Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Both major UK parties have made an example of an MP calling for a Gaza ceasefire

This is a moment of great moral clarity. The values of our political system stand starkly exposed.

BY JONATHAN COOK | OCTOBER 31, 2023

Britain’s two main political parties each made an example this week of an MP brave enough to break ranks and call for an end to the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

The ruling Conservative party sacked Paul Bristow MP from his government post after he wrote to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: “A permanent ceasefire would save lives and allow for a continued column of humanitarian aid [to] reach the people who need it the most.”

Labour withdrew the whip from Andy McDonald MP, effectively kicking him out of the parliamentary party. McDonald had said at a rally against the killing in Gaza: “We won’t rest until we have justice, until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty.”

This should be a moment of great moral clarity for all of us.

It is shameful enough that both major British political parties – in what is effectively a two-horse race – back to the hilt Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians through weeks of indiscriminate bombing.

It is shameful enough that both parties term this “self-defence”, giving Israel licence for as long as it wants to carry on murdering civilians, including killing by its rain of bombs a Palestinian child every few minutes.

It is shameful enough that both parties want to continue arming Israel, meaning British weapons are helping to blow up entire Palestinian families.

It is shameful enough that both parties enthusiastically support Israel’s genocidal policy of starving 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza of food, water, medicines and the power needed to keep hospitals running, as well as destroying infrastructure essential to the maintenance of life.

It is shameful enough that both parties have refused to raise their voices in protest at the ethnic cleansing of 1 million Palestinians from northern Gaza – for some of them a third expulsion in their lifetime by Israel – into what was supposedly a ‘safe zone’ that Israel is bombing just as aggressively as the ‘evacuation zone’.

All of that is shameful enough. But now we are supposed to swallow a further moral outrage. That neither party will tolerate even the mildest dissent from this licence for depravity.

Neither party will allow a solitary MP to say “Not in my name”.

Neither party will permit an MP to represent the large majority in Britain that is appalled by the tidal wave of blood being spilt in Gaza and wants it to end through a ceasefire.

This is moment of great moral clarity. We see who leads us, and what they value. And it is not life. It is not humanity.

October 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran’s FM says national referendum only viable political solution to Palestinian issue

Press TV – October 30, 2023

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian says holding a referendum in Palestine can serve as the “fundamental and political” solution to the Palestinian issue.

In a phone conversation on Monday, Amir-Abdollahian and Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States Paul Archbishop Richard Gallagher discussed Israel’s relentless attacks against the defenseless Palestinian people, which have been going on over the past 24 days, as well as ways to find a political solution to the critical situation.

“We believe that the Palestinian crisis should be resolved basically and a political solution to it is to hold a referendum with [the participation of] all the original inhabitants of Palestine, including the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims, in cooperation with the United Nations,” the top Iranian diplomat said.

Israel waged the bloody war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement launched the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity.

Since the start of the war, the Israeli regime has been committing war crimes in Gaza, killing at least 8,306 Palestinians, including 3,457 children, and injuring over 22,000 others.

Pointing to his October 22 letter to Gallagher on the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Amir-Abdollahian hailed the stance adopted by the Vatican official and Pope Francis.

In his letter, Amir-Abdollahian said the crimes committed by the Israeli regime, including bombardment of al-Mamdani Hospital and a historical church in the Gaza Strip, where women and children had sheltered, “reveal another facet of the Zionist regime’s savage and brutal nature.”

The Iranian foreign minister also warned against the consequences of a possible expansion of war.

Gallagher, for his part, stressed the importance of delivering humanitarian aid to the war-stricken people in Gaza and finding a political solution to the conflicts with Israel in a bid to prevent the expansion of war.

Iran opposes killing of civilians in every part of world

In another phone call with Maltese Minister for Foreign, Trade and European Affairs Ian Borg on Monday, Amir-Abdollahian said Iran opposes the killing of civilians, including women and children, in any part of the world.

“Unfortunately, there is no resemblance between the measures of the [Palestinian] liberation movement Hamas and constant attacks and war crimes perpetrated by the occupying regime of al-Quds (Israel),” he added.

The Maltese foreign minister, for his part, stressed the need to find an urgent political solution to the Palestinian issue in order to prevent the spread of war.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Keir Starmer: Hostage, or Accomplice to Rishi Sunak?

Why is the current Labour leader in complete lock step with the ruling Tory party, with unfettered support for Israel’s war crimes in occupied Palestine?

By Peter Ford | 21st Century Wire | October 30, 2023

The leader of the Labour Party is just as much a hostage as any of the Israelis held by Hamas. Only in his case he wasn’t kidnapped: he delivered himself, bound and gagged, to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Netanyahu.

Keir Starmer, basking in media acclaim just a week ago after yet another spectacular by-election win for his party, is now probably the most reviled politician in Britain, a pretty contested field.

This turnabout has come about because over the last three years Starmer has staked his all on extirpating from the Labour Party all traces of his allegedly anti-semitic Hamas-friendly predecessor Jeremy Corbyn and his barbaric followers (does this kind of operation sound familiar?). He has been largely successful in this endeavour and earned in consequence the favour of important elites well represented in the media. In so doing, however, he has made himself a hostage to fortune, or more specifically to the behaviour of Israel.

