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Saudi FM calls for Palestinian state in UN speech

The Cradle | September 24, 2023

The Saudi foreign minister addressed the UN General Assembly on 24 September in a speech calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state and a “just, comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue” while criticizing Israel for its ongoing illegal building of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan’s comments come as Saudi Arabia and Israel appeared to make progress in negotiations to normalize relations.

“Security in the Middle East region requires the acceleration of … a just, comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue; the solution must be based on resolutions in the international arena and must bring about a peace that allows [the] Palestinian people to have an independent state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” said Saudi Foreign Minister said.

He added that Saudi Arabia also “rejects and condemns all the unilateral steps that constitute a flagrant violation of international law and which contribute to the collapse of regional and international peace efforts and are hindering the path of diplomatic solutions,” an apparent reference to Israeli approval of West Bank settlement construction and the legalization of some outposts in recent months.

Saudi Arabia has previously demanded that Israel allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for normalizing relations. The Saudis have also asked the US to provide the kingdom with security guarantees, help to establish a civilian nuclear program, and permission to buy more advanced US weapons.

It is unclear if Saudi officials will stick to the demand that Israel end its over 60-year occupation of the West Bank and allow a Palestinian state or whether they are using the Palestinian issue as leverage to achieve their other stated demands for a normalization deal.

Earlier this week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) stated in an interview with Fox News that “every day we get closer” to normalizing ties with Israel. He did not mention the demand for a Palestinian state, saying only, “We hope that will reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu devoted much of his UN address to touting the possible deal with Riyadh and its effects on the region.

In his speech on Friday, Netanyahu said Israel was on “the cusp” of a historic peace agreement with the Saudis, a deal he said would transform West Asia, “encourage other Arab states to normalize their relations with Israel,” as well as “enhance the prospects of peace with the Palestinians.”

He stated that the Palestinians should be part of the peace deal but should not have a veto over any agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia or other Arab states.

At the same time, far-right members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition have warned that they will not support any concessions to Palestinians as part of a deal with Saudi Arabia.

“If there will be concessions for the Palestinians, we will not remain in the government — and not just us, but the Religious Zionism party as well,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the far-right Oztma Yehedit party, said in a statement on 23 September.

During his UN speech, Netanyahu held up a map that placed the West Bank and Gaza within the boundaries of Israel, suggesting he does not plan to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

There is “No greater insult to every foundational principle of the UN than seeing Netanyahu display before the UNGA a ‘map of Israel’ that straddles the entire land from the river to the sea,” the Palestinian Authority’s representative to Germany Laith Arafeh posted on X, formerly Twitter.

With this map, Netanyahu negates “Palestine and its people” while “attempting to spin the audience with rhetoric about ‘peace’ in the region, all the while entrenching the longest ongoing belligerent occupation in today’s world,” Arafeh said.

September 24, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel undercover forces kill Palestinian child after he discovers operation in Jenin

MEMO | September 21, 2023

Undercover Israeli Special Forces killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy when he saw them sneaking into the Jenin refugee camp during an operation, making it the latest arbitrary execution of a Palestinian by Occupation forces this year.

In a report yesterday by Defence for Children Palestine (DCIP), the Palestinian sector of Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI), Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh left his grandfather’s house in the northern West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp on Tuesday this week, when he then “saw Israeli Special Forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest.”

The report stated that “Rafat fled, yelling, ‘Special Forces! Special Forces!’ One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters”.

The Occupation forces then shot at the boy again, as a Palestinian man came to his aid and “threw himself on top of Rafat and rolled him toward his house, less than five meters away. The man and his family sheltered Rafat for about an hour and a half as the Israeli military prevented ambulances from accessing Jenin refugee camp.”

The boy was reported to have been “struck with one bullet that entered his abdomen and exited from the upper right side of his chest … He bled extensively from his mouth and nose while waiting for an ambulance.” The DCIP stated that “Rafat died before an ambulance transferred him to Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin.”

Khamayseh’s murder is the latest killing of a Palestinian – especially a minor – by Israeli forces or settlers this year, with at least 240 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip having reportedly been killed since the beginning of 2023, including 46 children.

The human rights group acknowledged the killing of Palestinian minors as a common practice by Occupation forces, stating in its report that “Investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings”.

September 22, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Remembering the Zionists’ assassination of UN Palestine mediator Count Bernadotte

By Muhammad Hussein | MEMO | September 17, 2023

What: Assassination of Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte

Where: Jerusalem, Palestine

When: 17 September 1948

What happened?

In May 1948, as the war raged between the military forces of the budding Zionist state and the various Arab armies, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) appointed as UN mediator in Palestine, a Swedish diplomat named Count Folke Bernadotte.

As a member of Sweden’s royal family, Bernadotte had served as a diplomat during the Second World War Two, helping to free tens of thousands of prisoners held in Nazi Germany and having attempted to negotiate an armistice between the Nazis and the Allies.

He took that diplomatic experience into the conflict over the creation of the state of Israel on the land of Palestine in the late 1940s, conducting mediation efforts and helping to negotiate an initial truce in the conflict before that broke down shortly after.

His most notable contribution, however, was the peace plan he worked on during the summer of 1948, following his appointment as UN mediator, in which he first called for the establishment of a union between Transjordan (currently Jordan) and British Mandatory Palestine, operating with certain areas allocated to Jews or Palestinians.

