Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

#Match the fine for Palestine: Celtic fans crowdfund £176K to pay UEFA fine

RT | January 31, 2017

Supporters of Celtic FC, known as the Green Brigade, have donated £176,000 (US$220,000) to two Palestinian charities. The donation was crowdfunded in reaction to a UEFA fine over Celtic fans flying Palestinian flags at a match.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Why neoconservative support for Israel makes no sense

By Alistair Sloan | MEMO | January 31, 2017

The most prominent neoconservative in Britain, Conservative MP Michael Gove, was once interviewed by the New Statesman. It contained one of the best analyses of his foreign policy views, formed not in the cauldron of distant battlefields or the misery of refugee camps, but at his untidy little desk at the Times. “In print, the well-mannered, self-ironising young fellow was transformed into a Churchillian warrior,” his profiler wrote. “A self-proclaimed neoconservative, he was an ardent supporter of the Iraq war and an implacable foe of Islamic terrorism, about which he wrote a book, Celsius 7/7.” The New Statesman did not mention that this book, amongst other things, had called in great part for a strengthening of Britain’s relationship with Israel. Instead, we were told that, “His columns were stylish, if shallow, displaying a debater’s grasp of foreign policy, in which abstract nouns such as freedom, appeasement and resolve carried all before them.”

A debater’s grasp of foreign policy is what sums up neoconservative naiveté better than any phrase I have yet come across. It is the kind of naiveté that sounds great on the debating floor of a posh university but less good when you’re in the real world. Gove published Celsius 7/7 in 2006. It was issued to all new members of Conservative Friends of Israel and became a kind of go-to resource for British Conservative MPs as they thought about the Palestine problem.

I now understand that, amazingly, Gove had never visited Israel when he wrote the book. In fact, according to a close Tory friend of his, he only visited for the first time in 2013, roughly seven years later. “The Israeli embassy was actually so nervous about Michael visiting,” the source told me in a hushed discussion in a Westminster coffee shop, “that the trip was put off a couple of times.” The story goes that the Israeli public relations officers were worried that their greatest advocate in Westminster might see something he didn’t like, so perhaps it wasn’t even worth him going. “In the end it snowed when he went,” the anecdotist concluded. “Michael loved it.” He now returns with his family to spend most Christmases there.

How could a neoconservative write a book about strengthening Britain’s support for Israel despite having never visited the country? It is because, as a neoconservative, Gove had the debater’s grasp of the issue. For him, it was all about the abstract nouns that carried all before them; freedom, appeasement and resolve. It was about the principle of supporting the idea of “Israel”, not what Israel really was, or is.

Ground zero for neoconservative thinking was Winston Churchill’s position of assertive violence against Adolf Hitler versus Neville Chamberlain’s nervous appeasement. It was that dynamic of aggression-appeasement that has come to define the neoconservative position on foreign policy in the decades since, notably in two areas: the appeasement of terrorism and appeasement of autocracy. The neoconservative argument goes — and, again, I am sure it sounds great in that plush debating club — that if you appease a terrorist or an autocrat only once, you will embolden not just him, but all other terrorists and autocrats at that time and in the future. Appeasement is therefore positioned as one of the great sins of foreign policy.

Gove applied this thinking to the Irish Republican Army in a fascinating paper he wrote about Northern Ireland called “The Price of Peace”. He positioned the Good Friday Peace agreement as an act of appeasement, which caused him some embarrassment last year when he attempted briefly to become prime minister. Gove closed his introduction to the paper with reference to World War Two, as neoconservatives often do: “Those who warned of the consequences of appeasement in the Thirties were derided as glamour boys, renegades and war-mongers.” Then he talked about the “flawed assumption” that “armed terrorists can be converted to democracy by re-shaping democracy to suit the terrorist.” He concluded with: “The Belfast Agreement has, at its heart, an even greater wickedness. It is a capitulation to violence, a validation of terrorism which has led to ‘demilitarisation’ – the removal of the British Army from our sovereign territory… The moral stain of such a process will prove hard to efface. It is a humiliation of our Army, Police and Parliament.”

What would Gove have made of the debates surrounding his beloved Israel in the middle of the twentieth century? It is a fact that the British Army was forced to withdraw from the area because Jewish-Zionist terrorists were blowing up our diplomats, civilians and soldiers with abandon. In leaving Palestine, did the British government of the day capitulate to Jewish-Zionist terrorism, providing its “validation”? And what would Gove say to the then future Prime Minister of Israel, Menachim Begin, who was placed on the “Most Wanted” terrorist list by the British government for his murderous activities with the Irgun terror organisation; would it be a “flawed assumption”, as he said of Sinn Fein and the IRA, to assume that “armed terrorists can never be converted to democracy”?

Gove himself was President of the Oxford Union, the premier debating club in Britain. The problem with neoconservatives isn’t that they’re necessarily stupid, but that they are certainly excellent at winning debates. They then think that they are clever enough to translate the universal principles which seem so clear and easy in a debating chamber to any particular situation at any particular time.

If it was wrong to appease the Irish Republican Army, why was it so right to appease the Irgun and associated Jewish-Zionist terrorist groups? Would Michael Gove and the neoconservatives in America — from where this ugly radical virus has infected the British right in recent years — have supported the killing of British troops in Mandate Palestine by Jewish terrorists? I generously suspect not, but how, then, can a neoconservative like him reconcile his supposedly universal principle that “you must never negotiate with terrorists” with support for what one expert in radical Islamist terrorism has called “the original terrorist state”, his beloved Israel?

If I was a potential terrorist contemplating the bombing of Western targets in the Middle East, I might look for examples of where terrorists have succeeded in achieving their political aims. This is the exact concern that neoconservatives like Gove have about appeasing terror; you appease one terrorist, you encourage the rest. If I was in such a position — and I must stress, of course, that I am not — then I would look no further than the terrorists who played such a crucial part in founding the state of Israel. There was, and remains, an awful lot of appeasement surrounding “the original terrorist state”, but perhaps for Gove and his neoconservative ilk, some appeasements are better than others. Their support for Israel makes no sense whatsoever.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

“Taking Down” British Officials

Israel conspires against the Mother of Parliaments

UK Israel

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • January 31, 2017

A quite incredible story out of England has not received much media coverage in the United States. It concerns how the Israeli Embassy in London connived with government officials to “take down” parliamentarians and government ministers who were considered to be critical of the Jewish State. It was also learned that the Israeli Embassy was secretly subsidizing and advising private groups promoting Israeli interests, including associations of Members of Parliament (MPs). The story is interesting on several levels, particularly given the recent furor in the U.S. over allegations that Russia has been interfering in American politics.

By way of comparison, though no evidence has been provided to support the claim, Russia allegedly arranged for a hack into the Democratic National Committee server to obtain factual information potentially embarrassing to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The information was then made public and may have influenced how some Americans voted.

