as the fanatics whose cause he was promoting, not in their interests, as they undoubtedly realized, but Britain’s. Zionism, he wrote in 1919, right or wrong, good or bad, was rooted in traditions, present needs and future hopes of ‘far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.’ Crucially, the words ‘now’ and ‘inhabit’ point to what Balfour, the British government, and the Zionists, colluding, had in mind: Palestine did not belong to the Palestinians, they were only ‘inhabiting’ it and only for ‘now.’ In the same statement Balfour, in a rare moment of truth, wrote that insofar as Palestine was concerned ‘the Powers have made no statement of fact which is not admittedly wrong and no declaration of policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always intended to violate.’

In Palestine: The Reality Jeffries traced Balfour’s declaration from inception through gestation to birth. As Colin Andersen writes, far from being a pure and lofty initiative of the British government, the declaration was in its drafting ‘very much an Anglo-Zionist-American affair.’ The process began ‘in earnest’ in June 1917, when Weizmann, Lord Rothschild, and Sir Ronald Graham, assistant undersecretary at the Foreign Office, visited Balfour, who had just returned from a five-week visit to the US, where he met the leading US Zionist, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis. The question of a declaration on Palestine was discussed and after seeing Weizmann and Rothschild back in London, the drafting began, as Jeffries was to write, ‘on both sides of the Atlantic.’

It remains very worthwhile to consider how these drafts changed. As documented by Jeffries, in its first draft, prepared in July 1917, the British government spoke of Palestine being recognized as ‘the National Home of the Jewish people’, with the conditions of their ‘national life’ being determined with representatives of the ‘Zionist Organization.’ There is no mention of the theme dwelt upon by Balfour and others in the government of historical Jewish suffering and the need for a refuge and neither is there any mention of the majority of the population – Arab – actually living in Palestine.

On July 18 the Zionists produced their amended version in which Palestine would be ‘reconstituted’ as the national home of the Jewish people. In August Lord Milner, a senior figure in the government prepared a draft removing ‘reconstituted’ and referring to ‘a’ Jewish national home ‘in’ Palestine. This was approved by Balfour but opposed by Edwin Montagu, Secretary of State for India, both Jewish and anti-zionist, who described Zionism as a ‘mischievous political creed’, who said there was no Jewish nation and even argued that Zionism should be declared as illegal ‘and against the national interest.’ By longing for the day when he could ‘shake British soil from his shoes’ and go to Palestine, the British Jew would have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and admitted that ‘he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain or to be treated as an Englishman.’ At a Cabinet meeting on October 4, Montagu again objected vigorously, with the support of Lord Curzon, who asked ‘How was it proposed to get rid of the existing majority of Mussulman inhabitants and to introduce the Jews in their place?’

In Washington on October 13, President Wilson approved to have the British draft, clearly without spending much time thinking about it. Back in London, a reworded draft referred to the British government viewing with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish ‘race’, a phrase as bereft of any logic, historical or otherwise, as the Jewish ‘people’ or ‘nation.’ This time, however, the draft referred to the civil and religious rights of ‘existing’ non-Jewish communities in Palestine – the Palestinians, 90 percent of the population- as well as the rights of Jews elsewhere who were content with their existing nationality ‘and citizenship’, Balfour added.

This draft was also approved by Wilson. Alterations at the behest of Louis Brandeis led to further rewording, especially ‘people’ instead of ‘race.’ The reference to the rights of the ‘existing non-Jewish communities’ raised objections from the Zionists. How could anyone think that they could be damaged by the establishment of a national Jewish home? After all, did not Jewish religious tradition prescribe that the stranger must be looked after? In their inverted world, it was the stranger, themselves, who owned the land and the true owners, individually and collectively, the people of Palestine, who were the strangers, not that the Zionists had any intention of looking after them or even sharing the land. They wanted to get rid of them.

The final form of the declaration was approved by the War Cabinet on October 31 and issued on November 2. It ends with Balfour’s request to Lord Rothschild to bring the declaration to the notice of the Zionist Federation. Nothing more cynically humorous had ever been penned than these two lines, wrote Jeffries, seeing that the Zionists had collaborated in drafting the declaration: in its final form it would never have been issued without their approval. Jeffries describes the document as the most discreditable produced by a British government in living memory.

He follows a trail spotted with lies and deceit to where it led after the war, to a mandatory administration of Palestine top-heavy with Zionists and Palestine resistance to the Anglo-Zionist occupation of their land. By 1937 the Peel report was recommending partition and transfer of part of the Palestinian population, a solution which the Zionists wanted not in part but full but part would at least be a start. Wrote Jeffries: ‘How can anyone suggest that about a quarter of the Arab population should be removed by force from the land which they and theirs have occupied for centuries?’

Colin Andersen, blending original material from Palestine: The Reality and Jeffries’ other writings with his own analysis and interpretation, has produced a book that no student of Britain’s deceits from Husain-McMahon to the Balfour Declaration should leave unread. There is a broader context, of course. In 1917, as the Balfour Declaration was being prepared and the world was reacting to the Bolshevik revolution, Lloyd George was giving assurances to the British labor movement that territorial annexation was the last thing the government had on its own mind.

The British were sick of war and the government was alarmed at the effects of the Bolshevik revolution, at a time it needed to ‘comb out’ more working-class men of fighting age to send to the front. They had to be deceived. In December 1917, addressing trade union leaders, Lloyd George asserted that ‘our one object in the war was to defend the violated public law of Europe, to vindicate Treaty obligations and to secure the restoration of Belgium.’ The release by the Bolsheviks of the contents of Sykes-Picot on November 23 had been an embarrassment but the Labor Party could still issue a statement praising Lloyd George, whose speech had revealed ‘a government and a people seeking no selfish or predatory aims of any kind, pursuing with one unchanging mind, one unchanging purpose: to obtain justice for others so that we thereby secure for ourselves a lasting peace. We desire neither to destroy Germany or diminish her boundaries: we seek neither to exalt ourselves nor to enlarge our empire.’

The immense harm which has been done to the Palestinians also has to be set in a broader regional context. The partition of Arab lands was of a piece with the planned partition of Anatolia, where the powers planned to establish a Christian Armenian ‘protectorate’ in eastern provinces where the population was 80 percent Muslim. In 1919 Lloyd George was the principal architect of the Greek invasion of western Anatolia, which was not to end, after great loss of life and massive destruction, until 1922. In the same year the British government launched the ‘war of intervention’ against the Bolsheviks: in the 1930s it launched the war of non-intervention against the republican government of Spain as well as enabling the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the Japanese invasion of China. Class and money interests of the British establishment took precedence over national interests (not that by this same establishment they were seen as being any different).

We can see continuity in the leading role Britain has played in the destruction of Iraq and Libya and the devastation of Syria by armed proxies over the past eight years, up to the missile attack of April 14. The record of lies, deception, intimidation, and aggression all the way since 1915 is practically seamless. We can only imagine what a journalist of the caliber of J.M.N Jeffries would have made of all this.

– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press).

April 22, 2018 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Ontario anti-racism committee members tied to racist JNF

By Yves Engler · April 20, 2018

Independent Jewish Voices and the United Jewish People’s Order’s exclusion from an Anti-Racism Directorate committee has rightly been criticized. But, the Ontario government’s more appalling decision to appoint individuals tied to an explicitly racist organization has been ignored.

Two years ago the Liberals put forward a plan titled “A Better Way Forward: Ontario’s 3-Year Anti-Racism Strategic Plan How we’re taking proactive steps to fight and prevent systemic racism in government decision-making, programs and services.” As part of the initiative, the government’s Anti-Racism Directorate set up four subcommittees last year to look at anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

A number of members of the subcommittee on anti-Semitism have personal or institutional ties to the Jewish National Fund, which practices a form of discrimination outlawed in a famed seven-decade-old Supreme Court of Canada ruling.

A member of the subcommittee, Madi Murariu, is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ (CIJA) Associate Director for Ontario Government Relations and Public Affairs. CIJA and JNF Canada often work together and sponsor each other’s events. Additionally, CIJA staff fundraise for the explicitly racist organization and JNF Canada CEO Lance Davis previously worked as CIJA’s National Jewish Campus Life director.

Another subcommittee member, Karen Mock, chairs JSpaceCanada, which was a “participating organization” with JNF Canada on a 2016 event honouring the life of former Israeli president Shimon Peres. Mock also sat on the board of the Canadian Peres Center for Peace Foundation, which raised funds for the Israeli-based Peres Center For Peace. In Israel the Peres Center operated a slew of projects with JNF Canada and other branches of the racist group.

Zach Potashner represents the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center on the subcommittee. One of its directors, Tony Comper, was guest of honour for the 2009 Toronto JNF Negev Dinner fundraiser and a Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Spirit of Hope Benefit chair, Ron Frisch, chaired JNF Toronto’s Campaign and Negev Dinner.

Brianna Ames, a volunteer with the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, represents that organization on the subcommittee. A CJPAC founder and former executive director, Josh Cooper, left the organization to become head of JNF Toronto in 2009 and subsequently CEO of JNF Canada. Another founding member of CJPAC, Michael Levitt, was a JNF Canada board member.

A co-chair of the subcommittee on anti-Semitism is Andrea Freedman, President of the Jewish Federation of Ottawa. Freedman’s organization regularly promotes JNF Ottawa events and funds the centre where it’s based (adjacent to the Jewish Federation of Ottawa offices). The other subcommittee co-chair is Bernie Farber. During Farber’s quarter century at the Canadian Jewish Congress the organization and its personnel had many ties to the JNF.

I found no support from Farber, Mock or the rest of the above-mentioned individuals for Independent Jewish Voices’ campaign to revoke JNF Canada’s charitable status (or other criticism of the explicitly racist organization). An owner of 13 per cent of Israel’s land, the JNF discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis) who make up one-fifth of the population. According to a UN report, JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.” Echoing the UN, a 2012 US State Department report detailing “institutional and societal discrimination” in Israel says JNF “statutes prohibit sale or lease of land to non-Jews.”

Indicative of its discrimination against Israelis who aren’t Jewish, JNF Canada’s Twitter tag says it “is the caretaker of the land of Israel, on behalf of its owners — Jewish people everywhere.” Its parent organization in Israel — the Keren Kayemet LeYisrael — is even more open about its racism. Its website notes that “a survey commissioned by KKL-JNF reveals that over 70% of the Jewish population in Israel opposes allocating KKL-JNF land to non-Jews, while over 80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state of all its citizens.”

JNF-style discrimination was effectively outlawed in this country in 1951. In 1948 Annie Noble decided to sell a cottage in the exclusive Beach O’ Pines subdivision on Lake Huron to Bernie Wolf, who was Jewish. During the sale Wolf’s lawyer realized that the original deed for the property restricted sale to “any person wholly or partly of negro, Asiatic, coloured or Semitic blood.” A Toronto court and the Ontario Court of Appeal refused to invalidate the racist land covenant. But Noble pursued the case — with assistance from the Canadian Jewish Congress — to the Supreme Court of Canada. In one of the most important blows to legalistic racism in this country, the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ ruling and allowed Noble to purchase the property. This decision led to the abolition of racist land covenants in this country.

Should we laugh or cry at an Ontario Anti-Racism Directorate subcommittee led by individuals with ties to an organization practicing discriminatory land-use policies outlawed in this country seven decades ago?

April 21, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Canada, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Modi’s homage to Herzl comes to haunt him

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | April 20, 2018

The Israelis are in a bloody mess. They don’t know how to handle it – Palestinians in their thousands taking a leaf out of Gandhi and protesting non-violently against their colonial masters ignoring their fearsome reputation for brutality. And, to boot, women are at the barricades leading the Great Return March. Bravo!

So far, 37 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli troops and more than 1,500 injured with live ammunition. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has given advance instructions to the army to shoot to kill. Today, the Israeli troopers shot down two more Palestinians. Today’s has been the fourth weekly protest. The escalating showdown with Israel is to culminate in a mass march on May 15.

The marches are pressing for the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to what is now Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were evicted from their homes and forced to leave their homeland in the 1948 atrocities by the Jewish extremists to pave the way for Israel’s creation. Palestinians mark May 15 (the anniversary Israel celebrates as its founding day) as their “nakba,” or catastrophe.

Ominously, that is also the date President Trump has chosen to shift the American embassy to Jerusalem. What crass insensitivity! But then, Trump needs Jewish money and Jewish media support in his campaign for re-election in 2020. Son-in-law Jared Kushner who is Trump’s point person on the Middle East also happens to be a Jew – some say, a closet rabbi.

Part of the reason for the protests is the crippling Israeli border blockade on Gaza since 2007. Evidently, the mass marches are also fueled by growing desperation among Gaza’s 2 million residents who are trapped in the tiny coastal territory amidst a gutted economy and deepened poverty. The Gaza residents typically get fewer than five hours of electricity per day, while unemployment has soared above 40 percent.

Despite Israel’s media manipulation to change the narrative and divert attention away from the Palestinian issue toward Iran, there is some uneasiness among American Jews as to where all this is heading and what damage all this is causing to Israel’s future in a medium term scenario. (Of course, America’s “exceptionalism” becomes a macabre joke.)

The White House envoy Jason Greenblatt, a member of President Donald Trump’s Mideast team, has admitted on social media that Palestinians in Gaza have a “right to protest their dire humanitarian circumstances.” He added that organizers “should focus on that message, not stoke the potential for more violence with firebombs and flaming kites, and must keep a safe distance from the border… the cost of these demonstrations is too high in loss of life and injuries.” Greenblatt is a devout and observant Jew himself – although he has opted not to wear a kippa while serving the Trump administration.

Another noted figure, actress Natalie Portman – also a Jewess – who is the recipient of an award, which is dubbed the “Jewish Nobel”, has pulled out of the June awards ceremony in Israel because of “extreme distress” over the brutal violence in that country. The Jerusalem-born Oscar winner intimated the Israeli organizers that she “does not feel comfortable participating in any public events in Israel.”

To my mind, the silence of the Indian government on Israel’s premeditated killings is deafening. How hypocrtical that our current leadership keeps chanting “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” (whole-world-is-one-single-family) as its foreign-policy motto! I can only hope that Prime Minister Modi gets to know about all this at some point – and sincerely repents.

Actress Natalie Portman puts him to shame. Indeed, Modi’s visit to the marble tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, in Jerusalem last July stands out as a dark page in the chronicle of independent India’s current history.

I can understand Modi’s lack of erudition. But what I cannot understand why those fellows in his entourage who would have heard somewhere, sometime, someplace about the ideology of Zionism — and Gandhi’s visceral opposition to it — and didn’t alert their prime minister that he was making an appalling error of judgment. Probably, they chickened out.

Read a stirring dispatch from Gaza Strip by Al Jazeera, here, on Friday’s protests that have been labeled as the “Women’s March of Gaza.”

April 20, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Gaza, Human rights, India, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Hasbara memo: “When Israelis murder Palestinians, it’s a tragedy — for Israelis.”

© Ibraheem Abu Mustafa / Reuters

By Richard Hugus | April 19, 2018

Since the start of the latest massacre in Gaza — the killing with live fire of almost 40 and wounding of almost 3,000 unarmed Palestinian protestors during the March of Return — propaganda in service of Israel has been mobilized to cover up the blatant crime. Three days after the March began, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston issued an unbelievably twisted statement on the attacks. What follows is their statement, with comments inserted in italics:

Jewish Community Relations Council Statement on Events Along Gaza Border

April 2, 2018

“We see the events along the Gaza-Israel border this weekend as the continuation of one of the great tragedies of our time.”
— This implies that Gaza is a sovereign country bordering Israel, not the prison for Palestinian refugees that Israel established decades ago in the south of Palestine.

“This is a situation where many are at fault, leaving individuals in impossible situations with impossible choices.”
— When someone is morally at fault, the situation is always “complicated.” As we shall see, the “many at fault” are always Palestinians, not Israelis.

“It is a tragedy for the people of Gaza that, 12 years after the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip, they live under such difficult conditions.”
— “Tragedy” in Greek theater held that events are written by our fate and could not have been otherwise. If Zionism had not chosen Palestine in the late 1800’s and then proceeded to steal land from Palestinians from then on, it could very much have been otherwise. There was an actor here; there was a cause, and an effect. The cause of the “tragedy” was Zionism. Ask the settlers to return to their own countries, and the “tragedy” would end.
The sentence also implies that Israel made a noble gesture when it withdrew from Gaza, and that it is the fault of the Palestinians that they did not make the best of this generous gift. In fact, Israel left Gaza because it was more expedient for Israel to administer Gaza as a prison than to occupy it. The “difficult conditions” faced by the people of Gaza are the result of Israeli control over everything and everyone that goes into and out of it. The “difficult conditions” are the result of repeated Israeli bombings of critical infrastructure, and Israel’s clear plan for the complete immiseration of Gaza’s two million people.

“It is a tragedy for the Palestinians that Gaza was taken over by Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist organization that rules in a brutal dictatorship.”
— Hamas was democratically elected by its people because it distinguished itself from the collaborationist leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Israel defines Hamas as terrorist because Hamas is determined to resist the Zionist entity. Israel’s minions in legislative bodies in other countries have been used to create the “designated terrorist” label.
“Brutal dictatorship” is a buzzword applied to all political movements asserting independence from imperialist control.

“It is a tragedy that Hamas has chosen to direct its resources to the building of tunnels and rockets, rather than building hospitals, schools, housing, and factories that would create prosperity and opportunity for the Palestinian people.”
— Are these the same hospitals, schools, housing and factories that Israel has been bombing since 2006? Are these the same tunnels that Gazans used to bring in vital humanitarian goods not allowed through Israeli checkpoints? Doesn’t Hamas have the right to its primitive rockets when Gazans are being periodically bombarded by Israel and its highly sophisticated fighter jets?

“It is a tragedy that, by squandering the opportunity to build a better future for the Palestinian people, Hamas has forced Israel and Egypt to secure their own borders with a blockade to prevent the further weaponization of Gaza.”
— For choosing resistance against the Zionist occupier, the Palestinian people were punished by the Zionist occupier and his servants in Egypt. The blockade is not just against weapons, it’s against any freedom of movement, and any importation of needed goods. Even people in need of urgent medical care are refused. The main purpose of the Israeli blockade is to starve Gaza, to “put them on a diet”, as one Israeli official said. To its everlasting shame, the West-installed political class in Egypt – not the Egyptian people – has chosen to collaborate.

“It is a tragedy that the Palestinian people of Gaza have no recourse against their leaders, living without elections or even the ability to protest those in power openly on pain of death.”
— Again, Hamas was democratically elected in 2006. One would think “the only democracy in the Middle East” would appreciate this. Stories of Hamas killing protesters have appeared only in the Israeli press – e.g., the Jerusalem Post, the Times of Israel. However, there are stories every day in the worldwide press of Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian protestors all over the West Bank. Let’s also remember that the March of Return in Gaza is made up of protestors, and that Israel sent snipers there for the explicit purpose of killing and wounding them. This is not to mention the “recourse against” Hamas leaders employed over the years by Israel – namely, open assassination.

“It is a tragedy that they are deceived by their own leaders with the unrealistic promise of a destructive victory over the State of Israel – a victory that will never come. It is a tragedy that their own government chooses to use them as human shields, perpetuating their suffering for nefarious self-interest.”
— As the Borg said, “Resistance is futile.” Isn’t the promotion of the idea of an unconquerable Israel the worst kind of war propaganda? The “human shields” argument has been used by Israel as an excuse for intentionally killing hundreds of civilians during its repeated bombing campaigns. What is the “nefarious self-interest” of Gaza’s leadership? — liberation from Israeli torture.

“It is a tragedy that the Israeli people look at Gaza and see the end of a dream; to live in peace with their neighbors.”
— The “dream” of the majority of the Israeli people today is to remove Palestinians from all of historic Palestine, and completely erase Palestinian history. Israelis do not “live in peace with their neighbors.” They have repeatedly attacked Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria and they are the main instigators today of conflict and war with Iran.

“It is a tragedy that Israelis living near the border are terrorized by threats coming from tunnels under their homes and rockets over their schools.”
–The main tactic of this propaganda piece is to blame the victim. Thus, nothing was done through the agency of the Jewish state and its obvious goals; everything was done as a reaction to injustices committed by Palestinians. It also turns reality on its head. Homes and schools have indeed been destroyed, but by Israel.

“It is a tragedy that when Israelis do what any other nation in the world would do – protect their border from being overrun – that they endure a condemnation that no other nation would receive.”
— This is the “why pick on us?” argument. Why? Because Israel has the ugliest, most long-standing system of open colonization and oppression visible in the world today. The vast majority of the people of the world are disgusted. What Israel claims as its “borders” is stolen land.

“It is a tragedy that Israelis experience this singling out as a further example of an isolation, their status as “the Jew amongst the nations,” with only themselves to protect their inalienable rights to live in security.”
— This is the “Jew as victim” argument, made possible by unrelenting Holocaust instruction since World War II, which provides a guaranteed pass for any and all crimes committed by Jews. Since 2001, Israel, the poor victim nation, has gotten the United States to attack a long list of countries in the Middle East which Israel feels threatened by, now including Russia because Russia has thrown a wrench into Israeli plans to destroy Syria. Israel also receives massive direct funding and political cover from the United Sates.
If Israel resents its status as “the Jew amongst the nations” why does it call itself “the Jewish state”? Why does it display the Star of David on all its national symbols and armaments? This is an identity which Israelis promote – how can they now turn around and blame us for it?

“It is a tragedy because this weekend, young men and women of the Israel Defense Forces stared down the sights of their rifles and learned violence at a time when they should have been at home with their families celebrating freedom at the Passover table.”
— The idea that it is the Israeli Occupation Forces who have suffered because they have had to kill and maim defenseless Palestinians is a perfect example of what Zionist supremacy and racism is. It is a form of self-worship and psychopathy in which one is never responsible for committing any wrong — it is always the fault of the other. This sentence is reminiscent of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir saying: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.” In other words, the real crime has been committed against Jews, whose purity has been sullied by having to kill innocent people (as they were invading their land and homes).
This belief of Jewish superiority above others is at the bottom of everything Palestinians have suffered for the past 70 years.

“It is a tragedy because Palestinians need some way to express their frustrations – at Israel and at their own government after years of wasted opportunities to build a better life for the people of Gaza. Instead they experienced more manipulation, and more loss.”
–No, the ” frustration” Palestinians feel is from being consistently and sadistically blocked from life and liberty by the Israeli prison-keeper. The real manipulators are those who would have us believe the oppressive tactics of Israel are of the Palestinians’ own making, as this sentence implies.

“We see this weekend as the continuation of a tragedy that has not brought the people of Israel and Gaza any closer to a future of peace and hope for all of their children. As the Boston Jewish community continues to celebrate the Passover holiday this week, we are mindful of the lessons learned at our seders, that we do not rejoice over the tragedy of others and we are ever hopeful for peace and stability for all people.”
— Again, no recognition that this “tragedy” might be in any way the fault of Israel. Israel is supported, not by “the Boston Jewish community” but by a cynically propagandistic Washington-based lobby for Israel, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which provides the political line for 125 supposedly local Jewish Community Relations Councils in the US. In other words, a political lobby for a country 6,000 miles away says they speak for all Jews in Boston.
In 2016 the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston sponsored a deceptive anti-boycott bill in the Massachusetts legislature. They were successfully opposed by a large number of Jewish activists in the state, and many others. The Council now claims to represent the Jewish community of Boston in mobilizing opposition to a motion in the Cambridge city council to boycott Hewlett-Packard. When was the vote in which “the Boston Jewish community” elected this Council? Who is the real manipulator in this scenario? Doesn’t the Jewish Community Relations Council actually represent a foreign political movement — not Cambridge, not Boston, not Massachusetts?
Israel, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t repeatedly murder people in Gaza in broad daylight and then piously claim you’re for “ peace and stability for all people.”

April 19, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Gaza, Hamas, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Lebanese Journalist Names Washington’s Goal Number One in Syria

Sputnik – April 19, 2018

Sputnik spoke to Lebanese journalist and commentator Sharmine Narwani to find out more about situation in Syria and Washington’s goals and actions there.

It has been revealed that US Secretary of Defence, James Mattis, tried to urge US President Donald Trump to obtain congressional approval before launching airstrikes on targets in Syria last weekend. According to reports, President Trump was however set on the use of military force, and overruled the Pentagon chief’s advice. In other developments, Saudi Arabia is reportedly holding talks with the United States and Egypt about sending an Arab coalition force into Syria.

Sputnik: We’re hearing news that the US is in talks with Saudi Arabia to build an Arab force and send it to Syria. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said that he is in talks with US National Security Advisor John Bolton to plan building this force – what do you make of this, what do you think its purpose is?

Sharmine Narwani: Look Trump wants to clear exit the debacle in Syria and eliminate the need to spend billions of dollars a year in maintaining US forces there and participating in the war. The recent chemical weapons allegations came shortly after Trump vocalised this desire; but the likelihood of an Arab force to physically base themselves in Syria on the Syrian-Iraqi border is virtually nil. We must view this new tactic with some suspicion. The US has always trumpeted ISIS as its main goal in Syria or the elimination of ISIS. If ISIS is gone, then what’s the need to have foreign forces based on that border? It seemed clear all along that containing Iran’s access from Iran to the borders of Palestine has always been the goal. It’s not as though Saudi Arabia and Egypt have stellar or significant nation-building expertise anyway. And they have many differences – the Saudis and the UEA for instance are heavily involved militarily in Yemen and are overextended there. Egypt has shown reluctance to participate in that Arab conflict, let alone another one with a government that it has actually sort of ideologically supported in the Syrian conflict. So it’s not likely to become a reality.

Sputnik: Of course in the lead up to the Western bombing campaign on Syria the US was saying that President Bashar al-Assad had used sarin gas, but we’ve now found out that they did not have sufficient evidence of this at the time. Also, the New York Times has revealed that Defence Secretary Jim Mattis urged Trump to get congressional approval for the strikes, but the president overruled him on that – what does this all tell you about the lead up to the events of last weekend?

Sharmine Narwani: If we look at the recent events leading up to the alleged chemical weapons incident, it took place under cover of two important developments: one was Trump’s declaration of exiting Syria, and removing US troops from there soon. The second would be the Syrian army’s very rapid defeat of terrorists in Eastern Ghouta and the reclamation of that strategically vital territory around Damascus. I think the sort of bringing up Sarin, the nerve gas sarin, it’s always kind of utilised as an emotional trigger, as is the mention of chemical weapons by itself and the general assumption if we’re talking about sarin would be that only states would have access to that particular substance, and not terrorist groups and non-state actors, unlike say with a substance like chlorine that is readily available. So I think it was very deliberately invoked, meaning sarin, to create an emotional response globally.

But Sarin has been used in Iraq by insurgents since at least 2004, in the form of IEDs. Turkey for instance, in May 2013, way later during the Syrian conflict, captured 12 Nusra members, Nusra is the Al-Qaida arm in Syria, they captured 12 Nusra members with significant amounts of Sarin and that was believed to be heading toward Syria. And major US-UK risk analysis firm IHS Conflict Monitor, in 2016, told us in a report that ISIS has used chemical weapons more than 52 times in both Syria and Iraq.

Sputnik: We’ve heard today that US senators are increasingly becoming concerned at the absence of a coherent US strategy in Syria, where do you see things from here?

Sharmine Narwani: Even during Obama’s term, we talked about there being a lack of coherent strategy. I would say that there is maybe a lack of a coherent verbalised strategy, one that was disseminated to the American public and an international one. There was certainly a strategy behind the scenes, one that was not vocalised and actions speak louder than words, so when we look at the arming, training and financing of terrorists when it was clear that there wasn’t enough Syrian support to topple Assad in the way leaders had been toppled in Tunisia and Egypt. We had the arming, training & financing but there was a very clear strategy, and the goal was number one, regime change, and two, to weaken the most important Iranian Arab state ally. So that was the strategy. When people say there wasn’t a coherent one they probably mean there wasn’t a coherent vocalised one. US actions have certainly shown us that regime change and weakening Iran were in fact the strategy in Syria and this is apparent today because the escalation still continues.

April 19, 2018 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | Egypt, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Durham Becomes First US City to Ban Police Exchanges with Israel

Palestine Chronicle – April 18, 2018

On Monday, April 16, 2018, the Durham city council in the US, became the first US city council to ban police exchanges with the Israeli policy.

“After 3.5 hours and 50 powerful and inspiring testimonies, the Durham city council has just unanimously passed a resolution to end Durham police training in Israel,” said Eran Efrati, one of the organizers of the Demilitarize from Durham2Palestine campaign, which stood behind the vote, in a Facebook post.

“After years of hard work, Durham becomes the first city in the US to ban American police forces exchanges with the Israeli military and police,” he added.

The campaign has launched a petition which was signed by 1,394 people, calling on the council to ban police exchanges with Israel.

The petition read,

“The Israeli Defense Forces and the Israel Police have a long history of violence and harm against Palestinian people and Jews of Color. They persist in using tactics of extrajudicial killing, excessive force, racial profiling, and repression of social justice movements. Such tactics have been condemned by international human rights organizations for violating the human rights of Palestinians.”

The petition added,

“These tactics further militarize U.S. police forces that train in Israel, and this training helps the police terrorize Black and Brown communities here in the US. Additionally, such practices erode our constitutional rights to due process, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. Durham officials — including former Chief Lopez and current Chief Davis — have participated in these racist police exchange programs.”

The Palestine solidarity among minorities and marginalized communities has seen a growth in the last few years, with minorities and people of color joining the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement against Israel.

April 18, 2018 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Human rights, Israel, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Whose Wars?

Israel continues to wag the dog for Middle Eastern wars

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 17, 2018

In March 2003, Pat Buchanan wrote a groundbreaking article entitled “Whose War?” in opposition to the Bush Administration fueled growing hysteria over Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction which was producing demands for an armed intervention to disarm him. Buchanan rightly identified a number of prominent Jewish officials and journalists closely tied to the Israel Lobby as the principal driving force behind the rush to go to war.

Buchanan is still a powerful voice arguing against the war fever in its 2018 manifestation, which is all too similar to the hysteria prevailing in 2003. But if he were writing his article today, even though those demanding war are pretty much the same people with the same names including Podhoretz, Krauthammer, Kristol, Kagan, Brooks and Boot, he would have to broaden his purview to ask “Whose Wars?” as it is no longer a simple case of going after one third-world autocrat and overthrowing him, we are now instead being urged to attack Syria, Iran and even nuclear superpower Russia due to Moscow’s support of Damascus and its friendship with Tehran.

Lest there be any confusion, the same country keeps surfacing as a central player in the lead-up to America’s regime-change wars, which now have included an illegal attack on Syria, the second such intervention in the past year. That nation is Israel.

Israel’s fingerprints are all over American interventionism, reflecting Jewish power in the United States and the presence of a plethora of well-funded Israel-centric lobbies, think tanks and media outlets. Just last week, the only persistent voice in the mainstream media who, prior to Trump’s cruise missile attack, asked why on earth the United States should be contemplating a major power confrontation that could end life on this planet as we know it over Syria, where Washington has no vital interests, was Tucker Carlson of Fox News. His memorable monologue blasting the “talk show generals” who have “no idea of what is really happening” skewered the pretexts for war being bandied about in spite of the lack of any actual threat directed against the United States or a vital national interest is a model for what the Fourth Estate should be doing but isn’t. Carlson later followed up with an interview of Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. He asked what might be an American national interest that would mandate military involvement in Syria. Wicker hardly hesitated before responding, “If you care about Israel, you have to be interested in what’s going on in Syria.”

Israel indeed. And Israel is not at all shy about what it wants to happen, namely a war in Syria targeting both Damascus and Tehran, leading to a much bigger war with the Iranians. Fought by Uncle Sam, to be sure, as Jewish lives are far too precious to waste.

Tel Aviv has long been feeding the propaganda line relating to why war with Syria and Iran are desirable. Gilad Erdan, who is Netanyahu’s deputy in Likud and serves as Public Security Minister, addressed the latest alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma, saying “The shocking attack shows the incredible international hypocrisy of the international community focusing on Israel confronting the terrorist organization Hamas that is sending civilians to our [border] fence, when dozens are being killed in Syria every day. It shows the need for strengthening the presence of Americans and other international forces, because without them the genocide we are seeing will only intensify.”

Construction Minister Yoav Galant, a former IDF major-general and a security figure close to Netanyahu, also called for military action against the Syrian leader. “Assad is the angel of death, and the world would be better without him.”

The compassion for Syrian civilians, being expressed both in Washington and in Tel Aviv, is, of course, a joke. Donald Trump and John Bolton could care less about Syrian babies and if Trump were genuinely concerned about civilian deaths due to war crimes by governments the first country he would attack would be Israel. Erdan and Galant, meanwhile, serve in a government that has recently shot and killed or injured 2,000 unarmed demonstrators in Gaza, in some cases involving snipers having fun by shooting boys running away and cheering when they were successful, so their hypocrisy is evident.

Israel has also been busy at creating a pretext for using Syria as a stepping stone to Iran itself. The Associated Press is reporting comments by Yossi Cohen, head of Mossad, who claims to be “100 percent certain” that Iran remains committed to developing a nuclear bomb, which is the old “weapons of mass destruction” ploy used to jumpstart the Iraq War. Israel’s bombing attack on Syria that took place one day after the reports of the alleged chemical weapon incident, deliberately targeted Iranians, killing 7 at a military base near Damascus. Iran has promised to respond, guaranteeing that the conflict will expand and draw in both regional and foreign players, definitely including the United States.

More recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated the U.S., the U.K, and France for bombing Syria, an operation that was coordinated in advance with Israel by National Security Advisor John Bolton. Netanyahu went on to assert that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad must understand that “his provision of a forward base for Iran and its proxies endangers Syria,” an analysis of the situation which is, of course, self-serving bullshit.

Unfortunately, Israel has a receptive quasi-American audience in the team that Donald Trump has pulled together under his son in law Jared Kushner to deal with the Middle East. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who is supposed to represent U.S. interests, has become adept at repeating Israeli Foreign Ministry talking points as if they were American policy, while Chief Negotiator Jason Greenblatt has warned demonstrating Gazans to avoid provoking Israel while also failing to advise the Israeli Army that shooting unarmed protesters just might be considered unacceptable.

Kushner-Friedman-Greenblatt is an Israeli dream team in place, backed up by a subservient Congress that reflexively does whatever Israel wishes. One wonders why Congressmen and the media are not screaming about the slaughter in Gaza and pondering how and why the United States has surrendered its sovereignty to a tiny client state in the Middle East, but never fear, Jewish power backed by lots of money is firmly in control of any entity that might challenge bad Israeli behavior. On top of Friedman, Greenblatt and Kushner, one might also add National Security Adviser John Bolton, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And Trump himself? Who knows what he actually thinks if he bothers to think at all. He has just announced that it is “mission accomplished” in Syria, suggesting that he is delusional as well as ignorant.

Media coverage of Syria, apart from Carlson, scrupulously avoids the issue that the United States is in Syria completely illegally and has been cynically supporting terrorist groups in spite of its pledge that it is in the country to get rid of such vermin. It is a measure of how divorced from actual U.S. security America’s Syria policy has become that the White House has not hesitated to launch a second illegal cruise missile barrage against a government that hasn’t attacked the U.S. and doesn’t threaten Americans. Bombing the Syrian government hasn’t made the U.S. or any other country more secure, and it will likely weaken President Bashar al-Assad just enough to prolong Syria’s civil war and add to the suffering of the civilian population. It is a perfect example of a military intervention that is being done for political reasons with no connection to any discernible interests or overall strategy.

Syria is only part of a much larger problem. It is remarkable the extent to which Israeli concerns dominate those of the United States, which now has a foreign policy that often is not even remotely connected to actual U.S. interests. Congress and the Special Counsel are investigating Russia’s alleged interference in America’s political system while looking the other way when Israel operates aggressively in the open and does much more damage. Netanyahu and his crew of unsavory cutthroats are hardly ever cited for their malignant influence over America’s political class and media. Bomb Syria? Sure. After all, it’s good for Israel.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website – http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org

April 17, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Media Cover-up: Shielding Israel is a Matter of Policy

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | April 17, 2018

The term ‘media bias’ does not do justice to the western corporate media’s relationship with Israel and Palestine. The relationship is, indeed, far more profound than mere partiality. It is not ignorance, either. It is a calculated and long-term campaign, aimed at guarding Israel and demonizing Palestinians.

The current disgraceful coverage of Gaza’s popular protests indicates that the media’s position aims at suppressing the truth on Palestine, at any cost and by any means.

Political symbiosis, cultural affinity, Hollywood, the outreaching influence of pro-Israel and Zionist groups within the political and media circles, are some of the explanations many of us have offered as to why Israel is often viewed with sympathetic eyes and Palestinians and Arabs condemned.

But such explanations should hardly suffice. Nowadays, there are numerous media outlets that are trying to offset some of the imbalance, many of them emanating from the Middle East, but also other parts of the world. Palestinian and Arab journalists, intellectuals and cultural representatives are more present on a global stage than ever before and are more than capable of facing off, if not defeating, the pro-Israeli media discourse.

However, they are largely invisible to western media; it is the Israeli spokesperson who continues to occupy the center stage, speaking, shouting, theorizing and demonizing as he pleases.

It is, then, not a matter of media ignorance, but policy.

Even before March 30, when scores of Palestinians in Gaza were killed and thousands wounded, the US and British media, for example, should have, at least, questioned why hundreds of Israeli snipers and army tanks were ordered to deploy at the Gaza border to face-off Palestinian protesters.

Instead, they referred to ‘clashes’ between Gaza youth and the snipers, as if they are equal forces in an equivalent battle.

Western media is not blind. If ordinary people are increasingly able to see the truth regarding the situation in Palestine, experienced western journalists cannot possibly be blind to the truth. They know, but they choose to remain silent.

The maxim that official Israeli propaganda or ‘hasbara’ is too savvy no longer suffices. In fact, it is hardly true.

Where is the ingenuity in the way the Israeli army explained the killing of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza?

“Yesterday we saw 30,000 people,” the Israeli army tweeted on March 31. “We arrived prepared and with precise reinforcements. Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed.”

If that is not bad enough, Israel’s ultra-nationalist Minister of Defense, Avigdor Lieberman, followed that self-indictment by declaring there are “no innocent people in Gaza”; thus, legitimizing the targeting of any Gazan within the besieged Strip.

Unfair media coverage is not fueled by the simplistic notion of ‘clever Israel, imprudent Arabs’. Western media is actively involved in shielding Israel and enhancing its diminishing brand, while painstakingly demolishing the image of Israel’s enemies.

Take for example, Israel’s unfounded propaganda that Yasser Murtaja, the Gaza journalist who was killed in cold blood by an Israeli sniper while covering the Great March of Return protests at the Gaza border, was a member of Hamas.

First, ‘unnamed officials’ in Israel claimed that Yasser is ‘a member of the Hamas security apparatus.’ Then, Lieberman offered more (fabricated) details that Yasser was on Hamas’ payroll since 2011 and ‘held a rank similar to a captain.’ Many journalists took these statements and ran with them, constantly associating any news coverage of Yasser’s death with Hamas.

It turned out that, according to the US State Department, Yasser’s start-up media company in Gaza had actually received a small grant from USAID, which subjected Yasser’s company to a rigorous vetting process.

More still, a report by the International Federation of Journalists claimed that Yasser was actually detained and beaten by the Gaza police in 2015, and that Israel’s Defense Minister is engineering a cover-up.

Judging by this, Israel’s media apparatus is as erratic and self-defeating as North Korea; but this is hardly the image conveyed by western media, because it insists on placing Israel on a moral pedestal while misrepresenting Palestinians, regardless of the circumstances.

But there is more to western media’s approach to Palestine and Israel than shielding and elevating Israel, while demonizing Palestinians. Oftentimes, the media works to distract from the issues altogether, as is the case in Britain today, where Israel’s image is rapidly deteriorating.

To disrupt the conversation on Palestine, the Israeli Occupation and the British government’s unconditional support of Israel, British mainstream media has turned the heat on Jeremy Corbyn, the popular leader of the Labor Party.

Accusations of anti-Semitism have dogged the party since Corbyn’s election in 2015. Yet, Corbyn is not racist; on the contrary, he has stood against racism, for the working class and other disadvantaged groups. His strong pro-Palestine stance, in particular, is threatening to compel a paradigm shift on Palestine and Israel within the revived and energised Labor Party.

Sadly, Corbyn’s counter strategy is almost entirely absent. Instead of issuing a statement condemning all forms of racism and moving on to deal with the urgent issues at hand, including that of Palestine, he allows his detractors to determine the nature of the discussion, if not the whole discourse. He is now trapped in a perpetual conversation, while the Labor Party is regularly purging its own members for alleged anti-Semitism.

Considering that Israel and its allies in the media, and elsewhere, conflate between criticism of Israel and its Zionist ideology, on the one hand, and that of Jews and Judaism on the other, Corbyn cannot win this battle.

Nor are Israel’s friends keen on winning, either. They merely want to prolong a futile debate so that British society remains embroiled in distractions and spares Israel any accountability for its action.

If British media was, indeed, keen on calling out racism and isolating racists, why then is there little discussion on Israel’s racist policies targeting Palestinians?

Media spin will continue to provide Israel with the needed margins to carry out its violent policies against the Palestinian people, with no moral accountability. It will remain loyal to Israel, creating a buffer between the truth and its audiences.

It is incumbent on us to expose this sinister relationship and hold mainstream media to account for covering up Israel’s crimes, as well as Israel for committing these crimes in the first place.

April 16, 2018 Posted by aletho | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism | Leave a comment

Reports of Monday night attack on Syrian base blamed on false alarm

RT | April 17, 2018

Several sources in Syria said the overnight deployment of anti-aircraft weapons at a military base was triggered by a false alarm, not an actual missile attack, as previously claimed by some media outlets.

Syrian TV earlier reported a missile attack on Shayrat Airbase in Homs governorate, while a Lebanese media outlet with links to militant group Hezbollah said a separate attack targeted Al-Dumair base northeast of Damascus. Multiple sources now show the reports were inaccurate.

The Syrian news agency SANA cited a military source, who said anti-aircraft missiles were fired overnight after a false intrusion alarm. It was consequently established that no new attacks on Al-Dumair base happened.

A similar report came from a Reuters source in the regional pro-government military alliance. The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the false alarm was caused by an Israeli-US cyber warfare operation, but didn’t provide any proof.

Meanwhile, a Russian military source told Interfax news agency that there was no night incident at Shayrat Airbase. … Full article

April 16, 2018 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Syria, Zionism | Leave a comment

Trump opens a Pandora’s box in Middle East

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | April 15, 2018

There is no triumphalism in the US, Britain or France over the missile strike in Syria on Friday. The mood is rather defensive. Indeed, evidence is still lacking on the alleged chemical attacks in Douma, which was the alibi for the missile strike. There are no tall claims, either, as regards the effectiveness of the missile strike in military terms.

On the contrary, Damascus is in upbeat mood. April 14 has been declared a day of celebrations. After all, the Syrian forces single-handedly faced the Western assault. The Russian reports underscore that the Syrian air defence system was highly effective. The Defence Ministry said in Moscow on Saturday that there haven’t been any Syrian casualties. Moscow attests that the Syrians shot down as many as 71 missiles out of the total 103 fired by the US, UK and France. Neither Washington nor London or Paris has so far contradicted the Russian assessment.

President Donald Trump is the solitary voice crowing about the missile attack. He tweeted bombastically:

So proud of our great Military which will soon be, after the spending of fully approved dollars, the finest that our Country has ever had. There won’t be anything, or anyone, even close!

But Trump was grandstanding in front of the domestic audience and avoided making any specific claims about the success of the strike by his “smart” missiles. In sum, this has been a theatrical show.

The military balance in Syria now comes into play. For the Syrian regime, this is baptism under fire. Only recently, the Syrians had shot down an Israeli jet. Now they have scored a 70% hit on Friday.

The Syrians are equipped with Soviet-era air defence systems developed in the 1960s. What if the Russians upgrade the systems? This is exactly what the head of Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Directorate Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi hinted in Moscow on Saturday:

“A few years ago, taking into account a pressing request from some of our partners, we abandoned the supplies of the S-300 missile systems to Syria. Considering the latest developments, we deem it possible to get back to discussing this issue, not only in relation to Syria, but to other countries as well.”

No doubt, it will be a game changer if Russia equips the Syrian army with deterrent power to inflict unaffordable costs on potential aggressors. Iran has shown how such a strategy can work when it helped Hezbollah in Lebanon to acquire deterrence against Israel.

In fact, the Jerusalem Post newspaper has highlighted the Russian general’s remark. The paper notes that if Moscow carries out the threat, “Israel’s air superiority is at risk of being challenged in one of its most difficult arenas… And it could be just a matter of time before an Israeli pilot is killed.” The JP report adds,

Syrian air defenses are largely Soviet-era systems, comprised of SA-2s, SA-5s and SA-6s, as well as more sophisticated tactical surface-to-air missiles such as the SA-17 and SA-22 systems. The most up-to-date system that Moscow has supplied to the Syrian regime is the short range Pantsir S-1, which has shot down drones and missiles that have flown over Syria.
The advanced S-300 would be a major upgrade to Syrian air defenses and pose a threat to Israeli jets as the long-range missile defense system can track objects like aircraft and ballistic missiles over a range of 300 kilometers.
The system’s engagement radar, which can guide up to 12 missiles simultaneously, helps guide the missiles toward the target. With two missiles per target, each launcher vehicle can engage up to six targets at once.

Col.-Gen. Rudskoi chose his words carefully by hinting that Russia could also supply countries other than Syria (eg., Venezuela, North Korea, Lebanon, Iraq, etc.) The remark stems from President Vladimir Putin’s hugely significant statement on Saturday regarding US attack on Syria when he said, inter alia: “The current escalation around Syria is destructive for the entire system of international relations. History will set things right…”

Trump’s impetuosity to attack Syria is in defiance of the international system and it may open a Pandora’s box. Ironically, Israel, as “frontline state”, has the highest stakes if the unwritten understanding between the US and Russia unravels. (Moscow had collaborated with the Barack Obama administration and Israel to slow down the supply of S-300 missiles to Iran.) Equally, Turkey will have to think twice before venturing into further land grab in Syria if Damascus regains control of its air space.

The Israeli think tank The Institute for National Security Studies had done a very informative paper in 2013 entitled Syria, Russia, and the S-300: Military and Technical Background. Read it here.

April 15, 2018 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular | France, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Russia, Syria, Turkey, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Winners and losers in Trump’s Syria attack

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | April 14, 2018

The US President Donald Trump’s mind took a fourth U-turn in almost as many days on Friday since he began speaking about his decision to withdraw the American forces from Syria and leave it to “others” to handle the endgame in the conflict. He swung to the extreme threatening a rain of missiles on Syria, only to back-track a day later to hint there might not be any attack at all, and finally to announce a joint US-UK-France attack on Friday.

If the former US Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, an experienced career diplomat, got the impression that POTUS was playing a video game, it comes as no surprise. Indeed, the most striking thing about the US strike on Syria is its futility of purpose beyond a symbolic value to impress the domestic constituency that POTUS is a forceful decision-maker, who unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, lays down ‘red lines’ and follows up.

Actually, it is a cowardly stance. Trump hastened to strike just hours before the investigation by the team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was due to begin in Douma – as if time was running out to act with impunity. Clearly, Trump felt the compulsion to be seen acting. He had no authorization from the Congress nor did he secure a mandate from the UN Security Council to launch aggression against a UN member country.

The indignation and outrage in the statement by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be widely shared by the world community:

“There’s an obligation, particularly when dealing with matters of peace and security, to act consistently with the Charter of the United Nations and with international law in general. The UN Charter is very clear on these issues.

“The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. I call on the members of the Security Council to unite and exercise that responsibility. I urge all Member States to show restraint in these dangerous circumstances and to avoid any acts that could escalate the situation and worsen the suffering of the Syrian people.”

Both the constitutionality of Trump’s decision and the legality of the US attack under international law is highly questionable. However, the extenuating fact is that historically, the domestic public opinion rallies behind the POTUS when the US is at war abroad. For Trump’s crumbling presidency, that is an over-riding consideration today.

On the other hand, the attack on Syria was carefully choreographed. Paris has disclosed that Moscow was informed in advance. Indeed, “deconfliction” procedures were under discussion between the Pentagon and Russian Defence Ministry for the past 2-3 days. The attack clinically targeted alleged chemical weapon [sic] sites in three cities in Syria – Damascus, Hom and Hama. No military bases or assets were attacked. The missiles scrupulously avoided locations where there could be Russian personnel. Care was taken to avoid “collateral damage”. In fact, there has been no reported casualty. On the whole, it is as if a riveting fireworks show has been conducted.

The Syrians claim they shot down a number of incoming missiles. But like in the Sherlock Holmes story, the dog didn’t bark – not a single move has been reported by Russia to intercept the incoming missiles. Moscow simply watched a brawl unfold between the US, UK and France on one side and the Syrian regime on the other. Moscow instead turned on its propaganda apparatus to take the maximum advantage of the senseless, almost bizarre missile attack. If the OPCW team turns in a ‘Nil’ report from Douma shortly, Russian propaganda can be trusted to go for Trump’s jugular veins.

The US attack will not create any new facts on the ground. The comprehensive victory of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad in the 7-year conflict is becoming an irreversible reality. Arguably, this could be the last waltz of the western interventionist powers in Syria who had hoped to overthrow the regime and failed miserably. In the absence of a coherent US strategy toward Syria, this latest attack may even stoke the fires of Syrian nationalism.

Russia has spoken of “serious consequences”, without elaborating. Will Russia escalate the situation? Seems unlikely. It is hard to see a Russian reaction on the ground – although Moscow is watchful that the western strategy ultimately threatens the Russian presence in Syria. Much depends on the next western move. The NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is expected in Ankara on Monday.

In a strongly-worded statement, President Vladimir Putin has warned that the “escalation in Syria is destructive for the entire system of international relations. History will set things right, and Washington already bears the heavy responsibility for the bloody outrage in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria.” Russia proposes to convene an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council “to discuss the aggressive actions by the US and its allies,” Putin said.

Of course, new regional alignments will become inevitable. Turkey and Israel have backed the US attack. (here) The Turks’ bazaari instincts are legion and President Recep Erdogan senses an historic opportunity to project Turkish power into Syria and realize his “neo-Ottoman” dream. Trust him to overreach.

Israel is a bit down due to the messy confrontation at the Gaza border; or else, it would have jumped into the fray. Israel’s best bet will be that the US keeps an open-ended military presence in a Syria that is balkanized and weak and is in no position to reclaim the lost territory in the Golan Heights that are under Israeli occupation since 1967.

All eyes are on Iran. But Tehran will not speak its mind. Tehran’s eyes are cast on the May 12 deadline when Trump must decide on the sanctions waiver to the July 2015 nuclear deal. The big question now is whether Trump would tear up the Iran nuclear deal in the present circumstances when the US needs the support of its European allies.

Syria constitutes Iran’s defence line. Significantly, even as Trump was ratcheting up rhetoric against Syria, the powerful Iranian statesman Ali Akbar Velayati, advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei landed in Damascus on Wednesday, met President Assad and toured Douma, the alleged site of the chemical attack. It was a defiant gesture and act of solidarity with Assad.

Tehran has hinted at “regional consequences.” But Iran’s style will be to avoid direct conflict with the US and opt instead to intensify its political work and consolidate its wide networking with various groups on the ground, which systematically keep undermining the US presence in Syria and Iraq. No doubt, Iran will intensify the politics of “resistance” against Israel.

The Russia-Iran partnership in Syria is steadily morphing into an alliance, which is in mutual interests. The defeat of the US-Israeli-Saudi containment strategy against Iran may turn out to be the most significant and enduring outcome of this US attack on Syria.

April 14, 2018 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria, Turkey, UN, United States | Leave a comment

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Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam

By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022

There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.

UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable

During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.

Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.

Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue

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