Examples of that plan included Palestinians controlling territories in the Naqab – or Negev – desert, while the Galilee area would be controlled by the Jews. Some areas were to be freely accessible to both, such as Haifa and its port and the airport at Lod, now called Ben-Gurion Airport. As for Jerusalem, it would be an international city controlled by the UN.

This was rejected by all sides and prompted the conflict to resume once the truce’s validity ceased.

His second proposal was more of a complex and reconciliatory one, however, affirming the existence of the state of Israel while at the same time firmly supporting the Palestinian right of return, advocating that Palestinians expelled from their lands and properties during the Nakba should be allowed to return and reclaim them. Those who did not return, he said, should be repatriated, resettled and financially compensated.

“It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries,” he is quoted as stating in his proposal.

He submitted the ‘Bernadotte plan’ to the UN General Assembly on 16 September 1948, sparking fears amongst Zionist militants and paramilitary groups that the plan would actually be approved and implemented. The Stern Gang – or ‘Lehi’ – and its leadership, took decisive action to attempt to prevent its approval.

On 17 September, only a day after the proposal’s submission, four Lehi terrorists ambushed Bernadotte’s motorcade in Jerusalem’s Katamon neighbourhood, firing six rounds into the UN mediator and another 18 at Colonel Andre Serot, a French military officer who was sitting next to him. Serot was killed immediately, while Bernadotte was rushed to hospital and died shortly after.

What happened next?

Following the assassination, the new Israeli government finally declared Lehi a terrorist organisation, disarmed what remained of the group, arrested around 200 members and convicted some of the leadership.

Whatever condemnation there was from the Israeli side was short lived, however, as authorities granted a general amnesty to Lehi members prior to the first Israeli elections in January 1949. No members or leaders were charged with involvement in the assassination or convicted either.

In May 1949, the Israeli government even persisted in covering up the Stern Gang’s involvement in the killing, claiming in a report to the UN that no members had been tied to it. Despite that denial, several Lehi members eventually came forward over the years and admitted their involvement, after the statute of limitations for the murder expired in 1968.

Only in 1977, around nine years after that expiration, was the first public admission of the organisation’s assassination of Bernadotte actually made.

Despite that, leaders of Lehi had been allowed to enter and advance in Israeli politics, taking up prominent roles such as Yitzhak Shamir becoming the future Israeli prime minister, Natan Yellin-Mor becoming a future member of the Israeli Knesset, and Yehoshua Cohen – the actual killer of Bernadotte – becoming the bodyguard of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

In 1980, Israel further expressed its pride in the terror organisation by instituting a military decoration named the Lehi ribbon, signifying an “award for activity in the struggle for the establishment of Israel”.

The assassination of the UN mediator also had diplomatic repercussions, with Sweden condemning and severely criticising Israel’s investigation into the murder, leading to the two countries suffering a fallout in relations.

Decades after Bernadotte’s assassination, however, his legacy remains one that is hailed as a standard of peace diplomacy during times of conflict. As with other UN efforts in occupied Palestine and the wider region, Bernadotte was instrumental in establishing much of the infrastructure of UN operations on the ground, and is considered to have laid the foundation for the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Read also: 

The IDF’s violent origins and Israel impunity

September 17, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia pulls out of Israel normalization talks

The Cradle | September 17, 2023

According to a 17 September report by Saudi media, the kingdom has told Washington that it aims to withdraw from US-sponsored efforts for normalization with Israel due to an Israeli reluctance to make concessions towards the Palestinians. 

“Saudi Arabia has informed the American administration to stop any discussions related to normalization with Israel,” the London-based, Saudi-owned Elaph newspaper cited an official from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying. 

The outlet cites an official from the prime minister’s office as saying that the actions of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and their insistence on not making any concessions is “torpedoing any possibility” of peace with Saudi Arabia. 

The official confirmed “that the United States informed Israel of Saudi Arabia’s decision,” adding that the “Israeli leadership is confused about it” and that experts, politicians, and even the prime minister did not think that Riyadh would link normalization to the Palestinian issue. 

Recent reports have suggested that Saudi Arabia has been inching closer towards a deal that would see the kingdom normalize ties with Israel.

In recent months, officials have suggested that Riyadh has been privately demanding a US-sponsored civil nuclear program, the ability to purchase more advanced US weapons, and a firm defense and security pact between Washington and the kingdom in order for a deal to go through. 

Publicly, however, Saudi Arabia has maintained that any normalization agreement must depend on major concessions towards the Palestinians – based on the 2002 Arab Peace initiative, which calls for an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution to the refugee issue. 

Last month, Netanyahu suggested in an interview that he would be open to making “gestures” to the Palestinians if normalization with the kingdom depended on it. He added that his coalition members would not block such an agreement. 

The prime minister also said at the time that “the Palestinian thing is brought in all the time, and it is sort of a check box. You have to check it to say that you’re doing it.” 

Netanyahu added that talk about concessions happens “a lot less than you think” behind closed doors. 

Members of Netanyahu’s government, including Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have taken a strong stance against making any sort of concessions towards the Palestinians.

“We will not make any concessions to the Palestinians. It’s a fiction … it has nothing to do with Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich said recently. The finance minister has been among the leading figures pushing for annexation of the West Bank through continued expansion of illegal settlements. 

Much of the West Bank’s administration was recently placed under Smotrich’s sole authority, dimming even further the prospects of Palestinian statehood. 

On 13 September, an Emirati official said that the UAE was powerless to halt Israel’s plans for annexation of the West Bank, suggesting that it was now “up to future countries” involved in peace talks to attempt this. 

Earlier this month, Saudi officials told a visiting Palestinian Authority (PA) delegation that they “will not abandon” the Palestinian cause. 

September 17, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Weaponised definition of anti-Semitism is a ‘tool’ to undermine free-speech

By Nasim Ahmed | MEMO | September 15, 2023

The highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism has been repeatedly abused to suppress criticism of Israel and stifle pro-Palestinian activism at UK universities, a startling new report has found.

Produced by the European Legal Support Centre and the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, the report analysed 40 cases between 2017-2022 where spurious accusations of anti-Semitism were levelled against students and faculty members over speech related to Palestine/Israel.

In nearly every case, the accusations were eventually dismissed after prolonged, stressful investigative processes. However, the harm inflicted on the well-being and reputations of those falsely accused had already been accomplished through these malicious campaigns.

Based on the findings, the report concludes that the IHRA definition is inadequate and unfit for purpose. In practice, it undermines academic freedom and the right to lawful speech for students and staff. The reputation and careers of those falsely accused also suffer harm from such allegations. Overall, the definition is being used to stifle protected speech critical of Israel, in violation of the academic rights and freedoms that universities are legally obligated to protect.

“We have found that since its adoption in UK higher education institutions, the IHRA definition has been used to delegitimise points of view critical of Israel and/or in support of Palestinian rights, silencing political criticism and academic scrutiny of Israeli state policies” Programme Director of the European Legal Support Centre, Giovanni Fassina, told MEMO.

“University staff and students in the UK have been subjected to false allegations of anti-Semitism, unreasonable investigations based on the IHRA definition, or cancellations and disruption of events. These proceedings harm well-being and reputations, including possible damage to education and careers. The complaints have had an adverse effect on academic freedom and free speech on campuses and have fostered self-censorship,” Fassina added.

Despite concerns raised by academics, activists and legal experts over its chilling effect on free speech, the IHRA definition was adopted by a majority of universities. Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA, has himself warned that it is not appropriate for university settings where critical thought and free debate are paramount. Nevertheless, in 2020, the then Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson threatened university leaders with punitive financial consequences if their institutions did not adopt the IHRA. As a result, 119 universities (almost 75 per cent of UK universities) have adopted some version of the definition as a basis for campus policies.

Meanwhile, the UK government has rejected similar calls for protection against discrimination from other minority groups in the name of fighting ‘woke aggression’ and ‘cancel culture’.

For instance, Muslim advocacy groups have urged the adoption of an official definition of Islamophobia to tackle anti-Muslim hatred. But the government rejected this, claiming a singular definition could chill legitimate speech and debate.

In stark contrast to its position on the IHRA, the Tory government and the right in general have argued that a definition of Islamophobia could impact law enforcement and require legislative changes. Critics pointed out this rationale is inconsistent given the IHRA definition’s documented use to restrict speech, curtail events and initiate proceedings against students and faculty.

The contrast reveals not only a double standard in the government’s approach to addressing racism targeting different minority groups, but also a hierarchy of racism, where certain groups are granted greater protection and privileges over others. There is a reluctance to bolster protections for Muslims, even as accusations of anti-Semitism are readily weaponised to demonise certain speech.

A major flaw of the IHRA definition is that it conflates anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism. Seven of the 11 illustrative examples do just that. One example states that “denying Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g. by claiming that Israel is a racist endeavour” is anti-Semitic. As the report authors explain, this example falsely equates Jewish self-determination solely with the political project of Israel – a contingent position unique to Zionist ideology. It further delegitimises Palestinian claims to self-determination and casts opposition to Israel’s discriminatory policies as anti-Semitic. Most concerning, it suppresses documented evidence of Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians by equating such criticism with bigotry. Through such examples, the definition chills free speech and makes it difficult to act in solidarity with Palestinians without facing accusations of anti-Semitism.

Several cases where students and teachers were “cancelled” on extremely dubious grounds were highlighted. In December 2020, an academic teaching on the Middle East received notification that a recent graduate had submitted complaints alleging their social media posts from 2016-2020 were anti-Semitic. The posts criticised Zionism, shared an article on the Nakba, and commented on anti-Semitism allegations against Labour.

The graduate argued these violated the IHRA definition. Despite the academic being cleared, they underwent a lengthy disciplinary process causing stress and requiring legal advice. The university referred to the IHRA definition in its policies.

Another example is the treatment of Dr Somdeep Sen. He was invited to deliver a lecture at the University of Glasgow on his book ‘Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial’. After the lecture was announced, the university received a complaint from its Jewish student society alleging that the event is anti-Semitic.

In response, the university demanded Sen provide details on his talk’s content in advance and confirm he wouldn’t contravene the IHRA definition. As these conditions undermined academic freedom, Sen withdrew and the event was cancelled.

The two examples are just the tip-of the iceberg. All the cases show how vague accusations of violating the IHRA definition have put pressure on universities to investigate or penalise faculty and students for speech related to Palestinian rights and Israeli policies. In all the cases, the burden of proof is on pro-Palestine students and critics of Israel. The presumption is that they are guilty until proven innocent; a perverse inversion of the universal principle that one is innocent until proven guilty.

Commenting on the findings, Neve Gordon, the chair of Brismes’s committee on academic freedom and a professor of human rights law in the school of law at Queen Mary University, said:

What has been framed as a tool to classify and assess a particular form of discriminatory violations of protected characteristics, has instead been used as a tool to undermine and punish protected speech and to punish those in academia who voice criticism of the Israeli state’s policies.

In his comments to MEMO, Fassina mentioned the vicious campaign to police free speech on Israel and Palestine and the ongoing efforts to weaponise anti-Semitism against critics of the apartheid state. “For us and our partners in the UK, it was time to expose a pattern we have been observing for too long: unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism made against academic staff and students after they criticised the policies of the Israeli government or just ‘liked’ some tweets about Palestine, Israel or about the Labour Party.”  He explained that the latest report adds to the evidence already produced in Europe, in the US and Canada that demonstrate similar harmful consequences of the IHRA definition for the rights of advocates for Palestine. “This is not just a UK problem but reveals a wider trend of anti-Palestinian racism in Western countries, which is highly problematic for the respect of fundamental rights and democracy,” Fassina added.

Fassina called on UK higher education institutions to rescind the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism; halt its use in disciplinary proceedings or investigations; and more crucially, with the forthcoming UN report on combatting anti-Jewish racism to be released, recognise that the IHRA is an anti-democratic, authoritarian instrument weaponised against critics of Israel. “IHRA definition is a tool of anti-Palestinian racism that should not be adopted or used by any institution that aims to respect human rights. As we are waiting for the UN to release its plan to combat anti-Semitism, we hope it will take into account the multiple calls made against the IHRA definition,” Fassina stressed.

September 15, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

US, Bahrain to Sign Strategic Security and Economic Agreement

By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | September 11, 2023

The US and Bahrain will ink a deal to upgrade the two nations’ strategic partnership this week, according to Axios. One source briefed on the issue said the White House hopes to use this deal as a framework for other regional agreements. The Joe Biden administration is currently striving to induce Riyadh into normalizing with apartheid Israel.

Washington and Manama have a strong partnership, the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered at a large base in Bahrain. Since 2002, the Gulf Kingdom has been a major non-NATO ally of the United States, though this does not include a security commitment.

Two sources familiar with the upcoming deal told Axios, “[it] includes a commitment to consult and provide assistance if Bahrain faces an imminent security threat.” Another source explained that the deal outlines an economic partnership between the two countries, and cooperation involving “trusted technologies.”

Though legally binding, the security commitment will fall short of the NATO-style Article 5 guarantee which Riyadh is reportedly seeking in exchange for normalizing ties with Tel Aviv. Bahrain likely desired a bolstered commitment because of the threat of war with Iran.

However, in March, Beijing achieved a diplomatic feat by brokering a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This has sparked a regional realignment with Iran’s ally Damascus being welcomed back into the Arab League after being suspended for more than a decade.

The report says Bahrain’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa is expected to sign the deal during a visit to Washington this week where he will be meeting with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

Last week, Brett McGurk, Biden’s top Middle East official on the National Security Council, visited Bahrain for meetings, discussing the final details of this new agreement, with the Crown Prince as well as other officials.

Bahrain is also a signatory of the Abraham Accords which is a thinly veiled foundation for a regional military coalition led by the US and Israel eyeing Iran. Under the accords, Gulf dictatorships such as Bahrain recognize Israel – absent a Palestinian state or end to the apartheid regime – and in turn receive increased access to advanced weapon systems manufactured by the US military-industrial complex. Washington is attempting to exploit the arms deals as a way of securing concessions from regional countries, namely downgrading economic ties with China.

Recent polling has shown that as a result of Israeli massacres and war crimes committed against the occupied Palestinians, the Abraham Accords are becoming increasingly unpopular among the populace in signatory states including Bahrain and the UAE. During recent months, the US has expanded its military presence in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East in preparation for a confrontation with Tehran. This weekend, David Barnea, the chief of the Israeli Mossad, declared Tel Aviv will launch another assassination campaign within the Islamic Republic.

September 12, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s twisted logic makes the murder of Palestinian children a matter of state policy

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | September 5, 2023

Israel murders Palestinian children as a matter of state policy. This claim can be demonstrated easily and is supported by the latest findings of a Human Rights Watch report. The question is: why?

When the police or army shoot a child anywhere in the world, it can usually be argued, at least in theory, that the killing was an unfortunate and tragic mistake. But when thousands of children are killed and wounded in a systematic, “routine” and comparable method within a relatively short period of time, there has to be something very deliberate about it.

In a recent report — “West Bank: Spike in Israeli Killings of Palestinian Children” — HRW reaches a strong conclusion based on an exhaustive examination of medical data, eyewitness accounts, video footage and field research, the latter pertaining to four specific cases.

One is the case of Mahmoud Al-Sadi, a 17-year-old Palestinian boy from the Jenin Refugee Camp. He was killed last November, 320 metres away from fighting between invading Israeli forces and Jenin resistance fighters. Mahmoud was on his way to school and carried nothing that could be seen, from the soldiers’ point of view, as threatening or suspicious.

The story of the Jenin boy is typical and is repeated often throughout the occupied West Bank, sometimes daily. The predictable outcome, as HRW puts it, is that these killings are followed with “virtually no recourse for accountability”.

As of 22 August, 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank have been killed in 2023, adding yet more tragic numbers to a foreboding year that promises to be the most violent since 2005. This year “already surpasses 2022 annual figures, and the highest figure since 2005,” in terms of casualties, reported Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East, during a UN briefing on 21 August.

These statistics, among other factors — including the expansion of illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the West Bank — “threatens to worsen the plight of the most vulnerable Palestinians,” according to Wennesland.

Those “most vulnerable Palestinians”, however, exist beyond the realm of statistics. When Israeli soldiers killed 2-year-old toddler Mohammed Tamimi on 5 June, the little boy’s name was added to an ever-expanding roll call of shame. The memory of the infant, however, like the memory of all other Palestinian children, is etched into the collective consciousness of all Palestinians. It deepens their pain, but also compels their struggle and their resistance.

For Palestinians, the killing of their children is not a random act of a military that lacks discipline and fears no repercussions. Palestinians know that the Israeli war on children is an intrinsic component of the larger Israeli war on every single one of them.

Of course, Israel does not declare officially that it is targeting Palestinian children on purpose. That would be a public relations disaster. Some Israeli officials in the past, however, have let their guard down, offering a strange and troubling logic.

Palestinian children are “little snakes”, wrote Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked in 2015. In a Facebook post, published in the Washington Post, Shaked called for the killing of “the mothers of the [Palestinian] martyrs.” In doing so, she declared war on all Palestinians. “They should follow their sons,” she wrote, “nothing could be more just.” Shortly afterwards, Shaked rather ironically became Israel’s justice minister.

But not all Israeli officials are candid about the killing of Palestinian children, and even their mothers. Data collected by international rights groups, however, leaves no doubt that the nature of the killings is part of a comprehensive strategy developed by the Israeli military. “In all cases,” recently investigated by HRW, “Israeli forces shot the children’s upper bodies.” This was done without the “issuing of warnings or using common, less lethal measures.”

Specifically, the killing of Palestinian children is a centralised and deliberate Israeli military strategy. The same twisted logic, now applied to the West Bank, has already been used in the besieged Gaza Strip. UN figures show that, in the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza in 2008-9, 333 Palestinian children were killed; other estimates put the figure at 410. In the 2012 Israeli offensive against Gaza, 47 children were killed; in 2014, there were 578 killed; in 2021 it was 66; and in 2022 17 children were killed in the besieged territory by Israeli soldiers.

Between 2018 and 2020, 59 Palestinian children were killed in what was known as the “March of Return” protests that took place at the fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. All the children were killed from a distance by Israeli snipers.

When the numbers of dead and wounded children are tallied, they are in the thousands. According to the UN, there were precisely 8,700 Palestinian child casualties between 2015 and 2022.

Even the callous and often dehumanising term “collateral damage” cannot justify such statistics. And although the war on Palestinian children is clearly intentional, protracted and ongoing, not a single Israeli military or government official has ever been held accountable in an international court. Moreover, the UN “List of Shame for Killing Children” has never branded Israel, although other countries have been “named and shamed” for far fewer crimes against children.

As the killing of children is perceived — according to the twisted logic of the likes of Shaked — to be functional for Israel, given the absence of any accountability, the occupation state finds no reason or urgency to end its war on Palestinian children. And with the constant loosening of the rules of military engagement in Israel, and the terrifyingly genocidal language used by its extreme far-right ministers and their massive constituency, more Palestinian children are likely to lose their lives in the near future.

Despite this, the most that UN officials and rights groups seem to be able to do now is to count the alarming number of child casualties. Alas, no number is large enough to dissuade Israel from killing Palestinians, including children.

The problem for Palestinians is not just that of Israel’s violence, but also the lack of international will to hold Israel accountable. Accountability requires unity, decisiveness of will and action. This task should be a priority for all countries that genuinely care about Palestinians and universal human rights. Without such collective action, Palestinian children will continue to be killed in large numbers and in the most brutal ways, a tragedy that will continue to pain, in fact, shame, us all.

September 5, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Hails Resistance Allies’ Push to Reshape World Order, Weaken US ‘Hegemony’

People raise Palestinian, Lebanese and  Hezbollah flags during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinians, on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Kfarkila, near a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) armoured personnel carrier.
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 02.09.2023

Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS this summer, and has been working to expand bilateral cooperation with both Russia and China. Tehran is also the leader of an informal alliance of regional countries, including Syria, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and Iraqi Shia militias, known as the Axis of Resistance.

Iran’s foreign minister has praised the struggle in the Middle East to resist and undermine US dominance and create a new international order.

“The international system is undergoing fundamental changes and we are witnessing new actors in the international arena,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a meeting with political groups in Beirut, Lebanon on Friday.

“The US is trying to maintain its hegemony, but the region and the world understand very well that America cannot exercise its hegemony, and on the contrary, the Resistance is powerful and can achieve its will powerfully,” Amir-Abdollahian added.

Today, the Iranian top diplomat said, “the position of the Resistance in the region cannot be ignored,” and is “being noticed by the West,” including as far as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is concerned.

Separately, in talks with his Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib, Amir-Abdollahian stressed that “the US sanctions regime cannot hinder the economic relations between Iran and Lebanon,” just as “it has failed to impact Iran’s cooperation with Iraq, Turkiye, Pakistan, Central Asia and the Caucasus.”

Iran is ready to provide further assistance to Lebanon to help Beirut resolve its long-running fuel and electricity crisis, he said. This includes readiness to build a network of power stations with a capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

Bou Habib praised Iran for its support for Lebanon in the nation’s time of crisis, and expressed readiness to further expand cooperation.

Lebanon’s political and economic crisis, which began in 2019, has left the country in economic ruin and run by a caretaker government. The post of president has been vacant since last October, when President Michel Aoun resigned at the end of his term.

Amir-Abdollahian also met with Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the powerful Lebanese political party and militant group Hezbollah, which has forged close ties with Iran both in Lebanon and in Syria, where Hezbollah fighters backed by Revolutionary Guard Quds Force advisors have fought jihadist extremists for over a decade.

In the talks with Bou Habib, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated Iran’s long-stated position that “any normalization of relations with the Zionist regime will be detrimental to the entire region.” Iran will “continue to support and assist the Axis of Resistance, to preserve the Lebanese national interest, in the face of Israeli attacks and ambitions that threaten this entire region,” he said.

The Iranian diplomat also commented on the “positive developments” in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia following the surprise normalization of relations earlier this year, saying that these processes “will have a positive impact on the entire region,” including for Lebanon.

At a press conference at the end of his visit, Amir-Abdollahian also rejected allegations by France – the European power which once controlled Lebanon as a colony, of meddling in Lebanon’s affairs.

“I advise Mr. Macron to focus on the situation inside France instead of paying attention to questions of interference in other countries,” he said. “Iran has always played the most constructive role in helping Lebanon,” he added.

Earlier in the week, the French president told a conference of French ambassadors that stopping Iranian “interference” was a “key element” in resolving Lebanon’s political standoff.

Amir-Abdollahian’s Beirut visit was preceded by a trip to Damascus on Thursday for talks with President Bashar Assad and other Syrian officials. Amir-Abdollahian slammed the illegal presence of US troops in eastern Syria, and blasted Israel for its ongoing campaign of airstrikes against the war-torn country.

Known to jealously guard its security and foreign policy independence, and the defense of its interests even against far larger and more powerful foes, including the US, Iran has dramatically ramped up cooperation with Russia and China in recent years as part of ongoing processes related to Eurasian integration. Iran joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in July, and acceded to the BRICS bloc late last month. Last week, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander and advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran sees a maritime-oriented economy and cooperation with Russia and China as keys to countering the impact of US sanctions.

September 2, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel confiscates Palestinian schoolbooks in Jerusalem

MEMO | September 1, 2023

Israeli occupation authorities yesterday confiscated school textbooks printed according to the Palestinian curriculum in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate said Israeli intelligence officers seized the textbooks from inside a car that was delivering them to one of the private schools that teaches the Palestinian curriculum in the Old City of Jerusalem. The officers detained the driver and a school staff member.

For years, Israel has been trying to prevent Palestinian children in Jerusalem from following the Palestinian curriculum, claiming they must follow the Israeli curriculum, which provides a distorted view of Israel’s illegal occupation of their land.

The Jerusalem Governorate slammed the measure as an attack on the rights of Palestinian people to education, calling on the international community and human rights organisations to confront these racist crimes.

It also called on the Palestinian people, especially in Jerusalem, to confront these crimes against students and the Palestinian national curriculum and to refuse the Israeli “forged, fake and distorted” curriculum.

September 1, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Middle East ‘normalization’ plan rejects reality

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | August 31, 2023

From the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal to Chinese-brokered peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the US administration of President Joe Biden has been overseeing an era of declining American power across West Asia. In the midst of this fall from grace as the Middle East’s hegemon, Washington’s obsession with achieving a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal demonstrates a disconnect from reality and proves that optics are more important than tangible policy positions.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sulivan made it publicly clear last Tuesday that a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which Washington is currently working on, is still far from being achieved. This announcement followed speculation in American media that such a deal could be imminent. For those who have been paying attention to the region’s politics, however, it couldn’t be more clear how arduous a task achieving such a deal would be.

Looking at the deal through an American lens, it is clear what a diplomatic achievement of this nature would mean for the legacy of a US president’s administration. It would go down as a significant victory for the head of state, Joe Biden. It would also provide a great photo-op in the event that it happens; one that could be used to demonstrate the government’s strength in the 2024 elections. It could be calculated by the Democratic Party administration that prioritizing such a deal could make up for the president’s previous failures regarding the American role in the Middle East.

However, objectively speaking, achieving Saudi-Israeli rapprochement will mean overcoming countless hurdles on all sides and may end up doing more harm than good regionally. This is despite the Biden administration’s promises that it would boost regional security and stability. Yet with the recent announcement that the BRICS bloc will be adding Iran and Saudi Arabia as members come January 2024, after Tehran and Riyadh re-established ties under Beijing’s auspices, such a deal could open new regional wounds and run contrary to the vision set forth by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

When the Trump administration managed to rope Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco into a normalization agreement between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel (the Abraham Accords), the initiative came from the UAE itself, at a time when Abu Dhabi had clearly decided to go ahead with the move. There was no real struggle to convince the UAE to go ahead with normalizing ties with the Israelis. In fact, in the cases of Morocco and Sudan, the Emiratis helped place pressure on those nations to accept normalization deals.

Saudi Arabia, despite having maintained close ties with the Trump administration – the first foreign visit of US President Donald Trump was to Riyadh – shied away from signing onto the normalization deal with the Israelis, likely because such a move would be more challenging for a country like Saudi Arabia domestically than for the likes of neighboring Bahrain or the UAE.

