Cuba should be careful not to normalise Israel’s colonisation of Palestine
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | July 13, 2019
In 1947, Cuba was one of the few countries opposing the UN Partition Plan, which laid the groundwork for Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. At the time, the Cuban envoy to the UN Dr Ernesto Dihigo spoke out against Zionist settler colonialism and, with clarity, pointed out the UN’s incompetence and refusal to implement its rhetoric regarding the free determination of people.
Decades later, and at a time when Palestinians are risking the loss of what remains of their land, Cuba must rethink its strategy which runs the risk of normalising Israeli colonialism and human rights violations committed against the Palestinian population.
Israeli media has reported that Doron Markel, chief scientist at the Jewish National Fund (JNF), was invited to an international environmental conference held in Havana, Cuba. Needless to say, Israel was given a golden opportunity to present itself as a model to emulate by lauding its scientific expertise, while eliminating the violent narrative of land and water theft to achieve its goals.
There are no formal diplomatic ties between Cuba and Israel. However, inviting a representative of the JNF to Cuba, an organisation which has been at the helm of displacing the Palestinian people, is tantamount to a tacit decision to normalise the violence upon which Israel has been able to build a prosperous image. For every Israeli achievement, there are hidden Palestinian victims.
The forestation which Markel spoke about must be perceived within the context of destroying Palestine’s own environmental heritage. Likewise, Israel’s water strategy requires mentioning how its theft deprives Palestinians of adequate access to water. Markel’s statement that “science can serve as a bridge” between two countries that have not yet established formal diplomatic relations is a demand for Cuba to normalise Israel’s violations against the Palestinian people. Inviting a JNF representative already points towards such a route.
In one of his memorable speeches to the UN, revolutionary leader Fidel Castro stated: “Colonies do not speak. Colonies are not known unless they have the opportunity to express themselves.”
By inviting an Israeli representative, Cuba has departed from this truthful observation by Fidel and experienced by the Cubans themselves before their liberation.
Cuban support for Palestine is rooted in the shared experience of anti-colonial struggle. The country should be leading by example, rather than accommodating Israeli narratives that speak about achievements at the expense of the Palestinian population. This normalisation of Israeli violations and its neoliberal endeavours is contrary to the Cuban revolutionary struggle and fails to uphold the internationalist principles upon which Cuba was able to impart support to oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians.
While not representative of people’s sentiment, the Cuban government has made its politics ambiguous as a result of this invitation. It is therefore pertinent to ask where Cuba is heading in terms of its own commitment to supporting the anti-colonial struggle of other oppressed people internationally. The US, the EU and the UN have all normalised Israel. Will Cuba rekindle its commitment to its principles or follow the trend that has discarded the Palestinian people’s legitimate political demands?
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Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Garbage Trucks, Detain Drivers
IMEMC News – July 10, 2019
A group of Israeli soldiers on Wednesday detained Palestinian municipal employees in the village of Beit Fourik, in the northern West Bank, and seized several vehicles used for trash collection.
According to local sources, the vehicles that were seized include a garbage truck, a tractor used for hauling garbage and a third vehicle used in trash collection.
The vehicles were loaded with garbage and were headed to a landfill site east of the village, located near Nablus in the northern West Bank, when they were detained by Israeli soldiers in military vehicles.
The soldiers approached with weapons drawn and ordered the municipal employees out of their vehicles, then held them for several hours in the hot sun, and took the vehicles away to an unknown location.
The Palestinian Wafa News Agency spoke with Ata Samara, a health inspector with the Beit Fourik village council, who told them that this trash collection by the municipality is a daily collection, and this is the first time they have been harassed by Israeli occupation forces.
Samara added that the trash dump is located in Area B of the West Bank, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority but falls under Israeli military rule, adding that the village council was not informed by the army that it would no longer be allowed to dump there. He said the seizure of the truck and car is part of an effort by the Israeli army to make life difficult for the Palestinians in that village.
Without a trash truck or a place to put garbage, the Palestinians of the village will be forced to fend for themselves, which will likely result in a buildup of trash at homes in the village, and unsanitary conditions will result.
Israeli authorities have created multiple landfill sites for Israeli garbage on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, and frequently haul and dump Israeli garbage onto Palestinian village land. However, in recent years the Israeli authorities have made it harder and harder for Palestinians in the West Bank to dump their garbage, instead closing off the Palestinian landfills and dumps or putting roadblocks to prevent the Palestinians from reaching them.
