Israeli war minister defiles Ibrahimi Mosque
Palestine Information Center | December 30, 2019
AL-KHALIL – Israeli war minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday night desecrated the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil at the pretext of marking a Jewish event called Hanukkah.
According to the Hebrew media, Bennett was accompanied during his tour of the Mosque by senior army commander Itamar Ben-Haim, Kiryat Arba settlement chief Eliyahu Liebman and Jewish religious figures.
Addressing settlers at the Islamic holy site, Bennett claimed that al-Khalil was the heart of Israel and that the Jewish people could not live without this heart.
He vowed to build more settlements and neighborhoods for Jewish settlers in al-Khalil, affirming that he became the minister of the Israeli army in order to achieve that.
Palestinian minor prisoners in Israel jails tortured, humiliated, NGO reveals
MEMO | December 30, 2019
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Commission (PPC) has documented witnesses of Palestinian minor prisoners inside Israeli jails stating that they had been tortured and humiliated when they were arrested and during their investigations, Safa Press Agency reported.
Minor prisoner, Abdul-Min’em Al-Natsha, 17, revealed that Israeli undercover forces kidnapped him from the streets of Shu’fat Refugee Camp along with Usama Taha, 16.
Both boys disclosed that they were taken to an investigation centre and spent four hours being investigated. They were handcuffed, insulted and beaten.
Al-Natsha noted that members of the Israeli army unit, Nahkshon, beat him more than one time on his way to attend the court sessions.
“They beat me just because I spoke with my mother during one of the court sessions,” Al-Natsha added.
Meanwhile, Taha explained that the officers of the Nahkshon unit unleashed the police dog at him on his way to the court.
Another boy, Motasem Sheikha, 17, described his kidnapping by Israeli undercover forces while walking in the streets of Shu’fat Refugee Camp.
He added that he spent 30 days being investigated in Al-Moskobiyeh Detention Centre, where he was tortured after he was incarcerated in a room with no monitoring cameras.
Abdul-Rahman Abu-Laila, 17, was also kidnapped by Israeli undercover forces from his workplace in the city of Akka, Israel.
According to the PPC, Abu-Laila was locked up in Petah-Tikva Detention Centre for ten days. He spent each day handcuffed in an isolated cell.
Raed Rashid, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy from the West Bank of Jenin, told that the Israeli occupation forces broke down the main door of his house at night, broke into his room and arrested him while he was sleeping.
“When they saw my mother screaming as they were aiming their guns at me, they beat me harshly in front of her,” he told the PPC.
Rashid revealed that he was imprisoned in Al-Jalama Detention Centre, while blindfolded and handcuffed, for around 10 hours.
The boys Sheikha, Al-Natsha and Taha are being detained in Al-Damoun Prison and the others, Rashid and Abu-Laila, are being held in Meggido Prison.
Gaza’s Local Industries in Ruins as 500 Factories are about to Close
Palestine Chronicle – December 29, 2019
2019 was one of the worst years for local Gaza economy that is struggling to stay afloat despite the hermetic Israeli blockade.
Palestinian sources told Quds News Network that over 500 factories, which have provided much of Gazans’ domestic needs, will shut down by the end of this year, due to the increasingly dire economic situation in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Successive Israeli wars and a prolonged, suffocating siege imposed on the heavily-populated enclave for over twelve years, are the main reasons for Gaza’s economic misfortunes, where, as of September 2019, unemployment has soared to 46.7%.
According to the General Union of Palestinian Industries, “2019 was even worse than the year before as 520 factories have been (or about to) shut down this year while other factories moved outside the Strip to Jordan or Egypt, leading to layoffs and increased unemployment among other social and humanitarian problems,” Quds News reported.
A World Bank report issued in September 2018 had already warned that Gaza’s economy was experiencing “free fall”.
“A combination of war, isolation, and internal rivalries has left Gaza in a crippling economic state and exacerbated the human distress,” said Marina Wes, the World Bank’s director for the region, at the time.
“The occupation state has targeted all kinds of economic installations during its wars on the besieged enclave,” Quds News reported.
“It also prevents Gaza’s importation of much essential material and equipment”.
Family of Slain Palestinian Say Israeli Officials Are Lying About How He Was Killed
IMEMC & Agencies – December 28, 2019
Although a month and a half has passed since the killing of the Jerusalemite, Faris Bassam Abu Nab, questions remain about the circumstances of his death, and his family members say Israeli officials have had contradictory and deceptive statements. Abu Nab was shot by Israeli forces near the Tunnel checkpoint, south of Jerusalem.
According to the Jerusalem-based Silwan Information Center, Bassam Abu Nab, the father of the killed Palestinian, said that he assigned a lawyer to follow up on the case of shooting his son and investigate, stressing that he continues to search for the truth of what happened to his son, and to hold the perpetrators accountable and punish them.
Abu Nab said: “AbuKbeir Institute of Forensic Medicine refuses, to this day, to give me the results of the autopsy, and I did not receive the initial or final report, and he told me that it was transferred to the Police Investigation Unit (Mahash), and when I headed to the police and asked the official, he first denied and then refused to provide any information”.
Abu Nab added that the condition of his son’s body revealed that he was killed “in cold blood”, because the bullets were in the upper part of the body, in the heart, chest, head, and neck, and the signs of assault were clear on his head from the back and lower back, as if he was dragged to the ground, in addition to dislocating his elbow, and all this refuted the occupation’s narration that only his feet were shot — but his feet did not contain any bullets.”
Abu Nab continued, “From the moment I learned about the incident, the occupation police told me that they opened fire at the vehicle from the rear on the pretext that it was ‘illegal’. But I myself found the car by chance parked in the parking lot of Al-Maskobyeh in West Jerusalem, and it had no sign of any bullets, and after examination and investigation it was found that it was legal.”
Abu Nab wondered: “Where are the surveillance cameras at the military checkpoint, and why did the Israeli media present a report on the incident with edited scenes?” He called for the full disclosure of the cameras’ recordings on the day of the incident.
He said: “The occupation forces have no right to kill anyone, whatever the reason, and they can use non-lethal electric weapons to arrest him.”
Abu Nab pointed to his pursuit and his family by the occupation authorities after his son was killed, including the invasion of his home, the assaults of himself and his children, and the interrogation of his three children last week. The interrogator told them: “Why do you say we killed your brother, the accident occurred in the West Bank. We didn’t have anything to do with it.” They also told the children to “not talk too much about this incident… it was a mistake and it happened.”
The mother of the victim confirmed that her son was committed to his work and said: “Faris was killed in cold blood, and he used his car to do delivery services and was working in cleaning restaurants and usually worked until after midnight. On the day of his martyrdom, he wore his clothes as usual and went out to work.”
The family confirmed that they would follow-up the case of their son’s martyrdom until the truth is revealed, and that they would remain steadfast in Jerusalem despite the abuse and prosecutions they are subjected to.
The Israeli occupation soldiers opened fire on Faris Abu Nab who is a resident of Silwan, on November 17th 2019, at the Tunnel checkpoint, south of Jerusalem, and his body was released to his family after three days of detention.
Netanyahu Announces Six-Point Plan to Annex Palestinian Land, Defeat Iran
Palestine Chronicle | December 28, 2019
Following his triumph in the Likud party’s primary elections on December 26, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced a political plan aimed at securing US recognition of Israel’s annexation of West Bank settlements and rolling back Iran’s influence in the region.
Netanyahu’s plan, which is likely to play a major role in his desperate attempt to cling to power after yet another general election, slated for March, also proposes the normalization of ties between Tel Aviv and Arab countries, without ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Israeli newspaper Times of Israel reported on Netanyahu’s six-point plan, which was revealed during the Israeli leader’s victory speech on Friday.
“First, we will finalize our borders; second, we will push the US to recognize our sovereignty in the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea; third, we will push for US recognition of our extension of sovereignty over all the communities in Judea and Samaria, all of them without exception,” Netanyahu said.
“Fourth, we will push for a historic defense alliance with the US that will preserve Israeli freedom of action; fifth, stop Iran and its allies decisively; and sixth, push for normalization and agreements that will lead to peace accords with Arab countries”.
“Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967,” wrote Palestine Chronicle contributor Jonathan Cook last June.
“Annexation is not a right-wing project that has hijacked the benign intentions of Israel’s founding generation. Annexation was on the cards from the occupation’s very beginnings in 1967, when the so-called center-left – now presented as a peace-loving alternative to Netanyahu – ran the government,” Cook added.
“Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighboring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his deal of the century’.”
In his speech on Friday, Netanyahu promised his Likud supporters that he will “fight for them” as “they fought for me,” reported The Times of Israel.
Trump Stuck Between Ending Endless Wars and his Hawkish Megadonors
By Eli Clifton | Responsible Statecraft | December 4, 2019
President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to withdraw the United States from its ongoing wars in the Middle East, and avoid the kind of military adventurism, like the Iraq war, that has destabilized the region. Trump’s track record, however, is largely detached from his promises — a disconnect perhaps at least partially explained by his largest campaign contributors’ consistent advocacy for U.S. military action in the Middle East and support for starting a preventive war with Iran.
Trump appears to understand that the American public is largely supportive of ending the endless wars in Afghanistan and the greater Middle East. “Great nations do not fight endless wars,” said Trump in his 2019 State of the Union Address to bipartisan applause. But Trump’s actions haven’t lined up with his words. Despite his reckless Syria withdrawal announcement and blessing a Turkish invasion into northern Syria, total U.S. troop levels there are expected to remain at around 900, a small reduction from the 1,000 soldiers in Syria at the time of Trump’s announcement. Meanwhile, despite Trump’s repeated claims that he’ll end the war in Afghanistan, U.S. troops will stay there “for several more years,” as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said last month.
Trump tearing up the Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and a mission creep in Syria that’s expanded stated U.S. goals from containing ISIS to an “effort to push back against Iran,” according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are also a far cry from moving away from Middle East military adventurism, as Trump has always said he wants to do.
Yet as a candidate for president, Trump talked a different game. At that time he broke with GOP/neocon orthodoxy on Iran and Israel. Then, his main critique of the Iran deal wasn’t its very existence — as was and is often the right-wing attack line — but that the Iranians weren’t buying enough commercial airliners from American companies, and instead spending more in Europe. And in another move that firmly put him on his own in the race, Trump even committed to being a “neutral” party on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All of that changed, however, as Trump drew closer to clinching the nomination and as he turned to some of the Republican Party’s biggest donors to fund his general election efforts — thus evaporating his claim of being a “self-funded” candidate.
Three GOP megadonors, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and Bernard Marcus contributed more than a quarter-of-a-billion-dollars to boost Trump’s 2016 campaign and support Republican congressional and senate campaigns in 2016 and 2018.
Candidate Trump even warned that the money from the biggest of these donors, billionaire Sheldon Adelson, comes with strings attached. In 2015, Trump mocked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for pursuing Adelson’s endorsement and financial support, saying, “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!”
Adelson, and his wife Miriam, are the GOP’s biggest donors, and they’re relatively transparent about why they are engaged in politics. The Adelsons contributed $35 million to the Future 45 Super PAC that supported Trump’s presidential bid and spent $205 million on GOP Republican House and Senate races in the past two political cycles.
Sheldon Adelson has a history of using his ties to U.S. politicians to shape U.S. foreign policy. In 2001, Adelson reportedly curried favor with the Chinese leadership and helped secure his casino license in Macau by calling Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX), then the House majority whip, and persuading him to halt Republican opposition to Beijing’s Olympic bid.
And those views can take an extreme militarist tone regarding U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Adelson publicly advocated launching a preventive nuclear attack on Iran as a negotiating tactic and following up with a threat to nuke Tehran, a city with a population of over 8 million, if Iran did not abandon its nuclear program. The Adelsons pushed the Trump White House to fulfill a campaign pledge of relocating the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and bankrolled efforts to push out then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster and replace him with John Bolton, who would take a harder line on Iran and oversee U.S. abrogation from the Iran nuclear deal.
Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus — who contributed $7 million to groups supporting Trump’s candidacy, over $13 million in campaign contributions supporting GOP House and Senate races in 2016, and nearly $8 million to GOP midterm campaigns in 2018 — also made clear that his political engagement is driven by a militarist worldview.
In 2015, Marcus slammed the Obama administration’s efforts to negotiate constraints on Iran’s nuclear program, because, he said, Iran “is the devil.” Marcus even once accused Holocaust victims of being weak and submissive in the face of their own mass murder in concentration camps, which he also referred to as “detention centers” and “concentration centers.” The Israelis, said Marcus, “weren’t like the other Jews” and “didn’t walk into the ghettos, didn’t walk into the concentration camps, didn’t walk into the ovens.”
Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer had set himself apart from Marcus and Adelson, and was the biggest Republican megadonor to identify with the “never Trump” wing — that is until Trump won the election when he donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
Singer rarely speaks publicly about his foreign policy views, but his money, alongside Marcus and Adelson’s, supports some of the most hawkish institutions in Washington, including the now defunct Foreign Policy Initiative and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies whose experts promote economic pressure and military strikes against Iran. Bundled together, employees of Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, were the second largest source of funds supporting the candidacy of the Senate’s most outspoken proponent of preventive war with Iran, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), in 2014.
FDD donor rolls showed that by the end of 2011, Adelson contributed $1.5 million, Singer $3.6 million, and Bernard Marcus — who still sits on FDD’s board and whose family foundation continues to provide approximately one-third of FDD’s budge t—contributed $10.7 million.
Trump and Republican members of Congress are effectively bound to take the words of these hawkish donors under consideration when soliciting campaign funds. In some cases, Trump and other Republicans appear to be torn between their instincts to avoid needless wars and campaign megadonors who hold radical foreign policy visions and expect their campaign dollars to shape the foreign policy of the politicians they fund.
Israeli forces attack final round of weekly protests in Gaza
Press TV – December 27, 2019
Israeli forces have attacked Palestinians taking part in the final round of protests held on a weekly basis near the fence separating the Gaza Strip from the occupied territories, leaving a number of protesters injured.
Palestinian media outlets reported that the Israeli forces shot and injured protesters in the east of Jabalia and the east of Khan Yunis on Friday.
Tens of Palestinians also suffered from suffocation due to inhaling tear gas used by the Israeli troops in the eastern part of Gaza.
The “Great March of Return” rallies have been held every week since March 30 last year. The Palestinians want the return of those driven out of their homeland by Israeli aggression.
Israeli troops have killed at least 307 Palestinians since the beginning of the rallies and wounded more than 18,000 others, according to the Gazan Health Ministry.
In March, a United Nations fact-finding mission found that Israeli forces committed rights violations during their crackdown against the Palestinian protesters in Gaza that may amount to war crimes.
The protest organizers announced on Thursday that the rallies would be suspended until March 2020, after which it would be held on a monthly basis.
Yousri Darwish, a member of the Supreme National Committee of the Marches of Return, said the decision to suspend the rallies was made in the best interest of the Palestinian people.
He said preparations for the commemoration of the Land Day would be done in the upcoming few months in which the protests would stop. The annual event is held on March 30 to mark the killing of six Palestinians by Israeli forces during mass protests against Israel’s seizure of their land in 1976.
Gaza has been under Israeli siege since June 2007, which has caused a decline in living standards.
Israel has also launched three major wars against the enclave since 2008, killing thousands of Gazans each time and shattering the impoverished territory’s already poor infrastructure.
‘Blinding the truth’: Israeli snipers target Gaza protesters in the eyes
By Tareq Hajjaj and Pam Bailey | The New Arab | December 20, 2019
Media coverage and social media posts went wild when Palestinian photojournalist Muath Amarneh was blinded in his left eye after he was hit by a rubber bullet while covering a protest in the West Bank.
However, Amarneh was far from unique; Israeli snipers targeting participants in Gaza’s weekly Great Return March protests have aimed for the legs – and eyes. To date, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that 50 protesters have been shot in the eye since the demonstrations began March 30, 2018 – leaving them permanently blind.
“Some of these protesters and journalists were hit in the eye with teargas canisters, but most were targeted directly with what is commonly called a ‘rubber bullet,’ giving the impression they are somehow benign,” says Ashraf Alqedra, MD, a treating physician at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital and spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.
“But there is still steel at the core, and although these bullets don’t usually kill, they do grave damage. It is impossible to save an eye hit directly by a rubber-coated steel bullet.”
However, he adds, due to the Israeli blockade, there are no artificial, glass eyes in Gaza – only a cosmetic improvement, but one that can be a significant psychological aid. These are available only by travelling out of Gaza for treatment and permits for such journeys are often not granted.
According to data released by the World Health Organization, Gaza residents submitted 25,897 applications to travel via Erez Crossing to receive medical treatment in the West Bank or Israel; an average of 2,158 were submitted each month. However, the Israeli government only approved 61 percent.
Mai Abu Rwedah: the most recent victim
Mai Abu Rwedah, 20, grew up in north Gaza’s al-Bureij Refugee Camp in a family of nine children supported by a father who works as a janitor for a UN school. She just graduated from university, hoping to start her professional life as a medical secretary and contribute her income.
But that dream was dealt a severe blow December 6, when she became the most recent Gazan to lose an eye to an Israeli bullet.
Abu Rwedah believes in using peaceful, but active, resistance to reclaim Palestinians’ right to return to their ancestral homeland. So, she has joined participants in the Great Return March protest since its launch on March 30, 2018.
On September 21 of that year, she was shot by a rubber-coated bullet in one of her legs, but that didn’t stop her from participating; she kept on going.
Doctors had to extract Mai’s right eye and the bullet damaged her jaw as well
Earlier this month, stood with a few friends about 100 metres from the fence that marks the border between Gaza and Israel. She glimpsed an Israeli soldier waving and pointing his finger to his eye.
“He was trying to intimidate me, but I was not afraid because I was doing nothing wrong. I wasn’t even throwing stones,” Abu Rwedeh recalls.
The soldiers fired tear gas then, and Mai and her friends ran away, but still were in sight of the young man who had threatened her.
“He was watching me; wherever I moved he kept watching. Then, suddenly, he raised his gun and pointed it at me. I was about to flee but he was too fast. He shot me in my eye.”
The bullet damaged her jaw as well. Doctors had to extract her right eye, since it was destroyed, Her determination, however, is intact. Abu Rwedeh continues to protest.
The youngest victim
Mohammed Al-Najar, 12, is the second-oldest son among four children, supported by a father who works in a wedding hall in Khan Younis.
In January, during the mid-year vacation from school, Mohammed begged his parents to allow him to watch the Friday protest with his cousins and other relatives, thinking it would give him an exciting story to share with classmates.
He was given permission to ride one of the government buses that collected people from the various neighbourhoods, taking them to the protest sites. When he disembarked, teargas bombs were flying, and he shouted to warn those around him. Then next one hit him directly in his right eye.
When Mohammad learned later that his eye could not be saved, he locked himself in his room and stopped going to school. When he did go back, he struggled.
“At first his marks at school dropped and he isolated himself. He tried to hide his missing eye,” says his mother, Um Edress.
She took to him an organisation that provided psychotherapy, but he refused to speak. Today, he is socialising, but goes quiet when asked about his injury.
The journalist
According to Dr Alqedra, most people with eye injuries from the Great Return March are journalists or photographers.
One of them is Sami Musran 35, a photographer who works for Al-Aqsa TV. On July 19, he was shot several times – first in his hand, the next two times in his shoulders and the fourth time in the chest. (Fortunately, he was wearing a bulletproof vest, so it did not harm him.) The last time cost him his left eye.
Sami says he had received several calls from Israeli officers warning him not to take photos at the Great Return March. His mother also received calls, saying her son might be killed.
“Forty times, my Facebook account was hacked or deleted for me, and I received death threats as well,” he says. “But I decided to keep on with my work to reveal the Israeli crimes against unarmed Palestinians who participate in the march.”
The night before Musran was shot, his wife tried to insist he stay home, but he refused.
“Minutes before I was hit, my mother called me twice, saying she was very worried about me. But I said that nothing happens that isn’t God’s plan,” he recalls.
He was about 250 metres away from of the Israeli fence when two women and a child were shot. Musran was taking photos of them and went in close. That’s when a rubber-coated bullet hit his eye and he lost consciousness. Two days later, he woke up in the intensive care unit to find out he had a skull fracture and an injured eye. The bullet had damaged the iris, retina and cornea and his vision was gone.
Today, it is hard for him to continue with his job; his depth perception is off, he gets headaches and the sight in his remaining eye “fades” at night. But he will keep trying.
“Israel wants to blind the eyes of the truth by sending messages to photographers saying we will hit your eyes to make you stop taking photos,” he says. “But we do not surrender.”
Maccabee Task Force covertly funded 3,200 pro-Israel events on US campuses
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | December 26, 2019
David Brog, executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, emailed supporters on December 26th: “In the spirit of Hanukkah, donate to help us create modern day Maccabees.” (Maccabees are sometimes seen as violent extremists; see below).
The Maccabee Task Force funds free, propaganda trips for campus leaders to Israel, while obscuring its role and objective in the trips.
In his email solicitation for donations, Brog acknowledged his organization’s covert tactics:
“Many groups like to talk about what they’re doing on campus. We rarely do. You will never see our name on the events we sponsor. You will never see our logo on the buses we send to Israel.”
His email continued:
“But if we hope to continue to raise the funds we need to support these extensive efforts, then we do need to share ‘what we’re doing about it’ on occasion.
“By the time this academic year is over, we will have funded over 3,200 pro-Israel events on 112 campuses across the country and around the world. And we will have brought over 2,300 leaders from these campuses on transformative trips to Israel.
“And these efforts are working! Last year, BDS passed on only one of the 80 campuses on which we were active. And we intentionally go to the campuses with the most active anti-Israel efforts.
“These efforts are extremely effective — and extremely expensive. If we’re going to be able to keep growing at this pace, we need your help. Together, we can ensure that we bring more strategies and support to even more pro-Israel students next year.”
Brog, who is Jewish, is also the founding executive director of “Christians United for Israel (CUFI).” In 2007, the Forward listed Brog in its “Forward 50” most influential Jews in America.
According to Charisma News, “Brog is the powerhouse behind the Christian organization, yet he’s also a conservative (non-Messianic) Jew.” The article reports: “Brog, who was chief of staff to liberal Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania for seven years, is said to run CUFI like a political campaign. He has talking points, stays focused and rallies his constituency.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is Brog’s cousin.
The Maccabee Task Force is funded by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who once said he regretted serving in the US Army instead of the Israeli military. Adelson and others are trying to counter the growing support for Palestinian human rights in the U.S.
The 2015 “Campus Maccabees Summit,” co-hosted by Adelson and Haim Saban, an Israeli-American billionaire who funds Democrats, brought together 50 Jewish organizations from both the left and the right.
The Forward reports: “Adelson and his fellow conference organizers limited participation in the event to donors willing to pledge at least $1 million over the next two years.”
Maccabees, past & present
The Maccabee revolt is at the core of the Hanukkah story. However, some writers dispute the current interpretation. Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of New York Jewish week, writes:
“In our warm and fuzzy packaging of Chanukah in the 21st century, a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar has taken on added significance as our very own antidote to the pervasiveness of Christmas in America. We prefer to emphasize the miracle of the small cruse of oil in the Temple that miraculously lasted eight days, a symbol of hope, faith and the triumph of the few over the mighty.
“But a reading of The Book of Maccabees reveals a bloody struggle, that of a small band of zealots, led by Matathias and his Maccabee sons, who decried the Hellenistic culture of the conquering Greeks and the prohibitions against Jewish religious practice. They waged war against the Greeks, and, some say, against their wayward brethren as well. The Maccabees, for instance, forced uncircumcised Jews to have a brit milah.”
Rosenblatt states: “I have no doubt that if the Maccabees, heroes of the Chanukah story, were around today, they would be leading the West Bank settlers’ current protests, decrying the Jerusalem government for abandoning its Zionist and religious imperative to claim.”
Brog has a long history of advocating for Israel and working to suppress efforts around the U.S. on behalf of Palestinian rights.
On March 28, 2017, Brog addressed the Nevada State legislature in support of an anti-BDS bill, SB.26. BDS, is an international, nonviolent boycott of Israel over its systemic human rights violations. It is based on the principle that “Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.”
Israel halts Jordan Valley annexation ahead of ICC probe
MEMO | December 24, 2019
Israel’s plans to annex the occupied Jordan Valley have been frozen following the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to launch a full investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, reports Ynet News.
The first Israeli ministerial team meeting to discuss the plans for annexing the Jordan Valley, scheduled to take place last week, was cancelled last minute due to concerns that it could intensify confrontation with the ICC.
“Because of the prosecutor’s decision in the Hague, the issue of the Jordan Valley annexation will be put on a long hold,” an Israeli government source told Yedioth Ahronoth.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate in the Palestinian Territories and yesterday branded it anti-Semitic.
On Friday, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the preliminary examination into alleged war crimes, opened in 2015, had rendered enough information to meet all criteria for opening an investigation.
Bensouda also included in her recommendation that Israel has not only failed to stop settlement construction in the West Bank, the Jewish State also intends to annex some parts of the territory.
Before the ICC announcement, Netanyahu on Thursday pledged to secure support from the US for the annexation of the Jordan Valley and illegal settlements built in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Approximately 70,000 Palestinians, along with some 9,500 Jewish settlers, currently live in the Jordan Valley, a large, fertile strip of land that accounts for roughly one-quarter of the West Bank’s overall territory.
Palestinians call for the Israeli occupation authorities to completely withdraw from the occupied West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, to make way for a future Palestinian state.
Israel is considering preventing the entry of officials from the ICC to the Palestinian territories, similar to steps taken by the US administration which refuses to grant entry visas for ICC employees investigating American soldiers who participated in the war in Afghanistan.
Israel allows only 55 Palestinian Christians from Gaza to enter West Bank for Christmas
MEMO | December 24, 2019
Israeli authorities have only allowed 55 Christians in the Gaza Strip to enter the West Bank and Jerusalem to celebrate Christmas, according to local news agency Ma’an.
The Orthodox Church in Gaza said among the 600 official requests that were submitted to Israel, occupation authorities agreed to grant travel permits to just three children and 52 Palestinian elders mostly over the age of 60.
This came after the Israeli Defence Ministry said in a statement on Sunday it would allow Palestinian Christians in Gaza to visit Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank “in accordance with security assessments and without regard to age”, reversing an earlier decision not to issue them permits, a move that was met with immediate backlash by Christian Palestinian leaders as well as Gisha, an Israeli rights group.
A spokesperson from the liaison office, known as Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), had told Reuters that Christians in the Gaza Strip were barred from visiting holy cities through the Erez crossing this Christmas season.
Gaza, which suffers from high unemployment and faces electricity blackouts and drinking water shortages, has only around 1,000 Christians, most of them Greek Orthodox, in a population of two million in the narrow coastal strip.
Israel claims that a number who have been granted travel permits in recent years have remained in the West Bank and have not returned to Gaza.
Israel tightly restricts movements out of the Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s Christians who plan to travel to the West Bank for Christmas or Easter have to apply to Israel in advance to obtain a temporary single-use travel permit from Israel’s COGAT.
The main attractions in Bethlehem are the 4th-century Church of the Nativity, built over a grotto where Christian tradition says Jesus was born, and the 16-metre (52-foot) Christmas tree in Manger Square.
Last year, Israel granted permits for close to 700 Gaza Christians to travel to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and other holy cities that draw thousands of pilgrims each holiday season.
At Easter this year, similar restrictions were imposed by Israel, 300 Christian Palestinians from Gaza were allowed to visit the West Bank and Jerusalem for Easter “only after public pressure on Israel to change its initial decision to bar them from entering”.
Featured Video
Fear Is the Mind Killer
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda
Dr. Joseph Mercola | July 9, 2022
“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.
While it’s been brushed off as a loony conspiracy theory for years, there’s compelling evidence showing it did, in fact, happen, and there’s nothing to prevent it from happening again. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Fear Is the Mind Killer
- Israeli strikes kill 10 in southern Lebanon, including 3 rescue workers
- Israeli military ‘failed on all fronts’: Poll
- US at a crossroads: Iran’s firm positions leave Trump no option but to capitulate
- Iran signals decisive response to end US maritime bullying, piracy
- Trump eager for off-ramp in war on Iran, but Netanyahu has him trapped: Former official
- Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ offers ‘limited’ shield against ballistic missiles: Defense official
- Ukraine Seeks to Provoke a Nuclear Conflict: Zakharova
- US squares up to China over Panama Canal
- Monroe Doctrine 2.0: ‘Great Reset’ for US Imperialism?
- If Americans Knew
- How Tony Dokoupil Became the Face of ‘Zionist Fanatic’ Bari Weiss’s CBS
- Far Right Israeli Settler Movement Enters Syria in a Push for “Greater Israel”
- ‘People Have the Right to Be Buried’: In Gaza, Thousands of Palestinians Remain Trapped Under Rubble
- Born during Israel’s genocide: Gaza’s child survivors bear the scars of war
- Who are the women and girls behind Gaza war’s horrific casualty toll?
- Beloved Gaza doctor detained “indefinitely” without charge – Daily Update
- By Week’s End, Trump’s War Will Be Plainly Illegal
- CBS News Reportedly Ousts London Bureau Chief Over Differences With Bari Weiss Over Gaza Coverage
- State Department Says US Is in Conflict With Iran ‘At the Request’ of Israel
- What ceasefire? Israel won’t stop killing in Gaza, Lebanon – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
Aletho News 