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Guess Who Wants Authority to Murder by Drone

By David Swanson | Let’s Try Democracy | July 1, 2016

“I am persuaded no constitution was never before as well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, April 27, 1809.

“We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people — the Israel of our time.” –Herman Melville, 1850.

“I chant the new empire.” –Walt Whitman, 1860.

“Our frontiers today are on every continent.” –John F. Kennedy, 1960.

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” –Frederick Douglas.

If you haven’t been hiding under a partisan rock for the past several years, you’re aware that President Barack Obama has given himself the sort-of legalish right to murder anyone anywhere with missiles from drones.

He’s not the only one who wants that power.

Yes, President Obama has claimed to have put restrictions on whom he’ll murder, but in no known case has he followed any of his self-imposed non-legal restrictions. Nowhere has someone been arrested instead of killed, while in many known cases people have been killed who could have easily been arrested. In no known case has someone been killed who was an “imminent and continuing threat to the United States,” or for that matter just plain imminent or just plain continuing. It’s not even clear how someone could be both an imminent and a continuing threat until you study up on how the Obama administration has redefined imminent to mean theoretically imaginable someday. And, of course, in numerous cases civilians have been killed in large numbers and people have been targeted without identifying who they are. Lying dead from U.S. drone strikes are men, women, children, non-Americans, and Americans, not a single one of them charged with a crime or their extradition sought.

Who else would like to be able to do this?

One answer is most nations on earth. We now read news stories from Syria of people dying from a drone strike, with the reporter unable to determine if the missile came from a U.S., U.K., Russian, or Iranian drone. Just wait. The skies will be filled if the trend is not reversed.

Another answer is Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders, but not Jill Stein. Yes, those first three candidates have said they want this power.

Another answer, however, should be just as disturbing as those already mentioned. Military commanders around the world want the authority to murder people with drones without bothering to get approval from civilian officials back home. Here’s a fun quiz:

How many zones has the United States divided the globe into for purposes of complete military domination, and what are their names?

Answer: Six. They are Northcom, Southcom, Eucom, Pacom, Centcom, and Africom. (Jack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack were already taken.) In normal English they are: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Western Asia, and Africa.

Now here comes the hard question. Which of those zones has a new would-be commander who was just encouraged by a prominent Senator in an open Congressional hearing to acquire the authority to murder people in his zone without getting approval from the U.S. president?

Clue #1. It’s a zone with the empire’s headquarters not even located in the zone, so that this new commander speaks of killing people there as playing “an away game.”

Clue #2. It’s a poor zone that does not manufacture weapons but is saturated with weapons made in the United States plus France, Germany, the U.K., Russia, and China.

Clue #3. Many of the people in this zone have skin resembling people who are disproportionately targets of U.S. police department killings.

Did you get it right? That’s correct: Africom is being encouraged by Senator Lindsay Graham, who a short time back wanted to be president, to blow people up with missiles from flying robots without presidential approval.

Now here’s where the morality of war can wreak havoc with humanitarian imperialism. If a drone killing is not part of a war, then it looks like murder. And handing out licenses to murder to additional people looks like a worsening of the state of affairs in which just one person claims to hold such a license. But if drone killing is part of a war, and Captain Africom claims to be at war with Somalia, or with a group in Somalia, for example, well then, he wouldn’t need special permission to blow up a bunch of people with manned aircraft; so why should he need it when using robotic unmanned bombers?

The trouble is that saying the word “war” doesn’t have the moral or legal powers often imagined. No current U.S. war is legal under either the U.N. Charter or the Kellogg-Briand Pact. And the intuition that murdering people with a drone is wrong can’t be a useful one if murdering people with a piloted plane is right, and vice versa. We actually have to choose. We actually have to set aside the scale of the killing, the type of technology, the role of robots, and all other extraneous factors, and choose whether it’s acceptable, moral, legal, smart, or strategic to murder people or not.

If that seems too much of a mental strain, here’s an easier guide. Just imagine what your response would be if the ruler of Europe Command asked for the authority to murder at will people of his choosing along with anybody too close to them at the time.

July 1, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Millions rally to mark International Quds Day

Press TV -July 1, 2016

Millions of people have attended the International Quds Day rallies across Iran and other countries to show their solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people and condemn Israeli atrocities.

The rallies in Iran, organized by the Islamic Propagation Coordination Council (IPCC), started at 10:30 local time (06:00 GMT) in Tehran and 850 others cities across the country.

Demonstrators, including Iranian Jews and other religious minorities, braved the sizzling heat of the summer, with the mercury touching 42°C in the capital.

People taking part in the rallies sought to communicate to the world the deplorable status of the Palestinians and press the Israeli regime to respect Palestinian rights.

Nine routes have been identified for the rallies throughout the Iranian capital, which witnessed the commencement of the demonstrations.

The late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini, named the last Friday of the lunar fasting month of Ramadan as the International Quds Day.

Each year, millions of people around the world stage rallies on this day to voice their support for the Palestinian nation and repeat their call for an end to the Tel Aviv regime’s atrocities and its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (seen below) also joined the Friday rallies in the capital.

President Rouhani told reporters during the rally that the message of the Iranian people is that the Palestinians are not alone in their struggle against occupation and oppression.

He said the Israeli regime is bound by none of the internationals norms and rules and is a base for the US and the global arrogance in the region.

“Today, any country that fights this base and any country that wants stability and security in this region, is looked upon unfavorably by the global arrogance,” the Iranian president said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also took part in the rallies in Tehran. He said during the demonstration that, with their participation in the rallies, Iranian people are telling the world that they do not condone such wrong policies as occupation.

“The Muslim people of the region and the world,” Dr. Zarif said, “still identify the Zionist regime (Israel) as the biggest threat to the Islamic world and international peace and security.”

Other senior Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is the head of the country’s Expediency Council, Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani, and Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli-Larijani also took part in the rallies.

Israel & Arab governments

Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said the Israeli regime and its sponsors are behind all miseries and the insecurity in Islamic and Arab countries from North Africa to West Asia.

The objective behind the creation of the Israeli regime, Maj. Gen. Rahim Safavi said, was “to create insecurity in and establish dominance over Arab and Islamic countries… and to plunder the natural resources of… these countries.”

“The Israeli regime, with US help, is after normalizing [its] ties with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some other Arab states,” he said, adding, “Hand-in-hand with some Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the [Tel Aviv] regime seeks to stoke war between Sunnis and Alawites and Shias in Islamic countries [like] Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Lebanon and Yemen.”

Rallies are also underway in other countries, including in Iraq, where people took to the streets of the capital, Baghdad, on Friday.

Mohammad Marandi, a professor at the University of Tehran, told Press TV that there is hardly any access to information about Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the United States.

He said people trying to inform Americans of such Israeli behavior face acute antagonism.

Final statement

At the end of the rallies, a statement was issued that called, among other things, for continued resistance in the face of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, unity among various Palestinian factions and continued support for Palestinian resistance, and maintaining unity in the Islamic world.

The final statement also condemned the proxy wars as well as the terrorist activities of Salafi and Takfiri groups in Islamic countries.

It also described the US as the number-one enemy of the Iranian nation, and called for vigilance in the face of US attempts to influence Iranian politics.

July 1, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Guardian sinks into gutter on Corbyn – again

By Jonathon Cook | June 30, 2016

This is way beyond a face-palm moment.

Jeremy Corbyn today launched a review into the Labour party’s supposed “anti-semitism crisis” – in fact, a crisis entirely confected by a toxic mix of the right, Israel supporters and the media. I have repeatedly pointed out that misleading claims of anti-semitism (along with much else) are being thrown at Corbyn to discredit him. You can read my criticisms of this campaign and Labour’s reponse here, here and here.

In his speech, Corbyn made an entirely fair point that Jews should not be blamed for the behaviour of Israel any more than Muslims should be for the behaviour of states that are Islamic. He said:

Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.

But no matter what he said, the usual suspects are now accusing him of comparing Israel with Islamic State, even though that is clearly not what he said – not even close.

First, even if he had said “Islamic State”, which he didn’t, that would not have meant he made a comparison with Israel. He was comparing the assumptions some people make that Jews and Muslims have tribal allegiances based on their religious or ethnic background. He was saying it was unfair to make such assumptions of either Jews or Muslims.

In fact, such an assumption (which Corbyn does not share) would be more unfair to Muslims than to Jews. It would suggest that some Muslims easily feel an affinity with a terror organisation, while some Jews feel an affinity with a recognised state (which may or may not include their support for the occupation). That assumption is far uglier towards Muslims than it is towards Jews.

But, of course, all of this is irrelevant because Corbyn did not make any such comparison. He clearly referred to “various self-styled Islamic states or organisations”. A spokesman later clarified that he meant “Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran or Hamas in Gaza”. In other words, “various self-styled Islamic states and organisations” – just as he said in the speech.

Surprise, surprise, the supposedly liberal Guardian’s coverage of this incident is as appalling as that found in the rightwing Telegraph. The Guardian has an article, quoting rabbis and others, pointing out the irony that Corbyn made an anti-semitic comment at the launch of an anti-semitism review – except, of course, that he didn’t.

In fact, contrary to all normal journalism, you have to read the Guardian story from bottom-up. The last paragraph states:

This story was amended on 30 June to correct the quotation in the second paragraph. An earlier version quoted Corbyn as saying: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Islamic friends are responsible for Islamic State.”

Or in other words, the Guardian reporter did not even bother to listen to the video of the speech posted alongside her report on the Guardian’s own website. Instead she and her editors jumped on the same bandwagon as everyone else, spreading the same malicious rumours and misinformation.

When it later emerged that the story was a complete fabrication – one they could have proved for themselves had they listened to what Corbyn really said – they simply appended at the bottom a one-pargraph mea culpa that almost no one will read. The Guardian has continued to publish the same defamatory article, one based on a deception from start to finish.

This is the very definition of gutter journalism. And it comes as the Guardian editor, Kath Viner, asks (begs?) readers to dig deep in their pockets to support the Guardian. She writes:

The Guardian’s role in producing fast, well-sourced, calm, accessible and intelligent journalism is more important than ever.

Well, it would be if that is what they were doing. Instead, this story confirms that the paper is producing the same shop-soiled disinformation as everyone else.

Save your money and invest it in supporting real independent journalism.

June 30, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention slams Israeli human rights breaches in Hares Boys case

The Hares Boys, one of whom is the XXXXX referred to in the UN Working Group's Opinion

The Hares Boys, one of whom is the XXXXX referred to in the UN Working Group’s Opinion
By Julie Webb-Pullman – Gaza Scoop – June 30, 2016

In an opinion released on June 29, 2016 The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention slammed Israel for its treatment of a Palestinian child arbitrarily detained, tortured, and forced to sign a document without first reading it. The Group also noted the discriminatory nature of the arrest based on the nationality of the victim, who was referred to as XXXXX, but acknowledged to be one of the children in the notorious Hares Boys case.

In the advance unedited version of the opinion, the Working Group “recommends the Government Israel to provide full reparations to XXXXX, starting with his immediate release,” and decided to refer the allegations of torture to the Special Rapporteur on torture for appropriate action.

Israeli authorities did not refute that on 16 March 2013 XXXXX was strip searched and locked in a small room for a long time, during which he was obliged to stay nakedly in stressful positions. In an interrogation room he was shackled, by hands and feet to a chair and was questioned for several hours. He was also subjected to verbal abuses and threats and was forced to sign a document that he was prevented from reading beforehand. For 21 days, XXXXX was held in solitary confinement with no access to the outside world and he was deprived of visits from his family and lawyer.

On 5 April 2013, he was transferred to Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where he was again held in solitary confinement for 19 days.

The Working Group noted that XXXXX was deprived of liberty when he was 17 years old, and had the right to be tried by a juvenile justice system in a speedy manner.

“Military Tribunals cannot be competent for civilians in accordance with relevant international human rights law. He was arrested without a warrant, was not informed of the reasons of the arrest and was not allowed to receive visits from his lawyer for several days following the date of his arrest. During interrogation,he was tortured and forced to sign a document without reading it first,” the Group found.

The Working Group concluded that the detention of XXXXX between 15 March 2013 and 9 April 2013 was arbitrary, being without any legal basis, nor any charge or trial.

It was also of the opinion that those acts from Israeli authorities are in violation of articles 9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as well as articles 9, 10 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and that detention of XXXXX was based in his Palestinian origin therefore was discriminatory in nature.

The Working Group has a mandate to investigate allegations of individuals being deprived of their liberty in an arbitrary way or inconsistently with international human rights standards, and to recommend remedies such as release from detention and compensation, when appropriate.

June 30, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu demands expulsion of Arab MK Zoabi from Knesset

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Palestinian Information Center – June 30, 2016

NAZARETH – Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit Wednesday afternoon regarding the possible expulsion of Arab MK Hanin Zoabi from the Knesset.

Netanyahu’s demand came following Zoabi’s condemnation of the continued Israeli crimes against Palestinians and calls for lifting Gaza siege.

“With her actions and lies she crossed every line and she has no place in the Knesset,” Netanyahu claimed.

Earlier on Wednesday Zoabi caused an uproar on the Knesset floor when she strongly condemned the Israeli forces’ videotaped attack on Turkish activists who were killed during their participation in Freedom Flotilla in 2010. The murderer has to pay compensation for the families of Turkish victims, she said during a debate discussing the newly-signed deal between Israel and Turkey. Zoabi considered the deal as a “murder confession.”

Zoabi demanded the Israeli government issue an apology both to the “political activists” aboard the Mavi Marmara, on which she sailed in solidarity, and to herself, from those who “incited against [her] for six years.”

During the debate, Israeli MKs tried to physically attack Zoabi following her address. Several MKs began shouting and moved toward the podium to complain. “Come hit me! Come hit me!” Zoabi shouted to the MKs who were pointing and yelling at her.

As MKs mobbed the stage, Zoabi shouted “they murdered” and “shut up” repeatedly. When Deputy Knesset Speaker Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beytenu) asked her to apologize, Zoabi said: “The Israeli soldiers who murdered are the ones who need to apologize! You need to apologize!”

The Joint List strongly denounced the attack, considering it a “fascist assault.” It added, “The racist and bloody attack against Joint List MKs has notably escalated, calling for an end to the continued incitement against Arab MKs and Hanan Zoabi in particular”.

In May 2010, a flotilla of six ships headed to Gaza but Israeli navy forces intercepted and boarded them and forced them to dock in Israel after brutally attacking the passengers. Nine of the Turkish activists were killed during the attack.

Zoabi’s comments came a day after Israel signed a deal with Turkey to restore ties, after years of frosty relations exacerbated by the flotilla attack. The deal stipulates that Israel would pay Turkey $20 million in compensation to families of the victims.

June 30, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Free Marwan Barghouthi” banner returns to Paris-area city hall after legal victory

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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – June 30, 2016

The Administrative Court of Montreuil in France rejected on Tuesday, 28 June an appeal by the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture (representing the central French state), demanding the removal of a banner supporting Palestinian prisoner and leader Marwan Barghouthi from the front of the city hall of Stains, in a victory for supporters of Palestinian political prisoners and Stains’ mayor Azzedine Taibi.