Israeli forces have targeted the village of Beit Fourik for collective punishment, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, since March, when an Israeli settler was killed in a settlement nearby.
The Obama Wars
By David Swanson | War Is A Crime | July 10, 2019
By “the Obama wars” I don’t mean some overgrown infants on television screaming racist insults or pretending that opposing racism requires cheering for Obama.
I mean: the widespread indiscriminate murder of human beings with missiles — many of them from robot airplanes — let loose to threaten any non-white country on earth by Obama and expanded by Trump. I mean the catastrophic destruction of Libya — still continued by Trump. I mean the war on Afghanistan, the vast bulk of which was overseen by Obama, though Bush and Trump have had minor roles. I mean the assault on Yemen, begun by Obama and escalated by Trump. I mean the war on Iraq and Syria escalated first by Obama and then by Trump (following the de-escalation locked in place by Bush though Obama fought it tooth-and-nail).
I mean the conflict with Iran, heightened by Obama and then dramatically again by Trump. I mean the expansion of conflict-producing troops and bases across Africa and Asia. I mean the creation of the new cold war with Russia. I mean the build up in nuclear weapons and the delusional rhetoric about “usable” nuclear weapons. I mean the support for Israel’s wars on Palestinians. I mean the coups in Ukraine and Honduras. I mean the threats to Venezuela. I mean the normalization of fantastical excuses for the gravest crimes. I mean the practice of campaigning on ending wars, never ending any of them, and never having anyone really care. I mean the constant shattering of past records in military spending.
Obama’s legacy, despite all sorts of variations, many of them superficial, and despite its role in defeating Hillary Clinton at the ballot box, has largely been maintained, advanced, and imitated by bipartisan consensus and by Donald Trump.
If you want to review what Obama did in that quirky little area of his job to which some 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted, and which puts us all at risk of nuclear disaster, pick up a copy of Jeremy Kuzmarov’s book Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State. Kuzmarov places Obama in historical context and outlines his parallels with Woodrow Wilson, another extreme militarist generally understood as a peace visionary. Kuzmarov reviews — and adds information that many of us probably never knew to — the story of Obama’s rise to power and the story of all of his many wars.
We tend to forget that right up through the presidency of George W. Bush wars were thought of as temporary things that had endings. Now they’re hardly thought of at all, but they’re understood to be permanent. And they’re thought of in partisan terms. We sometimes forget that candidate Obama, like candidate Trump, promised a larger military. Candidate Obama promised a larger war on Afghanistan. And when it came time for Obama’s re-election to a second term, he reached out to the New York Times and asked that paper to write an article about how good he was at killing people, about how he carefully studied a list of men, women, and children and picked out the ones in whose name he would send missiles into clusters of unidentified victims. Obama’s claim, in his own words, was “I’m really good at killing people.” Nobody who liked Obama and didn’t like murder allowed themselves to become aware of this aspect of Obama’s re-election campaign; and they never will become aware of it.
The reason it matters is that over 20 Democrats are now campaigning for president, some of whom are promoting the same sort of militarism, some of whom are opposing it to some degree, and some of whom have revealed little or nothing about their positions on such matters. One of them, Joe Biden, was part of Obama’s wars. Biden is the guy who claimed of the mass-slaughter of people in Libya “We didn’t lose a single life.” Kamala Harris is the woman who will never ever question whether by “life” he meant “non-African life.” She’s too busy worrying that peace might break out in Korea. The stupidity of tokenism will plague us until we at least have the decency to regret having fallen for it before. The stupidity of militarism will plague us until we stop glorifying and excusing it and start supporting efforts to create peace.
A Secret Meeting to Plot War?
Who is representing the American people in this secret conclave with pro-Israel groups?
By Philip Giraldi | American Free Press | July 6, 2019
On June 5, 16 heads of Jewish organizations joined 25 Democratic senators in a private meeting, which, according to the Times of Israel, is an annual event. All of the Jewish organizations but one were openly declared advocates for Israel and are supportive of its policies. Key groups present included the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. A number of the groups have lobbied Congress and the White House in support of the use of force against Iran, a position that is basically identical to the demands being made by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The senatorial delegation was headed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), currently Senate minority leader who has described himself as the “shomer” or guardian of Israel in the Senate. The 25 senators in attendance constitute one-quarter of the entire deliberative body and more than half of all Democrats serving in it. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who has emphatically linked her campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 to Jewish and Israeli interests, chaired the gathering.
After the meeting, Jewish Insider provided a complete list of the participants and also a diagram of how they were positioned in the Capitol Hill conference room. The senators were placed on one side of a rectangle with the Jewish leaders in front of them filling the seats on the other three sides. Who exactly provided the agenda that Klobuchar was presumably following is not known, but one suspects that it may have been a joint effort by Schumer and several of the more prominent Jewish organization participants.
The meeting was by design not a public event, and, to a certain extent, it was a secret. Its time, place, and participants were not announced, and it was only reported at all in the Israeli and Jewish media. According to after-the-fact coverage of the event by Alison Weir of the “If Americans Knew” website, even staffers in the congressional offices were not aware that the meeting was taking place. No statement was issued afterwards, but it is believed that the principal topic under discussion was how to contain and reverse pro- Palestinian sentiment among progressive Democratic voters, who, to the horror of the participants, actually have been embracing the possibility that Palestinians are human beings with plausibly the same rights as Israelis. A particular focus would have been the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which has become a growing force on college campuses and in progressive circles.
Other issues raised were mentioned in passing afterwards on the email service “The Tell” by Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) news service. They included supporting Israel and also more federal-level legislation to combat “anti-Semitism.” And, of course, there was the issue of money. Several groups want funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) increased to pay for more security at Jewish facilities. Current legislation is considering allocating $70 million per year and there were demands that it be increased to $90 million. A 2014 article in the Jewish Forward reported that Jewish institutions received 94% of DHS discretionary funding.
One might reasonably argue that the private meeting with the Democratic senators reflects a singular urgency in that the party base is becoming notably less pro-Israel, suggesting that something had to be done to stop the rot. That may be true enough, but the reality is that the federal government’s pandering to Israel is both bi-partisan and global in its reach. The United States uniquely has a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, and his writ extends to proposing sanctions against countries that are critics of Israel.
And even as the Democrats were meeting with Jewish leaders, the Republicans were doing much the same thing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with probably some of those very same leaders as the Democrats and expressed concern about the possibility that British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn might become prime minister. Corbyn has been targeted by British Jews because he is the first UK senior politician to speak sympathetically about the plight of the Palestinians.
Pompeo was asked, if Corbyn “is elected, would you be willing to work with us to take action if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?” He replied: “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”
So American Jews want to join with their British counterparts to either bring down or contain a top-level elected politician just because he recognizes the suffering of the Palestinians. The American secretary of state meets with those same activists and agrees with them that something must be done, to include quite possibly taking steps to ensure that he does not become prime minister in the first place. Recall for the moment that Britain is America’s closest ally and is what passes for a democracy these days. Jews obviously occupy a rather special space, politically speaking, in the United States. One might reasonably ask, where are the private meetings with representatives of Italian, German, Irish, or Polish organizations, each of which represents a far greater portion of America’s ethnic mix than do Jews? The obvious answer is that those groups do not operate in a cohesive, tribal fashion and they do not possess the financial resources that the 600 or so Jewish groups that advocate for Israel have. In America, unfortunately, money buys access to power and, if there is enough money on the table, it can also buy politicians.
Nor are America’s other white ethnic groups as grievance-driven.
And there is one other significant difference: While other ethnic groups in the United States are protective of their respective cultures and languages, there is no sense that any of them actually seek to advocate policies damaging to the United States to benefit the foreign nations that they identify with. The Jewish advocacy for Israel is something quite different, costing the American taxpayer billions of dollars every year and involving Washington in a sequence of wars of choice driven by Israel itself aided by its powerful domestic lobby.
Israel also comes with a price tag in terms of the constitutional rights enjoyed by Americans. Before too long, legislation currently working its way through Congress will criminalize any criticism of Israel. No other national or ethnic group in the United States seeks to dismantle the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in quite that fashion.
Israel is no friend and never has been. Recent media reports detail how Jewish-American oligarch Paul Singer has been working with the Israeli government to transfer thousands of high-paying American IT jobs to Israel. Is he guilty of dual loyalty? No, he is only really loyal to Israel, as are many of the Jewish leaders who met with Pompeo and the senators. It is a disgrace.
And it is also a disgrace that Pompeo and 25 Democratic Party senators should be meeting privately with Jewish organizations to do things for Israel and the Jewish community that do not serve the interests of all Americans, up to and including meddling in the politics of a genuine close ally to respond to the paranoia of British Jews.
Yes, there is a Jewish international conspiracy in place directed by some Jews like those who met with the senators and Pompeo, and it has no off switch. Never before in history has a great power been so dominated by a puny client state and its domestic fifth column, and it is time that the private meetings whereby a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” panders to one group alone should end forever.
Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the Interest.
In landmark decision, Israel court rules PA ‘liable’ for Second Intifada attacks
MEMO | July 8, 2019
The Palestinian Authority (PA) could be forced to pay up to 1 billion shekels ($280 million) in damages after an Israeli court ruled that it was liable for attacks during the Second Intifada.
In an unprecedented decision, the Jerusalem District Court today ruled that the PA is “liable” for attacks which took place during the Second Intifada, the popular Palestinian uprising which took place between 2000 and 2005.
The ruling cited the PA’s “financial and practical support” for the attacks, claiming that, along with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the authority provided “ideological encouragement” for the incidents. It also referenced the PA’s policy of paying stipends to the families of Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and the naming of streets and city squares after Palestinians killed by Israeli forces as evidence of the authority’s “liability”.
The amount of damages the PA must pay was not stated in the ruling, but could reach a maximum of 1 billion shekels. For an authority reportedly on the verge of financial collapse, the sums could prove crippling.
The PA has not yet issued a statement on the court proceedings, nor is it clear if it has any recourse to appeal the decision.
The case was filed by infamous legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin, which regularly fights court battles on Israel’s behalf. Shurat HaDin has been responsible for a pushing holiday rental giant Airbnb to renege on its decision to delist properties located in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, closing fundraising accounts associated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and intervening to halt an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into Israel’s 2010 assault on the Mavi Marmara.
President of Shurat HaDin, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, called today’s court ruling a “historic” decision, claiming it “proves the Intifada was a war waged against citizens of Israel”.
This is not the first case Shurat HaDin has filed in a bid to hold the PA and PLO accountable for Second Intifada attacks. In 2004, the group filed “Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization” in a US court, attempting to sue the PLO and PA under the US Antiterrorism Act of 1991. However, in 2016 the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, New York, dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that US courts did not have the jurisdiction to rule against international bodies in civil cases.
When the US Supreme Court upheld the ruling, this prompted the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 (ACTA), which was signed into law by US President Donald Trump. ACTA gave US courts the jurisdiction to hear terrorism-related lawsuits against any foreign entity receiving financial assistance from the US government. Since the PA has historically received millions of dollars in US aid and support for its security services, this meant that it could face lawsuits in the US asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.
Following the imposition of ACTA, then-Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah sent a letter to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, refusing all future financial assistance from the US. The letter stated that though the PA “is, and always will be, grateful for the past economic support of the American people […] US economic aid to Palestine now has become a dividing force due to the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 (ACTA)”.
The move left the US and Israel scrambling to preserve security coordination with the PA, believing the lack of funding could leave the authority unable to administer the occupied West Bank. Last month this was brought to the fore when the Israeli army fired at PA security forces in Nablus, injuring one. Israel claimed it had not realised the men were PA security forces, while Governor of Nablus Ibrahim Ramadan told the PA’s Wafa news agency that the “dangerous part [of] this incident is that a Palestinian military headquarters was targeted”.
Israel students forced to pass government propaganda course before overseas school trips

MEMO | July 8, 2019
The Israeli government is compelling high school students to pass an online propaganda course before being allowed to participate in overseas class trips, a course promoting “racist ideology”.
Legal rights centre Adalah has written to the Education Ministry demanding an immediate halt to the online courses, after a school in Nazareth cancelled an exchange programme to Sweden, rather than have its students sit the course.
According to Adalah, the “mandatory online course” created by Israeli education authorities “requires students to watch a series of videos after which they must take a multiple-choice exam, the correct answers of which promote racist ideology”.
One question, for example, asks: “How do Palestinian organisations use digital social networks?” The correct answer is: “encouraging violence”.
Another question asks students to identify the origins of modern anti-Semitism, with the correct answer being “Muslim organisations” and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The online course tells students that “anti-Semitism in Europe increased with the immigration of Muslims to Europe… from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan.”
“The course presents a racist ideological perspective that creates an equivalence between Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim identities and violence and terrorism,” said Adalah.
“Palestinian Arab high school students in the Israeli school system are being asked by this exam to assimilate its racist values.”
Adalah attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi has now sent a letter to the Education Ministry on behalf of the Masar Association and the parents of children studying at the association’s Nazareth school.
According to Adalah, “the school cancelled its annual student exchange mission to Sweden during the academic year, after the ministry’s regulations went into effect, as it refused to allow its students to sit for such an exam which promotes racist propaganda.”
In the letter, Adalah demands that the ministry “immediately cancel the mandatory course and exam and allow students to freely participate in overseas school trips with the start of the 2019-2020 school year.”
“[Palestinian Arab teenagers] are being forced to internalise humiliating statements about themselves and their families”, said Attorney Shehadeh-Zoabi. “This is outrageous and illegal.”
“Adalah will take all necessary steps to abolish this course that is repugnantly offensive to Arab citizens and students,” she added.
Settler tour exemplifies the difficult reality of occupation in the Old City of Hebron – a photo essay
International Solidarity Movement – July 7, 2019
Hebron, occupied Palestine – Every Saturday, illegal Jewish settlers from around the West Bank take a “tour” of the busy souq (market) in Old City of Hebron, the busiest market street in the area since the closure of Shuhada Street. Local Palestinians believe that the Israeli authorities facilitate the tour as a deliberate method of intimidation, making life intolerable and unsustainable for them in order to prompt displacement.
On the tour, current and prospective settlers are given a skewed history of Hebron which disregards and contradicts the documented history of peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews in the city before 1948. Instead, it identifies the land’s heritage as solely Jewish. As shown, the settlers are escorted by numerous Israeli soldiers and Border Police officers, who randomly detain Palestinians for ID checks and prevent free movement in the souq during the duration of the tour.
Military and police can also be seen on the rooftops of Palestinian homes, many of which are now empty as a result of forced evictions for surveillance purposes. Palestinians living in the Old City are under constant threat of home invasions by the Israeli military and Jewish settlers, further contributing to displacement and the theft of Palestinian property.
Russia: Economic part of deal of the century contradicts UNSC resolutions
MEMO | July 4, 2019
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said yesterday that the economic part of the US deal of the century contradicts UN Security Council resolutions, TASS reported.
Following a meeting with the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Yousef Al-Othaimeen, he said: “Without seeing the comprehensive US vision of the settlement, it is very difficult to draw any conclusions.”
“But on a preliminary basis, I can say that the economic part proposes investing about $50 billion, half of the amount in Palestine, and the remaining $25 billion in the infrastructure of the countries where Palestinian refugees have lived for many years now.”
“If this is targeted at the refugees staying there for good and the countries will receive these financial injections to this end, then this alone contradicts the decisions of the UN Security Council, which among other things stipulate [establishing] such a Palestinian state.”
Lavrov stressed that the future Palestinian state “will be competent and will welcome refugees from the countries where they are hosted now, primarily, Lebanon, Egypt and a number of others.”
He concluded: “Therefore, we would like our American colleagues to finally explain their plan completely, instead of revealing their ideas piece by piece.”
Ex-Bahrain official: Israel aims to ‘destroy society’ in Middle East
MEMO | July 4, 2019
Former Bahraini minister of education and political analyst Mohammed Al-Fakhro warned that Israel is working to draw out a new Sykes-Picot agreement for the entire Arab region.
Speaking at the international cultural festival of Assilah in Morocco, Fakhro said the Arab countries are targeted by external and internal parties, adding that there are real attempts by these parties to continue to occupy the Palestinian territories.
He added that Israel, along with other foreign parties, wants the Arab countries to be engaged in “endless conflicts related to geography, sectarianism, religion, tribalism and other conflicts that destroy society”.
He added that those hostile to the Arab world seek to link Arab societies to “globalisation, so that Arab land becomes a market for goods produced by others”.
Al-Fakhro stressed that the scheme aims to keep Arab countries in “technological, scientific and cultural” backwardness.


















