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Palestine Has the Right to Defend Itself

By Taxi | Plato’s Guns | May 13, 2021

We have entered a new era in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The old days of Israel committing war crimes against the downtrodden, captive Palestinians are over. The world has done zero to address Israel’s fundamental crime of nation-stealing: a megalith crime that can only be described as the longest and most vicious war crime in our modern history. A crime that millions of people around the world consider to be even worse than the holocaust. After some 73 years of enduring relentless Israeli terrorism, land-theft, cultural appropriation AND the silence of the world, the Palestinian Resistance has finally taken charge and has, literally overnight, turned the tables against Israel. From here on, there will be accountability for Israel for any crime it commits against the Palestinians. From here on, all previous Israeli red lines will be crossed in favor of the Palestinians. From here on, the death of Israel is no longer a far-fetched fantasy. From here on, the Palestinian Resistance will take charge of Palestine’s destiny.  And its destiny is total liberation.

Whether this liberation takes place in a day, in a week, in a month or a year, the gates of liberation are now open, and nobody on earth can close them.

The situation in the holy land is currently fluid – rocket and missile strikes continue by both sides with no end in sight as I write this. There is no point in talking casualties and targets in this article as this is not a journalistic report but a brief look at America’s strategy in the Middle East.

The pertinent question here is: with Israel’s hegemony being in an evident state of profound decline, will the US drop Israel in order to preserve its remaining influence in the Middle East? Or, will it stick to a weak and dying Israel and thus be evicted from the region with it? We know that both China and Russia are waiting on the sidelines for an opportunity to snatch America’s influence in the Mideast region. There will not be a vacuum left once Israel falls and takes the US down with it.  China and Russia will collect the prize and immediately fill in the vacuum. Begs the question here therefore: is America prepared to lose to China and Russia just to appease a limping Israel?

Simply: what is more important for America: maintaining its own superpowerdom, or supporting Israel indefinitely and unconditionally?

This is a serious strategic conundrum for the current US State Department, for the Pentagon and the Deep State, not to mention the White House as well, and mindful here that all these high offices in DC are infiltrated and already controlled by AIPACers and by Jewish power. With the Palestinian cause now being globally more popular than ever, and with the Palestinian Resistance now being an offensive-and-defensive power to reckon with, the oft repeated undemocratic and nauseating American phrase of ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ is now transforming into ‘Palestine has the right to defend itself’.

Indeed, any fair-minded person would support an occupied people’s right to self-defense. Apropos, any justice-loving person would support the slogan of ‘Palestine has the right to defend itself’.

The history of America’s total and unconditional support for the state of Israel goes back to the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. There was support for Israel before then, but not unconditionally and not fanatically so. For some 58 years now, American administration after American administration has favored Israel above any other nation in the world, especially above all other nations in the Mideast. It justified this blind support by using warmongering Israel as both a showroom to exhibit and sell its arms from, as well as an attack dog that fights against Arab nationalism that back in the day was aligned with the Soviet Union. Not forgetting here that American Jews of Hollywood also manufactured a ‘moral’ reason for America’s support of the Jewish state by pitting America as the absolute hero and savior of Jews from the holocaust, even though US forces entered WW2 belatedly, and did so under dubious circumstance, I may add.

But the above three main reasons are no longer valid this side of the 21st century. Let us inspect them one by one.

FIRST, Israel as the American MIC showroom is no longer effective and profitable, and this is because, despite Israel having the most advanced American weapons in the region, it has not actually won a single war since 1973 – and even that war was won by a hairline when the West came to rescue Israel at the 11th hour. We can say here that the supermodel has aged and her chin is too cracked to sell beauty products. Sales of American weapons in the Middle East are no longer dependent on Israel’s so-called war heroism and victories, but on inter-Arab fighting that’s instigated and incited by a treacherous, jingoistic Israel. Experts on Arab history will tell you that Arab tribes are stuck in a make-war-then-make-peace cycle, and not in a permanent make-eternal-war posture, as indeed Israel’s State motto appears to be. We see evidence of this historians’ view today with the current rapprochement between Syria and Saudi Arabia. After a decade of hostility and head-chopping warfare between them, these two Arab enemies are now making a concrete effort towards genuine peace. So if Saudi Arabia is no longer needing to buy billions of dollar’s worth of US weapons per year to defend itself with, and when Riyadh is also simultaneously offering peace concessions to Iran as well, can the MIC rely on Saudi Arabian patronage like it used to? There are simply no more big Arab-on-Arab and Arab-on-Iranian wars to be had in the foreseeable future. These projects have already been tried and attempted and dropped, and so all possible lucrative weapons contracts no longer exist. For the MIC, as well as for any other mega corporation, it’s the ‘bottom line’ that decides all at the end of the day. Clearly, the MIC can no longer rely on either Israel’s war victories, or on its insidious war-brokerage for its lucrative annual profits. The MIC is presently looking eastwards to make its future profits. The Middle East has been milked dry right to the last drop. The MIC reason for supporting the Jewish state therefore is no longer valid.

SECONDLY, as we all already know, the Soviet Union has long gone and a Russian Republic has assumed its place. Arab nationalism too has also transformed into something more fluent and nifty, otherwise now known as ‘The Resistance’. Resistance against Israel and its Apartheid practices, that is. Resistance against Jewish supremacy and racist Zionism. The Arab Resistance today is enjoying more popularity than ever, despite the spinelessness of some Arab leaders, and despite the fake ‘Deal of the Century’ that 4 Arab nations have signed up for – two of them reluctantly so, I may add. Really, the Deal of the Century is seen by Arab citizens as a Jewish-Chabadist scam that collapsed in its infancy with Trump’s failure to secure a second White House term. There are currently several hundred million Arab citizens from all over the Arab world who remain fully committed to the Resistance.  Nay, a considerable chunk of them are even ready for martyrdom if it helps aid the Resistance in its war against all occupational forces in the Middle East, starting and ending with the eviction of Zionism and Zionists from the region.

Here, Palestine, actually, more precisely the city of Jerusalem is the ultimate symbol and very location where the enemy must first be confronted. Arab passion for liberating Palestine, and especially the city of Jerusalem is not only a moral, ethical and patriotic issue for them, but first and foremost, it is a collective profundity: a religious duty for the majority of both Christian and Muslim Arabs. No Israeli propaganda or Jewish bribe can dilute or alter this passion for Jerusalem that rattles and keeps growing in the breast of Arab citizenry. The Israelis who first established the state of Israel by force of arms used to confidently say of the Palestinians: “the old will die and the young will soon forget,” meaning: the 1948 Arab generation resisting the initial Jewish invasion will soon die and the next generation will forget their parent’s cause. Evidently, the Jews here gravely miscalculated: no such thing ever transpired. New generations of Palestinians born from 1948 and onward only got more resistant, more resilient, more motivated and more attached to their land that was usurped by the invading Jews of Europe. No Palestinian ‘forgot’ their parental trauma – how on earth could they when daily Israeli brutality was heaped upon them, thus reminding them daily of their parent’s agony and catastrophe? Nobody forgot the ethnic cleansing, the numerous massacres and the injustice committed against their parents by racist European Jews. The current eruption of violence between Israel and the Gaza Resistors, who only two nights ago bombarded Tel Aviv with endless streams of rockets like never before, while simultaneously, literally all Palestinians living inside of Israel proper or under Israeli occupation took to the streets in raging protest: all this is notable and loaded with electric shocks. Here we see a new optic and we understand from it a new reality: the whole of Palestinian society, though divided by Apartheid walls and territorial fragmentation imposed by Israel, are currently united in simultaneous rage and cries for freedom, cries for resistance, despite Israel having for decades created political divisions between them. This current and united military and civic Palestinian resistance is a testament to the facts stated above. Palestine lives! It has not ‘forgotten’, or been forgotten. Yes, the Palestinian individual and collective memory is irrepressible and indelible. Only true justice will dull down this impossibly painful memory: this 73 year old nightmare that the Jews have inflicted on the native Palestinians. The Palestinians being mostly capitalist traders have not aligned with any old-school Soviet nation or leaders for material protection or for economics: the Palestinian Authority under Abbas has been nothing but 100% compliant with Western wishes and instruction. For decades now Palestine has been aligned with and reliant on Western material charity and aid, despite the West’s blatant support for their Jewish occupiers. This excuse of support for Israel being due to Arab alignment with Soviet Russia is now completely and absolutely moot. Anyone, be they a politician or a propagandist citing the ‘Soviets’ as reason for supporting Israel should be laughed right off the stage.

This leaves the THIRD justification of ‘America the good guy saved the victim Jews from Nazi Germany’ to dissect. Without getting into the finer, historic details of WW2, suffice it to say here that the Arabs are a completely different people than the Germans, and their struggle with the Jewish state is based on Israel’s occupation of Arab land and not on belief in the Nazi manifesto. Furthermore, Israel is a wealthy nation who is in possession of actual nuclear weapons, therefore it cannot possibly be categorized as a ‘victim’ in the context of the Arab-Israeli struggle. In America, it is basically Hollywood and the Christian-Zionist community who carry the majority of genuine support for Israel. Most of the Senate and Congress are corrupt and support Israel because of bribes, blackmail, or coercion, therefore their support cannot be considered as genuine. Currently, Hollywood is hemorrhaging influence and power, just like Israel is, and can presently exert but little influence over the American psyche. And the Christian-Zionists remain an enclaved minority with influence only within their own communities: outside of their communities, they are disrespected and referred to as ‘Jesus freaks’ by the rest of the American populace.  Everyone is allowed to believe what they want, but issues of belief do not the decision-making for Empire make. Empire, in order to survive must make decisions that are steeped in cold pragmatism and based on security and prosperity interests, not on ethereal ideology or group superstition, especially minority group superstition. Empire has no permanent friends or permanent enemies. Its powers are drawn, above all, from its ability to make stable, long-term decisions that propagate its longevity. Whether American troops saved the Jews or not is now beside the point. The crux of the matter is that Empire now finds itself supporting a dying horse in the guise of Israel and there is no more medicine to be found for the horse. As any sound rancher would tell you: stop the hugging and start digging a grave for your four-legged pal. If Americans really believe that they are ‘the good guy’, then they should start acting like it and start making funeral arrangements for Israel before its dead belly bloats and festers in the sun.

To those who still believe that Israel is almighty powerful and doubt that Israel’s end is approaching, I say the following: you are reading Jewish and Jewish-centric media where nothing is real.

Considering the intractable, negative military position that Israel finds itself in today: surrounded by an armed and capable, eclectic Axis of Resistance without, and infiltrated by an armed and capable Palestinian resistance within, no US weapon can now provide it with a certain measure of security. Politically speaking, Israel is in its worst domestic crisis ever: with four failed elections and a fifth one on the way inside of two years, incendiary and divisive rhetoric between all Jewish parties is the current zeitgeist and order of the day.

The West can believe it or not, but in the Levant, the latest rocket and strike exchanges between Israel and the Palestinian Resistance – a combat that finds the Palestinian Resistance crossing all previous Israeli-imposed red lines; a combat that the Palestinian Resistance is utilizing to establish a deterrence against ongoing Israeli crimes of ethnic cleaning and home-evictions – the view is crisp and clear: Israel is at its weakest ever, and the Axis of Resistance is stronger than ever, therefore Israel’s grim reaper is in sight.

Israel’s death is now a fait accompli, a forgone conclusion.

But even if readers are still unconvinced by this Levantian reality and facts on the ground, for the sake of wisdom and the future stability of Empire, it still behooves all Americans to now openly discuss the pros and cons of supporting the dying Israel project. This open soul-searching should be solely focused on this question: do all humans have the right to defend themselves, or only some of us have this inalienable right?

My personal answer to this question is obvious. Everyone has the right to defend themselves against harm. Impossible therefore to deny the occupied Palestinians their right to self-defense.

Yes.  Palestine has the right to defend itself.

Either that, or enjoy living in your Animal Farm.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sheikh Jarrah: Zionism Distilled to Its Purest Expression

Dispossessing Palestinians is Zionism’s primary function

By Steve Salaita | May 12, 2021

Western journalists, always mindful of the limits imposed by the ruling class, have a million ways of minimizing or mystifying Israeli brutality in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where several Palestinian families are set to be expelled to make way for Jewish settlers.

It’s not so simple as straight-up ethnic cleansing, they declare. There’s a convoluted history to consider, involving Israelis, Palestinians, Ottomans, Englishmen, and Jordanians. The Israeli courts, after all, examined the evidence and determined that the properties in question were Jewish. The Israelis aren’t seizing Palestinian homes at random; they’re engaged in a legal project of urban planning.

The apologists aren’t wrong. The seizures in Sheikh Jarrah, which have been ongoing for two decades, are ratified by the Israeli state. That’s exactly the problem. The Israeli state isn’t a neutral party proffering legal decisions according to impartial, humanistic criteria. The main purpose of the Zionist entity is to dispossess Palestinians. Certainly it has other reasons for being, but its primary function since being dreamed up by European fantasists at the end of the 19th century has been to maraud and plunder. The violence in Sheikh Jarrah isn’t exceptional. It is Zionism distilled to its purest expression.

Palestinians don’t need to respect the institutions of the Zionist state precisely because those institutions negate the Palestinians’ simplest political imperative: existence. Those institutions represent the machinery of colonization. All settler colonies come equipped with a legal apparatus to validate their cruelty. We cannot expect Western pundits and politicians to question the institutional logic so harmful to Palestinians, for their own legitimacy is contingent on the reproduction of state power.

Palestinians will never concede rights of habitation to Israeli courts. Those courts confer to themselves jurisdiction over Palestinian life, but Palestinian claims to life have a much stronger basis:  an age-old history in the towns and neighborhoods they inhabit, a culture indivisible from their surroundings, a language of freedom concordant to the beauty of the land. Palestinians know full-well that they belong. Israeli courts produce delusional soliloquies.

The logic underlying land seizure in Sheikh Jarrah is nonsensical to the point of insanity. First of all, the logic tries to deplete observers of empathy. Families live in those homes, actual human beings with complex needs and aspirations. They will be made homeless. We’re asked not to care because those human beings are incidental to the more important project of colonial statecraft. The fate of those families is a nonstory; the settler colony’s wish fulfillment is the natural order of things.

More nonsensically, we’re asked to assign ethnic characteristics to abstractions and inanimate objects.  The basis for Israel’s aggression in Sheikh Jarrah (as throughout all of historic Palestine) is repossession of so-called Jewish property. The property, in other words, doesn’t belong to people who happen to be Jewish. The property itself is Jewish—nobody can specify which denomination—and is therefore fit only for a certain kind of inhabitant. The property has some kind of innate disposition. It is apparently capable of worship. It becomes a crass approximation of humanity. Endowing housing units with confessional qualities exemplifies the problem of prioritizing property over sentient life:  a dwelling has no utility beyond the project of demographic engineering. Under the Zionist regime, even brick and mortar are sectarian.

The land suffers a similar fate. Zionists conceptualize it as “Jewish,” rendering the natural world a topography of exclusion. In their ruthless schema, land is neither pleasure nor sustenance. It is a commodity. Like all resources in the colonial economy, access is granted (or limited) according to discriminatory criteria, in this case religious identity, as defined by the government. There is no real notion of the commons in Zionism. Public space is deeply personal, demarcated and apportioned based on a crude obsession with genetics.  Biology isn’t an impetus to kinship, but a pretext for segregation, rigid and permanent.

Having been anointed Jewish, the land ceases to be dynamic. It is an ideological fabrication with fixed characteristics. It doesn’t seem to bother the chattering classes in the United States that Israel’s sanctified self-image requires an aggressive military apparatus, that it comes to fruition only by tossing innocent people out of their homes and destroying the possibility of a functional civil society. Their own country, after all, was built on the same kind of racialized violence.

Palestinians do not adhere to the correct religion and so they become surplus. Displacement is their natural destiny. The soldiers arrive with batons and sound bombs, with tear gas and live ammunition. They wave court orders explaining that the neighborhood must host a different class of resident. The settlers accompanying the soldiers create a bloody ruckus. Together, soldier and settler unleash hell on people whose primary motivation is to exist. This is what colonizers like to call “democracy.”

The land is Jewish. The houses are Jewish, too. The Palestinians are merely human. There is no place for such creatures in an inhumane society.

This article was originally published in Arabic at Awan.

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Irish MP speaks truth to an Israeli ambassador

May 13, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Israel rains down bombs on Gaza, resistance responds with 1000-plus rockets

Press TV – May 12, 2021

Palestinian resistance groups have fired a barrage of rockets at the Israeli-occupied cities in response to the regime’s continued bombardments of civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, as the death toll from the latest flare-up rises on both sides.

The Islamic Jihad resistance movement’s military wing, the al-Quds Brigades, announced that 100 rockets had been fired at the cities of Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva and Sderot early on Wednesday, Palestine Today reported.

Hamas’s military arm also announced that it launched 210 rockets toward the occupied territories early in the morning.

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that it was “in the process of firing 110 rockets toward the city of Tel Aviv” and 100 others toward the town of Be’er Sheva, “as reprisal for the restarting of strikes against civilian homes.”

The Israeli army announced on Wednesday morning that Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza have launched more than 1,000 rockets toward different cities in the occupied territories since Monday evening.

Since then, the army said, 850 rockets have landed in Israel or been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile system.

Israeli authorities have so far confirmed five deaths as a result of the rockets fired from Gaza on several cities, including Tel Aviv.

The Israeli army also announced it had intercepted a Hamas drone early Wednesday.

Two Hamas commanders killed

The Israeli military has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on the blockade Gaza Strip, resulting in scores of fatalities.

Palestinian media reported that the Israeli regime continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing two Hamas commanders and three children.

Palestinian sources identified the two commanders as Hassan al-Kaogi (Abu Ali) and Wail Issa (Abu Ahmad).

Israel targeted Gaza’s police and security headquarters and the Islamic University of Gaza for the third consecutive day, which saw 30 simultaneous attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army said in a tweet that the victims were Hamas intelligence officials.

It also said the Israeli attacks were a response to “hundreds of rockets” launched from Gaza in the last 24 hours, adding that they marked “our largest strike since 2014.”

Three Palestinian children were also killed during an Israeli air raid on Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza, Shehab News reported.

Pregnant Palestinian woman, 5-year-old son killed

Meanwhile, a pregnant Palestinian woman and her 5-year-old son were also killed during the Israeli airstrike that targeted their house in the Gaza Strip.

The woman, identified as Reem, and her son, Zaid, were reported killed after the strike hit their house in Tel al-Hawa, a neighborhood in the southern part of Gaza.

Reem’s brother, Ahmed Saad, reported their deaths on social media. She was four months pregnant.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Ministry announced on Wednesday afternoon that as many as 48 Palestinians, including 14 children and three women, had lost their lives in Gaza in the latest Israeli strikes, with a total of 296 civilians — most of them women and children — wounded since Monday.

Palestinian rocket hits Israeli pipeline

As a result of rockets fired from Gaza on Wednesday, an Israeli pipeline near Ashkelon was hit causing fire.

The rockets also killed two Israeli settlers and injured at least 100 Israelis.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said Israel is responsible for the consequences of its atrocities in Jerusalem al-Quds and al-Aqsa Mosque, whose flames “extended to Gaza.”

He said Qatar, Egypt and the UN had been in contact with Hamas urging calm, but he told the regime in Israel that “If they want to escalate, the resistance is ready, if they want to stop, the resistance is ready.”

Earlier, Israeli minister for military affairs Benny Gantz warned that “this is just the beginning” of Israel’s assaults.

‘I saw my cousins set alight’, survivor recalls

One of the survivors of Israel’s attack in northern Gaza on Tuesday recalled the horror of watching five members of his family, including young brothers Ibrahim and Marwan, die during the strike.

“We were laughing and having fun, when suddenly they began to bomb us, everything around us caught fire,” their cousin, also called Ibrahim, told AFP.

“I saw my cousins set alight, and torn into pieces,” said the 14-year-old, breaking down in tears. “Why did they leave me? I would have wanted to die as a martyr like them.”

Israeli bombardments of Gaza continued on Wednesday, shaking Gazans’ homes and lighting up the besieged city’s sky just after dawn, with at least 30 explosions reported by residents within a matter of minutes.

Israel declares ‘state of emergency’ in Lod

The occupied territories were hit with protests as well, which, in the city of Lod, prompted the Israeli government to declare a “state of emergency” following the killing of a Palestinian by a Jewish settler in the city.

“Everything necessary is done to restore law and order in Lod” and throughout the occupied territories, Israeli public security minister Amir Ohana said.

He announced that the Israeli regime has decided to deploy 16 Border Police reserve units to Lod from the occupied West Bank.

Minor confrontations were also reported following Fajr (dawn) prayers at al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday morning, with Palestinians chanting protest and resistance songs, while Israeli forces were deployed around the complex.

Unrest erupted across Israeli-occupied territories on Tuesday night and into Wednesday, as social media posts showed protests in the city of Rahat as well as in Qalansawe.

The al-Aqsa Mosque and Bab al-Amoud (Damascus) Gate in Jerusalem al-Quds’ Old City as well as the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood have witnessed a spike in Israeli atrocities since the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

May 12, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden Regime Blocks Security Council Action on Israeli East Jerusalem Violence

By Stephen Lendman | May 11, 2021

On Monday, Security Council members met behind closed doors to discuss weeks of Israeli state terror against defenseless Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

The Biden regime blocked a statement — demanding that Israel “cease settlement activities, demolition and evictions” of Palestinians from their homes and land, according to AFP.

Short of a binding international law resolution, the watered down statement expressed “grave concern regarding escalating tensions and violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

It called for “refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric, and upholding and respecting the historic status quo at the holy sites.”

Since establishment of a Jewish state on stolen Palestinian land in 1948, the US supported and ignored the worst of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity against Palestinians and regional states.

Instead of condemning Israeli violence in Occupied East Jerusalem, State Department spokesman Price said the following on Monday:

The Biden regime “condemns in the strongest terms the barrage of rocket attacks fired into Israel” from Gaza.

Price ignored Palestinian retaliation against weeks of Israeli state-terror.

He was silent about IDF terror-bombing of multiple parts of the Strip, killing at least two dozen Gazans, injuring many more, traumatizing thousands, causing extensive damage.

Defying reality, he “welcome(d) (nonexistent) steps by the (Netanyahu regime) aimed at avoiding provocations (sic).”

At the same time, he called Israeli aggression “self-defense.”

Asked if he condemned Israeli killing of Palestinian children, he ignored reality by claiming:

“(W)e don’t have independent confirmation of facts on the ground yet, so I’m very hesitant to get into reports that are just emerging.”

Instead of denouncing Israeli plans to dispossess Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood families of their homes and land, he largely ducked the issue, saying:

“We’ve been clear in urging the Israelis to act responsibly, to treat Palestinian residents with compassion and with humanity in this case.”

Refusing to call East Jerusalem occupied, he said what’s going on in the city “is a final status issue to be determined by the parties (sic).”

Ignored was that following the Oslo Accords over a generation ago, Palestinians got nothing in return but empty Israeli promises, colonization, apartheid, and occupation harshness.

They got nothing for renouncing armed struggle, recognizing Israel’s right to exist, and agreeing to leave major unresolved issues for later final status talks. They’re still waiting.

Major unresolved issues include an independent sovereign Palestine free from occupation, the right of return, settlements, borders, water and other resource rights, as well as East Jerusalem as exclusive Palestinian territory and future capital.

One-sidedly supported by the US — while pretending otherwise — Israel refuses to accept all of the above, its hard-wired policy for over half a century.

It includes delaying resolution of issues with Palestinians to facilitate continued theft of their land — wanting all valued parts of historic Palestine Judaized, including Jerusalem as Israel’s exclusive capital, its Arab residents expelled, and diaspora Palestinians denied their right of return.

During a Monday press briefing, Price refused to condemn ongoing Israeli state terror against defenseless Palestinians — calling on both sides to show restraint instead, along with ducking responses to tough questions.

According to the Palestine Red Crescent Society on Monday:

“At least 612 Palestinians sustained injuries in the course of the day in (and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound) and the Old City of Jerusalem.”

During the day, Israeli violence escalated after its security forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site.

They fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinian worshipers inside, causing large numbers of injuries.

Rocket fire from Gaza on Israel followed its desecration of the holy site.

Ignoring Israeli state terror on Monday and previous days, interventionist Blinken said the following:

“We’re very focused on the situation in Israel, West Bank, Gaza, very deeply concerned about the rocket attacks that we’re seeing now (sic), that they need to stop (sic).”

“They need to stop immediately (sic).” But IDF terror-bombing of Gazan civilians is OK, according to longstanding one-sided US support for apartheid Israel.

A Final Comment

On Monday, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said the following:

“…Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) violated al-Aqsa Mosque and its facilities, suppressed, and assaulted Palestinian worshipers and fired sound bombs and rubber bullets inside the Mosque and in its yards.”

“As a result, 305 Palestinians, including 8 journalists, were wounded — 7 were deemed in critical condition.”

“This serious escalation came only a few hours before a planned demonstration by thousands of Israeli settlers in Bab al-‘Amoud area and near al-Aqsa Mosque’s gates.”

“Chief of Israel Police ordered a large force to raid al-Aqsa Mosque in an attempt to facilitate the entry of Israeli settlers, who were gathering in Bab al Magharibah, into the Mosque.”

“Afterwards, IOF moved into al-Aqsa Mosque’s yards and its facilities via Bab al Magharibah and Bab al Silsilah amid heavy firing of rubber bullets, teargas canisters and sound bombs for 4 consecutive hours.”

At the same time, “Israeli snipers topped al-Aqsa Mosque’s western roofs, in addition to al-Qibli Mosque’s roof, and then raided the Mosque, assaulted Palestinian worshipers, and fired rubber bullets, teargas canisters and sound bombs at them.”

“As a result, dozens of Palestinians, old and young, men and women, who were detained inside the Mosque sustained wounds.”

“Also, IOF prevented medical and paramedics crew from providing first aid for the wounded. Moreover, IOF assaulted and severely beat worshipers.”

The Biden regime and its press agent media ignored virtually all of the above — in support of apartheid Israeli viciousness against defenseless Palestinians.

May 11, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Prominent American “Anti-Racist” Jews Are Funding Racist Gangs Attacking Arabs In Israel

By Eric Striker | National Justice | May 8, 2021

American Jews are bankrolling Zionist paramilitary groups that have been assaulting and terrorizing random Arabs on the streets of East Jerusalem.

Two weeks ago, 100s of Israelis chanted “Death To Arabs” as they attacked non-Jewish men, women and children during a demonstration organized by Lehava.

Lehava describes itself as a group militantly opposed to race-mixing and openly calls for the killing and expulsion of Christians and Muslims alike.

According to a recent investigation into the groups funding, a number of wealthy Jews who support pro-Israel and liberal causes in the United States have been funding Lehava’s activities.

Two names that stand out are Adam Milstein, a real estate speculator, and the Falic family, which controls all the duty free shops that operate in US airports.

Milstein’s support for violent extremist Jewish groups is known, yet he retains his seats on the boards of “mainstream” Jewish groups as diverse as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which lobbies Washington on behalf of Israeli interests, and the Jewish Funders Network, which supports a number of liberal and “anti-racist” causes, including Roberta Kaplan’s ongoing Charlottesville lawsuit and the Anti-Defamation League.

Milstein’s most egregious hypocrisy is displayed with his Canary Mission project, which blacklists nationalists, Muslims, and leftists that are critical of Zionism or Jewish power in the name of “fighting hate.” Recently Canary Mission put the spotlight on this author, labeling me a “white supremacist journalist” with a profile attached that falsely and dishonestly links me to a supposed conspiracy to kill Jews by giving them COVID.

As for the Falics, their massive investments into illegal Israeli settlements has not impacted their Duty Free America airport business monopoly in the least. During the Trump years, the Falics were able to get high profile US officials such as Mike Pompeo to travel to these criminal operations and help grant them legitimacy.

Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League have been forced to publicly condemn some of the more overt acts of racial violence unfolding in Israel, but Jonathan Greenblatt does not appear interested in curtailing the cash going to extremist groups in his homeland. The ADL is intimately connected to Milstein, who is a regular ADL donor.

Whatever superficial differences they project to the public, liberal Jews and more virulent Kahanist Jews retain their racial synergy and solidarity against Gentiles, whether its oppressing whites in America or beating and killing Arabs in Israel, they are thick as thieves.

May 9, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem: The full story

Israeli government plans to force Palestinian families out of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood

JERUSALEM - APRIL 15: Israeli forces intervene in Palestinians as they gather around the Damascus Gate after performing Tarawih prayer in Al-Aqsa Compound, in Eastern Jerusalem on April 15, 2021. Israeli forces took into custody some of Palestinians during the intervention. ( Mostafa Alkharouf - Anadolu Agency )

By Abdel-Raouf Arnaout | Anadolu Agency | 08.05.2021

JERUSALEM

In the aftermath of the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist gangs to pave the way for the creation of the state of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee their homes in historical Palestine to neighboring countries.

Following these events, which came to be known to the Palestinians as “Nakba”, or the Catastrophe, 28 families settled in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem in 1956, hoping that would be the last time they are forced out of their homes.

But these families, whose number has grown to 38 since then, say they are experiencing a renewed Nakba on a daily basis.

The Israeli Central Court in East Jerusalem approved a decision earlier this year to evict four Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in favor of right-wing Israeli settlers.

Israel’s Supreme Court was scheduled to issue a ruling on the evictions on Thursday amid heated demonstrations and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers, but the decision was delayed until May 10.

In the event that the court rules in favor of the settlers, the Palestinian families will lose their homes. Other families will face a similar fate.

Beginning of tragedy

In 1956, the 28 refugee families who lost their homes during the Nakba reached an agreement with the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development and the UN refugee agency UNRWA to provide housing for them in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

At that time, the West Bank was under Jordanian rule (1951-1967).

According to the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ), the Jordanian government provided the land while UNRWA covered the cost for constructing 28 homes for these families.

“A contract was concluded between the Ministry of Construction and Reconstruction and Palestinian families in 1956, with one of the main conditions stating that the residents pay a symbolic fee, provided that ownership is transferred to the residents after three years from the completion of construction,” the CCPRJ said in a statement.

This, however, was interrupted by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in 1967 which prevented the registration of the houses under the names of families, the statement said.

Jordan’s reaction

Last week, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said it had provided the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with 14 ratified agreements meant for the people of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem which support their claim of their lands and property.

In a statement, the ministry said it handed over a certificate to the residents proving that the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development had concluded an agreement with UNRWA to establish 28 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah to be delegated and registered in the names of these families.

According to the statement, the process, however, was interrupted as a result of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967.

The ministry said it had previously provided the Palestinian side with all the documents that could help Jerusalemites maintain their full rights, including lease contracts, lists of beneficiaries’ names and a copy of the agreement concluded with UNRWA in 1954.

Suffering renewed in 1972

Muhammad al-Sabbagh, a resident of the neighborhood, told Anadolu Agency that the suffering of the Palestinian families began in 1972, when the Sephardic Committee and the Knesset Committee of Israel claimed that they owned the land on which the houses were built in 1885.

In July 1972, the two Israeli associations asked the court to evict four families from their homes in the neighborhood accusing them of land grab, according to the CCPRJ.

The Palestinian families appointed a lawyer to defend their rights, and in 1976 a verdict was issued by Israeli courts in their favor.

“However, the court, using a new registration made in the Israeli Land Registry Department, decided that the land belongs to the Israeli settlement associations,” al-Sabbagh said.

Apartheid law

In 1970, the Law on Legal and Administrative Affairs in Israel was enacted, which stipulated, among other things, that Jews who lost their property in East Jerusalem in 1948 can reclaim their property.

The Israeli Peace Now movement says the law does not allow Palestinians to reclaim their property they lost in Israel in 1948, a move that proves the existence of a separate law for Jews and Palestinians.

According to al-Sabbagh, residents of Sheikh Jarrah were deceived by an Israeli lawyer assigned to defend them.

“In 1982, the Israeli settlement associations filed an eviction case against 24 families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood,” al-Sabbagh said, adding that 17 families assigned Israeli lawyer Tosia Cohen to defend them.

As the legal battle continued, al-Sabbagh said the lawyer in 1991 signed an agreement, without the knowledge of the families, that the ownership of the land belongs to the settlement associations.

“The residents of the neighborhood were instead granted a tenant status,” al-Sabbagh added.

The lawyer, according to the CCPRJ, put Palestinian families “under the threat of eviction if they failed to pay the rent to the settlement associations”.

Meanwhile, Israeli courts continued to hear rival cases from residents and settlement associations.

In 1997, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, a local resident, filed a lawsuit with the Israeli Central Court to prove his land ownership, using title deeds issued by the Ottoman Empire, which were brought from Turkey. The move, however, backfired when the court rejected the claim in 2005.

The court said the papers did not prove his land ownership and Hijazi’s appeal in the following year was rejected.

Evictions begin

For years, Israeli courts have heard cases submitted by settlement associations against Palestinian residents, as well as Palestinian appeals against court rulings issued in favor of settlers.

In November 2008, however, the al-Kurd family was evicted from their home, followed by the eviction of the Hanoun and al-Ghawi families in August 2009.

Their homes were taken over by settlers who were quick to raise Israeli flags on them, marking a new phase for the suffering of the Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

So far, 12 Palestinian families in the neighborhood have received eviction orders issued by the Israeli central and magistrates courts.

Most recently, four Palestinian families filed a petition with the Supreme Court, Israel’s highest judicial body, against a decision to expel them from their homes. The court is set to rule on the issue on Monday.

Al-Sabbagh, who has a 32-member family including 10 children, is afraid that the court verdict will make him and his family refugees again.

In 1948, al-Sabbagh’s family had fled their home in Jaffa, which is now inhabited by Israelis.

The Palestine-Israel conflict dates back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous Balfour Declaration, called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

*Ibrahim Mukhtar in Ankara translated this report from Arabic

May 8, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

The dangerous decision to ‘postpone’ the election is Palestine’s moment of reckoning

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | May 4, 2021

The decision on 30 April by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to “postpone” this month’s legislative election, which would have been the first in 15 years, will deepen the political division in occupied Palestine and could, potentially, signal the collapse of the Fatah Movement, at least in its current form.

Unlike the previous Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006, the big story this time was not the Fatah-Hamas rivalry. Many rounds of talks in recent months between representatives of Palestine’s two largest political parties had already sorted out many of the details regarding the now-cancelled voting process, which was scheduled to begin on 22 May.

Both Fatah and Hamas have much to gain from an election, with the former relishing the opportunity to restore its long-dissipated legitimacy as it has ruled over the occupied territories through its dominance of the Palestinian Authority with no democratic mandate whatsoever. Hamas, on the other hand, is desperate to break away from its long and painful isolation exemplified by the Israeli-led siege on the Gaza Strip, which ironically resulted from its victory in the 2006 legislative election.

It was not Israeli and American pressure that made Abbas betray the collective wishes of a whole nation. Such pressure from Tel Aviv and Washington was real and reported widely, but must also have been expected. Moreover, Abbas could easily have circumvented it as his election decree, announced in January, was welcomed by Palestinians and praised by much of the international community.

Abbas’s unfortunate but, frankly, predictable decision was justified by the 86-year-old leader as one which was forced by Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinians in Jerusalem to take part in the election process. This explanation, however, is simply a fig leaf aimed at covering his fear that he will lose power. Israel’s routine obstinacy was also predictable, but since when do occupied people beg their occupiers to uphold their democratic rights? Since when have Palestinians sought permission from Israel to assert any form of political sovereignty in occupied East Jerusalem?

Indeed, the battle for Palestinian rights in Jerusalem is fought on a daily basis in the alleyways of the captive city. Jerusalemites are targeted in every facet of their existence by Israeli restrictions which make it nearly impossible for them to live a normal life, neither in the way that they build, work, study, and travel, nor even how they marry and worship. So it would be mind-boggling if Abbas had actually expected the Israeli authorities to allow Palestinians in the occupied city easy access to polling stations to exercise their democratic right, while those same authorities labour to erase any semblance of Palestinian political life, even a physical presence, in Jerusalem.

The truth is that Abbas cancelled the election because all credible public opinion polls showed that the vote later this month would have decimated Fatah’s ruling clique and ushered in a whole new political configuration, one in which his rivals within the movement, Marwan Barghouti and Nasser Al-Qudwa, would have emerged as its new leaders. If this was to happen, a whole class of Palestinian millionaires who turned the national struggle into a lucrative industry financed generously by “donor countries”, risked losing everything in favour of uncharted political territory controlled by a Palestinian prisoner, Barghouti, from his Israeli prison cell.

Worse still for Abbas, Barghouti could have gone on to become the new Palestinian president, as he was expected to compete in the presidential election scheduled for July. That would be bad for Abbas, but good for Palestinians, as Barghouti’s presidency would be crucial for Palestinian national unity and even international solidarity. A democratically-elected, imprisoned Palestinian president would be a PR disaster for Israel. Equally, it would have presented the low-profile US diplomacy under Secretary of State Antony Blinken with an unprecedented challenge: How could Washington continue to preach and promote a “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians while the latter’s president languishes in solitary confinement, as he has since 2002?

By effectively cancelling all of the Palestinian elections, not just this month’s for the legislative council, Abbas, his benefactors and supporters hope to delay a moment of reckoning within the Fatah Movement; in fact, within the Palestinian body politic as a whole. However, the decision is likely to have far more serious repercussions on Fatah and Palestinian politics than if the elections took place.

Since Abbas’s election decree earlier this year, 36 lists of candidates have registered with the Palestinian Central Elections Commission. While Islamist and socialist parties were prepared to run with unified lists, Fatah disintegrated. Apart from the official Fatah list, which is close to Abbas, two other non-official lists, “Freedom” and “Future”, planned to stand candidates. Various polls showed that the “Freedom” list, led by the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s nephew, Nasser Al-Qudwa, and Marwan Barghouti’s wife Fadwa, were heading for an election upset, and on track to oust Abbas and his shrinking, though influential, circle.

None of this internal Fatah upheaval is likely to go away simply because Abbas reneged on his commitment to restoring a semblance of Palestinian democracy. A whole new political class in Palestine is now defining itself through its allegiances to various lists, parties, and leaders. The mass of Fatah supporters who were mentally ready to break away from the dominance of Abbas will not relent easily simply because the aging leader has changed his mind. In fact, across Palestine, an unparalleled discussion about democracy, representation and the need to move forward beyond Abbas and his haphazard, self-serving politics is currently taking place; it is impossible to contain. For the first time in many years, the conversation is no longer confined to Hamas versus Fatah, Ramallah versus Gaza, or any other demoralising rhetorical pigeonholes. This is a major step in the right direction.

There is nothing that Abbas can say or do at this point to restore the people’s confidence in his authority, either individually or institutionally. It is arguable that he never had their confidence in the first place. By cancelling the legislative election, and those due to follow to elect a new president and national council, he has crossed a red line. In doing so he has placed himself and a few others around him as enemies of the Palestinian people, their democratic aspirations, and their hope for a better future.

May 5, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

UN Challenges Delay of Palestinian Elections

IMEMC | May 4, 2021

The United Nations issued a statement Sunday calling on the Palestinian Authority to set a date for the Palestinian elections to be held. This statement follows the announcement on Friday by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that he would once again postpone the elections in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Abbas was last re-elected in 2006, and there have been no Palestinian elections since that year. Part of the reason for the ongoing delays in holding elections is the fact that the Israeli government, which rules the Palestinian Territories under martial law and has done so since 1967, has refused to recognize the results of the 2006 election, in which the Hamas party (the rival to Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh party) won the majority of seats in the Palestinian legislature.

Since the Israeli military government does not approve of the Hamas party, they have refused to deal with the Palestinian Authority in certain areas in which Hamas is involved, and have frequently and repeatedly abducted elected Palestinian Parliament members who are affiliated with the Hamas party.

In this case, the elections, which had been set to take place on May 22nd (legislative election) and July 31st (presidential election) were postponed because of uncertainty as to the status of Palestinians in Jerusalem, and whether Israel would allow them to be able to vote.

Palestinians in Jerusalem hold a unique status in the world – they are citizens of no country, and cannot hold a Palestinian passport because the Israeli military authorities will not permit it. Because of the Israeli government’s stated objective of taking over Jerusalem for the state of Israel, many of the policies enacted by the Israeli government are aimed at stripping Palestinians in Jerusalem of their residency rights.

Any Palestinian landowner in Jerusalem who leaves their home for any period of time, for example, forfeits the ownership of their land to the Israeli government.

According to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his announcement of the election delay on Friday, “Facing this difficult situation, we decided to postpone the date of holding legislative elections until the participation of Jerusalem and its people is guaranteed”.

In response, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, said that he understood the “disappointment of the many Palestinians” about the delay. He called on the Palestinian Authority to “continue on the democratic path” and said that these elections have “widespread international support”.

Wennesland added, “This will also set the path toward meaningful negotiations to end the occupation and realize a two-State solution based on UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements.”

He called on Abbas to set a new date for the Palestinian elections – especially considering that the last elections took place more than 15 years ago.

Some Palestinians, however, have pointed out the absurdity of voting for a Palestinian Authority that wields no real power, given the fact that the West Bank and Gaza are, in reality, not governed by the Palestinian Authority, but are governed by Israeli martial law.

May 3, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Rampaging Israeli Settlers

Calls for “Death to Arabs” in Jerusalem

By PHILIP GIRALDI • Unz Review • APRIL 27, 2021

Last week there were some interesting stories that were very definitely underreported partly due to the fact that the mainstream media was heavily into the distraction provided by its beatification of George Floyd. For example, the tale of how a mob consisting of hundreds of Israeli Jews, composed mostly of settlers and the extremist so-called Kahanists, rampaging through Jerusalem and calling for “Death to Arabs,” was largely ignored. Right-wing Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir sent a message to the settlers, encouraging participants to “hang Arabs.” One member responded to the advice to bring their firearms with them with “We’re burning Arabs today, the Molotov cocktails are already in the trunk.”

In spite of the extreme violence and racism behind the attacks, the story did not seem to interest the disproportionate number of Zionists among American news editors and reporters. Along the way, the angry Jews beat Palestinians and attacked their homes and businesses in one of the Old City’s remaining Arab neighborhoods Sheikh Jarrah.

Attacks on Palestinians, to include their homes and livelihoods have been increasing in Jerusalem and on the occupied West Bank over the past several months without any intervention by Israeli police. The settlers were reportedly part of a right-wing Israeli group called Lehava which organized the violent demonstration with the objective of “restoring Jewish dignity” by “breaking the faces of Arabs.” Lehava claimed it was only avenging alleged attacks on Jews by Palestinians in and around Jerusalem, but most reports indicated that recent violence was instead caused by small groups of Jewish teenage boys looking for trouble.

During the rioting, Israeli soldiers and police made some arrests but primarily attacked the Palestinian civilians, including children, and some Jewish counter-protesters, with ‘skunk water’ sprayed from trucks, water cannon, tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. 105 Palestinians were injured and 22 remain in the hospital. One Palestinian was shot in the head by an armed border policeman who fired into the counter-demonstrators and there are unconfirmed reports that at least four more Arabs died.

In a normal world and if the United States had a normal government that adhered to some kind of moral compass, there might have been a protest coming from the President Joe Biden administration or from the “people’s house” Congress, but there was nary a whimper. On the contrary, though the Congress was thinking about Israel, it was looking in a different direction, towards those whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared to be the enemies of his country. The attacks took place on April 22nd, ironically the same day that Congressmen Ted Deutch and Michael McCaul released a letter that they had sponsored. The letter was intended to stop dead any consideration that the United States just might condition its billions of dollars in largesse to the Jewish state annually based on Netanyahu and his band of war criminals restraining themselves just a bit.

Such a possibility has been raised by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, along with a handful of other brave legislators, who expressed concern that Israel will act without restraint as long as it knows that its money from Washington will continue to flow. In particular, Israel is currently pressuring Congress and using its media clout to oppose any re-entry by the US into the multilateral agreement to limit and inspect Iran’s nuclear development program, which Biden is just possibly intending to do. The previous agreement, which was being observed by Iran, became largely a dead letter when President Donald Trump, acting on behalf of major Jewish donors to the GOP as well as his neocon advisers, withdrew from the existing plan, the JCPOA, in 2017.

The letter was signed by 330 Congressmen, roughly half Republican and half Democratic, which is nearly two-thirds of the House and Senate. It begins with “As the United States meets pressing global challenges, we strongly believe that robust U.S. foreign assistance is vital to ensuring our national security interests abroad. One program that enjoys particularly strong bipartisan backing and for which we, Democrats and Republicans, urge your continued strong support is the full funding of security assistance to Israel.” The usual balderdash follows, about how “Israel continues to face direct threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies… Our aid to Israel is a vital and cost-effective expenditure which advances important U.S. national security interests in a highly challenging region.”

Sure it does, just ask the victims of the Israeli attack on the US naval vessel the USS Liberty in June 1967, which killed 34 sailors and injured 171 more. But no matter. The only things missing from the letter was the boilerplate assertion that Israel is America’s best friend in the whole wide world, which is obligatory in such documents, probably because everyone in Congress has already agreed to that. One also has to wonder why the other 205 Congressmen didn’t sign the letter, which is also obligatory, and one has to assume that their mothers had just died or something similar.

The letter also recalls how “President Biden has stated, ‘I’m not going to place conditions for the security assistance given the serious threats that Israel is facing, and this would be, I think, irresponsible’” before adding that “Reducing funding or adding conditions on security assistance would be detrimental to Israel’s ability to defend itself against all threats.”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), regarded as the most visible component of the Israel Lobby, was very pleased with the letter. Its spokesman Marshall Wittmann told the Jewish Insider website that the letter is “a very strong bipartisan statement that full security assistance to Israel – without additional conditions – is in the national security interest of the United States.”

Just once it might be nice to see someone in Congress or the White House concede that tying one’s security arrangements to a nation that most of the world considers “rogue” is not exactly a smart thing to do, but it all depends on how one defines smart. Smart for a congressman on the make is to have the Jewish dominated media and the invincible Israel Lobby on one’s side. Smart is to receive a pat on the head from AIPAC. It should be noted, of course, that the letter and the commentary surrounding it make no reference to the behavior of the rampaging Jewish mobs in Jerusalem that were out for blood, even though that was taking place as the document was being released to the media.

In addition to the “threat” posed by legislators like Sanders and Warren, the letter was clearly intended to meet a challenge coming from Congresswoman Betty McCollum, who has twice sponsored legislation forbidding the Israeli use of American financial aid to torture Arabs and, in particular, to beat and imprison Palestinian children. Her legislation the Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act​ H.R. 2407 amends a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act known as the “Leahy Law” to prohibit funding for the military detention of children in any country, including Israel. McCollum argues that an estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli security forces and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system since 2000. These children between the ages of 11 and 15 have sometimes been tortured using chokeholds, beatings, and coercive interrogation.

The Deutch-McCaul letter not coincidentally appeared less than a week after McCollum joined by 15 progressive Democrat co-sponsors submitted her bill, which admittedly is unlikely ever to emerge from committee for a vote. As of September 2020 there were an estimated 157 children still detained in Israeli prisons and, though it would be difficult to break down the money to Israel which is advanced in a lump sum, one would think the objective to be an admirable one to anyone but the always on-alert and powerful Israel Lobby.

The pledge by Congress together with its clear message that behind it there are enough votes to override any White House attempt to cut the aid, is also intended to send a warning to another perceived threat to Israel, that of the growing non-violent Boycott, Divestments and Sanction movement (BDS). The movement, which is particularly strong on college campuses, is being de facto criminalized in states all over the country, 26 at least and counting, and there are also Congressional bills that would possibly make the issue of boycotting Israel a felony with serious jail time and fines attached.

The overriding message is that Israel’s friends in the United States, and also in countries like Britain, France and Canada, are too strong to confront. In this case, the obvious racism and resort to lethal violence by the large component of the Israeli population should be resonating with a congress and media due to the recent convulsions being experienced here at home. Indeed, most of the “opinion makers” are jumping on the BLM bandwagon. This cheerleading for BLM is ironically highly visible in the actions taken by leading Israeli advocacy groups like AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), but that does not mean that there is any empathy to share for the plight of the Palestinians. Indeed, they are steps taken to get close to blacks to contain any possible pro-Arab sentiment.

A humane response to the suffering of the Palestinians does not surface much in the US because, frankly, Israel and its supporters have assiduously bought control of the US media as well the White House and Congress to such an extent that they can get what they want and never be challenged. That, of course, must end but the real question is how do we accomplish that when we the people have been effectively disenfranchised on the issue. When your government has been bought and your free speech limited by the oligarchs who control what passes for news and information, where do you go? Indeed, that is the dilemma.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org

April 27, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Non-Prophylactically Ironic Dome over the Occupied Palestine

By Mansoureh Tajik for the Saker Blog | April 25, 2021

Exactly at 1:20 am (Tehran time) on Thursday, April 22, 2021 a missile hit near Dimona nuclear reactor, the “secret” nuclear site in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Jerusalem Post headlined the event as “Syrian missile lands near Dimona nuclear reactor, interception fails.”[1] The article went on to story the event as follows:

“It was unclear at first from where the missile was launched. Several signs indicated it having been launched from Iraq, while according to other reports, it came from the city of Daraa in southern Syria following an Israeli airstrike.”

“IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman told reporters that ‘the explosion was due to the firing of an SA-5 surface-to-air missile toward Israel from Syria that exploded in the southern Negev. The firing of the missile came during Israeli airstrikes in southern Syria,’ Zilberman said, and that ‘it was an errant missile and not directed toward the Dimona nuclear reactor.’”

It was not an errant missile. It did not come from where the General said it came. It was not during Israeli airstrikes in southern Syria. The interception did not fail because there was interception. The missile was directed toward exactly where it needed to hit near Dimona nuclear reactor and it hit exactly at 1:20 am the time Sardar Soleimani, the martyred commander of Qods Force was assassinated. The hit had a message.

The missile strike (not “landing” as if it were some civilian passenger airline) on the land in the vicinity of Dimona took place 22 hours after another serious explosion that happened inside Tomer factory which develops and manufactures military equipment including missiles for Israeli Defense. About Tomer, Haaretz reported:

“The explosion occurred during a ‘routine test’ by the Tomer factory for advanced weapons, which develops rocket engines, the Ofek satellite launchers and houses various types of missiles. In response to the blast, Tomer said ‘this was a controlled test with no exceptional circumstances.’ Tomer’s factory is located in central Israel, and in proximity to residential areas. The company manufactures missiles for use by the IDF and other Israeli defense systems. They are the manufacturers behind Israel’s Arrow 4 missile interception system.”[2]

Again, no. The explosion did not occur during a routine test and it was not a controlled test. The explosion was in fact controlled but not by any force friendly to Tomer, the Zionist entity, or IDF. That explosion, too, had a message. On Tuesday, April 20, in a public speech delivered during funeral procession held for Sardar Hejazi, the vice commander of Qods Force, Sardar Qa’ani, the current Commander of Qods Force (replacing Sardar Soleimani after his martyrdom) clearly and unambiguously declared:

“Today, in the resistance fronts from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and the Children of Resistance [informal term that refers to all resistance fighters] every single day, delivers one major operation against the enemies including [US] America and Israel and they will continue this path until the global command has been achieved.”[3]

This statement was not a threat nor a warning nor a promise by Sardar Qa’ani. It was a declaration. The news vice commander of Qods Force, who was appointed after the martyrdom of Sardar Hejazi, announced on Thursday, April 22:

“The usurper Zionist regime must know that the resistance group in every segment of the planet earth are positioned right next to you and are getting you closer to your dusk.”[4]

In an interview conducted by Tasnim News Agency on Friday, April 23, with Hadi Qabisi, the director of Al-Ittihad Center for Development and Research, regarding recent explosions in Israel, he explained:

“The rules of engagement in the framework of the Resistance in terms of their demand and direction has changed. This now affects the change in balance in the region if the Resistance decides to go to war.”

“Mere shooting of missile from Syria to the occupied territories and reaching of that missile to Naqab region, regardless of what kind of missile whether it was air-to-air or surface-to-air or surface-to-surface, makes evident the inability of Israel defense system dubbed Iron Dome. This shows the erosion of Zionist Regime’s deterrence power while the capabilities of the Resistance Axis are increasing day by day. The consequence has a negative impact on all aspects of Zionist Regime. In addition, this military development cannot be separated from other events in the region such as Iran’s capability and power to strengthen its position in Vienna talks or an increasing tension between two global poles ([US] America and Russia) in other critical scenes such as Ukraine.”[5]

On Sunday, April 25, 2021, Major General Muhammad Baqeri, the Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, said:

“The Zionists think they could permanently target Syrian soil, create mischief in other places and in the sea without backlash. For certain, several operations in recent days and operations that are forthcoming will have a sobering effect on them and the future of the Resistance is quite bright. We will not announce anything about who exactly is doing which operation but responses from the Resistance camp to Zionists are quite significant. We will not specify the operation but Zionist regime will not be in peace.”[6]

On April 22, 2021, a letter signed by two members of the congressmen, Ted Deutch and Michael T. McCaul, and co-signed by nearly 300 other members, urged the full funding of security assistance to Israel in the Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bills. An excerpt from the letter reads:

“Israel continues to face direct threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies. In February, an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman was hit by a mysterious explosion that Israel has attributed as an attack by Iran. In 2019, Hizballah launched three anti-tank missiles at an Israeli Defense Forces vehicle in Israel. Hizballah is estimated to have an arsenal of over 130,000 rockets and missiles, and is believed to be developing new precision-guided munitions to be deployed in Lebanon. American security assistance to Israel helps counter these threats, and our rock-solid security partnership serves as a deterrent against even more significant attacks on our shared interests.”

“Congress is committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge and its ability to defend itself, by itself, against persistent threats. Our aid to Israel is a vital and cost-effective expenditure which advances important U.S. national security interests in a highly challenging region.”[7]

Regarding maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge”, firstly, maintenance is for that which already exists. The famed prophylactic dome is engineered to emulate eyed Swiss cheese and can protect Israel exactly as much as it has done for Saudi Arabia and US bases in Iraq and Persian Gulf oil well states with flag. Secondly, the cost of maintaining illusions in West Asia has decidedly increased exponentially for the United States of America and its most cherished regimes.

References

[1] Anna Ahronheim, Udi Shaham. “Syrian missile lands near Dimona nuclear reactor, interception fails.” The Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2021. Accessed online at: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/alarms-sound-in-south-of-israel-665953

[2] Yaniv Kubovich. Powerful Explosion Rocks Sensitive Israeli Missile Factory During Test. April 21, 2021. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/powerful-explosion-rocks-sensitive-israeli-defense-factory-during-test-1.9732074

[3] Khabar Online. “Unambiguous Message of Sardar Qa’ani to Israel and [US of] America during funeral procession of Sardar Hejazi.” Farvardin 31, 1400 [April 20, 2021] @11:14 am. News Code: 506836. Accessed online at: khabaronline.ir/news/1506836

[4] Tasnim News Agency. “Sardar Fallahzadeh, Vice Commander of Quds Force: Resistance Groups are positioned right next to Zionist Regimes Bases.” Ordibehesht 2, 1400 [April 22, 2021] @ 11:02 am. Accessed online at https://tn.ai/2489397

[5] Tasnim News Agency. “Interview with Syrian Analyst: Zionist Regime’s Deterrent Capabilities are wearing out day by day.” Ordibehesht 3, 1400 [April 23, 2021] @ 21:03. Accessed online at: https://tn.ai/2490197

[6] Tasnim News Agency. “Major General Baqeri: Future Operations will bring the Zionists to their senses.” Ordibehesht 5, 1400 [April 23, 2021] @ 10:45. Accessed online at: https://tn.ai/2491070

[7] “Letter Chair DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger” addressed to Congress of the United States, Washington DC. Accessed online at: https://teddeutch.house.gov site.

April 25, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas warns against postponing Palestine elections

MEMO | April 23, 2021

Deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, Khalil Al-Hayya yesterday warned against postponing the Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for 22 May, saying it would push the Palestinian people into the unknown.

Al-Hayya, who heads the movement’s list in the elections, said the postponement “will generate great frustration among the masses and youth”, warning that “the postponement will complicate the situation and perpetuate division”.

In January, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the elections will be held in May followed by Presidential elections in July.

Earlier this week, the Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre published the results of a poll which showed that 79 per cent of Palestinians consider holding these elections important.

On Tuesday, Abbas’ senior adviser, Nabil Shaath, said the upcoming Palestinian national elections are “very likely” to be postponed if Israel does not allow voting in occupied East Jerusalem.

He told An-Nahar newspaper that if Israel continues to ignore the PA’s request to hold the elections in East Jerusalem, “the electoral process will be postponed.”

Israel has carried out an arrest campaign against those taking part in elections activities in occupied Jerusalem. Analysts believe occupation forces will not allow balloting to take place in the area as Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital and does not allow PA activities in the city.

However, many believe the PA is using this as an excuse because recent polls show that Hamas would, once again, win the election leaving President Abbas, who heads the Fatah movement, in a difficult predicament.

Abbas refused to step down following Palestine’s last election in 2006 when Hamas was elected to power. The move caused disunity among Palestinians and led to Fatah heading the government in the occupied West Bank and Hamas governing the besieged Gaza Strip.

April 23, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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