Hollywood Stars Raise Record $60m for Israeli Army
MEMO | November 6, 2018
Hollywood celebrities raised a record breaking $60 million for the Israeli military at the Friends of the Israel Defence Forces (FIDF) annual gala last week.
This year’s sold-out Western Region event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel welcomed more than 1,200 supporters of Israel, including prominent actors and singers like Ashton Kutcher, Pharrell Williams, Gerard Butler, and Katharine McPhee.
“We are thrilled that so many members of our community, including major Hollywood figures, are coming together to help us support the brave men and women of the [Israeli army].” said FIDF National Board Member and Chairman of the event, Haim Saban. “Standing behind these heroes is one of my greatest honours in my life.”
The event featured a programme that told the 70-year history of Israel through the accounts of soldiers and the military’s various campaigns against the Palestinians.
It also included several contributions from former and current Israeli soldiers.
Last year, FIDF raised $53.8 million at the same event; contributions have been increasing annually for the past three years. In 2015 the gala raised $31 million, half of this year’s total.
According to a press release by the organisation, the funds raised will be used to “provide much-needed and well-deserved services such as academic scholarships to combat veterans, financial assistance for soldiers in need … crucial aid for wounded veterans and the families of fallen soldiers, weeks of rest and recuperation for entire IDF units, as well as educational, cultural, and recreational facilities.”
Last month, the FIDF’s New York event raised $32 million for members of Israel’s occupation forces, attended by many of the city’s most prominent business people and philanthropists.
Among the biggest donors to the gala were Or Lachayal – an organisation which works to “strengthen the Jewish identity of the Israeli army” – which pledged $2.5 million and Nefesh B’Nefesh – which promotes Jewish immigration to Israel – which pledged $1.3 million.
FIDF has a long history of fundraising for Israel’s occupation forces; it operates 20 offices across the United States and Panama, according to its own website.
Support for the army from US organisations and the US government has been a cornerstone of Israel’s ability to continue its ongoing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In October, the largest ever US military aid package to Israel – worth $38 billion over a ten year period – entered into force.
Normalizing External Narratives in Palestine’s Spaces for Education
Palestinian students in a school of the UNRWA. (Photo: via Facebook)
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 6, 2018
In collaboration with the Palestinian Ministry of Education, the EU launched a competition across schools in Gaza and the occupied West Bank called “Know Europe”. The aim, according to EU Deputy Representative Tomas Niklasson, is “to introduce ourselves again to students of Palestine: introduce our values, culture, history, and identity” and affirm the bloc’s purported commitment to supporting Palestinians.
This educational endeavor is tantamount to forcing gratitude for symbolic recognition, decades after colonial conquest and entrenchment. Yet the reasoning behind the competition, according to the press release, is that “the European Union has a lot in common with Palestine and the region”. Palestinians know there is no comparison, yet this misconception is now being normalized through education, despite the obvious differences between a bloc of countries and Palestine’s disappearance.
Is it for educational purposes that the EU is introducing a sliver of normalized and depoliticized education for Palestinians? Or is the aim to promote the international agenda of obstructing the colonized population’s right to learn of the international community, in this case, Europe, through its own experience?
The competition is not proof of Europe’s support for Palestine – it is a publicity stunt for the benefit of the EU itself that simply requires Palestinian students as participants. To hold this competition at a time when, more than ever, Palestinians require support for their own narratives to be disseminated internationally shows that international exploitation of Palestine and Palestinians knows no bounds.
In doing so, the colonized population is coerced into a type of learning that promotes a purportedly outward-looking framework, while Palestinians are contending with two violations which the EU has actively ignored: restrictions on freedom of movement, particularly in Gaza where this right has been annihilated, and the Palestinian Right of Return.
Furthermore, why does the EU assume that its founding principles are worthy of dissemination? The competition is labeled “interactive,” yet the interaction follows the traditional formula of a colonized population participating in a decided agenda.
There is no space for Palestinian narratives, yet it is possible to find space for the EU to share its identity with a population that finds its identity bludgeoned by the international community. Will the imparted values include the EU’s insistence on the two-state framework, its support of the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s purported right to defend itself?