Compare that to what has been going on meanwhile in Britain, where an Israeli Embassy diplomat named Shai Masot, “an officer in the Israel Defense Forces and… serving as a senior political officer at the London Embassy,” was meeting with Maria Strizzolo, a senior British civil servant who was formerly chief of staff to Conservative parliamentarian and ardent Zionist Robert Halfon. Masot is certainly an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover. Masot and Strizzolo’s candid discussion, which was secretly recorded by al-Jazeera, related specifically to getting rid of Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, regarded as a supporter of an independent Palestinian state.

To Masot’s additional query “Can I give you some MPs that I would suggest you would take down?” Strizzolo suggested “… if you look hard enough, I’m sure there is something that they’re trying to hide… a little scandal maybe.” Another alleged pro-Arab member of Parliament Crispin Blunt was also identified, with Strizzolo confirming that he was on a “hit list.”

It was also learned that Masot had been secretly subsidizing and advising two ostensibly independent groups, the parliamentary Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI). Masot did, however, express concern that Israel’s control over incoming parliamentarians was not quite what it used to be: “For years, every MP that joined the parliament joined the LFI. They’re not doing that any more in the Labour Party. CFI, they’re doing it automatically. All the 14 new MPs who got elected in the last elections did it automatically.”

Shai Masot also was working with friendly young British Jews, providing them with jobs at his embassy and then seeding them into positions in advocacy organizations where they continued to be paid secretly by him while promoting positions that would protect Israel from any criticism. One such group is Britain’s National Union of Students (NUS). Recently there has been somewhat of a furor over Shakira Martin, a vice president in the group, who accepted an all-expenses paid trip to Israel organized by the Union of Jewish Students, a pro-Israel organization which is among those receiving funding and guidance from the Israeli embassy in London. The al-Jazeera tape has also revealed that Richard Brooks, another NUS vice president, had been plotting with pro-Israel activists to remove elected NUS president Malia Bouattia, a supporter of Palestinian rights and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

It does not require much in the way of imagination to realize that the Masot meetings probably occur every day right out in the open in Washington, including Israeli officials and Congressmen as well as heads of political advocacy organizations and lobbies. The list of prominent politicians “taken down” by Israel is lengthy, and includes Cynthia McKinney, Adlai Stevenson III, Paul Findley, Chuck Percy, William Fulbright, Roger Jepsen, and Pete McCloskey. And a similar situation prevails in the U.S. regarding human rights and politically liberal organizations that are ostensibly privately funded. As Jeff Blankfort has noted, they are frequently headed by American Jews who prove quite willing to criticize the United States but are generally reluctant to say anything bad about Israel. Whether they are actually directly or indirectly on the Israeli government payroll would be an interesting project for a good investigative journalist.

One might reasonably consider Israel’s interference in the democratic process in friendly countries like the U.K. and U.S. as much farther reaching and damaging than anything Moscow has done. Yet Russia is being excoriated by the U.S. and European media daily, investigated by Congress and sanctioned because of what are little more than unproven allegations. Israel has clearly done some things to interfere with local politics that are arguably much worse and the silence is deafening. So one should not be surprised by the toothless British reaction to the suggestion that its government officials might be removed by the clandestine activity of a foreign country: “The Israeli ambassador has apologized… the UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed.”

Britain under its new Prime Minister Theresa May has also been rolling over in response to Israel’s perceived interests almost as obsequiously as the U.S. Congress. After Secretary of State John Kerry described Israel’s government as “extreme right wing” on December 28th, May sprang to Tel Aviv’s defense, saying “we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally. We are also clear that the settlements are far from the only problem in this conflict. In particular, the people of Israel deserve to live free from the threat of terrorism, with which they have had to cope for too long.”

May’s rejoinder could have been written by Netanyahu, and maybe it was. Two weeks later, her government cited “reservations” over a French government sponsored mid-January Middle East peace conference and would not sign a joint statement calling for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after Netanyahu vociferously condemned the proceedings.

It all recalls Pat Buchanan’s description of the U.S. Congress as an Israeli occupied zone, which raised holy hell at the time even though Buchanan did not go far enough judging by what has been happening in Britain. Indeed, lobbying on behalf of Israel is a global phenomenon with organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) existing in various forms in a number of other countries. BICOM, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, is an AIPAC clone located in London. It is well funded and politically powerful, working through its various “Friends of Israel” proxies. Americans might be surprised to learn that in Britain Jewish organizations uniquely are allowed to patrol heavily Jewish London neighborhoods in police-like uniforms while driving police type vehicles and there have been reports of their threatening Muslims who enter the areas.

Indeed, wherever one goes – Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States – there is a well-organized and funded mechanism in place ready, willing and able to go to war to protect Israel. Most of the organizations involved take at least some direction from officials in Tel Aviv. Many of them even cooperate fully with the Israeli government, its parastatal organizations and faux-NGOs like the lawfare center Shurat HaDin. Their goal is to spread propaganda and influence the public in their respective countries of residence to either hew to the line coming out of Tel Aviv or to confuse the narrative and stifle debate when potential Israeli crimes are being discussed.

Israel’s diaspora allies are backed up by a formidable government organized machine that spews out disinformation and muddies the waters whenever critics surface. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has a corps of paid “volunteers” who monitor websites worldwide and take remedial action and there is a similar group working out of the Prime Minister’s office. That is why any negative story appearing in the U.S. or Britain about Israel is immediately inundated with pro-Israel comments, many of which make exactly the same coordinated points while exhibiting the same somewhat less than perfect English. On sites like Yahoo they are actually able to suppress unwelcome comments by flooding the site with “Dislike” responses. If a comment receives a large number of dislikes, it is automatically blocked or removed.

The sayanim, local Jews in their countries of residence, are essential to this process, having been alerted by emails from the Israeli Foreign Ministry about what to do and say. The reality is that Israel has lost the war of public opinion based on its own actions, which are becoming more and more repressive and even inhumane and so are difficult to explain. That means that the narrative has to be shifted by Israel’s friends through subterfuge and the corruption of the information and political processes in each country. In some places the key media and political players who are engaged in the process can simply be bought. In other places like England they can be intimidated or pressured into taking positions that are neither in their own countries’ interests nor morally acceptable. In large countries like the United States, Britain and France a combination of friendly suasion and coercive elements often come together.

In some extreme cases the game Israel plays is brutal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently warned New Zealand that backing a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements would be a “declaration of war.” In all cases, the objective is the same: to repress completely, discourage or misrepresent any criticism of Israel and to block any initiatives that might be taken that would do damage either to the Israeli economy or to the country’s perceived standing in the world. In some countries including the U.S. and Britain, Israel’s advocates work their subversion of local institutions right out in the open and are highly successful in implementing policies that often remain largely hidden but that can be discerned as long as one knows what to look for.

