Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Chinese Hackers? US Propagandists Should Look in the Mirror

By Eric Draitser |New Eastern Outlook | November 4, 2015

Like millions of Americans, this past week I was sitting on my couch, drinking a cold beer, watching Game 1 of the World Series – professional baseball’s hallowed championship. Suddenly the satellite feed went out, the screen went dark. Naturally, as FOX Sports scrambled to get their live feed fixed, many of my fellow Americans took to twitter to speculate as to what had caused the outage. I was, sadly, unsurprised to see that the most common joke people were making was that China must have hacked the World Series.

On the one hand, it is understandable given the barrage of propaganda about Chinese hackers as a threat to corporate and national security; seemingly every week there is a new news item highlighting the great red cyber-menace. On the other hand, it is a perfect illustration of the hypocrisy and ignorant arrogance of Americans who, despite being citizens of unquestionably the most aggressive nation when it comes to both cyber espionage and surveillance, see fit to cast China as the real villain. It is a testament to the power of both propaganda and imperial triumphalism that a proposition so disconnected from reality, and bordering on Orwellian Doublethink, is not only accepted, but is ipso facto true.

But there is a deeper political and sociological phenomenon at play here, one that begs further exploration. How is it that despite all the revelations of Edward Snowden regarding US intelligence and military snooping capabilities across the globe, Americans still cannot accept the culpability of their own government and corporate interests – the two work hand in hand – in global cyber-espionage? Even if they explicitly or implicitly know about the NSA, CIA, DIA, and Pentagon programs (among many others), their instinctive reaction is to blame China. Why? The answer lies in the complexity and effectiveness of the anti-China propaganda.

In his landmark book Public Opinion, the renowned writer, commentator, and theoretician of propaganda, Walter Lipmann, defined the term “stereotype” in the modern psychological sense as a “distorted picture or image in a person’s mind, not based on personal experience, but derived culturally.” In other words, the stereotype is an image in our mind’s eye, one that is constructed by outside forces; it is information filtered through a particular societal or cultural framework that then creates a picture of how something is to be understood. Lipmann went further, noting that carefully constructed propaganda could be used to shape stereotypes, thereby allowing the powers that be the ability to construct and manipulate information and narratives.

And this is precisely the phenomenon at work here. By repeating it endlessly, the US political and corporate media establishment have successfully convinced Americans that China is the real threat when it comes to cyberspace, playing on the stereotype of Chinese people in general, and the People’s Republic of China specifically. But, I would argue something far different: rather than seeing China as a threat, perhaps Americans, and westerners generally, should shine a light on what their own countries are doing, thereby gaining a broader perspective on the issue. For China’s moves in this field pale in comparison to those of the US, and are clearly a response to them.

China and the US: Comparing the Rap Sheets

The corporate media is replete with stories of Chinese hacking of US institutions. From alleged Chinese hacking of the University of Virginia employees connected with US government programs directed at China, to the infamous breach of the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management which resulted in the theft of the personal information of more than 20 million Americans, such stories help to construct an image of China as the world’s leading hacker-state. This week it is Chinese hackers targeting health care providers, last year it was stealing the secrets of Westinghouse and US Steel, and literally dozens of other such examples.

The purpose of this article is not to deny the veracity of these reports; I’m not a computer expert, nor do I have access to the information that an expert would need in making a determination. Instead, my purpose here is to show the grossly unbalanced, and utterly dishonest, way in which the issue is presented to Americans especially, and to probe why that might be. For any fair and balanced approach to the issue would present the simple fact that the US is the world leader in cyber-warfare, having actually conducted what are to date the only recorded live uses of cyberweapons.

Take for instance the joint US-Israel developed Stuxnet virus, a pair of highly complex and severely destructive, computer viruses launched at Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to a group of independent legal experts assembled at the request of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, the Stuxnet cyberattack was “an act of force.” Their report noted that “Acts that kill or injure persons or destroy or damage objects are unambiguously uses of force [and likely violate international law].”

Indeed, the US and its Israeli partners launched the very first true cyberweapon. As cyber security expert Ralph Langer wrote in Foreign Policy in 2013:

Stuxnet is not really one weapon, but two. The vast majority of the attention has been paid to Stuxnet’s smaller and simpler attack routine — the one that changes the speeds of the rotors in a centrifuge, which is used to enrich uranium. But the second and “forgotten” routine is about an order of magnitude more complex and stealthy. It qualifies as a nightmare for those who understand industrial control system security… The “original” payload… attempted to overpressurize Natanz’s centrifuges by sabotaging the system meant to keep the cascades of centrifuges safe.

Essentially, the US and Israel employed the world’s first cyberweapon without even fully knowing the potentially destructive consequences. As the virus migrated out of the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz and onto the internet, innumerable variables could have come into play, with the potential for disastrous outcomes.

