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A Criminal State Under investigation

“If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”. – Anonymous legal advice

 By Gilad Atzmon | December 22, 2019

Reports from Israeli press outlets this weekend show that the Jewish State fears the ICC’s (International Criminal Court) decision to move forward with an investigation into whether Israel committed war crimes in the Palestinian territories. Such a probe may expose current and former government officials and military personnel to prosecution on the global stage.

The ICC will investigate Israel’s policy of settling its citizens in the West Bank, its actions during the 2014 war in Gaza, and its response to Palestinian protests on Gaza’s border beginning in March of last year. The ICC will examine indiscriminate shooting by Hamas and other Palestinian groups into Israeli cities as well.

Israel plans to refuse to cooperate with the ICC, although such a move may put a long list of Israeli officials, potentially including  the prime minister, defense ministers, IDF chiefs, the heads of the Shin Bet security service, and military officers as well as low-ranking soldiers, at risk of international arrest warrants if, in the absence of a state response, the ICC proceeds with the prosecution of individuals for the alleged crimes.

Israel’s reaction to the ICC’s top prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision to investigate is instructive. Instead of responding ethically and showing a willingness to defend its actions, Israel is hiding behind legalistic Talmudic arguments that seek to refute the ICC’s legitimacy and deny its jurisdiction over Israel and Israeli war criminals.

Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s defense is based on the ICC’s supposed ‘lack of jurisdiction.’ On Saturday, Mandelblit said that Israel “is a democratic state of law, obligated and committed to respecting international law and humanitarian values. This commitment has stood strong for decades, through all the challenged and tough times Israel has faced. It is rooted in the character and values of the State of Israel and guaranteed by a strong and independent justice system… there is no place for international judicial intervention in such a situation.”

Is this really an accurate description of Israel? If Israel is ‘democratic state of law’ that adheres to a universalist value system as Mandelblit insists, why is Israel so afraid of the ICC looking into its behaviour? The reality of Israel contradicts Mandelblit’s position. We are dealing with a criminal state, an institutional ethnic cleanser that explores barbarian tactics locking millions of people in the largest open-air prisons known to man.

Just to prove how ‘ethical’ the Jewish State is not, Israeli Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give the Palestinian Authority a 48-hour ultimatum to pull its petition to the ICC or see the Ramallah-based political authority “torn down.”

Blue and White Party Chairman, Benny Gantz, also attacked the ICC’s decision. Citing his decades of military service, including as the IDF’s 20th chief of staff, Gantz unequivocally stated that “the IDF is one of the most moral armies in the world.” Gantz forgot to mention that he is himself a suspected war criminal and may be charged by the ICC. In 2016 we learned that the District Court of the Hague was holding a hearing to determine whether to hear a war crimes case against Gantz relating to his command decisions during the 2014 Gaza War.

Former ‘justice’ minister, Ayelet Shaked, called the move “a political, hypocritical and predictable decision.” Shaked said the ICC “has no authority” to open the probe. She urged the government to “fight the court with all the tools at its disposal.”

PM Netanyahu called the ICC’s announcement  “a dark day for truth and justice.” What, one may wonder, would Netanyahu consider a shining moment for truth and justice?

As we now see and could have anticipated, the official Israeli response in opposition to the ICC’s  probe is legalistic as opposed to ethical. Israeli officials made public a legal opinion by Mandelblit arguing that the court does not have jurisdiction to conduct  an investigation. Instead of attempting to refute the substance of the complaint, Israel and its officials invest in a wall-to-wall attempt to deny the court’s jurisdiction.

The rationale for Israel’s defiance is pretty obvious. Israeli decision makers are clever enough to grasp the prospective outcome of such an investigation. It would drain whatever is left of the Israeli military’s will to fight. Israeli combatants – platoons, pilots, drone operators, commanders- would know that their actions have legal consequences and as a result might be reluctant to execute military orders. The ICC may have closed the door on Israel’s military options and strategy. For a country that survives by the sword and invests in the ‘War between the Wars,’ the ICC investigation is understood as a lethal threat.

I am not holding my breath for the ICC to accomplish its job. I anticipate intensive Lobby efforts to interfere with the court’s work. However, by now we know that an attempt by Jewish power to silence opposition to Jewish power, can only be realised through the manifestation of such power. In Britain, for instance, the Israel Lobby and its stooges within politics and media exposed itself through its relentless war against Corbyn and his party. By the time Corbyn and his party were literally wiped out, every Brit knew who runs this country for real.

The Lobby is more than welcome to expose its sharp teeth and interfere with the ICC’s work. It may destroy the ICC, but Israel won’t be vindicated of its crimes against Palestinians, as these crimes are committed in the open for everyone to see.

December 22, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The Trudeau Government Joins the Global Majority on Israel-Palestinian Relations

By Anthony James Hall | American Herald Tribune | December 22, 2019

The Chief Executive of B’nai Brith Canada has condemned as anti-democratic a vote in late 2019 by Canada’s Trudeau government. In one of its first major international acts, Trudeau’s minority government sided with 166 other member states of the United Nations’ General Assembly. The Jewish organization expressed “outrage” at Canada’s position on a resolution dealing critically with the subject of Israel-Palestinian relations. “This vote reflects poorly on Canada’s record as a defender of democracy and justice. It stains Canada’s reputation,” said B’nai Brith’s CEO, Michael Mostyn.