January 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My beliefs precede quest for medal: Iranian karateka

3dcdbcbe-50f6-4725-a686-e80e1a94c945

Iranian karate practitioner Majid Hassaninia
Press TV – January 28, 2017

Iranian karate practitioner Majid Hassaninia has refused to take on his Israeli opponent in the 21st edition of the Open de Paris – Karate Premier League in France.

On Friday, Hassaninia did not show up for a scheduled encounter against a representative from Israel in the first round of men’s minus 60-kilogram weight class, and was subsequently excluded from the rest of the tournament.

“Even though I had personally paid all the fees for my participation in the contests and wished to assess my preparedness in the designated weight division, what is of paramount importance to every Iranian athlete is his/her beliefs plus support for the defenseless Palestinian nation. I will do my best in future competitions, God willing!” the Iranian karateka said after his decision.

The Islamic Republic of Iran refuses to recognize the Tel Aviv regime and has long refused to engage in sports competitions against Israel.

The 21th edition of the Open de Paris – Karate Premier League opened in the French capital on January 27, and will finish on January 29, 2017.

The tournament has reportedly brought together more than 1,200 male and female athletes from 78 nations, including Armenia, China, France, Germany, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Latvia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey, Venezuela, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

January 28, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

The deceitful words of Ambassador Regev

By Stuart Littlewood | Veterans Today | January 24, 2017

Revelations that a senior political officer at the Israeli embassy in London, Shai Masot, had been plotting with stooges among British MPs and other maggots in the political woodwork to “take down” senior government figures including Boris Johnson’s deputy at the Foreign Office, Sir Alan Duncan, should have resulted in the ambassador himself also being kicked out. But he was let off the hook.

That ambassador is the vile Mark Regev, ace propagandist, master of disinformation, whitewasher extraordinaire and personal spokesman for the Zionist regime’s prime minister Netanyahu.

Regev (real name Freiberg) took up his appointment here last April so presumably knew about, if not supervised, Masot’s activities.

“The UK has a strong relationship with Israel and we consider the matter closed,” said the British government. The Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, who is Jewish, also declined to investigate.

Masot’s hostile scheming was captured and revealed by an Al Jazeera undercover investigation and not, regrettably, by Britain’s own security services and press.

Regev is quoted several times by the Israel Project’s ‘Global Language Dictionary’, a strange title for a sinister propaganda handbook written specially for those “on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel”.

This manual teaches how to justify Israel’s slaughter, ethnic cleansing, land-grabbing, cruelty and blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of persuasive language. It also incites hatred particularly towards Hamas and Iran and is designed to hoodwink us ignorant and gullible Americans and Europeans into believing we actually share values with the racist regime in Israel, and therefore ought to support its abominable behaviour.

Readers are instructed to “clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas” and drive a wedge between them. “Peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?”

The manual features “Words that work” – that is to say, carefully constructed language to deflect criticism and reframe all issues and arguments in Israel’s favour. A statement at the very beginning sets the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”

Here’s an example of “words that work”: “Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process. 

“Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks, including rocket attacks and drive-by shootings of innocent Israelis. Israel knows that for a lasting peace, they must be free from terrorism and live with defensible borders.”

Of course, Israel made no sacrifices at all – Gaza wasn’t theirs to keep and staying there was unsustainable. But although they removed their settlers and troops they have continued to occupy Gaza’s airspace and coastal waters and control all entrances and exits, thus keeping the population bottled up and provoking acts of resistance that give Israel a bogus excuse to turn Gaza into a prison. International law regards Israel as still the occupier.

The manual serves as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks recruited to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet. It uses some of Regev’s words to provide disinformation essential to this hasbara work.

We’re told, for example, that the most effective way to build support for Israel is to talk about “working toward a lasting peace” that “respects the rights of everyone in the region”. Regev is quoted: “We welcome and we support international efforts to help the Palestinians. So, once again, the Palestinian people are not our enemy. On the contrary, we want peace with the Palestinians. 

“We’re interested in a historical reconciliation. Enough violence. Enough war. And we support international efforts to help the Palestinians both on the humanitarian level and to build a more successful democratic society. That’s in everyone’s interest.”

The central lie, of course, is that Israel wants peace. It doesn’t. It never has. Peace does not suit Israel’s purpose, which is endless expansion and control. That is why Israel has never declared its borders, maintains its brutal military occupation and continues its programme of illegal squats or so-called “settlements” deep inside Palestinian territory, intending to create sufficient ‘facts on the ground’ to ensure permanent occupation and annexation.

Regev is quoted again here:

  • “It was the former U.N. secretary general Kofi Anan that put four benchmarks on the And he said, speaking for the international community that

If Hamas reforms itself …

If Hamas recognizes my country’s right to live in freedom …

If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians …

If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process … then the door is open. 

“But unfortunately – tragically – Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that’s why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.”

Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev? 

In a further effort to demonise Hamas, Regev is quoted again:

  • “It’s not just Israel who refuses to speak to Hamas. It’s the whole international

community… Most of the democratic world refuses to have a relationship with Hamas because Hamas has refused to meet the most minimal benchmarks of international behavior.”

Isn’t that a little cheeky, Mr Regev, coming from a regime widely condemned for war crimes, piracy and mega-lawlessness? And let’s remember that Hamas and Hezbollah were created to resist Israeli aggression.

Iran must be demonised too, so Regev’s twisted wisdom is used again: 

  • “Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear program. And for good reason.

Iran’s President openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles. We only saw, last week, shooting a rocket to launch a so-called satellite into outer space and so forth. The Iranian nuclear program is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.”

In the meantime how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes? Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr Regev? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? Would you also like to comment on why Israel hasn’t signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why it has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention? What proof do you have of Iran’s nuclear weapons plans?

As for “wiping Israel off the map”, accurate translations of that remark by Ahmadjinadad are “This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” (The Guardian), or “This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history“ (Middle East Media Research Institute). Ahmadjinadad was actually repeating a statement once made by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Why, Mr Regev, do you persist in misquoting Mr Ahmadjinadad?

Of course, we know why. It’s the good old Mossad motto: “By deception we shall do war”, ingrained in the Israeli mindset. If it was up to me, Mr Regev, you wouldn’t be allowed to set foot in the UK – even with your cute Australian accent.

Watch Jon Snow annihilate Regev.

January 26, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Imprisoned journalist threatened with administrative detention, his wife summoned to interrogation

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – January 26, 2017

shalash-qeeqImprisoned Palestinian journalist and former long-term hunger striker Mohammed al-Qeeq will be brought before the Ofer military court today, 26 January, and may be ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial. Fayha Shalash, fellow journalist and al-Qeeq’s wife, said that the Israeli military court ordered his arrest extended for 72 hours on Monday, 23 January.