But of course Stuxnet was not alone. The US and Israel also deployed both the Gauss and Flame viruses, two more sophisticated cyberweapons designed to cause major damage to online infrastructure. The Gauss virus, discovered by Kaspersky labs, one of the world’s most highly respected cyber-security firms, was designed to steal sensitive data such as financial records. According to the US officials who spoke with the Washington Post, the Flame virus was a: massive piece of malware [which] secretly mapped and monitored Iran’s computer networks, sending back a steady stream of intelligence to prepare for a cyberwarfare campaign… “This is about preparing the battlefield for another type of covert action… Cyber-collection against the Iranian program is way further down the road than this.” said one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, who added that Flame and Stuxnet were elements of a broader assault that continues today.

Clearly the US and Israel were not merely interested in surveillance and information-gathering, but actually having the ability to manipulate and destroy vital computer infrastructure in Iran. Any reasonable reading of international law should hold that such actions are, in fact, an act of war, though of course war with Iran has not come to pass. But just the very use of such sophisticated weapons, far more elaborate, technical, and dangerous than mere hacking by humans, should call into question the weepy-eyed condemnations of China for its alleged stealing of corporate and government information.

And then of course there is the seemingly endless supply of revelations from Edward Snowden regarding the US surveillance infrastructure, how all-encompassing it truly is, how it is used to manipulate political outcomes, how it is used as a weapon against foreign governments, and much more.

Just to name a few of the countless programs and initiatives of the NSA and the surveillance state designed to capture information for political purposes:

PRISM – allows “The National Security Agency and the FBI [to tap] directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, emails, documents, and connection logs.”

BLARNEY – “Gathers up metadata from choke points along the backbone of the internet as part of an ongoing collection program the leverages IC (intelligence community) and commercial partnerships to gain access and exploit foreign intelligence obtained from global networks.”

Boundless Informant – “Details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.”

US & UK Target G20 Leaders – “The documents suggest that the operation was sanctioned in principle at a senior level in the government.”

US Spied on EU Offices – “America’s National Security Agency (NSA) not only conducted online surveillance of European citizens, but also appears to have specifically targeted buildings housing European Union institutions… in addition to installing bugs in the building in downtown Washington, DC, the European Union representation’s computer network was also infiltrated.”

But of course, the US has also specifically, and successfully, trained its cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare sights on China itself. Thanks to Snowden, we now know that US intelligence repeatedly hacked into Beijing’s Tsinghua University, China’s top education and research institute. As revealed in the South China Morning Post:

The information also showed that the attacks on Tsinghua University were intensive and concerted efforts. In one single day of January, at least 63 computers and servers in Tsinghua University have been hacked by the NSA… The university is home to one of the mainland’s six major backbone networks, the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) from where internet data from millions of Chinese citizens could be mined. The network was the country’s first internet backbone network and has evolved into the world’s largest national research hub.

But it wasn’t only Tsinghua University that was targeted. Snowden also revealed that Chinese University in Hong Kong was the victim of US hacking; the university is home to the Hong Kong Internet Exchange, the city’s central hub for all internet traffic. In addition, it came out that US intelligence has repeatedly hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies, spied on users, and stolen data, including text messages. These are, of course, only what we know about thus far from the Snowden revelations. The scope of US hacking operations against China is not known, but could be safely assumed to be far-reaching.

In fact, the depth of US hacking and other intelligence operations targeting China, including those taking place inside China itself, has been alluded to repeatedly. The New York Times noted in August 2015 that the Obama administration was cautious about any retaliation against China for the breach of the Office of Personnel Management because “Intelligence officials say that any legal case could result in exposing American intelligence operations inside China — including the placement of thousands of implants in Chinese computer networks to warn of impending attacks.”

It is clear that what we do know about US cyberwar programs and tactics is really only the tip of the iceberg. It is likely that Washington has myriad other China-specific hacking programs and initiatives, including the much discussed attempts to subvert the oft referenced “Great Firewall of China.” Put simply, the US is engaged in the most sophisticated forms of hacking and cyber-subversion, and much of it is directed at China (and Russia and Iran). This should now be beyond question.

Keep this information in mind the next time another story about Chinese hackers attacking US interests runs in the corporate media. While the hack may or may not be true, it is the context within which such actions take place that really needs to be understood.

There is a cyberwar going on, of this there can be no doubt. But who’s got the biggest guns? And who fired the first shot?

November 6, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces kill Palestinian woman, 72, after alleged car attack

Ma’an – November 6, 2015

BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces shot and killed an elderly Palestinian woman after an alleged vehicle attack in Halhul, north of Hebron on Friday.