Surely there is enough awareness that, at an international level, the colonial depiction of Palestine doesn’t aid Palestinian rights and self-determination. Given the leverage that the EU has over Palestine in terms of politics and diplomacy, this competition will make a spectacle out of participation and Palestinians will gain nothing in terms of their rights.
For an entity that claims to be supportive of the Palestinians, the competition only shows the bloc promoting its self-interests and appeasement of Israel. The EU would have served a better purpose if it had encouraged the celebration of Palestinian history, memory, and narratives. A population that has excelled in education, despite colonial violence and appropriation, deserves more recognition than for its youth to participate in a scheme which continues to deflect focus away from the realities of Palestinian displacement and loss of territory. The disappearance of Palestine necessitates more attention than the EU and its omniscient presence.
Making America as ‘secure’ as Israel – Israelis train U.S. police
By Alison Weir | CounterPunch | February 3, 2005
When you’re receiving advice “free” or otherwise, it’s wise to first evaluate the source. It’s probably not the best idea to hire a squinting optometrist, a limping podiatrist, or a toothless dentist. If you’re considering a heart surgeon and a search for his previous patients turns up too many graves, perhaps it’s time to reconsider. In fact, if he’s having heart pains, in all kindness perhaps you should call him a doctor.
In this vein, it seems time to examine a growing trend in this country. American officials still reeling from 9-11 and its escalating after-shocks are increasingly turning for help to Israeli “security experts.” Every few months there seems to be another report of local police officers somewhere in the country- Rhode Island, California, New Jersey -traveling to Israel for training in how to make America more secure.
These trips are paid for, interestingly, by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization whose once worthy goal of opposing bigotry long ago was superseded by a very different activity: advocacy for Israel. This advocacy consists of both carrots and sticks. Our officials, understandably perhaps, are chomping on the carrots.
At the same time as these junkets to Israel, more and more Israeli security experts are being hired here at home to advise us on how to make our nation safer. They’re popping up everywhere – at the local level, in state agencies, and throughout the federal government. They’re offering their services to the state department, and military officers are visiting the highest levels of the Pentagon.
Israeli experts are assisting us abroad, as well. They helped us interrogate prisoners at Abu-Ghraib, for example, and are present at Guantanamo making us safer.
At some levels, none of this is surprising. It is certainly tempting for our financially strapped municipalities to avail themselves of a lobbying group’s generosity, and there are all sorts of truisms to apply for example, “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” But the one that I suspect best fits is the old “there’s no free lunch.” Even more troubling, perhaps, are the cases where our over-extended federal government and struggling local ones are paying out good money for consultants whose merit is highly questionable at best.
It seems to me that before we go any further in this headlong rush for Israeli expertise to protect American citizens, it’s important to ask how secure Israeli experts and their policies have made Israeli citizens.
Anyone who has paid any attention to the news, of course, knows the answer.
The truth is, despite Israel’s enormous military might (paid for by American taxpayers to the tune of over $10 million per day), Israelis are among the most terrified populations in today’s world. Israelis feel unsafe in their cafes, on their streets, in their homes. They’re frightened to ride their own city buses. (The wealthy, of course, don’t. They take taxis and private cars.) And going to the mall in many parts of Israel is an experience that not many Americans would be eager to replicate here. Being searched by armed soldiers in combat gear before being allowed to enter, and then shopping amid people with loaded rifles strapped to their backs as they peruse the toy section is not a delight many of us would wish to copy.
Of course, you might point out, Israelis are living luxuriously compared to Palestinians. “Only” about 1,000 Israelis have been killed in the past five years, not over 3,500. “Only” approximately 100 Israeli children have been killed compared to more than 600 Palestinian ones. “Only” 7,000 Israelis have been injured, not 28,000. The unemployment rate is “only” 10 % not 50%. Israelis aren’t suffering malnutrition, being routinely imprisoned, grotesquely humiliated, regularly tortured.
There aren’t dozens of children with eyes injured and shot out, and while there are growing numbers of Israelis in wheelchairs, they don’t yet approach the hundreds of Palestinians whom Israeli bullets have permanently paralyzed. While many Israelis are maimed – arms missing, legs gone, faces mutilated – they’re “only” a fraction of the number you find in Palestine.
Nevertheless, despite their relative comfort, Israelis are not living in a condition that I wish to emulate.
The fact is, Israeli governmental security and policy “experts” have long promulgated policies of such ruthlessness and cruelty that a tiny but lethal number of their victims finally began to fight back. In the current intifada, 140 Palestinians were killed before a similar Jewish death on Israeli soil; 84 Palestinian children were killed before a single Israeli child. Now, as Palestinian deaths continue to spiral upward, Israeli deaths, while still significantly fewer, continue to grow as well. [See Timeline of deaths.]
It’s a very simple equation. The more that Israeli “experts” increase their actions to “protect” Israelis, the more they die.
Overall, in fact, Israelis have been so well served by their officials, that Israeli citizens are leaving the country in droves (hence, I suspect, the many “security consultants” now peddling their wares in the U.S. – security experts, too, know when to leave a sinking ship). In recent years, approximately ten percent of the population has left and some former American diplomats suspect the number of Israelis fleeing their country could easily be double that.
Personally, I’m proud of America’s history as a refuge for those “yearning to breathe free,” and I believe in doing our best to welcome those whom extreme need drives to our shores. I don’t, however, want anyone to bring “security” policies and “expertise” to our country that caused them to flee their own.
I’m not surprised that so many Israelis are moving to the US. I only wish we’d stop consulting them about how to make our own nation as safe as the one they’ve just fled.
Lebanon’s President: Israeli Claims about Missile Sites “Bogus”
Al-Manar | November 5, 2018
Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Monday deprecated the Israeli enemy’s continuous claims about the presence of missile sites in populated areas in Lebanon, especially near Rafic Hariri International Airport.
“These allegations are bogus and they are taking place while the Israeli violation of the Lebanese sovereignty persists,” Aoun said.
The President also addressed Lebanon’s position on the displaced Syrians’ issue and the necessity that they return home. Accordingly, he welcomed the ongoing efforts aiming to reach a solution to the Syrian crisis.
Aoun also warned of dividing Syria, stressing Syrian territorial integrity.
“Lebanon cannot await the political solution to this crisis so that the displaced return to Syria,” he underlined.
Moreover, Aoun renewed calls to work on reaching a permanent and just solution to the Palestinian Cause, underlining the reverberations of cutting the funding of UNRWA and the implicit intentions to settle Palestinians in the host countries.
Irish Lawmakers Call for Arms Embargo on Israel
IMEMC | November 2, 2018
In a letter published in the Irish Times newspaper, Minister of State Finian McGrath and fifty other Irish TDs and Senators have called for an arms embargo to be placed on Israel, and for “an end to the bi-lateral arms trade between Ireland and the apartheid state”.
In addition to independent Minister McGrath, the signatories include members of Sinn Féin, Solidarity-People Before Profit, Labour, the Green Party, Independents 4 Change and other independent members of the Oireachtas, who condemn “the shooting dead of some 205 [Palestinian] protestors, including 40 children, and wounding of more than 5,000 people by live fire [on the Great March of Return] in Gaza since April”.
The letter ends by calling for “the international community, and the Irish government in particular, to take a stand to help end Israel’s decades of colonial occupation, apartheid and war crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Welcoming the statement, Ms. Fatin Al Tamimi, Chairperson of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and a Palestinian-Irish citizen said she “thanks the members of the Oireachtas for this important and principled statement of solidarity, showing once again the strong bonds between the Irish people and the Palestinian people, both of whom have struggled heroically against colonialism and oppression in their homelands.”
لإamimi noted, according to the PNN, that “the IPSC strongly echoes this call for an arms embargo on Israel, a measure that we Palestinians have long been asking for. Weapons sent to Israel are used to kill, maim and oppress my people, while weapons exported from Israel are marketed as being ‘battle tested’ on Palestinians. It is time to end this horrendous trade in death and destruction, which is a bloody stain upon the Irish state.”
Israel expert calls for assassination of Islamic Jihad leader
MEMO | November 1, 2018
Israel should resume its policy of targeted assassinations, aiming first at Secretary General of Islamic Jihad, Ziyad Al-Nakhaleh, Israeli journalist Yoni Ben Menachem said in an article this week
Al-Nakahleh, who is based in Beirut, was elected as a secretary-general of the movement last September. Ben Menachem sees Al-Nakhaleh’s ties with Iran and Hezbollah as a threat to Israel. His assassination, Al-Nakhaleh said, is a step towards “stopping Iranian influence in the region and stopping the Iranian plan to turn the Gaza Strip into an effective front against Israel”.
Mossad can reach Al-Nakhaleh in Beirut, the journalist added, in a similar way to how it targeted Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah leader, in Syria ten years ago.
Linking Al-Nakhaleh to the Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, Ben Menachem said this allows Iran to spread its influence in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The failure of Mossad to return to the policy of targeted assassination will allow Gaza’s political leaders to believe they have “immunity”.
Father and son activists in Dheisheh camp, seized by occupation forces
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – November 1, 2018
Nidal Abu Aker, a longtime community leader and a journalist in Dheisheh refugee camp, and his son Mohammed Abu Aker, a university student, were seized by Israeli occupation forces who invaded the camp in the early morning hours of Thursday, 1 November. Both are prominent advocates for Palestinian rights and former prisoners who have been repeatedly jailed for their commitment to Palestinian liberation.
Israeli occupation forces invaded the home, pushing, shoving and hitting Abu Aker as he resisted the armed soldiers forcing their way inside the family’s house.
They manhandled Mohammed as they pulled him and his father from their home, raising their weapons in a threat to the Palestinian refugees in nearby apartments.
The Abu Aker family are refugees from Ras Abu Ammar in Palestine ’48; their family has lived in Dheisheh refugee camp since the Nakba. Nidal, 50, is married to Manal Shaheen and the father of three children, Mohammed, Dalia and Karmel. A prominent leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he is also the host of a program about Palestinian prisoners called “In their cells” on Sawt al-Wihda radio station and a co-founder of the Families of Prisoners Association in the camp.
He has spent 17 years in Israeli prisons, through multiple arrests and under 11 years of administrative detention without charge or trial. In 2015, he engaged in a 40-day hunger strike with five more administrative detainees to demand an end to imprisonment without charge or trial. He was arrested for the first time in 1984, and his mother says that he has spent nearly half of his life in Israeli prisons. He was released from his latest stint in administrative detention without charge or trial in July 2018, after two years of imprisonment.
Mohammed, 25, was released in late 2017 after spending two years and two months in Israeli prison on an array of political charges, including support for and membership in a prohibited organization. All major Palestinian political parties are labeled illegal by the Israeli occupation, and people often face this charge for participating in student, labor or youth organizing, as did Mohammed. A student at Bethlehem University, he is known for his role in organizing the Palestinian student movement on campus.
Dheisheh refugee camp has been a site of intense repression and frequent violent raids by Israeli occupation forces. Youth in the camp have been threatened by Israeli military commanders with phone calls and text messages. Raed al-Salhi, an unarmed Palestinian youth was shot dead by occupation forces in an “arrest raid,” shortly after one occupation soldier had threatened to “shoot [Raed] in front of your mother.”
Hebron: Seven weeks after the murder of Wael Fatah Ja’aberi by Israeli Forces, family still awaits his body for burial.
International Solidarity Movement | October 28, 2018
Hebron, occupied Palestine – On Monday October 22, the family of Wael Fatah Ja’aberi gathered in Ibn Rush square in downtown Hebron to protest the murder of their son and the decision of Israeli forces not to return his body to their family for more than a month. In September, Ja’aberi was killed in a combined settler and soldier ambush. His body has still not been returned to his family, who have erected an information/communication tent in the main square of downtown Hebron in protest.
A week after the Ja’aberi family erected their protest tent downtown, fathers who lost their sons in similar incidents, gathered in the tent and showed their solidarity.
The Ja’aberi family demanded the body of slain Wael, but is waiting in vain for any answer since September 9, 2018 – the day of the brutal incident.
On Monday evening 9/9/2018, Wael Fatah Ja’aberi, a 37 year old father of two children, was shot down close to his home, near the intersection of the Hebron H1/H2 area division, from the entrance of the illegal settlement Givat Ha’avot, by a settler and a soldier.
According to witnesses, Wael and his 9 year old son were walking from their home to a nearby shop, for which they had to pass the road close to a the entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement Givat Ha’avot .
When they approached the location of the entrance, still 20 meters away from it, a settler together with a soldier ambushed and killed the 37 year old father.
His 9 year old son was lucky to escape and could run back home, in shock of the cruelty he went trough. As it seems, the armed settler fired at Wael and his son, after which a soldier, present at the checkpoint, continued the shooting with several live bullets.
Israeli forces left Ja’abari bleeding to death, without giving or allowing him any kind of medical assistance.
No health care was given or allowed. The Israeli ambulance belongs to Ofer, a paramilitary settler of Kyriat Arba – not a medic.
Video recordings of this fatal incident were posted on the internet. (here, here and here)
The Israeli military claimed afterwards, that it was self defense against a stabbing attack, and did not contact the family. This claim is disputed, however, given Israeli forces’ history of planting knives on murdered Palestinians and given the fact that Ja’abari was walking with his 9 year old child. No footage of the many security cameras on that location has ever been released.
Stealing corpses in the aftermath of a unlawful execution, is a standard procedure of the Occupation. Between 2008 and 2018 Israel held back more then 280 corpses.
Thoughts on One Democratic State
By Nahida Exiled Palestinian | Poetry for Palestine | May 18, 2018
Some activists are worried that my passion for justice and my advocacy for full restoration of Palestinians’ inalienable rights might “alienate” some Jewish supporters. They claim Palestinians desperately need Jewish support.
To them I have this to say:
Palestine has now been under the heel of violent foreign rulers since a full Century. Palestinians have always been eager to get international support, including from Jews. Since a full century, the naturally trustful Palestinians were grateful and delighted to give a platform to whomever showed the slightest interest in their cause. Tragically, this resulted in our authentic Palestinian narrative being gradually silenced. Genocidal atrocities since a century are ongoing. Our will to self-determination is untamed. Our Right to be sovereign inside our own land, is intact. Our historic, cultural and national identity, is as strong as ever. Yet all is more or less silenced.
Today we have the terribly dangerous situation where the authentic Palestinian narrative is so absent, that it has never been truly heard or appreciated in the West.
Every time an uncompromising authentic Palestinian voice steps up assertive and strong, it is quickly muffled and tucked away, as to not offend Jewish supporters or to not scratch their sensitivities.
Unconditionally and almost religiously pro-Palestinian organizations have sought Jewish approval in every event, every talk, ever letter, every petition, every motion and every campaign. This went on for decades. I know it from first hand experience, and also from the many Palestinians who echo this same disturbing experience almost globally.
Whenever an authentic Palestinian voice steps out of the narrow confinement of such censored discourse, they are immediately reprimanded and told in no uncertain terms that they have crossed the lines defined by Jewish “supporters”. When a Palestinian refuses to be terrorized by such Thought Police, he or she faces defamation, blacklisting, ostracism, and even threats.
On the day of signing of Oslo agreement, I remember sitting on the staircase in shock, sobbing for the rest of the day, for I knew what is to come. Yet the pro Palestinian camp with all its Jewish “supporters” in control, embraced the move. Palestinians were deceived into believing that a Palestinian state will come into being within five years. They were led to believe the Palestinian problem is on the verge of being resolved once and for all, and closure was eminent, nothing could have been further from truth. And the genocidal slaughter continued, worse then ever. And it continues today.
For the twenty five years that followed, “israel” used the “peace process” to proceed with it’s undeclared aims of total colonisation of West Bank and Gaza. The number of settlers sky rocketed and settlements have multiplied many folds over, making it impossible for any Palestinian state to exist on a land infested with and totally disconnected by Jewish only settlements and Jewish only roads.
In the present, “israel” has managed to totally conquer Palestine by war and terror. It has created a new reality on the ground, by annexing most of the land of historic Palestine, reducing Palestinian areas into fragmented open prisons where Jewish “israelis” can kill-at-will. “israel” together with its international Jewish support network has reduced and degraded the Palestinian population from a formerly radiant, self-sufficient, productive, cohesive, cooperative affluent society into an aid-dependent, traumatized, unproductive, poverty stricken population. The degradation is even practiced by distributing free narcotics to the Palestinian youth!
Despite having achieved their Jewish Zionist goals of total dominance over land and population, the geo-political circumstances are rapidly changing.
Increasingly, the strategists and think tanks of the Jewish state realise that they have passed the highest moment of success, and that the world community in spite of some coerced puppet governments, is very rapidly turning against the Jewish state. They began to feel the heat, of growing isolation, of world disdain. In this context, the next logical step from the perspective of their think tanks and strategists, is to seek the total finalization of their Zionist project, by seeking legitimacy from the rightful natives, through legalization, and through mass campaigns to gain “the hearts and minds” from world community by any artifice necessary.
Such step would guarantee their permanent presence in Palestine while securing themselves with “peace treaties’. And while the And while the Arab Muslims remain majority in greater region, the Jewish-“isrseli” total hegemony and dominance; financial, economical, militaristic, technological, administrative, educational, would be guaranteed.
Their next strategic move would be to offer a luring “solution” which would lure Palestinian support by nominally less oppression, by feigning “equality” while knowing that in reality their hegemony will remain de-facto, due to the huge economical, technological, industrial, and of course military gap between the two groups. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the Jewish state exhibits a willingness to relinquish any part of their control over all apparatus of power in the region. And it is an irrefutable fact, demonstrated by a century of nefarious “facts on the ground” that the Jewish Zionists who invaded Palestine and their aggravated offspring, will never voluntarily relinquish their weaponry, military, and aggressive violence.
Add to this unsettling scenario the most horrific component of ideological supremacy which would no doubt manifest in an explosion of settler violence against Palestinians who are seen as mere slaves created only to serve Jews.
That horrific deception is a strategic move already has a name. “One Democratic State”, “with Equal Rights to All its Citizens”. Very easy to be deceived by such a lofty romantic title, except that it is a cruel misnomer, a sirens’ song to fool and victimise, one last lethal time.
“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled” as goes the adage sometimes attributed to Mark Twain
Leading Palestinians by the nose, dangling the carrot of “One Democratic State” and promising them of a “bright” joined future with their persecutors, while knowing fair well that the promised crumbs will never come to fruition, exactly as the crumbs of Oslo, due to the fact-on-the-ground dominance coupled with lethal ideological supremacy.
“ODS-Equal Rights”, is not only an act of egregious deception, it is designed to perpetuate wars and genocide, by rewarding sadistic terrorists, thus it is an act of betrayal to humanity.
Oman rejects mediating between Israelis, Palestinians
Press TV – October 27, 2018
Oman says it will not act as a “mediator” between Israelis and Palestinians, playing down an earlier visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The sultanate was only offering ideas to help Israel and Palestinians to come together, Omani Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah told a security summit in Bahrain’s capital Manama on Saturday.
The remarks came a day after Netanyahu visited Oman in a rare visit, while accompanied by other senior Israeli officials, including the head of the Israeli spy agency Mossad.
“We are not saying road is now easy and paved with flowers, but our priority is to put an end to the conflict and move to a new world,” Reuters cited Abdullah as saying.
Despite apparently trying to sound impartial, Abdullah said Oman relied on the United States and efforts by US President Donald Trump in working towards the “deal of the century.”
The Trump administration has targeted the plan at the situation in the Palestinian territories.
Details are yet to emerge, but reports say it envisages a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty across about half of Israel-occupied West Bank and all the Gaza Strip. The deal also reportedly foresees potential disarming of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, and does not find Palestinians entitled to the eastern part of Jerusalem al-Quds as their capital.
This is while Abbas, who visited Oman before Netanyahu for three days, has renounced the plan, saying it has been devised without consulting the Palestinians. He also spurned any intermediary role by the US late last year after Washington recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital.”
In June, however, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan assured the US of their support for the plan during visits to those countries by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Jason Greenblatt, the US envoy to the region.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told the Manama gathering on Saturday that the kingdom believed the key to “normalizing” relations with Israel was the “peace process.”
The Omani minister also claimed Israel was “present in the region, and we all understand this, the world is also aware of this fact and maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same and also bear the same obligations.”
Observers say Muscat has come to accommodate the US plan under pressure from Washington and Riyadh, the strongest US ally in the Persian Gulf region, which has been inching towards Tel Aviv over the past years.
Palestinian groups, however, condemned the Israeli prime minister’s visit to Oman, urging Arab countries to support the oppressed people of Palestine, instead.
Hamas warned about the dangerous consequences of Netanyahu’s visit for the people of Palestine. The Islamic Jihad movement also censured the visit, saying Oman acquitted Netanyahu of the crimes committed against innocent Palestinians by welcoming him to the country.
Commenting on Netanyahu’s visit, Paul Larudee, with the Free Palestine Movement, told PressTV, “What in the world would Netanyahu know about peace and stability, when his objectives and objectives of Israel have always been war and instability?”
“The importance is what their objectives are not. They are not about Arab unity, not about solidarity with Arabs who are suffering namely the Palestinians,” he said.
“These other countries realize that sooner or later they are potential targets of Israel… that they can be in the same place that the Palestinians are now,” Larudee said.
Israel Culture Minister arrives in UAE
MEMO | October 26, 2018
In first, Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev today arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam Judo tournament.
Regev was invited to attend the event earlier this month to accompany Israel’s national judo team as they compete in the Emirati capital. President of the International Judo Federation (IJF), Marius Vizer, wrote to Regev on 2 October to invite her to the tournament and promised to “make all the necessary arrangements for [her] visit”.
The invitation came after the IJF demanded that the UAE allow the Israeli team to play its national anthem and fly its flag during the tournament. The event had previously been threatened with cancellation after the IJF stripped the UAE of the right to host the tournament due to its failure to guarantee “equal treatment” for Israeli athletes. In September, the UAE accepted the IJF’s conditions and allowed the Israeli judoists to sport their national insignia.
Regev’s attendance at the event – which is taking place from 25-27 October – will be seen as controversial in light of the lack of official relations between Israel and the UAE. In addition, Israeli passports are not valid for travel to the UAE.
However, the UAE has recently been pursuing a policy of normalisation with Israel. In September, it hosted secret backchannel talks between Israel and Turkey in an attempt to mend strained Israeli-Turkish relations. Envoys from the two countries flew into Abu Dhabi via Amman, Jordan, though neither government would confirm the purpose of the talks.
In August, an Israeli journalist claimed that an Emirati pilot participated in the bombing of Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip during his training on Israeli Air Force F-35 fighters. Cohen, the journalist who made the claims, also accused Dubai’s Deputy Chairman of Police and Public Security, General Dhahi Khalfan, of being complicit in assassinating Hamas leader Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010.
In June, an exposé by the New Yorker revealed that Israel and the UAE have been engaged in secret normalisation talks since the 1990s. The report disclosed that “the secret relationship between Israel and the UAE can be traced back to a series of meetings in a nondescript office in Washington D.C. after the signing of the Oslo Accords”. These meetings discussed the possibility of the UAE purchasing F-16 fighter jets from the US which are known to be comprised of Israeli technology. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed, also gave his blessing for delegations of influential American Jews to be brought to Abu Dhabi to meet with Emirati officials and establish an intelligence-sharing relationship.
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From the Archives
The Balfour Declaration – A Century of Jewish Power
By Gilad Atzmon | May 17, 2017
This year, Palestinians and their supporters mark the 100th anniversary of The Balfour Declaration, a written statement from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
For Palestinians, The Balfour Declaration was the beginning of their plight: a century of ethnic cleansing at the hands of European newcomers who claim Palestine as their historic home. Yet, for some reason, supporters of the Palestinians are desperate to suppress discussion of the motivation for the Balfour Declaration – how and why did it come about? … continue
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- Israel Blocks Hunfreds of Gaza Students from Scholarships Abroad
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
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