Shalash said to Wattan TV that occupation authorities have not garnered any confessions or charges against al-Qeeq since they seized him on 15 January as he returned from a protest in Bethlehem demanding the release of the detained bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. She emphasized that he will begin a hunger strike if he is ordered again to administrative detention.

Shalash herself was ordered to interrogation by Israeli intelligence on Wednesday, 25 January after al-Qeeq’s family home in al-Khalil and their apartment in Ramallah were raided by occupation forces in pre-dawn attacks ransacking the home and subjecting Shalash to a strip search. Al-Qeeq was transferred yesterday to the Petah Tikva interrogation center.

Al-Qeeq previously engaged in a 94-day hunger strike against his imprisonment without charge or trial, winning his release in May 2016 and drawing international attention to the persecution of Palestinian journalists and the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial under administrative detention.

January 26, 2017 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

New report reveals top Israeli official living in illegal colonial settlement

IMEMC News | January 26, 2017

An Israeli Finance Minister, who is in charge of implementing a law to demolish Palestinian homes in the West Bank, is himself living in an unlicensed building in an illegal colonial settlement on Occupied Palestinian land – and he is just one of many Israeli officials living in illegal settlements, according to a new report.

The report, released Wednesday by the Palestine Liberation Organization, documented a number of top Israeli officials, many of whom are tasked with displacing Palestinians or demolishing their homes, living on illegally seized Palestinian land.

The Israeli Finance Minister Avi Cohen, lives in a colonial settlement outpost of 40 fixed and mobile structures, which was constructed on land stolen from Palestinian owners in the villages of Qaryout, Saweiya and Al-Luban in the Nablus region.

The settlement where Cohen lives is an expansion of the larger settlement of ‘Eli’ and is known as ‘Bilgi Maime’. But the Israeli government did not approve this expansion, and Cohen’s part in building his home on stolen Palestinian land is in direct violation of both Israeli and international law. However, since Cohen has headed the Regional Unit on Planning and Construction, under his watch the unit has tacitly and actively allowed the expansion of settlements like Bilgi Maime on Palestinian land.

Cohen himself was in charge of issuing demolition orders against Palestinian homes, including some that were demolished in order to make way for the construction of Cohen’s illegal settlement outpost. He also defied an Israeli court order to dismantle the outpost, which was reiterated every year from 2001 – 2007.

Cohen is one of a number of Israeli officials who are either living in or contributing to illegal Israeli settlement outposts on stolen Palestinian land. During a recent investigation into corruption charges against the Yisrael Beitenu Party , the Israeli police discovered that Agriculture Minister, Uri Ariel, transferred government funds to pay for the debts of a settlement company that works in the West Bank named the Samaria Development Co.

The new report found that a fund of NIS 2.4 million was transferred to a private company from Israeli taxpayers to the executive arm of Aamnah Movement, which is active in the field of settlement construction.

This comes in the context of a new campaign of collective punishment against Palestinian residents of the neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukaber in Jerusalem, after one resident of the town ran his truck over a group of Israeli soldiers.

Meir Turgeman, deputy mayor of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem, and head of the local planning and construction committee, announced that he intends to impose collective punishment against the family members and neighbors of the deceased attacker.

The Israeli campaign also includes a resolution by the occupation Minister of interior, who ordered the seizure of 12 identity passes from members of Kanbar family (forcing these residents to move from their homes into internal displacement), and the distribution of demolition notices against 81 houses in the Al-Kanbar, Al-Jdeirh and Salaah neighborhoods, belonging to families of Al-Kabnbar, Al-Jdeirh and Salaah, under the pretext of being built without licenses.

Moreover, the campaign has also involved closing the main roads, which disturbed the movement of transportation, as well as preventing people from going to work and school, and hindered the ability to provide first aid.

Troops also invaded several agricultural and commercial stores, asking their owners to leave the areas, and finally threatened to carry out the demolition orders.

January 26, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

America First or IDF First? …

By Gilad Atzmon | January 25, 2017

Haaretz reports today that “Jared Kushner’s name was removed from a website of a group raising money for Israeli army.”

A week ago the American president promised the American people that from now on America will come first, but it seems as if for Trump’s senior adviser Jared Kushner, the Jewish state and its army are a priority.

Kushner is expected “to play a major role in drafting Middle East policy in the new administration,” but can a Zionist Jew who raises money for the IDF be a peace broker for the Middle East? I’ll let you ponder over that one.

Apparently, the FIDF is a New York-based non-profit that raises tens of millions of dollars a year to support a wide array of educational and social programs that benefit Israeli soldiers and their families. Kushner’s name appeared on the FIDF website as a member of the national board until just two days ago. A day after Haaretz submitted questions about his continued involvement on the board to both the organization and to a spokeswoman for the Kushner family, his name was suddenly removed.

It is worth noting that although Kushner’s name was removed from the FIDF’s website, it is as yet unconfirmed whether he is still linked to this body by any means.

Earlier this week, when asked whether Kushner would continue to sit on the FIDF board while serving in the U.S. administration as a senior adviser to the president, a spokesman for the organization said: “As a matter of policy, FIDF does not respond to requests for information about donors, including donors who are or were members of its board.”

January 26, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Not like Gitmo’: Israeli interrogators explain torture techniques to media

RT | January 24, 2017

Israeli interrogators with experience in using ‘special means’ of interrogation, which involve inflicting physical pain on detainees, have described details of their methods to an Israeli newspaper.

Reports of Israeli intelligence services using violent methods of interrogation have been around for years, even after the country ratified the UN Convention against Torture in 1991. In a landmark case in 1999, the High Court of Justice outlawed torture, but left a loophole called “necessity of defense.” This gives a waiver for cases when torture is deemed necessary to save lives or similarly dire circumstances.

Critics however say that interrogation using what Israel calls “special means” remains widespread. The UN Committee Against Torture last year cited continued complaints of torture by the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) as well as Israel’s refusal to implement the convention on occupied Palestinian territories and reluctance to criminalize torture among its concerns.

So far most of the information about “special means” reported by the Israeli media has come from detainee complaints. The new expose published by Haaretz on Tuesday is based on “a conversation among interrogators in the presence of several witnesses.”

The newspapers primary source, named only as N., is described as a former senior interrogator, who had the authority to give the green light for “special means”. N. insisted that what the Israelis do to detainees is “not like Guantanamo.”

“The methods used are carefully chosen to be effective enough to break the suspect’s spirit, but without causing permanent damage or leaving any marks,” the newspaper says of his account.

Among the techniques described by N. was putting a blindfold on a person and slapping him. The slapping is meant “to hurt sensitive organs like the nose, ears, brow and lips.” The blindfold is needed to prevent the detainee from seeing a slap coming, so that he wouldn’t “move his head in a way that results in vital organs being injured,” according to N.