Apparently Mr. Mostyn thinks nothing of invoking the principles of democracy and justice as justification for discounting as wrong and misguided the dramatic outcome of a free and fair vote by the world’s governments. In Mr. Mostyn’s view, all that is just and democratic adheres to the position of the five dissident governments that voted against the UN Resolution. The naysayers are Israel, the USA, Australia, Micronesia and Marshall Islands.

Mr. Mostyn and many other representatives of the Israel lobby have chastised the Trudeau government for taking a step that pulls Canada into the mainstream of global opinion especially when it comes to conditions in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. The Trudeau government has planted Canada’s flag among those of 167 national delegations. The governments of all these countries agreed to place an international spotlight on the many illegal acts that violate “the permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people.”

In giving explicit reasons for its condemnation of the now-adopted UN Resolution, B’nai Brith Canada stated that it “rejects the contention that the [Jewish] settlements [in the Occupied Territories including East Jerusalem] are the core issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict.” The UN Resolution details many of the consequences for indigenous Palestinians of the influx of 700,000 Jewish settlers into territories illegally seized through armed conquest by the Israeli Armed Forces in 1967.

The Resolution sanctioned by the government of Canada and most of the world’s other governments “deplores the detrimental impact of the Israeli settlements on Palestinian and Arab natural resources, including the destruction of orchards and crops and the seizure of water wells by Israel Settlers.” It expresses “grave concern about the widespread destruction, caused by Israel, the occupying Power, to vital infrastructure, including water pipelines, sewage networks, and electricity networks in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The Resolution also lists some of the public health abominations forced on “the Gaza strip during the military operations of July and August of 2014, which, inter alia, has polluted the environment and which negatively affects the functioning of sanitation systems and water supply.” There is reference to “unexploded ordinance” as well as a “chronic energy shortage” in Gaza where “only 5% of the ground water remains potable.”

The Resolution makes specific reference to “the detrimental impact on Palestinian natural resources being caused by the unlawful construction of the wall by Israel, the Occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and in its grave affect as well on the economic and social conditions of the Palestinian people.”

B’nai Brith’s criticism of the Trudeau government ignores most of the explicit content outlined in the now-adopted UN Resolution. Instead of facing the facts, B’nai Brith radically misrepresents as “anti-terror measures” the broad set of changes the Israel government has imposed on the lands at issue.

The Resolution clearly identifies the actions of a government whose goal it is to favor one group by dispossessing and disempowering another. The situation on the ground in the area occupied and controlled by the Israeli government makes it absolutely clear that the real goal is to replace the indigenous Palestinian population. The international emblem of Israel’s replacement project has become the 131 illegal Jewish settlements plus the 110 illegal outposts created to prevent Palestinians from enjoying any security of habitation.

B’nai Brith Canada sometimes represents itself as a “human rights” organization engaged in benevolent philanthropy. It has exploited this image to gain federal recognition as a registered charity capable of granting tax deductions for donations. Perhaps the time has come for an objective federal assessment to see if B’nai Brith Canada has lived up to its side of the bargain. Has B’nai Brith Canada acted like a genuine charity devoted to the ideal of universal human rights or has it acted more as a partisan political lobby?

B’nai Brith Canada announced in its press release that it “remains opposed to Palestinian attempts to internationalize the issue.” How ironic. As I see it, the track record of B’nai Brith Canada is one part of a much larger body of evidence demonstrating the scale of an elaborate Israel lobby based in many countries? Doesn’t the multinational reach of this very active political lobby effectively internationalize the core issues of Israel-Palestinian relations on a 24/7 basis?

The instability of relations between Israel and the Palestinians has significant implications for the domestic and international polices of many countries. For instance, how will the Trudeau government and the Trump government deal with the contentions that have put them on different sides of the recent UN vote? Will the Trudeau government continue to move away from the legacy of ther Harper government when it comes to correcting the gross inequities permeating almost every aspect of Israel-Palestinian relations?

Anthony James Hall has been Editor In Chief of the American Herald Tribune since its inception. Between 1990 and 2018 Dr. Hall was Professor of Globalization Studies and Liberal Education at the University of Lethbridge where he is now Professor Emeritus. The focus of Dr. Hall’s teaching, research, and community service came to highlight the conditions of the colonization of Indigenous peoples in imperial globalization since 1492.

December 22, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

US State Department ‘firmly opposes’ ICC probe into Israeli war crimes allegations, insisting court lacks jurisdiction

RT | December 21, 2019

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has voiced “firm” opposition to a bid in the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.

After nearly four years of preliminary investigation, the ICC’s top prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said on Friday that the war crimes probe would be expanded into a full-scale inquiry, looking into whether Israel has carried out atrocities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. In a statement echoing earlier remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pompeo said the case had no merit.

“We firmly oppose this and any other action that seeks to target Israel unfairly,” Pompeo said on Friday, arguing that because Palestine does not qualify as a “sovereign state” and is not a party to the ICC’s founding charter, the Rome Statute, it cannot bring cases before the court.

The top US diplomat also reiterated a “long standing objection” to any claim that the ICC has jurisdiction over non-member states, such as Israel and the United States, “absent a referral from the UN Security Council” or explicit cooperation from the nation in question. While then-President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000, it was never formally ratified by the Senate. Israel, too, was an early signer to the statute, but also never finalized its membership in the organization.

PM Netanyahu made a nearly identical argument to Pompeo’s earlier on Friday, insisting the court had no jurisdiction and that Palestine had not achieved statehood – a goal Palestinians have pursued for decades despite tooth-and-nail opposition from both Tel Aviv and its American benefactor.

While Palestine has yet to achieve statehood, the quasi-governmental Palestinian Authority was accepted into the ICC in 2015. Nonetheless, Bensouda signaled that she will convene with the court to confirm exactly how far its jurisdiction extends before moving ahead with the investigation.

Tel Aviv has been accused repeatedly over the years of carrying out war crimes against Palestinians, including the demolition and shelling of civilian homes and other structures, forcible relocation of residents and the use of live ammunition on unarmed demonstrators. Many of the allegations stem from Israel’s settlement project in the occupied territories.

In November, Pompeo declared that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank were legitimate under international law, overturning long-standing US policy on the question. Palestinians and their advocates argue the settlements make the long-sought statehood project increasingly unlikely, as Israel’s Jewish-only housing units sprawl across Palestinian land and tie up important resources. Much of the international community and the UN have long considered the settlements illegal and continue to do so, despite the American about-face.

December 21, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas delegation in Malaysia for Kuala Lumpur Summit

MEMO | December 19, 2019

A senior delegation from the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday morning to attend an international summit in Malaysia’s capital. The movement said that its delegation is attending at the invitation of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

The delegation is headed by Hamas Political Bureau member Mousa Abu Marzook and includes his colleagues Khalil Al-Hayya, Izzt Al-Rashiq and Husam Badran along with other officials such as Sami Abu Zohri, Osama Hamdan and Jamal Isaa.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Qatari Emir Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani are also due to attend the summit, at which representatives and delegations from 18 Muslim states are expected to participate. Pakistan has pulled out, apparently after pressure from its allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE and concerns that it could challenge the position of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

 

December 19, 2019 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

US Middle East Policy in a Future Democratic Administration

By As`ad AbuKhalil – Consortium News – December 18, 2019

It is too early to speculate on the prospects of a Democratic administration for next year’s election. If a switch in the party occupying the White House occurs, it would be significant for the direction of domestic policy. But less change should be expected in foreign affairs. In fact, a Democratic president could easily produce more wars and military intervention than Donald Trump. Democratic voters should expect that as they shop among the candidates.

Trump wanted to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and those positions have been rejected not only by the military establishment but also by the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Mainstream media have become a central element in the war lobby: They only cheered Trump when he bombed Syria, and called for more bombing.

With both parties now serving as the lobby for unending wars in the Middle East, a Democratic president is likely to expand U.S. military involvement and intervention. In Syria, it will be in the name of helping the Kurds or fighting terrorism or whatever other excuse they will produce.

None of this is to say that Trump has presided over an era of peace in the Middle East region; far from it. Trump inherited a full legacy of war and conflict from his predecessors and while he tried to disengage from some of those conflicts he was unable to do so due to heavy pressure from the military establishment (which seems to have unofficial control over editorial pages of mainstream newspapers); the foreign policy elite in Congress, and from think tank world in Washington, D.C. Trump also continued the long-standing U.S. policy of subsidizing Israeli aggression and occupation.

Trump’s policies toward the Middle East are most likely to have greatest impact on occupied Palestine, but such is the record of every U.S. president: every president wants to prove he is more pro-Israel than his predecessor.

Not Always Eye to Eye

The Democratic candidates do not necessarily see eye-to-eye on U.S. foreign policy priorities. Pete Buttigieg, for example, represents the traditional “muscular” (how is that for patriarchal terminology in U.S. foreign policy?) viewpoint of American foreign-policy — and domestic policy as well. Buttigieg is the Democrat that Wall Street and the military industrial complex appear most to support. He’s also become mainstream media’s favorite Democrat because he embraces U.S. foreign policy dogma and veers away from a progressive domestic agenda.

For many decades Israel has had a wish list of what it wants the U.S. to accomplish on its behalf, not only for the Arab-Israeli conflict, but for the region as a whole. In all those years, Israeli wishes have been largely fulfilled, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

Israel no longer has to spy on the U.S. military. Instead it has succeeded in getting the U.S. to share raw satellite intelligence data. Over the years, Israel has obtained the loan guarantees it sought to build settlements and spend more on its military aggression.

Israel has persuaded the U.S. to share more of its military technology and intelligence on Arab countries (including key U.S. allies.) Under former President Barack Obama, the steady supply of U.S. funding of the Israeli military war machine hit an unprecedented level. Obama committed the U.S. to basically subsidizing Israel occupation and aggression for the next 10 years. Israel today remains the only country with the per capita income of a developed country that continues to rely on U.S. foreign aid.

Absent From Debates

Foreign policy does not figure prominently in the Democratic debates or in candidates’ stump speeches. But there has been a significant shift this year compared to previous years, especially since 1983, when I first arrived in the United States.

It was customary then for Democratic presidential candidates to outdo each other in shows of fanatical loyalty to Israeli interests. I remember how every presidential candidate — during the 1980s and 90s and even after — was eager to prove his intent on relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv (occupied Jaffa) to occupied Jerusalem. The competition was over who would be the fastest.

So, when Democratic pundits today express outrage over Trump’s relocation of the embassy they should remember that the seeds of this step began with Democrats such as President Bill Clinton and a party then of strident Zionism.

Not that the Republican Party was less loyal to Israel. But it had at least some leaders who were were willing to criticize Israel. By contrast, the Democrats had no equivalent to Charles Percy or Charles Mathias — two highly influential Republican senators who were willing to violate the conventional wisdom on Israel. [The Jewish vote was overwhelmingly Democrat in those days.]

Shift in Democratic Base

In recent years, however, the base of the Democratic Party has caused that to change. Hillary Clinton’s endorsement of the Iraq war; the Democrats’ enabling of the George W. Bush administration’s war on Iraq and the debacles brought by the war on terrorism all spread disillusionment with the party’s foreign policy dogma. While the Democratic Party’s foreign policy may not have shifted much in Congress, the changing tide was evident in the party’s liberal base in 2016, when Senator Bernie Sanders’ less blindly pro-Israel position (only measured by the criterion of conventional Democratic Zionism) opened a gap with his establishment rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

It would be a stretch to say Trump radically altered the contours of U.S. foreign-policy towards the Middle East, specifically towards Israel. His policies are merely the culmination of a decades’ old, whole-hearted U.S. endorsement of Israeli aggression and occupation.

A Democratic administration is unlikely to even alter Trump’s course on Israeli settlements or the location of the U.S. embassy.

U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements has been softening for many years. With the exception of George Herbert Walker Bush, successive presidents since Ronald Reagan have largely allowed Israel to continue to expand settlements with very little rebuke. This paved the way for the Trump administration, in November, to change the U.S. position on those settlements. Declared illegal under international law since the end of the 1967, the Trump team declared them legal.

Given a staunchly pro-Israel Congress, a Democratic president is unlikely to do anything about that.

It would let Israel keep building new settlements and refrain from moving the U.S. embassy back to Tel Aviv (occupied Jaffa). The new embassy location, after all, has been sought by the U.S. Congress, by both Republicans and Democrats, since at least the 1990s.

A possible exception is Sanders (who nevertheless prefaces every remark he makes on Israel by asserting that he is “100 percent pro-Israel.”) A Sanders administration might go back to registering U.S. disapproval of settlements. Sanders has even expressed willingness to levy economic sanctions against Israel in reprisal for the settlements. But these promises could be hard to keep if he became president and had to face the entrenched vigilance in Congress against any measures it deems harmful to the interests of Israel.

As’ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus.

December 19, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

From a Blessing to a Curse: How UN Resolution 2334 Accelerated Israel’s Colonization in the West Bank

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | December 18, 2019

Three years ago, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2334. With fourteen members voting in favor and one abstention, the Resolution was the equivalent of a political earthquake. Indeed, it was the first time in many years that the international body roundly condemned Israel for its illegal settlement policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Unlike previous attempts at holding Israel accountable, this time, the Americans did nothing to protect its closest ally.

What has happened since then, however, has been a testimony to the failure of the UN to furnish meaningful mechanisms that would force violators of international law, like Israel, to respect international consensus. In some way, 2334, although externally supportive of Palestinian rights, turned out to be one of the most costly decisions ever made by the international institution.

Immediately after the adoption of 2334 on December 23, 2016, Israel thumbed its nose at the whole world by announcing, twice in the following January, plans to construct thousands of new homes in illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

At the time, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his then-Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, rationalized the provocative moves as a “response to the housing needs” within the settlements. Nothing could have been further from the truth, as the subsequent three years demonstrated.

Now, it has become clear that the settlement expansion was part of a much larger strategy aimed at killing any chance of establishing a contiguous and viable Palestinian State and parting ways with the so-called “land for peace formula”, itself molded through years of American mediation and “peace process”.

The Israeli strategy was a complete success. Thanks to the blank cheque issued by the Trump administration to Israel’s right-wing government coalition, Israeli politicians are now openly plotting what was once nearly unthinkable: the unilateral annexation of major Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank along with large swathes of the Jordan Valley.

Throughout the last three years, Washington has turned a blind eye to Israel’s sinister designs. Worse, it has fully embraced and validated the Israeli political discourse, while taking every necessary measure to provide a cover for Israeli actions. The declaration by US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, on November 18 that Jewish settlements “are not inconsistent with international law” is but one of many such positions adopted by Washington to pave the road for Israel’s insolence and violation of international law.

Retrospectively, President Obama had the chance to do more than merely abstaining from voting against a UN Resolution – which lacked any enforcement mechanism, anyway – by using the generous US financial aid to Israel as a bargaining chip. That way, he could have potentially forced Netanyahu to freeze settlement expansion altogether. Alas, Obama did the exact opposite – as he bankrolled the Israeli military and financed every Israeli war on Gaza. Instead, his belated move opened the stage for the Trump administration to unleash a cruel war on Palestinians and international law, as well.

It seems that the two-year term of US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hailey, was mainly dedicated to rectifying the supposed “betrayal” of the Obama administration of Israel. In the name of defending Israel against imaginary global “anti-Semitism”, the US severed its ties with several UN organizations, eventually isolating Washington itself from the rest of the world.

With the UN being designated as the common enemy by both Washington and Tel Aviv, international law was rendered irrelevant. Gradually, the US government fortified its protective shield around Israel, thus making 2334 and many other UN resolutions meaningless. In other words, the US managed to turn international consensus regarding the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine into an opportunity for Tel Aviv to disown any commitment, not only to the UN, but to the so-called two-state solution, and the “peace process”, as well.

While Israel accelerated its settlement projects unhindered, the US ensured that the Palestinian leadership is denied the opportunity to fight back, even if symbolically, through the various international institutions and any available political and legal platform. This was engineered through systematic economic warfare, which saw the cutting of all aid to the Palestinian Authority in August 2018, followed, a week later, by stopping all funds to the UN organization responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

US-Israeli war on Palestinians was staged on two fronts. One front focused on the seizure of more Palestinian land, the building of new and the expansion of existing settlements, as a precursor of the imminent steps of annexing most of the West Bank. The other front witnessed the relentless US administration’s pressure on Palestinians through political and financial means.

Three years after 2334, a new status quo is upon us. Gone are the days of traditional American “peace-making” and its adjoining elaborate discourse centered on a two-state and other make-believe solutions. Now, Israel is single-handedly formulating its own “vision” for a future that is designed to meet the expectations of the country’s unhinged and ever-growing right-wing constituency. As for the US, its role has been relegated to the cheerleader, unfazed by such seemingly trivial matters as that of international law, human rights, justice, peace or even regional stability.

Shortly after being appointed as Israel’s new Defense Minister on November 9, Naftali Bennett has taken the dangerous and consequential decision of building a new Jewish settlement in the occupied Palestinian city of Al-Khalil (Hebron). Naturally, Jewish settlers rejoiced as they will finally see the destruction of the old Hebron market, which is older than Israel itself, and the potential for further settlement expansion and more annexation in the city.

At the same time, Palestinians are cringing, for a move against Hebron is the final proof that Israel is now operating in Palestine without the slightest fear of political or legal repercussions. Not only did UN Resolution 2334 fail to hold Israel accountable, it, in some way, facilitated further Israeli expansion in the West Bank, paving the road for the annexation that will surely follow.

– 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). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net 

December 18, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey denies UK news report attacks against Israel planned on its soil

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh informs Hanna Nasser, head of the Palestinian Central Election Commission, that Hamas agrees to the plan for holding Palestinian elections [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh informs Palestinian Central Election Commission head Hanna Nasser that Hamas agrees to Palestinian election plans [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]
MEMO | December 18, 2019

The British newspaper the Telegraph has accused Turkey of allowing Hamas to conduct terror attacks on Israel from Istanbul, claims Ankara has denied.

In a report published today, which cited information allegedly gained by Israeli police and security sources from interrogations of the group’s detained suspects, the paper claimed that Hamas’ operations in Jerusalem and the West Bank are being plotted from Turkish soil with authorities there turning a blind eye.

One such operation was a plot to assassinate the mayor of Jerusalem and the national police commissioner.

The report was released only days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul as part of the latter’s foreign tour.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is reported to have reassured the Hamas official that “We will keep on supporting our brothers in Palestine.” Haniyeh and his party then praised the president for his continued support and “positions vis-a-vis the Palestinian people and their just cause”.

The report also cited accusations by Israeli officials that Turkey has broken a commitment made in 2015 between it and the US, which forbade the country from allowing Hamas to plan operations against Israel as a result of the latter’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories.

According to the report, Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated that “Israel is extremely concerned that Turkey is allowing Hamas terrorists to operate from its territory, in planning and engaging in terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.”

The accusations levelled at Turkey and Erdogan add to the Jewish State’s long-time criticism of the Republic’s hosting of figures associated with Hamas, the political party which runs the besieged Gaza Strip, and its ties to the Palestinian cause as a whole. While Turkey perceives talking with Hamas as a viable option to provide solutions to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, Israel sees it as accommodating a “terrorist group” which fights against its continued occupation of Palestinian territories.

The accusations by the Telegraph and its report have been strongly denied and refuted by Turkey, with a diplomatic source saying that Hamas is “not a terrorist organisation”.

The Palestinian movement has slammed the report as “baseless” due to the fact that “Hamas’ resistance activities are conducted only in the land of occupied Palestine.”

December 18, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli media campaign targets Palestinian journalist as well as Jeremy Corbyn

Palestinian journalist Walid Mahoumd (Photo from Twitter)
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | December 18, 2019

On Sunday, in the wake of the UK election, the Israeli media released a fabricated story, accusing a well-known Palestinian journalist in Gaza of being part of Hamas and an administrator on the ‘We Support Jeremy Corbyn’ Facebook page.

The story was first published on Tazpit (TPS) News, an Israeli media agency, and was later picked up by Right Wing press in the United States. The information was then repeated throughout Israeli media in both English and Hebrew. By Monday, the Jeremy Corbyn supporting group, that has over 70,000 members, was labeled as an “influential” group linked to Hamas by The Times of Israel.

But the story in of itself was built on erroneous claims. The Gazan journalist Walid Mahoumd – referred to by another alias, Walid Abu Rouk, by the Israeli media – is to the best of his own knowledge, not a Hamas member. There is also no information that has been provided to corroborate this claim and when I questioned him on the issue he had the following to say.

“I am not a member of Hamas. I cannot recall when I was made an administrator on the page. I have never posted anything on the page about Jeremy Corbyn. This is not the first time they have attacked me like this. They just want anything to attack Corbyn.” Needless to say, this was not what the original article on the matter from TPS quoted him saying.

TPS News claim that they spoke to Walid over the phone and that he confirmed to them that he had maintained a role as a manager of the page until recently and still has connections to pro-Corbyn activists. But when I reached out to Walid Mahmoud, he told me that he was called by an Israeli journalist about a month ago, who “bragged about being in the army and now being a journalist.” He told me that he declined to comment for the Israeli news outlet as he boycotts Israel. Walid said that the Israeli spoke to him in Arabic and bragged about his role in COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), which participates directly in enforcing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and besiegement of Gaza.

In a Facebook post, Walid Mahmoud has written that he now fears for his life, due to being labeled a Hamas member and that Israel could now justify targeting him in an attack, such as an airstrike against his home. He also stresses that the man, who called him to ask for information had threatened him if he did not cooperate.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, has over the course of his election campaign endured a relentless campaign from pro-Israeli groups and beyond, accusing his Party of anti-Semitism. One of the smears used against Corbyn is that he referred to Hamas as his friends. It would be perceived that those who created this story, did so believing that tying a Facebook page, which disseminates information about Corbyn, to Hamas, would hurt Corbyn in the elections.

The problem with the numerous articles written by the likes of The Jerusalem Post about Walid’s alleged links to Hamas, is that they have no verifiable information which could possibly prove the well-known journalist’s connection to the governing force in Gaza, nor his position on the Facebook page itself. This leaves many to the assumption that the claim being made is based upon the racist notion that all Gazans are somehow linked to Hamas, a theme which Israel used repeatedly when justifying its recent murder of over 300 protesters in Gaza’s Great Return March.

Walid Mahmoud is a journalist, photojournalist, and peace activist who resides in Khan Yunis (southern Gaza Strip). He is someone that I have personally known for around four years now. He has written in English for the likes of Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye and his work on the ground in Gaza has been shared by progressive Jewish groups in the United States such as Jewish Voice For Peace.

Walid has quite literally put his life on the line to bring the world information from the Gaza Strip, witnessing his colleagues die in front of his eyes from Israeli fire in the Great Return March. On the 30th of March this year, he was even shot at by an Israeli sniper and barely escaped death, with his camera blocking the bullet from hitting his head.

During Israel’s 2014 bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which it dubbed ‘Operation Protective Edge,’ Walid’s home was bombed by Israeli missile fire. Walid Mahoumd has endured living through Israeli occupation when he was younger, followed by eight large-scale military operation by Israel against Gaza after the enforcement of the illegal siege.

Now, he is being punished for merely talking about what he sees around himself. If for instance, he is to travel now, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine this process being made more difficult for him and his family. Hamas is considered by most Western countries to be “a terrorist organization” and despite not being a member, he could be perceived as such due to the numerous articles online claiming this.

Walid told me that he would like to take legal action against TPS for their smears and urges all those who published this disinformation to take it down. However, because he lives in Gaza this suing an Israeli news outlet will be an extremely difficult process. All of this trouble coming Walid’s way because of an article, which reads like a conspiracy theorist blog post claiming proof of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur being alive and well in Cuba.

The TPS article claims to have sources inside of Gaza, which they say told them about a supposed Hamas connection to Abu Rouk, yet they fail to provide the names of any such sources. It claims to have intelligence about London-based activists making Walid Mahmoud an administrator of the ‘We Support Jeremy Corbyn’ page, yet they provide no names of those who supposedly made him an administrator. TPS News then claim that Walid, under the supervision of Hamas, still communicates with London Labour activists.

Instead of providing any material evidence of such libelous claims, the article then goes on to claim that because Walid Mahmoud writes for MEMO, Al Jazeera, and the Middle East Eye, that he is therefore connected directly to the Muslim Brotherhood.

What made matters worse was that prominent Islamaphobe Robert Spencer then decided to post this information on his blog site ‘Jihad Watch,’ making Walid a potential target for online Islamaphobic hate mail.

Walid in a Facebook post on the whole matter writes the following points to clear up the situation from his own perspective:

“1- At no point in time was I ever associated with Hamas. I have even been arrested and interrogated by Hamas before in regard to my humanitarian work in Gaza. I’m entirely politically unaffiliated and only represent myself.

2- I was invited to be a co-admin on a pro-Corbyn fan page because I was asked to post occasional updates about daily life in Gaza under blockade. I used my own name for every post I made, without ever hiding.

3- There’s no way I would ever interfere with the UK election — I never posted a single post on the Corbyn Fan page supporting Mr. Jeremy Corbyn or even discussing the Labour Party.

4- I’ve only learned about (and became very fond of) Mr. Corbyn through his crucial support and recognition of our basic humanity, something that usually is ignored by other British politicians. I was never asked to run any activities supportive of him by any party whatsoever.

5- The Israeli journalist, Baruch Yedid, who fabricated this report about me relies only on one anonymous source falsely claiming that my ‘excellent command of English’ is why I was chosen by Hamas. This is total nonsense.”

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.

December 18, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ICC Prosecutor Bensouda ‘Biased In Favour Of Israel – Unwilling to Deliver Justice for Palestine’

By Iqbal Jassat | Media Review Network | December 17, 2019

Whoever has any suspicion that the ICC’s reluctance to prosecute Israel for war crimes is due to pro-Israel bias by its prosecutor, have been spot on.

In a timely intervention, South Africa’s highly respected jurist Professor John Dugard, has called for an urgent investigation into the fitness of Fatou Bensouda to continue holding her position as the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Speaking at an event at an Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute, The Hague, Dugard raised a number of crucial concerns about Bensouda’s pro-Israeli bias.

Dugard is no push over. As Emeritus Professor of Law at the universities of Leiden and the Witwatersrand he served as Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, from 2001 to 2008. And as a former Judge ad hoc at the International Court of Justice; and a member of the Advisory Board of The Rights Forum, his opinions are highly regarded.

In his presentation, Dugard said it’s become abundantly clear that the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) is determined not to open an investigation into crimes committed by Israel in Palestine and against the Palestinian people.

He pointed out that despite ten years of preliminary examinations and overwhelming evidence, he found it strange that Bensouda has found no basis to proceed to the next stage of the investigation.

Dugard alluded to the fact that Bensouda refused to do so in the midst of four Human Rights Council’s independent fact-finding mission reports, an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly, numerous Israeli, Palestinian and international NGO reports, extensive TV coverage and video recordings depicting and testifying to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Shockingly, despite overwhelming grounds for prosecution, Bensouda in her latest report, fails to give a straight and reasoned explanation for her failure to commence an investigation. Though her persistent refusal to proceed makes no sense, Dugard is satisfied that there is more than sufficient evidence to support a finding that Israel has committed war crimes by using excessive and disproportionate force and violence against civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

In his submission, Dugard said he is convinced the evidence is clear that Israel’s settlement enterprise constitutes apartheid and has resulted in the forcible displacement and transfer of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, meaning that it “has committed crimes against humanity”.

He explained that the law is clear on the crime of the transfer by an Occupying Power – Israel – of parts of its civilian population into the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He emphatically insisted that due to both the law and facts being clear, there existed no possibility whatsoever of dispute or debate.

Dugard spelled out the relevant imperatives of the Rome Statute which render Israel’s conduct as war crimes. In addition he cited articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as provisions of customary international law. And in setting out the facts, Dugard reminded his audience that 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in about 130 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. These settlements are clearly within Occupied Palestinian Territory – as held by the International Court of Justice.

Thus if the evidence clearly provides a reasonable basis to believe that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court has been committed, “culpable failure to take steps to suppress a crime when under a duty to do so makes the Prosecutor complicit in the commission of the crime”, claimed Dugard. “There is overwhelming authoritative support for the conclusion that Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law.”

The International Court of Justice unanimously held the settlements have been established in breach of international law. Likewise the UN Security Council has condemned settlements as illegal, most recently in 2016 in Resolution 2334. And Dugard reiterated that even Israel’s own legal adviser Theodor Meron advised that they were illegal when Israel embarked upon this colonial enterprise.

The conclusion drawn by Dugard on why Besouda refuses to indict Israel is that non-legal, political factors have guided her decision. Clearly a stinking rebuke and damning indictment of the OTP, unambiguously accusing Bensouda of ignoring legal imperatives.

Why would Fatou Bensouda be in dereliction of her duty?

In his own words Dugard explained as follows:

“As I see it, there are two possibilities: a deliberate collective decision by the Prosecutor, her deputy and senior officers not to prosecute; or in articulated factors that have led the Prosecutor and her staff to a bias in favour of Israel.”

And unsurprisingly the most likely reason for it would be fear of retaliation from Israel and the United States. Or as Dugard further explained, it might be sensitivity to the widespread view prevalent among European states that the ICC is too fragile an institution to withstand the backlash that might follow such an investigation.

In an interesting background check on Bensouda, Dugard advanced additional factors in what he referred to as her “life-history, particularly in The Gambia” to provide some indication of unarticulated reasons for her decision to protect Israel. During the repressive reign of Yahya Jammeh in The Gambia, Bensouda served as Minister of Justice.

“Repression was the order of the day as human rights vigorously suppressed. The Minister of Justice (Bensouda) could not remain aloof from this. That she was involved in this process of repression has become clear from evidence before The Gambian Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission.”

These shocking facts certainly make a compelling case to have Bensouda removed from her position. Its unimaginable to have the ICC tainted by having its Prosecutor implicated in torture, detention without trial and denial of legal representation during her term in the cabinet of Gambia’s brutal dictator.

It is inexplicable that the world has been silent on the extremely compromised position of Bensouda, limiting her ability to deliver justice for the Palestinian people. Her failure to do so is a tragic reflection of the pervasive levels of injustice that have polluted not only the ICC but most if not all international platforms entrusted to dispense justice.

Iqbal Jassat

Exec Member

Media Review Network

Johannesburg

South Africa

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

An economy under occupation | Palestine Files

PTV – December 16, 2019

Press TV interviewed Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, about Israel’s occupation of Palestine and control of the Palestinian economy last night.

“Israel consistently uses Palestinians as a captive, colonial market, to buy its goods, to work in its factories, and denies Palestinians the right to economic independence and self-determination, just as much as it has denied Palestinians the right to political independence and self-determination,” she said.

“And breaking that economic control is central to any movement to end the occupation.”

“During the first Intifada, Palestinians organized themselves to boycott Israeli goods, boycott Israeli taxes, and develop Palestinian self-determination, collectively develop, and build a Palestinian economy that was outside the framework of the Israeli occupation,” she added.

“In a lot of ways, the Oslo Accords were a big setback to that independent development. There’s a long history in Palestine of resistance to Israeli occupation through boycott, and through fostering economic independence. Really, all of these actions are absolutely critical. This is one reason why it’s also so important that people around the world support the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanactions against apartheid Israel.”

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Foreign Ministry: Settlers Involved in Attacks Against Palestinians Must be Added to Terrorist List

IMEMC & Agencies – December 17, 2019

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry, on Monday, called on world governments to place Israeli settlers involved in attacking and terrorizing the Palestinian civilian population in the occupied territories on their terrorist lists and ban them entry into their countries, the Palestinian News and Info Agency reported.

In a statement, it said that settlers’ attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in the West Bank have multiplied in recent years, describing the groups that carry them out, namely the Price Tag and Youth of the Hills groups as “organized terrorism.”

It said the attacks include cutting and torching trees, seizure of land by force, slashing car tires, violent attacks of homes with the intent to hurt their occupants, vandalism of structures and equipment, destroying water networks and roads, hurling stones at cars driving on West Bank roads near the settlements, shooting at people, particularly at checkpoints.

Israeli reports documented 256 attacks against Palestinians in the occupied territories since the start of 2019, while many other attacks remain undocumented, explained the statement.

“The Ministry condemns in the strongest terms terrorism in all its forms and holds the Israeli government and its various arms, fully and directly responsible for this dangerous escalation in the attacks by settler organizations and their armed terrorist militias. The occupation forces support, train and protect the settlers as they carry out violent attacks against Palestinian civilians and their property, and even attack and repress the Palestinians to prevent them from defending themselves and confronting settler attacks,” it said, adding, “the occupier’s military and judicial agencies provide impunity for the settlers involved in committing these crimes. Rarely are settler terrorists arrested, especially in the Yitzhar settlement outpost, and if they are arrested, they will soon be released under various pretexts, or face bogus trials, which also end with their release and acquittal in order to continue their sabotage operations.”

Edited for IMEMC: Ali Salam

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Bars Entry of Winter Clothing as Palestinian Detainees Suffer Harsh Winter Conditions

IMEMC News & Agencies – December 17, 2019

The Palestine Prisoners Centre for Studies has called on international humanitarian and human rights institutions, foremost of which is the Red Cross, to exert pressure on Israeli Prison Services (IPS) to provide winter clothing and covers desperately needed during the severe cold season.

The spokesperson for the Centre, Riyad Al-Ashqar, explained that Palestinian detainees in all facilities suffer harsh conditions in the winter season, due to acute shortage of clothes, winter blankets, and heating devices, especially in prisons located in the desert areas — namely the Negev, Nafha, Beersheba, and Rimon. This is in addition to the fact that some sections in a number of prisons are composed of tents that do not protect from the cold, many of which are old and worn out, allowing rain water to enter.

Al-Ashqar noted that IPS does not allow the entry of blankets and winter clothing for detainees, except in very limited quantities which are insufficient for cover. It also banned certain items from the canteen, and those which are available have a very high price. Additionally noted was the presence of a large number of recently jailed detainees who lack resources, due to their inability to visit in the first six months of detention.

He also explained that the extreme cold in the Negev leads to the freezing of limbs, with no means of heat, in addition to the lack of a permanent hot water supply. These cold climates will continue for several months, affecting many detainees with various diseases, especially of the bone, in addition to rheumatism, arthritis, back pain, and chest diseases, with a lack of medical care and medications needed for treatment.

He added, according to Al Ray, that IPS intends to increase the suffering of the detainees, in winter, through many repressive practices, foremost of which involves the storming of rooms and tents, justifying the practice of taking them out to open places, late at night, where they sit in open areas for long hours, in freezing cold and rain. They are additionally forced to stand for the daily count in the very early morning or evening, in the cold or rain.

The Centre has called for urgent intervention, by human rights institutions, to provide all the necessary items to protect them from cold, rain, and diseases.

(edited for the IMEMC by c h r i s @ i m e m c . o r g)

December 17, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

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