A spokesperson at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem told Ma’an that the woman, aged 72, was dead upon arrival at the hospital.

Israeli media reported that the woman attempted to run over Israeli soldiers in Halhul and was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli forces.

The Jerusalem Post said that a “suspicious vehicle” drove at Israeli soldiers, with forces opening fire at the car.

No Israeli injuries were reported.

The victim was identified as Tharwat al-Sharawi, 72. Her husband, Fouad, was killed by Israeli forces during the 1st Intifada.

Two Palestinian youths who were standing at a gas station nearby were injured as Israeli gunfire shattered the car’s windows.

Both youths were taken to the al-Ahli hospital in Hebron to treat their injuries, which were described as moderate.

Al-Sharawi was the 74th Palestinian to be killed since the beginning of last month, the majority of whom were shot dead by Israeli forces during alleged, attempted, and actual attacks on Israeli military and civilians.

On Wednesday, Ibrahim Skafi, 22, was also shot dead by Israeli forces in Halhul after a vehicular attack that left a 20-year-old border policeman seriously injured.

The town of Halhul, north of Hebron city, was sealed by Israeli forces following the attack.

Recent attacks come as Israeli intelligence said earlier this week that a recent lull in violence was unlikely to be long-term, citing high levels of frustration among the Palestinian public.

Tharwat al-Sharawi, 72.

November 6, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu aide: Obama is an anti-semite

By Jonathon Cook | The Blog From Nazareth | November 5, 2015

Picture the scene. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is off to Washington to see Barack Obama next week for the first time in more than a year. Their last major dealings were in March, when Netanyahu travelled to the US to speak to Congress in a bid to undermine a key plank of the US president’s foreign policy – reaching a nuclear deal with Iran.

This time Netanyahu wants a favour. He hopes to squeeze from Obama billions more of US taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars in “aid” so that he can buy yet more weapons to use against the Palestinians.

How is Netanyahu preparing for this important visit? He has appointed a new head of public diplomacy, Ran Baratz.

And how will Baratz help Netanyahu repair relations with Obama? It seems he won’t. Last March, as Netanyahu went behind Obama’s back to try to stymie the Iran deal in Congress, Baratz posted his views of Obama on Facebook. He called the US president an “anti-semite” for criticising Netanyahu’s behaviour.

Here’s what he wrote:

Obama’s reference to Netanyahu’s speech – this is what modern anti-Semitism looks like in Western and liberal countries. And it comes, of course, alongside much tolerance and understanding toward Islamic anti-Semitism.

By the way, to give you a flavour of quite how unhinged Netanyahu has become in appointing someone like Baratz as his new spokesman, Baratz has also argued that the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem should be replaced by a third Jewish temple and Muslims denied the right to pray at the site unless they recognise its holiness to Jews. Almost as crazy as accusing the Palestinians of persuading Hitler to carry out the Holocaust.

Will this cause Netanyahu any harm in Washington or prompt Obama to refuse to subsidise Israel’s belligerent and illegal occupation? Don’t hold your breath. It seems there is no insult Obama and the US political elites won’t swallow when it comes from their “ally” Israel.

www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.684417

November 6, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who Will Blink in Syria? Russia? Or the US?

By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | November 5, 2015

The first to die will be US troops. Russians will be made to appear as the killers, but the agents will probably be ISIS, Al-Qaeda (aka al-Nusra), Turks, or the Americans themselves. I’m not ruling out that the Russians might actually do the job, especially if the Americans order their 50 soldiers to the most likely Russian bombing targets and then dare the Russians to hit them. But most likely, the US will do the job itself and not take a chance that the Russians might miss.

Those dead American soldiers are needed as bargaining chips so as to up the ante. Next, Russians have to die, with or without a mutual secret agreement to that effect.

The strategy is based upon the assumption that if the stakes become high enough, the other side will back down. It is called brinkmanship, and its best known example was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. One or both sides may believe that they are bluffing, but if their bluff is called are they really going to back down? Or are they going to up the ante so much that they end up in a real war, where they are required to respond to the other’s actions with ever-escalating effect?

I do not think the Russians will blink. They have had enough of American encroachment. They will not stand for further NATO poaching of their erstwhile Warsaw Pact allies, and certainly not in Ukraine, which is to Russia roughly as Canada is to the US. Similarly, the port of Tartus in Syria is Russia’s only Mediterranean naval base, and Syria is currently its only ally in the Arab world. Russia has much more at stake than the US, and is therefore much less likely to back down. In fact, Russia has clearly made a major commitment to the preservation of Syria, and waited a long time before doing so, which is another sign that they will not shrink soon from their decision to stay the course.