Another technique is to force the subject into an extended “wall sit” – bending their knees halfway, only supported by their back pressed to a wall.

“If the suspect falls, the interrogators put him back in position, and they keep him there even if the suspect cries, begs or screams,” the newspaper said.

Another variant is having the suspect sit on a backless stool with his arms and legs cuffed. The interrogator then forces him to lean back and remain in the stress position. The subject would be forced to use his stomach muscles to avoid falling. Sometimes the interrogator would force the detainee to raise his hands shoulder height while they’re handcuffed behind his back.

The newspaper said the interrogators were aware of the discomfort and pain caused by “special means” and some even tried the stress positions themselves to assess how bad they are.

Other methods discussed included shouting at the detainee from a close distance while grabbing him by the clothes.

Another interrogator said that while normally a permission to use “special means” from a senior official was needed, in urgent cases it would not be required. For instance, an interrogator could make the call in case of an imminent suicide bombing.

The debate in Israel over use of torture was reinvigorated in 2015 during an investigation into arson attacks against Palestinian homes, allegedly committed by Jewish radicals. Some of the suspect complained of being subjected to torture by investigators.

Read more:

‘Cruel, inhuman and degrading:’ Israel’s systematic abuse of Palestinian detainees exposed by NGOs

January 24, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

The Last Days of Obama: Napoleonic Maneuvers at the Security Council

By Caleb Maupin | New Eastern Outlook | 23.01.2017

netanyahuobama-300x187It seemed to come almost out of nowhere. The United States usually protects Israel from critical resolutions at the UN Security Council. However, in a dramatic move, the US abstained and a resolution criticizing recent settlement activity was passed by the 15-member body.

But this was not the end. John Kerry, Obama’s former Secretary of State, gave a lengthy address a few days later. Kerry’s speech was not so different from the statements of previous leaders, both Democrats and Republicans. He defended Israel’s existence, and denounced almost all forces actively opposing Israel.

However, Kerry harshly criticized specific Israeli policies. While Kerry’s speech defending the UN abstention uttered the standard, mildly critical, pro-Israeli talking points, it did contain some words that, taken out of context and spread throughout the internet, could and did indeed make a lot of Israelis and Zionists very angry. The most quoted one was: “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both.”

Kerry was alluding to the fact that if Palestinians are absorbed into Israel in a “one state solution” but Israel remains a “Jewish State” this will not be democratic. According to Kerry, under such circumstances Palestinians would be second class citizens, i.e. non-Jews in a Jewish state.

Immediately, Kerry’s speech was decried by Israelis. Netanyahu fired back, as did the entire pro-Israeli blogosphere. The Republican and Likud Party aligned voices escalated the shrill accusations that Obama was a secret Muslim, a member of the Muslim brotherhood, a terrorist sympathizer, a Neo-Nazi, a Communist, and everything else he has been called for 8 years straight.

Meanwhile, Israel did not stop its settlement activity, and was not really affected at all by the resolution. The billions of dollars in US aid to Israel continued. Obama has left the office on January 20th, and is now replaced by Donald Trump, who claims to be more pro-Israel than Obama. The UN Security Council is not taking any specific action to halt the settlement activities condemned in its resolution.

Nothing really changed, but a lot of dramatic, heated words were exchanged between the USA and its closest Middle Eastern ally. Why did this happen?

Napoleon & Obama: “I Come to Restore Your Rights”

In 1798, the French militarist Napoleon Bonaparte, who seized power in the aftermath of the revolution and eventually became Emperor, set out to conquer Egypt. He issued a proclamation saying:

People of Egypt! You will be told by our enemies that I am come to destroy your religion. Believe them not. Tell them I am come to restore your rights, punish your usurpers, and revive the true worship of Mohammed. Tell them that I venerate, more than do the Mamelukes, God, his prophet, and the Koran.

Among the people of Egypt and Syria, as well as the entire Arab world, there was deep hatred for the British and Ottoman empires, who functioned as Napoleon’s rivals. Napoleon hoped that he could convince Muslims throughout the region to support him, and on this basis that he could defeat their hated colonial enemies, and conquer the region for France.

Napoleon was lying. He was not an adherent of the Islam faith. Some speculate that he may have been a freemason, and became familiar with the Koran and Islam due to their inclusion in Masonic rituals. Regardless, years later, Napoleon explained the proclamation to his fellow French Christians saying:

A change of religion, inexcusable for the sake of private interests, becomes comprehensible when immense political results are involved…. Do you think the Empire of the East and perhaps the subjugation of the whole of Asia was not worth a turban and some loose trouser? The state of feeling in the army was such that it would have undoubtedly lent itself to a joke.

Barack Obama, like Napoleon Bonaparte, is not a Muslim. As offensive and heretical as some evangelical Christians and Catholics may consider the teachings of the United Church of Christ and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, they are not Islamic in any conceivable way. Barack Obama was married in a church. He has been photographed drinking wine and eating hot dogs.

Obama’s middle name is “Hussein.” As a child, while living in Indonesia, he attended an Islamic elementary school. Obama apparently did meet with the Palestinian-American professor Edward Said. With all of this to cite as evidence, the allegation that he was a “secret Muslim” has not vanished.

The endless, semi-hysterical attacks on Obama for having alleged links to Islam certainly had an impact outside of US borders. This impact may not have been accidental. Writing in the Atlantic Monthly in 2007, the self-described conservative Andrew Sullivan considered the colorful background of the future president to be an asset:

What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy… The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this.

Sullivan’s widely read and cited article said:

If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

The USA certainly had a lot of credibility to regain as the Bush era came to an end. The unilateral invasion of Iraq had been widely opposed, not just in the Middle East, but even among NATO states. Bush had gone as far as to say “this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.” The word “crusade” doesn’t exactly bring up pleasant feelings among Muslims around the world.

Meanwhile, the federal agencies of the United States flew into a very Islamophobic mode after the 9/11 attacks. The leaders of a religious charity known as the “Holy Land Foundation” were imprisoned for nothing other than running soup kitchens for Palestinian children. Mosques across the United States were then and continue to be widely surveilled.

His Middle Name is “Hussein” 

Voices like Andrew Sullivan’s hoped that Obama’s background could restore the credibility of the USA in the eyes of Muslims. But this was just the tip of the iceberg. What came about in the first term of the Obama administration? In 2011 the world watched the “Arab Spring.” Across the Middle East, impoverished people rose up against their governments.

Analysts often argue that the Arab Spring was spawned by the global financial crisis and the regional drought. Throughout the Arab world, crops failed, water was scarce, and impoverished people piled into the cities facing dire economic conditions. The uprisings that eventually erupted were predictable. Such conditions are known to spark unrest.

But the world did not see a repeat of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, where the Persians toppled a western puppet dictator under the slogans of “Not Capitalism but Islam” and “War of Poverty Against Wealth.” The western capitalist apparatus was ready. The Arab Spring was immediately redirected to serve their ends. Social media outlets based in western countries, and the global apparatus of pro-American NGOs swung into action.

With a commander-in-chief who most people in the Middle East had a favorable opinion of, the forces of global power were able to ensure that the revolt did not become an uprising against western capitalism. No new anti-imperialist regimes were born. Rather, the opposite happened.

In Egypt, the pro-US regime of Hosni Mubarak fell, but what replaced it? First, Egypt elected Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the CIA-linked Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi was then toppled by a military coup d’etat. Now General Sisi, a top military leader under Mubarak, is in power.

The US backed Saudi regime was allowed to crush the uprisings within its own borders. Ayatollah Nimr Al-Nimr, a Shia cleric who led protests demanding civil liberties and religious freedom in the country was eventually beheaded for his role in the Arab spring. Saudi troops poured into Bahrain to keep the monarchy in power and crush the Shia majority that demanded their rights. In the aftermath of the revolt, Yemen staged a sham election in which Mansour Hadi, a Saudi puppet, was the only candidate on the ballot. Yemen is now torn apart by war, as many Yemenis reject Hadi’s pro-Saudi and Pro-US regime.

The energy and momentum of the Arab Spring, amplified and directed by the western TV networks along with Twitter and Facebook, went toward targeting two anti-imperialist, socialist governments. Gaddafi’s Libya had the highest life expectancy in Africa. Syria’s Bashar Assad presides over a centrally planned economy, supports Palestinian resistance, and is aligned with Iran, Russia and China.

In both Libya and Syria the United States began actively working to transform the Arab Spring into a successful regime change operation. Though the faces promoted on western television were often middle class, secular young people who dreamed of American consumerism while mouthing words about “democracy,” the brute force behind the Syrian and Libyan “revolutions” were religious extremists.

Based from the Syrian and Libyan countryside, forces linked to Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were joined by many foreign Jihadist fighters from throughout the region. The forces who toppled the Libyan government and continue to fight against the Syrian Arab Republic are dominated by those who adhere to Wahabbism, the ideology of Saudi Arabia and Osama Bin Laden. These deeply religious forces, working to topple anti-imperialist governments, happily took guns and funding from a country led by a man who went to a Muslim school, met with Edward Said, and whose middle name happened to be “Hussein.”

Imagine what could have happened in the region, if the wave of uprisings had taken place while George Bush “the crusader” was still in office. Obama’s presidency played a decisive role in manipulating and redirecting the events of 2011.

Netanyahu vs. Obama: A Made For TV Drama

kerry-and-netanyahu-2It is not uncommon for celebrities to clash with each other in the public arena. Often, these fights are not spontaneous, but intentionally provoked, or even planned, in order to generate publicity for both parties involved. For example, long before running for President, Donald Trump captured the attention of news headlines by having a spat with TV personality Rosie O’Donnell.

The perceived tension between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama has the looks of a “made for TV drama.” It is a prolonged public spat that is mutually beneficial to both parties. Do they actually dislike each other when the cameras are not rolling? Who knows.

While Obama and Netanyahu have butted heads, the US aid to Israel has not decreased or been cut off. Under Obama, the United States has worked to topple the Baathist Syrian government, one of Israel’s primary regional opponents. Israel has supported the regime change efforts with airstrikes in Syria targeting the anti-ISIS fighters of the Hezbollah organization.

The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya, championed loudly from the White House, toppled the Islamic Socialist government that had a long record of opposing Israel and arming Palestinian resistance.

Obama boasts that he has ended Iran’s peaceful nuclear energy program, and is making Israel safer from a supposed Iranian threat in the process. While there is occasionally criticism of Israel’s settlement activities, they continue unabated.

However, Obama’s clash with Netanyahu plays well for him, and the United States, in the Arab world. Throughout the Middle East, Netanyahu and Tel-Aviv are the most hated villains. Obama’s trading of nasty words with Israeli leaders raises the credibility of the United States. It gives the United States a kind of distance from Israel on the international stage, while US support remains key and keeps flowing in without pause. Obama’s Department of Justice has even conducted raids against pro-Palestinian activists.

Netanyahu benefits from the spat as well. Fear and hatred of Palestinians, Muslims, and Arabs has been key in securing the recent electoral victories of the Likud Party. If Netanyahu looked like he was friendly toward someone who attended an Islamic elementary school, or had the middle name “Hussein” this would discredit him in the eyes of his base.

Despite the fact that Israel receives billions of dollars from the United States, as well as weapons and other assistance, Netanyahu looks as if he is not afraid to bite the hand that feeds him. Fighting with Obama allows Netanyahu to look like a brave, fearless, true believer in the Zionist cause.

“Don’t Forget About Obama!”

Though many Israelis and supporters of Israel in the United States dislike Donald Trump, he has presented himself during the campaign as a pro-Israeli hardliner. His speech to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee was a repetition of standard pro-Israeli talking points, saying:

“When you live in a society where the firefighters are the heroes, little kids want to be firefighters… In Palestinian society, the heroes are those who murder Jews.”

Trumps statements about banning Muslim immigration haven’t exactly been popular in the Arab world. Statements like “Islam hates us” don’t go over so well either.

The fear among certain forces in the United States is that Trump could alienate the many Muslim allies of the United States in the Arab world. Wall Street oil companies make lots of money from the various autocratic regimes in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arab, UAE, and elsewhere. Pentagon weapons manufacturers also make lots of money from selling their hardware to these regimes.

Like Napoleon’s strategy in Egypt, efforts to portray Obama as sympathizer with Muslims and Arabs haven’t exactly worked out so well. While the elites within the US aligned Gulf States and some of extremists forces who have poured into Syria have bought into the idea Obama is a trustworthy ally, many people in the region have not. The Syrian government has not fallen. Iran has not really been weakened.

The economic problems and other factors that fueled the discontent of 2011 have not vanished. There is no guarantee that the oil bankers of the United States will keep their grip over this vastly important territory. Certain sectors harbor real fear that Trump’s brash tone could now ruin everything. [emphasis added]

The last minute moves at the UN Security Council, publicly invoking Israel’s wrath, was a message to the Arab world. It was a desperate, final attempt to say: “Whatever Trump does, don’t forget about Obama! Not all Americans are hardline supporters of Israel! Not everyone in Washington hates the Arabs! Muslims of the world, keep trusting us, don’t turn against America!”

Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College.

January 23, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestine: the International Community Screws Up Again

… and so does the Palestinian leader (again)

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | January 20, 2017

The Middle East peace conference in Paris was the usual farce with Israel and Palestine, the subjects under discussion, both staying away. Netanyahu called the talks “useless” and Abbas was off opening an embassy in Vatican City and meeting the Pope while 70 nations gathered to take part in another peace pantomime. It ended with a pathetic declaration urging both sides to “officially restate their commitment to the two-state solution”.

Is this what the much-trumpeted 2-state solution looks like?

Everyone knows Netanyahu and the Israeli regime have never wanted peace. Land-grabbing and ethnic cleansing is what they do, so the jackboot of Israeli occupation must remain firmly on the Palestinians’ neck. He was bound to treat any peace conference with utmost contempt. And Abbas’s crass absence was not only another slap in the face to all who sympathise with the Palestinians’ plight and to the millions of campaigners who fight for their cause but also another disservice to the Palestinian people.

I call the conference declaration “pathetic” because no-one in the international community, as far as I’m aware, has actually told us what the 2-state solution they keep banging on about will look like – or even what they think it should look like. No-one, that is, since Ehud Barak and his so-called “generous offer” to the Palestinians in the summer of 2000.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip, seized by Israel in 1967 and occupied ever since, comprise just 22% of pre-partition Palestine. When the Palestinians signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 they agreed to accept the 22% and recognise Israel within ‘Green Line’ borders (i.e. the 1949 Armistice Line established after the Arab-Israeli War). Conceding 78% of the land that was originally theirs was an astonishingly big-hearted concession on their part.

But it wasn’t enough for greedy Israel. Barak’s “generous offer” demanded the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within the 22% Palestinian remnant. It was obvious on the map that those settlement blocs created impossible borders and already severely disrupted Palestinian life in the West Bank. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under “Temporary Israeli Control”, meaning Israeli military and administrative control probably indefinitely. The generous offer also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian State. What nation in the world would accept that? But the ludicrous reality of Barak’s 2-state solution was cleverly hidden by propaganda spin.

Later, at Taba, Barak produced a revised map but withdrew it after his election defeat. The ugly facts of the matter are well documented and explained by organisations such as Gush Shalom, yet the Israel lobby’s stooges continue to peddle the lie that Israel offered the Palestinians a generous peace on a plate. Is Barak’s crazed vision of the 2-state solution the one the 70 nations have in mind?

Britain’s stance on Palestinian independence has always been nonsensical. I remember former foreign secretary Alistair Burt announcing that we would not recognise a Palestinian state unless it emerged from a peace deal with Israel. London “could not recognise a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders.”

Where did he suppose Israel’s borders are? And is Israel within them? Where did he think Israel’s capital is? And where did Israel claim it to be? In other words, is Israel where Israel is supposed to be? If not, how could he possibly recognise it let alone align himself with it? “We are looking forward to recognising a Palestinian state at the end of the negotiations on settlements because our position is again very straightforward: We wish to see a two-state solution, a secure and recognized Israel side by side with a viable Palestine, Jerusalem as a joint capital and agreed borders,” Burt said.

Negotiations about illegal settlements? Since when did Her Majesty’s Government favour negotiating with the perpetrator of criminal acts and crimes against humanity? At around the same time Hillary Clinton had rejected in advance an anticipated Palestinian bill in the UN against unlawful Israeli settlement building. According to her, Israel’s illegal squats could be resolved through “negotiations” between Palestinians and Israelis and to hell with international law. Burt embraced this “solution” instead of enforcing international law and upholding justice, as he should have. He co-operated with the most dishonest peace brokers on the planet to revive discredited, lopsided direct talks. It’s been the same story with every other UK foreign secretary.

Resolution 242, a work of evil

So why, after decades, is the Palestinian homeland still under foreign military occupation and total blockade when international law and the United Nations have said it shouldn’t be?

And why are the Palestinians being pressured – yet again – to submit to “direct negotiations”, victim versus armed invader haggling and pleading for their freedom?

The answer appears to lie in the hash made of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967. Here is what it said:

The UN Security Council…

Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area can live in security,

Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,

  1. Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:

(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories [i..e. Gaza, West Bank including Jerusalem, and Golan Heights belonging to Syria] occupied in the recent conflict;

(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

  1. Affirms further the necessity

(a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;

(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

(c) For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones;

  1. Requests the Secretary-General to designate a Special Representative to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution;
  1. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as possible.

It was adopted unanimously.

Article 2 of the UN Charter states, among other things, that all Members “shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered” and “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.

Nothing too difficult there for men of integrity and goodwill, one would have thought. But after 49 years nothing has happened to give effect to the Charter’s fine words or to deliver the tiniest semblance of peace, or allow the Palestinians to live in security free from threats or acts of force. Israel still occupies the Holy Land and the Golan Heights with maximum brutality while law and justice, the cornerstones of civilisation, have evaporated.

This dereliction of duty began with careless use of language – or more exactly the deliberate non-use of a certain word, the “the” word which should have been inserted in front of “territories” but was purposely omitted by the schemers who drafted the resolution.

Behind the scenes there was no intention of making Israel withdraw

Arthur J. Goldberg, US Ambassador to the UN in 1967 and a key drafter of Resolution 242, stated:

There is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from the (or all the) territories occupied by it on and after June 5, 1967. Instead, the resolution stipulates withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal. And it can be inferred from the incorporation of the words ‘secure and recognized boundaries’ that the territorial adjustments to be made by the parties in their peace settlements could encompass less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories.

According to Lord Caradon, then the UK Ambassador to the UN and another key drafter:

The essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognised is that withdrawal should take place to secure and recognised boundaries, and these words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be recognised…. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary….

He later added:

It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967… That’s why we didn’t demand that the Israelis return to them and I think we were right not to.

Professor Eugene Rostow, then US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, had also helped to draft the resolution. He was on record in 1991 that Resolution 242:

… allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until ‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’ is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces ‘from territories’ it occupied during the Six-Day War – not from ‘the’ territories nor from ‘all’ the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Israel was not to be forced back to the fragile and vulnerable Armistice Demarcation Lines (the ‘Green Line’).

Israel could thus keep the territory it seized as long as the Zionist regime avoided making peace. Even if it did make peace, it could keep some unspecified territory, presumably what it had stolen in terror raids before the 1967 war.

In the meantime Arab leaders had picked up on the fact that the all-important “the” word in relation to territories had been included in other language versions of the draft resolution (e.g. the French document) and it was therefore widely understood to mean that Israel must withdraw from all territories captured in 1967. Unfortunately, under international law, English is the official language and the English version ruled.

For Israel, Abba Eban said:

As the representative of the United States has said, the boundaries between Israel and her neighbors must be mutually worked out and recognized by the parties themselves as part of the peace-making process. We continue to believe that the States of the region, in direct negotiation with each other, have the sovereign responsibility for shaping their common future. It is the duty of international agencies at the behest of the parties to act in the measure that agreement can be promoted and a mutually accepted settlement can be advanced. We do not believe that Member States have the right to refuse direct negotiation….

Eban seemed to forget that Israel was in breach of international law.

‘Acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible’, right?

So here was Israel, aided by the devious drafters, pressing for direct negotiations as far back as 1967 and sensing that the defenceless and impoverished Palestinians under their heel would be easy meat.

But the Russian, Vasily Kuznetsov, wasn’t fooled.

In the resolution adopted by the Security Council, the ‘withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict’ becomes the first necessary principle for the establishment of a just and lasting peace….  We understand the decision taken to mean the withdrawal of Israel forces from all, and we repeat, all territories belonging to Arab States and seized by Israel following its attack on those States on 5 June 1967.

Kuznetsov dismissed Goldberg’s border-adjustment argument, saying that the clause concerning the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition trumped any consideration for secure boundaries. He argued that the security needs of Israel “cannot serve as a pretext for the maintenance of Israel forces on any part of the Arab territories seized by them as a result of war.”

Your average native English speaker would not have been fooled by the missing word either. To the man on the Clapham omnibus “withdrawal from territories occupied in the recent conflict” plainly means “get the hell out of the territories you occupied in the recent conflict”.

US Secretary of State Dean Rusk writing in 1990 remarked:

We wanted [it] to be left a little vague and subject to future negotiation because we thought the Israeli border along the West Bank could be rationalized; certain anomalies could easily be straightened out with some exchanges of territory, making a more sensible border for all parties…. But we never contemplated any significant grant of territory to Israel as a result of the June 1967 war. On that point we and the Israelis to this day remain sharply divided…. I’m not aware of any commitment the United States has made to assist Israel in retaining territories seized in the Six-Day War.

And how had UN members so conveniently forgotten about the Palestinian lands seized and ethnically cleansed before 1967? You know, those important Arab towns and cities and hundreds of villages that had been allocated to a future Palestinian state in the UN’s 1947 Partition Plan but were seized by Jewish terrorist groups and Israel militia while the ink was still drying on the document? Had they also forgotten that the Palestinians were never consulted on the UN’s decision to hand over their lands to aliens mainly from Europe and with no ancestral links to the ancient Holy Land? The borders set down in the 1947 Partition and incorporated into UN Resolution are certainly “recognised” because they were duly voted on and accepted even by the Zionists and their allies, were they not?

As everyone knows, Israel has never declared its borders nor respected the UN-specified borders. It is still hell-bent on thieving lands and resources, so no border is ever secure enough or final. Of course, a Palestinian state, if or when it emerges, is equally entitled to secure borders but the Israeli regime is unlikely to agree. It wants total control. So going down the talks path again and again is fruitless. Borders should be imposed by the proper international bodies and enforced. That has to be the start-point. Adjustments can then be made with mutual consent once Israeli troops are no longer in occupation.

Incidentally, Article 33 of the UN Charter says that parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger international peace and security, shall first of all seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.

Should the parties fail to settle it by those means Article 37 says they must “refer it to the Security Council. If the Security Council deems that the continuance of the dispute is in fact likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, it shall decide whether to take action under Article 36 or to recommend such terms of settlement as it may consider appropriate.”

Article 36 declares that “in making recommendations under this Article the Security Council should also take into consideration that legal disputes should as a general rule be referred by the parties to the International Court of Justice in accordance with the provisions of the Statute of the Court.”

Isn’t the Israeli occupation a legal dispute? How much longer must we wait to see the Charter complied with? Which brings us back to the question: why wasn’t Abbas at the conference batting for Palestine’s freedom and a just solution based on law? His presence would have put Netanyahu on the wrong foot.

January 20, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Border Police Executed Bedouin at Um al Hiran, Doctored Video Footage

By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | January 20, 2017

I wrote a post about the killing of Musa Abu Qilyan in which I presented both the claim of the Border Police that he killed a policeman in a deliberate terror attack; and also presented video which, as I wrote, failed to support the police claims (though it didn’t refute them). Now, Ronnie Barkan has provided a close video analysis of two separate versions of the video, one distributed by the police and another slightly longer one which surfaced on Facebook. Ronnie shows (be patient in watching the various iterations of the video clips he presents) incontrovertibly that the Police video was subtly and slightly edited, both removing the first shot a Border Policeman fired at the car, and also speeding up the video to make the vehicle appear to be going faster than it was. You may read an alternate version, which essentially agrees with Ronnie’s work, at 972.

What does all this mean?  First, that when Abu Alqilyan’s vehicle drove along the road it presented no threat whatsoever to the police personnel. It was driving slowly and deliberately. As it proceeds, a police officer runs toward it firing. Three or four shots are fired. The first shot is fired while the car is driving quite slowly and seemingly under the driver’s control. Only after those shots are fired does the vehicle speed up, lose control and hit another police officer standing near the road. Clearly, the driver had been fatally struck by these bullets before he killed the officer.

In other words, the police acted recklessly and with total disregard even for their own safety. They essentially murdered the Bedouin driver when he posed no threat. After he was incapacitated, his vehicle struck and killed the other officer. He was not intending to harm anyone. Ergo, he was not a terrorist.  It’s certainly possible he was a supporter of the Islamic Movement, but certainly not of ISIS as Israeli Jewish politicians have claimed. Further, being an Islamist is not the same as being a terrorist.

The only possibility I can think of to support the police version is perhaps an officer had tried to stop him at some point before the drone footage began. He may have seemed to defy an order to stop and proceeded on his path, which led the officer to fire. But you can be sure that if such a thing happened, the drone footage authenticating it would’ve been released.

Further, how can a major police action at which physical altercations and protest is expected not secure the perimeter of vehicle and pedestrian traffic? How could the police have allowed any vehicles to approach them as this man did?  Why weren’t there roadblocks preventing access? To me, this appears to be a botched Border Police operation for which they have only themselves to blame.

Finally, this is yet another example of fraud and mendacity on the part of the Israel’s most vicious, brutal and violent police authorities. Not only are Border Police the most racist, they are also the mostly likely to lie and cover up their errors, as they have here. It’s a shameful episode which should be met with skepticism and derision by the Israeli media and the Israeli public. However, Israeli Jews are all too quick to swallow the lies fed to them by authorities. Once they have drunk the Koolaid, counter-evidence like this threatens their equanimity and is usually ignored or dismissed.

In my earlier post I debated the meaning of “terrorism” in the Israeli context and argued that dispossessing the Bedouin as Israel is doing, along with deadly violence like this constitutes state terror. This new evidence confirms there was no terror on the part of the Bedouin at all. The only terror was that of the forces of the State. If I were Israeli, I would hang my head in shame.

January 20, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »