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Israeli supporters financing Clinton’s campaign: James Petras

Press TV – March 8, 2016

“We must remember that the plutocrats dominated by the Israeli supporters [have] been extremely generous in financing Hillary’s campaign for president,” Professor James Petras says.

An American scholar says that “the plutocrats dominated by the Israeli supporters” are financing Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president of the United States.

Professor James Petras, who has written dozens of books on the Latin America and Middle East, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday.

He was commenting on US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel to discuss a new military aid package.

Washington and Tel Aviv are discussing details of a 10-year military aid package that will be larger than the $3.1 billion US package Israel received this year.

According to reports, Israeli officials have asked the US to increase its annual military assistance by 60 percent to an average of $5 billion a year over the 2018-2028 period.

Biden’s visit comes as the relationship between US President Barack Obama and Netanyahu took a new setback over the Israeli premier’s decision not to accept an invitation for talks in Washington later this month.

Netanyahu cancelled the meeting with Obama, US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Monday.

“This visit by Biden fits in with the Obama administration, which has at times had personal conflicts between Obama and Netanyahu, but on the substance of military and economic aid to Israel, [the US] has been exceedingly generous,” Professor Petras said.

“This despite the fact that Israel has been engaged in a war against the Palestinians, in particular the savage invasions of Gaza which seem not be of importance either to Biden, Obama or Hillary Clinton,” he added.

“We must remember that the plutocrats dominated by the Israeli supporters [have] been extremely generous in financing Hillary’s campaign for president and this new visit by Biden fits in with the attempt by the rightwing of the Democratic Party to undermine the challenge from Bernie Sanders,” the analyst stated.

Professor Petras said “an increase in military support for Israel is a destabilizing element not only because of Israel’s threat to the Palestinians and the land-grabbing but also because it could invite Israel to become more aggressive and threatening to Iran.”

“And I think it is a very foolish move by Obama and Biden and Clinton to destabilize the agreement that was reached with Iran regarding the nuclear understanding. I think it’s a very a bad omen for peace in the Middle East,” he concluded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been a vocal critic of the P5+1 group’s nuclear deal with Iran and has focused on derailing it, causing great resentment within the White House.

Ties between Obama and Netanyahu have been further strained over the Israeli premier’s resistance to the creation of a Palestinian state, which has been a key element of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

See also:

Clinton calls for sanctions on Tehran over test-firing missiles

March 9, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Witch-hunting for Israel

By Michael Lesher | American Herald Tribune | March 9 ,2016

If you feel guilty, you invent a plot, many plots. And to counter them, you have to organize your own plot. – Umberto Eco

Who knew what secret evils have threatened the beleaguered Jewish State?

Actually, a lot of people – or so it would seem. Here in the United States, the professional plot-hunters who can sniff out the faintest hint of honesty about Israel are so numerous, and so creative, that hardly a day goes by without the detection of one more nefarious scheme to treat Israel like any other country, or to hold it accountable to international law.

Theirs is no easy task; Israel’s crimes have swollen to such proportions that its critics are invulnerable to anything resembling truthful debate. But no matter. Each day the plot-hunters roll up their sleeves and do what they must: attacking democracy, subverting American foreign policy, even encouraging anti-Semitism – all to save Israel.

Take President Barack Obama – yes, the same Barack Obama who egged Israel on in its murderous assault against Gaza in 2014. Late last month, Obama announced that his administration is “aggressively opposed” to any and all boycotts of Israel by U.S. trading partners, even if such boycotts are mandated by democratically enacted law.

Or take the ranking legislators from Obama’s own Democratic Party, who joined with their Republican opponents (you know, the fellows who are incubating Donald Trump as a presidential nominee) to insist that the President must punish not only boycotts of Israel but boycotts of products issuing from Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank. Those Democratic senators went so far as to stigmatize such attempts to enforce international law as “anti-Semitic.”

You’ve got to admire the zeal of a political culture that can sacrifice so many principles to the Jewish State. If a boycott of Israeli settlement products were enacted by, say, France or Germany, it would be the product of a democratic process – which means the new anti-boycott bill, championed by both major U.S. parties, runs counter to democracy. Official U.S. policy opposes Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory; that pits Congress’ initiative against the President’s constitutionally-mandated power to conduct foreign affairs. And if the bill condemns as anti-Semitic any attempt to enforce international law against Israel’s illegal settlements, then the law has the effect of making anti-Semitism respectable – thus encouraging bigotry while purporting to fight it.

But what’s democracy, or the U.S. Constitution, against a witch hunt?

And it isn’t only American lawmakers who are tearing down their ideals to silence any discussion of Israeli crimes. American rabbis have done the same. In June 2014, the Rabbinical Alliance of America – described in the Orthodox Jewish Press as “a major American mainstream rabbinic organization” – declared that anyone who supports the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against Israel is an accessory to Biblically-defined theft and murder.