As of now, Saudi-US relations under the Biden administrations have been far from cordial, and  when the American president made his first trip to the Saudi kingdom last year, he was made to appear as an afterthought. When Joe Biden confronted Mohammed Bin Salman over the infamous killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Crown Prince allegedly fired back by bringing up the lack of action taken over the killing of American veteran journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, by an Israeli soldier. Mohammed Bin Salman even told The Atlantic monthly that he didn’t care if Biden misunderstood him. Saudi Arabia has also ignored calls from the US to alter oil production.

If the Biden administration is to convince Saudi Arabia to sign onto a normalization deal, concessions must first be granted. Riyadh reportedly seeks a civil nuclear program and a US security pact that could drag Washington into war in the event that the kingdom comes under attack. Such preconditions present a litany of hurdles for the American government.

Then there is Israel, which under any other government than the current far-right coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would easily be able to get away with signing such a deal. However, Netanyahu has reportedly been requested to make some kind of concession towards the Palestinians in order to make the UAE deal go ahead. The government that Benjamin Netanyahu now heads is entirely different to the one he led in 2019, and his coalition depends on the support of the extremist Religious Zionism (RZ) alliance. RZ even pushes back against the idea of security coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA), based in Ramallah, despite the fact that this policy benefits Israeli security. RZ stated clearly, from the time of the 2022 national election, that one of its goals was to annex the West Bank and the most likely concession that the US will ask of Tel Aviv is to again promise that it will steer away from doing so.

When it comes to the Palestinians, there is also the uncontrollable factor of a major escalation between the Palestinian armed factions and the Israeli military, over Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, recently told al-Mayadeen that in the event of any senior leader being targeted, there will be regional war. This is at a time when pressure is growing on the Israeli government to carry out an attack on Hamas leaders in response to numerous attacks against Israeli settlers and soldiers in the West Bank. This, on top of the recent tensions at the Lebanese border with Hezbollah, all make for a potentially explosive situation, under which a Saudi-Israeli deal would look awful for Mohammed Bin Salman.

There is additionally the issue of what a Saudi-Israeli deal may do to Iranian-Saudi relations and their recent re-establishment of ties. As Saudi Arabia includes within it two of the holiest sites in the Islamic faith, Mecca and Medina, its decision to normalize ties with Israel will carry massive significance throughout the Muslim world. Such a move would prove it impossible for Tehran to remain neutral on the issue and it is very likely that the Iranians would reverse their decision to maintain ties with the Saudis. This means that if the Saudis are to sign a normalization deal with Israel, they have to know that this will undermine China’s diplomatic breakthrough and could end up presenting greater security concerns if they again find themselves competing so heavily for influence regionally with Iran. There is also cause for concern when it comes to Jordan’s reaction, which may see such a deal as a threat to its custodianship over the Holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, and feel that Saudi Arabia is encroaching upon its territory.

If the US administration had a serious approach to its Middle East policy, it would realize the dramatic shift that has occurred regionally and that its traditional allies have agendas that are no longer congruent with the old American status quo approach. It would seem, from observing the rhetoric and actions of Washington, that the current US government is in denial and cannot grasp that the days when it could boss around every country in West Asia are long gone. It will take pragmatic thinking to revive the US position in the long run, and one thing is for sure, a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal doesn’t make sense for any country at this time.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

August 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

A ‘terrorist onslaught’? This is why Netanyahu, Gallant blame Iran for West Bank violence

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 30, 2023

Despite their complicated and often uneasy relationship, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, agree on one thing: Iran is behind Israel’s security problem.

The socio-economic polarization in Israel, the country’s political and judicial crises, the ongoing settlers’ pogroms in the West Bank, the repeated calls for religious war by Tel Aviv’s far-right ministers – all of these myriad problems are suddenly negligible. The problem is Iran.

Though Iran, as a common enemy, often unites all major Israeli political parties, the supposed Iranian threat this time around, is quite different.

“We are in the midst of a terrorist onslaught that is being encouraged, directed and financed by Iran and its proxies,” said Netanyahu of a Palestinian attack that killed a settler and wounded another near the occupied Palestinian city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on 21 August.

The attack came only two days after another, which killed two Israeli settlers near the town of Huwwara, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

Huwwara, a small town of 5,500 people, was the site of an outright pogrom by large mobs of armed Israeli Jewish settlers on 26 February.

Amnesty International described what occurred in the town as follows: “On the night of Sunday 26 February, hundreds of state-backed Israeli settlers carried out a spree of attacks against Palestinians (in Huwwara) … Settlers torched dozens of Palestinian cars, homes and orchards and physically assaulted Palestinians, including with metal bars and rocks.”

Typically, every Palestinian attack on Israeli soldiers, armed settlers or even civilians is preceded by a multitude of deadly Israeli army raids or settler attacks on Palestinian communities.

Not a day passes without Israeli violence in occupied Palestine. Reports by the United Nations, Palestinian, Israeli and international rights groups indicate that this year is the most violent in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 30 Israelis since January 2023, according to a statement to the UN Security Council by UN Middle East envoy, Tor Wennesland, on 21 August.

Wennesland described the violence as a “concerning trend”, attributing it to a “growing sense of despair about the future,” UN News reported.

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, had similar findings. It said that nearly 600 settler-related ‘incidents’ were reported in the Occupied Territories in the first six months of 2023. Settler attacks have resulted in “Palestinian casualties, property damage or both.”

Neither Wennesland nor OCHA mentioned Iran in their statements, nor did the constant stream of reports on Israel’s ongoing violence, incitement or, at times, outright calls for genocide by settlers and their leaders in Netanyahu’s government.

As for the reason behind the “sense of despair” mentioned in Wennesland’s UN briefing, the Israeli anti-settlement organisation, Peace Now, may have an answer.

In a statement issued on 17 August, the Israeli group said that Netanyahu’s government is advancing a plan for ‘unprecedented investment’ of nearly $200 million in illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

“There are clauses that have not yet determined the allocation amounts, so the total amount is expected to increase significantly,” Peace Now said on its website.

Since a large sum of the funds is described as ‘undefined’ grants, the illegal settlements are allowed “to use the money for almost any purpose.”

This can only mean expansion of the illegal settlements, construction of new outposts, ethnically cleansing Palestinians and paving the way for full, de jure annexation of the West Bank.

The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is not being used lightly here.

Aside from the ‘incremental genocide’ happening daily throughout the Occupied Territories, at times large communities are being expelled, en masse.

The Norwegian Refugee Council recently reported on the eviction of nearly 500 Palestinians from seven communities in the West Bank in a matter of 20 months, many of them from the Ras At-Tin Bedouin community, north of Ramallah.

“Entire Palestinian communities being wiped off the map, a shameful legacy of unrelenting violence, intimidation and harassment perpetrated by Israeli settlers and, in some cases, encouraged by Israeli authorities,” Ana Povrzenic, NRC’s Country Director for Palestine commented on the findings.

The list is endless, and nothing suggests that Iran is relevant to any part of this discussion.

The direct link between the Israeli occupation and Palestinian relations cannot be denied by any honest observer.

But neither Netanyahu nor Gallant is expected to be honest in their depiction of what is occurring in Palestine now.

As if reading from the same script, Gallant agreed with his boss on the alleged Iranian threat. “The most significant change on the ground is related to Iranian financing and intent,” Gallant said, declaring that “Iran is looking for any way to harm the citizens of Israel.”

The irony is that the Netanyahu-Gallant political conflict since March has fuelled the greatest political crisis, arguably, in the history of the Israeli state. The crisis is enduring.

Yet, now both are emerging as the stalwarts of Israeli security against a supposed Iranian threat. But why would the two agree on anything? And why Iran, in particular? And why now?

Both Netanyahu and Gallant stand to gain from diverting attention from the reasons behind the ongoing rebellion in Palestine.

For Netanyahu, blaming Iran allows him to stoke the fire of instability in the Middle East, unite all Israelis behind their supposed defender and avoid any accountability for the ongoing human rights violations in Palestine.

As for Gallant, blaming Iran elevates the military and all branches of intelligence services; instead of being seen as failing to stop home-grown Palestinian struggle, he wants to paint an alternative image of a heroic army fighting an ‘existential threat’ hatched elsewhere.

This is not a simple case of lacking self-awareness, but a deliberate diversion of the actual problem: the Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Throughout the years, Israel has insisted that Palestinians are not political actors capable of making their own collective decisions, and that some bogeymen elsewhere – the Arabs, the Iranians, the communists, the Islamists, and so on … are to blame.

But Tel Aviv is wrong. For Israel to understand the reasons behind the growing Palestinian resistance in all of its forms, it needs to look at the devastated refugee camps of Jenin, Balata and Nur Shams – not Tehran – for the answers.

August 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Vivek Caves on Plan to Cut Aid to Israel: ‘We Would Never Cut Off Aid to Israel Until Israel Told Us They Were Ready’

By Chris Menahan | Information Liberation | August 27, 2023

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ran away from his proposal to cut aid to Israel by 2028 on Saturday, instead promising that he would provide endless US aid to Israel “until Israel told us they were ready for it” to be cut off.

“To be clear, we would never cut off aid to Israel unless Israel told us they were ready for it,” Ramaswamy told an Israeli news outlet in an interview he shared to his own Twitter page.

“The US-Israel relationship will be stronger by the end of my first term than it has ever been in US history and than it ever will be under any of those other administrations if anybody else is elected,” he said.

The idea Israel would ever ask the US to stop giving them billions of US taxpayer dollars for free is just comical. As I noted earlier this week, Israel regularly uses the billions we give them to buy US treasuries — effectively lending us back our own aid money and charging us interest. The US Treasury’s latest numbers showed Israel is currently holding $46 billion in US treasuries.

Ramaswamy also pledged that he wants to expand the Abraham Accords — a scam worked out by the Israel lobby which consists of bribing Arab kings to normalize relations with Israel by offering them billions of US taxpayer dollars and high-tech weaponry which can be used to oppress their own populations — with the “Abraham Accords 2.0.”

He said his “2.0” plan would bring “Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar [and] Indonesia” into the pact (aka bribery scheme).

“The other area where I think the US-Israel partnership is critical is staying strong with respect to making sure Iran never ever ever becomes a nuclear power — even has basic nuclear capabilities — we will never allow that to happen on our watch,” Ramaswamy said.

Fellow GOP presidential contender Nimrata “Nikki Haley” Randhawa called Ramaswamy out during the debate on Wednesday for wanting “to go and defund Israel.”

“You want to cut the aid off!” Randhawa said. “Let me tell you, it’s not that Israel needs America, America needs Israel!”

It only took Ramaswamy three days to not only abandon but completely reverse his “America First” policy.

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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