On the American side, the stakes are much less well defined. Syria is part of the post-USSR assertion of US global dominance, as advocated mainly by the neoconservative strategic movement, closely allied with Israeli and Zionist interests, which benefits from the Israel Lobby clout in the US. From its base in the Congress and the National Security Agency, this movement has made inroads into the intelligence services, the State Department and the Department of Defense, mainly at the top echelons. (Elected and appointed positions are the most vulnerable to lobbyist penetration.)

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the neocons argued that the US should use its military might to mold the world into US-controlled fiefdoms. Plans for such domination have been variously described in the “Clean Break” proposal, the “Project for a New American Century”, and the “New Middle East”. They begin with the destruction (aka “regime change”) of seven Middle Eastern countries, of which Iraq and Libya are considered successfully catastrophic outcomes, and a model for what is to be done to Syria.

Part of the purpose is to remove “bad examples” of nations that refuse to open their economies to U.S. exploitation and to accept US direction of their foreign policy, regardless of their own national interests. Iran and Syria are current examples of such countries, as were Libya and Iraq prior to their destruction. If these objectives happen to coincide with the Israeli policy of destroying the countries in its neighborhood, we may be forgiven for thinking that this is not mere coincidence.

Also on the American side, the stakes are ruled to a greater extent by domestic politics. Having championed the cause of regime change in Syria, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are loathe to appear weak or indecisive, and thus vulnerable to Republican criticism. In any case, they rely heavily on the Israel Lobby, which appears willing to sacrifice America’s fortune and youth on the altar of Israeli interests.

Despite these considerations, the American motives are not as strong as those of Russia. The problem is, neither is American leadership. There is a clear way out of this confrontation, with a face-saving agreement, if only the US will allow it to happen. It is for Russia and the US to cooperate in eliminating ISIS, al-Qaeda and their allies, cutting off US support for these terrorist organizations, forcing US allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others to do the same, and jointly convening a peace conference that brings indigenous Syrian groups together to negotiate an agreement that allows all sides to claim victory (even if it is something of a charade, as are most such agreements).

Brinkmanship is unnecessary. It is dangerous, and it is not a solution. Vladimir Putin is ready to achieve a negotiated outcome that protects Russia’s interests and ends US encroachment. Assad has never been an enemy of the US, and he is the current choice of the vast majority of the Syrian people, whether enthusiastically or reluctantly (as in most countries). The United States will be able to claim victory over its terrorist enemies as well as a compromise over the form of government in Syria, and a new positive working relationship with Russia. The Israelis will be upset that we have not done enough killing for them, but they will get over it, in the same way that they are reluctantly learning to live with the US-Iran settlement on nuclear development.

It shouldn’t be a question of who blinks first, but of having the option to continue blinking at all.

Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.

November 6, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel seeks 60 percent increase in US military aid: US officials

Press TV – November 5, 2015

Israel is seeking a large increase in annual military assistance from the United States and has held preliminary talks with the Obama administration on a 10-year financial package that would provide up to $50 billion, American congressional sources say.

During unofficial talks in recent weeks, Israel has 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, the congressional aides said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Under the existing agreement that was signed in 2007 and expires in 2017, annual military aid to Israel grew to about $3 billion a year. That deal was negotiated during the George W. Bush administration.

Israel says that it wants more money to counter threats that will arise as a result of the recent Iran nuclear agreement, which the Zionist regime has fiercely opposed.

US officials said that negotiations on the new aid package deal were still in the early stages and the proposal has not yet been formally presented to Congress, which must approve the funding.

“First they have to negotiate with the White House,” one senior congressional aide said of the Israeli regime.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington next week and hold talks with President Barack Obama on the aid package. Netanyahu and Obama are expected to reach an agreement on the aid deal’s broad outlines.
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel hold a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, Sept. 30, 2013.

Obama had reportedly agreed in principle with Netanyahu in a previous meeting to increase the aid package to between $4.2 billion and $4.5 billion.

The money is separate from the nearly $500 million in annual US funding for Israel’s missile system programs in recent years. It is also on top of the US warfighting material held in Israel, which is valued at $1.2 billion.

US annual aid to Israel has held steady despite cuts to a wide range of domestic and military programs in the United States, including reducing the size of the US Army to its lowest level since before World War Two.

The US government is pressured to serve Israel’s interests due to the influence of the powerful Zionist lobby in the United States. The pro-Israel pressure groups actively work to steer US foreign policy in favor of Israel.

November 5, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel steals slain Palestinians’ organs

Palestine Information Center – November 5, 2015

RAMALLAH – The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Riyad Mansour said that Israel is harvesting the organs of Palestinians killed during the ongoing Jerusalem Intifada.

Riyad Mansour said in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday that the bodies of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces are “returned with missing corneas and other organs, further confirming past reports about organ harvesting by the occupying power.”

“A medical examination conducted on bodies of Palestinians returned after they were killed by the occupying power found that they were missing organs,” Mansour wrote in the letter.

The issue of organ theft by Israel was first brought to the fore in a report published by Sweden’s most highly-circulated daily Aftonbladet in 2009.

The New York Times has also reported in 2014 that “transplant brokers in Israel have pocketed enormous sums of money.” Based on the report “Israelis have played a ‘disproportionate role’ in organ trafficking since 2000.”

According to the latest figures by the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 74 Palestinians were shot and killed at the hands of Israeli forces since the beginning of October.

The bodies of the Palestinian victims are most often held in Israeli custody for long periods of time before they are returned to relatives.

November 5, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel orders aircraft carrier as part of US military aid package

MEMO | November 4, 2015

Israel has provided the United States with a list of weapons that it would like to have available as part of the US aid package, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth revealed yesterday.

According to the newspaper the list included a modern aircraft carrier and a squadron of F-15 aircrafts as well as material assistance to support Israel’s anti-ballistic missile system, Arrow 3.

According to the newspaper Israeli officials have asked for these weapons during closed-door meetings with US officials attended by Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon and US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter in Washington.

The list of arms exceeded the maximum assistance provided by the United States each year, amounting to nearly $3 billion, therefore it has been referred to US President Barack Obama before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House scheduled for next week, the paper reported.

November 4, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Hamas says Britain must apologize for Balfour Declaration carving up Palestine

RT | November 3, 2015

Palestinian political Islamists Hamas have demanded Britain apologize for agreeing to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine in 1917, a move experts say had “profound and pervasive” consequences for those who lived there.

Hamas released its statement Monday to coincide with the 98th anniversary of the declaration. It claimed the 1917 agreement between then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour and influential Jewish community leader Baron Walter Rothschild is now null and void.

The original declaration, which aimed to combine two apparently contradictory aims, read: “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The Israeli News Network reports Hamas wants Britain to apologize for the declaration, retract it and admit it was a mistake.

“The path of our people towards freedom, return and liberation goes like the path of other peoples who were under occupation – through struggle by all methods and means, first and foremost an armed struggle,” the statement said.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Oxford University history professor Avi Shlaim said the Balfour agreement continued to resonate throughout the region and beyond.

“Its consequences were both profound and pervasive, and its impact on the subsequent history of the Middle East was nothing less than revolutionary,” he said.

“It completely transformed the position of the fledgling Zionist movement vis-à-vis the Arabs of Palestine, and it provided a protective umbrella that enabled the Zionists to proceed steadily towards their ultimate goal of establishing an independent Jewish state in Palestine.”

The declaration’s impact was out of proportion to its size. It took the form of a mere letter from one party to another and yet, Shlaim says, defines the state of the Middle East to this day.

“Rarely in the annals of the British Empire has such a short document produced such far-reaching consequences,” he said.
A number of former British colonies have recently called for relations between themselves and the former imperial power to be redressed.

In September, Barbadian historian Sir Hilary Beckles reminded David Cameron that the prime minister’s own family was enriched by slavery in the Caribbean colonies.

In July, Indian politician Shashi Tharoor debated Britain’s past occupation of India at an Oxford Union debate.

“Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India. We paid for our own oppression. It’s a bit rich to oppress, maim, kill, torture and repress and then celebrate democracy at the end of it,” Tharoor said at the debate.

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces storm, shut down Hebron radio station

Ma’an – November 3, 2015

HEBRON – Israeli forces on Tuesday morning stormed the offices of a Palestinian radio station in Hebron, where they destroyed equipment and ordered the station’s closure, in the latest violation of press freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territory.

353060CManbar al-Hurriyya (Freedom Tribune) radio station, which is reportedly affiliated with Fatah, wrote on its website that Israeli forces had destroyed equipment inside the offices and confiscated other equipment.

The soldiers then issued a military order notifying employees that the station was to be closed and its broadcast banned.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the station was shut down “as part of the ongoing battle against incitement.”

It continued: “Forces confiscated broadcasting equipment in order to prevent the incitement which has caused a flare of violence in the region over recent weeks.”

It accused the radio station of encouraging “stabbing attacks” and “violent riots,” and reporting “false and malicious claims of security forces executing and kidnapping Palestinians in order to provoke violence.”

The statement said that Israeli forces had shut down the station twice before, in 2002 and again in 2008.

The incident comes a day after a Palestinian press freedoms watchdog condemned more than 450 violations of media freedoms since the beginning of the year.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, known as MADA, said in a statement that it “condemns the ongoing violence against Palestinian journalists by the Israeli Occupying Forces,” including more than 100 violations in October alone.