Here the logic of witch-hunting trumps reason itself: it’s not Israel’s occupying army that is stealing other people’s land and regularly killing off civilians, including children – no, it only looks that way. The real trouble is those cunning BDSers who seem to be defending two great values of Jewish law by exposing Israeli theft and murder. But the obvious can’t be true, so the rabbis obligingly turn Jewish law on its head: BDS is condemned, and the sins of the Holy State are abetted. Judaism goes the way of the Constitution under Israeli tank treads.

The witch-hunters’ intellectual gymnastics can be as breathtaking as their moral absurdities. When Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti was about to deliver a keynote address at a BDS conference in Nazareth, Israeli legislator Nava Boker called on Israel’s Interior Minister to boot him from the country. After all, claimed schlock-Jewish-writer-turned-plagiarist Naomi Ragen in Boker’s support, Barghouti can’t really be Palestinian in the first place, because his parents were expelled from their West Bank home and he himself was born in Qatar. Well, Ragen should know: she was born in New York City, of Eastern European extraction – but somehow she manages to qualify as Israeli. Barghouti’s long family history in Palestine (not to mention his truth-telling) makes him a troublemaker who deserves to be expelled. Ragen’s virulent Islamophobia makes her – well, just one of the gang.

Or how about National Lawyer’s Guild attorney Jordan Kushner, who faces criminal charges in Minneapolis for questioning a police officer who arbitrarily expelled a woman from a lecture given by an Israeli apologist, Moshe Halbertal? Kushner – who was bound, jailed until 2 in the morning, and now charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstruction of the legal process – is being called an enemy of “free speech” by officials at the University of Minnesota Law School, where Halbertal’s lecture took place.

And Halbertal? Although he is a co-author of the IDF’s most recent “ethics” code, and a defender of Israel’s vicious assaults on Gaza, he’s just an “outstanding scholar,” according to the law school’s dean. It takes real mental discipline to find a threat to “free speech” in an arbitrarily jailed civil rights lawyer, while an apologist for mass murder stands undisturbed at the speaker’s dais. But the witch-hunters can manage even that.

In fact, their hypocrisy can border on the delusional. When I posted a few words on a Jewish newspaper’s website to mention Israel’s 2014 slaughter of some 1,600 civilians in Gaza, a woman reproached me for ignoring “The REAL victims, JEWISH innocent men, women & children.” And to prove Jewish superiority to Palestinian barbarism, she offered me a piece of practical advice: “please cut off your fingers.”

Umberto Eco had it right. When you’ve got a guilty conscience, you need to invent a plot. The guiltier Israel’s conscience, the more witches its apologists will have to find – until they finally look at themselves in a mirror.

March 9, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Women’s Day: High Profile Activist, Mother of 6, Kidnapped by Israeli Forces

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IMEMC News & Agencies – March 9, 2016

Israeli forces, on Tuesday night, have kidnapped iconic activist against the apartheid wall and settlements, and mother of six, Manal Tamimi, aged 43, from her home in Al-Nabi Saleh village, near Ramallah.

On International Women’s Day, 8th of March, at 1:30 AM, dozens of soldiers stormed Manal’s home, raided it and detained her family in one room, while female Israeli soldiers have taken Manal to another room in the house, thoroughly inspected her, then abducted her.

Manal’s husband, Bilal Tamimi, 50, said that, a few hours following the arrest, the family knew that Manal was taken to Benyamin Israeli police center near Ramallah, calling it “the Israeli gift to the Palestinian women on women’s day.”

Manal’s lawyer, Gabi Lasky, said, according to the PNN, that Tamimi underwent interrogation at the police center, and he has asked for a hearing session to take place as soon as possible, to know the charges held against her.

Manal and her family have maintained a high-profile in nonviolent popular resistance.

She was also part of Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, which presents community-based resistance rooted in a belief in the power of nonviolent struggle, taking various forms, such as strikes, protests, and legal campaigns, as well as supporting the call to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC), Munther Amira strongly denounced the kidnapping, calling it a new Israeli crime against women, especially taking place on international women’s day.

Amira said that this act displays the Israeli brutality against all values of freedom and democracy, and against all women, and Palestinian women in particular.

PSCC demanded all women’s associations and human rights organizations to expose Israeli crimes against women and focus on Manal’s case, at the moment.

Two close relatives from the family, Ahed and Wa’ad Al-Tamimi have repeatedly stood up for Israeli soldiers during demonstrations.

In September of 2015, a story about an Israeli soldier that attacked Mohammad Tamimi, brother of Ahed and Wa’ad, while his arm was broken and in a cast, went viral. Manal’s close relative, Nariman, and her daughters saved the child from the soldier and defended him.

For the past six years, the village of Al-Nabi Saleh held a peaceful demonstration every week, against the Israeli wall and settlements that are engorging the village.

Bilal Tamimi said that Manal was unable to participate in the demonstrations during the past three weeks, because she developed a bad allergy towards teargas, which was fired intensely during protests.

Manal was shot and injured in her legs twice before, in 2013 and 2015.

Women in Struggle: Manal Tamimi – Nabi Saleh

March 9, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Officer killed in ‘Friendly Fire’ During Invasion of Gaza

By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | March 9, 2016

An Israeli intelligence officer with the Shin Bet covert intelligence service of the Israeli armed forces was killed on Tuesday by other Israeli troops while carrying out an operation in the Gaza Strip.

The man was apparently ‘undercover’ and pretending to be a Palestinian when his fellow soldiers saw him near the border fence and opened fire on him.

Israeli authorities report that the incident is under investigation, but have not released any details, including the name of the officer who was killed.

Israeli forces stationed on the Gaza border are instructed by their superior officers to fire live ammunition at any person they see near the border fence. Israel has established a ‘kill zone’ of hundreds of meters along the fence, effectively seizing that land from the Palestinians who owned it and ‘shooting to kill’ anyone who enters the zone.

It is not yet known what Israeli Shin Bet agents were doing in Gaza, and what kind of ‘operation’ they were attempting to carry out.

The agency has faced international condemnation in recent months when surveillance videos showed Shin Bet officers infiltrating hospitals disguised as patients – even one dressed as a pregnant Palestinian woman – in order to carry out extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinian hospital patients, in direct contravention of international law.

March 9, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Half of Jews in Israel are in favour of expelling Arabs

MEMO | March 9, 2016

2-armed-settlerOver half the Jews in Israel support the expulsion of Arabs from the country, a new survey has revealed.

Conducted by the Pew Research Centre between October 2014 and May 2015, the study included 5,601 Israeli citizens, including Arabs, and showed that 48 per cent of Jews and 71 per cent of religious Jews support the expulsion of Arabs from the country. With regards to secular Jews, 58 per cent opposed the idea of expelling Arabs, with one-third in favour of the idea.

Seventy-nine per cent of Arabs asserted that there is “a lot of discrimination in Israeli society”, while 74 per cent of Jews claimed that they do not see such discrimination.

The vast majority of Jews said they saw Israel as both a Jewish and a democratic state, while 89 per cent of secular Jews said that there should be a preference for democratic principles over religious laws. But 89 per cent of ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews believe religious laws should take precedence.

The majority of secular Jews said that they identify as Israelis first and as Jews second, while Haredi and religious people identify thought the opposite.

March 9, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

How Most Aid to the Palestinians Ends up in Israel’s Coffers

By Jonathan Cook | CounterPunch | March 9, 2016

Diplomats may have a reputation for grayness, obfuscation, even hypocrisy, but few have found themselves compared to a serial killer, let alone one who devours human flesh.

That honour befell Laars Faaborg-Andersen, the European Union’s ambassador to Israel, last week when Jewish settlers launched a social media campaign casting him as Hannibal Lecter, the terrifying character from the film Silence of the Lambs.

An image of the Danish diplomat wearing Lecter’s prison face-mask was supposed to suggest that Europe needs similar muzzling.

The settlers’ grievance relates to European aid, which has provided temporary shelter to Palestinian Bedouin families after the Israeli army demolished their homes in the occupied territories near Jerusalem. The emergency housing has helped them remain on land coveted by Israel and the settlers.

European officials, outraged by the Lecter comparison, have reminded Tel Aviv that, were it to abide by international law, Israel – not the EU – would be taking responsibility for these families’ welfare.

While Europe may think of itself as part of an enlightened West, using aid to defend Palestinians’ rights, the reality is less reassuring. The aid may actually be making things significantly worse.

Shir Hever, an Israeli economist who has spent years piecing together the murky economics of the occupation, recently published a report that makes shocking reading.

Like others, he believes international aid has allowed Israel to avoid footing the bill for its decades-old occupation. But he goes further.

His astonishing conclusion – one that may surprise Israel’s settlers – is that at least 78 per cent of humanitarian aid intended for Palestinians ends up in Israel’s coffers.

The sums involved are huge. The Palestinians under occupation are among the most aid-dependent in the world, receiving more than $2bn from the international community a year. According to Hever, donors could be directly subsidising up to a third of the occupation’s costs.

Other forms of Israeli profiteering have been identified in previous studies.

In 2013 the World Bank very conservatively estimated that the Palestinians lose at least $3.4bn a year in resources plundered by Israel.

Further, Israel’s refusal to make peace with the Palestinians, and as a consequence the rest of the region, is used to justify Washington’s annual $3bn in military aid.

Israel also uses the occupied territories as laboratories for testing weapons and surveillance systems on Palestinians – and then exports its expertise. Israel’s military and cyber industries are hugely profitable, generating many billions of dollars of income each year.

A survey published last week found tiny Israel to be the eighth most powerful country in the world.

But whereas these income streams are a recognisable, if troubling, windfall from Israel’s occupation, western humanitarian aid to the Palestinians is clearly intended for the victims, not the victors.

So how is Israel creaming off so much?

The problem, says Hever, is Israel’s self-imposed role as mediator. To reach the Palestinians, donors have no choice but to go through Israel. This provides ripe opportunities for what he terms “aid subversion” and “aid diversion”.

The first results from the Palestinians being a captive market. They have access to few goods and services that are not Israeli.

Who Profits?, an Israeli organisation monitoring the economic benefits for Israel in the occupation, assesses that dairy firm Tnuva enjoys a monopoly in the West Bank worth $60 million annually.

Aid diversion, meanwhile, occurs because Israel controls all movement of people and goods. Israeli restrictions mean it gets to charge for transportation and storage, and levy “security” fees.

Other studies have identified additional profits from “aid destruction”. When Israel wrecks foreign-funded aid projects, Palestinians lose – but Israel often benefits.

Cement-maker Nesher, for example, is reported to control 85 per cent of all construction by Israelis and Palestinians, including the supplies for rebuilding efforts in Gaza after Israel’s repeated rampages.

Significant segments of Israeli society, aside from those in the security industries, are lining their pockets from the occupation. Paradoxically, the label “the most aid-dependent people in the world” – usually affixed to the Palestinians – might be better used to describe Israelis.

What can be done? International law expert Richard Falk notes that Israel is exploiting an aid oversight vacuum: there are no requirements on donors to ensure their money reaches the intended recipients.

What the international community has done over the past 20 years of the Oslo process – inadvertently or otherwise – is offer Israel financial incentives to stabilise and entrench its rule over the Palestinians. It can do so relatively cost-free.

While Europe and Washington have tried to beat Israel with a small diplomatic stick to release its hold on the occupied territories, at the same time they dangle juicy financial carrots to encourage Israel to tighten its grip.

There is a small ray of hope. Western aid policy does not have to be self-sabotaging. Hever’s study indicates that Israel has grown as reliant on Palestinian aid as the Palestinians themselves.

The EU noted last week that Israel not Brussels should be caring for the Bedouin it has left homeless. Europe could take its own advice to heart and start shifting the true costs of the occupation back on to Israel.

That may happen soon enough whatever the west decides, if – as even Israel is predicting will occur soon – the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas collapses.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jkcook.net.

March 9, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hating on Trump

It could be about Israel

Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • March 8, 2016

Now we all know that many of those who are hating on Donald Trump are doing so because he is threatening the cozy-crony-politico-predatory-capitalist system that has made so many of them fat and rich. He is intending to break their rice bowls as the Chinese would put it or, in a more American vernacular, the gravy train might be ending. To be sure The Donald is warning that he will do just that, even if he will find in practice, if elected, that turning the ship of state around might well be a task beyond the ability of any aspirant to the presidency.

But while pure self-interest might well be driving many of the chattering nonentities that populate our congress and the senior political appointee ranks in government there is something nevertheless extraordinary in the level of venom and sheer hatred that is being spewed at random about a potential Trump administration. It is not uncommon to read or hear that Trump is seeking to overturn the Constitution of the United States and establish a dictatorship that will promote his allegedly warped views of what must be done to correct America’s domestic and foreign policies, suggesting that our form of government is so fragile that it can be subverted by one man.

The anger directed against Trump is unique, one might note, as it also includes demands to somehow overturn the popular will expressed in primaries and caucuses to obtain a candidate that is more in tune with what the Republican establishment is seeking to promote as the “national consensus.” That Trump is voicing an overwhelming American middle class perspective on the evils of mass illegal immigration matters not a whit to the Mandarins whose only concerns on that issue center on the availability of a supply of cheap labor to clean their McMansions and swimming pools.

The anti-Trump effort is being well funded, has included notable defections to the Democratic Party, has led to lists of Republican politicians who will not accept a Trump nomination or support a President Trump, and has even produced calls for a third party neo-Republican entity to run against him. Some other reactions are stupid, including Canadian neocon Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, calling for even more immigrants to the U.S., while talk radio extremist Glenn Beck has tweeted that if he had a knife and were able to get close to Trump he would have to keep on stabbing him.

To be sure, Trump has provided considerable fuel for the fire through his extraordinary ad libs about banning Muslims from the U.S., killing the families of terrorists and using torture. But mainstream politicians have already recommended and even done that much and more without the level of censure that Trump is receiving. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush have engaged in widespread killing of civilians, torture and assassinating families of suspected militants, to include American citizens, without any of the invective being leveled at Trump.

Indeed, Trump would appear to have a more sensible foreign policy in mind, consisting of avoiding unnecessary wars and “regime changes,” honoring the multilateral negotiated agreement with Iran, engaging diplomatically even with heads of state that we consider to be adversaries and encouraging Russia to fight ISIS. His three current opponents have recommended “carpet bombing” areas controlled by ISIS, fusing Syrian sand into nuclear radiating glass, provoking wars with both Russia and China, arming Ukraine, punching Vladimir Putin in the nose and sending in thousands of American soldiers to the Middle East. They are not in the least bothered by fattening up the already fat national security state with trillions more dollars while domestic needs go unaddressed. So who is the crazy one?

But there is one significant difference between Trump and the “establishment,” be they Democrats or Republicans that has not been highlighted. I would suggest that quite a lot of the depth and intensity of what we are experiencing is actually about Israel. Trump is the first high level politician aspirant within living memory to challenge the notion that the United States must stand by Israel no matter what Israel does. Even while affirming his affection for Israel, he has said that Washington must be even handed in its efforts to bring about peace between Israelis and Palestinians, implying that Tel Aviv might have to make concessions.

Trump has also added insult to injury by delinking himself from the blandishments of Jewish political mega-donors, who largely call the tune for many in the GOP and among the Democrats, by telling them he doesn’t need their money and can’t be bought. His comments have challenged conventional interest group politicking in American and have predictably produced a firestorm reaction in the usual circles. Robert Kagan announced that he would be supporting Hillary, who famously has declared that she would immediately call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon taking office as a first step in moving the relationship with Tel Aviv to “the next level.” It is to be presumed that Kagan and his fellow neocons will be experiencing a welcoming vibe from at least some of the Democrats as the neoconservatives have always been liberals at heart on nearly all issues except foreign policy, rooted by them in the “unshakable and bipartisan bond” with Israel.

It is my opinion that the “I” word should be banned from American political discourse. Ironically, many American Jews are themselves uneasy about the place occupied by Israel in ongoing political debates, recognizing that it is both unhealthy in a democracy and reflective only of the extreme views of the hardline members of their own diaspora community. It is also unpleasantly all about Jews and money since the Republicans and other mouthpieces now piling on Trump are motivated largely by their own sinecures and the Sheldon Adelson type donations that might be forthcoming to the politically savvy candidates who say the right things about the conflict in the Middle East.

Slate’s Isaac Chotiner has noted a particularly odd speech by Senator Marco Rubio in which he spoke of his single electoral triumph in Minnesota before immediately jumping to the issue of Israel, as if on cue or by rote. It is a tendency that is not unique to him. I read through the transcript of the GOP debate that preceded Rubio’s sole victory, which in part reflected a competition to see who could promise to do most for Israel. Senator Ted Cruz stated that he “would stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel… and the alliance with Israel.” Governor John Kasich declared that he’s “been a supporter of Israel – a strong supporter of Israel longer than anyone on this stage.” Senator Marco Rubio indicated that “I will be on Israel’s side every single day because they are the only pro-American, free enterprise democracy in the entire Middle East.” Ben Carson called Israel not only a strategic partner but also an element in America’s “Judeo Christian foundation” that can never be rejected.

Quite a few assertions about Israel made by politicians are, of course, nonsense. It is not in alliance with the United States and is not a democracy for starters, but the real question becomes why is Israel part of the debate at all? It is because of concerns that the deep pocketed donors like Sheldon Adelson will join his good friend Haim Saban in funding Hillary if candidates do not say what he expects to hear. Saban has referred to Trump as a “clown” and attacked him because he would be “dangerous for Israel.”

And then there is the recent attack of the Beltway Midgets, a “a strongly worded letter” orchestrated by Eliot Cohen, a former Condoleezza Rice State Department appointee whose attachment to Israel might well be regarded as demented, that attracted the signatures of more than one hundred self-described GOP foreign policy “leaders,” declaring that “We are unable to support a party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head.” Quite a few of the signatories are well known neocons, including Max Boot, Robert Zoellick, Michael Chertoff, Eric Edelman, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, Kori Schake, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, Ray Takeyh and Philip Zelikow. Boot has vilified Trump as “emerging as the number one threat to American security.” All the signatories were passionate supporters of the Iraq War, which Trump has correctly disparaged as a catastrophic foreign policy failure, and all of them are describable as strong supporters of Israel.

The friends of Benjamin Netanyahu in the United States rightly fear that someday the American people and government will come to their senses and regard Israel as just another friendly foreign state, without any “special relationship” attached. To counter that possibility, the lashing out against any public figure who dares to criticize Israel is both immediate and visceral. Note, for example, the fate of former President Jimmy Carter who was virtually excommunicated by the Democratic Party after he condemned Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

But what the neocon subset of Israel’s powerful lobby fears most is something quite different – becoming irrelevant. They have weathered being wrong about nearly everything but what they particularly fear is finding themselves without a major political party whose foreign policy they can manipulate because that would cut off their funding from defense contractors and pro-Israel zealots. They will have to give up the emoluments that they have accumulated since hijacking the GOP under Ronald Reagan. They might have to abandon their corner offices and secretaries and could even have to find real jobs. And what would the Sunday morning talk shows be like without the Cheshire cat grin of Bill Kristol?

The end of the hypocrisy driven neocon ascendancy in foreign policy will be welcomed by many. Dan McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute has described the Trump hating neocons as “… soft skinned and well-perfumed keyboard warriors who eagerly send America’s sons and daughters to be slaughtered in wars that achieve nothing but the ascendance of new ‘bad guys’ used to justify ever more wars. And all of it pays very nicely for them.” Exactly.

March 8, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lawyer Shireen Al-‘Eesawy Sentenced To 4 Years, Her Brother To 8

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IMEMC News – March 8, 2016

The Israeli Central Court in occupied Jerusalem, sentenced on Monday lawyer Shireen al-Eesawy, to four years imprisonment, and her brother to eight.

Amjad Abu Assab, head of the Jerusalem Detainees Parents Committee, said the lawyer and her brother, were convicted of “communicating with the detainees,” and providing funds to them.”

Shireen was taken prisoner on March 7, 2014, as part of an Israeli arrest campaign targeting many Palestinian lawyers in occupied Jerusalem. Her brother Midhat al-Eesawy was kidnapped in March 13, 2014.

Shireen has been repeatedly kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel and was previously held under house arrests for several months.

Her brother has also been repeatedly imprisoned, spending more than 20 years in detention, in addition to being frequently placed under house arrest.

Shireen is also the sister of Samer al-‘Eesawy, who was kidnapped in June of 2014, just two years after his release under the “Shalit Prisoner Swap Agreement.”

In May of 2015, an Israeli judge reinstated Samer’s 30-year imprisonment term, for what he called “violating the terms of his release.”

Samer also went on hunger strike for nine months, demanding his release. On December 23, 2013, Israel released him, and the Israeli army rearrested him in June of 2014.

It is worth mentioning that al-‘Eesawy’s grandmother was killed by the Israeli army in the First Intifada of 1987 while their parents were repeatedly imprisoned by Israel in the 1970’s. In 1994, the army killed their brother during the uprising that followed the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre. Every member of the al-Eesawy family has previously been kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel.

March 8, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli court rules to displace Um al-Hiran Bedouins

Ma’an – March 7, 2016

NEGEV – An Israeli court on Sunday ruled that the Bedouin community of Um al-Hiran in the Negev in southern Israel is illegal, on the grounds that the community settled on state lands, Israeli media reported.

“The state is the owner of the lands in dispute,” Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein as writing. “The residents have acquired no rights to the land but have settled them [without any authorization], which the state cancelled legally.”

Israeli planning authorities intend to build a “new town for Jewish residents in its place,” Haaretz reported.

On Monday, Israeli authorities reportedly entered farm lands used by Um al-Hiran residents with the intentions of destroying crops, but residents were able to prevent forces from beginning the demolition.

Raed Abu al-Qian, a well-known activist in the area, said the move “came to increase pressure on the residents and to make home demolitions easy in the village,” following the Israeli court ruling.

Said al-Khroumi, a member of the Higher Guidance Committee of Arab Residents of Negev, said Israeli forces’ presence at the village was “a heinous and barbarian aggression against the village and its residents.”

He also called for anyone able to travel to Um al-Hiran to visit the village “show solidarity.”

Bedouin member of the Israeli Knesset Talab Abu Arar accused Israeli Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel of creating “a secret government committee” aimed at destroying the crops of Palestinian villages in Israel.

According to Abu Arar, the “secret committee” recommended that Palestinian villages in the Negev be emptied, and residents removed.

“This is a special Israeli form of ethnic cleansing,” Abu Arar continued.

Abu Arar highlighted that Israeli authorities destroyed crops in the villages of Attir, Hurah and Saawah during the past several days.

Residents of Um al-Hiran and nearby villages are among tens of thousands of Bedouins living in the Negev face ongoing displacement.

While a plan to forcibly resettle the area’s Bedouin population — the Prawer Plan — was shelved in 2014, Israel’s Habayit Hayehudi party joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau’s coalition last year on the condition the plan was reinstated.

The Um al-Hiran community — around 700 strong — was never recognized by the Israeli government and residents’ lands were claimed by the state in 2013 in order to make way for the expansion of the Beersheba metropolitan area.

March 8, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

What Is Israel Trying to Hide?

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | March 7, 2016

A delegation of seven lawmakers from the European Parliament arrived in Israel last month to visit Gaza, but one day before they were due to enter the enclave, Israeli authorities refused to give them access. Officials gave no reason for this ban, and The New York Times was equally silent, making no mention of the event in its pages.

This past week a group of six Belgian members of parliament, representing a range of political parties, also traveled to Israel, planning to meet with representatives of non-governmental organizations in Gaza. Israeli authorities blocked their entry to the coastal strip, sparking an outraged reaction from the MPs. Once again, the Times had nothing to say.

Three days later, however, the Times ran a story on page 3, informing us that India has denied visas to a group monitoring religious conflicts. The story, “India Denies Visas to Group Monitoring Religious Freedom,” appears online and in print, and it tells us that the delegates had hoped to assess the state of religious liberties in India and were “deeply disappointed” in the outcome.

This isn’t the only time the newspaper has found such state actions newsworthy. When China refused entry to a delegation from the United Kingdom, for instance, the Times ran a story under the headline “China Says It Will Deny British Parliament Members Entry to Hong Kong.”

And then there was Iran and the matter of inspecting its nuclear facilities, all very much part of the lengthy negotiations that led to an historic agreement and the lifting of sanctions. The concern over inspections took up many column inches in the Times. Would Iran allow access? How much and when?

Meanwhile, the newspaper had nothing to say about Israel’s nuclear weapons program and its refusal to allow entry to inspectors. (See TimesWarp 6-2-15.)

With the India visa story last week, the newspaper reveals once again that such affairs are fit to print—if the offending state is not Israel—and that the Times continues to maintain a double standard. This policy has left its readers ignorant of Israel’s lengthy record of denying entry to monitoring groups and international officials.

Less than two weeks ago, Israeli officials refused to allow Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to visit Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The request was made too late, the officials said. Kenyatta was on a three-day state visit, the first from a Kenyan president since 1994. No mention was made in the Times.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, also on a three-day visit to Israel in December of 2014, did manage to meet with Abbas, but he was denied entry to Gaza. Adams, who had been instrumental in reaching a peace agreement in Ireland, said the refusal to allow him access ran “contrary to the needs of the peace process.” Israel (and the Times) made no comment.

During and after the attacks on Gaza in the summer of 2014 Israel denied repeated requests from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to enter the enclave and investigate charges of war crimes against both sides. Two months later Israeli officials also denied representatives of the United Nations Human Rights Council the right to enter Gaza for the same purpose.

The Times failed to run stories on either of these occasions, but it was forced to reveal the fact that the UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur in the Palestinian territories, Makarim Wibisono, resigned over just this issue, saying that despite repeated requests, Israel denied him entry to the West Bank and Gaza.

The story, however, was relegated to the World Briefing section and the author, Isabel Kershner, took care to give the Israeli pretext for its refusal: that the UN Human Rights Council is “biased” and “hostile” to Israel’s interests.

The Times would rather not take up such stories, it seems. To do so might create doubts in the minds of readers, upsetting the carefully cultivated impression that Israel and Palestine are two equal parties at the negotiating table and on the ground.

Such news would make it uncomfortably clear that Israel is in full charge of the borders and that there is nothing equal about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. It also raises the question, which an Irish delegate raised in reacting to the recent ban on EU parliament members travel to Gaza: “What does the Israeli government aim to hide?”

The Times is willing to raise this question—even if by implication—in regards to India or China or Iran, but it has no interest in prompting such doubts when it comes to Israel. Readers, therefore, might want to ask the Times a similar question: In censoring numerous stories of Israeli bans on travel to the occupied territories, just what is the newspaper trying to conceal?

March 7, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tunisian FM doesn’t support blacklisting Hezbollah, unidentified gunmen raid Tunisian town killing civilians

Israelis Welcome GCC Statement on Hezbollah: Reflects Rapprochement with Saudis

Al-Manar | March 3, 2016

As soon as the Gulf Cooperation Council blacklisted the Lebanese party of Resistance – Hezbollah – on Wednesday, Zionist mass media welcomed the resolution, considering it “critical and serious,” reflecting a great relief among Israelis who have been seeking to fight Hezbollah from the Arab gate.

Former Zionist foreign minister Tzipi Livni hailed the GCC resolution as “an important step, while Zionist daily Maariv stated that “blacklisting Hezbollah is an achievement that serves Israel.” … Full article


Tunisia: Hezbollah Liberated Lebanese Territories, Supported Palestine

Al-Manar | March 6, 2016

The Tunisian Foreign Ministry clarified on Friday that the closing statement of the meeting of the Arab Interior Ministry did not include blacklisting Hezbollah as a terrorist group.

In a statement, the Tunisia Foreign Ministry reiterated that Tunis rejects to interfere in the domestic issues of the other countries, noting that Hezbollah has contributed to liberating the Lebanese territories, supported Palestine’s cause and fought ISIL.

“Tunisia attempted to take into account the Arab consensus during the meeting of the Arab Interior Ministers through approving the decision that is not compulsory.”


Tunisians Ask Gov’t to Withdraw from Saudi Coalition over Blacklisting Hezbollah

Al-Manar | March 6, 2016

The leader of En-Nahda Islamic movement in Tunisia Rached Ghannouchi asserted on Saturday that it is impossible to label Hezbollah as a terrorist group because of the his historic achievements in liberating Lebanon and protecting it from the Zionist aggressions.

Although Hezbollah’s role in Syria is controversial, we cannot generalize any label against the party, Ghannouchi added.

Meanwhile, a number of political parties in Tunisia demanded that the government withdraw from the Saudi-led coalition in the region over the decision to blacklist Hezbollah.

In Egypt, the founder of the Popular Current Hamdeen Sabahi greeted Hezbollah and his Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah for confronting the Zionist occupation, noting that who has blacklisted the Resistance aims at stirring the Shiite-Sunnite sedition in the region.


25 killed in militant raid in Tunisia

Press TV | March 7, 2016

At least 25 people, including four civilians, have been killed in Tunisia in an exchange of gunfire between security personnel and unidentified gunmen near the Libyan border.

Tunisia’s Defense and Interior Ministries announced in a joint statement that a group of gunmen targeted a police station and military facilities in the eastern border town of Ben Guerdane, situated approximately 600 kilometers (372 miles) southeast of the capital, Tunis, early on Monday.

Army units repelled the attack, killing 21 militants and capturing six others. Four civilians also died in the crossfire.

The Tunisian military has dispatched reinforcement forces and helicopters to Ben Guerdane. Local residents have been ordered to stay indoors.

The militant attack came amid rising international concern about the growth of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group in neighboring Libya, which has been struggling with instability since 2011. Back then, the country’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown, and armed groups as well as regional factions engaged in armed clashes in a battle for power.

The capital, Tripoli, is controlled by a political faction that calls itself Libya Dawn and is allied with powerful armed forces based in the city of Misrata. The faction has reinstated the old parliament, known as the General National Congress, in the capital.

The internationally-recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni is on the other hand based in the northeastern city of Bayda, with its elected House of Representatives being based in Tobruk.

Last week, Tunisian security forces killed five heavily armed men who had sneaked into the North African country from Libya.

March 7, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Human rights abusers’ invited to ‘non-lethal’ weapons show, condemned by activists

RT | March 7, 2016

Activists have denounced a Home Office sponsored security fair, warning that Britain is selling tear gas and other crowd control tools to some of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

Among the governments invited to take part in the fair in Farnborough, Hampshire, 30 miles southwest of London, are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Turkey, the Guardian reported on Saturday.

Police and security officials from 79 countries are expected to participate in the fair later this week, according to the list, which was released under a Freedom of Information request.

Since Prime Minister David Cameron took office in 2010, the UK has approved 126 licenses connected with the sale of tear gas and other irritants, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT).

Also approved were 75 licenses for crowd control ammunition such as rubber bullets, 79 for “acoustic” crowd control – known as sound grenades – and 259 licenses for riot shields.

CAAT spokesman Andrew Smith told the paper: “There are serious questions to be asked about the impact of the so-called ‘non-lethal’ arms industry. These risks become even more important when these weapons are being sold to human rights abusers and dictatorships.”

“A number of the countries in attendance routinely practice torture, arbitrary detention and other appalling acts of violence. The UK should not be arming these regimes and selling them the means to oppress and kill.”

“[The event] undermines the UK’s claims to be promoting human rights while strengthening the position of repressive regimes.”

Defending the trade show, the Home Office said: “A thriving security industry is vital to help cut crime and protect the public and so it is important these products and services can be showcased and expertise shared.”

Described by organizers as “the perfect place to see the latest security equipment and technology in a secure environment,” the Security and Policy fair will be held behind closed doors, with all visitors “pre vetted to strict Home Office criteria.”

March 7, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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