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Palestinian Minor Reveals Harrowing Details in Israeli Custody

Palestine Chronicle | February 13, 2020

In a testimony made through his lawyer to the Committee of Prisoners and Former Prisoners Affairs, Palestinian teenage prisoner Mahmoud Thawabteh revealed details about the difficult conditions inside Israeli prisons.

Thawabteh, 17, was arrested from his house in Beit Fajjar in eastern Bethlehem when Israeli occupation soldiers stormed the neighborhood at dawn, the boy’s lawyer told the Committee.

According to the testimony, Thawabteh was harshly interrogated in the street, before army dogs were unleashed at him.

The boy revealed that he was brutally beaten and he had several dog bites on his legs.

“They beat me up on my head and back using their rifles and sticks”, Thawabteh said, as reported in Quds News Network.

After a harrowing journey in an Israeli army jeep, the teenage boy was taken to the notorious Etzion interrogation center, where dozens of Palestinian minors were held and reportedly tortured over the years.

Conveying Thawabteh’s testimony, his lawyer went on to say that the teenager was allowed to see a doctor just before his interrogation commenced. However, the Israeli doctor did little to stop the bleeding or to treat the bruises and bite marks, aside from taking Thawabteh’s blood pressure.

Thawabteh was held in the Etzion facility for three days, during which he was interrogated, assaulted, and beaten repeatedly, before being moved to the Ofer military jail, near Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

On January 13, Thawabteh was one of 34 Palestinian minors who were relocated from the Ofer prison to the Damon prison, inside Israel, without being accompanied by their adult overseers, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).

Commenting on that experience, Thawabteh told his lawyer that the children were placed in a squalid section of the prison that was infested with insects. They were left largely alone, as the Israeli prison guards refused to provide them with basic services or needs.

The Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network Samidoun had reported earlier that “every year, around 700 Palestinian children are brought before Israeli military courts after being arrested, detained and interrogated.”

“The vast majority report some form of torture and abuse, including kicking and beating in military jeeps as well as psychological torture during interrogation, including threats to arrest family members.”

February 13, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Breaking with Washington: Arabs and Muslims Must Take a Stance for Palestine

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | February 12, 2020

A negotiated solution to the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’, at least the way envisaged by successive US administrations, has failed. Now, Palestinians and their allies would have to explore a whole new path of liberation that does not go through Washington.

It is easy to place all the blame on the current US administration, setting apart dodgy characters such as the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as the man who has single-handedly diminished any real chances for a just peace in Palestine and Israel.

The truth, however, greatly differs from conveniently molded assumptions. The US-championed ‘peace process’ has been in a hiatus since the last negotiations in 2014. For years prior to the announcement of Donald Trump’s ‘Middle East Plan’ on January 28, Israel did everything in its power to ensure Palestinians can never have a state of their own. Not only did Israeli officials openly speak of their desire to illegally annex much of the occupied territories, but the Israeli government has taken numerous steps to ensure the constant expansion of illegal Jewish settlements.

One would have to be politically naive and morally blind to assume that the Israeli government, at any point in the past, had an iota of interest in a just peace that would guarantee the Palestinian people a minimum amount of dignity, freedom and justice.

Yet, everyone has played along: Israel complained that it has no peace partner while simultaneously entrenching its military occupation and expanding its colonial regime; the Palestinian Authority (PA) of President Mahmoud Abbas ceaselessly waved empty threats, which ultimately amounted to nothing; the Americans urged both parties to return to ‘unconditional negotiations’, all the while funding, to the amount of $3.8 billion [annually], the Israeli military and economy; the United Nations and the European Union followed a predictable political script that was seen as more ‘moderate’ than that of Washington, yet failed to take a single meaningful action to discourage Israel from further violations of international law.

Meanwhile, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), who are arguably Palestine’s more solid and consistent allies, remained marginal and, by far, the least relevant of all parties. Their occasional statements in support of Palestinians and condemnation of the Israeli occupation became so predictable and ineffectual. Aside from Abbas and his Authority, ordinary Palestinians saw no value in verbal support that hardly ever translated into tangible action.

Somehow, this skewed paradigm sustained itself for many years, partly because it suited everyone except the Palestinian people, of course, whose subjugation and humiliation by Israel carried on unhindered.

Presently, there are two different currents fighting to define the situation in Palestine in the post-‘Deal of the Century’ era.

First, Israel and the United States, who are keen to translate the ‘Middle East plan’ into rapid and irreversible action. They are eager to annex the illegal settlements of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley (approximately 30% of the total size of the West Bank). Moreover, Washington would like to see its diligent, clandestine efforts aimed at normalization between Arabs and Israel translate into actual agreements and, eventually, full diplomatic ties.

Second, the Palestinian Authority, the EU, the UN, the Arab League and the OIC, want the ‘Deal of the Century’ defeated, but they have no alternative path to follow. They insist on respect for international law and remain die-hard supporters of the unfeasible two-state paradigm, but they have no actual strategy, let alone an enforcement mechanism to make that happen.

The pro-PA camp reeks with contradictions, that are no less obvious than that of Abbas’ Authority, which speaks of ‘popular resistance’ while, jointly with Israel, is suppressing any attempt aimed at challenging the Israeli occupation.

A perfect example of the contradictions in this camp is that only two days after the Arab League issued its statement rejecting the ‘Deal of the Century’, the head of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, met with right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Uganda. Burhan is hoping to swap normalization with Israel for Washington’s favors.

Another example is reflected in the behavior of Abbas himself, who, on February 1, declared that he would sever all contacts with Israel, including the so-called security coordination, a main pillar in the Oslo agreement, which practically employs PA security forces in the service of the Israeli occupation.

This is not the first time that Abbas has resorted to this lifeline, but he has never gone through with his promises. We have no reason to believe that this time is any different.

There is little hope that the pro-PA camp, as exemplified in the current political structure, can truly defeat the ‘Deal of the Century’.

The final statements resulting from the Arab League summit in Cairo and the OIC summit in Jeddah on February 1 and 3 respectively, is a repeat of numerous past conferences, where promises were made and condemnations were leveled, with no follow-up nor any action.

If Arabs and Muslims are, indeed, sincere in their desire to confront US-Israeli plotting, they ought to go beyond this stifling pattern of impractical politics. It is not enough to reject Washington’s stratagem and to denounce Israeli action. They ought to muster enough courage to turn their statements into an actual, unified strategy, and their strategy into action, using all means at their disposal.

Arab countries enjoy massive economic and political leverage in Washington and throughout the world. What’s the value of all of this leverage if not used in defense of Palestine and her people?

Washington and Tel Aviv are counting on the fact that anger at the ‘Deal of the Century’ among Arabs and Muslims will eventually peter out, exactly as happened after Trump recognized all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving his country’s embassy there in May 2018.

If Arabs and Muslims fail Palestine again, then, once more, the Palestinian people will find themselves alone in this desperate fight, which they have no other alternative but to undergo. And when Palestinians rise, as they surely will, their uprising will challenge not just Israel but the entire regional and international apparatus that allowed the Israeli occupation to go unchallenged for so many years.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU).

February 12, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

The Zionist War without End

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | February 12, 2020

A reiteration of the war on Palestine, on the Arab world, on the Muslim world, on international law and human rights. There is no other way to describe the Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu ‘deal.’

Media comment centers on the last opportunity for the Palestinians. Will they take the scraps they are offered, or will they miss yet another opportunity to have something taken away from them?

This was the line used over decades by the glib Irish-born Zionist ‘foreign minister,’ Aubrey (Abba) Eban. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, he said many times.

In fact, if anyone has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity it is the Zionists. They could have chosen to live with the Palestinians instead. They could have accepted their return after 1948. They could have handed back the land they seized in 1967. They could have honestly engaged with the so-called ‘peace process.’ They could have ended the blockade of Gaza. They could have stopped seizing and settling the land of another people. They could have agreed to share Al Quds. They could have stopped their murders and assassination.

What they could have done they never did. Instead, they headed in the opposite direction, financed, armed, protected and encouraged by the most powerful nation in the world.

A vulgarian property developer who once made ads for Pizza Hut has now told his zionist settler sidekick that he can have Palestine with the lot. Nothing is missed out, not Jerusalem, not the Jordan Valley and not the illegal settlements – the ‘outposts’ – as well as the legal ones, so says Netanyahu. All are completely illegal, of course, as is the presence of every settler on occupied land.

This demented agreement was put together by the plastic-faced Jared Kushner, who said, seriously apparently, that he read all of 25 books to get a handle on the situation. By comparison, Trump is unlikely to have read one so no wonder that he thinks his son-in-law is a genius.

This ‘deal’ – a deal without wheels – is being taken seriously in the mainstream media. In a way, of course, it has to be taken seriously as the Zionists have the weaponry to do whatever they want, no matter how mad, rapacious or destructive of their own interests in the long term.

And this is something the media seems to have missed. For whom, really, is this plan the last opportunity? The assumption is that it is the Palestinians but have Trump and Kushner noticed that while the Palestinians do not have the weapons, they have the numbers, that already the Muslim-Christian population of Palestine between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river is already greater than the Jewish population.

Silly to ask, but have either of these two taken into account the Muslim hinterland, the Muslim population of the Middle East and North Africa (close to 600 million) and the world Muslim population (about 1.8 billion)?

By comparison, the Jewish population of occupied Palestine is less than seven million. Far from trying to settle into the Muslim world, over more than seven decades it has done nothing but antagonize it. Like a spoilt child, it then complains that no one likes it, that the real reason for Muslim loathing of the Zionist state is anti-semitism, and not its racist, murderous and thieving behavior.

This is the game played endlessly by the Zionist lobby around the world. It hides behind the symbols of the religion it has hijacked. The Star of David flies from the pennants of the tanks that shell apartment buildings in Gaza and is inscribed on the wings of the planes that destroy entire families with missiles.

It is scrawled triumphantly on the walls of the West Bank. This is the Israel that the lobbyists and the rabbis defended behind their accusations against Jeremy Corbyn. It is he who wanted to end these horrors and they, behind their lies and false accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn and the entire Labor Party wanted to leave the Zionist state free to continue them. It is they who are the racists and anti-Arab Semites, not Jeremy Corbyn.