Starmer could not afford to let daylight over Israel emerge between himself and Rishi Sunak, otherwise all his good work shoring up his credentials as scourge of the Labour anti-semites could start to crumble. This was fine as long as even the Arabs seemed to be ditching the Palestinians by making their separate Abraham Accords with Israel.

But what if it all blew up in the faces of the architects of these Accords and Israel turned out to be behaving barbarically? Well, Starmer is now finding out. Following as he thought the Sunak line, in a notorious radio interview he stated as clearly as he ever states anything (that is, not very much) that Israel had the right to withhold food, water, electricity and fuel from starving Gazans. Desperate backtracking failed to stem the avalanche of protest that followed, mainly from representatives of the Muslim community. Labour councillors started resigning.

Starmer compounded his error by failing to support calls for a ceasefire, just as British TV screens were filling with horrific pictures of Palestinian children being pulled bloodied from rubble. The trickle of resignations at local level became a flood and panicking senior Labour figures started to distance themselves from him. That many of them depend on Muslim votes to get re-elected has of course nothing to do with this welcome if tardy appreciation that genocide is, well, overdoing it a bit.

Starmer is in a massive bind. If he caves in to pressure and starts to let daylight emerge between himself and Sunak he will immediately be assailed from all sides for being the treacherous, cynical, unprincipled flip flopper he is, if not as an actual anti-semite. And if he stands firm he will gain poisonous praise from the Right and not much else.

Meanwhile Sunak is having a ball at Starmer’s (and Gaza’s) expense. However outrageous Sunak’s pro-Israeli stance he knows Starmer can only distance himself at his peril and the longer this goes on the more Starmer impales himself on this hook of his own foolish making. At a stroke Starmer has lost millions of potential votes, even if he now zigzags, while Sunak’s fortunes, a moment ago worth less than Sam Bankman-Fried’s investments in crypto, rise correspondingly. And with Netanyahu promising that his Gaza campaign is going to be long, hard and painful (for Gazans) the hostages, including Starmer, look set for a lengthy ordeal.

Rarely will a comeuppance have been more richly deserved. By cynically sacrificing Palestinians to his own electoral calculus Starmer has brought the rubble from his crumbling edifice of a Middle East policy cascading down on his own head.

Eventually of course public opinion will force Sunak to change course. Even if Starmer beats him to it the shift will come too late to rescue his reputation. Whatever he does from now on Starmer will be remembered by many as the man who condoned the vilest Israeli war crimes.

His party if it has any sense will ditch him for someone with slightly less filthy hands before voters have a chance to express their revulsion at Tories and Labour both by not voting at all.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US seeks strategic dialogue with Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 30, 2023 

Almost four weeks into Hamas’ attack on Israel, Russia is in no hurry to exploit the Biden administration’s quandary over the collapse of Middle East security. The western media was unanimous that Russia was waiting in the wings to seize the opportunity once the US took its eye off the ball in Ukraine. However, no such thing happened. 

Ukraine war is on autopilot. The compass has been set, the die is cast and the calculus is holding steady with regard to the strategic objectives set by President Vladimir Putin in February last year. Russia senses that it has gained the upper hand in the war and that is irreversible. 

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed and the fighting is presently restricted to two sectors of the frontline, as Russian forces strengthen the security of the Donetsk region and seek to regain control of territories up north in the borderlands of Donbass and Kharkov region from where they retreated for tactical reasons last September and October.

Yet, Moscow has not begun its grand offensive, as many had predicted. One plausible explanation is that Moscow is watching the maelstrom sweeping through the Middle East. Moscow is particularly sensitive about any spillover into Syria. 

With an eye on the formidable US naval build-up in Eastern Mediterranean with the deployment of two aircraft carrier groups, President Vladimir Putin has publicised that Russian jets equipped with hypersonic Kinzhal missiles are roaming the skies above the Black Sea, which can strike targets 1000 kms away at Mach 9 speed, which no existing missile defence system can intercept. Suffice to say, the war in Ukraine remains attritional. 

Curiously, Russia conducted a simulated nuclear strike in a drill on Wednesday overseen by Putin, hours after Russian parliament voted to rescind the country’s ratification of the global nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT). The drill needs to be seen in the broader context of global strategic stability. A Kremlin statement said, “The purpose of the training exercise was to check the level of preparedness of military command bodies, as well as the skill of the leadership and operational personnel in managing the troops (forces) under their command.” Everything, however, adds up in these extraordinary times. 

At its most obvious level, the Palestine-Israel conflict is a manifestation of the growing imbalance in the existing system of international relations. New wars are emerging; longstanding conflicts are mutating (eg., Nagorno-Karabakh). Last week, Pakistan bracketed Palestine and Kashmir as the UN’s unfinished business in the post-colonial era. North Korea and Iran are flash points that have no military solution. 

In the months ahead, without doubt, Washington will continue to provide Israel with military and diplomatic support but an extended Israeli operation lasting months in Gaza will mean dispersal of US resources that might be needed in other theatres. The conflict in Gaza underscores the imperative for a rethink in the US’ notions of global hegemony. The fact remains that the US, despite its self-proclaimed status as the “Indispensable Nation” (Madeline Albright) and the guarantor of “rules-based order,” failed to prevent the latest eruption of conflict in the Middle East. 