It said that “continued impunity with lack of accountability” encouraged Israeli forces “to commit more crimes and assaults.”

The watchdog said that while press violations had not reached last year’s proportions, when 17 Palestinian journalists were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, violations had “witnessed an enormous escalation this year.”

The group called for accountability, but also for “preventing censorship and persecution of journalists and activists regarding their opinions and comments on social media.”

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces redouble brutal efforts to curtail and isolate Palestinians’ daily lives

IMG_0216

International Solidarity Movement | November 2, 2015

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – On Sunday, 1st November 2015, Israeli forces prevented movement of Palestinians in various areas in al-Khalil (Hebron) that have previously been declared a ‘closed military zone’. Violence against school-children and teachers has seen a sharp increase. International observers documenting and reporting on the every-day restrictions and crimes of the Israeli forces are increasingly targeted by the Israeli forces trying to silence any reporting.

Salaymeh checkpoint

In the morning, students were allowed to pass through the checkpoint without any major problems. Just three days ago, Israeli forces extrajudicially executed a Palestinian youth who was lying on the ground after already being shot and seriously injured by Israeli forces, from a close distance, at this checkpoint. Three Palestinian adults were denied passage through the checkpoint by the Israeli forces, who refused to give any reason for turning them back. When international observers wanted to pass through the checkpoint after documenting the body-search of a Palestinian man, they were stopped by border police that denied them passage through the checkpoint. When asked for a reason, Israeli forces refused to give any reason, but forced them to move away from the checkpoint.

In the afternoon, when international activists walked towards the Salaymeh checkpoint to secure the pupils and teachers a safe journey home from school, the border police immediately told the internationals: “If you go through, you will never be able to come back”. When asked why, they just responded “those are the orders”. The internationals chose not to go through the check point but to monitor it from the inside, standing ten meters from the checkpoint as is the limit for how far authorities can require that observers stand. As the law requires that any orders regarding ‘closed military zones’ be displayed with dates and maps of affected areas, the activists asked to see this order. Immediately, the officer standing closest to them yelled to the other police in Hebrew to “bring pepper spray and handcuffs”, so the activists were made to move back to a place where the check point was still within sight. After around ten minutes a car with two male settlers stopped at the check point and talked with the soldiers. After that the soldiers approached the activists telling them to move further back out of sight of the checkpoint. The activists were forced to leave due to fear of violence from the police.

Queitun checkpoint

IMG_3859At Queitun checkpoint this morning, approximately one hundred fifty children from several local schools remained outside after the start of school. Israeli Border police began shooting tear-gas grenades around 7:15 am, and very quickly shot thirteen rounds of tear-gas via grenades and canisters directly at dense clusters of pre-pubescent boys. Faces everywhere were red, swollen and tear-streaked.

Upon time to return home, four international human rights observers were denied passage through two checkpoints by Israeli forces first without explanation, and then on grounds that they had cameras in their possession, a restriction which is illegal by Israeli and international law.

In the afternoon, international observers were again denied their legal right to pass through the checkpoint without any reason.

Qurtuba school

This noon, children and teachers were prevented to return home by Shuada street by soldiers explaining the ‘closed military zone’ was ‘for security reasons’ and ‘a new measures against terrorism’. They stayed on the stairs, blocked by the army for nearly one hour. In the same time, four settlers including Anat Cohen and one who filmed with his phone convinced the soldiers to push the children back. Because of the children and teachers refusing to leave – as they were not allowed to proceed on the stairs –  soldiers called the police. After a long talk with the four settlers who didn’t want to leave the stairs and insulted the director and the children, the soldiers and the police finally authorized the children to go home and walk through Shuada Street in small groups of children and teachers. Israeli forces at the checkpoint threatened the children to walk faster, pointing their loaded guns at them.

Settler Anat Cohen making fun of school-children denied passage on their way home

Settler Anat Cohen making fun of school-children denied passage on their way home

School-children blocked on the stairs by Israeli forces

School-children blocked on the stairs by Israeli forces

School-children finally allowed to go home after more than an hour of wait

School-children finally allowed to go home after more than an hour of wait

Whereas in the morning, an actual order for a ‘closed military zone’ was still in place, the order was only valid from Saturday morning 8 am till Sunday morning 8am and thus not valid for the end of the school day.

'Closed military zone' order Photo credit: Youth Against Settlements

‘Closed military zone’ order Photo credit: Youth Against Settlements

The order for a closed military zone is a clear infringement on Palestinians freedom of movement and clearly only geared towards exactly this aim. Whereas Palestinians all over the areas declared ‘closed’ are forced to undergo constant body-searches, detentions, ID- and bag-searches and are randomly denied access on the soldiers whims, settlers from the illegal settlements within al-Khalil (Hebron) are allowed to freely roam the streets without being stopped at any time. International observers documenting and reporting are facing yet another instance in which Israeli authorities are making determined strides to completely rid Al-Khalil of any witnesses for the myriad and worsening ways in which they violate the basic rights of Palestinians on a daily basis.

All these measures clearly illustrate the real aim of the latest escalations in violence geared towards instilling fear in the Palestinian residents and ultimately force them to leave the area.

November 2, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rubio Follows the Big Money

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | November 1, 2015

On the morning of Halloween, the New York Times broke the scary news that Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio had won a big jackpot: the endorsement of billionaire hedge fund investor Paul Singer. But aside from citing Singer’s praise for Rubio’s “message of optimism” and “work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” the story offered little explanation of what could prove to be a decisive turning point in the GOP primary race.

On the policy front, Rubio clearly meets Singer’s requirement for a candidate who favors lower taxes on the rich and, even more important, a blank check for Israel’s right-wing government. With his hawkish stands on the Middle East, including fervent opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, Rubio had already won over another leading Republican “bundler,” New York attorney Phil Rosen, former chairman of American Friends of Likud and a believer that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians “was, and will always be, a holy war.”

Rubio is a protégé of Florida billionaire Norman Braman, who has contributed at least six figures to support the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Rubio reportedly leads the all-important “Adelson primary,” the race to tap the virtually unlimited cash box of gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the single most prominent U.S. supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

All that is music to Singer’s ears, but Rubio’s “work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee” is about something else altogether: his political support for Singer’s efforts to drain more than $1.5 billion dollars from Argentina in payments on old bonds that lost most of their value after the country defaulted in 2001.

Singer’s Elliott Management bought that debt several years ago for less than $50 million, and then successfully sued in U.S. court to demand full recovery of the face amount — in the face of opposition from the Obama administration, most other bondholders, and, above all, Argentina’s government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Singer, who is famous for his bare-knuckles tactics against foreign governments, has gone after Kirchner’s government on all fronts. Most strategically, he supported the highly questionable claims by an Argentine prosecutor that the Kirchner government tried to cover up the involvement of the Iranian government in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.

The issue was perfect for a smear campaign: targeting alleged Iranian terrorism and government anti-Semitism, Singer could undercut the legitimacy of the one entity standing between him and huge profits on his speculative bond purchases.

Singer’s Elliot Management is a major backer of American Task Force Argentina, which advocates for full repayment of the Argentine bonds and has spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress. It also spends big bucks to blacken Argentina’s reputation.

As Huffington Post reported in 2013, the group “has launched a broad attack on Argentina in its PR campaign. … Politico ad, paid for by ATFA, slammed the country as a safe haven for narcotics traffickers. Another ATFA ad accuses Argentine President Cristina Kirchner of making a ‘pact with the Devil,’ pointing to a legal memo between her country and Iran involving Argentina’s effort to prosecute Iranian defendants in a terrorism case.”

As one of its lobbyists told Huffington Post, “We do whatever we can to get our government and media’s attention focused on what a bad actor Argentina is.”

An investigation by Charles Davis for Inter Press Service showed that employees of Singer’s Elliott Management contributed more than $95,000 to Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, who wrote a letter denouncing President Kirchner’s agreement with Iran to investigate the 1994 bombing.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who received $38,000 from Elliott Management employees, co-sponsored legislation demanding that Argentina’s bondholders receive full compensation, and called for an investigation of Argentina’s ties with Iran. Other recipients of Singer’s largesse — including AIPAC, The Israel Project and the American Enterprise Institute — also hammered the Kirchner government, virtually accusing it of anti-Semitism.

Last year, another member of Congress got in on the act: Sen. Marco Rubio. While grilling President Obama’s nominee as U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Rubio complained that Buenos Aires “doesn’t pay bondholders, doesn’t work with our security operations. . . .  These aren’t the actions of an ally.”

Adding a dig at President Kirchner, he added, “We have this trend in Latin America of people who get elected but then don’t govern democratically. Argentina is an example of this.” His speech triggered an angry response from Kirchner’s Foreign Minister Hector Timerman — an Argentine Jew — calling Rubio an “extremist.”

This May, Rubio introduced a resolution in the Senate suggesting that Kirchner conspired to “cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 terrorist bombing.” Rubio declared that the issues in the case “extend well beyond Argentina and involve the international community, and more importantly, U.S. national security.”

As Eli Clifton noted, “It turns out that Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, was Rubio’s second largest source of campaign contributions between 2009 and 2014, providing the presidential hopeful with $122,620, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.”

When Kirchner herself had the temerity this spring to link Singer to various neoconservative attacks on her policies, citing a “global modus operandi” to coerce foreign states, the reliably neoconservative editorial page of the Washington Post published an editorial reply titled, “Argentina’s President Resorts to Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories.”

To which Jim Lobe and Charles Davis, citing a long list of Singer connections to Kirchner’s critics, replied, “follow the money.” That advice, made famous in the movie version of Watergate’s Deep Throat, remains the best guide to understanding billionaire funding of candidates in the 2016 election.

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Women from Occupied East Jerusalem Call for Protection

A Statement by the JERUSALEMITE WOMEN’S COALITION | Kafila | October 26, 2015

We women of occupied East Jerusalem call for immediate protection as we witness and suffer the widespread and serious violations of Palestinian human rights, including physical attacks and injuries, severe psychological threats, and persecution by the Israeli settler-colonial state and settler entities.

We urge the international community to act and defend the rights of Palestinian children, women, and men, including the right to a safe life amidst the constant attacks, excessive and indiscriminate use of force used by the Israeli oppressive apparatus, acts of violence and daily terror committed by Israeli Jewish civilians, including settlers. This brutality is intimidating our lives, provoking our youth, willfully causing death and bodily and psychological harm, and disabling and injuring of our community members.

We, a group of Palestinian women, mothers, sisters, daughters and youth—and in the name of the “Jerusalemite Women’s Coalition”—call upon the international community to protect our families, community, and children. We are calling for the protection of our bodily safety and security when in our homes, walking in our neighborhood, reaching schools, clinics, work places, and worships venues.

We are calling for protection, for we feel displaced even at home, as the Israeli soldiers, armed settlers, border patrol, and police invade our homes, attack our
families, strip-search our bodies, and terrorize us all.

We women of occupied East Jerusalem feel as if we are orphans, without any protection from the Palestinian Authority or the international community, as the Israeli state terrorizes our homes, educational institutions, and public spaces. The state’s imposition of collective punishment and sanctions invade not only our physical spaces and bodies, but also our psyches. We live in a state of fear and horror, not knowing how to face the omnipotent power of the highly technologized settler colonial entity, and militarized Israeli state that regularly executes Palestinians in the streets. Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem have been abandoned, subject to the discriminatory policies of a violent state and its security and police apparatus.

The current political violence and the lack of any protection, as the Israeli security apparatus is protecting Jews only, jeopardizes women’s safety and her economic, social, psychological, and bodily rights, as well as children’s and men’s safety and security. We call for protection, and the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and urge human rights defenders to protect our community from the Israeli machinery of oppression. Our children must be allowed to reach their schools in peace, and our parents and elderly must be able to reach their work places, health institutions and welfare services with safety. We request that we are able to walk in the streets without fearing the attacks of the Israeli security apparatus and its armed settlers.

We are calling to protect women and girls, who are particularly vulnerable to various forms of state violence and mass atrocities. The economic strangulation of Palestinians by the Israeli settler-colonial powers, that have thus far resulted in the total dependency on the Israeli entity, further traps the lives of Palestinians. The feminization of poverty and the economic strangulation of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem enslave Palestinians. The feminization of slavery in the colony is apparent when watching Palestinian women turn into domestic workers humiliated, controlled, and oppressed in Israeli public and private entities.

We are aware that humanitarian law attempts to challenge the inherent inhumanity of wars and colonial criminality by requiring international actors to protect civilians. International humanitarian law suggests moral boundaries of the exercise of power in situations of mass violence. International humanitarian law’s main object is primarily to protect and aid victims of violence.

We, the women of occupied East Jerusalem, are politically orphaned. We are victims without protection, as the Palestinian Authority has no right to protect us in our city, and the Israeli state treats us as terrorists that should be humiliated, attacked, violated, and controlled. The guerrilla state style tactics used in occupied East Jerusalem, be it the attacks on Palestinians in the streets, the beating of the young and old, the attacks on children going to and from school, the invasion of violent settlers to our neighborhoods and homes, the control of our life, water, cell phones, internet, mobility, health, economy, and accessibility to other resources, have situated us in human cages—segregated, restrained by Israeli laws and security theology, unable to know what to anticipate and what will come next.

Having to endure all the above difficulties, which have been escalated by Israeli cabinet resolutions and otherwise ignored due to global amnesia, WE ARE CALLING FOR PROTECTION AND URGENT ACTIONS TO PREVENT FURTHER AGONIES, UPROOTING, DEMONIZATION, AND SUFFERING.

Signed by Jerusalemite Women ’s Coalition /Al-tajamo’ Al-nasawiy Almaqdasy.
The Coalition includes a group of Women NGOs and Jerusalemite feminists from all segments of society
Jerusalem 24.10.2015

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »