Palestinian Woman Stoned to Death by Israeli Settlers
IMEMC News – October 13, 2018
A group of Israeli paramilitary settlers attacked a Palestinian couple south of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank, on Friday, killing the woman and severely injuring her husband.
Aisha Mohammed Talal al-Rabi, 47, was riding in a car with her husband near the Za’tara roadblock, south of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank, when a group of Israeli settlers came onto the road and began throwing rocks at their car.
The slain woman was from Bidya town, northwest of Salfit.
The Israeli colonial settlers threw a number of large rocks, breaking the windshield of the car. They then continued to throw rocks, according to local sources, hitting the couple multiple times in the head and upper body.
Aisha died of blunt force trauma to the head, caused by a rock that was thrown at her head by the settlers.
Armed Israeli paramilitary settlers have launched a number of attacks on the Palestinian civilian population in the Nablus area, with the number of attacks drastically increasing since two Israeli settlers were killed by a Palestinian in the area on Monday.
Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation funded shadowy group that targets students
If Americans Knew | October 12, 2018
The Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation has admitted that it funded the Israeli organization reported to run Canary Mission, the online blacklist of American pro-justice student activists. The Israeli government has used the list to interrogate and detain U.S. citizens.
For years Canary Mission managed to keep the identity of its funders secret, and major Jewish leaders claimed they didn’t know who was behind the effort to harm American students.
An exposé published by the Forward now reports: “Evidence is now building that major Jewish institutions with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, and boards of directors that include prominent members of the U.S. Jewish community, have played a significant role in bankrolling the site.”
A foundation controlled by the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco had previously been discovered to have been funding the Israeli group, Megamot Shalom.
The New York City-based Jewish Communal Fund and the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, refused to respond to the Forward’s questions about whether they have also funded Canary Mission.
The Forward article, by Josh Nathan-Kazis, reports:
“The grants from the Los Angeles foundation to Megamot Shalom were made at the advice of a donor whose identity the foundation would not disclose. They were made through the foundation’s donor advised fund, a philanthropic device that allows wealthy individuals to park assets at the charity. While donors to a donor advised fund can suggest how their gifts should be used, the assets belong to the charity, and the charity must approve all grant recommendations.
The foundation, with net assets of $726 million, has close ties to the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, known as the major Jewish fundraising organization in Los Angeles.
The Forward states: “Canary Mission operated in absolute secrecy for three years while posting political dossiers on more than a thousand undergraduates, most of them involved in pro-Palestinian activism. The site says that it intends to damage the students’ job prospects.”
The Helen Diller Family Foundation, one of the San Francisco Community Foundation’s major supporting foundations, earmarked $100,000 for Canary Mission.
Diller is headed by San Francisco real estate developer Jaclyn Safier, who also sits on the Board of Visitors of the University of California, Berkeley. According to its website, the Board of Visitors “provides advice and support to the chancellor, executive vice chancellor and provost, and campus leadership.”
Diller has also funded groups known for promoting bigotry against Muslims.
Both the Los Angeles Community Foundation and the San Francisco Community Foundation now say they will stop funding Canary Mission.
Israel Rattled By UNESCO’s Palestinian Protection Pledges
Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem. (Photo: via Twitter)
Palestine Chronicle | October 12, 2018
The executive council of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has left Israel disquieted, after vowing to effect protections for Palestinian heritage.
A statement, issued by Israel’s United Nations ambassador Danny Danon, said:
“This is an additional proof for those who did not understand why the United States and Israel withdrew from UNESCO. This proves once again that UNESCO is a body based on lies, biases and deliberate action against us. Israel will not be a member of an organization that is trying to rewrite history and accept to be exploited by our enemies.”
The protections cover educational and cultural institutions, the need to protect and preserve the monuments, culture and education in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and to show Israeli violations against Palestinian heritage, cultural and natural sites, particularly the Old City of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Compound, the Church of the Nativity, the mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah in Bethlehem, the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron (Al-Khalil) and the Gaza Strip.
Israel sternly rejected the mandate which the council unanimously espoused Wednesday during a Palestine resolutions session at the body’s 205th plenary meeting in Paris.
The disputed resolutions detail, according to Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency, that,
“The Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls, a site inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger, is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” reaffirming that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the ‘basic law’ on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith.”
The Program and External Relations Commission (PX) of the UNESCO executive also adopted a second resolution to include crimes committed by Israel, such as the destruction of schools and other crimes committed in Khan Al-Ahmar.
The UNESCO declaration stated:
“The two Palestinian sites of Al-Haram Al-Ibrahimi/Tomb of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil/Hebron and the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem” are “an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and shares the conviction affirmed by the international community that the two sites are of religious significance for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.”
It also added:
“The ongoing Israeli excavations, works, construction of private roads for settlers and of a Wall inside the Old City of Al-Khalil/Hebron which are illegal under international law and harmfully affect the authenticity and integrity of the site, and the subsequent denial of freedom of movement and freedom of access to places of worship.”
Both resolutions are supported by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan.
“Tthe spirit of dialogue and the sense of responsibility that led to this result. A trend towards consensus is now emerging,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay added.
US professor urges release of student held in Israel
MEMO | October 10, 2018
A professor at the University of Florida appealed Tuesday for the release of a former student who has been held by Israeli authorities for a week, Anadolu reports.
Lara Alqasem, a US citizen, has been in Israeli custody since arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport last Tuesday with a valid student visa hoping to study law, human rights and freedom of travel at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Israeli officials are denying 22-year-old Alqasem entry based on allegations that she supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which urges businesses, educational institutions and celebrities to cut ties with Israel.
The movement has long been criticized by Israeli officials, and the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, passed a law in 2017 allowing authorities to deny entry to individuals who make public calls for a boycott of Israel.
Dror Abend-David, who taught Alqasem at the University of Florida, said he is “one of many people,” including her former professors, who think she should be released and allowed to study immediately.
“Everyone who taught her was very impressed with her,” he told Anadolu Agency. “There’s a very active group of professors here on campus who are working for her.”
One of the proposals being floated, Abend-David said, is a reevaluation of the university’s study abroad program in Israel.
That could effectively make Israel’s policy of denying entry to BDS supporters an own goal.
When asked if he thought Israeli officials could ironically be accomplishing BDS’ goals for the movement, Abend-David pointed to two works of Soviet-era Russian literature that he said, “made the point that bureaucrats don’t see irony”.
Hebrew University President Asher Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio that Israel’s actions could harm the university’s anti-BDS efforts and could end up serving the movement instead, according to the Times of Israel.
Israel earlier Tuesday conditioned Alqasem’s release on her issuing a public apology for her alleged support of the global boycott.
”If Alqasem comes forward tomorrow morning with her own voice, not with all sorts of lawyers’ wisecracking and statements that could be construed this way or another – and declares that supporting BDS, she thinks today, is illegitimate and she regrets what she did on this matter, we will consider our stance,” Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan said on Twitter on Tuesday.
Her first appeal against the Israeli decision to deny her entry was denied last week. A second appeal is expected to be heard in the coming days.
The US State Department on Tuesday punted on questions about Alqasem’s case, saying it is up to Israel to decide who it allows into the country.
Israeli officials and their supporters have regularly alleged the BDS movement is inherently anti-Semitic. But when asked if he thought Alqasem was anti-Semitic herself, Abend-David was unequivocal in his response.
“Lara was not anti-Semitic in any way, shape or form,” he said. “She has been kind and polite and helpful with no hint that she felt badly of Israel or anyone who is connected with that country.”
That Single Line of Blood: Nassir al-Mosabeh and Mohammed al-Durrah
By Ramzy Baroud | Ma’an | October 9, 2018
As the frail body of 12-year-old Nassir Al-Mosabeh fell to the ground on Friday, September 28, history was repeating itself most tragically.
Little Nassir was not just another number, a ‘martyr’ to be exalted by equally poor refugees in Gaza, or vilified by Israel and its tireless hasbara machine. He was much more than that.
The stream of blood that poured out from his head wound on that terrible afternoon drew a line in time that travelled back 18 years.
Almost 18-years to the day separates Nassir’s recent murder and the Israeli army killing of Mohammed Al-Durrah, also 12, on September 30, 2000. Between these dates, hundreds of Palestinian children have perished in similar ways.
Reports by the rights’ group, B’tselem, are rife with statistics: 954 Palestinian children were killed between the Second Intifada in 2000 and Israel’s war on Gaza, the so-called Operation Cast Lead in 2008. In the latter war alone, 345 children were reportedly killed, in addition to another 367 child fatalities reported in Israel’s latest war, ‘Protective Edge’ of 2014.
But Mohammed and Nassir – and thousands like them – are not mere numbers; they have more in common than merely being the unfortunate victims of trigger-happy Israeli soldiers.
In that single line of blood that links Nassir al-Mosabeh and Mohammed al-Durrah, there is a narrative so compelling, yet often neglected. The two 12-year-old boys looked so much alike – small, handsome, dark-skinned refugees, whose families were driven from villages that were destroyed in 1948 to make room for today’s Israel.
Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son, Muhammad, were filmed as they were caught in crossfire between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. The footage shows the pair crouching behind a concrete cylinder, the boy crying and the father waving, then a burst of gunfire and dust, after which the boy is seen slumped across his father’s legs [Wikipedia]
Young as they were, both were victims of that reality. Mohammed, died while crouching by the side of his father, Jamal, as he implored the Israelis to stop shooting. 18 years later, Nassir walked with thousands of his peers to the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel, stared at the face of the snipers and chanted for a free Palestine.
Between the two boys, the entire history of Palestine can be written, not only that of victimization and violence but also of steadfastness and honour, passed from one generation to the next.
“Who will carry on with the dream,” were the words Nassir’s mother repeated, as she held a photograph of her son and wept. In the photo, Nassir is seen carrying his school bag, and a small bottle of rubbing alcohol near the fence separating Gaza and Israel.
“The dream” is a reference to the fact that Nassir wanted to be a doctor, thus his enthusiasm to help his two sisters, Dua’a and Islam, two medical volunteers at the fence.
His job was to carry the alcohol bottle and, sometimes, oxygen masks, as his sisters would rush to help the wounded, many of them Nassir’s age or even younger.
In a recent video message, the young boy – who had just celebrated the achievement of memorizing the entire Holy Quran – demonstrated in impeccable classical Arabic why a smile could be considered an act of charity.
Protesting the Israeli siege and the injustice of life in Gaza was a family affair, and Nassir played his role. His innovation of taping raw onions to his face to counter the tears induced by the Israeli army tear gas garnered him much recognition among the protesters, who have been rallying against the siege since March 30.
So far, nearly 200 unarmed protesters have been killed while demanding an end to the 11-year long blockade and also to call for the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian refugees.
Nassir was the 34th child to be killed in cold-blood since the protests commenced, and will unlikely be the last to die.
When Mohammed al-Durrah was killed 18 years ago, the images of his father trying to shield his son’s body from Israeli bullets with his bare hands left millions around the world speechless. The video, which was aired by France 2, left many with a sense of helplessness but, perhaps, the hope that the publicity that Mohammed’s televised murder had received could shame Israel into ending its policy of targeting children.
Alas, that was never the case. After initially taking responsibility for killing Mohammed, a bogus Israeli army investigation concluded that the killing of Mohammed was a hoax, that Palestinians were to blame, that the France 2 journalist who shot the video was part of a conspiracy to ‘delegitimize Israel.’
Many were shocked by the degree of Israeli hubris, and the brazenness of their mouthpieces around the western world who repeated such falsehood without any regard for morality or, even, common sense. But the Israeli discourse itself has been part of an ongoing war on Palestinian children.
Israeli and Zionist propagandists have long claimed that Palestinians teach their children to hate Jews.
The likes of Elliott Abrahms raged against Palestinian textbooks for “teaching children to value terrorism.” “That is not the way to prepare children for peace,” he wrote last year.
In July the Israeli army claimed that Palestinian children deliberately “lure IDF troops,” by staging fake riots, thus forcing them into violent confrontations.
The US-Israeli propaganda has not just targeted Palestinian fighters or factions but has done its utmost to dehumanize, thus justify, the murder of Palestinian children as well.
“Children as young as 8 turned into bombers, shooters, stabbers,” reported one Adam Kredo in the Washington Free Beacon, citing a “new report on child terrorists and their enablers.”
This is not merely bad journalism, but part of a calculated Israeli campaign aimed at preemptively justifying the killing of children such as Nassir and Mohammed, and thousands like them.
It is that same ominous discourse that resulted in the call for genocide made by none other than Israel’s Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, where she also called on the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes.”
The killing of Nassir and Mohammed should not then be viewed in the context of military operations gone awry, but in the inhuman official and media discourses that do not differentiate between a resistance fighter carrying a gun or a child taking an onion and an oxygen mask.
Nor should we forget that Nassir al-Mosabeh and Mohammed al-Durrah are chapters in the same book, with an overlapping narrative that makes their story, although 18 years apart, one and the same.
The politicisation of the Palestinian right of return is imperative
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 4, 2018
In its annual report to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People recommended that Israel acknowledges the Palestinian Nakba. The backdrop for such an acknowledgement remains the two-state compromise, which defeats the purpose of the recommendation.
Such recognition, according to the report, is “a necessary requirement for a viable and lasting peace.” The Committee also recommended that “Palestine refugees should be treated as dispossessed nationals of a country – Palestine – rather than stateless refugees.” It refuted the framing of colonisation as “conflict”, stating, “It is not a conflict between two parties over disputed territory. It is one of one State occupying, colonising and annexing the territory of another state.”
The terminology is a far cry from the usual platitudes used by UN institutions. However, there is still the possibility of manipulating Palestinian rights due to the Committee’s adherence to the two-state paradigm. Taking a stance against the Israeli and US efforts to alter, to the point of non-recognition, the Palestinian refugees and their legitimate right of return is not enough if the Committee does not articulate an alternative that is derived completely from Palestinian narratives.
The two-state scenario has been exposed as a scam to facilitate Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian territory and create a perpetually displaced population, to the point that the Palestinian right of return needs to be read and interpreted in relation to the ongoing displacement. In Palestinian memory, the Nakba is not restricted to 1948, because Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine has never stopped. As the international community fails to challenge Israel’s colonialism and demographic obsession, it is consenting to Israel’s displacement of Palestinians from their territory. Far from promoting the importance of recognising the Nakba, the international community is endorsing it by allowing Israel to exist on its own terms, while Palestinians are constantly forced to modify their existence to accommodate a colonial power on their territory.
Nakba denial by Israel is steeped in its fabricated narratives, imposed upon the international community and disseminated in such a way that Palestinian narratives, despite their legitimate roots, are forced to fight for space in order to gain international recognition, let alone endorsement. The international community’s obsession with dissociated commemoration runs contrary to its purported human rights obligations. It is also an insult to Palestinians’ memory that their history is condensed into remembrance on specific days while Israel has been allowed every day of the year since 1948 to advance its colonisation of Palestinian territory, to say nothing of the earlier settler-colonialism that facilitated the establishment of the state.
International recognition of the Palestinian Nakba as an ongoing trauma in Palestine’s collective memory would isolate Israel’s attempts to force it into oblivion. Yet, this step cannot be implemented within the two-state framework as the latter still endorses Israel’s colonial existence as legitimate, while presenting a hypothetical Palestinian state as dependent, even malfunctioning, in terms of self-determination and its exclusion of Palestinian liberation.
The politicisation of the Palestinian right of return is thus imperative. As things stand, the international community continues to feed the illusion that the two-state compromise constitutes the only political solution, while the right of return is misrepresented as compensation in its entirety. This is why Palestinians must determine their own right of return even if it challenges the international community’s impositions.
Israel arrests 500 Palestinians over Facebook posts
Palestine Information Center – October 8, 2018
GAZA – Israel has arrested 500 Palestinians, including women, children and MPs, over their social media posts, the Palestine Center for Prisoners Studies reported.
The center’s spokesman Riyadh Al-Ashqar said that the Israeli authorities began arresting Palestinians for their social media posts since the start of the Jerusalem Intifada claiming such uploads incite terror against Israel.
Israel is using its recently formed “Cyber Unit” to monitor Palestinian social media posts, he said.
This unit, Al-Ashqar said, classifies any Facebook post that glorifies Palestinian martyrs, discloses Israeli crimes, and supports resistance as “incitement of terror”.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been sentenced over the past three years to different jail terms on the ground of incitement on social media, he charged.
Some others were placed under house arrest and denied from using social media platforms, he continued.
Al-Ashqar strongly condemned such arrests that “clearly violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights.”
He concluded by calling on the international community to protect the Palestinian people’s right of freedom of expression.
Army Raid Imprisoned Palestinian Activist’s Home, Forcing Him to Dress as Israeli Soldier
Ma’an – October 8, 2018
RAMALLAH – Israeli forces raided the home of Palestinian prisoner and activist, Hasan Karajeh, in the Safa village, in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah, on Monday morning.
Locals said that Israeli forces raided Karajeh’s family home, who was brought along to the raid with his hands tied and dressed in an Israeli soldier’s uniform.
Hasan’s brother, Muhannad Karajeh, managed to take several photos of Hasan after the Israeli forces completed searching the home and withdrew from the home.
During the raid, Israeli forces damaged furniture and personal belongings of the Karajeh family, and physically assaulted Hasan’s brother, Muhammad.
Sources added that Israeli forces shouted insults at Hasan’s family members and subjected his wife to an intensive interrogation.
Israeli forces raided and searched through Hasan’s home, as well as his brothers.
Hasan Karajeh was detained on September 11th from his home by Israeli forces and was banned from lawyer visits.
This was the third time Karajeh is detained by Israel, he was released from Israeli prisons last year; he was previously detained twice, once in 2013 and another time in 2016, during which he served almost 40 months of imprisonment.
The human rights youth activist was the Ambassador of Arab Youth at the Arab League and has previously represented Palestine at several international conferences and platforms regarding human rights and the Palestinian cause.
Fun at the United Nations and in Congress: Israel Wins the Comedy Competition
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Image Credit: GPO
By Philip Giraldi | American Herald Tribune | October 8, 2018
Most people are unaware of the fact that the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly, which takes place in September, is actually a major audition opportunity for aspiring stand-up comedians. This year, American President Donald Trump was one of the pre-event favorites according to the Las Vegas betting line based on his hilarious tweets back in January explaining that he is “like, really smart,” before observing that he “would qualify as not smart, but genius…. and a very stable genius at that!”
To be sure, when he addressed the assembly on September 25th and rambled on about how “In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country,” the audience was ready to share in the fun and laughed out loud at the absurdity of the notion. They were still giggling on the following day when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley quipped with a straight face that the audience was actually laughing with Trump out of respect for him and what he was saying.
Trump’s tour de force seemed unbeatable but the wily Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an ace up his sleeve. Bibi’s performance back in 2012 when he produced the by now infamous cartoon of an alleged Iranian nuclear bomb about to go off was still recalled by many in the audience as the ultimate stand-up joke U.N. style, a legendary performance. But the same creative thinking that produced the bomb with its lit fuse had come up with a different kind of delayed action joke that Bibi knew would confuse his audience before being revealed for what it was, trumping Trump’s attempt at humor, so to speak. Netanyahu produced a series of large photos taken near Tehran by Israeli intelligence showing a wall and a gate. He said it was an Iranian “secret atomic warehouse for storing massive amounts of equipment and material for Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program.”
The audience gasped, clearly impressed by Bibi’s unexpected rollout of a hitherto unknown top secret installation, but the joke came the next day when it was revealed that the complex inside the wall actually contained a number of businesses, including a scrap metal dealership and a carpet cleaning service. Bibi likely reacted with his Gary Cooper grin, “Hey, the joke’s on you guys who are always whining about Israel’s nuclear stockpile.” A U.S. intelligence official was also apparently in on the jape, commenting a day later that “What Netanyahu said last night was slightly misleading. We knew about the facility in Tehran and it’s a place full of file cabinets and documents, not aluminum pipes or centrifuges.”
So it was a weekend of fun for the Israeli delegation, including convivial friendly banter with the representatives of all Israel’s four or five friends in the General Assembly, but you can only generate so much excitement when talking to a dry stick like Nikki Haley or the ambassador from Micronesia. Fortunately, good news had come through late in the week, concerning how seven more demonstrating Gazans had been shot dead by Israeli snipers, and there was also an exciting new development in that the Israeli navy had now gotten into the game, shooting Gazans demonstrating on the beaches along their own seafront since Israel regards anyone who seeks to access the water as being a terrorist, transgressing against Israel’s modern-day Mare Nostrum. Ninety-three more Palestinians were injured, 37 of whom were wounded by gunfire.
There was also a lot of funny stuff going on in Washington, perhaps driven by a desire to outdo the frolicking taking place at the U.N. building in New York City. Congressmen got together and said, “Hey, let’s see what we can give to Israel without anyone in the media coming out with so much as a peep.” One Congressman, possibly Chuck Schumer or Ben Cardin or even Lindsay Graham, must have come up with the idea for a new law that would compel the White House to give to Israel a minimum of $3.8 billion dollars a year for the next ten years no matter what Israel does or says. Shoot Arabs, kick them out of their homes, or just simply treat them like shit, it will all be the same to Uncle Sam. If they want to bomb Peoria, be my guest. Written into the bill is the provision that the president cannot in any way reduce or delay the payment going from the U.S. Treasury to the Israeli Central Bank.
And $3.8 billion is only a minimum. Section 103 of the House bill removes all limitations on how much money Israel gets. Under the new act, instead of $38 billion being the cap, as stipulated in the 2016 memorandum of understanding, it will be a minimum payment until 2028. Constant lobbying by Israel and its friends in the Congress will inevitably mean that the amount might double or triple during that time period. This is a huge gift to Netanyahu, who is undoubtedly laughing all the way to the bank, as the expression goes.
Section 106 of the bill is another freebee, increasing Israel’s access to a U.S. provided war-reserve stockpile that is maintained in Israel by completely removing the limits on how many weapons can be “transferred,” without any payment or charge. The existing limit of $200 million worth of arms per annum charged against the aid package has now been eliminated, allowing the Israelis to take whatever they want.
And there’s more. Section 108 of the Act permits Israel to export arms it receives from the United States, even though that violates U.S. law. And it will also be allowed to use the American aid to buy weapons from its own defense industries, eliminating any benefit for U.S. domestic arms manufacturers.
In short, the comedy routine by the U.S. Congress vis-à-vis Israel has consisted of rolling over and playing dead while handing over the reins of American foreign policy to a foreign power. Netanyahu has scored a hat trick, defying U.S. interests while increasing both aid and concessions. The House bill that spells it all out in detail will now go back for Senate approval, and then to Trump to be signed into law.
The only ones not laughing at the comedy routines both at the U.N. and in Washington are the American taxpayers and those of us who want U.S. foreign policy to respect American values and interests. And by the way, the House has named the bill after Miami Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a well-known Israel firster whose groveling before Netanyahu and Jewish groups has been notable even by the low standards of the House of Representatives. The bill is now officially the “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018.”
Lieberman scolds EU diplomats for condemning Khan Ahmar demolition
Palestine Information Center – October 7, 2018
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel’s war minister Avigdor Lieberman sent a letter to eight European ambassadors in Israel slamming them for a joint statement signed by their countries in which they criticized the Israeli government’s plan to demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village.
The ambassadors from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland and Britain reportedly received a letter from Lieberman last week calling their joint statement on the demolition of the Bedouin village Khan al-Ahmar “absurd”.
“The statement invokes the absurd claim that relocating the residents to proper homes nearby will somehow preclude an eventual political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the letter said.
Lieberman responded to a joint statement by the eight countries last week in which they called “upon the Israeli authorities to reconsider their decision to demolish Khan al-Ahmar,” arguing it would be “very serious and would severely threaten the viability of the two-state solution and undermine prospects for peace.”
“The idea that moving a group of some 100 people within a five kilometer radius will prevent a resolution to such a complex historical conflict is hysterical nonsense,” Lieberman claimed.
“Israel expects to be treated with the same measure of dignity and respect for its judicial institutions and internal affairs as each of your governments rightly expects for its own. We regard anything less as an expression of injustice and discrimination, unworthy of our friendly bilateral relations and of accepted norms governing the conduct of ties between sovereign nations,” Lieberman’s letter concluded.
In May, after nearly nine years of legal battles, Israel’s High Court approved the government’s plan to raze Khan al-Ahmar. This ruling was frozen in July. The court said last month that the village would ultimately have to be demolished.
Residents rejected offers from the Israeli occupation to be forcibly deported elsewhere. Following the decision to demolish the village, the European Union stated that it expects Israeli authorities to reconsider the decision in light of international law and a future solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel’s settlement policy, which the EU and international law consider illegal has long been the subject of global criticism, as Palestinians have seen the prospects of a contiguous future Palestinian state diminish with the gradual expansion of Jewish-only settlement in the last several decades.
UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov echoed the EU’s statement, saying: “Demolitions undermine prospect for two state solution and are against international law.”
The demolition of the village is due to happen any day now since the deadline for the residents to evacuate has passed.
UNRWA concerned about Israel plan to stop its work in Jerusalem
MEMO – October 6, 2018
The UN Works and Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has expressed its concern about a statement made by Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, that he would stop the organisation’s operations in the occupied city.
UNRWA’s statement, a copy of which was sent to MEMO, said: “UNRWA conducts humanitarian operations in conformity with the UN Charter, bilateral and multilateral agreements that continue to be in force, [as well as] relevant General Assembly resolutions”.
The statement added: “The Agency is specifically mandated by the UN General Assembly to deliver protection and assistance to Palestine refugees in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, pending a resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.”
It continued: “UNRWA has continuously maintained operations in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem since 1967, with the cooperation and on the basis of a formal agreement with the State of Israel, which remains in force”.
“The Agency is recognized for the important work it carries out in education, health-care, relief and social services in East Jerusalem. It is determined to continue carrying out these services”.
Yesterday Barkat, Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, accused UNRWA of “operating illegally and promoting incitement against Israel,” before confirming that UNRWA schools in the occupied city will be closed by the end of the current school year. As well as schools, clinics, sports centres and other services will also be transferred to the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality.
UNRWA said of Barkat’s statement: “Such messaging challenges the core principles of impartial and independent humanitarian action and does not reflect the robust and structured dialogue and interaction that UNRWA and the State of Israel have traditionally maintained.”
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
Blog Roll
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- Iran Blockade Complications /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Nima Alkhorshid
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- Minab children massacre not ‘unfortunate situation’ but ‘heinous war crime’: Tehran
- If Americans Knew
- Israel’s New Ambassador to the ‘Christian World’ Served as Envoy to Azerbaijan During the Ethnic Cleansing of Christians from Nagorno-Karabakh
- US set to sell $1B “Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System” to Israel – Daily Update
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- Israel to pour $730m into propaganda arm amid reputational crisis
- Real Cost of Iran War Likely Double the $25 Billion Figure the Pentagon Gave to Congress
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- In Gaza, Israel commits 10+ ceasefire violations a day – Daily Update
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
- Israel’s top Jewish religious body ‘refuses to condemn’ smashing of Jesus statue
- No Tricks Zone
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- 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”
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- 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 