State Dept rejects US envoy proposal to stop calling West Bank occupied – report
RT | December 27, 2017
The State Department has reportedly rejected a request by the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, to stop referring to Israel’s control of the West Bank as an “occupation.” The final say is with Donald Trump, though.
The issue is being discussed, and President Trump will ultimately take the final decision, according to Israeli public broadcasting channel Kan. A State Department official said in response to the report that there has been no change in US policy regarding the West Bank, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Friedman’s alleged request comes as Washington’s attempts to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have not borne fruit. World leaders have questioned the US’s role as a peace broker in the region after Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel on December 6 – sparking an international backlash and a rebuke by the UN General Assembly. Washington had earlier vetoed a UN Security Council resolution which demanded Trump’s decision be withdrawn.
The State Department has previously had to walk back a number of inflammatory statements made by Friedman about the West Bank. In September, he described Israel’s military control of Palestinian territories as “an alleged occupation.” Later that same month, Friedman said that Israel only occupies 2 percent of the West Bank and that illegal Israeli settlements in the territory are part of the Jewish State – prompting State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert to clarify that “our position on that hasn’t changed” and “the comment does not represent a shift in US policy.”
Israel seized the West Bank in 1967 during the Six-Day War. According to estimates by international bodies and NGOs, approximately 60 percent of the territory is fully occupied by Israel. The UN Security Council has adopted resolutions stating that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories has “no legal validity,” and calling for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” The State Department refers to “occupied territories” in its own reports, including in a human rights report from last year.
Friedman, an Orthodox Jew and former bankruptcy lawyer who worked for Trump’s real estate empire, has been an outspoken advocate for Israel’s claim to Jerusalem. Although lacking a formal background in diplomacy, he was a top adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, vowing that a Trump White House would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocate the US embassy in Tel Aviv to the contested holy city. Friedman has previously accused Barack Obama of “anti-Semitism” and likened one liberal Israeli anti-occupation group, J Street, to Kapos – Jewish “collaborators” who were appointed to supervise forced labor in Nazi concentration camps.
December 27, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Israeli settlement, Palestine, United States, West Bank, Zionism | Leave a comment
What options does Abbas have after that General Assembly vote?
By Prof. Kamel Hamwash | MEMO | December 27, 2107
As the dust settles on a significant week at the UN, in which America’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was rejected roundly by the international community, the Palestinians have made a commitment not to engage with the US in any future peace talks. Where, though, can the Palestinian President turn to next? What options does Mahmoud Abbas have?
A divided, and in some cases apathetic, Arab world has been experiencing political turmoil since the confrontation emerged this year between the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on one hand, and Qatar on the other. As young pretenders to their respective countries’ thrones experiment with war and politics, the US and Israel can take a back seat in the hope that Arab states will weaken each other without any interference on their part.
Palestine is no longer a priority for some Arab countries, except where they can exert pressure on the weak leadership in Ramallah to please Washington and, in turn, the Israelis. Like turkeys voting for Christmas, they believe that they will be protected from Iran if they can deliver the complete submission of the Palestinians to Israel’s wishes.
The EU, which rejected Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, saw some of its own members abstain in the vote in the UN General Assembly. The Russians and Chinese, important members of the Security Council, also have limited, if any, influence on Israel or the Palestinians when compared with the Americans. The Palestinian President’s options for an alternative “honest broker” that Israel will accept are thus non-existent.
It has taken Mahmoud Abbas over two decades to admit that the US is so biased in favour of Israel that it cannot play an even-handed role in the search for a just peace. Why it has taken him so long to realise this so obvious fact is a mystery. Successive US administrations have taken their lead from Israel on this issue. It was always the case that any “offer” to the Palestinians would be put to the Israelis first, and that only after they had applied their “security” test to it and given the green light would it be put to the Palestinians.
This formed the core of an exchange of letters between former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and George W Bush in 2004. “In light of new realities on the ground,” wrote the then US President, “including already existing major Israeli population centres, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” He added that, “The United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders, and to preserve and strengthen Israel’s capability to deter and defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats.”
While Bush referred in his letter to UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 as forming the basis for negotiations, the Israelis worked hard to ensure that the talks which followed were not referenced to any such international decisions.
The Palestinians fell into this trap by failing to insist on international law and Security Council Resolutions as the basis for any talks. This included the last “serious” attempt to bring peace by Barack Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry in 2013, which not only failed to bring peace but was also immediately followed by the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza. Kerry persuaded the Palestinians to return to talks lacking in any reference to international law.
Before leaving office, Kerry laid much of the blame for the failure of the talks he had initiated on the Israelis after, of course, reminding everyone of Obama’s “deep commitment to Israel and its security”. His explanation for the Obama administration’s abstention on UN Security Council Resolution 2334 concerning the illegality of Israel’s settlements — instead of the usual veto of anything critical of Israel — was that the vote was about “preserving” the two-state solution. “That’s what we were standing up for: Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, living side by side in peace and security with its neighbours.”
The incoming Trump administration disassociated itself from Resolution 2334, with the president-elect himself promising that “things will be different” when he entered the White House. He has certainly been true to his word. While asking Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements”, Trump moved away from the US position on two-states: “So I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.”
Trump’s pro-Israel advisers have spent months meeting with the two sides to the conflict. While promising to put a deal on the table soon, this came to a halt when Trump announced on 7 December his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and intention to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv.
Following the US veto of a Security Council resolution rejecting its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and then a large majority voting to pass the same resolution in the General Assembly, Abbas announced last week that he is severing his ties with the US when it comes to the peace process. The Palestinians, he declared, will not “accept any plan from the US” due to America’s “biased” support of Israel and its settlement policy. He also said that the US plan — Trump’s much-vaunted “deal of the century” — “is not going to be based on the two-state solution on the 1967 border, nor is it going to be based on international law or UN resolutions.”
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to state that, “Abbas declared he was abandoning the peace process and did not care which proposal the United States brings to the table.” Putting a spin on it that is incomprehensible to the rest of the world, Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet meeting, “I think that once again, something clear and simple emerges: The Palestinians are the ones who do not want to solve the conflict.” He will do or say anything to distract us from the glaringly obvious reality that it is Netanyahu’s far-right government that is fully to blame for the lack of peace.
As for Mahmoud Abbas, he has to choose between acknowledging his failure over 23 years to advance the cause of the Palestinians, or going back to the drawing board, assessing the strengths of the Palestinian people and looking for ways to raise the cost to Israel of its military occupation of Palestine. The higher the cost, the quicker that Israel will address the Palestinians’ grievances as they seek to attain their rights.
The Palestinian Authority President’s starting point should be to develop a liberation strategy that excludes reliance on non-Palestinians for its delivery, whilst making it supportable by others, both governments and citizens alike.
The elements of such a strategy should include the following:
- The development of options for raising the cost to Israel of the occupation.
- A declaration that the Oslo Accords are null and void. Israel has done this in all but name.
- To demand UN Security Council protection for the Palestinian people.
- To end the PA’s security coordination with the occupation, as it is both immoral and a free service to Israel that brings no benefits whatsoever to the Palestinian people.
- To ask the UN to set up a coordination mechanism for necessary interaction with Israel on humanitarian matters.
- To ask the Arab League to withdraw the Arab Peace Initiative immediately.
- To restate that the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right of return is non-negotiable.
- To demand that any future negotiations with Israel are based on equal rights for all who live between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, and acknowledge that this is the only way to achieve real peace.
- To call on the UN Secretary-General to adopt the ESCWA report — “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid” — that he has withdrawn.
- To launch cases at the International Criminal Court against Israel and Israeli officials immediately, starting with the illegal settlement issue.
- To offer unqualified support for the entirely peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and call for its escalation.
- The immediate lifting of all sanctions imposed by the PA in Ramallah on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
- The implementation of the reconciliation agreement with Hamas.
- An escalation of the peaceful and popular resistance movement in Palestine.
- The launch of a reformed and inclusive Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
- A serious engagement with Palestinians in the diaspora and a move towards elections to the Palestinian National Council.
Many of the points listed above should have been guiding principles in the past, but were overlooked in the PA’s pursuit of a pointless “negotiations first and last” policy which has failed by any measure.
Such a strategy will come with a price. It will bring isolation to the Palestinians and will have an impact on them in ways that will make their lives even more difficult. However, the alternative is that they continue to be oppressed with no end in sight if the current policies remain in place. The Palestinians have shown on numerous occasions that they are prepared to pay the necessary price for liberation but they must be told how this will be achieved by a leadership that they have had the chance to elect.
Any objective assessment will conclude that the current leadership is incapable of delivering what the Palestinians deserve and to which they aspire. It must therefore stand aside and allow the younger, talented generation of Palestinians come to the fore and lead their people. The New Year cannot be allowed to bring more of the same at the hands of Abbas and his team. He has other options; he must exercise them.
Read also:
Free at last: A UN without US diplomatic blackmail
December 27, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, United Nations, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment
In the Dark, without Witnesses and Cameras
Israelis Are Used to Images of Palestinians with Bullet Holes in Them Bleeding

By Miko Peled | American Herald Tribune | December 26, 2017
“In the case of the girls the price must exacted at another time, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras.” Wote Israeli journalist Ben Caspit about Ahed Tamimi who kicked and slapped an IDF officer who invaded her home. In his piece he congratulates the officer who didn’t respond to the slapping and kicking and he continues to say that the Tamimi family must learn the hard way that provoking IDF fighters will cost them dearly. “The IDF has creative abilities” Caspit asserts, abilities with which to exact a price in ways that will not damage its image.
Reading the Israeli press, one is reminded of the story where an evil Jinn came in to a city one day and poured a drug into all the wells of that city. The drug made all who drank the water from the wells mad and it wasn’t long before all the citizens of the city became mad. But the king who also resided in the city had his own water well on the grounds of his palace and so his water remained pure. One day while walking through the city the citizens looked at the king and exclaimed: “Look the king is mad, we must detain him!” When the king heard this, he realized what the evil Jinn had done, he rushed to nearest well and drank from the city’s water.
Israeli media is a world of fantasy. But it’s not a pretty fantasy it is a freighting one where Israeli treatment of Palestinians is characterized as “restrained.” In the summer of 2015 a video that went viral, we saw how an Israeli soldier armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle and wearing a ski mask was chasing a young Palestinian boy with a broken arm down a rocky hillside. This took place in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh in the West Bank. The soldier managed to catch up with the boy, choked him, lifted him up and then threw him on a rock, then he tried to bend or perhaps break the boy’s other arm. Eventually the boy’s sister, Ahed Tamimi, his mother and other women from the village came to the boy’s aid and after a long struggle managed to save the boy from the soldier’s hold. In the process, they also managed to remove the ski mask and expose the soldier’s face. If there is one thing clear it is that the soldier was anything but restrained. In the end another soldier shows up, hits one of the women and rescues the solider at which point out of pure revenge the soldier takes out a tear gas grenade and throws it at the boy and the group that rescued him. In an interview to the Israeli press the soldier’s father said he was proud of his son’s restraint.
Like everything else in life, it’s all a question of relativity. Israelis are used to seeing their enemies pay a hefty price when they dare to raise their heads. It just so happened that once again in the village of Nabi Saleh, in a case that involved the Tamimi family in a case involving an officer this time, the Israeli army showed “restraint” which was mostly met with disapproval. Israelis are used to images of young Palestinians with bullet holes in them bleeding by a checkpoint as Israeli soldiers and sometimes settlers stand by looking at them die slowly and are unmoved. Executed efficiently because, as MK Dr. Ahmad Tibi said during a speech on the floor of the Knesset, they were suspected of carrying scissors or a small knife, or something that resembles a small knife. The Israeli society is used to this being the standard. But in the case of Ahed Tamimi, the army, the press and the politicians are up in arms – because this was abnormal.
Ben Caspit in his piece repeats one claim that is repeated all over the Israeli media – that every Israeli felt the pain when the officer was slapped by the girl and did nothing. Ben Caspit says this officer did the right thing and that at another place and another time Israel must exact a price from the “Tamimi girls” as he calls them. Another Israeli journalist, Israel Eldad, a veteran journalist touches on another very sensitive point. He says he hopes that the prosecution will act decisively and demand a lengthy prison sentence for Ahed Tamimi, and that she will spend many long years in prison. He explains that this will teach the Arabs that the land belongs to Israel and they cannot just slap us around and get away with it. That this sort of “chivalrous behavior” displayed by the officer, may have been proper a long time ago but not in this case. Here it is about making sure that the Arabs know there is no doubt we have a right to that land, including Ahed Tamimi’s house, out of which she kicked the officers.
There are so many layers to this story that one can write pages upon pages and it will never end. A young girl slapping a man who has invaded her home, her space and even though not in this case, but many, many times her privacy. Night raids by the Israeli military into civilian homes when people are asleep in their beds, are very common and Ahed has experienced this countless times. Then, the image of an Arab girl slapping an Israeli, a woman slapping a man, and while images of dead Palestinians, even children, do not create such a public outcry, the reactions to this one were guttural. By the way, no such reactions were seen when a week before Ahed’s case her 15-year-old cousin Mohammad Tamimi was shot in the head. “We gave up hope” his father Bilal told me, but then, by the grace of God after six hours in surgery doctors were eventually able to take the bullet out of his head and Mohammad is recovering at home.
To add to the claims that Israelis are restrained in their reactions, Knesset Member Oren Hazan, who has been accused of a variety of charges from sexual abuse of women working with him to violent assaults and even reckless driving, had recently boarded a bus with families of Palestinian prisoners. The bus was on its way to a military prison when MK Hazan boarded it and began insulting the families. If anyone was showing restraint here it was the families. And as we look at Palestinian reactions to Israeli oppression, intimidation, and abuse for over seven decades it is clear that the Palestinians are those who are restrained. Israel does not need to exercise restraint because having the support of the US, the European governments and even some Arab and Muslim governments, it is able to get away with murder.
*(16-year-old Ahed Tamimi in Israeli military court. Image credit: Tali Shapiro/ Twitter)
December 26, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment
Thousands of government papers on Falklands & Troubles vanish from National Archives
RT | December 26, 2017
A massive trove of government papers detailing some dark episodes of British history, including the Falklands War and the notorious Northern Irish Troubles, have vanished from the National Archives.
Almost 1,000 files, each thought to contain dozens of British government papers, have disappeared from the National Archives in London after civil servants removed them from the institution, a Guardian investigation has revealed.
By odd coincidence, the disappearance affects some of the most controversial parts of 20th-century British history, namely papers concerning the Falklands War, Northern Ireland’s Troubles and British colonial rule in Palestine.
Other files that vanished detailed tests on polio vaccines and long-running territorial disputes between the UK and Argentina, as well as the infamous Zinoviev letter from the 1920s, which the British secret services claimed to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Moscow-based Communist International (Komintern), to the Communist Party of Great Britain, ordering it to provoke civil war and unrest.
An entire file on the Zinoviev letter scandal vanished after Home Office staff took it away, according to the Guardian. The Home Office declined to explain to the paper who removed the files from the National Archives and why. It also did not say whether any copies had been made.
Other files the National Archives has reported as “misplaced while on loan to government department” include one concerning the way in which the British government took possession of Russian Empire funds held in British banks after the 1917 revolution.
Specific papers from within certain files have also been carefully selected and removed.
“The National Archives regularly sends lists to government departments of files that they have out on loan,” a spokesman for the institution said. “If we are notified that a file is missing, we do ask what actions have been done and what action is being taken to find the file.”
The revelations may leave historians particularly suspicious, as it is not the first time files documenting controversial episodes of Britain’s past have disappeared or been destroyed. In August last year, records linking the UK to Israel’s nuclear program went missing from the National Archives. The archives assured the public it was following a “robust” plan to find the lost files.
A few years earlier, the Foreign Office revealed that multiple documents that “might embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants (such as police agents or informers)” in former British colonies or “might compromise sources of intelligence” were deliberately destroyed as part of ‘Operation Legacy’.
‘Operation Legacy’ also called for the destruction or removal of “all papers which are likely to be interpreted, either reasonably or by malice, as indicating racial prejudice or bias.”
December 26, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism | Leave a comment
Goodbye and Good Riddance
By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | December 25, 2017
Holding hands, the US and Israel have decided to walk out of UNESCO. Nothing could be more appropriate. Two rogue states run by two dangerous buffoons. Two states that have wreaked immense violence across the Middle East ever since ‘Israel’ was implanted in Palestine. In addition to Palestine, the US has launched genocidal wars against three countries just since 1990, Iraq (twice), Libya and Syria and continues to back Saudi Arabia in its equally genocidal war on Yemen.
As for Israel, living permanently outside international law is a necessary condition of its existence. It should have been tossed out of the UN long ago, or at least suspended, until it mended its ways. After all, what club continues the membership of someone who does not obey the rules, is warned once, once, twice, thrice, even 50 times, but still refuses to obey the rules? But Israel does not have to mend its ways and remains a member of the ‘international community’ because another state that does not obey the rules, and shows no respect for international law either, the US, protects it at every level and in every way, fomenting even more violence.
UNESCO has done its best to protect the cultural heritage of Palestine. Nothing that is not Jewish matters to the Zionists and so little of it is Jewish that Muslim and Christian Palestine has been ravaged, not just once (1948) or twice (1967) but continuously. The destruction of Palestine is the necessary condition for the creation of Netanyahu’s ‘Jewish state.’ It is all or nothing: there can be no compromise, no either/or. The Palestinians have set forth options, one secular state, two states living side by side, but the only option acceptable to Israel is all Palestine for us and none for you.
The elimination of the Palestinian human presence in 1948 was accompanied by the destruction of close to 500 of Palestinian villages or hamlets, irrespective of their historical and cultural worth. More destruction followed after 1967, beginning with the demolition of the Magharibah quarter in 1967 to make way for a ‘plaza’ around the Haram al Sharif and continuing in the years that followed. The war also created the opportunity for more Palestinians to be driven out of their homeland, this time from the West Bank, where many had taken refuge during the Zionist onslaught in 1948.
The war was another opportunity to drive Palestine further into history, towards the point where the physical evidence had all been destroyed and the Zionists could say ‘What Palestine? There was never a Palestine here.’ In fact this is what they have been saying all along, anyway, convincing no-one outside their own ranks because the Palestinians have not gone away, because their numbers are increasing (possibly there are now more Palestinians between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan River than the Zionist settler population) and because too much of their history can still be seen on the landscape. This is why the danger to Al Aqsa, glowing above Jerusalem, is so great because it is the living symbol of the lies being told by the Zionists.
On this subject how intriguing it is, and how frustrating for the Zionists, that in the half century they have been burrowing under and around the Haram al Sharif they have not found one object proving that the temple was ever there. There are far older structures whose ruins can be seen today. Turkey is full of them: the excavated temple at Gobeklitepe in south-eastern Turkey is 12,000 years old so how can it be that nothing is left of the grandiose structure said to have been built by Solomon where Al Aqsa now stands? The Bible speaks of a building more than 60 meters high, built from wood (the cedars of Lebanon) and huge blocks of stone. Similar material is said to have been used in the building of the second temple, completed in 515 BC and destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. It is said to have been of the same massive dimensions yet nothing has been found, no remnants of fallen stone pillars, no votive bowls, absolutely nothing, suggesting that if the temple did stand on this site the biblical descriptions were fantastically exaggerated (no surprise in a book full of fantastic exaggerations).
Furthermore, the modern day Zionists are connected to ancient Israel only by their religion. Their first colonists had no living connection with the land and no ethnic connection with the people who lived on it. Zionists continue to play on the living Jewish connection in Palestine over the centuries but do not mention that the Jews who were there when their forefathers arrived regarded Zionism as a heresy. Netanyahu’s claim that Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital for 3000 years could convince only idiots, seeing that Israel is only seven decades old and that the last Jewish state in Palestine collapsed in the sixth century BC.
In any case, irrespective of these questions, the ancient Jewish presence in Palestine cannot be accepted as justification for the destruction of what was there until the arrival of Zionist colonists in the late 19th century.
The Zionists share with the Crusaders the unsavory distinction of bringing to Palestine the greatest destruction known in its modern history. After conquering Palestine in the late 11th century the Crusaders massacred or drove all Muslims and Jews out of Jerusalem. The restitution of Muslim rule was followed from the early 16th century by four centuries of a long Ottoman peace until the British capture of Jerusalem in December, 1917. From that time onwards, Palestine has not known a day of peace. Violence and repression by the British occupiers was followed by massive violence, repression and dispossession by the Zionists, continuing down to the present day.
Jerusalem was always a prime target. Massacres and the seizure of Palestinian property in 1948 were repeated after the seizure of the eastern half of the city in 1967, followed by a continuing racist demographic war launched in complete breach of international law and the laws of any country claiming to be called civilized. What this underlines is that at heart Israel is not a modern state but a tribal, atavistic community that lives by its own brutal standards, certainly insofar as the Palestinians are concerned, and is indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks, when not actually contemptuous of what it thinks. For the Zionists to think that they can get away with this endlessly is a sure indication of the madness and delusions in their minds.
The US has now gone so far as to ‘recognize’ Jerusalem as Israel’s capital when in international law, Jerusalem is an occupied city, all of it, not just the eastern half, captured by force of arms and settled in direct violation of the laws or war. Commenting on the UN General Assembly vote rejecting the Trump declaration, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador, openly threatened those who had voted in its favor. Names had been taken and punishment would be inflicted at the appropriate time. By voting for the resolution UN members had shown a lack of respect for the US, according to Haley: where, one might ask, is US respect for international law and the right of UN members to take independent decisions on the basis of that law?
The Trump declaration on Jerusalem has had an incendiary effect across the Middle East and amongst Muslims everywhere. It should be welcomed because it rips the last veil from the deceit known as the peace process. Mahmoud Abbas has had his nose rubbed in the dirt. The Saudi and Qatari governments, dealing with the Zionists behind the thinnest of veils, have had to fall into line on the question of Jerusalem. The Trump declaration has united Muslims across all divides.
By themselves, as brave as they are, as much fortitude and steadfastness as they have always shown, the Palestinians were never going to be able to defeat their enemies on their own. They were far too powerful. The road back to Palestine was always going to lead through the Arab world, as George Habash wrote in the 1950s, now to be extended, given the rise of Iran, to the Islamic world. Nasser fired up the Arab people in the 1950s and together, Hizbollah and Iran have again set an example of defiance of the US and Israel, so successfully that Israel is now well into preparations for the war intended to destroy them once and for all.
This will be an existential war for survival, an extremely violent war for which Israel has been making intensive preparations. It is warning of total destruction and Hasan Nasrallah is warning back that Hizbollah is ready with missiles that can reach any part of occupied Palestine. The stakes in Middle Eastern wars have never been higher, the possible consequences never graver and even potentially cataclysmic. The consequences of Trump’s declaration would have been so well known beforehand that it seems insufficient to call it stupid. Perhaps it was intended to bring on the war with Iran that Israel and [Zionists in] the US have wanted for a long time.
December 26, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Hezbollah, Israel, Nikki Haley, United Nations, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment
The Danger and Challenge of Jewish-Zionist Power

Mark Weber addressing the ‘London Forum’ meeting, April 11, 2015
Text of an address given at the “London Forum” meeting at the Grosvenor Hotel in London, England, on April 11, 2015, and, slightly modified, at the “International Identitarian Congress” in Guadalajara, Mexico, on May 2, 2015. The text has been edited for posting here, and source references have been added.
By Mark Weber, Institute for Historical Review
For many years Israel has violated well established standards of international law and has defied numerous United Nations resolutions in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial killings, and in repeated acts of military aggression.
Most of the world regards Israel’s policies, and especially its oppression of Palestinians, as illegal and outrageous. This international consensus is reflected, for example, in numerous UN resolutions condemning Israel, which have been approved with overwhelming majorities.
In October 2003, for example, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution condemning Israel’s so-called “security barrier,” a grotesque thing, parts of it much larger and more formidable than the Berlin Wall, that Israel has built on occupied Palestinian territory. Supporting the resolution were 144 countries, representing nearly the entire world’s population. Twelve countries abstained. Just four countries opposed the resolution. They were: Israel, the United States, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. The latter two member states are small island countries in the Pacific Ocean, with a combined population of 180,000, that are utterly dependent on the US. / 1
In December 2003, to take another example, the members of the UN General Assembly considered a resolution re-affirming the principle of Palestinian sovereignty. It received the backing of 142 states, including all the nations of Europe and South America. In this case as well, just four countries voted against the resolution: Israel, the US, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. / 2
“The whole world,” said United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan some years ago, “is demanding that Israel withdraw [from occupied Palestinian territories]. I don’t think the whole world … can be wrong.” / 3
Why is it that the United States stands out among the world’s nations in such matchless support of the Zionist state?
With very few exceptions, even those American politicians and media figures who might sometimes criticize a particular Israeli policy are, nonetheless, all but unanimous in their enthusiastic support for Israel — and not just as a country, but as an emphatically Jewish ethnic-religious state. In spite of occasional disputes over specific policies, the US continues, as it has for years, to provide Israel with crucial military, diplomatic and financial backing, including more than $3 billion each year in aid.
Why is it that support for Israel by politicians and in the media is more vehement and unquestioning in the United States than anywhere else? Well, one possible explanation for this unparalleled level of support is that Americans are vastly more aware, enlightened or principled than people anywhere else in the world.
One person who has spoken candidly about the real reason is Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Addressing an audience in Boston, he said: “But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic … People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful — very powerful.” / 4
Bishop Tutu spoke the truth. Although Jews make up only two or three percent of the US population, they wield immense power and influence – much more than any other ethnic or religious group.
As Jewish author and political science professor Benjamin Ginsberg has pointed out: / 5
“Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade’s corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely two percent of the nation’s population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation’s largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times … The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked…
“Jews are only three percent of the nation’s population and comprise eleven percent of what this study defines as the nation’s elite. However, Jews constitute more than 25 percent of the elite journalists and publishers, more than 17 percent of the leaders of important voluntary and public interest organizations, and more than 15 percent of the top ranking civil servants.”
Stephen Steinlight, one-time Director of National Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, has likewise noted what he calls the “disproportionate political power” of Jews, which, as he puts it, is “pound for pound the greatest of any ethnic/ cultural group in America.” He goes on to explain that “Jewish economic influence and power are disproportionately concentrated in Hollywood, television, and in the news industry.” / 6
Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, pointed out in their 1995 book, Jews and the New American Scene: / 7
“During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectuals … 20 percent of professors at the leading universities … 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington … 59 percent of the directors, writers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series.”
Vanity Fair magazine in 2007 published a list of what it calls “the world’s most powerful people” – a lineup of the one hundred most influential media bosses, bankers, publishers, image makers, and so forth, who determine how we view ourselves and the world, and who – directly and indirectly — shape our lives and our futures. Jews made up more than half of the powerful men and women on the Vanity Fair list, reported a leading Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post. / 8
The Jewish role in American political life is similarly formidable and lopsided. One member of the influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations “estimated Jews alone had contributed 50 percent of the funds for [President Bill] Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign.” / 9 The American magazine Mother Jones compiled a listing of the 400 leading contributors to the 2000 US national elections. Seven of the first ten were Jewish, as were twelve of the top 20, and 125 of the top 250. / 10
In recent years the single biggest donor to American politicians, by far, has been Sheldon Adelson, a vehemently pro-Zionist Jewish billionaire. In the 2012 US election campaign, the gambling casino magnate and his wife gave tens of millions of dollars to Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney and other pro-Israel candidates, groups and organizations. As The New York Times reported: “Mr. Adelson, whose $38 billion fortune makes him among the richest men in the world, poured roughly $100 million into Republican campaigns in 2012 …” / 11
The biggest donor to Democratic Party candidates in recent years has been Haim Saban, an Israeli billionaire and global media mogul. Taking note of Saban’s ardent devotion to the Jewish state, The New York Times reported: “He has since emerged as perhaps the most politically connected mogul in Hollywood, throwing his weight and money around Washington, and increasingly, the world, trying to influence all things Israeli. ‘I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,’ he said.” / 12 M. J. Rosenberg, a political affairs analyst for The Nation observed: “Adelson and Saban are top funders, respectively, of the Republican and Democratic parties, although as Adelson points out, ‘when it comes to Israel we’re on the same side’.” / 13
Michael Medved, a well-known Jewish author and film critic, has written: “It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture … Any list of the most influential production executives at each of the major movie studios will produce a heavy majority of recognizably Jewish names.” / 14
One person who has carefully studied this subject is Jonathan J. Goldberg, editor of the influential Jewish community weekly Forward. In his 1996 book, Jewish Power, he wrote: / 15 “In a few key sectors of the media, notably among Hollywood studio executives, Jews are so numerically dominant that calling these businesses Jewish-controlled is little more than a statistical observation …”
Goldberg went on to point out:
“Hollywood at the end of the twentieth century is still an industry with a pronounced ethnic tinge. Virtually all the senior executives at the major studios are Jews. Writers, producers, and to a lesser degree directors are disproportionately Jewish — one recent study showed the figure as high as 59 percent among top-grossing films.
“The combined weight of so many Jews in one of America’s most lucrative and important industries gives the Jews of Hollywood a great deal of political power. They are a major source of money for Democratic candidates.”
Joel Stein, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has written: “As a proud Jew, I want America to know about our accomplishment. Yes, we control Hollywood … I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.” / 16
Over the years, this clout has had a profound impact on how Americans feel, think and act. One prominent political figure who has publicly acknowledged this reality is Vice President Joe Biden. In a remarkable address in May 2013, he said that what he called the “immense” and “outsized” Jewish role in the US mass media and cultural life is the single most important factor in shaping American attitudes over the past century, and in driving major cultural- political changes. / 17 Vice President Biden said: “I bet you 85 percent of those [social-political] changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media, are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense.” He went on to say: “Jewish heritage has shaped who we are – all of us, us, me – as much or more than any other factor in the last 223 years. And that’s a fact.”
As Biden mentions, this is by no means a new phenomenon. Forty-three years ago — during a private White House meeting that was secretly recorded, President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham — the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist — spoke frankly about the Jewish grip on the media. Graham said: “This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.” To which the president responded: “You believe that?” “Yes, sir,” said Graham. “Oh, boy,” replied Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that [publicly, that is], but I believe it.” / 18
How could all this have happened? Jewish American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal provided an answer in his detailed 1978 study, The Zionist Connection. He wrote: / 19
“How has the Zionist will been imposed on the American people? … It is the Jewish connection, the tribal solidarity among themselves and the amazing pull on non-Jews, that has molded this unprecedented power … The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles …
“The extent and depth to which organized Jewry reached – and reaches – in the U.S. is indeed awesome … The most effective component of the Jewish connection is probably that of media control … Jews, toughened by centuries of persecution, have risen to places of prime importance in the business and financial world … Jewish wealth and acumen wields unprecedented power in the area of finance and investment banking, playing an important role in influencing U.S. policy toward the Middle East … In the larger metropolitan areas, the Jewish-Zionist connection thoroughly pervades affluent financial, commercial, social, entertainment, and art circles.”
Because US military might is the most formidable and intrusive in the world, by far, the Jewish-Zionist role in setting American policy has consequences for people far beyond the borders of the United States. In the administration of President George W. Bush a group — a cabal — of high-level, so-called “neoconservative” Jews played a key role in prodding the United States into war in Iraq. They included: Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Richard Perle of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; David Wurmser in the State Department; and, Douglas Feith, the Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Policy. These men acted in accord with Zionist plans to overthrow the Iraqi regime that were already in place well before Bush became president in early 2001. / 20
For well-informed people, this reality is no secret. In Britain, a veteran member of the House of Commons candidly declared in May 2003 that pro-Israel Jews had taken control of America’s foreign policy, and had succeeded in pushing the US and Britain into war in Iraq. Tam Dalyell, a Labour party deputy known as “Father of the House” because he was the longest-serving Member of Parliament, said: “A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United States and formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians …”, and, he added: “There is far too much Jewish influence in the United States.” / 21
In Washington, Senator Ernest Hollings was moved to declare that Iraq was invaded, as he put it, to “secure Israel,” and that “everybody” knows it. Referring to the reluctance of his Congressional colleagues to openly acknowledge this reality, Hollings said that “nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.” Members of Congress, with few exceptions, uncritically support Israel and its policies due to what Hollings called, “the pressures that we get politically.” / 22
Americans have paid a high price for the US alliance with Israel. This includes tens of billions of dollars in economic and military aid to the Jewish state, the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Iraq war and occupation have cost, and the deaths there of more than four thousand American military personnel. Directly and indirectly, America’s so-called “special relationship” with Israel has also generated unprecedented distrust, fear and loathing of the United States around the world. By supporting Israel and its policies, the United States betrays not only its own national interests, but the principles it claims to embody and defend.
In truth, if the United States held Israel to the same standards that it has applied to Iraq, Serbia, and other countries, American bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and American officials would be putting Israeli leaders behind bars for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
With Zionist leaders now prodding the United States into new wars against Israel’s adversaries, the cost of the US alliance with the Zionist state is likely to rise much higher in the years to come. / 23
Israeli and Jewish- Zionist leaders affirm that Jews constitute a “people” or a “nation” – that is, a distinct nationality group to which Jews everywhere are supposed to feel and express a primary loyalty. / 24 Some American Jewish leaders have been explicit about this. Louis Brandeis, a US Supreme Court justice and a leading American Zionist, said: “Let us all recognize that we Jews are a distinctive nationality of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member.” / 25
While Zionist Jews routinely speak of the “Jewish people” as a distinct ethic-religious group, and often affirm that Jews are members of a separate nationality to which they must be loyal, Zionists simultaneously insist that Jews must be welcomed as full and equal citizens in whatever country they may wish to live – with no social, legal or institutional obstacles to Jewish power and influence in public life. In short, Jewish-Zionist leaders and organizations (such as the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee) demand full citizen rights for Zionist Jews not only in “their country,” Israel, but everywhere.
Major Jewish-Zionist organizations, and, more broadly, the organized Jewish community, also promote so-called “pluralism,” “tolerance” and “diversity” in the United States and other countries. They believe this is useful for Jews. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the world’s most influential Jewish- Zionist organizations, puts it this way: “America’s pluralistic society … is at the heart of Jewish security … In the long run, what has made American Jewish life a uniquely positive experience in Diaspora history and which has enabled us to be such important allies for the State of Israel, is the health of a pluralistic, tolerant and inclusive American society.” / 26
Consistent with this outlook, the ADL has for years promoted the slogan “Diversity is Our Strength.” In keeping with this motto, which it claims to have invented, the ADL has devoted great effort and resources to persuading Americans — especially younger Americans — to welcome and embrace ever more social, cultural and racial “diversity.” / 27
This campaign has been very successful. American politicians and educators, and virtually the entire US mass media, promote “diversity,” “multiculturalism” and “pluralism,” and portray those who do not embrace these objectives as hateful and ignorant. At the same time, influential Jewish-Zionist organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, insist that the US must recognize and defend Israel as a specifically Jewish ethnic-religious state. Pluralism and diversity, it seems, are only for non-Jews. What’s good for Jews in their own homeland, Jewish-Zionist leaders seem to say, is not diversity and multiculturalism, but a tribalistic nationalism.
There are some people who object to the power of the so-called “Jewish lobby” because it supports and makes possible Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. Others object because they are unhappy with this or that aspect of the lobby’s agenda. But to me this is beside the point. Apart from the harmful consequences of any particular policy that the Jewish community makes possible, is the injustice and danger inherent in permitting any distinct minority group or interest to wield immense, disproportionate power and influence — and especially in the country that is the world’s foremost military and financial power, and most important cultural factor.
Imagine the response, for example, if evangelical Christians, or Muslims, or African-Americans, were to secure a grip on the American media and on America’s political life comparable to that held by Jews. In reality, the Jewish hold on American life is far more dangerous than one that, in theory, might be held by any of those other groups I’ve mentioned.
There are two main reasons for this:
First, Jews in America have, manifestly, a strong loyalty to a foreign country, Israel, that since its founding in 1948 has been embroiled in seemingly endless crises and conflicts with its neighbors, and which is now a formidable military power with a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, the Jewish grip is especially dangerous because of the distrustful and sometimes even adversarial way that Jews view the rest of us.
Over the centuries, the Jewish community, more than any other single group, has demonstrated a pronounced sense of separateness from the rest of humanity, and, accordingly, views its interests as quite distinct from those of everyone else. This “chosen people” mindset – this “Us vs. Them” attitude – is anchored in centuries of Jewish history and heritage, and is deeply rooted in the collective Jewish psyche.
The ancient Jewish sense of alienation from, and abiding distrust of, non-Jews is manifest in a remarkable essay published in the Forward, the prominent Jewish community weekly. Entitled “We’re Right, the Whole World’s Wrong,” it is written by Rabbi Dov Fischer, an attorney and a member of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles. Rabbi Fischer is also national vice president of the Zionist Organization of America. / 28
So this essay was written not by an obscure scribbler, but rather by a prominent Jewish community figure. And it did not appear in the some marginal periodical, but rather in what is perhaps the most literate and thoughtful Jewish weekly in America, and certainly one of the most influential.
In his essay, Rabbi Fischer tells readers: “If we Jews are anything, we are a people of history … Our history provides the strength to know that we can be right and the whole world wrong.”
He goes on: “We were right, and the whole world was wrong. The Crusades. The blood libels and the Talmud burnings in England and France, leading those nations to expel Jews for centuries. The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition. The ghettos and the Mortara case in Italy. Dreyfus in France. Beilis in Russia and a century’s persecution of Soviet Jewry.
“The Holocaust. Kurt Waldheim in Austria. Each time, Europe stood by silently — or actively participated in murdering us — and we alone were right, and the whole world was wrong.
“Today, once again, we alone are right and the whole world is wrong. The Arabs, the Russians, the Africans, the Vatican proffer their aggregated insights into and accumulated knowledge of the ethics of massacre. And the Europeans. Although we appreciate the half-century of West European democracy more than we appreciated the prior millennia of European brutality, we recognize who they are, what they have done — and what’s what. …
“We remember that the food they [Europeans] eat is grown from soil fertilized by 2,000 years of Jewish blood they have sprinkled onto it. Atavistic Jew-hatred lingers in the air into which the ashes rose from the crematoria …
“Yes, once again, we are right and the whole world is wrong. It doesn’t change a thing, but after 25 centuries it’s nice to know.”
I want to emphasize here that to deal candidly with the reality of Jewish-Zionist power is not, as we so often hear, “hate” or bigoted “anti-Semitism.” We wish no harm to any individual, Jewish or not, because of his or her ancestry, religion or background. At the same time, we must not permit intimidation, malicious smears or threats to keep us from affirming what is true, and doing what is right.
The most direct and obvious victims of Jewish-Zionist power are, of course, the Palestinians who live under Israel’s harsh rule. But we Americans are also victims. Through the Jewish-Zionist grip on the media, and the organized Jewish-Zionist corruption of our political system, we are pressured, seduced, cajoled, and deceived into propping up the Jewish state, providing it with billions of dollars yearly and state-of-the-art weaponry, and even sacrificing American lives.
But it is also the truth that we Americans share some responsibility for all this. We have allowed immense power, affecting every aspect of our lives and our future, to be wielded by members of an ethnic-religious minority group that views the American people with suspicion as potential enemies. Put another way, Americans have permitted people who regard them with wariness and distrust to play a major role in determining how we live our lives, and in determining our future both as individuals and as a nation. To permit such power to pass into the hands of people who clearly do not have our best interests at heart — indeed, do not even trust us — is, to put it mildly, irresponsible.
As long as the power of what Desmond Tutu calls “the very powerful” Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of history and current affairs, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the US political system and the American media, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.
That’s why no task is more important or pressing than to identify, counter and break this power.
Today, we are engaged in a great, global struggle — in which two distinct and irreconcilable sides confront each other: A struggle that pits a self-assured and diabolical power which feels ordained to rule over others, on one side, and all other nations and societies — indeed, humanity itself — on the other.
This struggle is not a new one. It is the latest enactment of a great drama that has played itself out again and again, over centuries, and in many different societies, cultures and historical eras. In the past this drama has played itself out on a local, national, regional, or, sometimes, continental stage. Today this is a global drama, and a global clash.
It is a struggle for the welfare and future not merely of the Middle East, or of America, but a great historical battle for our global well-being — a struggle that calls all of us who share a sense of responsibility for the future of our own nation and of humankind.
Source Notes
1. “General Assembly, in Resumed Emergency Session, Demands Israel Stop Construction of Wall, Calls on Both Parties to Fulfill Road Map Obligations.” United Nations Press Release, Oct. 21, 2003. ( http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/1ce874ab1832a53e852570bb006dfaf6/c4963112ac76556d85256dc7005047aa )
2. UN General Assembly vote on Dec. 23, 2003, on draft resolution 58/ 229.
( http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/77660E5C1B79EF8C85256EA90068A58B )
3. On April 8, 2002, in Madrid. J. Brinkley, “Israel Starts Leaving … ,” The New York Times’, April 9, 2002.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/08/international/08CND-MIDE.html )
4. D. Tutu, “Apartheid in the Holy Land,” The Guardian (Britain), April 29, 2002.
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,706911,00.html )
5. Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago, 1993), pp. 1, 103.
6. S. Steinlight, “The Jewish Stake in America’s Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy,” Center for Immigration Studies, Nov. 2001.
( http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1301.html )
7. Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, Jews and the New American Scene (Harvard Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 26-27.
8. N. Burstein, “Jewish power dominates at ‘Vanity Fair’,” The Jerusalem Post (Israel), Oct.11 (12?), 2007.
( http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Jewish-power-dominates-at-Vanity-Fair )
9. Janine Zacharia, “The Unofficial Ambassadors of the Jewish State,” The Jerusalem Post (Israel), April 2, 2000. Reprinted in “Other Voices,” June 2000, p. OV-4, a supplement to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
10. A. Cockburn, “The Row Over the Israel Lobby,” May 8 (or 5?), 2006.
( http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05082006.html )
11. N. Confessore, E. Lipton, “Seeking to Ban Online Betting, G.O.P. Donor Tests Influence,” The New York Times, March 27, 2014
( http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/us/politics/major-gop-donor-tests-his-influence-in-push-to-ban-online-gambling.html ); J. Horowitz, “Republican Contenders Reach Out to Sheldon Adelson, Palms Up,” The New York Times, April 26, 2015
( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/us/politics/republican-contenders-reach-out-to-sheldon-adelson-palms-up.html ) ; E. Lipton, “G.O.P.’s Israel Support Deepens as Political Contributions Shift,” The New York Times, April 4, 2015
( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/politics/gops-israel-support-deepens-as-political-contributions-shift.html ) ;
See also: M. Gold, P. Rucker, “Billionaire mogul Sheldon Adelson looks for mainstream Republican who can win in 2016,” The Washington Post, March 25, 2015
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/billionaire-mogul-sheldon-adelson-looks-for-mainstream-republican-who-can-win-in-2016/2014/03/25/e2f47bb0-b3c2-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html ); P. Stone, “Sheldon Adelson Spent Far More On Campaign Than Previously Known,” The Huffington Post, Dec. 12, 2012 ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/03/sheldon-adelson-2012-election_n_2223589.html )
12. A. R. Sorkin, “Schlepping to Moguldom,” The New York Times, Sept. 5, 2004.
( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/business/yourmoney/05sab.html ) ;
13. M. J. Rosenberg, “Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban: Billionaire Funders for Israel,” The Nation, Dec. 8, 2014
( http://www.thenation.com/article/192065/sheldon-adelson-and-haim-saban-want-be-koch-brothers-israel )
14. M. Medved, “Is Hollywood Too Jewish?,” Moment, Vol. 21, No. 4 (1996), p. 37.
15. Jonathan Jeremy Goldberg, Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment/ (Addison-Wesley, 1996), pp. 280, 287-288. See also pp. 39-40, 290-291.
16. J. Stein, “How Jewish Is Hollywood?,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 19, 2008.
( http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column )
17. Jennifer Epstein, “Biden: ‘Jewish heritage is American heritage’,” Politico, May 21, 2013.
( http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/05/biden-jewish-heritage-is-american-heritage-164525.html ); Daniel Halper, “Biden Talks of ‘Outsized Influence’ of Jews: ‘The Influence Is Immense’,” The Weekly Standard, May 22, 2013.
( http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-talks-outsized-influence-jews-influence-immense_728765.html ) See also: M. Weber , “Vice President Biden Acknowledges ‘Immense’ Jewish Role in American Mass Media and Cultural Life,” July 2013.
( http://ihr.org/other/biden_jewish_role )
18. “Nixon, Billy Graham Make Derogatory Comments About Jews on Tapes,” Chicago Tribune, March 1, 2002 (or Feb. 28, 2002)
( http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/02/Graham_Nixon.html );
“Billy Graham Apologizes for ’72 Remarks,” Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2002. “Graham Regrets Jewish Slur,” BBC News, March 2, 2002.
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1850077.stm ) The conversation apparently took place on Feb. 1, 1972.
19. A. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978), pp. 206, 209, 212, 218, 228, 229.
20. See: John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
21. F. Nelson, “Anger Over Dalyell’s ‘Jewish Cabal’ Slur,” The Scotsman (Edinburgh), May 5, 2003 ( http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-13027250.html ) ; M. White, “Dalyell Steps Up Attack On Levy,” The Guardian (London), May 6, 2003. ( http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/may/06/race.politics ).
22. M. Weber, “`Iraq Was Invaded to Secure Israel,’ Says Senator Hollings,” July 16, 2004
( http://www.ihr.org/news/040716_hollings.shtml )
23. See, for example: M. Weber, “Behind the Campaign for War Against Iran,” April 2013.
( http://www.ihr.org/other/behindwarcampaign )
24. See: Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique. Praeger, 1998 (Softcover edition, 2002); Review by S. Hornbeck of The Culture of Critique in a 1999 issue of American Renaissance (http://www.csulb.edu/~kmacd/review-AR.html) ; M. Weber, “The Weight of Tradition: Why Judaism is Not Like Other Religions.” Oct. 2010
( http://www.ihr.org/judaism0709.html ) ; M. Weber, “Jews: A Religious Community, a People, or a Race?,” March-April 2000 ( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n2p63_Weber.html ) ; Israel even claims to speak on behalf of Jews who lived and died before the state was established. “Holocaust Victims Given Posthumous Citizenship by Israel,” The Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1985.
( http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-09/news/mn-6754_1_posthumous-citizenship ) ;
25. Louis D. Brandeis, “The Jewish Problem and How to Solve It.” Speech of April 25, 1915. ( http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/sources_document11.html )
26. Foxman letter of Nov. 11, 2005. Published in The Jerusalem Post, Nov. 18, 2005.
( http://archive.adl.org/media_watch/newspapers/20051111-JPost.htm )
27. ADLOn the Frontline (New York), Summer 1997, p. 8. This issue of the ADL bulletin also noted with some pride that President Clinton, in his Feb. 1997 “State of the Union” address, had given an unexpected boost to what it called the “ADL tag line.” In that address, Clinton said: “My fellow Americans, we must never, ever believe that our diversity is a weakness. It is our greatest strength.”
28. Dov Fischer, “We’re Right, the Whole World’s Wrong,” Forward (New York), April 19, 2002, p. 11.
( http://ravfischer.blogspot.com/2008/05/april-19-2002-forward-were-right-whole.html )
Some of Fischer’s remarks here are gross distortions of history. For example, his mention of “a century’s persecution of Soviet Jewry” is a breathtaking falsehood. For one thing, the entire Soviet period lasted 74 years, not 100. And during at least some of that period, above all during the first ten years of the Soviet era, Jews wielded tremendous, if not dominant power. Rabbi Fischer seems to have forgotten such figures as Leon Trotsky, commander in chief of the young Soviet state’s Red Army, Grigori Zinoviev, head of the Communist International, and Yakov Sverdlov, the first Soviet president. (See: M. Weber, “The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia’s Early Soviet Regime,” The Journal of Historical Review, Jan.-Feb. 1994.[ (http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html ]. )
For Further Reading
Norman F. Cantor. The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews. New York: Harper, 1994.
Benjamin Ginsberg. The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State. The Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993.
Peter Harrison, “What Causes Anti-Semitism?” Review of Macdonald’s Separation and Its Discontents. The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1998.
( http://ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n3p28_Harrison )
Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1978.
Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab. Jews and the New American Scene. Harvard University Press, 1995.
Kevin MacDonald, A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy. Praeger, 1994.
Kevin MacDonald, Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism. Praeger,1998
Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements. Praeger, 1998 (Softcover edition, 2002).
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007.
W. D. Rubinstein. The Left, The Right and the Jews. New York: Universe Books, 1982.
Israel Shahak. Jewish History, Jewish Religion. London: Pluto Press, 1994
Goldwin Smith. “The Jewish Question.” From: Essays on Questions of the Day. New York: Macmillan, 1894.
( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n1p16_Smith.html )
Mark Weber, “Anti-Semitism: Why Does It Exist? And Why Does it Persist?,” Jan. 2014.
( http://ihr.org/other/anti-semitism-why-does-it-exist-dec-2013 ).
M. Weber, “Behind the Campaign for War Against Iran,” April 2013.
( http://www.ihr.org/other/behindwarcampaign )
M. Weber, “Iraq: A War for Israel.” March 2008
(http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/iraqwar.shtml)
Mark Weber, “Jews: A Religious Community, a People, or a Race?,” March-April 2000.
( http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v19/v19n2p63_Weber.html )
M. Weber, “A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby,” August 2012.
( http://ihr.org/leaflets/jewishlobby.shtml )
M. Weber, “Straight Talk About Zionism: What Jewish Nationalism Means,” April 2009.
( http://www.ihr.org/zionism0409.html )
M. Weber, “Vice President Biden Acknowledges `Immense’ Jewish Role in American Mass Media and Cultural Life,” July 2013.
( http://ihr.org/other/biden_jewish_role )
M. Weber, “The Weight of Tradition: Why Judaism is Not Like Other Religions.” Oct. 2010.
( http://www.ihr.org/judaism0709.html )
December 26, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment
Energy in Palestine – an introduction
By Palestina, Gas en de Palestijnse Revolutie | 25-12-2017
Fifteen gas fields have been found on the coast of Palestine since 1999. With a value of at least two hundred thirty billion dollar, this gas will play an important role in the region. The key question for us is how the gas will influence the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation. This article is a short introduction to this topic.
Who, what, how much?
The first gas field off the coast of Palestine was found in 1999 and the first flow of gas was realized five years later. Up until today fifteen gas fields have been found that belong to Palestine, six of which are being exploited by ‘Israel’.[1] The total amount of gas is between forty and fifty TCF (trillion cubic feet) and has a minimal value of $230bn.
‘Israeli’ state and exploitation
As a settler-colony and apartheid state, ‘Israel’ has complete control of the gas fields. 40% of the gas will be exported and the remaining 60% will be used for domestic consumption.[2] The sole current export is to Jordan with a total value of fifteen billion dollars. Cyprus, Greece, Italy and the EU also have a joint agreement for the construction of a pipeline to facilitate ‘Israeli’ gas exports to Europe. In regards to domestic consumption the gas makes ‘Israel’ energy independent for the coming decades. ‘Israel’s’ economic position and economic independence are clearly strengthened by the exploitation of the gas fields.
The PA and political parties
The gas has far reaching political consequences. Gas deals with foreign states on the one hand further normalize ‘Israel’ and strengthen its economy. On the other hand gas platforms, pipelines and complicit companies are new targets for the Palestinian resistance and the international solidarity movement. It is only a matter of time before the global BDS movement becomes a significant force against the ‘Israeli’ exploitation of the gas. In this sense, the political meaning of the gas is two-sided or contradictory: on the one hand it strengthens the occupation economy; on the other hand it offers more ways of resistance.
But not all Palestinians have a problem with the Zionist gas exploitation. The Palestinian Authority is as always positive about ‘Israel’ and ‘their’ gas. While the PA canceled a $1.2 billion gas deal with ‘Israel’ in March 2015[3], they offer no resistance to ‘Israeli’ control over the gas. This holds for the gas in Gaza, the Dutch institute SOMO wrote that ‘Israel’ is currently stealing the gas there.[4]
Hamas, who govern Gaza, and the PFLP have been confronting ‘Israel’ about the gas. Mohammed al Zoari, aka ‘the engineer’, was killed in Tunisia in December 2016. He was working on an underwater drone for Hamas to attack gas- and oil platforms.[5] The PFLP rejects all non-Palestinian exploitation of the gas and also agitates against regimes that make gas deals with the Zionist entity.[6][7][8][9]
The Palestinian struggle for liberation in the Netherlands
Noble Energy (United States), Delek Group and Avner (both ‘Israeli’) are the most active companies currently involved with Palestinian gas. Additionally involved is, Royal Dutch Shell (British-Dutch), mainly working on the gas fields on the coast of Gaza. While the PA is in talks with Shell about exploitation of these fields, this is likely never to be a reality. Multiple high-placed ‘Israeli’ scientists and politicians have spoken negatively about a fast exploitation of the Gaza fields. Shell also wants to buy ‘Israeli’ gas to sell in Egypt.[10]
It may be clear that the Dutch movement can play an important role because of the Shell involvement. Add to this that work is being put into constructing a pipeline from Palestine to Europe.[11] With a government that probably wants less dependence on Russian gas[12], Palestinian gas can be flowing through the Netherlands in a decade.
The BDS-movement, especially in the Middle East, is already working on stopping the gas theft. It is our task in the Netherlands to follow this example and stand shoulder to shoulder with activists in Jordan,[13], Turkey[14] and Palestine. We have to struggle in order to guarantee that the resistance will be stronger than the ‘Israeli’ gas profits.
[1] Al-Haq. 2015. ‘Annexing Energy’ report. http://www.alhaq.org/publications/Annexing.Energy.pdf
[2] Jordan BDS. 2014. ‘$8.4billion to Israel’s treasury from Jordanian citizens’. http://jordanbds.net/?page_id=581
[3] Winer, Stuart. 11 maart 2015. ‘Palestinians cancel natural gas deal with Israel’ https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-cancel-natural-gas-deal-with-israel/
[4] SOMO. 2017. ‘Beneath troubled waters’ report. https://www.somo.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Beneath-troubled-waters.pdf
[5] Burton, Fred. 31 December 2016. ‘Mossad’s Fingerprints on a Murder in Tunisia’. https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/mossads-fingerprints-murder-tunisia
[6] 25 februari 2015. PFLP denounces “treacherous” gas deal (between PA and ‘Israel’) and demands immediate cancellation. http://pflp.ps/english/2015/02/25/pflp-denounces-treacherous-gas-deal-and-demands-immediate-cancellation/
[7] 18 mei 2016. PFLP denounces joint US/Israeli/Greek military exercises, calls for action from Greek popular movement. http://pflp.ps/english/2016/05/18/pflp-denounces-joint-usisraeligreek-military-exercises-calls-for-action-from-greek-popular-movement/
[8] 1 juli 2016. PFLP warns of dangerous Turkish-Israeli agreement built on looting the natural gas of the Palestinian people. http://pflp.ps/english/2016/07/01/pflp-warns-of-dangerous-turkish-israeli-agreement-built-on-looting-the-natural-gas-of-the-palestinian-people/
[9] 25 oktober 2016. Jordan protests continue against national gas deal with Zionist state. http://pflp.ps/english/2016/10/25/jordan-protests-continue-against-national-gas-deal-with-zionist-state/
[10] 21 augustus 2017. Shell ‘to buy Israeli gas’ for Egypt market. https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/8/21/shell-to-buy-israeli-gas-for-egypt-market
[12] https://www.fluxenergie.nl/europa-wordt-steeds-afhankelijker-russisch-gas/
[13] 12 november 2016. (Jordanian) Protesters detained briefly over protest against gas deal with Israel. http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/protesters-detained-briefly-over-protest-against-gas-deal-israel
[14] 28 maart 2017. BDS Turkey: Turkish-Israeli energy cooperation is unacceptable! http://bdsturkiye.org/bds-haberler/bds-turkey-turkish-israeli-energy-cooperation-is-unacceptable/
Translation by Samidoun
December 25, 2017 Posted by aletho | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestine, PFLP, Zionism | Leave a comment
Netanyahu thanks Denmark for cutting aid to Palestinian NGOs
MEMO | December 25, 2017
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed Denmark’s recent decision to revoke funding to several Palestinian NGOs, Israel’s Walla reported yesterday.
Netanyahu called on all European countries to follow similar measures.
“I call on all the European governments to end their support for organisations that support terrorism and boycotts of Israel.” He stressed: “Denmark has decided to take this step, but it is not the first or the last.”
“We will continue pursuing this line,” he said.
On Friday, the Danish foreign minister, Anders Samuelsen, announced that it would implement a more “rigorous” vetting process for the transfer of funds to Palestinian NGOs.
The move came after Denmark launched a review of its practices in May following a meeting in which Netanyahu urged Samuelsen to revoke Denmark’s funds for Palestinian NGOs, which he claimed were involved in “anti-Israel incitement and promoting boycotts of the Jewish state.”
Netanyahu gave Samuelsen a list of organisations which receive Danish funds that Israel said were linked to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
Netanyahu’s remarks came during his weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday during which he said that “Mahmoud Abbas [Palestinian President] has shown no interest in finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” President Abbas had previously announced that he won’t accept any peace plan that “is being put forward by the United States.”
The Israeli leader noted during the Cabinet meeting that the US administration believes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the core problem in the Middle East region.
“The root of the general conflict in the Middle East does not lie in Israel, but in Iran and in radical Islam and the terrorism that it inspires,” Netanyahu said.
December 25, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Benjamin Netanyahu, Denmark, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment
Rest In Peace: Mohamed Moheisen, 29
Israel-Palestine Timeline | December 22, 2017
Mohammad Nabil Moheisin, 29, was killed, Friday by Israeli soldiers when the soldiers, stationed across the border fence, resorted to the excessive use of force against Palestinian protesters, in several parts of the Gaza Strip.
During the day in which Mohammad was killed, another young Palestinian, Zakariya al-Kayarna, 24, was also killed, in a separate protest in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza. The Israeli troops injured at least 123 others, including three who suffered life-threatening wounds, and caused dozens to suffer the effects of teargas inhalation.
Medics also provided treatment to dozens of Palestinians, who suffered the effects of teargas inhalation.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza has confirmed that 123 Palestinians were shot with live Israeli army fire, and dozens suffered the severe effects of teargas inhalation, in the northern and eastern parts of the besieged coastal region on this day.
It added that among the wounded were five medics, and four journalists.
In Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, the soldiers shot eight young Palestinian men, especially in the area close to Erez Terminal. The wounded were rushed to the Indonesian Hospital, suffering moderate wounds.
Furthermore, the soldiers shot 27 Palestinians in Jabalia, in northern Gaza; one of them suffered a serious injury, while most of the wounded residents suffered moderate wounds.
Ten Palestinians were also shot, east of the al-Boreij refugee camp, in Central Gaza; one of them suffered a serious injury, and was rushed to the Al-Aqsa Hospital, in nearby Deir al-Balah city.
In addition, the soldiers shot 22 Palestinians east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza strip, and six others in nearby Rafah, before they were all moved to Nasser Hospital and Abu Yousef an-Najjar Hospital, suffering moderate wounds.
The Palestinian Red Crescent in the Gaza Strip has reported that its medics also provided treatment to at least 100 Palestinians, including many women and children, who suffered the effects of teargas inhalation.
Mohammad was shot by a soldier in a military tower, in Nahal Oz base, across the border fence, east of Gaza city. He was from Jabalia in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
December 24, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment
Oceans of Injustice – (Short Film) Palestine
Oceans of Injustice | May 16, 2017
You have to visit Palestine to understand the oceans of injustice that have gone on for so long. But if you can’t go, then let this short film take you on a metaphorical journey and visit http://www.oceansofinjustice.com/r-ytd to learn more.
December 24, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment
Trump administration ends 2017 on a sour note
“Outlaws trying to dictate the law” used gutter tactics to threaten UN member states that dared “disrespect” America’s crazed foreign policy
By Stuart Littlewood | Veterans Today | December 22, 2017
As if Trump’s crass announcement moving the US embassy to Jerusalem wasn’t enough, his minions on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution calling on the President to withdraw US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Even his hand-in-hand friend Theresa May, another pimp for Israel, is against him in this. “On Jerusalem, I made it clear that we disagree with the United States’ decision to move its embassy and recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital before a final status agreement,” she declared. “Like our EU partners, we will not be following suit, but it is vital that we continue to work with the United States to encourage it to bring forward proposals that will re-energise the peace process. That must be based around support for a two-state solution and an acknowledgement that the final status of Jerusalem must be subject to negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
What exactly would final status and a two-state solution look like? Nobody is saying. Possibly because they all know that the idea has been filed in the too-difficult tray a for at least 20 years. There was nothing wrong with the original UN plan to make Jerusalem an international city under separate control. Why not revive that? And if the international community really wanted two states why did they spend decades giving Israel endless opportunities to establish irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ designed to make the occupation permanent? Nothing will now change without the use of force or extreme sanctions. And there’s no sign of that happening.
So please do everyone a favour, US, UK and EU. Spare us that tired old mantra.
Trump’s interference in Jerusalem’s status “null and void”
The draft resolution vetoed by the US was supported by all 14 other members of the Security Council. It called on the US President to withdraw recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and said “any decisions and actions which purport to have altered the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void, and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.” It required all countries not to establish diplomatic missions in Jerusalem.
America’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, stretched credibility far beyond breaking point by saying that the veto was “in defense of American sovereignty and in defense of America’s role in the Middle East peace process…. The United States will not be told by any country where we can put our embassy.
“Today” she said, “for the simple act of deciding where to put its embassy, the United States was forced to defend its sovereignty… Today, for acknowledging the basic truth that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, we are accused of harming peace. The record will reflect that we reject that outrageous claim.”
When did Israel’s claim to Jerusalem become a “basic truth”?
Haley boasted that the US had done more than any other country to assist the Palestinian people, providing them with more than $5 billion in assistance since 1994 and funding 30% of the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) budget. In reality these mighty sums subsidise Israel’s ongoing illegal military occupation. Had Palestinians been left in peace they would be making their own way in the world at no cost to others.
Haley also seized the chance to slam UN Security Council Resolution 2334 adopted a year earlier. Obama, who was President then, opted to abstain rather than veto the measure, allowing it to pass.
2334 reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;
It reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respects all of its legal obligations in this regard;
It underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;
And it sresses that the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities is essential for salvaging the two-state solution, and calls for affirmative steps to be taken immediately to reverse the negative trends on the ground that are imperilling the two-sate solution.
What is there not to like or understand about that? Nevertheless, “Given the chance to vote again on Resolution 2334,” Haley said, “I can say with complete confidence that the US would vote ‘no’; we would exercise our veto power.”
Netanyahu’s reaction to UNSC Resolution 2334 had been entirely predictable: “Peace will come not through UN resolutions, but only through direct negotiations between the parties.” He would say that, wouldn’t he, with his military jackboot on the neck of the Palestinian people. His style of negotiation, as always, is holding a gun to the head of the other party. As everyone, especially America, knows, peace doesn’t suit Israel’s purpose although the pretense of seeking peace does.
What sensible peace proposals have there been?
Haley insisted that while Resolution 2334 described Israeli settlements as impediments to peace, it was the resolution itself that was an impediment. “Misplacing the blame for the failure of the peace efforts squarely on Israeli settlements, the resolution gave a pass to Palestinian leaders who for many years rejected one peace proposal after another,” she said.
Have there been any credible peace proposals? By now, surely, everyone realises that the Israeli regime have never wanted peace. They’ve said so loud and clear. Land-grabbing and ethnic cleansing is what they do, so the jackboot of Israeli occupation must remain firmly on the Palestinians’ neck.
And as far as I’m aware, no-one has actually told us what the two-state solution they keep banging on about would look like. No-one, that is, since Ehud Barak and his “generous offer” to the Palestinians in the summer of 2000. Zio-freaks like Haley, to this day, heap blame on the Palestinians for turning down Barak’s bizarre plan and others like it.
So what did this amazing deal amount to? The West Bank and the Gaza Strip, seized by Israel in 1967 and occupied ever since, comprise just 22% of pre-partition Palestine. When the Palestinians signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 they agreed to accept the 22% and recognise Israel within the internationally recognised ‘Green Line’ borders (i.e. the 1949 Armistice Line established after the Arab-Israeli War). Conceding 78% of the land that was originally theirs was an extraordinary gesture on the Palestinians’ part.
But it wasn’t enough for greedy Israel. Barak’s oh-so-generous peace offer demanded the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within that 22% Palestinian remnant. It was obvious on the map that those settlement blocs created impossible borders and already severely disrupted Palestinian life in the West Bank. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under “Temporary Israeli Control”, meaning Israeli military and administrative control indefinitely. The offer also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian State. What nation in the world would accept that? Of course it was rejected. But the ludicrous reality of Barak’s two-state solution was cleverly hidden from the rest of the world by elaborate propaganda spin.
Later, at the Taba talks, Barak produced a revised map but withdrew it after his election defeat. The ugly facts of the matter are well documented and explained by organisations such as Israel’s own Gush Shalom, yet Israel lobby stooges continue to peddle the lie that Israel offered the Palestinians a deal they couldn’t refuse. Is Barak’s crazed vision of two states the one the US, UK and EU still have in mind when they prattle on about a peace process?
Crude blackmail
In response to America’s veto an emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly (where vetoes are not permitted) was called on Thursday to consider a resolution, co-sponsored by Turkey and Yemen, calling Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “null and void” and reaffirming 10 security council resolutions on Jerusalem, dating back to 1967, including the requirement that the city’s final status must be decided in direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
It also demanded that “all states comply with security council resolutions regarding the holy city of Jerusalem, and not recognise any actions or measures contrary to those resolutions”.
Trump had threatened to withhold $billions of US aid from countries that voted in favour. Ambassador Haley wrote to about 180 of 193 member states warning she would be “taking names” of countries that voted for the resolution.
The Guardian reports Trump as saying: “Let them vote against us. We’ll save a lot. We don’t care. But this isn’t like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “We’re not going to be taken advantage of any longer.”
His remarks appeared to be directed at UN member states in Africa, Asia and Latin America who are vulnerable to US pressure, including Egypt which drafted the UNSC resolution vetoed by the US and which received $1.2bn in US aid last year. Trump’s threat could also affect the UK which hopes to negotiate a favourable post-Brexit trade deal with Washington.
But his gutter tactics backfired spectacularly. 128 member countries including, I’m glad to say, the UK voted in favour of the resolution supporting the longstanding international consensus. Only nine states – including the United States and Israel – voted against; the rest either abstained or stayed away. A stinging rebuke, then, for Trump and his delinquent diplomacy.
Iran vilified as usual
Earlier, we saw a Saban Forum interview with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law and senior adviser on Middle East peace. Questioned about why his ‘team’ had no experts, Kushner replied: “It’s not a conventional team, but it’s a perfectly qualified team. When we were thinking how to put a team together, the President and I focused on who are the most qualified people, who had the right qualification and whom we both trusted.”
So they opted for a real estate lawyer and a bankruptcy lawyer. They have nobody truly qualified in Middle East affairs.
Talking about the Palestinians and Israelis Kushner insisted that “both sides really trust the President, and that’s very important”. He observed: “Many countries in the region see Israel as a much more likely ally than it was 20 years ago because of Iran, because of ISIS.” He spoke of issues of great concern: “You have Iran and their nuclear ambitions and their expansive regional mischief…”
No mention of course of Israel’s nuclear domination and expansive regional mischief.
And he simply couldn’t stop himself demonising Iran. “A lot of countries felt Iran was being emboldened and there was no check on their aggression,” he added. “The president has been very clear about his intentions on this issue, and going to Saudi Arabia and laying out a priority of fighting Iran’s aggression was significant.” Kushner said that unifying everyone against Iran’s aggression is a “world problem”.
He should read the history of US (and UK) aggression against Iran before opening his mouth again of this subject.
There was no mention of international law in the interview, just getting deals done. Peace and strengthening US-Israel relationship is central, according to Kushner. Which of course disqualifies the US as a broker.
The Saban Forum interview is touted by some as a humiliation for Kushner. I don’t agree. Jared Kushner came across as an intelligent and even likable specimen of Zionism, thoughtful and with none of the usual arrogance. But he was shown up as naive, out of his depth and unfit to serve in that position. His performance also emphasised the lunacy of allowing the commander-in-chief of a so-called democracy to bring in his family members and business cronies to meddle in the affairs of state. There’s an unfortunate word for that: nepotism.
It is surely time for Trump, as a world leader, to decide whether to live up to his responsibility to respect and uphold international law and the norms of human conduct. Otherwise he should find other employment before he does any more damage.
The last word goes to the Palestinian ambassador in London, Prof Manuel Hassassian, who hits the nail smack on the head: “The US has dug itself into a position where it is set to find itself, alongside Israel, in a face-off with the majority of world nations – outlaws trying to dictate the law. We hope and trust the global community will not waiver in the face of such bullying tactics and do the right thing under international law and the right thing for Palestine and the Palestinians.”
December 23, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Jared Kushner, Jerusalem, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment
Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention
Defence for Children Palestine | December 5, 2017
From the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli forces. Three out of four experience physical violence during arrest or interrogation.
Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes between 500 and 700 children in military courts each year.
Ill-treatment in the Israeli military detention system remains “widespread, systematic, and institutionalized throughout the process,” according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report Children in Israeli Military Detention Observations and Recommendations.
Recent amendments to Israeli military law concerning children have had little to no impact on their treatment during the first 24 to 48 hours after an arrest, when most of the ill-treatment occurs at the hands of Israeli soldiers, police, and the security service.
International juvenile justice standards, which Israel has obliged itself to implement by ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, demand that children should only be deprived of their liberty as a measure of last resort and include universal prohibitions against physical violence and torture among other protections. Despite these obligations Israeli authorities persistently disregard and fail to comply with international law.
The No Way to Treat a Child campaign seeks to challenge Israel’s prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system.
It is a project of Defense for Children International – Palestine and American Friends Service Committee.
For more information, visit http://www.nowaytotreatachild.org
December 22, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | Human rights, Israel, Israeli settlement, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment
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New Book
The silver that medicine dropped — four thousand years of clinical use, four decades to erase.
Colloidal Silver — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | October 16, 2026
Silver was medicine. Not alternative medicine. Not folk medicine. Medicine. In surgery. In obstetrics. In the burn ward. In water treatment. In the household medicine chest. Every physician before 1938 knew this.
By the 1870s, silver nitrate was standard in surgical wound care across the leading hospitals of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Colloidal silver preparations — Collargol, Argyrol, Protargol — entered European and American practice through the 1890s and early 1900s and became standard antiseptics in military field medicine. By the time Fleming grew his first penicillin mould in 1928, silver was the first-line antimicrobial of the Western pharmacopoeia. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal carried the clinical reports in volume. The practice ran continuously through the Victorian era, the Edwardian era, the First World War, the interwar period. By 1980, almost all of it was gone.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a four-thousand-year clinical record disappeared from mainstream medicine within four decades of the Flexner Report — and what the honest account of silver looks like once that record is reassembled.
Colloidal Silver reconstructs the pre-1938 record from The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the primary literature of the era; recovers Robert Becker’s bioelectric framework from the regeneration research the pharmaceutical model buried; and places silver inside a practical terrain-paradigm guide to its current place — in water, on the body, inside the body, and in the chronic conditions where antibiotics have failed. … continue
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