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Israeli Lobby Forces Swedish Minister to Resign For Comparing Israel’s Pogrom to Nazis

21st Century Wire | April 22, 2016

Another example of intellectual racketeering by an international lobby that is determined to white wash and sanitize the incredible crimes of a rogue nation.

Undoubtedly, Swedish minister Mehmet Kaplan was already a controversial figure with links to some dubious Turkish Islamic nationalist groups (see his story below), and his various adversaries wanted him out of politics. However, his past comparisons of the exclusionary, racist and bigoted ethnic cleansing policies of Nazi Germany – to similar policies fueled by the Zionist ideology in the formation and ongoing maintenance of the State of Israel – have strong parallels as evidenced in numerous scholarly works, including author Ilan Pappé’s historical compendium, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. In summary:

“During the 1948 Palestine war, around 720,000 Palestinian Arabs out of the 900,000 who lived in the territories that became Israel fled or were expelled from their homes. The causes of this exodus are controversial and debated by historians. In his own words, Ilan Pappé “want[s] to make the case for the paradigm of ethnic cleansing and use[s] it to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and public debate about, 1948.”[1]

“The thesis of the book is that the forced move of Palestinians to the Arab world was an objective of the Zionist movement, and a must for the desired character of the Jewish state. According to Ilan Pappé, the 1948 Palestinian exodus resulted from a planned ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was implemented by the Zionist movement leaders, mainly David Ben-Gurion and the other ten members of his “consultancy group” as referred to by Pappé. The book argues that the ethnic cleansing was put into effect through systematic expulsions of about 500 Arab villages, as well as terrorist attacks executed mainly by members of the Irgun and Haganah troops against the civilian population. Ilan Pappé also refers to Plan Dalet and to the village files as a proof of the planned expulsions.[2]” (Wikipedia 2016)

Add to this, today’s native Palestinian population is currently under full Israeli military occupation and is being held in what many describe as the world’s largest mass open prisons for the past 70 years – many times longer than similar repressive regimes throughout history. In addition to this, hundred of thousands (and now now millions) of those Palestinians driven from their homes by militant European Israeli settlers in 1948-1950 have been stranded without national status in refugee camps in neighboring Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

Critics can argue about which oppressive regimes in history were, or are, more severe to their victims, but no one can rightly argue that the Israeli project to date has been the chief architect of its own highly organized pogrom.

What’s most amazing however, is the misappropriation of language by the intellectual racketeers determine to enforce a politically correct regime of public discourse, and who routinely levy the fallacious charge of “anti–semitism” at anyone who challenges Israel on its own openly racist state policies and systematic abuses of the native Arab Palestinian population who are actual semite people – unlike the overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis who settled in Palestine from 1948 onwards who are of European descent, and not Middle Eastern or ‘semitic’ decent.

Israel and its supporters may not like them, but fact are facts.

Screen Shot 2016-04-22 at 6.07.42 AM
While it still manages to collect scalps of politicians, entertainers and academics in the west, Israel’s international intellectual extortion racket is already rapidly disintegrating…

Despite efforts by a well-financed international Israeli lobby to silence opposition and to cover-up the state of Israel’s crimes in the western media, millions of conscientious citizens worldwide are now aware of these crimes and have come together to organize a number of boycott and divestment campaigns (BDS) designed to end its brutal apartheid state policies and pressure Israel into recognizing international norms and observing basic human rights for ethnic natives held under its US government-financed military control.

Meanwhile, another trophy for the “antisemitic” racket…

1-Mehmet-Kaplan
Swedish minister Mehmet Güner Kaplan. © Joakim Berndes / Wikipedia

Swedish minister resigns after comparing Israel to Nazi Germany


RT

Sweden’s housing minister has resigned after footage of him comparing the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to that of the Jews by the Nazis surfaced in local media. The politician has recently come under fire for his alleged ties to Turkish neo-fascist groups.

Mehmet Kaplan, a high-profile Swedish politician of Turkish origin and member of the Green party, was serving as a minister of Housing and Urban Development from 2014 until his resignation on Monday amid mounting controversy over his rumored close ties to the radical Turkish Islamist groups and his video interview from 2009 in which he says that “Israelis treat Palestinians in a way that is very like that in which Jews were treated during Germany in the 1930s.”

Although the statement about Israel`s policies towards Palestinians was made before Kaplan took office, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, from the Social Democrats, said that “Mehmet Kaplan’s overall assessment of the situation is that he will not be able to act as a minister and I share that assessment,” while announcing his resignation from the government.

The publication of the extract from his interview to Somali Star TV by the Svenska Dagbladet daily was the last straw that forced him out of his office.

Kaplan himself, however, denied that he had crossed any ethical line and didn’t offer any apology. He admitted that he had “on several occasions criticized the actions of the state of Israel severely” but stressed that he was not “anti-Semitic.” Instead, he said that he had made decision to resign leave as the excessive media publicity would prevent him from doing his job as a minister.

Other Swedish officials were far more critical of Kaplan’s comments, however, with Foreign Minister Margot Wallström calling them “terrible,” the Guardian reported… Read more at RT

April 22, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel to close off West Bank, Gaza Strip for Jewish holiday

Press TV – April 22, 2016

The Israeli regime plans to close off all entry points to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip ahead of a Jewish holiday.

According to the Israeli army, the crossings to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be sealed off on Friday and Saturday, the days of the so-called Passover holiday, over security concerns.

The decision on the blockades was made after “an evaluation of the security situation,” an Israeli military spokesperson said without elaborating.

The Israeli decision to block pathways comes as a move to bar Palestinians from the al-Aqsa Mosque in August 2015 caused a major outcry on the part of the Palestinians. The Israel-occupied territories have been the scene of tensions ever since.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also said that security measures will be tightened ahead of the holiday.

Soldier in execution released

Israel also released from custody on Friday a soldier charged with manslaughter after shooting a wounded Palestinian. A military statement said Elor Azria was released home for the Passover holiday.

Azria, who also holds French citizenship, was charged on Monday with manslaughter and unbecoming conduct over the March 24 killing that took place in the southern West Bank city al-Khalil (Hebron).

A widely circulated video showed Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, lying on the ground, shot along with another man after allegedly stabbing and moderately wounding a soldier minutes earlier.

Azria, who was not at the scene during Sharif’s alleged attack, then shoots him in the head without any apparent provocation. His lawyers argued he thought the Palestinian was wearing explosives.

Palestinian Authority halts UN bid

With Israel tightening its measures, the Palestinian Authority however said a push for a UN resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement expansion will be put on hold.

Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki announced on Thursday that the Palestinians supported a French initiative to hold an international conference in May in an effort to revive so-called peace talks.

The Palestinians initially planned to get the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would condemn continued Israeli settlement construction as an obstacle to peace.

Earlier reports had said that the Palestinian Authority had been under pressure from France and other countries to stop its efforts to push for the UN resolution.

French officials told President Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinian bid was unlikely to succeed because the US would veto the resolution even if it received enough votes from other members.

In his Thursday remarks, Maliki said Palestinian and French leaders agreed during meetings in Paris a few days ago that the French initiative should move ahead and not be jeopardized “in any way” by the resolution.

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials have said that the Egyptians, the Jordanians and the Saudis were not keen to see the draft resolution move forward at this time.

April 22, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s Mind

By Lawrence Davidson | To The Point Analyses | April 22, 2016

Dan Illouz is an Israeli lawyer and a former legal adviser to both the Knesset’s leadership coalition and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. He is also a big fan of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On April 13, he wrote an opinion piece for the Jerusalem Post entitled, “A Fresh Perspective: Understanding Netanyahu’s Mind.”

Among the many synonyms of “fresh” offered by your average on-line dictionary are “unusual” and “undeveloped.” Though Illouz would certainly not agree that these terms fit his effort to explain the Prime Minister’s consciousness, it turns out that they actually do.

For instance, there is his unusual claim that “Netanyahu is one of the deepest thinkers among world leaders.” At the same time Illouz emphasizes that Netanyahu comes from a “very ideological” background bequeathed to him by both his Revisionist Zionist father, Benzion Netanyahu, and the American neoconservative worldview. As we will see, both outlooks are undeveloped one-dimensional frames of reference.

It is true that our perceptions reflect a worldview structured by the aspects of family and society we choose to embrace, or rebel against. It could go either way. According to Illouz, Netanyahu has embraced the restricted worldview of a brand of Zionism that teaches that, if the Jews are to survive in the modern world, they must be militarily all powerful and remain unmoved by any and all calls for compromise with alleged enemies.

Also, according to Illouz, Netanyahu sees the world through the myopic lens of the American neoconservative movement, which preaches that both the United States and Israel are allies in a never-ending battle of good against evil. The unalterable consequences of compromise in such a struggle have been taught to us by the history of the 1938 Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. All such compromises in this imagined struggle must end up in catastrophe, especially for the Jews.

‘Deep Thinking’

The conclusions Illouz draws from this description of Netanyahu’s mindset are, to say the least, baffling. Not in the sense that Netanyahu is cemented into a worldview that itself is modeled on a narrow slice of history. This indeed seems to accurately describe him. But rather in the claim that by seeing the world this way, the Israeli prime minister shows himself to be a “deep thinker.”

What does it mean to be a “deep thinker”? It should entail some capacity to break free of the structural framework or the worldview we start out with. For example, a degree of independent thought that allows us to discern when the past serves as a useful guide to the present and when it does not. This all adds up to an ability to be original – to understand present circumstances in novel ways that lead to breakthrough solutions to problems, be they political, social or scientific.

That is what it takes to think deeply. Does Benjamin Netanyahu qualify? No, he does not. He is no more a “deep thinker” than George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or John Bolton. Then why does Illouz say he does qualify? Because this Israeli lawyer, who is himself no “deep thinker,” mixes up profundity of thought with a skewed notion of “prudence” – which, in this case, he interprets as a “reluctance to embrace a utopian view of the world that progressives push forward.”

Examples of such “utopian views” are peace agreements such as the Iran accord, and the notion of “unilateral withdrawals.” In other words, Benjamin Netanyahu is a “deep thinker” because, in the name of “prudence,” he shuts down all consideration of diplomatic compromise. For Illouz that also makes him one of the world’s leading “realists.”

In truth, Illouz’s assessment of his Prime Minister’s mind is itself a product of the same narrow, static worldview shared by neoconservatives and Likudniks alike. For instance, according to Illouz, Netanyahu’s refusal to withdraw from the Occupied Territories (O.T.) is stark realism motivated by a desire to “stop history from taking a wrong turn” – as it did in 1938.

The comparison of the Palestinian desire for an independent state in the O.T. and the Munich agreement of 1938 is so patently inane that I won’t waste words on it. But Israel’s absorption of the territories can be judged as the very opposite of realism – it is a utopian (actually dystopian) scheme that is in the process of doing untold damage to both Jews and Palestinians while isolating Israel from the rest of the world.

There is a contradiction between profundity of thought and the ideologically determined worldview. To be in a position to achieve the former, one must, at the very least, eschew the dogmatic aspects of the latter. Neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor Dan Illouz are capable of doing this.

Analyzing Illouz’s presentation is not hard. His mistaken take on “deep thinking,” the lessons of history, the notions of realism and utopianism are quite obvious. This being the case one might ask why the editors at the Jerusalem Post thought it proper to print such balderdash? Perhaps because they too see the world in the same one-dimensional fashion.

If we are to believe the reports coming out of Israel, the Jewish majority there is undergoing an unchecked withdrawal into itself. The “us against the world” attitude that has always characterized some of world Jewry has now taken command in Israel. And, except for a small portion of the population that has managed to break free of this warped worldview (and as a consequence is being labeled as traitors), the mass of Israeli Jews are following their Pied Piper leaders into dangerous isolation.

This state of detachment has led to a series of policy decisions that are anything but realistic. The continuing expansion of illegal settlements and destruction of Palestinian houses, the resulting ethnic cleansing, the utter barbarism of Israeli policy toward Gaza, and the labeling as terrorist behavior all reactions against these policies, mark an official, and internally popular, worldview that is increasing detached from reality.

Dan Illouz’s piece in the Jerusalem Post is a clumsy effort to rationalize this way of thinking and seeing.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest; America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism.

April 21, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Not Feeling the Bern

By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | April 20, 2016

“Only Bernie Sanders can break the power of capitalism in the U.S.” So read a bizarre headline in an online edition of the Guardian. It is just one example of the drivel, magical thinking, misplaced concerns and out and out lies produced by liberal love for Bernie Sanders.

How would Bernie Sanders, or any other presidential candidate, break the power of capitalism? The answer is simple. He can’t. It is difficult to imagine capitalists quaking in their boots because a liberal darling was in the oval office. Then again Sanders has never made a claim to want anything of the kind so the headline is doubly foolish.

The Sanders fans do not let any opportunity pass to make much ado about very little. Sanders’ much vaunted trip to the Vatican was nothing but a public relations gimmick carried out by Jeffrey Sachs, one of his foreign policy advisers. Sachs was at the center of every neo-liberal heist which took place in the last twenty years.  He coined the term “shock therapy” which means privatization of publicly owned assets, elimination of price controls, withdrawal of state subsidies, job cuts and a litany of measures which create suffering for millions of people. People in Russia, Poland and Bolivia all endured the Sachs punishment.

So while Sachs wangled an invite for Sanders to attend a Vatican academic conference, the episode was used by the starry eyed to further their trip down the rabbit hole. Well paid pseudo-progressive Democratic functionaries like David Sirota waxed poetic about something that didn’t amount to much. Sirota tweeted a photo of Sanders at the Vatican with Bolivian president Evo Morales. “In scope of history, this image is epic: US Jewish POTUS candidate at Vatican with indigenous Latin American leader.” There is nothing epic about a senator meeting a foreign head of state nor is it miraculous that a Jewish and indigenous American man sat next to each other. This nonsense substitutes for politics and serious thought. But then again liberals aren’t very serious about politics or thought.

The Sanders phenomenon is a repeat of the Obama 2008 marketing extravaganza. Sanders is the flavor of the month for people who are disenchanted with the front runner, Hillary Clinton. Her presence creates mass revulsion and first Obama and now Sanders moved up in voter preference when given an opportunity to make a case before the public.

But there is something particularly disconcerting about the Sanders phenomenon. Like Obama he allows liberals to be proud of uttering mealy-mouthed words instead of acting to make the change they say they want. In a recent debate in New York City Sanders famously declared that “we have to treat the Palestinians with respect and dignity.” He added that Israel has a “right to exist” and said only that the Israel massacre in Gaza was “a disproportionate response.”

His words regarding the Palestinians are rarely heard from the mouth of an American politician, certainly not a presidential candidate. However, kudos showered on Sanders give the impression that Palestinians weren’t worthy of respect and dignity until he said they were. The reaction from Sanders acolytes is in fact an indictment of U.S. foreign policy and Americans acquiescence to decades of pro-Israel propaganda. He doesn’t challenge the Zionist project, in fact he constantly mentions that he once lived in Israel and has family there.

The Palestinians get nothing but pats on the head from Bernie Sanders. They need an end to occupation and a right to return to the land and the homes stolen from them. The Sanders paternalistic feint may impress liberals looking for a politician to love but it does nothing to address a grave injustice.

The injustices that Democrats don’t want to fight were much closer to home on primary voting day in New York. Voting in New York state is very restrictive, with long periods needed to change party affiliations or to request absentee ballots. The board of elections is an ineffective patronage mill that doesn’t serve voters’ needs.

The state has one of the lowest rates of voter participation because of these obstacles but no one cared very much until masses of white people were prevented from voting for their new idol. New York has always had closed primaries and no one can vote without a party affiliation. Open primaries allow for mischief such as against left candidates like Cynthia McKinney. The former congresswoman lost her last election in 2006 because Republicans were allowed to vote for her opponent.

A good case can be made for restricting primaries to party members. Suddenly that defensible position is cast aside because people who aren’t politically involved didn’t pay attention and then couldn’t get their way.

The Sanders people are conspicuous in their absence from other disenfranchisement issues. Convicted felons can’t cast a ballot at all but that is less interesting than tales of Bernie supporters who found out they can’t vote. If they want a revolution they can start by helping others get the right to vote too.

There is a long slog ahead until the Democratic party convention in July. Hillary Clinton will continue to repulse and Bernie Sanders will claim the Pope or a king or a queen wanted to meet him. The Sanders people need to do as Black Agenda Report advised and plan for his eventual exit. Despite all the nonsensical hype, they still don’t have their Plan B.

Margaret Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

April 20, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Activists Call on IRS to Investigate Jewish National Fund Charitable Status

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation | April 19, 2016

On Tuesday, Tax Day, activists delivered a petition with more than 5,000 signatures to IRS offices across the United States demanding the tax-exempt status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) be revoked due to its role in displacing Palestinians and supporting illegal Israeli settlements.

The petition was delivered to offices in Oakland, San Francisco, Chicago, and Minneapolis. A delegation in Washington, DC attempted to make a delivery to the IRS Building but was turned away.

Founded in 1901, the JNF is a quasi-governmental Israeli agency that has played a major role in the dispossession of the Palestinians people, planting forests to help cover the reality of the more than 400 Palestinian towns and villages destroyed when Israel was created in 1948. Today the JNF continues to play an important role in the dispossession of Palestinians in both Israel and the occupied territories.

“We wanted to use the occasion of Tax Day to highlight how U.S. taxpayers are contributing to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through the JNF being a tax-exempt organization. It is completely unacceptable that an organization engaging in war crimes is considered to be a charity in the United States,” said Ramah Kudaimi of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

“I am an American Jew and as such am very familiar with the little blue JNF boxes found in many Jewish households. Our families and synagogues encouraged putting change in these boxes, which, when filled would be donated to the JNF to ’Plant a Tree’ in Israel and ‘make the desert bloom,’” wrote Sylvia Schwarz in a piece published by The Hill. “Hidden from us amid the rhetoric of making the desert bloom was the reality of ethnic cleansing.”

The petition was launched on March 30, Palestinian Land Day, which commemorates the day in 1976 when Israeli troops killed six Palestinian citizens of Israel who were peacefully protesting the appropriation of their land. On that same day the National Lawyer’s Guild (NLG) submitted a regulatory challenge and accompanying legal complaint to the IRS requesting an investigation into the charitable status of the JNF on grounds of discrimination and contravention of U.S. policy.

These actions targeting the IRS are part of a larger international Stop the JNF Campaign that seeks to end the JNF’s role in Israel’s continuing displacement of Palestinians and is connected to the growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement in support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.

“For nearly 70 years Palestinians have been resisting Israel’s continued theft of our land,” said Nick Sous of the US Palestinian Community Network. “So many Palestinians have been directly impacted by Israel’s stealing their land with the support of the JNF and it is shameful that the IRS actually awards people who donate to support these illegal actions by allowing them to get a tax write-off.”

Contact Ramah Kudaimi, membership@endtheoccupation.org, 703-312-6360.

April 20, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians Are Dying, But Only Israelis are “Vulnerable” in The NY Times

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | April 19, 2016

Isabel Kershner in The New York Times reports that Israelis are suffering from “a sense of vulnerability” after a bus bombing in Jerusalem this week. The event, she reports, sowed fear and anxiety in a population “already on edge” after a series of attacks over the past several months.

Although there were no reported deaths from the bombing, she writes that Israelis were reminded of the second Palestinian uprising “when suicide bombers blew up buses in Jerusalem and other Israeli cities, killing scores.”

Missing from her account is any mention of Palestinian fear or vulnerability in spite of data showing that Palestinian deaths outnumber Israeli fatalities by a factor of five or more, depending on the time frame. The second intifada, for instance, which Kershner takes as her reference point, left 5,904 Palestinians dead compared with 1,163 Israelis.

She notes that “about 30” Israelis have died in the past six months in contrast to “more than 200” Palestinians, a rate of more than six to one. But this fact has not inspired her to look into Palestinian anxieties. Instead she once again attempts to place the blame on Palestinians, writing that they reportedly died in “attacks or attempted attacks or in clashes with Israeli security forces.”

Nothing is said of the frequent charges that Israeli troops have carried out “street executions” of Palestinians who pose no threat to them or others. (See TimesWarp 3-25-16.) Likewise, nothing is said about the crippling effects of the brutal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the crucial background for this conflict.

Kershner entirely omits the context here while focusing on every possible source of Israeli angst: the bus bombing, the recent discovery of a tunnel leading from Gaza to Israel, a belligerent statement by Hamas and the lone-wolf knife and vehicular attacks by Palestinians.

Discerning readers may ask why Palestinians are using kitchen knives and automobiles as their weapons of choice, but the Times is not about to address the question. It would underscore the fact that Palestinians are the vulnerable party, an unarmed and virtually helpless population contending with one of the most sophisticated armies in the world.

In fact, Palestinians face daily threats from Israeli weapons, ranging from bulldozers to drones to live fire. Gaza farmers tending their fields near the border with Israel and fishermen at sea are frequently targeted by Israeli bullets and shells. West Bank communities confront the threat of land confiscation, settler attacks and demolitions that destroy homes and livelihoods.

And unarmed protesters in Gaza and the West Bank have been injured and killed during non-violent demonstrations. In fact, Israeli security forces injured a shocking number of Palestinians last year, a total of 14,925. As of April 11 this year, troops had already wounded 1,627.

According to United Nations data, Israeli forces have injured an average of 109 Palestinians each week in 2016. By comparison, Palestinians are wounding an average of four Israelis weekly. Yet it is Israeli “vulnerability” that takes center stage in the Times.

Kershner writes that “the threat of the tunnels continues to sow fear in Israeli communities along the border,” but she fails to say that not a single Israeli civilian has been harmed because of the tunnels. During the 2014 attacks on Gaza, they were used solely for targeting Israeli troops.

Palestinians, on the other hand, have reason to feel vulnerable, and they have reason to build tunnels as one of the few means of defense when they are under attack from Israeli weapons, but the Times has no interest in reporting this. It is only Israeli angst that matters here.

Israelis may have to deal with their fears, but Palestinians have to face much more: the loss of land, water, mobility, security and dignity. They have concrete and verifiable casualties, and they have to contend with their own defenselessness and fears, but in spite of all the evidence, the Times has turned its back on their narrative, joining Israel in blaming the victim.

Follow @TimesWarp on Twitter

April 20, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Media: 20% of Russian Jews left Israel for Canada

Palestinian Information Center – April 19, 2016

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israeli TV Channel Ten revealed that the emigration rate of Jews who came from Russia to Israel in the 1990s has recently escalated.

The Israeli channel also revealed that one fifth of an estimated one million Russian Jews have migrated to Canada because they felt that they did not belong in Israel.

The channel pointed out that 15% of total migrants to Israel in the 1990s had actually left it for the same reasons and used TV interviews with some cases as evidence.

Hebrew reports further revealed that Jewish migrants from the former Soviet Union suffered from discrimination policy by the western Jews and their successive governments.

April 19, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli court sentences Sheikh Raed Salah to nine months in prison

MEMO | April 19, 2016

sheikh-raed-salah-11The Israeli Supreme Court has sentenced Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement, to nine months in prison over charges of “inciting violence” in a religious sermon dating back to 2007, Anadolu reported on Monday.

The Israeli District Court in Jerusalem sentenced Sheikh Salah to 11 months in prison, giving him permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, which reduced the sentence to nine months.

Deputy Head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, which was banned in November last year, Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib condemned the ruling against Sheikh Salah, describing it as “absolutely political” and aimed at keeping him far from Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque.

On 16 February 2007, Salah delivered a sermon in Wadi al-Juz in the Old City of Jerusalem. Over remarks in that sermon, the Israeli court charged him with “inciting violence” and “inciting hatred”.

In March 2014, the Magistrate Court charged Sheikh Salah with “inciting violence” over this sermon, but acquitted him of “inciting hatred” and sentenced him to eight months.

Then, the District Court called for charging him with “inciting hatred” and to sentence him to 18 to 40 months. In October 2015, it sentenced him to 11 months, giving him the permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

April 19, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian youth and students among 11 raided and arrested by Israeli occupation forces

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network | April 19, 2016

majd-atwanIsraeli occupation soldiers arrested 11 Palestinians in dawn raids on Tuesday, 19 April, focusing on students and youth. Three students at Al-Quds University’s Abu Dis campus – Noor al-Islam Darwish, Hala Beitar and Salam Abu Sharar, all women – were raided and arrested in Ramallah.

Majd Yousef Atwan, 22, from al-Khader near Bethlehem, a recent beauty school graduate, was arrested in a 2:00 am army raid on her home; her father said that she was being accused of “incitement for Facebook postings.”

Many students and youth have been arrested by Israeli occupation forces in the run-up to Palestinian campus elections; while many Palestinians are being persecuted for Facebook posts, including poetry.

Murad Mohammed Taqatqa and Walid Issa Taqatqa of Beit Fajar near Bethlehem were also arrested by occupation forces, as was Abdel-Rahim Mahmoud Awad from Beit Awwa near al-Khalil. Ahmed Nidal Awel, 20, and Ayman Farouk Barham, 35, were arrested by Israeli occupation forces in Kufr Qaddoum.

In Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, the Israeli forces shot a 15-year-old boy in the leg at the entrance to the village as they invaded it; Palestinian Red Crescent medics reported they were prevented from accessing the boy to provide medical care and that he was then arrested by the occupation forces. Another al-Ram resident was also arrested.

April 19, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Energy Envoy Flies to Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt and Israel for Discussions

Sputnik — 18.04.2016

WASHINGTON – The US government has sent Special Envoy Amos Hochstein to Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt and Israel to discuss falling oil prices after the failure of the Doha energy talks, the US Department of State announced in a media note on Monday.

“Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos J. Hochstein will be travelling to the region to meet with key interlocutors in Jerusalem, Cairo, Kuwait City and Doha,” the note stated.

As global oil prices remain near record lows, and the United States emerges as a global exporter of liquefied natural gas, Hochstein will be seeking to strengthen US relationships with partners in the region as well as discuss strategies for addressing the market realities of the energy sector, the note explained.

Hochstein will discuss energy security issues in Israel, power generation issues in Egypt and plans to investment in developing new oil fields and build additional oil refineries in Kuwait, the State Department pointed out.

In Qatar, Hochstein will give a speech emphasizing US support for liquefied natural gas development and its role in reducing global carbon emissions, the note said.

April 19, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Fake Jewish graves in Muslim cemeteries’: UNESCO slams Israeli occupation of Palestinian sites

RT | April 18, 2016

The Israeli authorities are furious after a UNESCO resolution stated that the Temple Mount and holy sites in Hebron and Bethlehem are an “integral part of Palestine.” The organization also criticized Israel, “the occupying power,” for planting fake graves in Muslim cemeteries.

Two tourist destinations, the Cave of the Patriarchs in the heart of the old city of Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, are named in the paper as “Palestinian sites.” The draft decision by the UNESCO executive board on occupied Palestine was released April 11.

UNESCO “reaffirms that the two concerned sites located in… Hebron and in Bethlehem are an integral part of Palestine” and “disapproves the ongoing Israeli illegal excavations, works, construction of private roads for settlers and a separation wall inside the Old City of… Hebron, that harmfully affect the integrity of the site,” the statement says.

UNESCO slammed Israeli attacks on Muslims in the Temple Mount, which it only refers to by its Arabic name, Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and its holy site, Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The organization “strongly condemns the Israeli aggressions and illegal measures against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their Holy Site Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al Sharif, and requests Israel, the Occupying Power, to respect the historic Status Quo and to immediately stop these measures,” the statement says.

Al-Aqsa Mosque became the flashpoint for bloodshed in 2015, amid mounting tensions over the holy site, sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

UNESCO called on Israel to stop “banning Muslims from burying their dead in some spaces and by planting Jewish fake graves in other spaces of the Muslim cemeteries.”

The group also criticized “the continuous Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip,” which causes an “intolerable number of casualties among Palestinian children,” as well as “the attacks on schools and other educational and cultural facilities and the denial of access to education.”

Israeli authorities have reacted with anger to the UNESCO document.

“This is yet another absurd UN decision,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, as cited by Israeli media.

“UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop,” he added.

This is not the first UNESCO resolution that condemns Israel for aggression at holy sites in Jerusalem and the West Bank. In October 2015 the group issued a document which censured Israel for limiting Muslim access to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and reaffirmed that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem are Palestinian sites.

The document was passed by 26 votes to six – those against being the US, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Estonia.

April 18, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s Israel’s Role in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict?

Sputnik – April 17, 2016

With the decades-long Azeri-Armenian conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region burning out of control for four intense, blood-soaked days at the beginning of this month, questions have emerged over the secretive role played by Israel in the conflict.

Late last week, commenting on the recent escalation of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman blamed Armenia for provoking four days of clashes which left over a hundred dead and dozens wounded.

Azerbaijan, Lieberman said, had “no reasons for escalating the conflict,” despite extensive reports confirming that Azerbaijan was the party that launched offensive operations to regain control of territory in the Armenia-backed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

For its part, the Azeri Defense Ministry called the operation, which resulted in the taking of several strategic heights and settlements, a successful ‘counteroffensive’ launched in response to Armenian shelling.

Lieberman’s words would be echoed by retired Israel Defense Forces general Ephraim Sneh, who emphasized in a Friday op-ed for Al-Monitor that Azerbaijan is Israel’s “strategic ally,” and that at the moment, Baku “needs all the diplomatic help [Israel] can muster.”

Sneh slammed Tel Aviv for “staying silent” in Baku’s hour of need, explaining that Azerbaijan is one of Israel’s only friends in the Islamic world, and adding that Israel needs Azerbaijan to ensure its energy security, with Baku providing the Jewish State with some 40% of its oil.

Russia’s mediation of the conflict, Sneh suggested, has been disastrous for Baku, with the “status quo” that emerged in 1994 following the six-year war which began in the late 1980s “convenient for everyone, except for Azerbaijan.”

Blaming Armenia for violations of the ceasefire (and absolving the Azeris of their own violations), Sneh candidly admitted that Baku started the latest bloodshed, and suggested that Azerbaijan’s challenging of the status quo may actually work in its favor.

Saying that the current Moscow-brokered ceasefire, is “tenuous at best and not expected to last long,” the general says that he is hopeful that “now that Azerbaijan has proved its military superiority, there is a chance for real diplomatic negotiations that could lead to an agreement between the two countries,” i.e. for the ethnically Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to give its territory. In this sense, Sneh says, the Azeris could take a lesson from Tel Aviv and negotiate according to a formula of “land for peace,” which Israel used in the late 1970s in negotiations with Egypt to return the Sinai Peninsula.

This time, Sneh argues, the Azeris should do the same, but in reverse, promising Armenia peace in exchange for Nagorno-Karabakh. “Armenia’s weak economy could stand to benefit from such an agreement.” Moreover, “improved economic relations with Turkey are just one important economic benefit that Armenia can be assured of as soon as it withdraws from the occupied Azeri territories.””Meanwhile, Azerbaijan needs much more robust diplomatic support than it is receiving today.” Unfortunately, Sneh complains, Baku hasn’t been getting it from Israel.

But just how silent has Tel Aviv actually been?

To begin with, hints of the extensive military cooperation between the two countries emerged in the first days of the conflict, indicating that Israeli ‘suicide drones’ were being used by Azeri forces in the course of their offensive. The Harop unmanned aerial vehicle, which acts as a ‘kamikaze’ capable of destroying targets by ramming into them, is produced by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI).

According to French intelligence newsletter Intelligence Online, in addition to drones, Israel also provides Baku with advanced radar systems, control and command posts, and other intelligence-collection equipment, and has even entered a bid to provide Baku with a $150 million observation satellite.

Israel has refused to confirm or deny its sale of drones, or other weaponry, to Azerbaijan. However, Meretz party chairwoman Zehava Galon came out publicly warning that Israel intends to send more drones to Baku. In a letter addressed to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Galon urged that the Israeli government should stop weapons deliveries to the Azeris until it could be assured that Baku would halt the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

At the same time, Israeli security and intelligence specialist Yossi Melman says that Israel has a massive, but highly secretive, defense footprint in Azerbaijan.

In his analysis for The Jerusalem Post, Melman explained that Israel and Azerbaijan enjoy annual trade which is “$5 billion larger than between Israel and France.” Moreover, he said, “most of the content remains confidential, and consists of Azeri oil sold to Israel and Israeli weapons and intelligence technologies purchased by Azerbaijan.”

From modest beginnings in the early 1990s, Azerbaijan has grown to become “the second-biggest market in Asia, after India, for Israeli weapons,” with Israeli defense companies enjoying literally billions of dollars in sales in the Caucasian state. At the same time, Melman indicates, “the best promoters of the military sales and ties are Israeli ministers and officials who visit the Caucasian nation.”

“This week,” the analyst recalls, “The Washington Post enabled the world to have a peeping window into the secret relations [between the two countries] when it published a photo of an Israeli-made ‘suicidal drone’ exploding itself on a bus leading Armenian combatants to the front lines. Seven people were killed, and the Armenian government protested to Israel.”

“A few days after the incident, military journalists visited Israeli Aerospace Industries facilities and were briefed on the various products, from drones to satellites, which the company has to offer. An IAI spokeswoman was asked if the company was behind the Washington Post revelation. She refused to answer but openly smiled when one reporter commented that such a photo is good for business and promotes sales of products that can be labeled ‘battle proven’.”

In addition to military ties, Melman notes that the two countries also have strong intelligence ties, with Mossad given permission to set up a large station in Azerbaijan, taking advantage of the region’s geography to run operations throughout the North Caucasus.

Both Russian and Iranian officials have previously accused Azerbaijan of allowing Mossad to use their territory for espionage activities, the latter indicating that the Israeli missions included everything from “recruiting and planting agents,” to “communication interception and aerial reconnaissance,” Melman explained. Moreover, he added, “more than a year ago Iran claimed to have shot down an Israeli-made drone,” claims which Israeli officials have refused to comment on.

Pointing to the secretive nature of political, defense and intelligence cooperation between the two countries, the analyst noted that “it was [Azeri President Ilham] Alieyev himself who was quoted in a WikiLeaks cable sent from the US Embassy in Baku [saying] that ‘bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Israel are like an iceberg. Nine-tenths are below the surface.'”

Ultimately, Melmen notes, “seemingly, Israel and Azerbaijan are an odd couple, not meant to be with each other,” with the Caucasian nation not really serving as a model of Western democracy, being run by the same family since 1991, and facing issues including corruption and the suppression of free media. “On the other hand, Israel is not too selective in choosing friends when it comes to weapons sales and national interests. A quick look at the map,” showing that Azerbaijan borders Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, “can explain Israeli priorities.”

Read more:

Nagorno-Karabakh Crisis Could Get Messy If New Arms Suppliers Emerge

Turkey Claims Azerbaijan ‘Patient’ Over Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Armenia Rejects Israeli Proposal on Arms Purchase – Defense Minister

April 18, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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