Arguably, therefore, the latest US proposal for a systematic resumption of strategic dialogue with Russia can be seen as a sign of positive thinking. Unsurprisingly, Moscow has displayed a studied indifference to the US proposal. But that needn’t be taken as the last word. Historically, Soviet-American strategic dialogue brought on board into the agenda all major issues and most minor issues affecting international security. 

The big question, therefore, is the timing of the US proposal. Against the backdrop of the gathering storms in the Middle East, the Biden Administration probably seeks to calm the nerves by proposing talks with Russia on global strategic balance, since the guardrails in arms control no longer exist. This is one thing. 

At any rate, Russia’s “neutrality” in a Middle East conflict could also be a consideration. Equally, Western leaderships understand that the war against Russia is practically lost — although they will not admit it publicly — and engagement with Russia is needed.   

Again, although the US has provided Israel with significant military and diplomatic support and keeps influencing the latter not to escalate the conflict, there are variables in the situation and any big conflagration in the Middle East will require a massive concentration of material and financial resources that are limited even for a superpower, since there are other unresolved problems in the world, too.

The breakdown of trust in the Russian-American ties hurts US interests. Fundamentally, it must also be understood that what Moscow seeks even today after nearly 20 months of battling NATO and the US in Ukraine’s killing fields is a sustained engagement with Washington and a willingness to accommodate mutual interests. 

On its part, Russia is conducting itself as a responsible power vis-a-vis the crisis in Gaza. There is no shred of evidence to show that Russia has acted as a “spoiler”. On the contrary, Moscow has been projecting its credentials as a potential peacemaker who enjoys good relations with all key players — Israel, Hamas, Iran and other regional states alike. 

In fact, President Biden’s recent remarks on the Gaza situation bring the US position rather close to Russia’s. Biden read out the following from a prepared text at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia: 

“Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee… 

“But that does not lessen the need for — to operate and align with the laws of war for Israeli — it has to do everything in its power — Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians. And it’s difficult. I also want take a moment to look ahead toward the future that we seek. 

“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity, and peace. And there’s no going back to the status quo as it stood on October the 6th. That means ensuring Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.” 

Putin couldn’t have put this across differently. There is a sense of expectation in Moscow that in the emergent conditions in regional security, the US and its allies will “reconsider their notions of defeating Russia in the Ukraine conflict at any cost” — as an establishment think tanker wrote in the Kremlin-funded RT last week. 

Trust is lacking, he concluded, “compromises without the full consideration of Russian interests” are difficult to reach, but “a pivotal stage in the (world) order … is taking shape before our eyes.”  

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Widespread destruction in Jenin following massive Israeli raid

The Cradle | October 30, 2023

Dozens of Israeli army vehicles, bulldozers, and drones wreaked havoc to the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on 30 October during an early morning raid that saw Palestinian resistance fighters powerfully confront the invading forces.

Following the devastating incursion, the Jenin Brigades issued a statement confirming that their fighters drove off the Israeli army, damaging at least 30 Israeli armored vehicles and leaving an unknown number of Israeli soldiers dead.

For its part, the Palestinian Health Ministry said at least four Palestinians were killed during the clashes in Jenin. About 120 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7 October, with nearly 2,000 injured.

The Israeli forces besieged the rebellious city from the early hours of Monday, attacking Jenin Governmental Hospital, dropping bombs on residential buildings, destroying streets leading up to the adjacent refugee camp, placing dirt mounds to separate the camp from the city, and bulldozing major landmarks.

Mass arrest campaigns also continued across the occupied West Bank on Sunday night, as Tel Aviv targeted the Dheisheh camp, Janata, Nahalin, and Beit Fajjar in the Bethlehem district, as well as Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus.

At least 60 Palestinians were detained, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.

Over 1,500 Palestinians have been arrested since the start of the Gaza-Israel war on 7 October, as Israel has launched nightly arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank. At least 4,000 laborers from Gaza have also been detained, pushing the number of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons past 10,000.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ plan leaked

RT | October 30, 2023

A leaked policy document compiled by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence calls for the depopulation of Gaza and the forced displacement of its residents to Egyptian territory, according to a copy published by the Sicha Mekomit news site on Saturday.

The ten-page document, dated October 13, recommends that Israel establish tent cities in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to accommodate the Gazan population. These tent cities should then be developed into permanent settlements, with a“sterile zone of several kilometers” separating them from the Israeli border.

Under the plan, Gaza’s 2.3 million residents would be told that “there is no longer any hope of returning to the territories that Israel will occupy in the near future,” and that “Allah made sure that you lost this land because of the leadership of Hamas.”

US support will be vital to the plan’s success, the document states. Washington could put “pressure on Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to contribute to the initiative either in resources or in accepting displaced persons,” it notes, adding that Spain, Greece, and Canada could also be convinced to accept refugees from the strip.

Sicha Mekomit stated that the plan “amounts to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.” According to the Ministry of Intelligence, however, the policy would be portrayed to the rest of the world as  causing “fewer casualties among the civilian population” than the current cycle of Hamas attacks and overwhelming Israeli reprisals.

Despite its name, the Ministry of Intelligence does not oversee the activities of Israel’s security and intelligence agencies. Instead it prepares studies and policy papers for review by the government, which ultimately decides whether or not to implement them.

The ministry is headed by Gila Gamliel, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Gamliel is the second Netanyahu ally in recent weeks to recommend the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, with the Meshgav Institute, a right-wing think tank, publishing a similar policy paper last week describing the war as “a rare opportunity” for the “relocation and final settlement of the entire Gaza population.”

The Meshgav Institute is led by Meir Ben Shabat, who served as Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2017 until 2021. The paper was published online but deleted after it drew international condemnation.

Netanyahu’s office told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the ministry’s document represents “initial thoughts” on the future of Gaza, and will not be considered until the war is over.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU may become complicit in ‘genocide’ – Spanish official

RT | October 30, 2023

Spanish Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra has urged European leaders to take immediate action against Israel, including severing diplomatic ties and imposing economic sanctions, amid the intensified bombing and expanded ground operations against Hamas militants in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

She also called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be prosecuted for the alleged war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.

“After this hellish night in Gaza, I have a very simple but very important message for European leaders. Do not make us complicit in genocide. Act. Not in our name,” Belarra said in a passionate video message on X on Saturday.

More than 8,000 Palestinians, including 3,342 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s air campaign began, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. The unprecedented Hamas raid into Israel, as well as hundreds of rocket strikes on Israeli territory earlier this month, left around 1,400 people dead, while 230 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Addressing the severity of the current situation in Gaza and Israel’s disproportionate retaliation, the minister highlighted the termination of internet and telephone services in the strip, claiming that the move “has a very clear objective” of guaranteeing that “Israel commits crimes against humanity without consequences.”

“Our inaction is turning us into accomplices,” the minister stressed, arguing that “Israel believes that its international alliances guarantee its impunity.”

“We have to act now, tomorrow will be too late,” she continued, voicing her message to the EU leaders: “Cut diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Carry out exemplary economic sanctions against those responsible for this genocide. And without a doubt, let’s take Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court, so that he can be tried for what he is, a war criminal.”

She also appealed to EU citizens to take to the streets and raise their voice so that “this genocide” comes to an end.

The IDF escalated air and ground attack on Gaza on Friday, causing a near-total communication blackout. Connectivity was partially restored over the weekend, but the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues; Netanyahu announced the “second stage” of the war against Hamas on Saturday.

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Gaza Fights Back’ (2022)

MintPress News

Gaza Fights Back is a MintPress News original documentary, directed by Dan Cohen. It tells the story of how Gaza’s armed resistance intervened in occupied Jerusalem as Israeli settlers expelled Palestinians from their homes and created provocations at the al-Aqsa compound. Featuring rare interviews with the Palestinian armed resistance and innocent victims of Israeli aggression, Gaza Fights Back offers a unique look at how Hamas’ armed wing outwitted the region’s most powerful military, and the toll exacted against the civilian population.

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Israel’s plan is to crush you and your people,’ Hezbollah warns Arab states

Press TV – October 29, 2023

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem has lauded the steadfastness of the resistance front in the face of the Israeli occupation.

Sheikh Qassem warned certain Arab states in the region that they will not be spared from Israeli brutality if they do not throw their weight behind the Palestinians in Gaza.

The high-ranking official with the Lebanese resistance movement made the remarks in a statement on his X social media account on Sunday, the 23 day of Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza.

“Let the Arab rulers know the resistance is strong, steadfast and victorious, God Almighty willing, and the days will prove that,” Sheikh Qassem said.

“You should know that Israel’s plan is to crush you and your people. What is happening in Gaza is a model for you and your role after it unless you are slaves and subject to it. And remember that the Israeli slogan is ‘From the Euphrates to the Nile.”

“Get together and threaten, do what will deter them, boycott, make way for your people to express freely, declare your support for Palestine and al-Quds; this is an opportunity to break the brutality,” Sheikh Qassem said.

“The Palestinian people and their resistance are paying the price for the pride of the nation and future generations, so be with them so that you can be with yourselves and your peoples, and victory comes only from God.”

Sheikh Qassem also censured the unflinching support the United States and Western governments provided to the Israeli onslaught.

“The brutality of the US, France, Britain and Germany in their absolute support of Israeli criminality and genocide against civilians in Gaza has exceeded the lowest levels of humanity.”

Israel has been waging a barbaric war on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups launched their biggest operation against Israel in years. The sneak Operation Al-Aqsa Storm came in response to the regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli war has so far claimed the lives of over 8,000 innocent Palestinians, including more than 3,000 children, and left upwards of 20,500 others wounded.

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Friday, calling for the implementation of an immediate “humanitarian truce” in Gaza. The vote came after the United Nations Security Council failed four times in the past two weeks to take action due to Washington’s veto against relevant resolutions.

The assembly stressed the “importance of preventing further destabilization and escalation of violence in the region,” urging “all parties to exercise maximum restraint and upon all those with influence on them to work toward this objective.”

Israel has rejected all calls for a ceasefire, claiming it would benefit Hamas.

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Warrant for Genocide: Netanyahu urges Israeli troops to regard the Palestinians as “Amalek”

In the Old Testament the Amalekites were exterminated: “man, woman and infant”

By Michael Hoffman | Revelation of the Method | October 29, 2023

It’s Sunday, not normally a good day for gaining people’s attention on news or analytical current events’ columns. The ongoing emergency—the massacre of children and other civilians in Gaza however—trumps all other considerations, at least for this writer, so here goes.

Part One: Netanyahu Channels Amalek

In their ignorance (or malice), Old Testament haters will have a field day with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu having channeled “Amalek” as he ordered the Israeli army to invade Gaza on October 28.

This fact is so incendiary that a quick search of the New York Times today reveals that the “newspaper of record” hasn’t dared to mention it thus far.

The Israeli Prime Minister stated: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you says our Holy Bible, and we do remember and we are fighting. Our brave troops and combatants who are now in Gaza or around Gaza and in all other regions in Israel are joining this chain of Jewish heroes, a chain that started 3,000 years ago—from Joshua to the heroes of 1948—the Six Day War, the 1973 October war—and all other wars of this country—are hero troops. They have one supreme main goal, to completely defeat the murderous enemy and to guarantee our existence in this country.”

In 1 Samuel 15:3 we find the judgment of God on the Amalekites, in the form of the divine command to Saul, the first King of Israel: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

These are patently the marching orders Netanyahu is giving to the Israeli military (“the most moral in the world”): Slay all the civilians of Gaza and spare them not.

Not even Clarence Darrow could parse it otherwise. There’s no lawyer’s loophole here; no moderating clause, which is why, as of Sunday, October 29, the New York Times and other major media have not dared to report Netanyahu’s genocidal directive.

They’ll get around to it after they have concocted a defense of the indefensible, which is their job. The delay is due to the fact that even the skilled spin doctors at the Times are having difficulty coming up with an explanation that has plausibility: the Israeli Prime Minister’s insinuation to the Israeli Army to commit genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, by invoking the Biblical war with Amalek, is not a warrant for genocide because…

Because what?

A day later and the corporate media haven’t managed to cook up a cosmetic exculpation.

Juan Cole got it partially right: “Netanyahu may have gestured to, and defiled the Bible by excusing his genocide against the civilians of Gaza with reference to 1 Samuel. But his real bible is… Zionism with its Fascist and explicitly colonial ideology.”

I say “partially,” because Mr. Cole succumbs to the humdrum of Leftspeak when he ends his summation of Zionism by describing it as a colonial ideology, which it is, but that is not the most accurate summation of its inspiration and motivation. Zionism is Talmudic.

True, a distinction has to be made between Talmudism in and of itself, as practiced before the ascendance of Zionism in the 19th century, and Talmudism as weaponized by Zionism, a task we undertook in our October 17 column, “The Disaster of Israeli Zionism.”

Only a Biblical illiterate would tell the Israelis, “You must remember… Amalek,” and then ascribe that memory to the Hebrew Old Testament.

To remember Amalek is to nullify the Old Testament!

Yahweh not only ordered the complete extirpation of the Amalekites; that’s only half the story. He ordered every faithful Israelite to blot out the memory of Amalek, so that the name of Amalek would never again be mentioned:

“You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under Heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25:19).

Netanyahu “forgot.”

Kindling the memory of Amalek is in express defiance of the command of Yahweh, and as such it is Talmudic, not Biblical. It is of a piece with the Pharisee Hillel’s prozbul-nullification of Yahweh’s Sabbatical year.

The Pharisee Talmud destroys the meaning of the Old Testament, rips it to shreds and stomps it into the gutter.

Rabbi Jacob Neusner, translator of the Yale University Press edition of the unredacted Mishnah (the sacred Pharisee text which comprises the supreme halacha (law) of Orthodox rabbinic Judaism), stated:

“We have already seen substantial evidence that any notion of Pharisaism (or later rabbinic Judaism), as the true and direct descendants of the Old Testament, is contradicted by the most fundamental assumption of one Mishnah-tractate after another. These stand wholly separate from the Priestly Code… And generally contradict it!” (A History of the Mishnaic Law [Brill Academic, 1974], p. 7).

As for why Yahweh ordered Amalek destroyed three millennia ago, that’s a hermeneutic for another day.

Part Two: The Gaza Massacre in 40 Words of Power

Our critics in Europe opine that Americans are slogan-mad, seeking in our haste and frenzied pace to reduce everything sublime to a bumper sticker.

There’s some truth in the observation. On the other hand, compared to our loquacious kindred in the Old World, we occasionally exhibit the laconic virtue of conveying the most meaning with the least amount of words.

Some of the head-scratching over the whys and wherefores of the dehumanization of the thousands of Palestinian children butchered in Gaza with American tax dollars this month of October — the sheer shoulder-shrugging indifference in the face of the carnage, by everyone from John Kirby to Joe Biden and their legion of epigones—can be understood with a few dozen words of power which compel obedience from the Department of Defense to the White House and most of the Western world.

Neither the Neocon Right nor the progressive Left will traverse this territory. Hence, the obligation to utter a proscribed truth which is the key to grasping why the massacre in Gaza is not being opposed by the Biden administration, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, NATO, or the European Union— falls to us, in this obscure column of ours.

From the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin 57a, we read:

“Regarding bloodshed, the following distinction applies: if a non-Jew killed another non-Jew, or a non-Jew killed a Jew, the killer is liable for execution; if a Jew killed a non-Jew, he is exempt from punishment.”

My dear kiddies, you who have been infantalized by the refusal on the part of every major news source, whether Muslim, Christian, atheist, Marxist, Conservative or Liberal, to cite this halacha—now you know the real reason why the International Court in The Hague will not be prosecuting Netanyahu or his generals for war crimes. Now you know why the children of Gaza have been murdered, are being murdered and will be murdered in this annus horribilis.

If Mr. Netanyahu wishes to quote ancient passages from holy books, let him quote from Sanhedrin 57 in the Talmud of Babylon, the holiest book of Israeli theology. [BT Eruvin 21b: “Be more careful in the observance of the words of the Scribes than in the words of the Torah”].

Copyright ©2023 by Independent History and Research, Box 849, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83816

FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE CONTRA CANCEL CUTLURE

Michael Hoffman is a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press. He earns his living as a professional historian. His books are published in the USA, and in translation in Japan and France. His textbook, Judaism Discovered (1,102 pages) is banned by almost all major booksellers and libraries.

Website: www.RevisionistHistory.org

X (Twitter)

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why I Support Hamas

And you should too

BY KEVIN BARRETT | OCTOBER 29, 2023

In this week’s False Flag Weekly News I outperformed Cat McGuire (for once) in saying things the ADL won’t like. Angered by the genocide of Gaza, I uttered many uncomplimentary and/or inflammatory remarks about the Chosen People and their Chosen State. But of all of the “oy vey” things I said, what the ADL will hate the most is my open declaration of support for Hamas.

And that, of course, is the most obvious reason to support Hamas: “They” really, really don’t want you to. The strategists who are trying to keep the genocide of Palestine going apparently realize that if significant numbers of Westerners start openly supporting Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian resistance, the Zionist goose will be well and truly cooked. That’s why they’ve used advanced propaganda techniques to inject the obligatory “I don’t support Hamas, but” disclaimer deep into the collective unconscious of the West in general and its relatively-Palestine-savvy people in particular.

“They” don’t really care if you deplore the massacre of thousands of Gazan women and children. “They” don’t mind if you support a two-state solution, or even a one-state solution. “They” can live with you calling for a ceasefire. “They” could care less if you utter words like apartheid or even genocide.

It’s like when Joel Stein said “I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.” The Zionist position is: “I don’t care if Americans think we’re committing human rights violations, apartheid, or genocide. I just care that we get to keep committing them.”

Americans complaining about Zionist human rights violations, apartheid, and genocide won’t stop those things. They will only be stopped at gunpoint. And it really does matter that people support the right of genocide victims to pick up guns and stop the genocide.

Jews, who think of themselves as paradigmatic genocide victims, should be the first to support armed resistance against genocide. And indeed, the smartest and most courageous Jews do. Check out what David Rovics has to say about Al-Aqsa Flood being the new Warsaw Ghetto uprising:

Hamas is the closest thing to an elected government the Palestinians have.  In fact, the last time they had a real election in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas won by a landslide….Physically fighting back against an occupying army, according to international law that all the countries in the world have signed on to long ago, is justified, and is not “terrorism.”

Why Supporting Hamas Is Strategically Savvy

In any struggle between two sides, the outcome will be largely determined by the intensity of support enjoyed by each party to the conflict. Small, weak countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan were able to defeat the mighty USA because they were far more intensely committed to ending US occupation than Americans were committed to maintaining it. Like the Palestinians today, they were willing to accept a lopsided casualty ratio as they continued raising the price of occupation to the point that the occupier opted to stop paying it.

The Western propaganda apparatus currently allows and tacitly encourages pro-Zionist intensity, while making pro-Resistance intensity taboo. “I stand with Israel” is acceptable, even mandatory; “I stand with Hamas” is practically illegal and unthinkable.

When Side A is passionately and intensely supporting its fighters, while Side B mumbles apologies and obligatory disclaimers, obviously Side A will enjoy a morale advantage that will translate into an advantage on the battlefield. But when Side A is a criminal aggressor and genocide perpetrator, it may find it difficult to maintain its intense support, and to prevent neutral people who care about justice from becoming passionate supporters of the other side. So it will use every propaganda trick in the book to prevent neutrals and lukewarm supporters of the other side from becoming brazen and passionate.

The best way to change that pro-genocide Overton Window is to throw a brick through it. And tied to that brick, a simple message: “I SUPPORT HAMAS.”

Pro-Vietnam-War people really hated it when Jane Fonda high-fived Hanoi as thousands of Americans gathered in the streets to shout their support for the Viet Cong: “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win!” But that, and US troops fragging their officers, is what ended the war. Humanitarian complaints about napalmed babies and My Lai massacres were only useful insofar as they pissed off enough people to the point that they realized that the Vietnamese resistance fighters were the good guys, and Uncle Sam was the villain, and that all decent people had a moral duty to support the Vietnamese resistance. That shifted the Overton Window radically, to the point that “withdraw ASAP and to hell with the consequences” became a middle-of-the-road position and then a political reality.

If we can get a small but noticeable number of Americans openly and brazenly cheering for Hamas at the top of their proverbial lungs, it will have the same effect on ZOG that Al-Aqsa Flood had on Israelis: It will drive them crazy, puncture their inflated sense of invulnerability, and incite them to lash out in irrational and strategically counterproductive ways. ZOG’s mask will come off, and it will show its psychotic, genocidal face to America, just as the Israelis have shown theirs to the region, the BRICS nations, and the Global South.

And the Overton Window will shift. Pretty soon “end aid to Israel” and “one-state solution” will become middle-of-the-road positions and then political realities.

Why Supporting Hamas Is Your Moral Duty

I began by explaining why supporting Hamas is strategically savvy, rather than addressing the moral argument, because much of my audience already understands what I am now about to say. For them, the strategic benefits of supporting Hamas may not be evident, even though the moral arguments are.

So I risk belaboring the obvious in stressing that the most important point—the forest that people miss while peering at the trees—is that the Palestinian cause is just, and the Zionist one unjust. Every just war theory, whether Christian, Islamic, or secular, is based on the non-aggression principle: The side that initiates aggression, in this case by crossing the seas to invade and murder and steal the other side’s land and property, is in the wrong, while those fighting to stop that aggression are in the right. No sane person who takes the time to study the history of Palestine in a reasonably comprehensive and unbiased way can fail to conclude that there has never been a war in history that has been more obviously and completely just than the Palestinian war against Zionist invasion, occupation, and genocide.

And of all the big lies uttered in history, there has never been a bigger one than “The Israeli-Palestine conflict? It’s complicated.” No it isn’t. And it isn’t a conflict, it’s a genocide. The rights and wrongs are not the least bit complicated.

Zionist attempts to obfuscate the injustice of their genocidal project are so absurd that they would be hilarious if there were not right now more than a thousand Gazan children buried beneath the rubble of what used to be their homes, suffering and dying slowly in some cases, expiring quickly and mercifully in others. Consider the most popular excuses:

“Yahweh gave us Palestine 3,000 years ago. Surely that should count for something! What?! You don’t honor Yahweh’s 3000-year-old real estate deals?!!”

*“We deserve Palestine because of the Holocaust. So why isn’t Israel in Germany? Umm… next excuse!”

“We are an ethnic group so we deserve a state of our own. And yes, we know that there are tens of thousands of ethnic groups on Earth, and that virtually none of them have states, but we are just so special that we deserve one! And if you don’t agree, you are anti-Semitic!”

“We have gotten into terrible conflicts with every neighbor we’ve ever had, and have been expelled from more than 100 countries for no reason at all except that our neighbors like to pointlessly persecute us, so you ought to sympathize and side with us no matter what we do.”

“There are lots of terrible injustices, so if you complain about this one, you must be an anti-Semite!” Alternate version: “Genghis Khan (or Pol Pot or Stalin or Hitler) killed more people than we have, so why are you attacking us, you anti-Semite?”

“The Palestinians and their supporters, as we portray them in our propaganda machine, are very bad, wicked people, so you should cheer for us as we steal their stuff and exterminate them.”

“We are a democracy even though we murdered or expelled most of the people who should be voting in our elections.”

“Israel’s existence is really, really beneficial to US national security, even though it makes billions of people in geopolitically-crucial energy-rich countries hate America’s guts.”

“You have to support us because we call our enemies ‘terrorists’ and other nasty names.”

And when all else fails:

“Support us and do what we say, or you’ll never work in this town again!”

Refuting the extant arguments for Israel’s existence would be superfluous and an insult to the reader’s intelligence. They are not even arguments, just inarticulate, incoherent grunts and howls of tribally-intoxicated psychopathy.

But it may be worth unpacking one of them: the “terrorist” blood libel. Terrorism is usually defined as “A military tactic consisting of deliberately attacking civilians to incite fear and achieve a political objective.” And that is exactly what “Israel” is: A terrorist organization. Zionist terrorists have been attacking and terrorizing the civilian population of the territory they invaded, namely Palestine, ever since they got there. The various Zionist terror groups were so drunk on terrorism that they even terrorized each other, as well as their fellow aggressors and invaders, the British, in a bloody orgy of terror that has no parallel in modern history. Much of the story can be found in Thomas Suarez’s State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel.

So the conflict is between terrorists who crossed the seas to attack the Palestinian civilian population in order to kill some and scare the others into leaving; and the civilian population they have been terrorizing. On one side, the Zionist terrorists; on the other, the Palestinian anti-terrorist Resistance. In this as in so much else, the Zionist propaganda machine has turned reality on its head.

Today, the Zionist terrorists continue to deliberately target and mass-murder Palestinian civilians by the thousands. About two-thirds of the Palestinians they kill are women and children. The Zionists probably kill about a hundred civilians for every Hamas fighter. Compare that to al-Aqsa Storm, the Hamas operation that killed roughly equal numbers of Israeli military fighters and civilians. And of the civilians killed in al-Aqsa Storm, the majority were killed by the Israeli military, whether accidentally in crossfire, or deliberately in accordance with the Hannibal Directive, which recommends eliminating both hostage-takers and hostages using overwhelming firepower in order to prevent the enemy from using hostages as a bargaining chip.

Hamas, unlike the Zionists, primarily targets the Israeli military, when it can. Clearly, al-Aqsa Storm primarily targeted the IDF. Hamas’s orders were to take hostages, but to avoid killing unarmed civilians. And while there may have been a few instances of Palestinians killing civilians, photo evidence proves that the worst carnage—music festival goers caught in heavy artillery crossfire, houses and kibbutzes and other buildings full of people destroyed by tank and artillery shells—was perpetrated by the IDF. Hamas soldiers, carrying light weapons, could not possibly have caused that kind of damage, or killed those large numbers of people.

This and most of the rest of the damage to civilians on October 7 was meted out by Israeli heavy weapons, not Hamas’s light firearms

But what about the rockets? Since unlike Israel, Hamas doesn’t enjoy billions of dollars worth of of US-taxpayer-provided weaponry, it fires relatively unsophisticated rockets that cannot take out hardened military targets, but do frighten and occasionally harm Israeli “civilians.” So… is that terrorism? No—because Israelis are settlers, not civilians. Under international law, military resistance against occupation, including targeting settlers, is legitimate. So we can argue about proportionality—I would assert that Hamas errs on the side of mercy by doing a whole lot less settler-killing than it has every right to be doing — but at the end of the day, international law, morality, and basic common sense dictate that Hamas’s use of rockets to retaliate against massive genocide is justifiable… and rational, as part of a multi-pronged strategy to keep raising the costs of occupation to the point that the genocidal occupier will finally take Helen Thomas’s advice and “get the hell out of Palestine.”

Arguing with Orwell’s O’Brien

You know who has lost the argument not only by Godwin’s law a.k.a. reducto ad Hitlerum, but also by which party feels the need to use coercion to force the other party to shut up. The Zionist terrorists have not only lost the argument, they have no argument. No wonder they ceaselessly invoke Hitler and the Nazis. And no wonder they constantly run professors out of universities, get media personalities fired, launch specious persecutions and prosecutions, and generally terrorize everyone into going along with their genocidal absurdities.

Arguing with a Zionist is like arguing with Orwell’s O’Brien: He knows he’s full of shit, has no compunctions about it, and is going to do whatever it takes to ruin your life.

By saying “I like Hamas,” I’m supporting an anti-terrorist group that the Zionist terrorists have falsely and mendaciously labeled, in true Orwellian fashion, “terrorists.” Maybe they’ll try to get me prosecuted for “material support for anti-terrorism,” though I haven’t mailed so much as a dirham to Hamas, POB 123, Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine, nor have I contributed to any Hamas GoFundMe’s or bought any donuts from the nice little old Hamas ladies at the local mosque. (If they were selling baclava, I’d consider it.)

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably have to admit that the reason that you haven’t yet come around to openly supporting Hamas is fear: fear of what the Zionists might do to you. Well, I’m here to tell you that fear isn’t the right word for that. The correct word is cowardice.

The Palestinians continue to unite in resistance to genocide, even as the Zionists respond by forcing their children to die agonizing deaths, by the thousands, beneath mountains of rubble. And you can’t even openly and publicly admit that you support that Resistance? Come to think of it, maybe cowardice isn’t the right word. It isn’t strong enough.

Come on, grow some stones. Say it with me: “I… SUPPORT… HAMAS.”

Video link

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli ground troops face fierce resistance inside Gaza

The Cradle | October 29, 2023

The Palestinian resistance has continued to confront Israeli ground troops penetrating the Gaza border, after Tel Aviv announced an expansion of limited ground incursions into the besieged strip on Friday.

The Qassam Brigades launched a surprise attack on Israeli forces on Sunday “after infiltrating behind their lines and clashing with enemy forces” who were making an incursion northwest of Beit Lahia, their Telegram channel said. 

In a statement released earlier on 29 October, Hamas’ Qassam Brigades announced that they “continue to confront the Zionist forces penetrating the Al-Amiriyya area northwest of Beit Lahia, where they engaged in armed clashes with them and targeted enemy vehicles with … mortar shells.” 

The Qassam Brigades “carried out several sniping operations. The enemy admitted that a number of its soldiers were wounded in the clashes with our Mujahideen who … are still targeting enemy forces.” 

They also targeted on Sunday morning a “gathering of enemy vehicles” with a suicide drone, according to the resistance group’s Telegram channel. 

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, the Quds Brigades, also announced on 29 October targeting Israeli forces attempting to enter the northern Gaza Strip with rockets and mortar shells. 

Israel’s military announced earlier on 29 October that one of its officers was seriously hurt and another soldier moderately injured “in the northern Gaza Strip overnight.” 

The Qassam Brigades released a video on Saturday evening, 28 October, showing their destruction of an Israeli armored vehicle believed to be carrying over a dozen soldiers. The attack took place near the Gaza Strip’s Shujaiya area. 

Over the past week, Israel has carried out “limited” ground incursions into northern Gaza aimed at testing the waters for the planned invasion. The Israeli army said it struck several Hamas targets during small-scale incursions on 25 and 26 October. 

Israeli troops took heavy losses the week before that while attempting to enter the Gaza Strip on land. 

Tel Aviv announced on 27 October that it is “expanding” its limited ground activity in Gaza.

However, an army spokesman told ABC News that day that “the expanded operations taking place in Gaza are not an official ground invasion.” 

So far, Israel has delayed fully invading Gaza and attempting to carry out its stated goal of “eradicating” Hamas, who are well prepared for an Israeli ground invasion. 

Many experts, including The Cradle’s Hasan Illaik, have said recently that Israel will be unable to bear the cost of launching a full ground assault on the Gaza Strip. Such an invasion could also instigate the opening of several new fronts and the outbreak of regional war. 

“We want to convey to our enemy that we are impatiently awaiting the opportunity to introduce [its forces] to new forms of demise,” Qassam Brigades spokesman, Abu Obeida, said on 28 October. 

October 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »