Israeli officials must have been tripping over each other in their rush to endorse the Saudi-led blockade on Qatar. “The Sunni Arab countries, apart from Qatar, are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of us,” said Israel’s former defence minister Moshe Ya’alon. The blockade represented a “new line drawn in the Middle Eastern sand,” tweeted US-born former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, while revelling in the regional turmoil. “No longer [is it] Israel against Arabs but Israel and Arabs against Qatar-financed terror,” he added.
Defence minister Avigdor Lieberman described the crises as an opportunity for Israel and “certain” Gulf states. “It is clear to everyone, even in the Arab countries, that the real danger to the entire region is terrorism,” he insisted. The extreme right-winger added that the Saudi-led bloc had cut ties with Qatar “not because of Israel, not because of the Jews, not because of Zionism,” but “rather from fears of terrorism.”
Rejoicing over the punishment of a country which Israeli officials describe as a “pain in the ass” raises all sorts of questions, not least the connection between the siege imposed on Qatar and US legislation introduced by Republican Congressman Brian Mast to impose sanctions with respect to foreign support for “Palestinian terrorism”, and other purposes.
Introducing the bipartisan Bill (H.R. 2712 Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act of 2017) Representative Joshua Gottheimer said, “I’m proud to lead on this effort to weaken Hamas, a heinous terrorist network responsible for the death of far too many innocent civilians, both Israeli and American”. According to him, “Our bipartisan bill will ensure that anyone who provides assistance to this enemy of the United States and our vital ally Israel will face the strength and determination of our country.”
In their findings, the sponsors mentioned that Hamas had received significant financial and military support from Qatar. The sponsors cited the press conference at the Sheraton Doha in Qatar, where Hamas launched its new Document of General Principles and Policies, dubbed the movement’s new charter. “While this document was meant to convey a more moderate face to the world by referencing the 1967 borders,” the bill alleges that the “Hamas’ document, [which] neither abrogates nor replaces the founding charter… still calls for a continuation of terrorism to destroy Israel.”
The bill, which sets out to authorise sanctions on any foreign entity or government that provides support to Hamas, goes on to say that, “It shall be the policy of the United States to prevent Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), or any affiliate or successor thereof from accessing its international support networks.”
While noting the implications of the legislation, it is worth remembering that most of the proposals in this new bill are actually redundant, except for the section on Qatar. As the Arab Centre Washington DC – a research organisation furthering political, economic and social understanding between Arabs and the US — points out, the proposed law introduces sanctions already covered under existing legislation. Hamas and the PIJ are both designated as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities (SDGTs) by the US State and Treasury Departments respectively. With that in mind, it is already illegal for US entities or institutions to support such groups. Thus, the sanctions proposed in this bill that pertain to US jurisdiction are superfluous.
Furthermore, the Arab Centre points out, formally targeting Iran is also unnecessary because Tehran has already been declared a state sponsor of terror by the State Department and prohibitions against arms export, financial and technical services and US aid to Iran are already in place. This only leaves Qatar, which would be the only new target under this legislation. The stealthy manner of the attack on Qatar did not hide the true intention of supporters of the Bill. “I am proud” said Gottheimer, “to support the Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act that will make countries like Qatar pay a price for their support for terrorism. In the fight against terrorists there is no middle ground. If you support terrorism, justice will eventually be served.”
So what has that got to do with Israel? While Israel has been unable to join the Saudi-led move to impose a blockade on Qatar directly, it hasn’t stopped it from taking part in substantial lobbying behind the scenes, with the UAE, to get what in reality is an anti-Qatar piece of legislation passed and carry out the necessary groundwork for a blockade of this magnitude.
It is alleged that the bill’s sponsors in the House include a number of lawmakers who have received substantial donations from pro-Israeli lobbyists as well as from those advocating on behalf of Saudi Arabia. Indeed, it is reported that ten US legislators sponsoring the anti-Qatar Bill have received more than $1m over the last 18 months from lobbyists and groups linked to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Author and commentator Trita Parsi believes that the similarities between the US-allied Arab nations’ “terror list” and the H.R. 2712 bill show growing cooperation between Gulf Arab states and Israel. “The coordination between hawkish pro-Israel groups and the UAE and Saudi Arabia has been going on for quite some time,” Parsi told Al-Jazeera. What is new, he continued, is seeing pro-Israel groups such as the Foundation for Defence of Democracies “coming out with pro-Saudi [articles] and lobbying for them [the Saudis] on Capitol Hill.”
The cultivation of a political narrative to support the siege was also reported earlier this month by The Intercept. It said that emails released by a group called “Global Leaks” had shown that the UAE ambassador to the US, Yousef Al-Otaiba, and the foundation — a pro-Israel neoconservative think tank — have been working together on demonising Qatar. The emails obtained by The Intercept show FDD and UAE collaboration with journalists who published articles accusing Qatar and Kuwait of supporting “terrorism”.
It is no surprise then that the main reason given for this blockade makes little sense. For Saudi Arabia and the UAE to accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism is like the pot calling the kettle black. If there was any substance to the allegation, then the US would not have endorsed a recent arms deal with Qatar and nor would Washington maintain a major military base there. The stated reasons for the blockade have no merit whatsoever. Moreover, the blockade of Qatar cannot be examined in isolation from efforts that have been underway in the US to suppress Palestinian resistance in the name of fighting terrorism. Neither Qatar nor any of the Gulf countries benefit from this standoff whatsoever; for the main beneficiary, we must look to Israel.
June 16, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United States |
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The website of the Forward newspaper recently published an opinion piece by political hitman Spencer Sunshine, in which he slammed the American Left and specific individuals for alleged antisemitism, including Alison Weir.
Sunshine is a writer/activist who focuses on antisemitism, and specifically on seeking it out — or inventing it — among leftists and supporters of Palestinian rights. (More on Sunshine below.)
While slurring those he disagrees with is Sunshine’s modus operandi (he throws around accusations of bigotry with the abandon of a spoiled schoolboy), we expect better of the Forward. Journalistic ethics require that media allow people to respond when they’ve been criticized, yet the Forward has failed to publish Weir’s response. (More on the Forward below.)
(The right of response is affirmed by the Society of Professional Journalists, the International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism, the BBC, MediaWise, the National Conference of Editorial Writers, and many, many others. The American Society of Newspaper Editors states: “Persons publicly accused should be given the earliest opportunity to respond.”)
Below is Weir’s letter responding to Sunshine’s piece:
To the Editor,
I was disappointed to see the Forward chose to publish Spencer Sunshine’s recent reactionary screed “The Left Must Root Out Anti-Semitism In Its Ranks.” However, that Sunshine should attempt to dismiss me as an “anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist” did not surprise me, as Sunshine has a long history of working to silence criticism of Israel and Zionism. At a talk in Portland, Oregon he described virtually every form of Palestine solidarity as anti-Semitic.
Accusations of “left anti-Semitism” have long been used to undermine solidarity with marginalized people, a population Sunshine often seems to ignore. His article about the history of anti-racism in the United States, for example, almost entirely omitted the efforts of communities of color, focusing instead on mostly-white “antifascist” groups.
Of Sunshine’s work, the pieces I’m familiar with are hatchet jobs, misrepresenting his subjects to suit his goals and exploit his audience’s fears and gullibility.
Sunshine seems to operate according to an all-too-often successful principle: if you accuse someone of something bad enough, it doesn’t matter how wrong, sloppy, or biased you are. Certain accusations tend to be show-stoppers, tainting by default–and he employs these with shameless abandon.
Sunshine clearly hopes that simply saying the magic words “conspiracy theory” will prevent others from listening to me directly or examining my work. In fact, my book and multitude of articles and speeches are exhaustively researched and based on serious sources. All of my work is transparent, with sources clearly cited or linked, so others can read more and decide for themselves. While I’m only human and certainly not infallible, I strive to use reliable sources and be as transparent as possible about my sources and the evidence supporting my work.
Sunshine refers to a JVP statement critical of me, but fails to mention that the statement does not claim that I am anti-Semitic. More important, he fails to make any reference to two open letters rejecting the criticism of me, signed by some incredibly prominent and principled academics, humanitarians, and thousands of activists, including many members of JVP itself. Indeed, I continue to work with many JVP chapters and individuals, who have brought me to speak in their areas and who are accomplishing important work.
Sunshine operates as a hitman for the reactionary forces who would have us never stand up against oppression for fear of not speaking carefully enough and unintentionally giving unfair offense. It is important to try to speak accurately and fairly, but when people are dying and the prospect of peace is rapidly receding for two populations (and everyone else affected by the violence and instability that radiate from the conflict), perfection is no longer the enemy of good but the enemy of peace and life itself.
Let us act, debate and try to solve this tragedy, not police each other’s words to the point of utter inaction. And let us not attack those working for justice, peace and human rights with false and malicious accusations.
If Sunshine showed half the enthusiasm for opposing atrocities and championing human rights for all humans–even Muslims, Palestinians, and people of color–that he shows for thought policing activists, he could make a positive difference In our shared world.
Sincerely,
Alison Weir
More information:
Spencer Sunshine is an early instigator and enthusiastic champion of the campaign to silence Weir, which has been roundly rejected by numerous prominent humanitarians, academics and activists in two open letters (here and here; see also this article on CounterPunch ). He identifies himself as an “anti-fascist writer” and is close to antifa groups, a movement known for celebrating and perpetrating violence (he was apparently unfazed when violence occurred a few months ago at a protest he organized).
The Forward is a venerable newspaper founded towards the end of the 19th Century. It is a leading, or perhaps the leading, publication serving the American Jewish community. It operates as a nonprofit and appears to have assets of over $50 million. The paper leans heavily towards an Israel-centric viewpoint when reporting on Palestine and Israel. Nevertheless, it is a professional publication which should hold itself to the highest journalistic standards.
June 15, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Israel, Palestine, Spencer Sunshine, United States, Zionism |
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Having succeeded in blocking a recent UN report that accused Israel of maintaining a system of apartheid, Israeli officials are now attempting to remove another UN report, which has charged Tel Aviv with carrying out extrajudicial executions along with a list of other human rights violations.
The report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which previously accused Israel of apartheid, has come under fire from Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, because it states that in the period from 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017 Israeli security forces killed 63 Palestinians, including 19 children, and wounded an additional 2,276 Palestinians including 562 children.
The previous ESCWA report, which had accused Israel of apartheid, was removed by the UN following protests by Danon and US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, who this week described the UN report of “reeking with anti-Israel bias”.
The new report accuses Israeli security forces of using disproportionate force against Palestinians and in some cases of “extrajudicial executions”. The report cites the UN Committee Against Torture and its concern about “Israeli practices towards Palestinian detainees”.
The list of human rights violations included in the report were also “torture or ill-treatment of Palestinian children” and “deprivation of basic legal safeguards for administrative detainees, isolation and solitary confinement of detainees, including minors, punishment and ill-treatment of hunger strikers.” The report also claimed that “no criminal investigation was opened into more than 1,000 complaints of torture or ill-treatment filed since 2001.”
Israeli sources have reported that Danon will work to have this report removed. “This is yet another blood libel against the State of Israel,” Arutz Sheva reported Israel’s envoy to the UN saying. “Just as we succeeded in having the previous preposterous report removed, we will fight relentlessly against this blatantly false distortion of the truth as well.”
Read: The ESCWA Report
June 15, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United Nations, Zionism |
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The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reports that Michael Steinhardt, an atheist, billionaire, and “mega-philanthropist,” has poured millions into projects for American Jews. He is best known as the founder of Birthright Israel, a free, ten-day trip to Israel that is enjoyed by a large percentage of Jewish young adults. He also facilitates programming after the Birthright experience in order to maintain participants’ loyalty to Israel and Jewish culture.
Steinhardt believes that American Jewish education needs to change, and consequently has founded a network of Hebrew-language charter schools.
In these schools, Steinhardt explains, “Jewish kids… will learn a great deal about Israel… and there’s a great deal of emphasis on Israel, Zionism, stuff like that.” He adds that “Jews have accomplished so much, so inexplicably out of proportion to their numbers, in [the last] 300 years, and it’s one of the great failures of Jewish education that that’s not focused on at all.”
When pressed to explain why he, as an atheist, supports a Jewish education, he explained, “The modern state of Israel is the Jewish miracle of the 20th century, but it’s the secular part of Israel that’s the miracle… the development of a society out of nothing using Zionist ideals… Israel has become, for me, the substitute for religion.”
Steinhardt continued, “Israel is a complicated place in a strange part of the world… There are a substantial number of Jews who believe that Israel should leave the settlements, leave the West Bank… The more one understands about Israel, the more comfortable one becomes with the politics of the Israeli government.”
He went on to claim that “Israel is to me the most moral state on this planet, [even] with the occupation.”
If Americans Knew details the effects of the occupation to which Steinhardt refers: “In violation of international law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of the land in the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or for settlement by Jewish civilians… From 1967 to 1982, Israel’s military government demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes on the West Bank. Over this period, more than 300,000 Palestinians were detained without trial for various periods by Israeli security forces.”
The occupation itself is illegal according to international law, as are Israeli settlements and their over 500,000 Jewish settlers, the separation wall, restriction of movement, detention without charge—including detention of minors, collective punishment, ethnic cleansing (through forced depopulation and other means), home demolition (close to 50,000 structures have been demolished since 1967), and human rights violations.
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) reports on damaging effects of occupation on the Gaza Strip, including a ten-year, ongoing siege and numerous military attacks, leaving more than 80 percent of the population dependent on international assistance for survival.
AFSC emphasizes that “the situation in Gaza should not be viewed as a humanitarian crisis… [but as a] political crisis that can only be resolved through… ending the blockade and Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territory, which are at the root of the crisis.”
June 15, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Nazareth – Israeli and US officials are in the process of jointly pre-empting Donald Trump’s supposed “ultimate deal” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They hope to demote the Palestinian issue to a footnote in international diplomacy.
The conspiracy – a real one – was much in evidence last week during a visit to the region by Nikki Haley, Washington’s envoy to the United Nations. Her escort was Danny Danon, her Israeli counterpart and a fervent opponent of Palestinian statehood.
Danon makes Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu look moderate. He has backed Israel annexing the West Bank and ruling over Palestinians apatheid-style. Haley appears unperturbed. During a meeting with Netanyahu, she told him that the UN was “a bully to Israel”. She has warned the powerful Security Council to focus on Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizbollah, instead of Israel.
To protect its tiny ally, Washington is threatening to cut billions in US funding to the world body, plunging it into crisis and jeopardising peacekeeping and humanitarian operations.
On the way to Israel, Haley stopped at the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva, demanding it end its “pathological” opposition to Israel’s decades of occupation and human rights violations – or the US would pull out of the agency.
Washington has long pampered Israel, giving it millions of dollars each year to buy weapons to oppress Palestinians, and using its veto to block UN resolutions enforcing international law. Expert UN reports such as a recent one on Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians have been buried.
But worse is to come. Now the framework of international laws and institutions established after the Second World War is at risk of being dismembered.
That danger was highlighted on Sunday, when it emerged that Netanyahu had urged Haley to dismantle another UN agency much loathed by Israel. UNRWA cares for more than five million Palestinian refugees across the region.
Since the 1948 war, Israel has refused to allow these refugees to return to their lands, now in Israel, forcing them to live in miserable and overcrowded camps awaiting a peace deal that never arrives. These dispossessed Palestinians still depend on UNRWA for education, health care and social services.
UNRWA, Netanyahu says, “perpetuates” rather than solves their problems. He prefers that they become the responsibility of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which looks after all other refugee populations.
His demand is a monumental U-turn, 70 years in the making. In fact, it was Israel that in 1948 insisted on a separate UN refugee agency for the Palestinians.
UNRWA was created to prevent the Palestinians falling under the charge of UNHCR’s forerunner, the International Refugee Organisation. Israel was afraid that the IRO, formed in the immediate wake of the Second World War, would give Palestinian refugees the same prominence as European Jews fleeing Nazi atrocities.
Israel did not want the two cases compared, especially as they were so intimately connected. It was the rise of Nazism that bolstered the Zionist case for a Jewish state in Palestine and Jewish refugees who were settled on lands from which Palestinians had just been expelled by Israel.
Also, Israel was concerned that the IRO’s commitment to the principle of repatriation might force it to accept back the Palestinian refugees.
Israel’s hope then was precisely that UNRWA would not solve the Palestinian refugee problem; rather, it would resolve itself. The idea was encapsulated in a Zionist adage: “The old will die and the young forget.”
But millions of Palestinian descendants still clamour for a right of return. If they cannot forget, Netanyahu prefers that the world forget them.
As bloody wars grip the Middle East, the best way to achieve that aim is to submerge the Palestinians among the world’s 65 million other refugees. Why worry about the Palestinian case when there are millions of Syrians newly displaced by war?
But UNRWA poses a challenge, because it is so deeply entrenched in the region and insists on a just solution for Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA’s huge staff includes 32,000 Palestinian administrators, teachers and doctors, many living in camps in the West Bank – Palestinian territory Netanyahu and Danon hunger for. The UN’s presence there is an impediment to annexation.
On Monday Netanyahu announced his determination to block Europe from funding Israeli human rights organisations, the main watchdogs in the West Bank and a key data source for UN agencies. He now refuses to meet any world leader who talks to these rights groups.
With Trump in the White House, a crisis-plagued Europe ever-more toothless and the Arab world in disarray, Netanyahu wants to seize this chance to clear the UN out of the way too.
Global institutions such as the UN and the international law it upholds were created after the Second World War to protect the weakest and prevent a recurrence of the Holocaust’s horrors.
Today, Netanyahu is prepared to risk it all, tearing down the post-war international order, if this act of colossal vandalism will finally rid him of the Palestinians.
June 15, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, United Nations, UNRWA, Zionism |
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Amid the ongoing diplomatic row between Qatar and a number of Arab states and increased tensions in the Persian Gulf, Sputnik Turkiye talked to Hamide Yigit, a Turkish political analyst and an expert in Middle Eastern affairs, who explained what role the Trump administration will play in this conflict.
Hamide Yigit, a Turkish political analyst and expert in Middle Eastern affairs who has written a number of research papers on the Middle Eastern crises, commented to Sputnik Turkiye on the ongoing diplomatic row in between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and its impact on the region.
The expert stressed that the Trump administration is trying to fully re-carve the Middle Eastern strategy of the Obama administration, which was based on the support of the Muslim Brotherhood, by betting on the control over radical Islamist forces from a new unified center. That is why Trump has focused his new foreign policy line on Saudi Arabia, she said.
“We could say that Trump has signalled a new stage in American Middle Eastern policy after the failure of the Middle Eastern policy of the previous administration, which bet on the structures affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and left the legacy of a weakened US position in Syria against Russia’s strengthened influence in the region,” Hamide Yigit told Sputnik.
The new political line of President Trump, she further elaborated, is aimed at focusing on the Persian Gulf and pivoting towards Saudi Arabia. Such a strategy, however, poses certain difficulties for the US, as Saudi Arabia has suffered both political and economic defeats in Syria and Yemen.
However on the other hand, the polycracy among the jihadists in Syria has hampered US plans in that country. Thus the Trump administration decided to set up a unified control center for dealing with the radical Islamists but opted for the exclusion of Qatar from this system in favor of Saudi Arabia.
The dual power among jihadists, the expert explained, creates certain problems which could escalate into a confrontation. Hence the US has chosen Saudi Arabia to host a center which will incorporate all the levers of a hybrid war.
The crisis in the Persian Gulf, Hamide Yigit told Sputnik, is one of the latest US projects aimed at creating so-called “controlled chaos” in the region.
“At this particular moment it is hard to forecast how long this crisis will last. However if this US’ project, which provokes the escalation of tensions in the region, proves a success, it might hit a serious blow to Turkish positions in the region,” the expert explained.
In current conditions, she further said, Turkey should be aimed at maximum rapprochement with Iran and Russia, up to its accession into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
On the Iran’s example it is clearly seen how the project of the “controlled chaos” has been started in Syria and gradually embraced other countries of the region. Hence Hamide Yigit suggested that the relations between the Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf monarchies and Iran will aggravate even further.
The warnings of a number of experts that the Syrian war will further spill over to Iran are visibly becoming a reality. Iran is being virtually dragged into this war, the expert said.
Earlier Israel repeatedly made certain steps aimed at drawing Iran into this war, but the US kept preventing it, the political analyst said.
Now Saudi Arabia is provoking the escalation of tensions. It might certainly want to incite a large-scale conflict as its mere existence is directly dependent on the US-backed project of a large-scale war in the Middle East, Hamide Yigit concluded.
June 14, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Iran, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United States |
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Three prominent Palestinian activists were ordered to additional periods of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Palestinian journalist Hasan Safadi, youth organizer Hassan Karajah and leftist community leader Rami Fadayel, all of Ramallah, were ordered to further imprisonment without charge or trial by Israeli military courts.
Fadayel, 37, has been imprisoned for 18 months under administrative detention; this is the fourth time the order against him has been renewed. He has spent over seven years in total in Israeli prisons and was ordered to another four months of imprisonment without charge or trial. He was hit with another four-month detention order on Wednesday, 7 June.
Rami Fadayel
Haneen Nassar, Fadayel’s wife and an organizer with the Palestinian Prisoners’ Committee, a popular organization in Palestine that works to support the prisoners’ struggle and demand their freedom, said that she and her husband have never been able to enjoy a free and safe life since their marriage. Fadayel has been arrested repeatedly; they marked their engagement while he was imprisoned. She noted that their daughter, Mays, 10, has not seen her father in their home for nearly half of her life.
Fadayel is well-known in Ramallah as a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist political party. Nasser noted that his administrative detention has been repeatedly renewed under the pretext of a “secret file;” all of the appeals of his lawyer have been rejected.
Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention orders can be detained indefinitely; these one- to six-month orders can be repeatedly renewed on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.” There are currently over 500 Palestinian administrative detainees imprisoned by the Israeli occupation. Some Palestinians have spent years at a time under administrative detention on the basis of this so-called secret evidence. Over 50,000 administrative detention orders have reportedly been issued since 1967; the practice dates from the colonial British mandate over Palestine and was re-imposed by the Israeli occupation.
Hasan Safadi
Meanwhile, Hasan Safadi, Palestinian journalist and the Arabic media coordinator of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association was also ordered on 8 June 2017 to another six months in administrative detention by an Israeli occupation military court. He had been scheduled for release on 8 June, but was instead hit with another arbitrary detention renewal.
Safadi, 26, has been imprisoned since 1 May 2016, when he was seized by Israeli occupation forces as he crossed the Karameh/Allenby bridge between Jordan and Palestine, returning from an Arab youth conference organized in Tunisia. After 40 days of interrogation in the Moskobiyeh interrogation center, he was ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial, which has since been renewed twice. His new administrative detention order is scheduled to expire on 8 December 2017.
Hassan Karajah
Hassan Karajah, a prominent youth activist with the Stop the Wall Campaign and a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activist, was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 12 July 2016 at a military checkpoint west of Ramallah. He has been held under administrative detention without charge or trial since that time; his detention was also renewed on 7 June 2017 for the third time for a four-month period.
Karajah was previously arrested on 23 January 2013 and freed on 19 October 2014, accused of participation in a prohibited organization and contact with an enemy state, an allegation frequently used to target Palestinians who travel to conferences and events in Lebanon and other Arab countries.
These orders came after the Ofer military court confirmed even more administrative detention orders on Wednesday, 7 July. The military court approved six-month detention orders against Raed Abd al-Admu of al-Khalil, Tayseer Maher Hamed, Mohammed Badr al-Alouneh, Islam Fayeq Nimer of Ramallah and Suhaib Ahmed Mohammed of Tulkarem. It approved four-month imprisonment orders against Nidal Hashim Abdel Hadi and Yousef Ahmed Nasser of Jenin and Khalil Hassan Hamed, Ayman Naim Hamed, Hamza Ibrahim Zahran and Omar Mohammed Abu Latifa of Ramallah. It also affirmed a two-month detention order against Rabie Mohammed Musallah of Jenin.
June 13, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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A report says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering shutting down the Jerusalem al-Quds bureau of the Qatar-based Al Jazeera broadcaster, as a diplomatic rift escalates between a Saudi-led bloc of countries with Qatar.
Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu had met with members of the foreign ministry, ministry of military affairs, and other institutions on Monday and discussed preliminary steps for closing the Al Jazeera office in Jerusalem al-Quds.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt have already blocked several Qatari media outlets, including Al Jazeera. The four countries cut their diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing Doha of destabilizing the region with its support for terrorism, an accusation rejected by the Qatari government.
In a relevant development on Monday, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s minister for military affairs, compared Al Jazeera to the Nazi- and Soviet-era propaganda apparatuses.
“Some [Arab countries’] interests overlap with Israeli interests, including the issue with Al Jazeera,” Liberman said. “Al-Jazeera is not media… It’s an incitement machine. It is pure propaganda, of the worst variety, in the style of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.”
Lieberman also accused Al Jazeera of supporting Iran, saying, “I’ve been tracking Al Jazeera for many years. You’ll never see a single article against Iran.”
The potential move to close the Al Jazeera office in Jerusalem al-Quds and the unprecedented remarks by Lieberman are indicative of how the Israeli and Saudi regimes may be increasingly tilting toward one another. There have already been signs that the ties between Israel and certain Arab regimes — traditionally putative adversaries — have been covertly expanding in recent years.
Netanyahu has on several occasions talked of the development of ties between Israel and certain Arab countries. So have other Israeli officials. Moshe Ya’alon, Israel’s former minister of military affairs, in February 2016 pointed to open channels between the regime and some Arab states.
Back in January 2016, Netanyahu said during an interview with CNN that Saudi Arabia now saw Tel Aviv “as an ally rather as an enemy.”
June 13, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia |
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Diplomats dissimulate, journalists exaggerate, politicians waffle, but an army general has no reason to obfuscate the stark ground reality. Therefore, the rare remarks by the commander of Russian forces in Syria, General Sergey Surovikin, merit great attention. Excerpts are reproduced below:
- The US-led coalition lets militants of the Islamic State terrorist group leave Raqqa instead of killing them… The US-led coalition enters into collusion with ringleaders of the ISIS, who give up their settlements without fighting and head to the provinces where the Syrian government forces are active… The Russian force in Syria sees in the Raqqa area militants leaving the city and its suburbs unhindered. In early June, ISIS terrorists left the populated localities 19 kilometers southwest of Raqqa offering no resistance and headed toward Palmyra.
- The Americans are using ISIS to robustly block the movement of government troops… The aviation of the US-led coalition is impeding the struggle of Syrian government forces against terrorists… They have blocked the way of government forces, who are eliminating ISIS militants and setting up border posts along the border with Iraq to the north-east of Al-Tanf.
The long and short of Gen. Surovikin’s chilling account is that although President Donald Trump vows to fight the ISIS with tooth and nail, Pentagon guys may have other ideas. They continue to use the ISIS with a hidden agenda where the Syrian government (and Iran) is the number one enemy. The US objective appears to be two-fold in Syria: a) create a buffer zone in southern Syrian regions bordering Israel and Jordan, which will be dominated by “good terrorists”; and, b) take control of the entire Syrian-Iraqi border on a North-South gradient so that Iran’s logistical capability to render help to the beleaguered Syrian government forces is sharply reduced.
Indeed, a ‘frozen conflict’ would effectively balkanize Syria. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank which is closely associated with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (a pro-Israel lobby group in Washington), featured a commentary recently, entitled Growing Risk of International Confrontation in the Syrian Desert. It implicitly warns Moscow of dire consequences if Russian forces intervene to disrupt the efforts by the US to prevent a Syrian government consolidation in the Al-Tanf / Deir Ezzur — Palmyra region.
However, no matter what the pro-Israeli think tankers in Washington pontificate, General Surovikin’s remarks underscored that Moscow is seized of the strategic importance of the Syrian government forces succeeding in re-establishing control over the country’s border with Iraq. Russia had earlier adopted a wary approach vis-a-vis the scramble for control of the Syrian desert regions bordering Iraq. But that seems to be changing — although Russian priority is to work with the Americans.
On Saturday, Russia has put the US on notice that the Syrian government forces intend to advance on Al-Tanf itself. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that US air strikes on the Syrian government forces are unacceptable. He called for “concrete measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
A Syrian army statement went a step further to announce on Saturday their intent to advance to the Iraqi border north of Al-Tanf. It warned the western forces in the area against interfering — “The general command of the army and armed forces warn of the risks of repeated attacks of the so-called ‘international coalition’ and their efforts to block the advances of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies in their war on terror.”
The planned Syrian operations north of Al-Tanf will scuttle the US plans to stage a ground operation with “good terrorists”, aimed at reaching Deir Ezzur city ahead of the government forces who are advancing in easterly direction from Palmyra. The Iranian reports suggest that Russian jets are actively backing the Syrian government operations in the region to the northeast of Palmyra.
Simply put, Iran is creating new facts on the ground in southeastern Syria, which the US (and Israel) will have to learn to live with. An Iranian war dispatch says that “thousands of (Syrian) army men and Hezbollah combatants entered the countryside of Palmyra city to resume a fresh phase of one of the army’s greatest operation in Homs (province) in recent years.”
June 12, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Al-Tanf, Deir Ezzur, Hezbollah, ISIS, Israel, Syria, United States |
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Children in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev
BETHLEHEM – A recently installed guardrail on an Israeli highway has isolated a Bedouin community in southern Israel for days, preventing 100 Bedouin children from attending school, NGO Adalah reported on Sunday.
According to the group, which focuses on the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, Israeli authorities effectively sealed off Umm Bidoun, a Bedouin community in the Negev desert unrecognized by Israel, by blocking off the only dirt road connecting the village to Highway 31 with a guardrail.
The road surface markings on the highway near other passage out of Umm Bidoun have also recently been changed, making it illegal for vehicles to cross the road, Adalah added.
The recent changes have effectively prevented any vehicles, including school buses, from accessing the village, Adalah said.
As a result, the legal NGO stated that, due to the absence of schools in Umm Bidoun, 100 children who study in the village of al-Furaa 15 kilometers away have been unable to go to school for days.
Adalah said on Sunday it had contacted officials from the Israeli Education Ministry, the al-Qasoum regional council, and Netivei Israel, the national roads authority, to demand that the obstacles to freedom of movement for the residents of Umm Bidoun be lifted.
Adalah field researcher Marwan Abu Freih told Ma’an on Monday that Netivei had told the organization that it was examining the issue.
Spokespersons from the Ministry of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case on Monday.
“It is inconceivable that some 100 students can — in such a sudden and arbitrary manner — be prevented from attending school without any advance notice to or consultation with parents,” Abu Freih said on Sunday. “Adalah and the families demand that the Education Ministry act immediately to correct this situation.”
Abu Freih added on Monday that members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, had reached out to Adalah to offer their assistance in resolving the case.
Bedouin villages were established in the Negev soon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war following the creation of the state of Israel. Many of the Bedouins were forcibly transferred to the village sites during the 17-year period when Palestinians inside Israel were governed under Israeli military law, which ended shortly before Israel’s military takeover of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967.
Between 160,000 and 170,000 Bedouins are believed to reside in the Negev today, more than half of whom reside in unrecognized villages, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).
The classification of their villages as “unrecognized” prevents Bedouins from developing or expanding their communities, while Israeli authorities have also refused to connect unrecognized Bedouin villages to the national water and electricity grids, and have excluded the communities from access to health and educational services.
A Knesset report on Bedouins in Israel noted that “(school) dropout rates are high, among various reasons due to lack of access and public transportation to their schools.”
Meanwhile, Jewish-Israeli communities in the Negev continuously expand, with five new Jewish plans approved last year. According to an investigation undertaken by Israeli rights groups ACRI and Bimkom, two of the approved communities are located in areas where unrecognized Bedouin villages already exist.
Rights groups have claimed that Israeli policies in Bedouin communities are specifically aimed at depopulating the Negev of its Bedouin residents to make room for the expansion of Jewish Israeli communities.
June 12, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Israeli settlement, Palestine, Zionism |
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US proposed legislation – Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act of 2017 – threatening to sanction Qatar for its support of the so-called “Palestinian terror” was sponsored by 10 lawmakers who received more than $1m over the last 18 months from lobbyists and groups linked to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, Al Jazeera reported Friday.
The HR 2712 bill was introduced to the US House of Representatives on May 25, but the text wasn’t available until Friday morning, hours after Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt put 59 people and 12 institutions linked to Qatar on a “terror list”, Al Jazeera said.
HR 2712’s sponsors received donations totaling $1,009,796 from pro-Israel individuals and groups for the 2016 election cycle alone, according data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent research group tracking money in US politics and its effect on elections and public policy, and then compiled by Al Jazeera.
Sponsors of the bill are: Congressmen Brian Mast (FL-18), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5), Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (CA-39) and Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Eliot Engel (NY-16). The bill is co-sponsored by Congressmen Brad Sherman (CA-30), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27), Ted Poe (TX-2), Ted Lieu (CA-33), Ted Deutch (FL-22) and Thomas Suozzi (NY-3).
Al Jazeera reported that Royce received $242,143 from pro-Israel sources for the 2016 election cycle, $190,150 went to Engel. Mast, who volunteered with the Israeli military after he finished serving in the US Army, received $90,178.
“Following my service in the U.S. Army, I chose to volunteer alongside the Israeli Defense Forces because our countries share the common ideals of freedom, democracy and mutual respect for all people. Hamas preaches destruction to Israel and death to the values we hold dear in the United States. They have murdered more than 400 Israelis and at least 25 American citizens.” Rep. Mast was quoted as saying.
According to Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a nonprofit that aims to strengthen the voice of US citizens of Iranian descent, there are similarities between the US-allied Arab nations’ “terror list” and HR 2712 show[ing] growing cooperation between Gulf Arab states and Israel.
“The coordination between hawkish pro-Israel groups and UAE and Saudi Arabia has been going on for quite some time,” Parsi told Al Jazeera. What is new, he continued, is pro-Israel groups such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies “coming out with pro-Saudi [articles] and lobbying for them on Capitol Hill”.
Parsi was quoted as saying that the sponsors of the bill are traditional pro-Saudi lawmakers, however they are in the pro-Likud camp. Likud is the party of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
President is required
The Palestinian International Terrorism Support Prevention Act requires the President to submit to Congress an annual report for the next three years identifying foreign persons, agencies or instrumentalities of a foreign state who knowingly and materially assist Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or an affiliate or successor of one of those organizations.
After identifying the organizations, the President must impose two or more sanctions, including denying
a) Export-Import guarantees,
b) defense support under the Arms Export Control Act,
c) export of munitions to any agreement to which a person identified is a part,
d) export of goods or technology controlled for national security reasons,
e) loans more than $10 million, or
f) seizure of property held within the United States.
The bill also requires the President to report to Congress on each government that provides support for acts of terrorism and provides material support to Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or any affiliate or successor organization, or the President determines to have engaged in a significant transaction to knowingly and materially provide support to Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad or any affiliate or successor organization.
After identifying the governments, the President must suspend U.S. assistance to that government for one year, instruct the executive directors of each international finance institution to vote against any loan or technical assistance to that government and prohibit any munitions export to that government for one year.
Additionally, the President must prohibit that government’s transactions in foreign exchanges that are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and prevent that government’s transfers of credits or payments between financial institutions subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Important Sections of the HR 2712 Bill
Section 2: Findings and Statement of Policy
Subsections (a)(3) and (4) state that “Hamas has received significant financial and military support” from Qatar and that the Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence confirmed that “Qatar, a longtime US ally has for many years openly financed Hamas.” The bill also finds that Qatar hosts a number of high-ranking Hamas officials, including Khaled Mashal.
Subsections (a)(5) through (7) outline Iran’s material and financial support and subsections (8) through (10) detail Iranian support to the PIJ.
Section 3: Imposition of Sanctions with Respect to Foreign Persons and Agencies and Instrumentalities of Foreign States Supporting Hamas, the PIJ, or Any Affiliate or Successor Group
No later than 120 days after H.R. 2712 is enacted—then once a year for no more than three years—the president must report to Congress the foreign persons, agencies, and instrumentalities of foreign states that provide support to the aforementioned groups. Two exceptions are reserved for the president, however. If the president notifies Congress 15 days prior to completing a “significant transaction” with a foreign entity or agency that is in the “national interest” of the United States, the foreign entity or agency may be exempt from sanctions. The other exception is reserved for the president to issue waivers that would exempt a foreign entity or agency from sanctions for 120 days, as long as Congress is notified seven days prior.
Set forth in this bill are sanctions on the following:
- Banking and financing (e.g., extensions of credit, guarantees, insurance, etc.)
- Defense-related sales (including munitions, defense services, and construction services)
- Goods and technologies regulated through the Export Administration or included in the US Munitions List
- Medical, agricultural, and humanitarian goods and services are not included among sanctioned items.
Section 4: Imposition of Sanctions with Respect to Foreign Governments That Provide Material Support to Hamas, the PIJ, or Any Affiliate or Successor Thereof
Much like Section 3, Section 4 sets a 120-day deadline after enactment for the president to report to Congress any governments the Secretary of State has determined “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” This report must be resubmitted, with relevant information, every 180 days.
The sanctions set forth in this section include the prohibition or suspension of the following for one year:
- US aid to the foreign government
- Extension of loans and financial or technical services
- Export of items on the US Munitions List or Commerce Control List
- Transactions in foreign exchanges in which the United States has jurisdiction
- Transfers of credit or payments between one or more financial institutions subject to US jurisdiction
- Should the president determine it is in US security interests and notify Congress seven days in advance, he can waive any foreign government sanctions for 180 days.
Section 5: Report on Activities of Foreign Countries to Disrupt Global Fundraising, Financing, and Money Laundering Activities of Hamas, the PIJ, or Any Successor or Affiliate Thereof
This bill outlines a reporting requirement for the president, no later than 180 days after the bill’s enactment. The president must report a list of foreign countries providing support for the aforementioned organizations and further assessments including:
- Steps the foreign government is taking to freeze assets of these groups
- Any reasons the government is not taking adequate steps to freeze assets
- Measures taken by the United States to freeze assets
- List of countries where the aforementioned groups fundraise and steps those countries are taking to disrupt the fundraising efforts
- List of countries from which the groups receive surveillance equipment and what measures are being taken to disrupt the acquisition.
To borrow from Marcus Montgomery, an Analyst at the Washington DC-based Arab Center, the language of HR 2712 is interesting since it introduces sanctions for actions likely already covered under existing legislation. Hamas and the PIJ are both designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) by the State and Treasury Departments, respectively. With that in mind, it is already illegal for US entities or institutions to support such groups. Thus, the sanctions proposed in this bill that pertain to US jurisdiction are redundant.
Formally targeting Iran is redundant as well because Tehran has been declared a state sponsor of terror by the State Department and prohibitions against exports of arms, financial and technical services, and US aid to Iran are already in place.
For Marcus Montgomery, Qatar would be the truly new target under this legislation, but as an ally with which the United States has economic and military ties, it is tough to see many in the Senate agreeing to label Qatar a de facto state sponsor of terror.
Erdogan vows to stand by ‘Qatari brothers’
Interestingly, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan Friday called for full removal of a Saudi-led blockade of Qatar after approving the deployment of Turkish troops there, saying Riyadh needed to put brotherhood ahead of animosity.
Erdogan said isolating Qatar would not resolve any regional problems and vowed to do everything in his power to help end the regional crisis. “We will not abandon our Qatari brothers,” Erdogan told members of his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party at a fast-breaking meal on Friday in Istanbul during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
“I also have a special request from the Saudi administration. You are the largest and most powerful state in the Gulf. We call you the Custodian of the Holy Places. You especially should work for brotherhood, not animosity. You have to work for bringing brothers together. This is what we expect from Saudi, the Custodian of the Holy Mosques,” Erdogan was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying.
“I say it should be lifted completely,” Erdogan said of the embargo.
Turkey, which has maintained good relations with Qatar, as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbors, offered food and water supplies to stave off possible shortages. “There are those who are uncomfortable with us standing by our Qatari brothers, providing them with food. I’m sorry, we will continue to give Qatar every kind of support,” Erdogan said, adding that he had never witnessed Doha supporting “terrorism”.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s parliament ratified two deals on deploying troops to Qatar and training the Gulf nation’s security forces. The deal to send Turkish soldiers in Qatar, aimed at improving the country’s army and boosting military cooperation, was signed in April 2016 in Doha.
After an initial deployment of Turkish soldiers at a base in Doha, Turkish fighter jets and ships will also be sent, the mass-circulation Hurriyet newspaper said on its website on Friday.
“The number of Turkish warplanes and Turkish warships going to the base will become clear after the preparation of a report based on an initial assessment at the base,” Hurriyet said.
A Turkish delegation will go to Qatar in the coming days to assess the situation at the base, where about 90 Turkish soldiers are currently based, Hurriyet said adding: there were plans send some 200 to 250 soldiers within two months in the initial stage.
Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America.
June 12, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, Brad Sherman, Eliot Engel, Hamas, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Iran, Israel, Josh Gottheimer, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, UAE |
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According to a recent report [1] by CBC Canada, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, which was formerly known as al-Nusra Front and then Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) since July 2016, has been removed from the terror watch-lists of the US and Canada after it merged with fighters from Zenki Brigade and hardline jihadists from Ahrar al-Sham and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January this year.
The US State Department is hesitant to label Tahrir al-Sham a terror group, despite the group’s link to al-Qaeda, as the US government has directly funded and armed the Zenki Brigade, one of the constituents of Tahrir al-Sham, with sophisticated weaponry including the US-made antitank TOW missiles.
The overall military commander of Tahrir al-Sham continues to be Abu Mohammad al-Julani, whom the US has branded a Specially Designated Global Terrorist with a $10 million bounty. But for the US to designate Tahrir al-Sham as a terrorist organization now would mean acknowledging that it supplied sophisticated weapons to terrorists, and draw attention to the fact that the US continues to arm Islamic jihadists in Syria.
In order to understand the bloody history of al-Nusra Front during the Syrian civil war, bear in mind that since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in August 2011 to April 2013, the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front were a single organization that chose the banner of “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Although al-Nusra Front has been led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani but he was appointed [2] as the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, in January 2012.
Thus, al-Julani’s al-Nusra Front is only a splinter group of the Islamic State, which split from its parent organization in April 2013 over a leadership dispute between the two organizations.
In March 2011, protests began in Syria against the government of Bashar al-Assad. In the following months, violence between demonstrators and security forces led to a gradual militarization of the conflict. In August 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was based in Iraq, began sending Syrian and Iraqi jihadists experienced in guerilla warfare across the border into Syria to establish an organization inside the country.
Led by a Syrian known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the group began to recruit fighters and establish cells throughout the country. On 23 January 2012, the group announced its formation as Jabhat al-Nusra.
In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio statement in which he announced that al-Nusra Front had been established, financed and supported by the Islamic State of Iraq. Al-Baghdadi declared that the two groups were merging under the name “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.” The leader of al-Nusra Front, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, issued a statement denying the merger and complaining that neither he nor anyone else in al-Nusra’s leadership had been consulted about it.
Al-Qaeda Central’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, tried to mediate the dispute between al-Baghdadi and al-Julani but eventually, in October 2013, he endorsed al-Nusra Front as the official franchise of al-Qaeda Central in Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, however, defied the nominal authority of al-Qaeda Central and declared himself as the caliph of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Keeping this background in mind, it becomes amply clear that a single militant organization operated in Syria and Iraq under the leadership of al-Baghdadi until April 2013, which chose the banner of al-Nusra Front, and that the current emir of the subsequent breakaway faction of al-Nusra Front, al-Julani, was actually al-Baghdadi’s deputy in Syria.
Thus, the Islamic State operated in Syria since August 2011 under the designation of al-Nusra Front and it subsequently changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in April 2013, after which, it overran Raqqa in the summer of 2013, then it seized parts of Deir al-Zor and fought battles against the alliance of Kurds and the Syrian regime in al-Hasakah. And in January 2014 it overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq and reached the zenith of its power when it captured Mosul in June 2014.
Regarding the rebranding of al-Julani’s Nusra Front to “Jabhat Fateh al-Sham” in July 2016 and purported severing of ties with al-Qaeda Central, it was only a nominal difference because al-Nusra Front never had any organizational and operational ties with al-Qaeda Central and even their ideologies are poles apart.
Al-Qaeda Central is basically a transnational terrorist organization, while al-Nusra Front mainly has regional ambitions that are limited only to fighting the Assad regime in Syria and its ideology is anti-Shi’a and sectarian. In fact, al-Nusra Front has not only received medical aid and material support from Israel, but some of its operations against the Shi’a-dominated Assad regime in southern Syria were fully coordinated with Israel’s air force.
The purpose behind the rebranding of al-Nusra Front to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and purported severing of ties with al-Qaeda Central was to legitimize itself and to make it easier for its patrons to send money and arms. The US blacklisted al-Nusra Front in December 2012 and pressurized Saudi Arabia and Turkey to ban it too. Although al-Nusra Front’s name has been in the list of proscribed organizations of Saudi Arabia and Turkey since 2014, but it has kept receiving money and arms from the Gulf Arab States.
It should be remembered that in a May 2015 interview [3] with al-Jazeera, Abu Mohammad al-Julani took a public pledge on the behest of his Gulf-based patrons that his organization only has local ambitions limited to fighting the Assad regime in Syria and that it does not intends to strike targets in the Western countries.
Thus, this rebranding exercise has been going on for quite some time. Al-Julani announced the split from al-Qaeda in a video statement last year. But the persistent efforts of al-Julani’s Gulf-based patrons have only borne fruit in January this year, when al-Nusra Front once again rebranded itself from Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which also includes “moderate” jihadists from Zenki Brigade, Ahrar al-Sham and several other militant groups, and thus, the US State Department has finally given a clean chit to the jihadist conglomerate that goes by the name of Tahrir al-Sham to pursue its ambitions of toppling the Assad regime in Syria.
Sources and links:
[1] Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate escapes from terror list:
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/terror-list-omission-1.4114621
[2] Al-Julani was appointed as the emir of al-Nusra Front by al-Baghdadi:
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/16689
[3] Al-Julani’s interview to Al-Jazeera: “Our mission is to defeat the Syrian regime”:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/nusra-front-golani-assad-syria-hezbollah-isil-150528044857528.html
June 12, 2017
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tahrir al-Sham, United States |
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