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Anti-Palestine Media Bias Remains Untouchable Even to Canada’s Media Critics

By Yves Engler | September 23, 2016

Media coverage of world affairs mostly focuses on Ottawa/Washington’s perspective. While the dominant media is blatant in its subservience to Canadian/Western power, even independent media is often afraid to challenge the foreign policy status quo.

A recent Canadaland podcast simultaneously highlighted anti-Palestinian media bias and the fear liberal journalists’ face in discussing one of the foremost social justice issues of our time. The media watchdog’s discussion of the Green Party’s recent resolutions supporting Palestinian rights started strong with Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown laying out three “facts”:

  • In an editorial titled “[Elizabeth] May must renounce anti-Israel resolutions” the Vancouver Sun (reposted on the Ottawa Citizen and Calgary Herald websites) called Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) “an anti-Israel group that uses the fig leaf of Jewishness to lend support to Iran, deny the Holocaust, participate in anti-Semitic Al-Quds protests, encourage terrorism against Israelis and promulgate lies about Israel’s history, society and policies.” When IJV sent a letter threatening libel action Postmedia removed the editorial from its websites.
  • A B’nai B’rith article described left-wing news outlet Rabble.ca as a “racist, white supremacist and antisemitic website”, which they erased after a media inquiry.
  • Not one of a “couple dozen” reports examined about the Green Party resolution calling for “the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions (BDS) that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]” quoted a supporter of the successful motion.

Instead of seriously considering these “facts”, one Canadaland panellist partially justified suppressing Green Party voices favouring the BDS resolution and opposed talking about pro-Zionist media coverage because it contributes to stereotypes of Jewish control over the media. Diverting further from his “facts”, Brown bemoaned anti-Semitism and how Israel/Palestine debates rarely lead to agreement while another panellist mocked people from small towns who express an opinion on the subject. Aired on dozens of community radio stations across the country, the episode ended with a comment about how people shouldn’t protest those killed by Israel if they don’t take a position on the conflict between “North and South Sudan”.

(“North Sudan”, of course, doesn’t exist. And the ongoing war in that region is between two political/ethnic groups within South Sudan, which gained independence five years ago. But, even if they’d gotten their Sudan facts right, the statement is akin to saying Canadaland shouldn’t discuss major advertiser Enbridge pressuring the Vancouver Province to remove a cartoon critical of its Northern Gateway pipeline project because the show didn’t say anything about Tata Motors removing ads from the Times of India over their auto reporting.)

After detailing stark anti-Palestinian media bias, the Canadaland panellists cowered in the face of the “facts” presented. They failed to discuss whether the examples cited reflect a broader pattern (they do), what impact this has on Canadians’ perceptions of Palestinians (it is damaging) or explain the source of the bias.

One wonders if this reflects the panellists’ anti-Semitism, as if they fear talking about coverage of Israel will reveal a “Jewish conspiracy” to shape the news. But, there is no ethnic/religious conspiracy, rather a powerful propaganda system “hiding in plain sight”. While Canadian media bias on Palestine is glaring, that’s largely owing to the depths of grassroots activism on the issue, rather than dynamics particular to the subject. In fact, Canadian media bias on all aspects of this country’s foreign policy is shocking.

While there are particularities, coverage of Israel/Palestine fits the dominant media’s broad bias in favour of power on topics ranging from Haiti to Canada’s international mining industry. The main explanation for the biased coverage is a small number of mega corporations own most of Canada’s media and these firms are integrated with the broader elite and depend on other large corporations for advertising revenue. Media outlets also rely on US wire services and powerful institutions for most of their international coverage and these same institutions have the power to punish media that upset them.

Discussing the structural forces driving media bias and how they interact with the Canadian establishment’s long history of support for Zionism/Israel is a lot for a radio segment. But, the Canadaland panelists could have at least explored some notable developments/dynamics driving anti-Palestinian coverage.

After buying a dozen dailies in 2000 Izzy Asper pushed the CanWest newspaper chain to adopt extremist pro-Israel positions. When Montréal Gazette publisher Michael Goldbloom suddenly resigned in 2001 the Globe and Mail reported “sources at The Gazette confirmed yesterday that senior editors at the paper were told earlier that month to run a strongly worded, pro-Israel editorial on a Saturday op-ed page”, which was written by the head office in Winnipeg and was accompanied by a no rebuttal order. The CanWest editorial demanded Ottawa support Israel even as Israeli government ministers called for the assassination of PLO head Yasser Arafat after 15 Israelis were killed. “Canada must recognize the incredible restraint shown by the Israeli government under the circumstances. … Howsoever the Israeli government chooses to respond to this barbaric atrocity should have the unequivocal support of the Canadian government without the usual hand-wringing criticism about ‘excessive force.’ Nothing is excessive in the face of an enemy sworn to your annihilation.”

In 2004 the CanWest head office was caught directing papers to edit Reuters stories to denigrate Palestinians. “The message that was passed down to the copy desk was to change ‘militant’ to ‘terrorist’ when talking about armed Palestinians,” Charles Shannon, a Montréal Gazette copy editor, told The Nation. “One definite edict that came down was that there should be no criticism of Israel.”

(One Reuters story was changed from “the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank” to “the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel.”)

While Aspers’ interventions were crass, they elicited limited response since anti-Palestinianism pervades the political and media establishments. Both a reflection of this bias and propelling it forward, leading media figures have various links to Israeli nationalist organizations. In 2014 the president of Postmedia, which controls most of English Canada’s daily newspaper circulation, was chairman of the Calgary Gala of the Jewish National Fund, which discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis in its land-use policies. Paul Godfrey is not the first influential media figure fêted by the explicitly racist organization. In 2007 Ottawa Citizen publisher Jim Orban was honorary chair of JNF Ottawa’s annual Gala while prominent CBC commentators Rex Murphy and Rick Mercer, as well as US journalists Barbra Walters and Bret Stephens, have spoken at recent JNF events.

The Ottawa Citizen has sponsored a number of the racist institution’s galas. The paper has also covered JNF events in which the Citizen is listed as a ‘Proud Supporter’. In what may indicate a formal financial relationship the JNF promoted their 2013 Ottawa Gala in the Citizen, including running an advertisement the day after the event. According to the Israeli press, the JNF has entered financial agreements with numerous media outlets, including a recent 1.5 million shekels ($500,000) accord with Israel’s Channel 10 to run 14 news reports about its work.

Prominent media figures often speak at pro-Israel events. In 2015 editor-in-chief of The Walrus Jonathan Kay and Postmedia columnist Terry Glavin spoke on a panel with Centre for Israel & Jewish Affairs CEO Shimon Fogel at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference in Washington DC. Conversely, Palestinian solidarity groups rarely have the resources to pay for high profile journalists and most leading media figures fear associating with their struggle.

While Israeli nationalist organizations prefer to draw influential media figures close, they also have the capacity to punish those challenging their worldview. Honest Reporting Canada organizes Israel apologist ‘flack’. The registered charity monitors the media and engages its supporters to respond to news outlets that fail to toe its extreme Israeli nationalist line. If pursued consistently this type of ‘flack’ drives editors and journalists to avoid topics or be more cautious when covering an issue.

In my forthcoming book A Propaganda System: How the Canadian government, media, corporations and academia sell war and exploitation I detail numerous instances of media owners interceding in international affairs coverage, as well as institutions drawing in influential newspeople and organizing ‘flack’ campaigns. But, there are two unique elements shaping Palestine/Israel coverage.

As a partially ethno/religious conflict the greater number of Jews than Palestinians (or Arabs) in positions of influence within the Canadian media does exacerbate the overarching one-sidedness. In a backdoor way Canadaland’s Jesse Brown highlighted this point when he describes Israeli family members influencing his opinion on the topic.

Another dynamic engendering anti-Palestinianism in the media is Israeli nationalist groups’ capacity to accuse Canadians’ standing up for a people facing the most aggressive ongoing European settler colonialism of being motivated by a widely discredited prejudice. At the heart of the ideological system, journalists are particularly fearful of being labeled “anti-Semitic” and the smear puts social justice activists on the defensive.

When a “couple dozen” articles fail to quote a single proponent of a Green resolution pressing Israel to relinquish illegally occupied land it suggests systemic media bias. Canadaland’s inability to contextualize this anti-Palestinianism reveals a media watchdog subservient to the dominant foreign-policy framework about Israel.

And a sign of how bad coverage is of all foreign affairs.

Yves Engler is the author of Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.

September 23, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Astonishing as it may seem, chanting ‘Viva Palestina’ could soon be a ‘hate crime’

MEMO | September 21, 2016

“Viva Palestina” is an enduring chant along with “Long Live Palestine” and “Long Live Gaza”, all of which are often used by human rights activists and others who want to show their support and goodwill for the long life and well-being of the state and its people. However, using such slogans and messages of solidarity could soon become a hate crime in Scotland, a nation which has often been praised for its refusal to give unconditional support to Israel and its brutal military occupation of Palestine.

To the astonishment of legal observers and human rights activists, a landmark trial is set to go ahead in Aberdeen after Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) member Alister Coutts, 56, was charged with “acting in a racially aggravated manner with intent to cause distress and alarm”. His “crime” was to utter “Viva Palestina” next to the Jericho Cosmetics stall in the city’s Union Square shopping mall.

His arrest, charge and impending court appearance has now fuelled speculation that pro-Israel Zionist groups in Scotland are exerting undue pressure on the authorities to “get tough” with SPSC and other Palestinian-supporting groups. Following an initial crime investigation the police will send a report to the local Procurator Fiscal, who will consider the content and decide whether to take any further action.

While such decisions are said to be taken in the public interest, the disclosure of a host of secret email exchanges between the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal service on one hand, and Zionist organisations on the other, has alarmed SPSC, which says that they reveal the existence of a “cosy relationship” between the public prosecutor and the pro-Israel lobby in Scotland. The emails came to light after a Freedom of Information request was made to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Edinburgh. SPSC officials are now scrutinising the content of the dossier before making public its findings.

“It is extremely sinister for anyone to be charged with expressing the idea of saying ‘long live’ to a community,” commented SPSC co-founder Mick Napier. “The charge therefore seems to have a patina of wishing harm to the Palestinian people. If so, this is certainly breaking new ground in the Scottish legal system; that by saying ‘Viva Palestina’ you are considered to be attacking someone.”

After Coutts had said “Viva Palestina” a policeman arrived and ordered him to leave the shopping mall, a request which, his defence team will argue, was in itself illegal. As soon as he stepped outside, he was handcuffed, held for seven hours and charged.

“He is now deemed to be a racist for saying Viva Palestina in the vicinity of a cosmetics stall,” Napier pointed out. “In the meantime, we are examining what some might regard as the overly-chummy emails.”

The trial, expected to commence next month, comes amidst the backdrop of a nationwide campaign by SPSC against the Israeli-linked cosmetics firm Jericho SkinCare. The group accuses the firm of using minerals extracted from the Dead Sea on the coast of the illegally-occupied West Bank, which is Palestinian territory. SPSC notes that the extraction and commercialisation of resources from an occupied territory breaches UN conventions and it has launched a boycott campaign against a number of cosmetic firms linked to the practice and is lobbying for them to be removed from Scottish shopping centres.

According to Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Dead Sea products are linked closely to the commercial viability of Israel’s illegal settlements and are targeted as part of the global boycott movement. The organisation has produced a fact sheet outlining the legal position. Jericho SkinCare’s website states that the company’s products are “based on Dead Sea minerals”.

A Crown Office spokesman said that he was unable to comment on ongoing criminal cases [sic] but added: “The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service corresponds with many community and faith groups, particularly in relation to the impact of hate crime in their communities. All prosecution decisions are taken following an independent and thorough assessment of the available evidence.”

Let’s see what this translates to in practice.

September 21, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dozens Of Israeli Soldiers Invade Bil’in, Storm Homes And Confiscate Laptops

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IMEMC News | September 21, 2016

Dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded, approximately at 2:30 after midnight, the village of Bil’in in the central West Bank district of Ramallah, broke into and searched several homes and confiscated hard discs from a number of laptops.

Most of the invaded homes belong to nonviolent activists, senior members of the Popular Committee against the Wall in Bil’in, including Dr. Rateb Abu Rahma, his brother Abdullah Abu Rahma, in addition to Ahmad Abu Rahma Mohammad al-Khatib, Ashraf Abu Rahma and photojournalist Haitham Khatib.

Photojournalist Khatib said four military jeeps and two army trucks, carrying around six soldiers, invaded the village and started searching homes before confiscating hard disks from a number of laptops.

“The soldiers just said they will be the property back, but no one believes this,” he said, “They took my car before and never returned it; they are just lying.”

Coordinator of the Popular Committee in Bil’in, Dr. Rateb Abu Rahma, denounced the latest military invasion, and the searches of homes, in addition to the illegal confiscation of private property.

Abu Rahma added that the escalating Israeli violations will not be able to stop the nonviolent, popular resistance, in the village.

The protests in Bil’in started approximately twelve years ago, and kept going despite the ongoing excessive use of force and escalating violations, including night raids, home invasions and curfews, and despite the death of several nonviolent activists on the hands of the Israeli military.

The villages managed to regain 1200 Dunams of orchards, out of 2300 Dunams illegally confiscated and isolated by Israel for the construction of the Wall and the illegal colonies.

September 21, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Never Mention the J-word

… It’s not applicable to Palestine

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | September 19, 2016

Seems our politicians, on both sides of the Atlantic, are under instructions to drop the J-word from their vocabulary. I mean J-for-Justice, conspicuously missing from any discussion about Middle East peace and, more specifically, an end to the hell in the Holy Land.

Only the other day at Westminster a parliamentary question was put to the Secretary of State for International Development asking what assessment had been made of the effectiveness and value for money of the UK’s aid assistance to the Palestinian Territories.

It was answered by Rory Stewart who repeated the tired mantra: “The UK remains committed in its support for a negotiated settlement leading to a safe and secure Israel living alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.” Justice doesn’t come into it, and the Palestinians only merit a viable state while we must ensure Israel enjoys the added comfort of safety and security.

Here in the UK Her Majesty’s Opposition – the Labour Party – is still in self-desruct mode waging a civil war instead of doing its official job of holding the Government to account at this critical time. Jeremy Corbyn, elected leader only a year ago and given a rough ride by most of his MPs ever since, is facing a challenge by Owen Smith. The result is due in a few days. In the meantime Smith has been questioned on his views about the Israel-Palestine conflict and claims to be a Friend of Palestine, stating:

I strongly support a viable peace process based on internationally recognised (1967) borders…. I voted to recognise a Palestinian state in 2014 as an essential step towards to realising a two-state solution. I recognise that, ultimately, this can only be achieved by both sides sitting down together, with equal status, negotiating in good faith and making some difficult compromises. Peace is not something that can be imposed on either the Israelis or Palestinians by force or diktat…. I am not convinced that a boycott of goods from Israel would help to achieve a negotiated peace settlement.

OK, but how is “equal status” to be achieved when one party, not noted for its “good faith” and armed to the teeth, has a gun to the other’s head and illegally occupies the land? There can be no peace without justice, Owen. And, in this case, there can be no justice without the enforcement of international law and UN resolutions. The time for negotiation is after Israel withdraws behind the internationally-recognised 1967 (armistice) lines, not before. And until the international community is prepared to force Israel to toe the line BDS is a perfectly peaceful and legitimate means of persuasion by an increasingly disgusted civil society.

Denied their homes

Then there’s the thorny issue of the Right of Return. Both sides claim it – the Jews after being evicted by the Romans in 135AD and the Palestinians after being forced out by Jewish terror and illegal occupation since 1947 (although Israel nowadays pretends most of them left vuluntarily).

Jews can return even if they or their ancestors were never there in the first place, while Palestinians cannot even if they still have the deeds and keys to their properties and even though their right of return is guaranteed by international law and a raft of humanitarian conventions. Palestinians have a claim to citizenship, financial compensation and in some cases their former homes in what is today called Israel. They also claim self-determination, sovereignty over Jerusalem and the right to establish an independent Palestinian state. The Israelis disagree, as this would spoil the exclusive Jewish character of their new state. The world’s solemn guarantee to the Palestinians has so far proved worthless.

It is sensible that any right of return only applies within a reasonably short time after the circumstances causing unjust exile have ceased. Most Jews expelled from Palestine by the Romans chose not to return when the Roman Empire collapsed and it became safe to go back. No civil or biblical law allows them to suddenly claim such a right 1600 years and 70 generations later. Nor does the myth that God gave them the land of Palestine exclusively and in perpetuity wash.  So the Israelis have done what Israelis do and written their own special law… and enforced it at the Palestinians’ expense.

But the right of Palestinians forced to flee into one of the numerous refugee camps has not expired. Returning to their homes is key to a just peace but we hear little about it these days. The UN charts the organisation’s high-sounding but always feeble attempts to deal with the many injustices… how, in 1974, the General Assembly reaffirmed the “inalienable rights” of the Palestinian people to “self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and to return to their lands and homes”… how, the following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People… how, in 1983, the International Conference on the Question of Palestine adopted the Geneva Declaration to oppose and reject “the establishment of settlements in the occupied territory and actions taken by Israel to change the status of Jerusalem”.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention makes it clear that an occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. The International Criminal Court, set up in 1998, regards such practice as a war crime. But because Israel, along with Iraq and the US, didn’t sign up to the ICC it has felt free to carry on with its squatter programme.

Let’s not call them settlements. Genuine settlers come in friendship and with consent. But Israeli settlers are mostly hardline religious squatters on stolen land who support their own government’s use of violence against Palestinian civilians. Their settlements are usually fortified colonies with army back-up. They may appear heroic in Israeli eyes but are offensive to the Palestinians and a breach of international understanding of what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

Buying time for more of the same

The chances of Israel doing the decent thing without coercion is vanishingly small.  According to historian Benny Morris no mainstream Zionist leader has been able to conceive of future co-existence without a clear physical separation between the two peoples. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, is reported to have said: “With compulsory transfer we have a vast area (for settlement)… I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.”

On another occasion he remarked: “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it is true, but 2,000 years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country.”

General Moshe Dayan, hero of the Six Day War (1967), made it known to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories that “you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes, may leave, and we shall see where this process will lead.” So heroic.

“When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” So said the then chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Force, Rafael Eitan, in 1983.

That’s the kind of mentality the Palestinians are up against.

As things stand Israel has nearly succeeded in its long-term goal of making the Occupation permanent, thanks to the international community’s pathetic failure to force Israel to abandon its evil and unlawful plan. Any proposed solution, says ICAHD (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions), must now answer these questions:

  • Will it really end the Occupation, or is it once again merely a subtle cover for control?
  • Does it offer a just and sustainable peace, or merely an imposed and false quiet?
  • Does it offer a Palestinian state that is territorially, politically and economically viable, or merely a prison-state?
  • Does it effectively address the refugee issue?
  • Does it offer regional security and development?

There is no indication on the ground that Israel is willing to hand back enough land and relinquish enough control for a truly viable Palestinian state to emerge. Quite the opposite. And the US’s latest gift to Israel of $38 billion in military aid allows the Zionists to “forever avoid a meaningful peace deal”, as Grant F Smith says.

So how can a sensible two-state solution be possible? And isn’t all this idle talk of two states and more designed-to-fail negotiations simply designed to buy time for the regime in Tel Aviv to carry on occupying and annexing until they have their ‘Greater Israel’ and provoke Armageddon?

September 20, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

BDS ‘new face of terrorism’ – Israeli minister

RT | September 19, 2016

Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement “the new face of terrorism” in New York on Sunday.

Speaking at the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in New York, Shaked said, “The BDS is illegitimate. I define it thus: BDS is another branch of terrorism in the modern age.”

The BDS movement is a global campaign to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land through the boycott of Israeli goods and services, the divestment of funds and, in theory, sanctions.

Shaked claimed that the aim of the BDS movement was to “to wipe Israel off the map.”

As the decade-long movement gains momentum, Israel has pushed back against it with increasing determination.

“Sometimes the BDS movement’s funding sources are identical to those funding the terrorist organisations,” Shaked told the New York crowd. “This is the new face of terrorism.”

Shaked, a conservative member of Israel’s government who does not believe in a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, has made controversial statements in the past.

In, 2014 she was accused of inciting genocide with a Facebook post which quoted a Jewish settler, “They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

Shaked reminded the crowd about 9/11, and said that the terrorism which has taken place in Jerusalem, New York, Paris, Tel Aviv, London, Brussels, Istanbul “is the same terrorism.”

The minister went on to tell the crowd that Israel and the rest of the world are all “fighting against extreme Islamic terrorism.”

The justice minister expressed concern that young Jewish people are “confused and are led astray” by BDS, claiming that they are being tricked by “terrorists from radical Islam.”

She congratulated states in the US that have adopted legislation against BDS and expressed hope that others would follow suit and make BDS illegal.

September 19, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Birzeit University Condemns Denial of Entry to UK Academic

Birzeit University Official Statement – September 17, 2016

Birzeit University condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the denial of entry to Dr. Adam Hanieh, who was invited by the Ph.D. Program in the Social Sciences at Birzeit University to deliver a series of lectures at the university.

Dr. Hanieh, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, was deported back to London on the morning of September 13, 2016. He was held for questioning for 10 hours at Ben Gurion airport, and then taken overnight to a detention centre outside the airport. In addition to being refused entry, Dr. Hanieh was banned from entering the country for ten years.

Dr. Hanieh was scheduled to share his vast knowledge of global and Middle East political economy with students in the Ph.D. program as well as the university community in a series of lectures scheduled in the coming two weeks.  Hanieh is an accomplished scholar, the author of Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East (Haymarket Books, 2013) and Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), as well as numerous academic articles.

This act of denial of entry and deportation by the Israeli state and its agencies is part of a systematic policy of denial of entry to international academics, professionals and activists intending to visit Palestine. This policy represents an attack on Palestinian academic freedom, and is routinely practiced at the two entry points, the airport in Tel Aviv and the Jordan valley crossing from Jordan.

Birzeit University is not surprised by this latest instance of the policy, and hereby draws attention to its destructive effects. Birzeit University, determined to be part of the international academy, has been once again denied the opportunity to engage with an international academic who would have enriched its academic programs.

September 17, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Billions in Taxpayer Money to Israel: How the NYT Hides Unsavory Facts from View

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | September 15, 2016

Thanks to American taxpayers, Israel has been receiving $3.1 billion in direct military aid each year, and under a new agreement signed this week that amount is set to rise to $3.8 annually. This is a hefty package and major news, but The New York Times has been oddly reticent about it, running a story on page 6 of the print edition and without fanfare online.

This is not a new phenomenon at the Times. Over the past year, as the United States and Israel have negotiated a new 10-year memorandum of understanding concerning military aid, readers have seen few references to the topic, and even with the signing of a new agreement this week, the newspaper maintains its minimalist approach.

The article by Peter Baker and Julie Hirschfeld Davis gives few details of the deal, instead proving a great deal of space to the state of U.S.-Israeli relations. The story reports that the present aid package (signed in 2007 and due to expire next year) amounts to “about $3 billion a year” with additional funds of up to $500 million a year authorized by Congress for missile defense.

We also learn that Israel made some concessions in negotiations, that this week’s deal is “the largest of its kind” and that Israel receives more U.S. money than any other country. But much is missing.

In fact, Israel gets more than half of all U.S. military aid ($3.1 billion out of a total of $5.9 billion), and Israel together with Egypt receives 75 percent of American foreign military assistance. Since the large allotment for Egypt is aimed at maintaining a non-threatening neighbor on Israel’s border, this could also be counted as indirect aid to Israel.

In fact Israel has been receiving well over $3.1 billion. By a conservative estimate, the United States has been giving the country $3.7 billion in direct aid annually with funds for immigrants to Israel, grants for American hospitals and schools, “joint defense projects” with the Department of Defense, and an early disbursement of aid.

The last item on that list refers to a special arrangement: In contrast to other recipients, Israel receives all its funds from the United States in one lump sum within the first month of the fiscal year. The money is then transferred to a Federal Reserve Bank interest-bearing account, allowing Israel to accrue some $15 million annually in interest.

Then there are other perks, such as loan guarantees, “cash flow financing,” and the right to purchase arms directly from companies rather than going through a Department of Defense review.

In addition, donations sent by Jewish and Christian groups to support settlements are tax-exempt. So every dollar donated to support the colonization of Palestinian land means the loss of at least 20 cents that should go into the U.S. treasury. This is an indirect subsidy to Israel that has cost American taxpayers an incalculable amount, at least some tens of millions of dollars.

The Times, however, has shown no interest in revealing the full extent of aid or of pursuing the arguments against pouring so much money into Israel. This week’s story mentions criticism of the aid agreement not until about three quarters into the text, and then it is reduced to three bland paragraphs with quotes from the representative of an anti-occupation organization.

In fact, the opposition goes well beyond such groups. A member of Congress, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), has asked the State Department to investigate Israeli military units for possible violations of the Leahy Act, which prohibits the dispersal of U.S. funds to groups that violate human rights with impunity.

In 2012, 15 leaders of major religious organizations wrote to Congress asking that military aid be made contingent on compliance with American law. Other groups have sponsored billboards in various areas of the country highlighting the incredible largesse the United States provides for Israel.

Moreover, a poll of Americans taken in 2014 revealed that 60 percent believed the United States gives too much aid to Israel, and of that group 34 percent said it received “much too much.” The percentage claiming that our aid package was excessive was even higher (65 percent) among Americans under 34.

Other commentators have noted that Israel is a wealthy country, with universal health care, and is less in need of help than American citizens who struggle to fund their schools, pay for prescription drugs and meet medical fees.

None of this debate appears in the Times, which seems determined to keep the subject well below the radar. Thus we find a lightweight story on the inside pages of the print edition, well behind a more prominent one about Syrian and Israeli skirmishes in the Golan Heights, and an uninformative one-minute video of the signing ceremony on the Middle East page.

Times readers are to remain ignorant of the full, unsavory story about U.S. aid to Israel. If the facts were fully reported, this might inspire unwelcome questions and pushback. Better to say as little as possible and allow Israel to keep collecting its yearly billions from American taxpayers.

Follow @TimesWarp on Twitter.

September 15, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UC Berkeley Axes ‘Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis’ Course

teleSUR – September 13, 2016

University of California, Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks has bowed to pressure from Jewish groups and suspended a course that discusses the history of Palestine since the late 1800s to the present day in the context of “settler colonialism,” as the latter argue the course has an “anti-Israel” bias that seeks to study “ways to ‘decolonize’ — that is, eliminate — Israel,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday.

“The course has been suspended pending completion of the mandated review and approval process,” according to a campus statement that has expressed concern over a course that offered “a single political viewpoint and appeared to offer a forum for political organizing.”

According to the newspaper, 43 Jewish and civil rights groups sent a letter to Dirks complaining that “all the course readings … have a blatantly anti-Israel bias.”

The letter further stated that all course materials and its instructors are one-sided in their view against Israel and were performing “political indoctrination,” which violates the UC Board of Regents’ policy on course content, which prohibits using courses “as an instrument for the advance of partisan interest.”

The Palestine course is among 194 student-taught classes this semester at Berkeley, which are proposed by students and approved by a committee every year.

Within hours of receiving the letter, Dirks issued the statement suspending the course, saying it “did not receive a sufficient degree of scrutiny to ensure that the syllabus met Berkeley’s academic standards.”

The letter called the faculty sponsor, Hatem Bazian, “a well-known anti-Zionist activist who is also the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine.”

However, the Academic Senate’s Committee on Courses and Instruction did evaluate and approve the course, Academic Senate chairman Bob Powell told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Is there a box where you check it off? I don’t think so. But everyone involved in course approval is aware of regents policies—including this one.”

The decision to suspend a course, in this case “Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis,” is rarely taken, but censorship of anti-Israel views by university faculty members and students in the United States is well-documented.

In 2015, a comprehensive report titled “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US” documented how pro-Palestinian academics have lost their jobs, activists have been suspended from their studies and groups have lost their funding.

In July 2014, for example, the University of Illinois fired Professor Steven Salaita shortly after he signed a contract with the university because he sent out several tweets about the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza strip, which killed more than 500 children.

September 14, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Facebook, Israel Seal Deal to Crack Down on Palestinians Online

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teleSUR – September 12, 2016

Facebook and the Israeli government agreed to set up joint teams in order to fight what they call “incitement” posts on the social media website which officials said were meant to target Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, local media reported Monday.

“The meeting took place under the assumption that Facebook has the capability, the responsibility and the willingness to help mitigate incitement and terror from the network,” said a joint statement issued by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and Interior Minister Gilad Erdan.

The Israeli ministers, who belong to the most conservative right-wing government in the history of the country, further argued that criticism and response to Israeli operations, extrajudicial killings and targeting of anti-occupation protests is “incitement and terror.”

“In the recent spate of terror it was proven that the internet has become a home to incubate terrorists and we must fight together to prevent this. The companies must and can do much more,” the statement added according to the local Times of Israel.

“Facebook and internet companies have a responsibility regarding the content they allow on their sites that encourages incitement and terror, and they should actively operate to monitor it,” Erdan said.

Justice Minister Shaked, who has previously called all Palestinians, including women and children “the enemy,” further used the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. to call for a crackdown on Palestinian “terror.”

“Particularly in the week in which we remember 9/11, an event that changed the face of the U.S., it is clear that there is a joint interest among all parties that are in a position to fight terror.”

Such a crackdown on incitement by Facebook would never be used against Israelis who suggest killing Arabs and Palestinians, according to the Intercept.

During the 2014 war on Gaza, many Israelis took to social media platforms to call for more killing of Palestinians.

Last year when an Israeli soldier was arrested for shooting and killing a wounded Palestinian point blank in the head, his fellow troops used Facebook to praise the killing, while Israeli extremists justified the killing and called for his release.

The same Shaked who is worried about online incitement, used Facebook to post the text of an article by the late Israeli writer Uri Elitzur that referred to Palestinian children as “little snakes.”

In a another example, the justice minister posted on Facebook that Palestinians are all “the enemy” and therefore all legitimate targets.

“This is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people,” she said in a Facebook post in 2015. “Every war is between two peoples, and in every war the people who started the war, that whole people, is the enemy.”

Both of those posts were deleted upon her appointment to the justice ministry.

Facebook and Israel have been developing an intimate relationship over the past few years. In June, Mondoweiss reported that Jordana Cutler, current chief of staff at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. was hired as head of policy and communications at Facebook’s Israel office.

Facebook has also been very responsive when asked by Israel to delete posts it deems as inciting terror over the past year.

September 13, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli defense minister compares illegal Israeli outpost with native Palestinian villages

Ma’an – September 13, 2016

BETHLEHEM – Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared the illegal Israeli Amona outpost to the indigenous Palestinian Bedouin village of Susiya and Palestinian land in Jerusalem on Monday in a speech at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli media.

The Amona outpost was slated for demolition following a 2008 Israeli Supreme Court decision after eight Palestinians from neighboring villages — with the support of Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din — successfully petitioned the court to remove the outpost on grounds that the construction was carried out on privately-owned Palestinian land.

“There is no way that Amona can be left as it is built today, because most of the houses are built on private Palestinian land,” Lieberman reportedly said on Monday, referring to Amona, which was built in 1996.

After years of appeals from right-wing Israeli government officials, and attempts by Amona settlers to prove they had legally purchased the land, an Israeli police investigation in May 2014 found the entirety of the outpost to have been built on Private Palestinian lands, and that the documents used by Amona residents to try claim their “purchases” were in fact forged.

In December 2014, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered again that the outpost be demolished by December 2016.

According to Haaretz, Lieberman followed up on his comments about Amona on Monday with the stipulation that “all the rules that apply to Amona apply to every other place as well.”

Claiming that “there is only one law for both Israelis and Palestinians,” Lieberman reportedly told the audience that it was unacceptable that such rulings — as in the case of Amona, which along with every other settlement and outpost in the occupied West Bank is internationally recognized as being illegal — are unfairly enforced against Israelis but not against “other trespassers.”

The “trespassers” Lieberman was referring to were the Palestinian residents of Susiya in the southern West Bank, and the Palestinians of the area known as the “E1 corridor,” a contentious zone that the Israeli government has set up to link annexed East Jerusalem with the mega settlement of Maale Adumim, which would virtually cut the occupied West Bank in half, making the creation of a contiguous Palestinian State impossible.

“We are a nation based on law and we will honor court decisions in all circumstances,” Lieberman said, saying that “when it comes to enforcing rulings against other trespassers everyone stands up on their hind legs,” seemingly complaining about the international community’s harsh reactions to Israeli government attempts to demolish Susiya and replace it with an illegal Jewish settlement of the exact same name.

Susiya’s residents have been embroiled in a decades-long legal battle to legalize the village and have endured multiple demolitions enforced by Israeli authorities over the years, who say Palestinians lack the proper building permits to live on the land that lies between an Israeli settlement and Israel-controlled archaeological site.

The privately owned Palestinian land is located in Area C — the more than 60 percent of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli control — where building permits for Palestinians are nearly impossible to obtain.

Many of the villagers have ties to the land that predate the creation of the state of Israel, and Ottoman-era land documents to prove it.

Most recently, in mid-July, authorities from Israel’s Civil Administration abruptly halted months of dialog with Susiya’s residents over the possibility of legalizing the village, telling them that a future agreement on the village would now be the responsibility of Lieberman.

Lieberman postponed the announcement of his decision twice, first until November 2016, and then until December.

According to spokesperson for Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) Yariv Mohar, who is assisting in Susiya’s legal battle, Lieberman’s decision on whether or not to continue the dialogue between the residents of Susiya and the Civil Administration is set to be announced on December 15, 2016.

Lieberman will be responsible for deciding whether to accept the state of Israel’s request to immediately and without prior notice demolish some 40 percent of the southern occupied West Bank village, where half of the some 200 village residents live according to RHR.

The lawyers of RHR have affirmed that there is no question as to whether the residents own the land they are on, also noting that “basic (Jewish) morality dictates it is wrong to demolish part of a village which has previously demolished without any plan or solution for the residents, while international law prohibits the forcible transfer of populations,” Mohar told Ma’an in August.

Though Lieberman has yet to formally announce a decision, his comments on Monday indicate that in his opinion, the residents of Susiya should be subject to the same treatment as the illegal settlers occupying privately owned Palestinian land in Amona.

Lieberman has previously advocated policies ranging from the overthrow of the Palestinian Authority to the deportation of Palestinian citizens of Israel into the occupied Palestinian territory, while promoting the transfer of towns in Israel that are heavily populated by Palestinians to a future Palestinian state in exchange for illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Lieberman himself lives in the southern occupied West Bank Israeli settlement of Nokdim, in contravention of international law.

Since appointed as defense minister by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May, the two have teamed up to approve hundreds of new housing units in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

September 13, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US to sign record $38bn military aid deal with Israel – report

RT | September 13, 2016

The US has reportedly agreed a $38 billion package to deliver military aid to Israel over the next 10 years, with the pact expected to be signed “within days.” The deal will become the biggest pledge of US military assistance to another country in history.

The new aid package will see Israel receive $3.8 billion per year from Washington, an increase of $700 million from the current $3.1 billion, sources told Reuters. However, the figure fell short of the annual $4.5 billion that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been seeking.

Following the negotiations Israel says it will not seek extra funding from the US. A previous agreement that allowed Israel to spend just over a quarter of the aid given by Washington on weapons from its domestic defense industry, instead of from the US, will be also phased out.

The terms of the deal, which is classed as a memorandum of understanding (MOU), will also include money for Israel’s missile defense program. This had previously been funded by Congress on an informal basis. A source told Reuters that the pact is expected to be signed “within days.”

However the new MOU will not be signed between President Barack Obama and Netanyahu, who have had a frosty relationship due to the US leader’s support for last year’s Iranian nuclear deal, which was bitterly opposed by Israel. Lower-ranking officials will sign the paperwork, as has been the case with previous deals.

The plan for an increase in military aid to Israel has enjoyed strong support in Congress. In April, 83 US Senators – 51 Republicans and 32 Democrats – sent a letter to the White House urging an increase in financial support. The effort was spearheaded by South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and Delaware Democrat Chris Coons.

“In light of Israel’s dramatically rising defense challenges, we stand ready to support a substantially enhanced new long-term agreement to help provide Israel the resources it requires to defend itself and preserve its qualitative military edge,” the letter said.

It is believed that Netanyahu agreed to the deal before November’s US presidential election to avoid uncertainties surrounding what will happen when the new leader takes office.

Not everyone has been impressed with the military aid package set to be signed between the two allies. A Washington DC non-profit group is suing the US government, challenging its authority to provide Israel with foreign aid and arguing that its status – a nuclear power which did not sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty – means that aiding it contravenes US law.

“This lawsuit is not about foreign policy. It is about the rule of law, presidential power, the structural limits of the US Constitution, and the right of the public to understand the functions of government and informed petition of the government for redress,” stated the complaint filed by Grant F. Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy (IRmep).

September 13, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Wins in November

It doesn’t matter who is ‘elected’

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • September 13, 2016

There is considerable chatter about who will win in some of the hotly contested congressional races around the country, but one thing is certain: whoever triumphs will soon be receiving a nice all expenses paid luxury trip to Israel to learn all about Benjamin Netanyahu’s views regarding what more Washington can do to support him and his government. The “educational seminars” are organized by the Israel Lobby, more specifically by a tax exempt entity referred to as the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), which is a part of the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Participation in the journey by all freshman congressman is not mandatory but is advisable if one wants to stay on the right side of the Lobby. In August 2015 the class of 2014 only had three abstentions out of 53 new congressmen when it traveled to Israel along partisan lines with a Democratic group followed shortly thereafter by a GOP contingent.

These orientation trips are in addition to the frequent taxpayer funded visits made by congressmen to update themselves on Israel’s expanding list of “needs.” One such recent excursion involved Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who enthused that “in a region consumed by terrorism and oppression, Israel stands out as a shining beacon of hope and freedom.” Congressman David Rouzer, also from North Carolina, observed that “Any attack on Israel of any kind is an attack on the American people. It was an honor for us to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

My own congressman, Barbara Comstock, a Republican representing the 10th District of Virginia, made the freshman trip last year. Comstock is a supremely ambitious lawmaker who has proven herself to be a dedicated GOP apparatchik. Recently she supported the presidential candidacy of Senator Marco Rubio, the ultimate Republican establishment candidate, who has appropriately been described as an “empty suit” when it comes to any understanding of the serious issues confronting the American people.

Comstock has been involved in a number of unsavory enterprises as she climbed the GOP ladder. She once headed the defense fund for Scooter Libby, the White House aide who was eventually convicted of perjury and other crimes after outing deep cover CIA Officer Valerie Plame, a felony offense. Outing Plame not only destroyed the woman’s career, it also set back CIA efforts to find and neutralize nuclear proliferators, which is what Valerie was working on.

I do not want to appear to be picking on Comstock but she and I have had a bit of a go around on her Israel trip and regarding her statements upon returning to Virginia, which I would like to share. And I must note that she is far from unique. She in reality differs but little from the numerous other congressmen on the make who are short on principles and compassion and long on their commitment to remain on the good side of Israel. And it is completely bipartisan. If Comstock is replaced by Democratic congressional candidate LuAnn Bennett this November I am sure Bennett will make the AIPAC sponsored trip in 2017 and will grovel just as embarrassingly on the Israel-Palestine issue. After all, that is what politicians do.

Comstock commented on her travel experience in a local newspaper, the Loudoun Times-Mirror, saying that she had met with Israeli government leaders who unanimously opposed the then impending nuclear deal with Iran. She agreed, coming to the conclusion that Iran is “very much a threat, not just to Israel and the entire region, but to the United States.” She repeated the Israeli view that the agreement would make it likely that Iran would develop a nuclear weapon in 12 or 13 years. She also opposed weakening sanctions as an inducement for Iran to drop its program, observing that “I think if anything we should increase the sanctions.”

Exercising my First Amendment rights, I then wrote a letter to the newspaper:

“So Congresswoman Barbara Comstock has traveled to Israel on a trip paid for by the Israel Lobby. While there Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns her about the Iranians being a threat to America (and, of course, Israel) so she believes him rather than her own president and returns to regurgitate the propaganda she has been fed. It never occurs to Ms. Comstock that Netanyahu might be feeding her and the other congressmen a lot of rubbish. Neither Israel’s own generals nor the American ones at the Pentagon actually consider Iran to be a serious threat, no matter what it tries to do. Neither the CIA nor the Mossad believe that Iran has ever sought to build a nuclear weapon.

“Perhaps she should do her homework on this one. The Iran deal significantly reduces that country’s capability to produce a nuclear weapon and its research labs will be subject to intrusive inspection. Sure no deal is perfect, but there are plenty of safeguards built in and if Iran fails to keep its end of the bargain sanctions will be re-imposed. It is an agreement that is good for all parties involved, including for Israel.

“Ms. Comstock might also want to revisit her oath of office which pledges her to defend the Constitution of the United States, not to become an accomplice in what a foreign nation wants us to do. Our First President George Washington wisely urged Americans to maintain friendly relations with everyone, to avoid a ‘passionate attachment’ to another nation which just might be creating ‘the illusion of a common interest … where no common interest exists.’”

The newspaper would not print my letter, so I wrote directly to the congresswoman beginning with “The media is reporting that you have traveled to Israel on a trip paid for by the Israel Lobby” and then adding the points I had made in the newspaper letter.

Comstock responded, and I am quoting verbatim her first three paragraphs:

“The Obama Administration vowed this deal would dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons program; provide anytime, anywhere inspections; and cut back Iran’s ballistic missile program. In March of this year, I and 367 of my colleagues signed a bipartisan letter to the president outlining what must be accomplished in the negotiations in order for Congress to support the deal, and that letter stated that the final accord must provide Iran with ‘no pathway to a bomb.’ None of the administration’s promises were kept and none of their goals were met. Therefore, this agreement is fatally flawed and I oppose this deal.

“The Obama Administration has committed to providing Iran sanctions relief from the U.S. in return for temporary, inadequate constraints on Iran’s nuclear program. It will permit Iran to launch an industrial-scale nuclear program after a little more than 10 years; to continue to block international inspectors from its secret nuclear facilities; to hide past work on its nuclear weapons program; and will allow Iran to essentially emerge from the deal as a legitimate player on the global scene with its past record of violence, oppression, and terrorism wiped clean.

“Rewarding the Iranian Regime with billions of dollars in sanctions relief and swiftly lifting the arms embargo provides Iran—a country that exports terrorism—with the means to spread violence around the region. Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, and this deal only emboldens the Ayatollah and the Mullahs to continue spreading instability throughout the world.”

The response is, of course, pretty much a canned argument incorporating “facts” that may have been in part drafted by AIPAC and which is completely in line with Israel Lobby and Israeli government thinking. It includes several errors, most particularly on the efficacy of the inspections routine, is confused about the source of the money due to Tehran, and considerably overstates Iran’s role as a state sponsor of terrorism. It also errs in crediting Iran with “spreading instability around the world.” That honor belongs to the United States, ably assisted by Israel.

More to the point, the response ignores the thrust of my letter, which criticizes American legislators going off on paid trips to foreign countries and then coming back home to confuse those government’s interests with those of the United States. Making a trip where you are propagandized by one side and never speaking to representatives of those who are being belittled is a poor way to come up with a policy. Iran and the Palestinians do have legitimate points of view, believe it or not, and one has to wonder how many Arabs or even dissident Israelis Comstock spoke to when she was in Israel.

Contrary to Comstock’s response, even if Tehran’s government might not be very nice it does not in any way threaten the United States and is in fact directly fighting groups like ISIS. We should be working with Iran where we share interests, not against it. The nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries has been a success, with the inspection routine working, according to UN inspectors. If there is a fundamental problem in the Middle East it is not Iran but rather the unseemly relationship between the U.S. and Israel, which has unbalanced the region and gravely damaged genuine American interests in an important part of the world.

To appreciate the true impact of the AIEF funded trips to Israel multiply Comstock by fifty and repeat every year to make sure that everyone in congress has been subjected to the propaganda. I would bet that all Comstock’s 49 colleagues who also made the sponsored trip last year came back full of good things to say about Netanyahu and his government. One does not expect congressmen to do very much in return for their generous salaries and perks but there is something seriously wrong when they go around the world and uncritically accept what they are hearing from foreign liars and scoundrels who want the United States to do the heavy lifting after they generate regional crises that are beyond their capability to control. Unfortunately, whoever is elected, the pilgrimages to worship at the feet of Benjamin Netanyahu will continue, bringing to mind Patrick Buchanan’s apt description of a shameless and corrupted congress as “Israeli occupied territory.” Indeed.

September 13, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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