120 Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike in Megiddo prison in solidarity with Bilal Kayed, the Palestinian prisoner who was ordered to six months administrative detention without charge or trial upon the expiration of his 14.5 year sentence in Israeli prison on Monday, 13 June. Two of the leaders of the prisoners’ movement – Wael Jaghoub and Kamil Abu Hanish – have been thrown into solitary confinement, said early reports from the prisons on 21 June.
Kayed has been on hunger strike since 14 June demanding his freedom and the cancellation of the administrative detention order. A prominent leader among the prisoners of the leftist Palestinian party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Kayed’s struggle has received strong support from his comrades and fellow Palestinian prisoners, who note that his situation poses a danger to all Palestinian prisoners of a new systematic Israeli policy of administrative detention upon release.
Hundreds of Kayed’s comrades have been participating in limited-duration hunger strikes and other protests inside Israeli prisons; they have announced that they will pursue a collective open hunger strike after 7 July – which are being met with repression.
Prisoner leaders Jaghoub and Abu Hanish were ordered to isolation as repressive forces invaded sections 1, 5, and 7 in Ramon prison, confiscating electrical appliances and personal belongings and locking down cells.
There is also high tension in Nafha prison after Jamal al-Hour, a representative of Hamas prisoners, was ordered transferred to Eshel prison.
Deir Istiya, occupied Palestine – When Aziz ‘Aasee, the mayor of Qarawah Bani Hassan village drives through the streets, we’re stopped every few meters by one of his constituents, all of whom are asking the same question: When will we have water again? For some, the question is a joke; they are used to going without water for days, weeks, or even months each summer. Others are more aggressive, and the question comes off as a threat. People are looking for someone to blame for their thirst. The mayor, who is responsible for paying the town’s water bills, seems like an easy target.
In reality, there is little Aziz can do to ensure that his town has enough water. The village shares a water access network with two other municipalities, Sarta and Biddya. The three villages, with a combined population of approximately 30,000 people, depend on one 8 inch pipe, designed to deliver 145 cubic meters of water per hour. During the winter months when water tables are higher, the water flows at full capacity, ensuring coverage to the entire network. However for the past two months, the amount has been restricted to between 50 and 70 cubic meters per hour. With such a small amount in the pipes, the pressure is too low for the water to reach many of the houses at the end of the system. Qarawah, which sits at the highest elevation out of the three villages, suffers the most from the low water pressure: no house in the village has received water in over a week. The most remote properties have gone dry for over a month.
Qarawah’s only potable water source
Mekorot, the Israeli national water company which ostensibly owns the water infrastructure in question, and controls 87% of the aquifer located inside the West Bank, lies at the root of the problem. Since 1982, when the Israeli military sold their control of the West Bank’s water resources to Mekorot for a mere Shekel, the company has become the main enforcer of water apartheid between the Palestinians, and Israelis living in illegal settlements. While settlements enjoy a 24/7 supply of water year round, Mekorot caps its supply to Palestinians at the levels stipulated in the Oslo agreements over 20 years ago. Since then, the population of the West Bank has grown exponentially, and almost no improvements to Palestinian water infrastructure have been made. The Israeli military administration in the West Bank only makes matters worse. They routinely deny permits for new wells and pipes that would benefit villages like Qarawah by providing alternative sources of water or improving water pressure. In addition, the Israeli military has demolished 50 water and sanitation structures owned by Palestinians in 2016 alone. The result is that Palestinians have essentially no control over any of the water within their borders, or the infrastructure to deliver it.
Negotiations with Mekorot are almost impossible for small municipalities like Qarawah. Officials in the district capital of Salfit have spent the past two months trying to persuade the Israelis to increase the water supply without result. Even on the national level, appointees from the Palestinian Authority have refused to negotiate with Mekorot and the Israeli military administration. Aziz, for his part, chiefly contacts Mekorot through one of their Palestinian employees, and the communication is confusing at best. The representative will promise to show up on a certain day, and then never arrives. Or he’ll leave an update to say the water supply will be increased for one night to 100 cubic meters per hour, enough to ensure that at least some homes in Qarawah will receive water, yet the taps remain empty. Meanwhile, the illegal settlement of Kiryat Netafim, easily visible on a neighbouring hillside, boasts green lawns. It’s clear from a glance that the settlements are receiving more than adequate service from the same company.
A few times over the past weeks, the municipalities of Qarawah, Satra and Biddya have called for popular protests, gathering at the meter access point for their shared pipe. Small groups of children and young men beat empty water bottles with sticks and shouted “Bidna may, bidna may” – “we want water” – at passing cars. Regardless, many in the three towns are afraid of a backlash from the protests. Shortly after the protests, armed Israeli soldiers arrived at the meter, demanding that the organizers cancel, or face repercussions. While it’s unclear what sort of consequences might be imposed, some worry that the water might be cut off completely as an act of collective punishment.
“Bidna may” – we want water protest
With no solution in sight, the villagers of Qarawah are finding ways to mitigate the effects of living under water apartheid. Villagers are using bottled water for drinking and showers, and hauling water up from local springs, located 4-6 kilometres outside the village limits, to use in toilets and irrigation. The springs also provide a small amount of potable water. However, this is not nearly enough to meet the village’s needs. Some houses in the village also have private wells; but with the summer stretching ahead, these limited resources are sure to be depleted far too soon. So until Mekorot is disbanded, or agrees to give equal service to Palestinians, the people of Qarawah will continue to suffer.
Facebook, in present-day Israel, has hired Jordana Cutler as its head of Policy and Communications. Cutler is a longtime senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and chief of staff to Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer.
According to the Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour, Israeli Public Security, Strategic Affairs and Information Minister Gilad Erdan congratulated Cutler on her appointment, last week, at the Hezliya conference, an Israeli security and national policy meeting.
“There has been an advance in dialogue between the State of Israel and Facebook,” he acknowledged. He added, “Facebook realizes that it has a responsibility to monitor its platform and remove content. I hope it will be regulated for good.”
Cutler’s appointment indicates a burgeoning partnership between the Israeli government and Facebook. Considering Israel’s propensity to arrest Palestinians for Facebook posts and its endeavors to silence the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, such collaboration is cause for concern.
Since the popular uprising started in October 2015, Israel has arrested at least 150 Palestinians over Facebook posts it labeled as “incitement.”
The Israeli government allocated $26 million for 2016 to launch cyber warfare to “dismantle the infrastructure” of the BDS movement. The BDS National Committee surmises that Israel is be behind cyber attacks meant to shut down its website.
One of the most celebrated qualities of the people of Gaza is their sumoud, their steadfastness and capacity to endure the woes inflicted by Israeli terror. Media coverage of the tiny strip is full of soppy stories about how, regardless of the number of times Israel mows the lawn or casts lead, farmers will always sow their buffer zone farmlands and medics will never cease to improvise with what little they have.
The question is not whether the people of Gaza have given up on their professions and fell to their knees before their occupiers, but the cheap reproduction of them as an extraordinary population who will continue to endure all sufferings imposed on their lives and cling to their cause. What is more disturbing is that foreign journalists on the ground often steer the conversation to get the answers they are looking for. The people of Gaza have memorised the right answer: No matter what, we will never leave.
The truth, however, is that the “people of Gaza” are for the most part sick of this framing and, in fact, a considerable number of them are leaving. In September 2014, nearly five hundred Palestinians from Gaza drowned in the Mediterranean as they attempted to reach Europe. To risk one’s life with smugglers and brave seas in pursuit of a better life elsewhere should tell us something about people’s limited capacity to endure inhumane conditions as well as the limited truth of the sumoud narrative. This is not to say that people are abandoning their struggle for justice and their liberation ideals; many join activist groups or dedicate years of research to them. However, it is time to step back a little and reassess the sumoud narrative; it is perhaps time to understand Gaza and its people on their own terms. To do so, one should look critically at blanket narratives and long-held assumptions, as well as changes that have occurred to established concepts.
There are, to my mind, two primary dangers in trumpeting this narrative of sumoud. The first lies in transforming an ordinary population into mythical creatures able to overcome the most excruciating of circumstances. This transformation places a high, and utterly unjustified, expectation on Gaza’s Palestinians to endure Israel’s relentless aggression and to hold on to the land regardless of the level of destruction implemented. This expectation winds up minimising the power and consequences of Israel’s occupation because, no matter how filthy and bloody it becomes, the Palestinians are predisposed to endure.
For Palestinians on visas abroad, questions on whether they plan to go back to Gaza at the end of their studies are often posed by -without generalising- some Palestine supporters. To be sure, what motivates the question is a principled concern for the liberation of the land. Leaving Palestine, they would say, is exactly what Israel wants. This objection is often, and understandably, voiced by exiled Palestinians and their younger descendants. It is understandable because their varied experiences of Palestine are defined less by daily reality and more by the vision of what Palestine was and will be again. The present certainly plays a role but actual daily experience makes a lot of difference. Questions of this sort, nevertheless, place a lot of pressure on those in Gaza who already have so much to deal with or live abroad under the threat of deportation. What I am calling for is a more comprehensive understanding of the conditions in Gaza and a re-examination of what sumoud means in contemporary reality.
The second danger is that the sumoud narrative paints steadfastness as a choice rather than a forced reality. Palestinians in Gaza are not given the choice between enduring Israel’s aggression and seeking opportunities elsewhere. Palestinians, at least in part, continue to plough, sow, dig tunnels, and improvise because there is no other option. Simply put, Palestinians endure because they have to, not because they choose to. It is perhaps more worthwhile to write stories on the disgraceful visa processes and mistreatment and degradation of Palestinian asylum seekers than pretend as though we have chosen to suffer and, therefore, to endure. As though we are naïve enough to allow ourselves to hope when no signs of improvement can be glanced anywhere.
The Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza have taken this narrative of a mythical people to heart. Each feels it necessary to act as if the Palestinians are not only doing fine under their dysfunctional governments but are flourishing too. Mahmoud Abbas, for example, is still “state building” and constructing mythical cities such as Rawabi when hardly any land is left. The obscene complicity of both governments, together with the collective efforts of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, have made it impossible for Palestinians trapped in Gaza to leave and, consequently, they are forced endure.
HEBRON – Human Rights Defenders (HRD) in Palestine released a video last week showing an Israeli soldier kicking a knife toward the body of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif — who was shot point-blank in the head by an Israeli soldier in March — an action the group said represents a clear violation of international law.
The video shows an Israeli soldier casually kicking a knife — allegedly used by al-Sharif during an attempted stabbing attack — to the other side of the road in the town of Tel Rumeida in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, as al-Sharif’s body lay a few meters away.
The footage was taken before al-Sharif was shot execution-style in the head by an Israeli soldier, a graphic video of which was released in March, leading to widespread condemnation by rights groups and the UN demanding an investigation into the apparent “extrajudicial execution.”
Badi Dweik, an activist from HRD, said in a statement released Saturday that the group decided to make the video public in order to challenge current narratives unfolding at the ongoing military trial of Elor Azaria — the Israeli soldier charged with manslaughter after killing al-Sharif. Azaria has claimed that he shot the immobilized Palestinian because he saw al-Sharif reaching for the knife, or feared he had explosives strapped to his chest.
An additional video surfaced at the start of June, showing an Israeli ambulance driver kicking the same knife near to al-Sharif’s body after he was killed.
The video footage, obtained by Israel’s Channel Two, was expected to be shown to an Israeli military court to disprove claims by the Israeli soldier who killed al-Sharif that he shot the young Palestinian point-blank in the head after al-Sharif moved to grab a knife, according to the Israeli media outlet Ynet.
The footage shows that the knife allegedly used in the attack was far from al-Sharif when he was shot, notably showing an ambulance driving over the knife before it was kicked closer to al-Sharif’s body.The Israeli military prosecutor reportedly said that an Israeli ambulance driver, Ofer Ohanna, who was near the scene kicked the knife towards al-Sharif’s body following his murder, according to Hebrew-language news outlet Maariv.
The new video that has surfaced reveals that the ambulance driver was not the only one to tamper with evidence at the crime scene, but that an Israeli soldier also manipulated a piece of key evidence by moving the knife, which Dweik emphasized was a violation of international law. Al-Sharif was shot alongside Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi after the two Palestinians allegedly stabbed and moderately wounded an Israeli soldier at a military checkpoint in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron on March 24.Although it was widely believed that Al-Qasrawi was killed immediately, new witness accounts documented by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have since emerged that “raise concerns that al-Qasrawi was also executed with a shot to the head, as he lay injured on the ground after having been hit by gunfire elsewhere in his body.”
Al-Sharif, meanwhile, was left severely wounded for several minutes without treatment, before Azaria stepped forward and put a bullet through his head, killing him.Azaria was charged with manslaughter, rather than murder as had initially been expected, and is being held on a military base in “open detention” where he is free to roam and has received visits from his family. His trial opened in early May.
Palestinians have long held fears that Israeli soldiers and settlers tamper with crime scenes involving Palestinians, with human rights groups accusing Israel of practicing a policy of extrajudicial executions since a wave of violence erupted in October, leaving more than 200 Palestinians and some 30 Israelis killed.
A groundswell of opposition is building among pro-Israeli politicians in the US against Boeing’s plans to sell aircraft to Iran.
The Chicago-based aerospace giant has reportedly received requests for more information after Iran said on Tuesday it had reached an initial agreement with Boeing for the supply of jetliners.
Two senior Republican House representatives have said Boeing could threaten US national security with the planned sale of aircraft to Iran.
“American companies should not be complicit in weaponizing” Iran, Representatives Jeb Hensarling and Peter Roskam were reported to have said in a letter to Boeing released on Friday.
In their letter to Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg, the lawmakers asked for “clarification” of the current state of negotiations.
A senior Iranian official said on Friday serious talks were underway between the two sides and expected “good news” about them to be announced within a couple of days.
The European Commission announced on Thursday that the Iranian flag carrier Iran Air has been taken off a safety blacklist and cleared to fly the European skies.
Iran Air agreed in January to buy 118 jets worth $27 billion from Airbus and is discussing further orders with Boeing.
Iranian officials have said the country needs as many as 500 jets to renew its fleet which has suffered under US-led sanctions for years, marked by a series of disasters in which hundreds of people have lost their lives.
Iran’s current civil aviation fleet consists of 248 aircraft with an average age of 20 years, of which 100 are grounded.
Israel law center Shurat Hadin said on Thursday it had told Boeing that it would place liens on any of its airplanes sold to Iran.
The center claims to be representing hundreds of families of alleged victims of terrorism, who have been awarded billions of dollars in damages from frozen Iranian assets.
Shurat Hadin reportedly warned Boeing that a nuclear deal the US and several others countries signed with Iran in July, lifting many sanctions on Tehran, did not override American judgments held by the families the Israeli center represents, which means they can serve liens on anything Iran purchases.
US Representatives Hensarling and Roskam have asked whether Boeing could guarantee that Iran could not convert Boeing passenger jets to cargo aircraft and whether it would repossess aircraft if the nuclear agreement fell through.
The nuclear pact reached by President Barack Obama was opposed by every Republican member of the US Congress. Several questioned the Boeing deal as soon as the news reports came out.
The planned Boeing deal would be the biggest by far between a US company and Tehran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Apart from Airbus and Boeing, Iran is also negotiating with several other global aviation giants over the purchases of planes including Bombardier and Embraer.
According to media reports, Iran’s order list from the American aviation giant includes narrow-body 737s for domestic flights and two-aisle 777s for long-haul routes.
A group of employees working with international organisations active in the Gaza Strip have been found to be carrying out activities against the resistance, security website Al-Majd reported yesterday.
Security sources told the Hamas owned website that the group was found to be carrying out doubtful activities related to work sites for the Palestinian resistance.
Later on, the workers of international aid organisations were questioned and they recognised that they are connected to international intelligence services.
The foreigners recognised that they were asked to record footage of resistance work sites such as tunnels, military bases and other sensitive places, in addition to monitoring military movements in Gaza.
The security source reiterated that these collaborators used their work with the international aid organisations to cover-up their anti-resistance acts.
At the same time, they recognised that they are run by international intelligence services connected with the Israeli occupation.
In a precedent-setting decision Tuesday, the Israeli military decided not to press charges against a senior officer who ordered his troops to bombard a hospital in Gaza in 2014 to reportedly “raise their morale” with a “revenge attack” after another officer was killed.
The officer, Lieutenant Colonel Neria Yeshurun, told military investigators that he was mad that he and the soldiers were unable to attend the funeral of an officer who was killed a few days before, so “we decided to fire a volley of shells toward the point from which he lost his life.”
According to the Israeli paper Ha’aretz, Major Amihai Harch, Yeshurun’s commander, said at the time, “The only unusual thing [Yeshurun] did was that he put the incident on top of the eulogy to Dima, the company commander who was killed. That was certainly to raise [morale]. And I say to you on the level of facts — that raised morale and encouraged the soldiers to continue the mission.”
These admissions were made directly to the military investigators in Yeshurun’s case, but were not deemed sufficient to place any charges on the officer.
Although Israeli military policy says that revenge attacks are not allowed, former soldiers have reported that they are common practice in Israeli military units.
The shelling of the clinic was part of a larger attack on the Sheja’eyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza, in which more than 120 Palestinian civilians were killed in a single night during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014. The 50-day long invasion resulted in more than 1400 Palestinians killed, including more than 400 children, and 91 Israelis, mainly soldiers killed during the invasion of Gaza.
The night of killings in Sheja’eyya became known to Palestinians as the Sheja’eyya massacre. Throughout the night, the shelling of the neighborhood was continuous, affecting every home – most of the neighborhood was completely destroyed, and many of those killed were crushed in the rubble of their own homes. Survivors ran through the streets carrying babies and children, desperate to escape the continuous Israeli assault.
The attack took place on July 31st, 2014, just a day after the bombing of a school where families had taken refuge. About the attack on the school, UN Secretary General stated, “I condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms. It is outrageous. It is unjustifiable, and it demands accountability and justice. Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children.” Since the time of the attack, there has been no accountability for the soldiers involved, and no charges.
Former Israeli soldier turned whistleblower Eran Efrati published accounts at the time, in August 2014, from soldiers in two different units reporting that their commanding officers had ordered them to carry out attacks against civilians in order to ‘revenge’ for soldiers who had been killed.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Can we say that the United States is a sovereign State when we see the historical weight of the Zionist lobby on its policy decision?
Alison Weir: Adherents of political Zionism have influenced U.S. policies for decades and have often played a central role in elections. Despite this, Americans will be able to forge independent policies when enough people become aware of the facts and demand different policies.
You cite the staggering US aid to Israel, either $ 10 million per day or 7,000 times more per capita than other countries. What justifies such help to Israel from the United States?
I personally don’t feel it is rational or justified. It is the result of political lobbying by well-funded organizations and obfuscation by the American media. Most Americans have no idea that our government gives such an enormous amount of money to Israel. For this reason, our organization is placing billboards around the U.S. informing people of this fact.
You are threatened with death, you undergo pressures, because of your commitment to the Palestinian cause. Where are the Western values such as “democracy” and “freedom of speech” in all this?
Zionists have little attachment to principles such as democracy or freedom of speech. However, I believe that the majority of Americans believe in these and are disturbed when they are violated. Again, however, most are unaware of how deeply these principles are being damaged by Israel partisans.
As an intellectual committed to the Palestinian cause, how can you explain that when people like you are disparaged, defamed and threatened, some leaders of the Arab-Muslim world collaborate actively with Israel, including some Palestinians themselves? Is not the Palestinian cause the cause of all the humanity?
A group in Malaysia has a wonderful name: “the Movement for a Just World.” I feel that the Palestinian cause is part of that. All people should work for justice for all people, without exceptions.
You were supported in 2015 by 2000 activists and world-famous personalities, among them the Professor Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied, Hedy Epstein, Ann Wright, Arun Gandhi, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, and James Abourezk former Senator and founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Can you tell us about this open letter they signed?
Some individuals who say they are “pro-Palestinian” seem to wish to control the discourse on this issue and keep aspects of it, such as the power of the Israel lobby, hidden. A group called “Jewish voice for peace” that was formed about the same time that I began “If Americans Knew” has always contained Zionists among its members and, while its stances have evolved as more people have become involved in the Palestine solidarity movement, it has a history of taking weak stands on some fundamental aspects of this issue and failing to support full justice for Palestinians; it refuses to consider Zionism racist. This group has become quite powerful and currently has a budget of over $2 million. While the organization has done much valuable work and worked to build relationships with many groups and individuals, it has also used its power to try to control the movement and marginalize committed activists who support full justice for Palestinians. When JVP’s actions against me became public, many people opposed them and called for such attacks to end. Some created an Open Letter supporting me and opposing the divisive attacks, and over 2,000 people signed it, including many members of JVP. It appears that the majority of activists support me and If Americans Knew. Some, however, taken in by JVP’s accusations, or who themselves wish to dominate the movement, support what JVP is doing.
Why do the Zionist lobbies persecute Mrs. Alison Weir? Are they afraid of a Righteous bringer of light?
I think that Zionists of all stripes fear exposure of the full facts on this issue. While open Zionists, soft Zionists (people who only oppose the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank but support Israel’s core, discriminatory identity), and many people who say they are no longer Zionists but who still seem to have an emotional attachment to Israel have long opposed If Americans Knew, my book seems to have particularly triggered escalated attacks on me. This book, which is thoroughly cited, exposes the fact that Zionists have worked to manipulate the U.S. since the late 1800s and contains facts that Israel partisans clearly wish to keep hidden. Fortunately, despite their attempts to bury the book and to prevent my speaking engagements, the book is enjoying considerable popularity and we have now sold over 25,000 copies. It is now listed on Amazon as a bestseller in several categories. I expect its success will lead to even more attacks on me of all sorts ; some of the most insidious, sadly, will quite likely continue to be from those who claim to be part of the Palestine solidarity movement.
How is it that we saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to terrorist Al Nusra treated in Israeli field hospitals? Do Daesh and Al-Qaeda come from the same terrorist matrix as the State of Israel?
From its earliest beginnings, the Israeli strategy has been one of “divide and conquer.” Israeli leaders feel that any and all actions that cause strife within and among its neighbors benefits Israel, and Israel has often played a role in creating and/or nurturing such strife. This tactic has been discussed in a number of Israeli strategy papers.
You lived with Palestinians in the occupied territories, what is your testimony about their daily life under Israeli occupation?
In some areas they are shelled and invaded frequently, people killed and injured routinely. Even in the areas that are usually free of this outright violence, Palestinians are living in prisons in which Israel controls their lives and prevents their ability to protect their children – Israel decides where and whether they can travel and takes any action against Palestinians it wishes, strip searching women and children; abducting men, women, and children at will; imprisoning them without trial; perpetrating physical and psychological torture against them with impunity; preventing them from free contact with the rest of the world.
Does not Israel constitute a threat for peace in the world notably with its nuclear power?
Israel has long been a major threat to peace. It has caused numerous wars and encouraged still more. Its possession of nuclear weapons threatens the region and beyond and its actions could trigger a global conflagration.
More and more voices in the world are protesting against Israeli domination, as we saw it during the last open-air massacre in Gaza. How do you explain this change in favor of the Palestinian cause?
With the Internet, more and more people are learning the facts. People are increasingly seeing Israeli violence that used to be hidden from the world.
How do you explain that the Zionist state of Israel is called the Jewish state by referring to the Hebrew religion; and why are those who are against the Israeli criminal policy or the Zionist lobbies qualified anti-Semitic?
Israel does not define “Jewish” as a religious designation, it defines it as an ethnic identity. Israel claims that anyone who exposes or opposes its human rights violations is “anti-Semitic” as a tactic to prevent such opposition and to marginalize those whose facts they wish to hide. As a former Israeli Knesset member said a while ago, “It’s a trick; we always use it.”
Is not the Christian fundamentalism the real creator of the Zionist State of Israel, as it is found in some ancient texts either in Britain or the United States?
No, this isn’t what led to the creation of Israel. While there are some passages within Hebrew and Christian texts that some individuals have long interpreted as meaning that all Jews are meant to go to Israel (these interpretations are contested by most respected theologians, including fundamentalist theologians), such groups never brought this about. It was the political Zionist movement largely begun by Theodor Herzl in the late 1800s that Israel and others accurately consider the movement that founded Israel. This movement worked to propagandize every sector of the United States, including both Christians and Jews. There is quite a bit of information about this in my book. Today, while many Christian fundamentalists support Israel because of the manipulation that occurred and still occurs in the U.S., more and more of these individuals are changing their views when they learn the facts. There are now many Christian fundamentalists (and Jews) who are working fervently for justice for Palestinians.
You founded If America Knew and you are President of the Council for the National Interest, can you explain to us what is the role of these two organizations?
I founded If Americans Knew to give Americans the full facts on Palestine and on the role of the United States in this conflict. Most Americans have no idea that the U.S. government gives massive amounts of money to Israel and shields it from deserved international condemnation. Similarly, most Americans have no idea of the history of this issue, and of the ongoing oppression of Palestinians. Finally, most Americans have no idea of the size, history, and significance of the Zionist lobby in the U.S. and the degree to which it influences policies that are immoral, irrational, and that cause great harm to people throughout the world, including Americans.
The Council for the National Interest was founded in 1989 to counter the Israel lobby. Its goal was to work for policies that would be in the interests of all Americans, an extremely diverse population, rather than for one tiny interest group. Its two main founders, former Congressmen Paul Findley and Pete McCloskey were both pushed out of office by Israel partisans when these men began to advocate for justice for Palestinians. Both are deeply principled individuals who had also opposed the Vietnam War and racism.
What can a world scale activist as you are say to all resistants worldwide against Zionism and the fascist State of Israel?
I’m very surprised, but honored, to see you refer to me as a “world scale activist.” I’m just one of a multitude of people who are joining together to work for justice for Palestinians and to oppose violence, racism, and oppression. I have no doubt that we will eventually succeed. The main point is to continue our work, to refuse to be divided from one another, and not to give up. We are an extremely diverse movement and I believe that is part of our strength, along with the worthiness of our cause and the nobility and courage of those who came before us. We are of all different faiths and backgrounds, of all ages and races, and we won’t be stopped.
Who is Alison Weir?
Alison Weir is an American writer and an activist for the Palestinian cause. She is the founder and director of the non-profit organization If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest. In 2001, Alison Weir left her job as editor of a weekly newspaper and traveled alone to the Palestinian territories during the Second Intifada. She visited the West Bank and Gaza and witnessed the scenes of violence, seeing the truth of the conflict on the ground, and from where she wrote about her encounters with Palestinian suffering and with the “incredible arrogance, cruelty, selfishness” of Israelis. She was amazed by what she learned: That the truth of the conflict, on the ground, bore almost no resemblance to the stories told in US media. She returned to the US determined to change that. She began to speak and write on the topic and founded If Americans Knew, a nonprofit dedicated to accurately informing Americans. More recently, she also accepted a position as president of the Council for the National Interest.
Alison Weir was a civil rights activist and Peace Corps volunteer. Alison Weir has spoken all over the United States, including two briefings on Capitol Hill, presentations at the National Press Club in Washington DC (broadcast nationally on C-Span), Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (one also broadcast on C-Span), at World Affairs Councils, and at numerous universities including Harvard Law School, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Georgetown, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Vassar, the Naval Postgraduate Institute, Purdue, Northwestern, and the University of Virginia.She has given papers at various international conferences, lectured in Ramallah and at the University of Qatar, presented at the Asia Media Summits in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and given speaking tours in England, Wales, Iran and Qatar.
Alison Weir has also written widely on Israel-Palestine, the US connection, and media coverage. Her first book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, was published in February 2014 and has received high praise. Her essays and articles have appeared in a number of books and magazines, among them The New Intifada (Verso), Censored 2005 (Seven Stories Press), Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Rienner), The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, San Francisco Bay View newspaper, CounterPunch, and The Link.
Alison Weir has received various awards and in 2004 was inducted into honorary membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College. The award cited her as a “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights, the first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history.”
The subtitle of this post might be the same as the subtitle of the film, Dr. Strangelove: “How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.” Dimona’s bombs, that is.
In the past year, the Israeli Atomic Energy Agency launched a website dedicated to extolling the virtues of its Dimona. Not the place itself, which is a bit of a backwater company town devoted to the community’s main (perhaps only) industry. But to Israel’s plutonium reactor around which the town coalesced. That’s the reactor that churned out its first nuclear weapon around 1970 just in time for Moshe Dayan to suggest it should be used as a warning shot during the 1973 War when the fighting was going badly for Israel in the initial stages. It’s the same reactor which churned out another 200 or so nuclear weapons since then, making Israel the most dangerous–and so far, the only–nuclear power in the region.
This report on the world nuclear arsenal indicates Israel has only 80 nuclear weapons. But it adds that Israel is testing a new generation of ballistic missile, which is a substantial escalation of the regional nuclear arms race.
Dimona is also the same reactor which has poisoned hundreds or even thousands of workers who’ve died of various cancers. The same one which has poisoned the water in the plant’s vicinity. None of which may be reported openly by the Israeli press.
But if you examine the website you wouldn’t know any of this. From the “History” page, you wouldn’t know Dimona produced nuclear weapons at all; which is the main, indeed only reason it exists. You’d see bright shiny faces; the pretty blond locks of a female white-coated scientist presumably seeking a cure for cancer. Or the delicate toes of a baby held in the firm, supporting hands of an adult under the caption: “a secure, responsible place of work.” You’d see flowers. You’d see copy that reads like a Hallmark greeting card. Copy which extols Dimona’s mission as a “matter of national social responsibility.” That is, the authors of this tripe would have you believe that the production of nuclear weapons in Dimona is done in a manner that is environmentally responsible. This is real Alice in Wonderland stuff. Where words mean what the liar speaking them wants them to mean, “nothing more, nothing less.” It’s something like extolling Alamagordo or Auschwitz as environmental sanctuaries.
The website’s About page is titled: “Vision and Values, a Social Responsibility.” It continues: “In recent years the values of the Negev Center for Nuclear Have Been Articulated Anew.” Those values include the reactor staff volunteering in various projects to make their communities better places. Not a single word about the mass destruction Dimona’s products are capable or raining down on the world.
The launch of the website is in itself interesting. It indicates that some bureaucrats running the nuclear program felt it was important to join the modern age and feature a website to promote Dimona. That’s a break from six decades of total opacity regarding the nuclear program. Six decades of lies and denial regarding the purpose of the reactor. Avner Cohen notes in his recent Haaretz op-ed that Israel’s nuclear program isn’t even ratified under law. Rather, it exists in a netherworld called “residual powers.” This means the government may engage in any activity which the law doesn’t preclude it from doing.
Though on the surface, the new website does mark a break from the past, in reality the change is little more than cosmetic. Little has changed. Israel and the website still live in a state of denial. Israel can’t even admit in its website what the real purpose of this place is. … Full article
Palestinians along with a group of Muslim countries have lashed out at a UN decision to elect Israel as the chairman of one of its permanent committees for the first time in the history of Israeli occupation.
Danny Danon, Israel’s representative at the United Nations, was elected Monday to head the world body’s Legal Committee also called the Sixth Committee, which oversees issues related to international law.
It is first time that Tel Aviv will head one of the world body’s six permanent committees since joining the United Nations in 1949.
His election, however, elicited angry reactions from Muslim countries, including those in the Arab League and 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
The chief Palestinian delegate at the UN, Riyad Mansour, strongly denounced the results of the election, which according to him was “threatening the work of the Sixth Committee.”
Mansour said the Israeli regime has long been “the biggest violator of international law.”
The General Assembly has six standing committees that report to it on several issues, including human rights, decolonization, disarmament, economic and financial issues, as well as the UN budget and legal issues.
Danon was nominated for the position by the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) in the UN. Israel has been a temporary member of the WEOG since 2000, but joined the group permanently in December 2013.
The chairmanship of assembly is allocated on a rotational basis and is usually confirmed without a vote.
Deputy US Ambassador to the UN David Pressman, however, reacted angrily to the opponents of Danon’s election.
“We need a United Nations that includes Israel, that brings Israel closer, not one that systematically pushes Israel away.”
However, the UN warned Israel of unspecified action over its failure to cooperate with its reporters.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein slammed Tel Aviv for denying UN special rapporteurs access to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“I must emphasize that non-cooperation by governments will not result in my office remaining silent,” he said.
He said investigators from his office had an important role in providing factual information that could prevent further violence.
Zeid also touched on the issue of the Palestinians held in Israel’s prisons, saying; “Over 400 Palestinian children are currently detained in Israeli prisons.”
He warned that violence could would break out again between Israeli forces and the Palestinian people unless the regime lifts the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Gaza, one of the most densely-populated areas in the world, has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007.
Last Wednesday at noon at Arlington National Cemetery I attended the annual commemorative gathering of the survivors and friends of the U.S.S. Liberty. The moving service included the ringing of a ship’s bell for each one of the thirty-four American sailors, Marines and civilians that were killed in the deliberate Israeli attack that sought to sink the intelligence gathering ship and kill all its crew. Present were a number of surviving crewmembers as well as veterans like myself and other Americans who are committed to ensuring that the story of the Liberty will not die in hopes that someday the United States government will have the courage to acknowledge what actually happened on that fateful day.
It was the forty-ninth anniversary of the attack. In truth the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats on June 8, 1967, has almost faded from memory, with a younger generation completely unaware that a United States naval vessel was once deliberately attacked and nearly sunk by America’s “greatest friend and ally” Israel. The attack was followed by a cover-up that demonstrated clearly that at least one president of the United States even back nearly fifty years ago valued his relationship with the state of Israel above his loyalty to his own country.
It was in truth the worst attack ever carried out on a U.S. Naval vessel in peace time. In addition to the death toll, 171 more of the crew were wounded in the two-hour assault, which was clearly intended to destroy the intelligence gathering vessel operating in international waters collecting information on the ongoing Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The Israelis, whose planes had their Star of David markings covered up so Egypt could be blamed, attacked the ship repeatedly from the air and with gunboats from the sea.
The incredible courage and determination of the surviving crew was the only thing that kept the Liberty from sinking. The ship’s commanding officer Captain William McGonagle was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic role in keeping the ship afloat, though President Lyndon Baines Johnson broke with tradition and refused to hold the medal ceremony in the White House, also declining to award it personally, delegating that task to the Secretary of the Navy in a closed to the public presentation made at the Washington Navy Yard. The additional medals given to other crew members in the aftermath of the attack made the U.S.S. Liberty the most decorated ship based on a single engagement with hostile forces in the history of the United States Navy.
The cover-up of the attack began immediately. The Liberty crew was sworn to secrecy over the incident, as were the Naval dockyard workers in Malta and even the men of the U.S.S. Davis, which had assisted the badly damaged Liberty to port. A hastily convened and conducted court of inquiry headed by Admiral John McCain acted under orders from Washington to declare the attack a case of mistaken identity. The inquiry’s senior legal counsel Captain Ward Boston, who subsequently declared the attack to be a “deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew,” also described how “President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” The court’s findings were rewritten and sections relating to Israeli war crimes, to include the machine gunning of life rafts, were excised. Following in his father’s footsteps, Senator John McCain of Arizona has used his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to effectively block any reconvening of a board of inquiry to reexamine the evidence. Most of the documents relating to the Liberty incident have never been released to the public in spite of the 49 years that have passed since the attack took place.
The faux court of inquiry and the medals awarded in secret were only the first steps in the cover-up, which has persisted to this day, orchestrated by politicians and a media that seem to place Israel’s interests ahead of those of the United States. Liberty survivors have been finding it difficult even to make their case in public. In early April a billboard that read “Help the USS Liberty Survivors – Attacked by Israel” was taken down in New Bedford Massachusetts. The billboard had been placed by the Honor Liberty Vets Organization and, as is normal practice, was paid for through a contractual arrangement that would require the billboard company to post the image for a fixed length of time. It was one of a number of billboards placed in different states. Inevitably, Israel’s well connected friends began to complain. One Jewish businessman threatened to take his business elsewhere, so the advertising company obligingly removed the billboard two weeks early.
After forty-nine years, the dwindling number of survivors of the Liberty are not looking for punishment or revenge. When asked, they will tell you that they only ask for accountability, that an impartial inquiry into the attack be convened and that the true story of what took place finally be revealed to the public.
That Congress is deaf to the pleas of the Liberty crew should surprise no one as the nation’s legislative body has been for years, as Pat Buchanan once put it, “Israeli occupied territory.” The Lobby’s ability to force Congress and even the presidency to submit to its will has been spelled out in some detail by critics, first by Paul Findley in They Dare to Speak Out, later by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in The Israel Lobby, in Alison Weir’s Against Our Better Judgment, and most recently in Kirk Beattie’s excellent Congress and the Shaping of the Middle East.
Congressional willingness to protect Israel even when it is killing Americans is remarkable, but it is symptom of the legislative body’s willingness to go to bat for Israel reflexively, even when it is damaging to U.S. interests and to the rights that American citizens are supposed to enjoy. I note particularly legislation currently working its way through Congress that will make it illegal for any federal funding to go to any entity that supports the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, better known as BDS. BDS is a way to put pressure on the Israeli government over its human rights abuses that is both non-violent and potentially effective. As the federal government has its hooks all over the economy and at various levels in education as well as state and local government its threat to force the delegitimization of BDS is far from an empty one.
Existing laws in more than twenty states with more on the way, including most recently New York, punishing entities that support the peaceful BDS movement by labeling BDS as anti-Semitic and making it illegal or sanctionable to support it are direct attacks on free speech. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stated “We want Israel to know we are on its side.” And it doesn’t stop with BDS. Recently signed trade agreements with Europe were drafted to be conditional on European acceptance of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank while Israel is also pushing to censor the internet to make material that constitutes “incitement” banned. Incitement would, of course, include anything critical of Israel or its government on the grounds that it is anti-Semitic.
Democratic candidate presumptive Hillary Clinton has explicitly promised to do all in her power to oppose BDS, telling an adoring American Israel Public Affairs Committee audience in March that “Many of the young people here today are on the front lines of the battle to oppose the alarming boycott, divestment and sanctions movement known as BDS. Particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world, especially in Europe, we must repudiate all efforts to malign, isolate and undermine Israel and the Jewish people. I’ve been sounding the alarm for a while now. As I wrote last year in a letter to the heads of major American Jewish organizations, we have to be united in fighting back against BDS.”
So the treatment of the U.S.S. Liberty should surprise no one in a country whose governing class has been for decades doing the bidding of the powerful lobby of a tiny client state that has been nothing but trouble and expense for the United States of America. Will it ever end? As the Israel Lobby currently controls the relevant parts of the federal government and much of the media change is not likely to happen overnight, but there are some positive signs. If the Democratic Party platform committee under the influence of Bernie Sanders is successful in toning down the usual extravagant praise of Israel – against the wishes of Hillary, one might add – that would be a sign that change is difficult but not necessarily impossible. If Donald Trump wins and holds to his promise to be neutral between Israel and Palestine in negotiations that too would be a marked shift in perception of the conflict. And if the American people finally wake up and realize that they are tired of the entire farce and decide to wash their hands of the Middle East that would change everything. Just imagine picking up the morning newspaper and not reading a front page story about the warnings and threats coming from that great world leader Benjamin Netanyahu. That would be quite remarkable.
By Maryanne DemasiMaryanne Demasi | Brownstone Institute | June 15, 2026
For decades, vaccines have been treated as the sacred cow of modern medicine. I was taught that they were the holy grail. To question them was heresy. To raise concerns about safety was to risk professional exile.
“No child should be sacrificed on the altar of the religion of vaccines,” Siri writes, as he turns his focus to America’s overcrowded childhood immunisation schedule.
I assumed little in this book would surprise me. I’ve spent years reporting on drug safety, regulatory capture, and the corruption of science. But Siri showed me how wrong I was.
Siri is not a doctor or a scientist. He is an attorney, and this, he says, is his advantage. In court, rhetoric won’t save you. Evidence does. As he puts it, he doesn’t get to say “trust me” the way many doctors do. “I need to prove claims with real data.”
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