The court found that the prefecture’s arguments were inadmissible and invalid, despite an earlier temporary order that the banner must be removed. Azzedine Taibi, the mayor of Stains and a representative of the French Communist Party, said that “This is not a personal victory but a collective victory! … Marwan Barghouthi will remain an honorary citizen of our city and I know that one day, he will be on our side, here in Stains, the city of popular resistance! The struggle and the mobilization will only grow for the liberation of Marwan Barghouti and all Palestinian political prisoners…”

The prefect – representing the government of Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who has urged prosecution of BDS activists and the suppression of the movement to boycott Israel – argued that the banner was “not of local interest” and likely to lead to a “disturbance of public order.” Manuel Valls, as Minister of the Interior, previously intervened in the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah – after intervention from US Secretary of State and now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton – to block the release to Lebanon on parole of the Lebanese Communist prisoner and struggler for Palestine who has been imprisoned in French jails for 32 years.

The prefect’s case was dismissed, as was a complaint filed against the mayor by the BNCVA, a pro-Zionist organization that nominally combats anti-Semitism but in practice focuses on attempts to suppress Palestine solidarity and the boycott of Israel, which accused Taibi of “public apology for terrorism” for his support of Barghouti.

Stains is one of a group of 23 French municipalities who have named the imprisoned Fateh leader and Palestinian Legislative Council member an honorary citizen. A delegation of 16 French mayors was prohibited from visiting Barghouthi in Gilboa prison in Palestine by the Israeli occupation on 14 June; the mayors participated later in a press conference in support of the campaign to nominate Marwan Barghouthi for a Nobel Peace Prize, a campaign supported by Belgian parliamentarians, Desmond Tutu, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, and the Tunisian winners of the 2015 Peace Prize.

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Taibi hosted a ceremony outside the Stains City Hall on Wednesday night, 29 June, celebrating the victory and the official unveiling and replacement of the “Free Marwan Barghouthi” banner to the front entrance of the Stains city hall.

The Stains victory is one of several in France against attempts to criminalize or suppress the Palestine solidarity movement or the boycott of Israel. A court in Créteil dismissed a prosecution for “incitement to discrimintion” against Jean-Claude Lefort pursued by the Association France-Israel and “Lawyers Without Borders” on 24 June, because he had called for a boycott of Israeli products; the court noted that this was a matter of expression on a “debate of general international interest.” In addition, the municipality of Bondy voted on Thursday, 23 June to refuse to purchase goods made in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Today, 30 June, 4 BDS activists will face a trial in Toulouse; they are accused of “obstructing the normal exercise of economic activity of three stores” for distributing leaflets in public squares in support of the boycott of Israeli goods. The prosecution was initiated by LICRA, a French pro-Israel advocacy organization; activists are mobilizing outside the courthouse at 1 pm in support of the 4 accused organizers.

June 30, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli MPs try to assault Haneen Zoabi

By Jonathon Cook | June 29, 2016

This 9-minute video, showing Israeli Jewish MPs’ reaction to a speech by Haneen Zoabi today, offers a very revealing insight into how Israel’s tribal democracy works. And it isn’t pretty.

Even in the British parliament, which is imploding at the moment, it is impossible to imagine scenes like these.

Zoabi made the speech after Israel agreed this week very belatedly to pay compensation to the families of nine humanitarian activists killed by Israeli commandos in 2010 on the Mavi Marmara, as it plied international waters on its way to deliver aid to Gaza. In fact, it would be more accurate to say Israel assassinated the activists, as a way to deter others from following in their wake.

The Marmara was a Turkish vessel and the compensation was part of Israel’s reconciliation deal with Turkey.

Zoabi was the only Israeli MP on the ship, and was accused of treason by Knesset members for participating in the aid flotilla. She became public enemy number one and received many death threats at the time, including some barely veiled ones from Jewish MPs.

All the exchanges in this video are in Hebrew, but that doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to understand the language to understand what is going on. One Jewish MP, Oren Hazan, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, heckles Zoabi non-stop for more than four minutes, with the Speaker doing nothing more than politely asking him to calm down and refrain from interrupting.

Remember that Palestinians MPs are regularly ejected from the Knesset for far less than this kind of barracking and violation of parliamentary protocol. Notice also that the Knesset TV spends as much time, if not more, focusing on the heckler than Zoabi, implicitly legitimising his anti-democratic behaviour.

But when Zoabi accuses the soldiers of “murder” at about 4.30-min into the video, all hell breaks loose. A dozen or more Jewish MPs rush to the podium and start circling Zoabi like a pack of baying hyenas. By this stage, when Zoabi is being physically threatened by a number of MPs in the parliament chamber, you might think it would be time for some of them to be forcefully ejected, if only to indicate that this subversion of the democratic process will not be tolerated. But not a bit of it. They are treated with kid gloves.

The Knesset guards simply try to block the violent Jewish MPs from reaching the single Palestinian MP in their sights, presumably fearful that were she to be physically assaulted that might make headline news and make Israel look bad.

Paradoxically, the only MP you can see on the film being pushed out of the Knesset chamber is Zoabi’s party leader, Jamal Zahalka, who from the look of things is interceding because he’s worried she is in danger. Hazan was finally removed, though after more than eight minutes of heckling, threats and belligerence.

Another paradox: Zoabi and her fellow party MPs have only recently been allowed to speak in the Knesset again, after the ethics committee (dominated by Jewish MPs) suspended them for several months because of their “unacceptable” political views.

I doubt very much that any of these Jewish MPs, even though they have threatened and tried to physically harm another MP, one from the wrong tribe, will suffer any consequences at all for their behaviour.

Zoabi said in her speech: “I stood here six years ago, some of you remember the hatred and hostility toward me, and look where we got to. Apologies to the families of those who were called terrorists. The nine that were killed, it turns out that their families need to be compensated. I demand an apology to all the political activists who were on the Marmara and an apology to MK Haneen Zoabi, who you’ve incited against for six years. I demand compensation and I will donate it to the next flotilla. As long as there’s a siege, more flotillas need to be organized.”

In addition to the violent reception from MPs visible on film, there was widespread incitement from other MPs. Michael Oren, who a while back was Israel’s ambassador to the US, sounded like Avigdor Lieberman as he said Zoabi’s speech proved she was not loyal and should be permanently stripped of her parliamentary status, under a soon-to-be-passed Suspension Law.

In true colonial style, the government’s chief whip, David Bitan, was reported to have told Palestinian voters in Israel after Zoabi’s speech: “We need to make sure she doesn’t stay in the Knesset. We’ve had enough of this and she doesn’t even represent you properly.”

June 29, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlers raid lands in Bethlehem, spray “Death to Arabs” on Palestinian property

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Ma’an – June 29, 2016

BETHLEHEM – Israeli settlers from the illegal Beitar Illit settlement raided Palestinian lands in the village of Wadi Fukin in the central occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem on Tuesday, according to local witnesses.

Ahmad Sukkar, head of the Wadi Fukin village council, told Ma’an that a group of Israeli settlers raided agricultural lands in the al-Fuwwar area of the village, destroying two greenhouses and tearing up plants belonging to Maher Sukkar, Jamil Assaf, and Muhammad Manasra.

Sukkar also said the Israeli settlers uprooted the plants of Muhammad Saleh Manasra and Naim Daoud Attiyeh, before spray-painting “Death to Arabs” on their property.

Israeli settlers from the illegal Beitar Illit settlement, which has been built on private Palestinian lands belonging to the villages of Husan, Nahalin, and Wadi Fukin, commonly raid the communities and destroy Palestinian property.

Beitar Illit is one of several settlements that comprise what Israel refers to as the “Gush Etzion” settlement bloc, which Israel plans to illegally annex into its territory, according to the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ).

According to ARIJ, Israel’s plans of incorporating the Gush Etzion settlement bloc into the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem — boundaries that Israel continuously redefines in order to annex land further into Palestinian territory — parallels with Israel’s objectives of reshaping the demographics of the city by lowering the Palestinian population to 20 percent, and filling in the rest with Jewish Israelis.

Local Palestinians often attribute settler attacks on Palestinian communities — 51 of which have been reported since the start of this year, according to UN documentation — to Israel’s larger goals of depopulating Palestinian villages near settlements by scaring Palestinians into leaving their lands in an attempt to make room for the expansion or connection of the illegal settlement blocs.

While the Israeli government does not make Israeli settler population statistics public, most rights groups agree that some 600,000 settlers reside in Israeli settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem — all of which are considered illegal under international law.

June 29, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trumping Hillary: The Same Old Pol-Mil Game

Will the 2016 Election Change America’s Militarized Foreign Policy?

By Chuck Spinney | The Blaster | June 27, 2016

Pro-Israel Neocons have said they will jump off the Republican ship and vote for Hillary Clinton, because she will continue business as usual with regard to our militarized foreign policy.  Apologists for Donald Trump argue that he will pursue a more restrained and less warlike foreign policy, including a more balanced policy toward Israel.

But recent  report by Stuart Winer in the Times of Israel suggests Trump’s bombastic ‘art of the deal,’ at least when applied to pol-mil policy, will turn out to be yet another politician’s distinction without a difference — to wit:

A senior adviser to Donald Trump said Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should wait for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to win the White House before signing a military aid deal with Washington, because Trump would offer a better deal than the Obama administration.

In an interview with Channel 2 television David Friedman said that a Trump administration would maintain Israel’s military advantage over its neighbors. He said Trump would not reduce defense aid to Israel but “in all likelihood will increase it significantly.”

“The aid package will certainly not go down in all likelihood it will go up in a material amount because Israel must maintain a technological and military superiority within the region,” Freidman said. “I can’t give advice how Israel should bargain and develop its own strategy.”

Friedman’s suggestion that Trump would increase aid to Israel apparently ran contrary to the GOP candidate’s call to make Israel pay back foreign aid. In March, Trump said he believed Israel should pay for defense aid it receives from the US.

Could it be that the choice for President in 2016 will have no effect on America’s militarized foreign policy, and if so, would this be something new and different?

As with most political questions in Versailles on the Potomac, the pathway to answering this question is less one of Ivory-tower policy analysis than a gritty one of following the money  — in this case the money flowing through the triangular relations of the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex. It is a question that goes to the heart of President Eisenhower’s prophetic warning, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

More on this question later.

June 29, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Faurisson risks jail for 60-word summary of his research during Tehran conference

By Alison Chabloz | June 26, 2016

A brief resumé of the hearing held last week in Paris, by Alison Chabloz.

In contrast to the Court of Appeal hearing given last March, this latest bout of Ziocon persecution of revisionist, Robert Faurisson, was held in the 17° Chambre Correctionelle of the High Court at the Palais de Justice in Paris, ensuring that numerous members of the public who’d gathered there to support the professor were able to witness the proceedings from the court room’s spacious gallery.

Starting an hour late owing to the morning session having overrun the allocated time-slot, magistrates initially dealt with several other cases, lasting for almost another hour, before it was the turn of the world’s foremost ‘Holocaust’ revisionist to defend himself against three separate charges. There was no apology forthcoming from the court for this delay which of course had the negative effect of reducing valuable debating time as well as causing magistrates to rush the proceedings.

Two charges for contesting a crime against humanity (one of which brought by former Justice Minister, Pascal Clément) and a third for racial defamation brought by the LICRA – Ligue contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme.

All three complaints targeted a speech made by the professor in 2006 at a conference on the ‘Holocaust’ in Tehran, Iran. A star witness in the person of Lady Michele Renouf who had travelled from London for the hearing would testify after the initial debates. For once, the number of lawyers on the accused benches seemed to outnumber those of the prosecution by five to two (five to three, if we include the state prosecutor). In reality, however, Robert Faurisson’s defence was assured by Maître Damien Viguer alone. Three immense dossiers were produced and placed on the judge’s desk almost completely hiding the magistrate himself. Cue: hushed, slightly amused tittering from the public benches.

The defence’s principle argument rested on the fact that Faurisson’s speech in Tehran had been delivered in English and had lasted only ten minutes. As his speech had been given outside French territory, French law would not apply. In this case, however, it was the professor’s written essay The Victories of Revisionism, published in Tehran then distributed on the Internet, that had led to the three charges. The article details the major successes of Robert Faurisson’s revisionist career and, in particular, confessions of his adversaries which substantiate the professor’s outright technical and moral victory over his detractors. It is this same article which Maître Viguer uses consistently in defence of his client during the many trials brought by a judicial system which is plainly rotten to the core.

The judge, a man in his forties with curly, dark ginger hair and a beard, began by reading Faurisson’s article (see Part 1 and Part 2). The longer the reading went on, the more the judge seemed to be taking in Faurisson’s words. Towards the end, the judge’s face had completely disappeared behind the hand-held, stapled bundle of A4 sheets.

Faurisson’s counsel, Maître Viguer, asked that the two complaints for contesting crimes against humanity be nullified because of legal non-compliance. After a short break for deliberation, the court reserved its ruling in relation to this matter until September 27. Thus, only the third charge of ‘racial defamation’ would be deliberated on this humid afternoon in the centre of the French capital.

The charge of defamation brought by LICRA concerned the following passages of Faurisson’s article:

“President Ahmadinejad (then head of the Islamic Republic of Iran) used the right word when he said that the alleged Holocaust of the Jews is a myth: that is to say, a belief maintained by credulity or ignorance.

“The alleged Hitlerite gas chambers and the alleged genocide of Jews form one and the same historical lie, which allowed a gigantic political and financial swindle whose main beneficiaries are the state of Israel and international Zionism and whose main victims are the German people – but not their leaders – and the Palestinian people in their entirety.”

The accusation’s charge of defamation lay solely on the ‘argument’ that, by these statements, Faurisson was clearly targeting the Jewish community. The judge asked Faurisson to explain.

Faurisson’s retorts were confident and unrelenting: citing Israel and international Zionism is not the same as citing “the Jews”. The public as well as the officers of the court present were then treated to an hour and a half’s exposé by the man himself. Unlike orthodox historians who merely repeat the given narrative, he would actually go out on the job, tape measure in hand. The 60-word phrase, he explained, is the summary of his lifetime’s work in the field of revisionism. As he advised his students, the key to success when researching any subject is the ability to resume this work in a phrase of approximately 60 words. The enormous body of work he carried out began in the 1950s when he first asked:

“Show me a photo, an architect’s plan or even a drawing of a gas chamber.”

Faurisson continued his testimony with an explanation of Rudolf Höss’ witness statement at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, gained via torture, in particular sleep deprivation. Then, a brief lesson on the explosive quality of Zyklon-B with analysis of actual execution chambers which employ this same gas (no longer used) in the USA. In the 187 pages of court transcripts from Nuremberg concerning Auschwitz, practically nothing is dedicated to the subject of gassing.

The professor went on to expose the lies of Elie Wiesel in his book Night as well as other fabrications concerning execution by boiling water at Treblinka which also feature in the Nuremberg transcript. So many false witnesses: only last week we learned of yet another in the news.

The judge, at this point, interjects with “You’ve therefore not modified your proposals after all this time..?” The female magistrate present appears to have fallen asleep! Such is the contempt for Faurisson’s indisputable strength of character, as apparent and all the more humbling here and now, at the grand old age of 87, as when he started his research more than six decades ago. Faurisson’s conclusions are based on fact, documented evidence, repeatable scientific experiment and, above all, are the fruit of a lifetime’s study and research. What reason other than insanity would make him change his proposals “after all this time”?

Faurisson elaborates on the magical six million number. In August, 1944, Wilhelm Hötll, friend of Eichman, gave a witness statement purporting that the sensational sum could be reached by adding the four million in Auschwitz ‘extermination camp’ to another two million slain Soviets. This was the first time the phrase extermination camp was used in place of concentration camp. However, Hötll was never called to testify at Nuremberg.

The prosecution declines the opportunity to grill Faurisson; Maître Viguer invites the professor to talk about the conference in Iran.