Palestine remains part of Arab and Islamic history and identity and remains an Arab and Muslim cause whatever the exasperation felt at Arab governments and the bungled and/or collaborationist policies of the Palestinian leadership.

By themselves, the Palestinians had no hope of resisting the Zionist takeover of their land. Zionism was an imperial project and the Zionist state was sequentially backed by the two mightiest empires on the planet, first Britain and then the United States. No small group of people anywhere would have been able to resist their power.

The greater danger to Israel always lay in the surrounding Arab and Muslim world. George Habash, the founder of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) was writing in the 1950s that the road to the liberation of Palestine ran through the Arab world and this remains as true today as it was then, although the statement has to be qualified by adding “and the Muslim world.”

Israel understood this just as well as George Habash and knew that if it were to survive in the long term, the Arab world had to be fragmented, subverted, dominated and kept off balance permanently. This was the sine qua non of Israel’s existence. The ties that bound states together, that bound the region together and connected it with the wider Islamic world had to be broken.

It was not just armies and states that had to be broken but the Arab national idea and the Arab world as a presence in history and a place on the map. It would have to be what Israel and the US wanted it to be. It would have to be remade.

Towards this end, the zionists were looking for weak links in the chain of Arab states even in the 1930s. They thought they had found the weakest in Lebanon, where they hoped to set up a puppet Christian government. Not only did this not work but since the rise of Hezb0llah, the weakest link in the chain has turned into one of the strongest.

The Yinon Plan of the 1980s set out the strategy in full. All Middle Eastern states were to be subjected to ethnoreligious or tribal division. This broad script was fine-tuned by Netanyahu and the Zionists inside the US administration in the 1990s.

Iraq was the first of seven states targeted for destruction. The destruction through two wars and a decade of sanctions was enormous but the political strategy failed. The Kurdish state-in-being, planned by the US and Israel as a new center for strategic operations in the Middle East, has collapsed. The Shia-dominated government in Baghdad maintains good relations with Iran and following the assassination of Qasim Soleimani the Iraqi parliament demanded the complete withdrawal of US forces. Millions of people marched through the streets of Iraq’s cities as they did in Iran to mourn the murder of this outstanding military commander. Anti-American feeling in Iraq is at an all-time high.

The war in Syria was designed to bring down the axis of resistance (Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah) at its central arch but that has failed, too. Syria, its people, and its military have resisted the most determined attempt ever made to destroy an Arab government.

Always popular, Bashar al Assad is now more popular than ever, as the army, backed by Russian airpower, drives the takfiri terrorists from their last redoubt in Idlib province. Syrian cities have been shattered, perhaps half a million people have been killed but the US-Israeli political strategy in Syria has failed too.

For anyone who has been watching closely enough, the wheel of history, once turning in Israel’s favor, has been slowly turning against it for decades. Israel came close to defeat in the first week of the 1973 war. It drove the PLO out of Lebanon only to awaken a far more powerful enemy, Hezbollah. In every war it has fought or operation it has launched, the remorseless use of airpower has been critical. Nevertheless, even with air cover its foot soldiers were driven out of southern Lebanon in 2000 and, outfought by Hezbollah’s part-time soldiers, humiliated again when they returned in 2006.

Hezbollah and Iran have been working for decades on how to neutralize Israel’s air power. If – or once – they succeed in doing this, Israel is going to be in deep trouble on the battlefield.

Threatened repeatedly with destruction by the US and Israel, Iran has had to develop a new range of missiles capable of causing devastation to US bases, aircraft and warships in the region. The retaliation which followed the murder of Qasim Soleimani was an example. The Americans failed to stop even one of the Iranian missiles directed against two of its bases in Iraq.

Aircraft were destroyed in their hangars and while no soldiers were killed – so the US government says – dozens suffered severe brain injuries, apparently from concussion, with a number being flown to Germany for emergency treatment. Iran says the casualties were far greater than the US is prepared to admit.

Hezbollah has its own stocks of missiles, far greater in number and sophistication than in 2006, and has its targets already worked out for when the next war comes. As Israel’s military commanders are making clear, the next war is a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ They are warning the civilian population to be prepared for the unprecedented scale of the casualties they are going to suffer.

So, for whom is the bell really tolling now, the Palestinians or the Zionists? Gideon Levy writes that the Kushner-Trump deal is likely to trigger a third nakba. This is incorrect, as there has only been one nakba, continuing now for more than seven decades.

David Hearst, writing in Middle East Eye, thinks all the Palestinians have to sit tight, because, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, they are going to win the war of numbers, if they haven’t won it already. By implication, once the war of numbers is won, the war itself is won. The Zionist state will see reason and turn itself into the secular democratic state the Palestinians always wanted, with equal rights for all. Given that they would be the majority, they would have to be the dominant element in any freely-elected government. The Zionist dream-nightmare would be over.

This is not likely to happen. Zionism is an extreme ideology and the politicians running the Zionist state now are the most extreme since its foundation. They are not going to surrender because of demographics. They will simply try harder to overcome the problem. They still want all the Palestinians out of Palestine or at the very least reduced to an inconsequential ethnic remnant. Between the apartheid state and the democratic state, this is their preferred solution.

What they need is another war enabling them to strike down their external enemies and simultaneously solve the ‘Palestine problem’ once and for all. If (or rather when) such a war does break out, Hezbollah will swamp the Zionist state with missiles in such numbers as to overwhelm its defense systems.

The Palestinians will be determined to stay put but in the fog of war, while the world is looking elsewhere, at missile attacks on US bases and soaring oil prices following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, perhaps they can again be terrorized into leaving. Even the most steadfast Palestinians have families to protect and if they won’t go then the level of terror only has to be increased until they do. This is the evil calculus applied before and likely to be applied again once the opportunity arises or, more accurately, can be created.

Who wants such a war? Not the Palestinians, and not Hezbollah or Iran although they have had no option but to prepare for it. Who has set up the conditions for such a war, decade after decade to the point where it has to be regarded as inevitable unless ‘the Arabs’ and the Muslims really are the useless orientals of the western imagination, there to be kicked around endlessly? Israel has, by its disgraceful behavior.

So has the US and so has the ‘west’ in general, its governments, its media and its institutions (where has the UN Secretary-General, the moral guardian of peace in the world, been during the eight atrocious years of war on Syria? Hiding in a cupboard?). It is ‘the west’ generically which created Israel, and has allowed it to get away with wars, ethnic cleansing, massacres, assassination and occupation generation after generation.

Perhaps a shattering setback is all that will bring this utterly dangerous state to its senses. Of course, there is always the possibility that it will go completely off the edge and use its nuclear weapons, turning the central lands of the Middle East into a wasteland but at least taking its enemies down with it in the most pyrrhic of victories. These are grim possibilities but they have to be taken seriously.

– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press).

February 12, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Hezbollah, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Syria, Zionism | Leave a comment

In ‘victory for international law’, UN releases list of firms linked to Israeli settlements

Press TV – February 12, 2020

The United Nations human rights office has released a report identifying companies with business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move hailed by Palestinians as a victory for international law.

The office said in a statement on Wednesday that it had named 112 business entities, including 94 based in Israel and 18 others in six different countries. It said it had reasonable grounds to conclude that the firms have ties with Israeli settlements.

“I am conscious this issue has been, and will continue to be, highly contentious,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday.

The office said, “While the settlements as such are regarded as illegal under international law, this report does not provide a legal characterization of the activities in question, or of business enterprises’ involvement in them.”

The move was hailed by the Palestinian foreign minister, who described it as a victory.

“The publication of the list of companies and parties operating in settlements is a victory for international law,” Riyad al-Maliki’s office said in a statement.

The minister also called on UN member states and the UN Human Rights council to “issue recommendations and instructions to these companies to end their work immediately with the settlements.”

The newly released report drew condemnation from Tel Aviv, with Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying in a statement, “The announcement by the UN Human Rights Office of the publication of a ‘blacklist’ of businesses is shameful capitulation to pressure from countries and organizations that are interested in hurting Israel.”

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

Below is the full list of companies that do business in illegal Jewish settlements, as indicated in the OHCHR report:

Afikim Public Transportation Ltd.

Airbnb Inc.

American Israeli Gas Corporation Ltd.

Amir Marketing and Investments in Agriculture Ltd.

Amos Hadar Properties and Investments Ltd.

Angel Bakeries

Archivists Ltd.

Ariel Properties Group

Ashtrom Industries Ltd.

Ashtrom Properties Ltd.

Avgol Industries 1953 Ltd.

Bank Hapoalim B.M.

Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M.

Bank of Jerusalem Ltd.

Beit Haarchiv Ltd.

Bezeq, the Israel Telecommunication

Corp Ltd.

Booking.com B.V.

C Mer Industries Ltd.

Café Café Israel Ltd.

Caliber 3

Cellcom Israel Ltd.

Cherriessa Ltd.

Chish Nofei Israel Ltd.

Citadis Israel Ltd.

Comasco Ltd.

Darban Investments Ltd.

Delek Group Ltd.

Delta Israel

Dor Alon Energy in Israel 1988 Ltd.

Egis Rail

Egged, Israel Transportation Cooperative Society Ltd.

Energix Renewable Energies Ltd.

EPR Systems Ltd.

Extal Ltd.

Expedia Group Inc.

Field Produce Ltd.

Field Produce Marketing Ltd.

First International Bank of Israel Ltd.

Galshan Shvakim Ltd.

General Mills Israel Ltd.

Hadiklaim Israel Date Growers Cooperative Ltd.

Hot Mobile Ltd.

Hot Telecommunications Systems Ltd.

Industrial Buildings Corporation Ltd.

Israel Discount Bank Ltd.

Israel Railways Corporation Ltd.

Italek Ltd.

JC Bamford Excavators Ltd.

Jerusalem Economy Ltd.

Kavim Public Transportation Ltd.

Lipski Installation and Sanitation Ltd.

Matrix IT Ltd.

Mayer Davidov Garages Ltd.

Mekorot Water Company Ltd.

Mercantile Discount Bank Ltd.

Merkavim Transportation Technologies Ltd.

Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd.

Modi’in Ezrachi Group Ltd.

Mordechai Aviv Taasiot Beniyah 1973 Ltd.

Motorola Solutions Israel Ltd.

Municipal Bank Ltd.

Naaman Group Ltd.

Nof Yam Security Ltd.

Ofertex Industries 1997 Ltd.

Opodo Ltd.

Bank Otsar Ha-Hayal Ltd.

Partner Communications Company Ltd.

Paz Oil Company Ltd.

Pelegas Ltd.

Pelephone Communications Ltd.

Proffimat S.R. Ltd.

Rami Levy Chain Stores Hashikma Marketing 2006 Ltd.

Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing Communication Ltd.

Re/Max Israel

Shalgal Food Ltd.

Shapir Engineering and Industry Ltd.

Shufersal Ltd.

Sonol Israel Ltd.

Superbus Ltd.

Tahal Group International B.V.

TripAdvisor Inc.

Twitoplast Ltd.

Unikowsky Maoz Ltd.

YES

Zakai Agricultural Know-how and inputs Ltd.

ZF Development and Construction

ZMH Hammermand Ltd.

Zorganika Ltd.

Zriha Hlavin Industries Ltd.

Alon Blue Square Israel Ltd.

Alstom S.A.

Altice Europe N.V.

Amnon Mesilot Ltd.

Ashtrom Group Ltd.

Booking Holdings Inc.

Brand Industries Ltd.

Delta Galil Industries Ltd.

eDreams ODIGEO S.A.

Egis S.A.

Electra Ltd.

Export Investment Company Ltd.

General Mills Inc.

Hadar Group

Hamat Group Ltd.

Indorama Ventures P.C.L.

Kardan N.V.

Mayer’s Cars and Trucks Co. Ltd.

Motorola Solutions Inc.

Natoon Group

Villar International Ltd.

Greenkote P.L.C.

February 12, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | Israel, Israeli settlement, Jerusalem, Palestine, United Nations, West Bank, Zionism | Leave a comment

US Ambassador sends strong message to Netanyahu: patience, young grasshopper, you’ll annex the West Bank soon

By Sarah Abed | February 11, 2020

On January 28th, United States President Donald Trump accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top advisor/son-in-law Jared Kushner unveiled the much anticipated so-called “Deal of the Century” also referred to as the “Mideast Peace Plan”. The deal greenlighted the annexation of Palestinian land, subjugation of Palestinians, and apartheid in Israel. Israeli politicians couldn’t wait to pounce on the opportunity to steal vast areas of occupied land along the Jordan valley. They did little to hide their enthusiasm as they announced that a vote on annexation would take place a few days later.

What became clear even before the ink had dried is that behind the scam of the century was the normalization of Israel’s apartheid in Palestine. The deal was praised by Israel as the opportunity of a lifetime and outright rejected by Palestinian politicians including President Mahmoud Abbas.

Just days after the deal was announced, plans were made to vote on annexing parts of the West Bank, which are sites of Israeli settlements, and seen by a number of countries as illegal Israeli occupation that defies international law and United Nations Charters, but then that vote was postponed. Almost two weeks later as word spread that another vote might be on the horizon ahead of the March 2nd election, Washington decided to halt Netanyahu’s progress just temporarily causing him to backtrack on his plan for immediate annexation of the West bank. Netanyahu mentioned on Saturday that mapping of the region was underway.

David Friedman, the Trump administration’s Ambassador to Israel is not only one of the masterminds behind the annexation plan but has historically supported illegal colonial settlements. On Sunday, he tweeted warning Israeli politicians against taking any unilateral steps which could endanger the Plan and American recognition. Of course, Israeli Prime Minister took the cue very seriously and knowing that the US’s blessing is of utmost importance stressed to both his fans and critics that they have waited for this opportunity since 1967 and won’t jeopardize things by being impatient.

Friedman tweeted the following on Sunday February 9th, “President Trump’s Vision for Peace is the product of more than three years of close consultations among the President, PM Netanyahu and their respective senior staff. As we have stated, the application of Israeli law to the territory which the Plan provides to be part of Israel is subject to the completion of a mapping process by a joint Israeli-American committee.” He added “Any unilateral action in advance of the completion of the committee process endangers the Plan & American recognition.”

As if it wasn’t already crystal-clear that the steal of the century was never ever a legitimate deal between Israeli’s and Palestinians nor a deal that Palestinians would ever be able to consider let alone agree to, Friedman’s tweet drives home the message loud and clear. Palestinians were neither consulted, nor will they be part of the mapping process.

Amidst widespread condemnation and what many countries consider a violation of international law, steps are being taken to pave the way for the annexation of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land captured during the 1967 war. Netanyahu’s focus right now is on winning a fourth consecutive term in office and taking drastic measures could help win him the election. It’s probably also a good distraction from the series of corruption charges he is facing.

Palestinian authorities have adamantly rejected Washington’s supposed peace plan and are against any unilateral steps being taken whether it’s now or after the election that violate the 1967 Palestinian map borders. Israel tries to appeal to the masses by citing security, biblical, and historic ties to the land on which their settlements are built and Palestinians refuse to accept the theft of more of their ancestral lands.

Many Israeli’s on Twitter didn’t appreciate Friedman’s tweets; some were saying that the United States shouldn’t interfere in Israel’s internal affairs. The irony of how Israel has hijacked US Middle Eastern policies seems to go over their heads. They certainly appreciate how Trump and Kushner’s biased pro-Israeli “Deal of the Century” greenlights the subjugation of Palestinians and the illegal annexation of Palestinian-claimed land but they don’t want Washington involved in implementation or to set any guidelines on how quickly they can expand their reign of terror over Palestinians and their land.

The only reason why Israel is able to continue to override international law and make unilateral declarations of statehood and persist with its terror campaigns at the hands of its Jewish militias, all while ethnically cleansing and massacring countless Palestinians is because of its relationship with Washington and many nations around the world turning a blind eye. Due to a lack of defined borders and the absence of accountability, Israel plans to annex East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights of Syria, and soon swathes of land in the West Bank.

The bottom line is peace cannot be achieved without justice and the recognition of Palestinian human and political rights, solely by Israeli authorities and political figures. Mutual recognition, Palestinian freedom of movement and Palestinian right of return, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem are all part of the decades long conflict. A democratic state can only exist in historical Palestine if Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc. live in harmony with equal rights.

February 11, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Benjamin Netanyahu, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Canada celebrates agents of Palestinian misery

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Ambassador Deborah Lyons with Canadians fighting in IDF Yaakov Herman, Robbie Kohos and Ayala Rotenberg

By Yves Engler · February 10, 2020

Canada is celebrating the agents of Palestinian misery.

Last month the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv held an event to celebrate Canadians fighting in the Israeli military. They invited all 78 Canadians in the IDF to the ambassador’s residence to demonstrate their appreciation. Referring to non-Israelis who join the IDF, ambassador Deborah Lyons told the Jerusalem Post, “Canadian lone soldiers are a particularly special group … This is something we want to do on a yearly basis to show our support.” At the event Canada’s ambassador said, “we both share a love of Canada and a love of Israel. We at the embassy are very proud of what you’re doing.”

A top diplomat organizing an event to celebrate Canadians fighting for another country’s military ought to generate criticism. Doing so while that force humiliates Palestinians at checkpoints in the West Bank, fires on protesters in Gaza and bombs Syria in violation of international law is an outrage that must be condemned.

The government has legislation designed to deter Canadians from joining other countries’ militaries. The Foreign Enlistment Act is supposed to prohibit Canadians from recruiting for a foreign army. It notes, “any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offence.”

Similarly, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) restricts registered charities from supporting other countries militaries. CRA guidelines note, “increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s armed forces is charitable, but supporting the armed forces of another country is not.”

Despite these rules, ambassador Lyons celebrated Canadians fighting for the IDF. The event promoting the IDF was a nod to a network of Canadian organizations backing the Israeli military. In November 1100 people attended an Association for the Soldiers of Israel–Canada and Canadian Zionist Cultural Association event in Toronto. The Canadian Jewish News reported, “the evening featured heartfelt and captivating speeches from IDF commanders, as well as a performance by the IDF Ensemble.”

Two months ago, Herut Canada brought Israeli military reservists to a number of Ontario universities. At York their event sparked a high-profile confrontation.

A number of Jewish day schools promote the Israeli military. At Toronto’s Leo Baeck an Israeli emissary spends a year at the school and when they return, notes the Canadian Jewish News, “engages with students by way of live video chat from their Israel Defence Forces barracks dressed in their military uniforms.” Students also pay “tribute to Israel’s fallen heroes” and fundraise for Beit Halochem Canada/Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel, which supports injured IDF soldiers.

At the other end of the age spectrum a group of 80-something Torontonians gather regularly to make hand-knitted tuques for IDF soldiers. They are part of the Hats for Israeli Soldiers initiative. Another organization that supports the IDF is Israel Defence Forces Widows & Orphans-Canada. Sar-El offers more concrete support to the IDF. Some 150 Canadians volunteer on Israeli army supply bases each year with an organization founded by an IDF general.

For its part, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (Canada) has sponsored “fun activities” for “lone soldiers.” Established by billionaire power couple Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman, the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers also supports non-Israelis in the IDF.

At its Toronto office, the Friends of Israeli Scouts’ Garin Tzabar program provides Hebrew lessons and support services, as well as help with transport and accommodation in Israel, for Canadian “lone soldiers”. Nefesh B’Nefesh’s also helps non-Israelis join the IDF.

In November the Israeli consulate in Toronto announced a military recruiting effort. According to their announcement, “an IDF representative will conduct personal interviews at the Consulate on November 11-14. Young people who wish to enlist in the IDF or anyone who has not fulfilled their obligations according to the Israeli Defense Service Law are invited to meet with him.”

Sar-El, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, Israel Defence Forces Widows & Orphans-Canada and Association for the Soldiers of Israel–Canada (through the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association) offer tax receipts for donations. In January of last year the Beth Oloth Charitable Organization, which had $60 million in revenue in 2017, had its charitable status revoked for supporting the Israeli military. Not particularly well known, the organization appears to have been a conduit for donations to different Israeli charities.

In response to a formal complaint submitted by four Palestine solidarity activists and Independent Jewish Voices Canada in fall 2017, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) began an audit of the Jewish National Fund for contravening Canadian charitable law. The JNF financed multiple projects for the Israeli military in direct contravention of CRA rules for registered charities. Despite the JNF openly supporting the Israeli military, the audit of its operations has gone on for two years. The CRA is undoubtedly facing significant behind-the-scenes pressure to let the JNF off with little more than a slap on the wrist. In 2013 Justin Trudeau attended a JNF gala and other Liberal cabinet ministers participated in more recent events put on by an explicitly racist organization that Liberal MP Michael Leavitt once oversaw. Ambassador Lyons attended a JNF event in Jerusalem in 2016 and another one in October.

Canadian charitable guidelines and the Foreign Enlistment Act are designed to deter Canadians from supporting other countries’ militaries. Yet Canada’s ambassador in Israel is celebrating Canadians fighting in that military.

How many Canadians consider that appropriate?

February 11, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Canada, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Is Pete Buttigieg the Israel Lobby Choice?

Cyberwarfare began in Iowa

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • February 11, 2020

Many Americans might consider it decidedly odd that the recent impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump also featured constant vilification of President Vladimir Putin, to such an extent that one might have thought that the Russian leader was also in the dock awaiting sentencing. The irony is, of course, that while “Russian interference” has virtually become a cliché, its actual impact on the 2016 election outcome was less than negligible.

Russia was cited seemingly incessantly by House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, to include the always useful assertion that “if we don’t fight them over there [in Ukraine] we’ll have to fight them over here.” Even more ridiculous, Schiff suggested that if Trump were to lose the presidential election later this year, he might well refuse to accept the result and could be supported by an invading Russian army.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York delivered one of the more astonishing pre-impeachment vote diatribes, tying Trump to foreign interests. He said “No greater subversion of our democracy than for foreign powers to determine our elections… My fellow Americans, asking for foreign interference in our elections is a high crime. Our Nation was founded on the idea of truth.” Yet the same Schumer brazenly claims that he is the “protector” of Israel in the U.S. Senate, that his surname is derived from the Hebrew “shomer” which means “guardian.”

Strangely, the country that, acting directly and through proxies like Schumer, does regularly and openly interfere in American politics and elections is Israel, but it was not mentioned at all in the hours of testimony in spite of the fact that Trump’s partiality towards the Jewish state has done more actual damage to genuine U.S. interests than the Kremlin was ever able to do. One would have thought Israel and its kleptocratic leader Benjamin Netanyahu would have deserved at least a nod from Congress.

Indeed, Israel has been involved in American politics before, even if it is predictably never held accountable, and it has been suggested that Russiagate was really Israelgate based on what actually took place when shortly after the 2016 election, when Trump National Security Adviser designate Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The call was made at the direction of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, in turn, had been approached by Netanyahu, who not coincidentally is a family friend of the Kushners.

Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included the call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23^rd.

What exactly did Kushner seek from Flynn? He asked the soon-to-be National Security Adviser to get the Russians to undermine and subvert what was being done by the still-in-power American government in Washington headed by President Barack Obama. In legal terms this does not quite equate to the Constitution’s definition of treason since Israel is not technically an enemy, but it most certainly could be construed as covered by the “conspiracy against the United States” statute that Special Counsel Robert Mueller exploited in his investigations.

Currently, Israel may just turn out to be part of last week’s story of the astonishingly inept Democratic Party caucus in the state of Iowa. Award winning investigative journalist Max Blumenthal has provided the back story relating to the app that was developed to expedite Iowa’s voting but which instead delayed the reporting of the results for nearly a week. It now appears that the app might be part of an operation being funded by Jewish billionaires with close ties to right wing Israeli settler groups who are opposed to Senator Bernie Sanders and supporting Mayor Peter Buttigieg. The failed app that caused the problem was developed by a company called Shadow Inc., which was staffed by former Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters and funded by billionaire Seth Klarman, who also is a major contributor to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign and also has been linked to former and current senior members of the intelligence community. The Iowa Democratic Committee reported that the software that included the app was paid for by the Buttigieg campaign, “Pete for America Inc.”

Klarman is a deeply committed hard line Zionist. Blumenthal described in a separate article how “Klarman has been a top funder for major Israel lobby outfits, including those that support the expansion of illegal settlements and Islamophobic campaigns. Klarman was the principal financier of The Israel Project, the recently disbanded Israeli government-linked propaganda organization that lobbied against the Iran nuclear deal and backed the Israeli settlement enterprise. Klarman has heaped hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and the American Jewish Committee. And he funded The David Project, which was established to suppress Palestine solidarity organizing on college campuses across the U.S. and battled to block the establishment of a Muslim community center in Boston.”

Klarman also financially supports major Israeli lobbying and disinformation organizations to include AIPAC-founded Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the anti-Iranian neocon think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD. Blumenthal also reports that Klarman owns the Times of Israel, which once called for Palestinian genocide.

The delay in the Iowa results just might have been deliberate, possibly caused by the Shadow app. The New York Times review of the caucus results concluded that they were “riddled with errors and inconsistencies,” with tallies that are “internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses. In some cases, vote tallies do not add up. In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.”

Apart from possible fraud or even a hack, Senator Bernie Sanders, who appeared to be heading for a win, found that the inconclusive and even disputed result denied him momentum and a victory speech heading towards this week’s primary in New Hampshire. It also allowed Buttigieg to preemptively declare a predicted win on twitter even before any votes had been counted: “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious. #IowaCaucuses.” And it is possible that worse is to come as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) head Tom Perez is tweeting his intention to “recanvass,” which would mean a complete review of all work sheets and might even require new voting. It could conceivably cost Bernie a win. Sounds a bit like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?

It is, in fact, remarkable the extent to which Buttigieg has hardened his line supporting Israel. He has abandoned his commitment made last June that he would withhold aid from Israel if it were to seek to annex more of the West Bank, saying then that “If Prime Minister Netanyahu makes good on his threat to annex West Bank settlements, he should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill.”

Buttigieg also is on record as having said in October “I think that the aid is leverage to guide Israel in the right direction… that our policy goal will be to do what you do when a friend is moving in a way that you’re worried about, which is to put your arm around them and guide them somewhere better.”

Presidential aspirant Pete Buttigieg is not saying that any more. Mondoweiss reports an exchange he had in a speaking engagement in Iowa on January 29^th with IfNotNow organizer Elias Newman:

Newman: … recently I was happy to see that you said if annexation happens that you’ll make sure the U.S. doesn’t foot the bill. So, I wanted to know… now that annexation is happening in full force, are you ready to commit? Are you ready to commit, to make sure the U.S. doesn’t send a blank check to Israel?

Buttigieg: The U.S. cannot be promoting annexation, like it is under this president. By the way, I am not talking about withdrawing aid or withdrawing our support from Israel–

Newman: You’re not willing to make good on your commitment–

Buttigieg: Well, if you’re asking me to commit to withdrawing American support for Israel, the answer is no.

Newman: I asked you a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question…. are you committed ‘yes’ or ‘no’, to withdrawing aid for the occupation

Buttigieg: I stand by what I said about this.

Newman: What, just now or a couple months ago?

Buttigieg: So, if you’re asking me in light of the president’s proposal, I would withdraw aid from Israel? The answer is no.

In short, Buttigieg is a manufactured corporate candidate who is little more than an empty suit, having no core values whatsoever apart from seeking to become the first gay president. The Establishment is comfortable with him and he is good-looking, seemingly affable and articulate, though he suffers from an unpronounceable surname. He has now checked the box making him acceptable to the Israeli government and its powerful domestic lobby, which have always been suspicious of Trump even as he gives them gift after gift. Being Israel-friendly is also a must with the mainstream media.

But perhaps the more important question must be related to the actual extent of Buttigieg’s possible involvement in another DNC/Clinton inspired and Israel-supporter financed scheme to stop Bernie Sanders. There are indications that Zionist attack ads directed against Sanders have already been and will continue to be surfacing. No one is seemingly asking, for example, whether the Shadow Inc. app, which was vulnerable to hacking, might have actually been able to change the vote totals without leaving an electronic footprint? Or was it designed to fail, casting doubts on the caucus result, which would most hurt a surging Sanders? Someone should ask Pete if we “have seen the last of anything like the app that he and his apparent paymasters unleashed in Iowa to subvert the electoral process?” Stay tuned.

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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

February 10, 2020 Posted by aletho | Russophobia | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Exposed: The “Con of The Century” Will Not Bring Peace

State of Palestine, PLO Negotiations Affairs Department | February 9, 2020

Everything you need to know about Trump’s “apartheid” deal :

1. Does the plan, presented by U.S. President Trump, support an independent and sovereign State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, or a Greater Israel between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean?

The plan outrageously dismisses the right of Palestine to exist as an independent, sovereign, and contiguous State. By sponsoring the legalization of Israeli illegal settlements and dictating that none will be dismantled, the plan simply represents the annexation of territory, rendering a free Palestine impossible. Under this plan, Israel would retain its overriding security control over vast areas of occupied Palestine, including its capital East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. It suggests a fictional State of Palestine, whereby it substitutes territorial contiguity with “transportation contiguity” thus undermining the very viability of Palestinian statehood. This fictional state will be divided into a series of enclaves, scattered around like an archipelago to be connected by tunnels and bridges, allowing Israel to maintain security control over Palestinian terrestrial and maritime borders, airspace, and natural resources. As such, the plan cancels all possibilities for the State of Palestine to exercise any meaningful sovereignty and the very security of the state. On the other hand, the plan outlines total support for a Greater Israel between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean.

While fully serving the interests of the State of Israel alone, the plan constitutes a continuation of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and Israel’s Jewish-Nation State law of 2018. It aims to formalize the Greater Israel colonial project over the land of historic Palestine, which denies the national rights of the Palestinian people and only allows them to live in self-governing Bantustans with barely a handful of civil and religious rights. It relieves Israel of the burden of paying the cost of its occupation and assuming its responsibilities as an occupying power.

2. Does the plan constitute a “peace” plan or an “apartheid” plan?

By legalizing the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory to the Israeli state, and limiting Palestinians to dis-contiguous enclaves on their own land, the plan consolidates an already existing system where two sets of laws apply in the occupied Palestinian territory: one for Israeli settlers and another one for the occupied Palestinian people. While Israeli law is applicable to illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank of Palestine, Palestinians are subject to Israeli military laws and courts. Not only does the plan propose a Palestinian state with no sovereignty, but it spells out a one-state reality with two systems, whereby Palestinians continue to be denied the political, economic, cultural and social rights that are enjoyed by Israeli Jews. Indeed, with the number of Palestinians, in the State of Palestine and Palestinian citizens of Israel already surpassing the number of Israeli Jews in the land between the river Jordan and Mediterranean, Israel is one step away of becoming a full-fledged apartheid state. In all, this plan demands that the Palestinian leadership and people submit to total subjugation in Israel’s apartheid state.

3. Is the plan in line with the two-state solution on the 1967 border?

At the outset of this plan, its authors introduce the conflict as one between “the State of Israel and the Palestinians,” effectively destroying the two-state solution and deceptively erases the 1967 border, known as the Green Line. The defined borders of the internationally recognized State of Palestine by 139 nations worldwide in accordance with UN resolution 67/19 of 2012 are located within the 1967 borders, comprising the West Bank, including the capital East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Israel has not yet defined its borders. Not only does the map endorsed by President Trump eliminate the 1967 border, but it also recognizes Israel’s illegal facts on the ground and its de-facto ‘one state with two systems’. Unmistakably, the plan supports the realization of a Greater Israel that erodes the concept of the internationally endorsed two-state solution and replaces it with apartheid.

4. Does the plan respect international law and United Nations resolutions?

The plan brazenly violates international law and consensus, and all United Nations Resolutions concerning the question of Palestine. This includes resolutions endorsing the two-state solution, others considering Israeli settlements as illegal, resolutions recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of the State Palestine, and deeming any alterations to Jerusalem by Israel as null and void, and resolutions recognizing the rights of Palestine refugees to return and compensation. The plan normalizes (i) the colonization of Palestine, in violation of international law and UN resolutions (ii) annexation of occupied Palestinian territory, manifestly illegal under international law and deemed a crime of aggression under Rome Statute and (iii) apartheid, recognized as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.

Both the US and Israel are thus defying and threatening international law and order to replace them with a racist, hegemonic and exploitative new world order. As stated by Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967: “This plan would turn the rules-based international order on its head and would permanently entrench the tragic subjugation of the Palestinians that is already existing on the ground,”. He added that: “The abandonment of these legal principles threatens to unravel the long-standing international consensus on the conflict, favouring realpolitik over rights, power over justice and conflict management over conflict resolution.”

5. Which party is rejecting the internationally-endorsed references to achieve peace?

Based on international law and relevant UN resolutions, the Palestinian Peace Initiative of 1988 marked a historic and painful compromise by accepting Israel’s right to exist on 78 percent of the land of historic Palestine, with the State of Palestine on the remaining 22 percent, comprised of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Unlike Israel, which continues to create illegal facts on the ground and to violate both international law and signed agreements, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) continues to honor all its international obligations, including under signed agreements with Israel, and to seize every opportunity to achieve peace and the right of the people of Palestine to self-determination. During the past thirty-two years, the PLO has been genuinely engaged in the peace process that started with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and concluded with the last round of negotiations led by the former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014, which failed as a result of Israel’s continued use of negotiations as a smokescreen to violate Palestinian rights and international law.

On the other hand, since the signing of the Oslo Interim Agreement in 1993, Israel has been heavily engaged in a colonial process of settlement building on Palestinian territory, while continuing to violate nearly all Palestinian rights, at the expense of the peace process. Israel has been systematically destroying the very foundations of the peace process as it continues to appropriate Palestinian land and transfer of its own civilian population into the occupied Palestinian territory, in clear violation of international law.

According to the Israeli NGO Peace Now, until 1994, there was over 280,000 Jewish Israeli settlers living in occupied Palestine. In contrast, the current available statistics show that this number has almost tripled to more than 640,000 settlers living in over 200 settlements, including 42 in and around occupied Jerusalem. In fact, during the past decade alone, according to a recently published report by an Israeli settler organization, the number of Israeli settlers increased by 48 percent. In 2019 alone, there was an increase of 3.4%, which is more than double the rate of population growth in Israel proper that reached 1.9% at the beginning of 2020.

6. How does the plan prejudge core issues reserved for permanent status negotiations?

Through a series of unilateral decisions, and since its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017, the Trump administration has methodically been undermining the permanent status negotiations mainly concerning the core issues: borders, Jerusalem, and the question of Palestine refugees. A careful reading of the Trump plan shows how all its details embody the racist vision of the most ideologically extreme Israeli settlers, who have been gradually empowered since the assassination of the former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and in fact have been leading the State of Israel for over a decade now.

Overall, the plan denies Palestinians’ sovereign statehood, recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, violates the historic status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, by imposing time and location divisions inside the compound for different faiths, legalizes the annexation of all Israeli settlements, and categorically dismisses the rights of Palestine refugees. By allowing Israel to expand and perpetuate its colonial-settlement enterprise, the plan negates the Palestinian right to self-determination and proposes an alternative to the international terms of reference for negotiations between Israel and Palestine, all in violation of international law, UN resolutions, international consensus, and previously signed agreements. Engaging with this plan means a legitimization of Israel’s acquisition of territory by force and a perpetuation of its superiority and domination over the land and lives of the people of Palestine. In other words, it legitimizes “might over right.”

7. Can the economic part of the plan be a substitute or an alternative to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace?

The State of Palestine has the right to exercise its sovereignty with independent financial and monetary plans, control over its imports and export policies, as well as with access to its borders and natural resources, including water, minerals, natural gas, and oil resources. It is only through a just and lasting peace that Palestine can ensure the independence, prosperity, and sustainability of its economy, beginning with an end to Israel’s occupation and the fulfillment of Palestinian statehood and inalienable rights. According to various economic studies, Palestine has great economic potential and the number one obstacle to achieving that potential is the Israeli occupation. For example, in 2013, a World Bank report estimated that if Israeli restrictions on Area C of the West Bank were lifted it “could bring about significant expansion of many sectors of the Palestinian economy,” which will be able to generate $2.2 billion a year in value added terms. According to the report: “The bulk of this would come from agriculture and Dead Sea minerals exploitation.” The Dead Sea, a strategic area for Palestine, is promised to Israel in the Trump plan.

In all, the economic portion of the plan is a failed attempt to cover up for the prolongation of Israel’s belligerent occupation and the theft of Palestinian land and resources.

8. What is the position of the State of Palestine?

The State of Palestine considers the U.S. apartheid plan as blatant aggression against the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine, which were endorsed by the United Nations to enable our nation to exercise its right to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and the right of our refugees to return. The plan undermines international law and the role United Nations, and hence constitutes a direct threat to the people of Palestine and their just cause, and on the entire international rules-based system as we know it. It considers all Israeli settlements as legal, including those in East Jerusalem – Palestine’s internationally recognized capital, which is comprised of the Old City and the surrounding area of 6 km².

The State of Palestine has endorsed all relevant UN resolutions and international law as the basis of any solution towards the achievement of peace. It considers the Arab Peace Initiative (API) as the foundation formula that can achieve the diplomatic and economic integration of Israel into the region in exchange for ending its occupation of all Arab territories, including the Lebanese Shebaa Farms, Arab Syrian Golan and the occupied State of Palestine, as well as achieving a just and agreed-upon solution to the question of Palestine refugees.

9. What are the positions of the international community and the Arab world?

While a number of countries “welcomed” the U.S announcement, none have endorsed the plan. But the majority of the responses were positive in insisting on the importance of the two-state solution, international law, and relevant UN resolutions as the way forward to achieve peace. This includes the European Union, through a statement issued by the High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell, which affirmed the EU’s position that “does not recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied since 1967”, and considered that “Steps towards annexation, if implemented, could not pass unchallenged.” Also, the Arab League decided “to reject the American – Israeli ‘Deal of the Century’, which does not meet the minimum of the Palestinian people’s aspirations and rights, and violates all of the references of the peace process that are based on international law and the pertinent international resolutions.” Additionally, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) reaffirmed “its rejection of any plan, deal, or initiative submitted by any party whatsoever, which is inconsistent with the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in agreed international legitimacy resolutions, or not in conformity with internationally recognized terms of reference of the Middle East peace process, foremost of which is international law, UN resolutions, and the Arab Peace Initiative.”

10. What is the way forward to achieve peace?

Our vision to achieve peace is fundamentally based on the end of Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine. An independent and viable State of Palestine can only be based on complete sovereignty over our territory and our resources; control over our borders, airspace, and maritime boundaries; and, most importantly, self-determination: the ability to freely determine the shape of our political, civil, economic, cultural and social lives. Henceforth, the way forward should be in line with international law, and the system of justice and accountability that the international legal order is designed to preserve. Any plan that flouts international law and United Nations resolutions, and instead legitimizes illegal land theft and annexation is no peace plan at all. This is why, the recent Palestinian Peace Initiative of 2018, as proposed by President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations Security Council, can achieve such an objective.

The Palestinian Peace Initiative calls for the implementation of the principle of the two-state solution on the 1967 borders. While proposing the convening of an international peace conference that is firmly based on international law, the plan specifies that unilateral actions that may undermine final status negotiations should not be taken. The overall vision of this plan is clear: it is based on the respect of international legitimacy and relevant UN resolutions, including with the fulfillment of a just and agreed-upon solution for Palestine refugees based on UN resolution 194 that stipulates their right to return to their homes and to just compensation. The plan calls for “East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine and an open city for the faithful of the three monotheistic religions.” It as well demands ensuring the security of both Palestine and Israel “without undermining the independence and sovereignty of either of them.” Ultimately, our vision for peace requires justice and an ability to exercise our rights freely in our homeland. We remain confident that with the support of peace-loving nations that seek to preserve the threatened international order, we will succeed in our pursuit of this just and long-lasting peace.

February 10, 2020 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israel hands Sheikh Raed Salah 28-month jail term

MEMO | February 10, 2020

An Israeli court today sentenced Palestinian resistance icon Sheikh Raed Salah to 28 months in prison, stoking strong condemnation of the country’s legal system and the suppression of free speech.

Salah received a 28-month prison sentence from the Haifa Magistrate’s Court for remarks he had made at a funeral in 2017. The 61-year-old has already served 11 months in detention as part of his sentence and is therefore expected to remain in prison for 17 months.

Israeli police arrested Salah nearly three years ago, accusing the former mayor of Umm Al-Fahm of praising three Arab Israelis who shot dead two police officers in a July 2017 attack. In November, he was convicted of “incitement” and engaging in “anti-Israel activities” for remarks he had made during the funeral of the three assailants.

According to the indictment, Salah praised the attackers saying: “At these moments [we need to stand together] as one house, as one family. We take leave of our martyrs … and express the wish that they join the prophets, the righteous ones and the martyrs. At these moments, may we pray that God increases their value in the heavens in paradise.”

In his defence Salah argued that his views were religious opinions rooted in the Quran, and did not constitute a direct call to violence. Salah’s lawyer also explained that the remarks were made within the context of a religious sermon and urged Israel “to not prosecute him for his faith and beliefs”.

Haifa Magistrate’s Court Judge Shlomo Benjo conceded that some of Salah’s remarks at the funeral had been mistranslated but still ruled that the translation errors did not alter the general meaning of his comments.

“Despite the attempts to give the defendant’s statements a religious character, the conclusion is that the accused expressed praise, sympathy and support for the attacks,” the judge said in delivering his verdict.

Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen criticised the decision by pointing to the normalisation of incitement to hate and violence in Israeli society.

“In a country where the prime minister, senior ministers and main religious figures incite against the Arab public and its leaders from morning till night, Raed Salah’s conviction marks another step in the political persecution of the Arab,” Jabareen wrote on Twitter. He explained that the verdict marked “a dangerous erosion of freedom of expression for the leadership and delegitimisation of political and religious activity”.

Muhammad Baraka, the head of the Higher Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, also dismissed the verdict. The “ruling was prepared in advance, and was based on racist foundations and incitement against Arabs,” Baraka was quoted as saying in a Turkish news source.

In an interview, Salah’s lawyer, Khaled Zabarqa, said that Israel’s endless efforts to silence the Palestinian leader was intended to pave the way for the controversial peace plan known as the “deal of the century”.

According to Zabarqa, Israel has been planning for the past two years to ban any appearance by Sheikh Salah due to his ability to mobilise Palestinians to reject any Israeli plan intending to terminate Palestinian rights in Jerusalem.

February 10, 2020 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Kissing International Law Goodbye to Satisfy Israeli Greed

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | February 10, 2020

Palestinian chiefs say that Trump’s so-called peace plan contains 300 violations of international law and they will take it up with the Security Council. That’s nearly two violations per page. Given the document was put together by America and Israel, both lawless and criminal to the core, no-one is surprised. It is a brazen expression of criminal intent from start to finish.

In the UK our new Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, has shot to prominence. We’re told he spent the summer of 1998 at Birzeit University (in Palestine’s West Bank) working for one of the PLO’s chief negotiators on the Oslo peace accords. That doomed-to-fail initiative began in 1993 and created a form of interim governance and the framework for a final treaty by the end of 1998. So Mr Raab was there at a time when the two sides had been faffing about for 5 years achieving nothing.

In October 1998 the US, desperate to keep the charade going, convened a summit at Maryland’s Wye River Plantation at which Clinton with Yasser Arafat, Benjamin Netanyahu, and senior negotiators produced the Wye River Memorandum. Not that this did much good either. But Raab must have learned a lot about Israeli perversity and intransigence, not to mention America’s shortcomings as an honest broker.

Before entering Parliament Raab joined the Foreign Office and worked at the The Hague bringing war criminals to justice, then became an adviser on the Arab-Israeli conflict. But you wouldn’t think so when looking at his latest performances.

As reported in Jewish News Raab welcomed Trump’s so-called peace plan calling it “a serious proposal, reflecting extensive time and effort. A peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that leads to peaceful coexistence could unlock the potential of the entire region, and provide both sides with the opportunity for a brighter future. Only the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories can determine whether these proposals can meet the needs and aspirations of the people they represent.

“We encourage them to give these plans genuine and fair consideration, and explore whether they might prove a first step on the road back to negotiations.”

His boss Boris Johnson said of it: “No peace plan is perfect, but this has the merit of a two-state solution. It is a two-state solution. It would ensure that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and of the Palestinian people.” A fatuous remark if ever there was one because (a) he clearly hadn’t read it carefully, (b) the Palestinians weren’t consulted, and (c) as Jewish News stated, a Palestinian capital would be established on the outskirts of East Jerusalem while most of Jerusalem, including the sublime and ancient walled city (which is officially Palestinian), would remain under Israeli control. That is perhaps the cruellest part of the Zionist swindle.

UK Government a ‘Force for Good’?

In the Global Britain debate on 3 February Raab pompously declared that “the third pillar of our global Britain will be the UK as an even stronger force for good in the world. Our guiding lights will remain the values of democracy, human rights and the international rule of law”.

But Alistair Carmichael (LibDem) pricked Raab’s pretty balloon, asking: “If the concept of a global Britain is to have any meaning and value, surely it must have respect for human rights and an international rules-based order at its heart. With that in mind, will the Foreign Secretary reconsider the unqualified support he gave to President Trump last week in respect of the so-called peace plan for Palestine? Will the right hon. Gentleman repudiate the proposed annexation of the West Bank and at long last support the recognition of a Palestinian state?”

Raab replied: “I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that I do not think he has read the detail of this. Whatever else he may disagree with, the one thing that the plan put forward by the US included was a recognition of and commitment to a two-state solution. We have been absolutely clear that that is the only way in which the conflict can be resolved…. Rather than just rejecting the plan, it is important that we try to bring the parties together around the negotiating table. That is the only path to peace and to a two-state solution.”

I’d have expected Raab, by now, to be extremely sceptical of any two-state solution given the many irreversible facts on the ground that Israel has been allowed to create with impunity. And he would know better than most how many times the sides have come to the table for grotesquely lopsided negotiations and how the Israelis never honour the agreements they make.

Raab won the Clive Parry Prize for International Law while at Cambridge. So if he’s so wedded to the values of democracy, human rights and the international rule of law, why are these vital ingredients missing from his recipe for peace? It must be obvious to everyone – except Government ministers – that you cannot achieve peace without justice. And justice in the form of UN resolutions and international and humanitarian law has already spoken several times. It waits… and waits… and waits… to be implemented.

Then we had Dr Andrew Murrison, Minister of State for International Development & the Middle East, in answer to a written question: “We have made clear our deep concern about the suggestion that any parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories should be annexed…. Any declaration of a unilateral border change undermines the rules-based international order and the UN Charter. The UK calls on all parties to refrain from actions in contravention of international law that would imperil the viability of a two-state solution, based on the 1967 lines, and make it harder to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

Dr Murrison can’t have been paying attention. Illegal border changes departing from 1947 Partition lines and 1967 lines, annexations and other actions in contempt of international law and the UN Charter have been going on for 70 years simply because none of those pillars of modern civilisation have been enforced where Israel’s concerned. Rules-based international order has been constantly undermined and is now non-existent in the Holy Land.

The question is, what does the UK Government, which is largely responsible for this sorry state of affairs, plan to do about it besides mouthing the usual limp-wristed idiocy? Is the Johnson administration happy, in George Orwell’s words, for the US-UK-Israeli boot to stamp on the human face of the Palestinians for ever?

BDS targeted

And as if the Holy Land fiasco wasn’t enough we must put up with crass ministerial utterances on the home front. Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities & Local Government, c omplains that only 136 of the 343 local authorities in England have agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism and insists that all universities and local councils “must adopt” it. If they don’t, and they fail to tackle anti-Semitism, they can expect to lose public funding.

According to the Jewish Chronicle he vowed to take action against universities and “parts of local government” who have become “corrupted” by anti-Semitism. Writing in the Sunday Express, he added: “I will use my position as Secretary of State to write to all universities and local authorities to insist that they adopt the IHRA definition at the earliest opportunity. I expect them to confirm to me when they do so.”

Jenrick qualified as a lawyer so should respect warnings by top legal opinion (for example Hugh Tomlinson QC, Sir Stephen Sedley and Geoffrey Robertson QC) that the IHRA definition is “most unsatisfactory”, has no legal force, and using it to punish could be unlawful. It also undermines Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the UK’s own Human Rights Act 1998.

But Jenrick seems to have aligned himself with sinister moves by Johnson aimed at protecting Israel from the consequences of its countless breaches of international law and crimes against the Palestinians by banning public bodies from imposing their own boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions (BDS). What could any decent administration possibly fear from BDS? It is simply a peaceful response to Israel’s thuggery. It urges non-violent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law by meeting three perfectly reasonable demands:

Ending its unlawful occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall (international law recognises the West Bank including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel).
Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

So how is Boris Johnson proposing to block BDS? Briefing notes accompanying the Queen’s Speech to Parliament, which set out his Government’s programme, said:

We will stop public institutions from imposing their own approach or views about international relations, through preventing boycotts, divestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries and those who trade with them.
This will create a coherent approach to foreign relations from all public institutions, by ensuring that they do not go beyond the UK Government’s settled policy towards a foreign country. The UK Government is responsible for foreign relations and determining the best way to interact with its international neighbours.

The ban will apply to institutions across the public sector, not just councils, and will cover purchasing, procurement and investment decisions.

Johnson and his underlings just don’t get it. BDS is a legitimate, peaceful way of opposing the Israel’s illegal occupation. Put simply, as long as the Occupation is business as usual for Israel, there should be no business with Israel. Furthermore the foreign policies of successive UK governments have not met with the approval of the British people, and never will with US-Israel pimps dictating at Westminster.

If the Government’s “settled policy” towards Israel was consistent with international law and human rights conventions – as it should be – there’d be no need for BDS campaigns because the UK would already be applying sanctions. Furthermore the Conservatives’ election manifesto pledged to “ensure that no one is put off from engaging in politics…. by threats, harassment or abuse, whether in person or online.” They also promised to champion the rule of law, human rights, free trade, anti-corruption efforts and a rules-based international system – all of which Israel refuses to comply with.

Yet, only last month Jenrick announced to a Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary reception that he would “look forward to the day” when Britain’s embassy in Israel will be “moved to Jerusalem.” And he told the Board of Deputies of British Jews he would not tolerate local authority approved BDS campaigns in the UK. “Local authorities should not be wasting time and taxpayer’s money by dabbling in foreign policy or pursuing anti-Israel political obsessions.”

By the same token one might ask why the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is wasting time and taxpayers’ money dabbling in foreign policy and advocating on behalf of a foreign military power? It’s not in his job spec.

Jenrick has an Israeli-born wife and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. Before he tries ordering local authorities what to think and do he should have the courtesy to declare these interests. According to the Guardian he’s an MP who is “on the up.” Heaven help us.

Johnson is expected to hold a Cabinet reshuffle this week. His administration is already top-heavy with Zionists and, as 80 percent of Conservative MPs are reportedly signed-up Friends of Israel, there’s no shortage of compliant stooge material to fill even more top posts.

February 10, 2020 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK | Leave a comment

Is the UK a rogue state? 17 British policies violating domestic or international law

By Mark Curtis • Declassified UK • February 7, 2020

UK governments routinely claim to uphold national and international law. But the reality of British policies is quite different, especially when it comes to foreign policy and so-called ‘national security’. This explainer summarises 17 long-running government policies which violate UK domestic or international law.

British foreign secretary Dominic Raab recently described the “rule of international law” as one of the “guiding lights” of UK foreign policy. By contrast, the government regularly chides states it opposes, such as Russia or Iran, as violators of international law. These governments are often consequently termed “rogue states” in the mainstream media, the supposed antithesis of how “we” operate.

The following list of 17 policies may not be exhaustive, but it suggests that the term “rogue state” is not sensationalist or misplaced when it comes to describing Britain’s own foreign and “security” policies.

These serial violations suggest that parliamentary and public oversight over executive policy-making in the UK is not fit for purpose and that new mechanisms are needed to restrain the excesses of the British state.

The Royal Air Force’s drone war

Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) operates a drone programme in support of the US involving a fleet of British “Reaper” drones operating since 2007. They have been used by the UK to strike targets in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

Four RAF bases in the UK support the US drone war. The joint UK and US spy base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, northern England, facilitates US drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. US drone strikes, involving an assassination programme begun by president Barack Obama, are widely regarded as illegal under international law, breaching fundamental human rights. Up to 1,700 civilian adults and children have been killed in so-called “targeted killings”.

Amnesty International notes that British backing is “absolutely crucial to the US lethal drones programme, providing support for various US surveillance programmes, vital intelligence exchanges and in some cases direct involvement from UK personnel in identifying and tracking targets for US lethal operations, including drone strikes that may have been unlawful”.

Chagos Islands

Britain has violated international law in the case of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean since it expelled the inhabitants in the 1960s to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island.

Harold Wilson’s Labour government separated the islands from then British colony Mauritius in 1965 in breach of a UN resolution banning the breakup of colonies before independence. London then formed a new colonial entity, the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is now an Overseas Territory.

In 2015, a UN Tribunal ruled that the UK’s proposed “marine protected area” around the islands — shown by Wikileaks publications to be a ruse to keep the islanders from returning — was unlawful since it undermined the rights of Mauritius.

Then in February 2019, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in an advisory opinion that Britain must end its administration of the Chagos islands “as rapidly as possible”. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in May 2019 welcoming the ICJ ruling and “demanding that the United Kingdom unconditionally withdraw its colonial administration from the area within six months”. The UK government has rejected the calls.

Defying the UN over the Falklands

The UN’s 24-country Special Committee on Decolonisation — its principal body addressing issues concerning decolonisation — has repeatedly called on the UK government to negotiate a resolution to the dispute over the status of the Falklands. In its latest call, in June 2019, the committee approved a draft resolution “reiterating that the only way to end the special and particular colonial situation of the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) is through a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom”.

The British government consistently rejects these demands. Last year, it stated:

“The Decolonisation Committee no longer has a relevant role to play with respect to British Overseas Territories. They all have a large measure of self government, have chosen to retain their links with the UK, and therefore should have been delisted a long time ago.”

In 2016, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf issued a report finding that the Falkland Islands are located in Argentina’s territorial waters.

Israel and settlement goods

Although Britain regularly condemns Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, in line with international law, it permits trade in goods produced on those settlements. It also does not keep a record of imports that come from the settlements — which include wine, olive oil and dates — into the UK.

UN Security Council resolutions require all states to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”. The UK is failing to do this.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza

Israel’s blockade of Gaza, imposed in 2007 following the territory’s takeover by Hamas, is widely regarded as illegal. Senior UN officials, a UN independent panel of experts, and Amnesty International all agree that the infliction of “collective punishment” on the population of Gaza contravenes international human rights and humanitarian law.

Gaza has about 1.8 million inhabitants who remain “locked in” and denied free access to the remainder of putative Palestine (the West Bank) and the outside world. It has poverty and unemployment rates that reached nearly 75% in 2019.

Through its naval blockade, the Israeli navy restricts Palestinians’ fishing rights, fires on local fishermen and has intercepted ships delivering humanitarian aid. Britain, and all states, have an obligation “to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law” in Gaza.

However, instead of doing so, the UK regularly collaborates with the navy enforcing the blockade. In August 2019, Britain’s Royal Navy took part in the largest international naval exercise ever held by Israel, off the country’s Mediterranean shore. In November 2016 and December 2017, British warships conducted military exercises with their Israeli allies.

Exports of surveillance equipment

Declassified revealed that the UK recently exported telecommunications interception equipment or software to 13 countries, including authoritarian regimes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Oman. Such technology can enable security forces to monitor the private activities of groups or individuals and crack down on political opponents.

The UAE has been involved in programmes monitoring domestic activists using spyware. In 2017 and 2018, British exporters were given four licences to export telecommunications interception equipment, components or software to the UAE.

UK arms export guidelines state that the government will “not grant a licence if there is a clear risk that the items might be used for internal repression”. Reports by Amnesty International document human rights abuses in the cases of UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman, suggesting that British approval of such exports to these countries is prima facie unlawful.

Arms exports to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has been accused by the UN and others of violating international humanitarian law and committing war crimes in its war in Yemen, which began in March 2015. The UK has licensed nearly £5-billion worth of arms to the Saudi regime during this time. In addition, the RAF is helping to maintain Saudi warplanes at key operating bases and stores and issues bombs for use in Yemen.

Following legal action brought by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the UK Court of Appeal ruled in June 2019 that ministers had illegally signed off on arms exports without properly assessing the risk to civilians. The court ruled that the government must reconsider the export licences in accordance with the correct legal approach.

The ruling followed a report by a cross-party House of Lords committee, published earlier in 2019, which concluded that Britain is breaking international law by selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and should suspend some export licences immediately.

Julian Assange’s arbitrary detention and torture

In the case of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange — currently held in Belmarsh maximum-security prison in London — the UK is defying repeated opinions of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) and the UN special rapporteur on torture.

The latter, Nils Melzer, has called on the UK government to release Assange on the grounds that officials are contributing to his psychological torture and ill treatment. Melzer has also called for UK officials to be investigated for possible “criminal conduct” as government policy “severely undermines the credibility of [its] commitment to the prohibition of torture… as well as to the rule of law more generally”.

The WGAD — the supreme international body scrutinising this issue — has repeatedly demanded that the UK government end Assange’s “arbitrary detention”. Although the UN states that WGAD determinations are legally binding, its calls have been consistently rejected by the UK government.

Covert wars

Covert military operations to subvert foreign governments, such as Britain’s years-long operation in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime, are unlawful. As a House of Commons briefing notes, “forcible assistance to opposition forces is illegal”.

A precedent was set in the Nicaragua case in the 1980s, when US-backed covert forces (the “Contras”) sought to overthrow the Sandinista government. The International Court of Justice held that a third state may not forcibly help the opposition to overthrow a government since it breached the principles of non-intervention and prohibition on the use of force.

As Declassified has shown, the UK is currently engaged in seven covert wars, including in Syria, with minimal parliamentary oversight. Government policy is “not to comment” on the activities of its special forces “because of the security implications”. The public’s ability to scrutinise policy is also restricted since the UK’s Freedom of Information Act applies an “absolute exemption” to special forces. This is not the case for allied powers such as the US and Canada.

Torture and the refusal to hold an inquiry

In 2018 a report by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee found that the UK had been complicit in cases of torture and other ill treatment of detainees in the so-called “war on terror”. The inquiry examined the participation of MI6 (the secret intelligence service), MI5 (the domestic security service) and Ministry of Defence (MOD) personnel in interrogating detainees held primarily by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay during 2001-10.

The report found that there were 232 cases where UK personnel supplied questions or intelligence to foreign intelligence agents after they knew or suspected that a detainee was being mistreated. It also found 198 cases where UK personnel received intelligence from foreign agents obtained from detainees whom they knew or suspected to have been mistreated.

In one case, MI6 “sought and obtained authorisation from the foreign secretary” (then Jack Straw, in Tony Blair’s government) for the costs of funding a plane which was involved in rendering a suspect.

After the report was published, the government announced it was refusing to hold a judge-led, independent inquiry into the UK’s role in rendition and torture as it had previously promised to do. In 2019, human rights group Reprieve, together with Conservative and Labour MPs, instigated a legal challenge to the government over this refusal–which the High Court has agreed to hear.

The UN special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, has formally warned the UK that its refusal to launch a judicial inquiry into torture and rendition breaches international law, specifically the UN Convention Against Torture. He has written a private “intervention” letter to the UK foreign secretary stating that the government has “a legal obligation to investigate and to prosecute”.

Melzer accuses the government of engaging in a “conscious policy” of co-operating with torture since 9/11, saying it is “impossible” the practice was not approved or at least tolerated by top officials.

UK’s secret torture policy

The MOD was revealed in 2019 to be operating a secret policy allowing ministers to approve actions which could lead to the torture of detainees. The policy, contained in an internal MOD document dated November 2018, allows ministers to approve passing information to allies even if there is a risk of torture, if “the potential benefits justify accepting the risk and legal consequences”.

This policy also provides for ministers to approve lists of individuals about whom information may be shared despite a serious risk they could face mistreatment. One leading lawyer has said that domestic and international legislation on the prohibition of torture is clear and that the MOD policy supports breaking of the law by ministers.

Amnesty for crimes committed by soldiers

There is a long history of British soldiers committing crimes during wars. In 2019 the government outlined plans to grant immunity for offences by soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland that were committed more than 10 years before.

These plans have been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture, which has called on the government to “refrain from enacting legislation that would grant amnesty or pardon where torture is concerned. It should also ensure that all victims of such torture and ill-treatment obtain redress”.

The committee has specifically urged the UK to “establish responsibility and ensure accountability for any torture and ill-treatment committed by UK personnel in Iraq from 2003 to 2009, specifically by establishing a single, independent, public inquiry to investigate allegations of such conduct.”

The government’s proposals are also likely to breach UK obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, which obliges states to investigate breaches of the right to life or the prohibition on torture.

GCHQ’s mass surveillance

Files revealed by US whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 show that the UK intelligence agency GCHQ had been secretly intercepting, processing and storing data concerning millions of people’s private communications, including people of no intelligence interest — in a programme named Tempora. Snowden also revealed that the British government was accessing personal communications and data collected by the US National Security Agency and other countries’ intelligence agencies.

All of this was taking place without public consent or awareness, with no basis in law and with no proper safeguards. Since these revelations, there has been a long-running legal battle over the UK’s unlawful use of these previously secret surveillance powers.

In September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that UK laws enabling mass surveillance were unlawful, violating rights to privacy and freedom of expression. The court observed that the UK’s regime for authorising bulk interception was incapable of keeping “interference” to what is “necessary in a democratic society”.

The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal, the body which considers complaints against the security services, also found that UK intelligence agencies had unlawfully spied on the communications of Amnesty International and the Legal Resources Centre in South Africa.

In 2014, revelations also confirmed that GCHQ had been granted authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged lawyer-client communications, and that MI5 and MI6 adopted similar policies. The guidelines appeared to permit surveillance of journalists and others deemed to work in “sensitive professions” handling confidential information.

MI5 personal data

In 2019, MI5 was found to have for years unlawfully retained innocent British people’s online location data, calls, messages and web browsing history without proper protections, according to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office which upholds British privacy protections. MI5 had also failed to give senior judges accurate information about repeated breaches of its duty to delete bulk surveillance data, and was criticised for mishandling sensitive legally privileged material.

The commissioner concluded that the way MI5 was holding and handling people’s data was “undoubtedly unlawful”. Warrants for MI5’s bulk surveillance were issued by senior judges on the understanding that the agency’s legal data handling obligations were being met — when they were not.

“MI5 have been holding on to people’s data—ordinary people’s data, your data, my data — illegally for many years,” said Megan Goulding, a lawyer for rights organisation Liberty, which brought the case. “Not only that, they’ve been trying to keep their really serious errors secret — secret from the security services watchdog, who’s supposed to know about them, secret from the Home Office, secret from the prime minister and secret from the public.”

Intelligence agencies committing criminal offences

MI5 has been operating under a secret policy that allows its agents to commit serious crimes during counter-terrorism operations in the UK, according to lawyers for human rights organisations brin

ging a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal.

The policy, referred to as the “third direction”, allows MI5 officers to permit the people they have recruited as agents to commit crimes in order to secure access to information that could be used to prevent other offences being committed. The crimes potentially include murder, kidnap and torture and have operated for decades. MI5 officers are, meanwhile, immune from prosecution.

A lawyer for the human rights organisations argues that the issues raised by the case are “not hypothetical”, submitting that “in the past, authorisation of agent participation in criminality appears to have led to grave breaches of fundamental rights”. He points to the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, an attack carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, including some agents working for the British state.

The ‘James Bond clause’

British intelligence officers can be authorised to commit crimes outside the UK. Section 7 of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act vacates UK criminal and civil law as long as a senior government minister has signed a written authorisation that committing a criminal act overseas is permissible. This is sometimes known as the “James Bond clause”.

British spies were reportedly given authority to break the law overseas on 13 occasions in 2014 under this clause. GCHQ was given five authorisations “removing liability for activities including those associated with certain types of intelligence gathering and interference with computers, mobile phones and other types of electronic equipment”. MI6, meanwhile, was given eight such authorisations in 2014.

Underage soldiers

Britain is the only country in Europe and Nato to allow direct enlistment into the army at the age of 16. One in four UK army recruits is now under the age of 18. According to the editors of the British Medical Journal, “there is no justification for this state policy, which is harmful to teen health and should be stopped”. Child recruits are more likely than adult recruits to end up in frontline combat, they add.

It was revealed in 2019 that the UK continued to send child soldiers to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan despite pledging to end the practice. The UK says it does not send under-18s to warzones, as required by the UN Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, known as the “child soldiers treaty”.

The UK, however, deployed five 17-year-olds to Iraq or Afghanistan between 2007 and 2010: it claims to have done so mistakenly. Previous to this, a minister admitted that teenagers had also erroneously been sent into battle between 2003 and 2005, insisting it would not happen again.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern at the UK’s recruitment policy in 2008 and 2016, and recommended that the government “raise the minimum age for recruitment into the armed forces to 18 years in order to promote the protection of children through an overall higher legal standard”. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, the children’s commissioners for the four jurisdictions of the UK, along with children’s rights organisations, all support this call. DM

Mark Curtis is editor of Declassified UK and tweets at @markcurtis30

February 9, 2020 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | GCHQ, Israel, MI6, Middle East, Pakistan, Palestine, RAF, Somalia, UK, Yemen | Leave a comment

The US bought Sisi for $9bn, but the Egyptian people cannot be swayed

By Amelia Smith | MEMO | February 9, 2020

When Trump announced Jerusalem was Israel’s undivided capital under his so-called “deal of the century”, the Egyptian public questioned whether Al-Sisi had a hand in preparing the plan. His support, after all, came just half an hour after the announcement.

Officially, Egypt supports the establishment of a Palestinian state on its pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. According to Mada Masr, Al-Sisi’s statement originally included a sentence to that effect, but in a later draft it was removed, after it had passed through the president’s office for review.

Since he came to power, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s rule has been decidedly anti-Palestinian. When Egypt’s military overthrew Mohamed Morsi on 3 July 2013, one of the first things the generals did was close the Rafah Crossing and deport Palestinians arriving in the country through Cairo Airport.

But in some respects the Egyptian dictator has tried to maintain nominal respect for the Egyptian position. In 2017, it was Egypt which filed a draft resolution rescinding Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem was Israel’s capital amid the global outrage that followed his announcement.

The price for Egypt’s new position was $9 billion, the amount promised at the economic workshop for the deal of the century in Bahrain last summer. It’s a big chunk of money for Egypt, given the dire straits it has found itself in under Al-Sisi’s mismanagement of the economy, and should provide some generous bonuses for the ruling generals, who we know through the whistleblower Mohamed Ali are getting rich through corruption and at the expense of their own people.

For its part, Israel has achieved political and economic gains it never imagined could be possible. This has been described as the golden age of Israeli-Egyptian relations symbolised by the transfer of Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi Arabia, which opened up the Straits of Tiran to Israel, and compounded by security cooperation between the Egyptian and Israeli army in Sinai.

As Yehya Okail, a former MP in Sinai, once told me:

Hosni Mubarak was a treasure to Israel, however Sisi is much more than that. Israel never imagined that it would be served by anyone in the history of Egypt as Sisi has done.

Trump’s plan proposes “cross-border services” including building desalination and power plants next to the Egypt-Gaza frontier. Observers have long talked about the US’ plans to build infrastructure projects in the Sinai Peninsula where Palestinians can work.

As Al-Sisi laid the groundwork for these projects, Sinai’s indigenous population, the Bedouin, have felt the plans acutely. The government has razed homes and obliterated fertile farmland, offering Sinawis no compensation for their loss. All of this has taken place under a protracted “war on terror” in Sinai authorities have been fighting for years now. As well as being accused of systematic war crimes, the army is no closer to defeating the estimated 1,000 militants there.

With Trump’s announcement, Egypt has another excuse to ramp up security in Sinai, which is already suffocating under a curfew and restrictions on goods entering the peninsula. No one knows better than the people of Sinai that increased security in the peninsula is a pretext for increased repression. At the beginning of the week, Egypt arrested 32 women from a prominent North Sinai tribe.

Reports reveal high level military and intelligence leaders have demanded security forces be on high alert in anticipation of events in Gaza, including the claim that Palestinians will storm the border and make their way deep into Egyptian territory. With this, Egypt has flipped the narrative on its head to persuade the public it is Palestinians that want to flood Sinai, not that it is preparing to give its own land up at the behest of Israel and the US.

It’s not just in Sinai that people will feel the reverberations of Trump’s deal. Dual Palestinian-Egyptian national Ramy Shaath, the general coordinator of BDS Egypt who was imprisoned for speaking out about Egypt’s participation in the Bahrain workshop, and his colleague Mohamed El-Massry, are both imprisoned as part of the regime’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian solidarity. Their sentences and conditions could be negatively affected by the announcement and its aftermath.

Whilst the Egyptian regime has made a significant shift in its official position, in the long-term convincing its people isn’t so easy, as is evident from the public outcry in January, not just over the government’s official response to the deal of the century, but also because last month was when Israel began transporting natural gas to Egypt under a $15 billion deal.

In an attempt to change hearts and minds, Egypt intelligence sent round a WhatsApp to top media editors with instructions on how to report on the announcement. It asked them to refer to the US proposal as a “peace plan”, rather than the more negatively-viewed deal of the century, it said was viewed as an American-driven project to secure Israel’s interests. Editors were told not to address or focus on religious or national elements of the plan or to ask Al-Azhar for its view on the matter. It also asked journalists to emphasise the historical and pivotal role of Egypt on the Palestinian issue.

Attempts to control the narrative are widespread. One source in Sinai told me that two people were arrested in Arish around Christmas over Facebook posts about Israel, another researcher said that only high-ranking officers in the Egyptian army know they are cooperating with Israel in Sinai. These incidents show how entrenched pro-Palestinian sentiment is in Egypt, and how insecure the regime is. But it won’t stop Trump’s “favourite dictator”, as he presses ahead with the deal of the century to his benefit and to the detriment of his own people.

February 9, 2020 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Egypt, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

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“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.

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