Contrary to media reports, the 2006 conference was inclusive of all opinions concerning the ‘Holocaust’. The professor remembers one adversary challenging him to go to the National Archives in Washington where he would see the evidence that his findings were erroneous. The poor fellow hadn’t bargained on the professor already having been to these very same archives where, amongst other clues, he uncovered documents relating to the 32 RAF sorties over Auschwitz, none of which had succeeded in showing smoke billowing out from the crematoria chimneys.

Maître Viguier questions the professor further on the origin of all these lies surrounding the “Holocaust”. Faurisson replies that it’s impossible to say; the rumour runs and runs. The CICR had also heard rumours of gas chambers at Auschwitz, yet their investigation team was unable to find anyone confirming these rumours. Even Eric Conan in French weekly, L’Express, said of the gas chamber exhibit at Auschwitz “Tout y est faux” – everything is false. 1.7 million people visit Auschwitz annually.

At this point, the judge decides to call Lady Renouf to hear her witness statement. As this will be in English, the court has arranged for an accredited translator to be present. After giving her name and details, Lady Renouf first congratulates Maître Viguier for his bravery in accepting to defend the professor. Her witness statement follows in short phrases which are immediately translated for the benefit of the court. We hear confirmation that Faurisson’s speech was an impromptu affair which lasted only ten minutes and Lady Renouf makes reference to the professor’s English-spoken heritage, owed to his mother being a Scot. She repeats Faurisson’s anecdote, often used to introduce himself to an English-speaking audience, that his French ear should not listen to his Scottish ear because, whereas Scottish law permits inquiry and research into the “Holocaust”, French law does not.

Linguistic confusion arises when Lady Renouf speaks of guidelines (in French, “les consignes”) on how the “Holocaust” should be taught in schools, published in Stockholm in 2000. The translator is unable to translate the word for guidelines, using “guides” instead. Whether or not the greffière recorded a corrected version is uncertain; perhaps the court thought that Lady Renouf was talking about “tour guides”, at Auschwitz or elsewhere?

The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust where the ‘Holocaust’ education guidelines were first announced was also the site of two physical attacks on Faurisson by Jewish terrorist organisation LDJ (Ligue de Défence Juive or Jewish Defence League). These guidelines instruct all public and private schools worldwide not to give a platform to revisionists. Lady Renouf summarises, stating that historical debate and rational argument do not seem to be part of educational guidelines on this subject. There are no questions from the court.

Maître Viguier promptly urges the professor to talk about a case dating back to 1983 when he was accused of “falsifying history”. Faurisson explains that this was the catalyst which led to creation of the 1990 Fabius-Gayssot Act. He also recalls the work of British historian and semi-revisionist David Irving, along with the fact that neither Churchill nor de Gaulle ever mention any gas chambers. In fact, during WW1 already, UK national newspaper the Daily Express had written about enemy gas chambers as early as 1914. An investigation after the war ended in 1918 proved that the story was a propaganda lie. Again, in 1943, the same story about gas chambers appears in the Daily Express. This time, however, there was no similar post-war investigation. Another piece of vital evidence is the documented case of Marinka in Russia where the local mayor was shot dead by the German army for killing a Jewish woman. Many such examples exist yet are suppressed from public knowledge.

The professor then relates his victories over Raul Hilberg and Jean-Claude Pressac; cites Valerie Igounet’s book of smears Histoire du négationnisme en France and tells us that Ariane Chemin didn’t know who Hilberg was when she interviewed the professor in Vichy for Le Monde newspaper. Faurisson also names the director of Yad Vashem 1953-1959, Ben-Zion Dinur, who resigned after coming to the realisation there were far too many false witnesses.

Change of tone as Mâitre Christian Charrière-Bournazel representing LICRA comes to the bar. He’s clearly unhappy about having been forced to listen to Faurisson for two hours (in reality Faurisson had only spoken for an hour and a half), although it’s doubtful Charrière-Bournazel will be complaining quite so much when he receives his fat fee. The only accusation is restricted to the same, tired refrain: when Faurisson mentions the state of Israel and international Zionism, Faurisson means Jews. Faurisson is a racist. Faurisson has already been prosecuted and convicted, etc., etc.

The state prosecutor raises even more eyebrows as she tries to stabilise her microphone (no working mic and a dodgy translator suggest the French judiciary can’t afford to run their courts properly?). Diabolical smears regards Faurisson’s personality as well as the obligatory jibe about using the court room as a platform from which, according to Madame la Procureure, Faurisson would take immense gratification. Perhaps the most telling phrase amongst all the outright lies and smears (paid for by the French tax payer, of course) is when the prosecutor states Faurisson should no longer be given the possibility of further court appearances.

Maître Viguier once again stands to contest the accusation’s claims. That the professor’s words in Tehran constitute ‘defamation’ is a fraudulent lie. The professor’s work is that of an historian. Viguier protests his colleague’s conflation of Israel and Jews, defiantly and correctly stating that conflict in the Middle East could be seen as one direct result of the lies of the Shoah. Faurisson’s work, he insists, will last as long as does this mensonge (“lie”). Viguier deplores the moral order inflicted upon revisionists in the name of war and war crimes, and which effectively prevents revisionists from doing their job.

The judge invites Faurisson to have the last word. Faurisson is finally able to respond to Charrière-Bournazel’s earlier attacks by comparing the lawyer’s attitude and manner to that of an enflure (in the sense of over-exaggerated, self-important, turgid). This warrants an admonishment of Faurisson by the judge, who then fails to chastise Charrière-Bournazel for leaving the court in a show of brazen pomposity whilst Faurisson is still speaking.

Faurisson finishes with another couple of examples of dubious witness statements and mistranslations which have been used by propagandists to bolster the case for a presumed genocide of countless Jews. We’re told of the wildly varying death toll estimates and asked why those who revised the official Auschwitz death toll – down from four to one-and-a-half million – were not punished in the same atrocious manner which Faurisson has been subjected to throughout his career.

The prosecution is demanding a month’s prison sentence and a 3,000 euro fine in the event of a guilty verdict. We shall now have to wait to September 27 to hear the court’s ruling.

Further reading:

The revisionists’ total victory on the historical and scientific level

June 28, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian student sentenced to 10 months in Israeli prison

baraa-amer

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – June 28, 2016

Palestinian student Baraa Amer, 19, a student at an-Najah University and a resident of Kafr Qalil in southern Nablus, was sentenced on Monday, 27 June to 10 months imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 shekels ($675 USD).

Ahmed Khader
Ahmed Khader

Arrested two months ago, Amer is involved with the student Islamic Bloc at the University, and was previously arrested along with 18 fellow students by Palestinian Authority forces in 2015.

Amer was arrested by Israeli occupation forces amid ongoing student elections at the university; active members of Palestinian student blocs are frequently targeted for arrest and persecution, especially at the height of election campaigning.

Baraa was arrested one day before his final exams in a 2:00 am raid on his home by armed Israeli occupation forces.

His father, Nawwaf, is a journalist and former political prisoner himself.

The arrests of Palestinian students continue. On Saturday, 25 June, Israeli occupation forces arrested Ahmed Hussam Khader, 19, as he traveled south of Nablus; Khader is the son of Fateh Palestinian Legislative Council member Hussam Khader and a student of political science at Bir Zeit University.

June 28, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mavi Marmara Court Case to Continue – We Hope the Parliament doesn’t Forgive Israeli Murderers

IHH | June 27, 2016

Today following the ongoing diplomatic negotiations Israel and Turkey have officially announced normalized relations, which have been strained following the attack on Mavi Marmara on 31st May 2010. Netanyahu’s announcement on behalf of Israel came around the same time Turkey issued a statement about it. In the press conference, Netanyahu has declared in a victorious attitude that “It is a tremendous economic success for Israel. The blockade on Gaza by no means is lifted nor shall it ever be lifted. Turkey has agreed to our terms.” He has highlighted that Israel agreed not to pay compensation but to make a donation of 20 million dollars provided that the cases are withdrawn; that this move will prevent the case from establishing a precedent for other crimes of Israeli soldiers; that the agreement is a significant gain. Unfortunately the rapprochement agreement which is announced by Turkey means that blockade on Gaza is recognized by Turkey. Indeed Gaza is free according to the agreement signed in 2005 and is entitled to the right to travel and do business as it pleases without relying on anybody. The embargo means that Israel is recognized as a superior authority which has the final say on what and how much supplies can enter Gaza and this is the subject matter of the agreement announced.

The rapprochement agreement may be regarded as the easing of the blockade although many provisions are quite ambiguous. However it only constitutes a partial permission granted to Turkey. What kind of supplies and how much supplies will Israel allow Turkey to bring in to Gaza stands as a big question mark. Indeed supply entry and exit from Gaza should be free like in every other country. The issue is not entry of humanitarian relief supplies into Gaza but making sure that Gaza has its freedom of movement and transactions so that it does not have to rely on external aid. Palestine is deprived of this freedom and doomed to rely on external aid only while international law grants it to every land and government. It is simply unacceptable. Therefore, as IHH we would like to announce that we will keep up our efforts in all fronts including legal and physical arenas for the removal of the illegal and unjustifiable blockade on Gaza.

Meanwhile it is reported that the agreement has a provision stipulating that a donation will be made to the families of the victims provided that the court cases are withdrawn. These lawsuits are not filed only by victims’ families and Turkish citizens but international victims of the Mavi Marmara attack from 37 different countries. There is no withdrawal of the cases. The victims’ families remain adamant about refusing to give up their cause or withdraw their case until and unless the blockade is removed.

Israel’s arrogant attitude as if to say “I kill people and pay in cash whatever is the cost” is unacceptable. Who is going to protect Turkish citizens from Israel in international waters? Turkish government has acted this way and came to an agreement with the Israeli party. Just like what we have said since the beginning, as an international NGO we do not condone an agreement with Israel. We were never involved in the agreement nor did we partake as a party. To this day we have voiced our warnings and suggestions. From then onwards we will keep standing with Palestinian people through our court cases, our actions to break the blockade, our protests and various aids. The Mavi Marmara court cases are to continue. We hope that the parliament does not endorse this agreement which means that Israeli murderers are exonerated by Turkey. Mavi Marmara stood as a hope in the Islamic world and for the oppressed people of the world. It is our duty to keep this hope which stands for the common consciousness of humanity alive. We would like to rest our case with a Palestinian saying “Whoever covers up with Israel will remain naked.”

June 28, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment