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Lieberman Threatens To “Dismantle” ICC

IMEMC & Agencies | January 17, 2015

Following the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a preliminary investigation to determine “whether war crimes have been committed” during Israel’s last war Gaza in the summer of 2014, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened that Israel “would act on dissolving the ICC,” and considered the decision “provocative.”

Lieberman alleged that the ICC decision “only aims at attempting to impact Israel’s ability to defend itself.”

He added that Israel will not cooperate with any investigation, and will act on the international level to dissolve the ICC after describing the decision as hypocritical, and supportive of what he called “terrorism.”

Lieberman also alleged that the decision is an outcome of what he called anti-Israel moves that only aim at “harming Israel and its right to defend itself.”

The Foreign Minister went on to talk about Syria and how the court “failed to intervene,” adding that there is no comparison between the Israeli army, which he called the most moral army in the world, with what he labeled as “terror groups” in Gaza.

He called on his government to officially reject the decision, and refrain from any cooperation with it.

On Friday evening, Lieberman told Israel’s Channel 2 TV that Tel Aviv should act on removing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from his post, and engage in talks with some Arab countries to reach what he called “a peaceful resolution that does not harm Israel’s ability to defend itself.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also angered by the decision, and said that the ICC cannot conduct the investigation because “Palestine is not a sovereign state.”

The latest developments came after the ICC prosecutor Fatou Densouda declared she has opened a preliminary investigation of “possible” war crimes committed during the most recent Israeli war on Gaza.

She also vowed an independent and impartial preliminary investigation, adding that the move comes after the Palestinian Authority signed the founding treaty of the ICC in July of last year, and officially recognized its jurisdiction.

During the summer Israeli escalation on the Gaza Strip, the army bombarded dozens of thousands of Palestinian homes and residential towers, hospitals and clinics, UNRWA schools and facilities, media offices and dozens of other civilian facilities, in addition to destroying the infrastructure in the besieged coastal region.

The Ministry of Housing in Gaza recently said the number of homes that have been destroyed, and partially damaged, during the Israeli aggression on the coastal region is close to 124,000.

The Israeli bombardment and shelling killed at around 2,137 Palestinians, including 578 children, 264 women, and 103 elderly, while[ wounding] more than 11,100, including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly.

January 17, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Losses continue to pile up for Abu Haikel family on Tel Rumeida

CPT | January 17, 2015

The family’s cherished almond and cherry orchards are a thing of the past; only a few straggling trees survived the bulldozers of the Israeli Antiquities Authorities (IAA) in the last year. On 31 December 2014, the Abu Haikel family had their case protesting Israel’s takeover of the land on which they held a protected tenancy contract for more than sixty years heard in the Israeli High Court, only to find that the State of Israel, in a secret deal, had given the land to Hebron settlers in 2012. And this week, a section of the family’s retaining walls collapsed yet again because of the digging beneath them; the footpath to one of their front doors is also danger of collapse.

In the High Court hearing, the three judges glossed over why Israel took over the tenancy from the Abu Haikels in the first place and said they had done nothing to establish tenancy despite the fact they have faithfully paid rent on it for decades (See link to timeline below). However one judge still expressed her shock over the behavior of the State. She asked what criteria Israel had used for giving the land to the Jewish settlers of Hebron instead of putting the land on the market.

Nevertheless, the attitude of the court does not seem likely to produce an outcome favorable to the Abu Haikels. On their side is one lawyer supplied by the Hebron municipality; against them are three lawyers representing the State of Israel, the Jewish settlers of Hebron and the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

And in the meantime, despite the fact that no reputable archeological enterprise accomplishes its work with bulldozers, the family watches as the IAA continues to destroy its property and the property of its neighbors.

A member of the family visited Christian Peacemaker Teams on 14 January to update them on the family’s legal situation and next steps. He said a meeting was in the process of coming together with the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, the PA Ministry of Tourism and some Israeli solidarity groups, but the prospects for improvement in the family’s fortunes look bleak.

“It’s very depressing to be in a situation where you never really win,” he said. “When the walls come down, you know they’re never going to be replaced…People ask us now, ‘Why are you bothering to put up a fight to save the land?’ What’s the point?’”

When asked why the family continues to resist, he replied, “Well if you don’t stop them at every point, the whole thing keeps on shrinking. The family has a huge fear that they will lose not just their land but their houses as well. Emmanuel Eisenburg, the so called ‘archaeologist’ in charge of the excavation has said he wants to dig under their houses because that’s where the Canaanite city was.”

A timeline of settlement expansion on the Abu Haikel’s land through 2014 is available here.

~

Background:

A Palestinian story of resistance: The Abu Haikal family

January 17, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US Condemns ICC Preliminary Probe into Israeli War Crimes

Al-Akhbar | January 17, 2015

The United States joined Israel in condemning the International Criminal Court decision to open a preliminary probe Friday into possible war crimes committed against Palestinians, blasting it as a “tragic irony.”

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office would conduct an “analysis in full independence and impartiality” into alleged war crimes by Israel, including those committed during its latest Gaza offensive.

Her decision comes after the Palestinian Authority formally joined the ICC earlier this month, allowing it to lodge war crimes and crimes against humanity complaints against Israel as of April.

At least 2,300 Palestinians, an estimated 70 percent of them civilians, and 72 Israelis, 66 of them soldiers, were killed during last summer’s war in Gaza.

The US criticized the decision late Friday, saying it opposed actions against Israel at the ICC as “counterproductive to the cause of peace.”

“It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now being scrutinized by the ICC,” US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier reacted angrily to the prosecutor’s decision, calling it “scandalous” and “absurd” since “the Palestinian Authority cooperates with Hamas, a terror group that commits war crimes, in contrast to Israel that fights terror while maintaining international law, and has an independent justice system.”

Gambian-born Bensouda had earlier stressed that “a preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process of examining the information available… on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation.”

Bensouda will decide at a later stage whether to launch a full investigation.

Israel began a massive crackdown in June, using the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers to launch sweeping arrests and violent repression of Palestinians in the West Bank, triggering a series of events that led to the seven-week Gaza war.

Palestine’s move to join the ICC is also seen as part of a shift in strategy to internationalize its campaign for statehood and move away from the stalled US-led peace process.

The Palestinians were upgraded from observer status to UN “observer state” in 2012, opening the doors for them to join the ICC and a host of other international organizations.

Israel reacted swiftly on Friday, slamming the announcement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the sole purpose of the preliminary examination was to “try to harm Israel’s right to defend itself from terror” and he said the decision was “solely motivated by political anti-Israel considerations.”

Lieberman accused the court of double standards for not examining the mass killings in Syria or other conflict zones, investigating instead what he called “the most moral army in the world.”

Israel earlier this month delayed transferring some $127 million in taxes it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for the attempts to press war crimes charges against the Zionist state.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki welcomed the ICC’s move.

“Everything is going according to plan, no state and nobody can now stop this action we requested,” he told AFP.

“In the end, a full investigation will follow the preliminary one.”

‘Justice for victims’

Rights group Amnesty International welcomed the ICC’s announcement saying it “could pave the way for thousands of victims of crimes under international law to gain access to justice.”

But the initial probe could lead to an investigation into crimes “committed by all sides,” Amnesty stressed in a statement.

Friday’s announcement is the second such initial probe by the ICC’s prosecutor into the situation in Palestine.

The Palestinian Authority in 2009 lodged a complaint against Israel, but the ICC prosecutor said in 2012 after “carefully considering legal arguments” it could not investigate because of the Palestinians’ status at the UN.

At the time Palestine’s “observer” status blocked them from signing up to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute.

The ICC, which sits in The Hague in the Netherlands, is the world’s first independent court set up in 2002 to investigate genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But it can only probe alleged crimes in countries that have ratified the Rome Statute, or accepts the Hague-based court’s jurisdiction for a certain time period, or through a referral by the UN Security Council.

Currently, chief prosecutor Bensouda is also running preliminary investigations in Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Guinea, Honduras, Iraq and Ukraine.

While 123 countries have now ratified the Rome Statute, Israel and the United States have not.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-infamous Balfour Declaration, called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

In 1948, with the end of the British mandate, a new state — Israel — was declared inside historical Palestine.

As a result, some 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes, or were forcibly expelled, while hundreds of Palestinian villages and cities were razed to the ground by invading Zionist forces.

The Palestinian diaspora has since become one of the largest in the world. Palestinian refugees are currently spread across the region and in other countries, while many have settled in refugee camps in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israel then occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state — a move never recognized by the international community.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

January 17, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

ICC Opens Preliminary Inquiry into Gaza War Crimes

Al-Akhbar | January 16, 2015

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said on Friday they had opened a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, the first formal step that could lead to charges against Israelis or Palestinians.

On January 1, a day before requesting ICC membership, the Palestinian Authority asked the prosecutors to investigate alleged crimes committed on territories under Palestinian control since June 13, 2014, the date on which Israel began its latest offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The 51-day Israeli assault on Gaza left at least 2,300 Palestinians dead, at least 70 percent of them civilians, and 96,000 houses destroyed. Reconstruction hasn’t started in the besieged enclave, leaving thousands vulnerable to elecricity cuts, water shortages and harsh winter weather.

“The office will conduct its analysis in full independence and impartiality,” the prosecution office said in a statement, adding that it was a matter of “policy and practice” to open a preliminary examination after receiving such a referral.

“The case is now in the hands of the court,” said Nabil Abuznaid, head of the Palestinian delegation in The Hague. “It is a legal matter now and we have faith in the court system.”

Israel denounced the ICC’s “scandalous” decision.

The sole purpose of the preliminary examination is to “try to harm Israel’s right to defend itself from terror,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.

He said the decision was “solely motivated by political anti-Israel considerations,” adding that he would recommend against cooperating with the probe.

On January 3, Israel froze the transfer of $127 million in tax funds it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for its application to join the ICC.

Israel has repeatedly delayed payments to the Palestinians to signal its displeasure with measures to achieve statehood and get accountability for Israeli war crimes.

It did so in 2012, after they won a UN vote recognizing Palestine as a non-member state. And it employed the tactic twice in 2011 – after PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced reconciliation with Hamas and after the Palestinians won admission to UNESCO.

A preliminary examination, which could take many years, involves prosecutors assessing the strength of evidence of alleged crimes, whether the court has jurisdiction and how the “interests of justice” would best be served.

Only if that led to a full investigation could charges be brought against officials on either the Israeli or Palestinian side of the conflict.

An initial inquiry could lead to war crimes charges against Israel, whether relating to last conflict in Gaza or Israel’s 47-year-long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

It also exposes the Palestinians to prosecution, possibly for rocket attacks by resistance groups operating out of Gaza.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

January 16, 2015 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Live ammunition used at Nabi Saleh demonstration

International Solidarity Movement | January 16, 2015 

Nabi Saleh, Occupied Palestine – For five years now, residents of Nabi Saleh have been denied access to their spring. A source of irrigation for their crops, as well as a place for recreation: al-Qaws spring was the heart of this farming community.

The illegal settlement of Halamish was established on the land of Nabi Saleh, and the neighbouring village of Deir Nidham in 1977; since then, and particularly in recent years, the settlement has been growing, stealing more land, and finally denying the villagers access to their spring.

The illegal settlement (photo by ISM).

For five years, every Friday, residents of Nabi Saleh gather with local supporters, Israeli and international activists, to protest against the theft of their land and the denial of access to the spring. Sometimes, with bravery and determination alone, these villagers have managed to reach the spring, stealing a few precious moments before the arrests and reprisals reach their climax.  Most of the time, the repression from the Israeli Occupation Forces is too great to get anywhere close.

Today in Nabi Saleh the villagers gathered at the petrol station on the edge of the village; undeterred by the rain, they were ready for the weekly demonstration. The weekly show of strength and determination to fight for what is rightfully theirs.

We walked down the road, men, women, and children chanting in Arabic and English, voicing our common determination to end this occupation. The Israeli military were waiting at the bottom of the road, blockading the access to the village. As soon as we were in range the tear gas started. A peaceful march met with poisonous tear gas from the very beginning. Many attempted to throw and kick the smoking toxic canisters away, but the sheer quantity meant we had to retreat quickly.

As the smoke cleared, we tried to walk forwards once more. But then the unmistakable crack of live ammunition. We ran back. Without provocation, live ammunition was aimed at a group of peaceful protestors. Fortunately this time the bullet didn’t find a body, but the Israeli Occupation Forces lack of respect for human life is truly frightening.

Two months ago four protestors were injured at this peaceful demonstration, adding to a long list of villagers who have been hurt or killed by Israeli military bullets whilst trying to fight for their rights. The army have been using live ammunition at this group of families and demonstrators more and more frequently during the last year. So the villagers’ weekly demonstration to struggle for their most basic rights – land and water – has been reduced to a short walk to become the target of bullets. Each week villagers risk their lives because they will never accept the theft of their land. Each week they are shot at because they want access to the spring which has been the source of life for their community for generations.

January 16, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Baghdad 1950. Paris 2015?

False Flag Attacks by Zionists Against Fellow Jews…

giladiisrael

Left: Zionist agent in Iraq, Naeim Giladi, circa 1947; right: Iraqi Jews arrive in Israel 1951

By Richard Edmondson | Fig Trees and Vineyards | January 14, 2015

It is said that there is nothing new under the sun.

Jewish leaders talking up the threat of “anti-Semitism” in order to induce Jews to immigrate to Israel is of course not new. Such talk emanating in the immediate aftermath of what appear to have been false flag attacks by Zionists against fellow Jews–this also is not new.

“To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, I would like to say that Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said over the weekend in the wake of the attacks in Paris.

Netanyahu is certainly up on his Jewish history, but for those of the rest of us who may not be quite as well-versed, here is a little primer.

In the years 1950-51, the city of Baghdad was hit by a series of explosions targeting Iraqi Jews. The attacks caused property damage, injuries, and deaths, creating panic in the Jewish population. At the time the bombings were blamed upon Arab nationalists, raising fears of anti-Semitism and giving rise to a desire by Jews to immigrate to Israel–which of course, at precisely that same time, was in the process of displacing Palestinians and attempting to expand its Jewish population.

What follows is a timeline of events in Baghdad excerpted from a book written and published in the 1990s by an Iraqi Jew named Naeim Giladi. I’ll say a little bit more below about who Giladi was, but for right now just consider the timeline as he presents it:

Six months later-the exact date was March 19, 1950-a bomb went off at the American Cultural Center and Library in Baghdad, causing property damage and injuring a number of people. The center was a favorite meeting place for young Jews.

The first bomb thrown directly at Jews occurred on April 8, 1950, at 9:15 p.m. A car with three young passengers hurled the grenade at Baghdad’s El-Dar El-Bida Café, where Jews were celebrating Passover. Four people were seriously injured. That night leaflets were distributed calling on Jews to leave Iraq immediately.

The next day, many Jews, most of them poor with nothing to lose, jammed emigration offices to renounce their citizenship and to apply for permission to leave for Israel. So many applied, in fact, that the police had to open registration offices in Jewish schools and synagogues.

On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported.

On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased.

On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties.

On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.

Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.

The paragraphs above come from Giladi’s book, Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews, originally published in 1992. An except from the book can be found here, and includes details about the Baghdad bombings as well as a number of other interesting items, including Giladi’s own immigration to Palestine and what he witnessed there. You’ll note, in the timeline, his reference to leaflets being distributed on the same day of the April 8 bombing. That leaflet read in part, “Call to the Jews: To all the tribe of Zion living in Babylon.” It goes on to encourage an exodus out of Iraq:

“For the second time in the history of the diaspora, we have an opportunity to leave. We encourage you to hurry and leave. Today the Jews are in a new era of the history of the diaspora.”

Giladi was born in Iraq in 1929 and became a committed Zionist in his late teens. Later in life he disavowed Zionism, renounced his Israeli citizenship, and moved to the US. His change of heart began when, as a young Jewish immigrant, shortly after arriving in Israel, he encountered “institutionalized racism,” against both Palestinians as well as Arabic or Mizrahi Jews.

The principal interest Israel had in Jews from Islamic countries was as a supply of cheap labor, especially for the farm work that was beneath the urbanized Eastern European Jews. Ben Gurion needed the “Oriental” Jews to farm the thousands of acres of land left by Palestinians who were driven out by Israeli forces in 1948.

At the time in question, the early 1950s, Israel was ethnically cleansing the Ashkelon area and forcing Palestinians who lived there into the Gaza Strip. Farms were indeed taken over, and so, yes, there was a need for cheap labor, and Jews from Iraq provided a good source. And to make sure that the new arrivals were wholly dependent upon their earnings as laborers, Israel saw to it that they were forced, for the most part, to leave their property and possessions behind in Iraq. According to Giladi:

…the pro-British, pro-Zionist puppet el-Said [Nouri el-Said, the Iraqi prime minister–ed.]saw to it that all of their possessions were frozen, including their cash assets. (There were ways of getting Iraqi dinars out, but when the immigrants went to exchange them in Israel they found that the Israeli government kept 50 percent of the value.) Even those Iraqi Jews who had not registered to emigrate, but who happened to be abroad, faced loss of their nationality if they didn’t return within a specified time. An ancient, cultured, prosperous community had been uprooted and its people transplanted to a land dominated by East European Jews, whose culture was not only foreign but entirely hateful to them.

Giladi passed away in 2010, but his conclusions–that the Baghdad bombings were perpetrated by Zionist Jews–are shared by a number of modern historians and writers, including Uri Avnery, who wrote that, “After the disclosure of the Lavon Affair… the Baghdad affair became more plausible.” But perhaps most interesting was the assessment given by career CIA officer Wilbur Crane Eveland:

In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel. . . .

Although the Iraqi police later provided our embassy with evidence to show that the synagogue and library bombings, as well as the anti-Jewish and anti-American leaflet campaigns, had been the work of an underground Zionist organization, most of the world believed reports that Arab terrorism had motivated the flight of the Iraqi Jews whom the Zionists had “rescued” really just in order to increase Israel’s Jewish population.

The above is quoted by Giladi and is derived from Eveland’s memoir, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East, published in 1980.

An Iraqi court went on to find 20 people, all members of the Iraqi Zionist underground, guilty of carrying out the bombings. Two were sentenced to death, and the rest received lengthy prison terms. But by this time the Jewish population of Iraq had been greatly reduced. Giladi says that 125,000 Iraqi Jews ended up immigrating to Palestine, leaving just 6,000 remaining. It also resulted in a split in Giladi’s own family; while Giladi himself made the journey, his parents, he says, were not fooled by the false flag events and remained behind in Iraq.

***

While a good many analysts have concluded that the recent attacks in Paris were a false flag operation, carried out most likely by Israel, others have expressed dubiousness on the matter. Certainly Israeli false flag operations are well documented, but a line would surely be drawn at targeting Jews in such attacks–this seems to be the reasoning. The events in Baghdad 65 years ago, however, would apparently refute this notion. If something is “good for the Jews” collectively, as a whole, then it can apparently be justified even should it be brought about at the expense of individual Jews–that at least seems to be the thinking on the matter by some Jews or Jewish leaders at any rate. Maybe, though, this should come as no surprise, and here I’m reminded of the words of Caiaphas, the chief priest at the time of Jesus: “You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

I highly recommend Giladi’s book excerpt in its entirety, if you have the time, for it makes for fascinating reading. You can also click here to see a video featuring an interview with the author that was conducted in 1994.

Meanwhile Israeli officials continue urging French Jews to make “aliyah” to Israel.

“Due to the impossible security situation [for French Jews], Israel has a responsibility to allocate all necessary resources to facilitate the aliyah and absorption of Jews from France,” said Knesset member Yoni Chetboun.

Other Israeli officials have also spoken out.

“Your place, Jews of France, is with us,”  said Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, Religious Affairs minister, speaking at a Jewish Home party rally.

“We are all shocked at the recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks in France,” said Knesset member Motti Yogev. “To all our Jewish brothers in France we call: Come and make Aliyah to Israel! Here is your home – our home.”

Another Israeli politician, Yair Lapid, seemed to be going out of his way to push the alarm  buttons.

“I don’t want to speak in terms of Holocaust, but…” he said, “European Jewry must understand that there is just one place for Jews, and that is the State of Israel.”

All of this is obviously having an effect. The leader of a Paris synagogue is predicting that between 14,000 and 15,000 French Jews will immigrate to Israel in 2015, and indeed hundreds are reported to have flocked to an “aliyah fair” held on Sunday.

aliyahfair

French Jews attend an “aliyah fair” held in Paris on Sunday, Jan. 11, just two days after an attack on a kosher market. A series of such fairs are scheduled as part of an Israeli policy called “France First.”

Is not the holding of an “aliyah fair” just two days after an attack on a kosher market pretty much the equivalent or on a par with the aforementioned leaflets printed by the Zionist underground in Baghdad 65 years ago?

Is there anything new under the sun?

By the way, additional aliyah fairs are scheduled this week for Marseilles and Lyon, with more to come in February and March. The organizing of such events is said to be part of a new Israeli policy–overseen by the Ministry of Immigration Absorption–called “France First.” The implications of such a policy are somewhat alarming. If France is “first,” who’s next? Will attacks similar to the ones last week begin to occur in other countries with large Jewish populations?

No word on whether Netanyahu dropped by the fair in Paris on Sunday, although he was in the city participating in the giant anti-terrorism march–this of course despite the fact that he had been specifically requested by the French government not to come. One person who did pop into the fair, however, was Natan Sharansky, chairman of the Jewish Agency, who had accompanied the prime minister to Paris from Israel.

In his remarks, Sharansky assured the potential immigrants that “the Jewish Agency embraces the French Jewish community at this difficult time and is extending its full support by helping provide for the physical security of Jewish communities across France, increasing our assistance to any individual who wishes to immigrate to Israel, and working to ease immigrants’ integration into the Israeli workforce and Israeli society.”

Translation: don’t worry. The United States will pay for it.

The calls for Jewish immigration today are, of course, motivated by different needs from those of 65 years ago. Recently the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released figures showing that the number of Palestinians throughout historical Palestine will exceed the Jewish population by the end of the year 2020. The figures have been challenged by Israeli academics, who insist the Palestinian statistics are flawed, although certainly the “demographic threat” has been an ongoing Zionist concern.

But prompting an upswing in Jewish immigration probably would not have been the only, and maybe not even the prime, consideration in carrying out the Paris attacks–that is assuming the attacks were a false flag. Other writers have suggested a number of other motivations including payback for France’s support for Palestinian statehood at the UN. (One wonders: was Israel’s “France First” policy adopted before or after the UN vote?)

What is clear, of course, is that terrorist organizations and terrorist armies are being supported by some of the most powerful nations on earth, and that these forces are being used to advance certain geopolitical objectives. The likelihood that such elements will be mobilized in some way in future false flag attacks in Western cities has to be considered high.

January 15, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Settlement Expansion Plan To Assimilate French Immigrants

settlementhalo

IMEMC News & Agencies | January 14, 2015

An Israeli plan to expand Israeli settlements for Zionist Jewish immigrants coming from France was revealed on Tuesday, according to the PNN.

The plan aims at expanding Israeli occupation settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in order to have about 10,000 additional Zionist immigrants live in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu exploited the French national rally, on Monday, to invite European Jews to move into Israel and flee “European antisemitism”, saying that Israel was their home, despite French leadership and Jewish objections at the French synagogue.

Israel’s Channel 2 TV said, on Tuesday, that Israeli minister of housing, Uri Ariel, sent a message to the settlement committee, saying that Israel was getting ready to receive huge numbers of French immigrants, and that there must be a collective plan to settle them all.

Ariel, in his letter, said there was no doubt that French Jews sympathize with the settlement project, and that the settlement ministry will work on absorbing them all.

PNN further notes that the number of the French immigrants into Israel has been on the increase for years. For 2014, the number hit more than 6,000 — double the amount in 2013. In 2015, about 10,000 French Jews are expected to land in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

January 14, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel punishing Palestinian prisoners by keeping them exposed in frigid weather

By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | January 12, 2015

The Palestinian Prisoner Society filed an appeal with the Israeli High Court Saturday calling on Israeli authorities to provide adequate clothing and covers for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prison camps, as many of the prisoners are held in outdoor camps with no heat, in the midst of a severe winter storm. The appeal also included reports that the placement in outdoor cages was being used by Israeli interrogators as a form of torture.

The Israeli High Court denied the appeal, but Palestinian prisoner groups say that the practices are ongoing, and many Palestinian prisoners are facing death or severe frostbite as a result of the cold, sleet and wind.

Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society, stated, “The Israeli occupation is using the extremely cold weather to kill the Palestinian prisoners as its interrogators expose them to the cold weather in order to extract confessions.”

In January 2014, during a similarly severe winter storm, the Israeli Public Defenders Office reported that Palestinian children were placed in an outdoor cage during the storm, writing on their website “During our visit, held during a fierce storm that hit the state, attorneys met detainees who described to them a shocking picture: in the middle of the night dozens of detainees were transferred to the external iron cages built outside the IPS transition facility in Ramla”.

The British Independent newspaper wrote at that time, “It turns out that this procedure, under which prisoners waited outside in cages, lasted for several months, and was verified by other officials.”

There has been no followup since last January to that report, and the practice of placing children in outdoor detention during the winter is apparently unchanged since that time.

Even those held in indoor facilities face the problem of a lack of heating in the prisons, and the cells where most prisoners are held are no warmer than the temperature outside, which continues to be below freezing.

Issa Qaraqe of the Palestinian Prisoner Society called on international human rights organizations to intervene on behalf of Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli authorities, which he says now number over 7,000.

January 12, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

More Palestinian teenagers shot by the Israeli military

International Solidarity Movement | January 12, 2015

Burin, Occupied Palestine – On Saturday, January 10th, Palestinian youths went out to play in the snow on Al-Sabeh Mountain in east Burin. A group of Israeli settlers approached the village as if to attack it, and clashes erupted between them and the youths. Israeli soldiers arrived on the scene and protected the attacking settlers. They shot two Palestinian youths, Mohammed Zacharia (15) and Abbas Jamal (18).

Mohammed Zacharia, 15 (photo by ISM).

Mohammed Zacharia, 15 (photo by ISM)

Abbas Jamal’s father Jamal Asous, director of the Nur Shams refugee camp through UNRWA, spoke with ISM. He said that Zacharia’s brother, 18, has also been wounded in clashes with settlers twice and now might face three years in an Israeli prison. He also showed where Jamal was injured in his other leg in 2013 and had to have surgery – a large scar remains to testify of the ordeal. Having injuries in both legs is disastrous for Jamal, given he is studying to be a land surveyor.

Abbas Jamal, 18, with his father Jamal Asous (photo by ISM).

Abbas Jamal, 18, with his father Jamal Asous (photo by ISM)

Violent attacks on Palestinians have become far too common throughout the West Bank. In the past few weeks, Israeli soldiers have shot several shepherds in Aqraba and fired volumes of tear gas at young schoolchildren in Hebron; settlers also attacked a 12-year-old in Nablus. As Asous conveyed in the hospital, children should be able to play, study and go about their lives freely without the constant threat of violence. It is their right.

January 12, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israel: ‘Je Suis Hypocrite’

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By Rasha B. Foda • SHAREverything • January 12, 2015

140730-rami-rayan-journalistIt is no small irony that the West, who now so vociferously speak against the so-called “intolerance of Islam” (while practicing their own censorship), should seek comfort and support from Israelis, of all people, who now too eagerly sing the hymns of free speech, while being one of the most egregious perpetrators of violence against journalists the world has ever known. Indeed, last year alone, Israelis achieved the dubious honor of being named the world’s second most lethal state against journalists, according to the watchdog Reporters Without Borders. And that’s no small accomplishment given that thanks to ISIS, only war-torn Syria beat Israel, and apparently only because Syria is engulfed in armed conflict all year round, whereas all 15 journalists killed by Israel in 2014 (only 7 of which Reporters counted as having been killed on duty) were killed during the 50 days of Operation “Protective Edge.”

So basically, Israel is second only to ISIS, who they could have beat had their Operation against Gaza lasted a little longer. Meanwhile, israel never did anything to punish the IDF soldier who killed Welsh cameraman, producer, and director James Miller almost 11 years ago.

James_Miller_BBCThe documentary which Miller was making on the day of his death (Death in Gaza, released by HBO in 2004) depicts Miller and his colleagues leaving the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah refugee camp after dark, carrying a white flag. They had walked about 20 metres from the veranda when the first shot rang out.[15] For 13 seconds, there was silence broken only by Shah’s cry: “We are British journalists.” Then came the second shot, which killed Miller. He was shot in the front of his neck.[15]

That is one strange bedfellow to choose in championing the cause of free speech for journalists.

January 12, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

African-American leaders visit Palestine, vow solidarity with Palestinian liberation movement

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Dream Defenders in Nazareth (image by Dream Defenders)
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | January 11, 2015

A delegation of young African American leaders from Ferguson and other US cities organized by ‘Dream Defenders’ are traveling through the Occupied Palestinian Territories this week to see first-hand the reality of life under military occupation.

According to one of the delegation organizers, Ahmad Abuznaid, “The goals were primarily to allow for the group members to experience and see first hand the occupation, ethnic cleansing and brutality Israel has levied against Palestinians, but also to build real relationships with those on the ground leading the fight for liberation. In the spirit of Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael and many others, we thought the connections between the African American leadership of the movement in the US and those on the ground in Palestine needed to be reestablished and fortified.”

Abuznaid added, “As a Palestinian who has learned a great deal about struggle, movement, militancy and liberation from African Americans in the US, I dreamt of the day where I could bring that power back to my people in Palestine. This trip is a part of that process.”

Soon after the delegation arrived in Palestine, one of the members of the delegation tweeted, “Our brother, Legal & Policy Director, and the organizer of this trip, Ahmad Abuznaid is only allowed in Jerusalem, the place of his birth, on a work permit now. Due to the fact he is Palestinian, he can only get into Jerusalem by walking through a Checkpoint. Today, we joined him on his journey through gates that reminded us of cattle pens. #WeCantBreathe.”

Some of the organizations represented in the delegation include Black Lives Matter and the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100). Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, told reporters from Ebony magazine that her first impression of occupied Palestine was that, “This is an apartheid state. We can’t deny that and if we do deny it we are apart of the Zionist violence. There are two different systems here in occupied Palestine. Two completely different systems. Folks are unable to go to parts of their own country. Folks are barred from their own country.”

Cherell Brown, another participant in the delegation, noted that “So many parallels exist between how the US polices, incarcerates, and perpetuates violence on the black community and how the Zionist state that exists in Israel perpetuates the same on Palestinians. This is not to say there aren’t vast differences and nuances that need to always be named, but our oppressors are literally collaborating together, learning from one another – and as oppressed people we have to do the same.”

The delegation has traveled to refugee camps in Bethlehem, as well as visiting Jerusalem, Ramallah, Haifa and Nazareth and meeting with various organizations.

Hip-hop artist Tef Poe wrote upon the conclusion of the delegation, “When I get home I get off the plane and go back to the north side of St. Louis a place where most of us are in just as much bondage as these people but the difference is we don’t know it or acknowledge it ….Power concedes to righteousness eventually.”

January 11, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Waiting Since 1948 for Justice

US Pressures Palestine to be Patient

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | January 9, 2015

Dennis Ross, writing in the New York Times, criticises Mahmoud Abbas for using international institutions to put pressure on Israel.

Abbas, after failing to obtain a UN Security Council resolution requiring Israel to end its decades-long occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, had announced his intention to join Palestine to the International Criminal Court and seek justice via that route.

“Why not wait?” asks Ross. “If a new Israeli government after the elections is prepared to take a peace initiative and build settlements only on land that is likely to be part of Israel and not part of Palestine, there will be no need for a United Nations resolution.”

If not, and the Europeans decide to pursue a resolution, it must be balanced. “It cannot simply address Palestinian needs by offering borders based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps and a capital in Arab East Jerusalem without offering something equally specific to Israel — namely, security arrangements that leave Israel able to defend itself by itself, phased withdrawal tied to the Palestinian Authority’s performance on security and governance, and a resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue that allows Israel to retain its Jewish character.”

Why should the Israelis be offered anything? The aim is to make them give back what they have stolen at gunpoint. The Palestinians have been waiting 37 years while, week by week, Israel confiscates more of their land and water and plots to steal their offshore gas too. Why drag out the torment unless you’re the worst kind of sadist? Why wait a moment longer for restitution?

This is not a sudden demand. Back in November 1967 Resolution 242 was passed unanimously by the UN Security Council requiring “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict [i.e. the Six-Day War]” in fulfillment of UN Charter principles. That’s 37 years for the Israelis to get used to it.

The preamble referred to the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every State in the area can live in security”. So would Palestine be able to “defend itself, by itself” and retain its Arab character? We hear ad nauseam about Israel’s security, never Palestine’s.

Israel’s interpretation of the Resolution seems to be that they needn’t withdraw until there’s a fully negotiated peace – as if peace was ever in their gameplan. But others such as the Russian, Kuznetsov, weren’t fooled. Kuznetsov explained the position for us thus:

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 in the Near East. 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. This is borne out by the preamble to the United Kingdom draft resolution [S/8247] which stresses the ‘inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war’. It follows that the provision contained in that draft relating to the right of all States in the Near East ‘to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries’ 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.

Dennis Ross may have difficulty understanding the language of Resolution 242, but to your average native English speaker, like the man on the Clapham omnibus, it’s crystal clear. “Withdrawal from territories occupied in the recent conflict” plainly means “get the hell out of there”.

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.”

Palestinians blamed for saying ‘no’ to humiliating peace offers

Dennis Ross co-founded the AIPAC-sponsored Washington Institute for Near East Policy and has been described as more pro-Israel than the Israelis. He served the Bush, Clinton and Obama administrations as a top advisor and special envoy on Middle East affairs but is so cosy with the regime in Tel Aviv that few see him as the honest broker he is held out to be. The State Department seems stuffed to the gunwales with people like him and the consequences are worrying.

In his NYT article Ross blames the Palestinian leadership for not accepting “three serious negotiations that culminated in offers to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Bill Clinton’s parameters in 2000, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s offer in 2008, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts last year”. In each case, he says, a proposal on all the core issues was made to Palestinian leaders and the answer was either “no” or no response.

Ross’s accusation reminds me of the The Israel Project’s training manual designed to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war. It teaches how to justify the endless occupation, the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and the blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, how to demonize Hamas and Iran in particular, and how to make Israel smell sweeter with a few squirts of the aerosol of persuasive language. This advice at the beginning sets the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”

The manual recommends numerous messages that are aimed at the mass of “persuadables”, primarily in America but also in the UK. Here is one that’s not unlike the nonsense Ross is trying to put across…

How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when previous leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state just a few short years ago and now refuse to live up to their responsibilities as outlined in the Road Map?

This is surely a reference to Barak’s so-called “generous offer” of 2000, one of the three “serious negotiations” Ross now taunts Abbas with and also one of the many myths Israelis and their stooges love to peddle. 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 measly 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 astonishing compromise.

But it wasn’t enough for greedy Barak. His ‘generous offer’ required the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within that 22% remnant. It was plain to see on the map that these settlement blocs would create impossible borders where Palestinian life in the West Bank was already severely disrupted. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under “Temporary Israeli Control”, meaning Israeli military and administrative control 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? The map, never shown publicly, revealed the preposterous reality of Barak’s offer, but the truth was cunningly hidden by propaganda spin.

The following year at Taba, Barak produced a revised map but it was withdrawn after his election defeat. Don’t take my word for it – the facts are well documented and explained by organisations such as Gush Shalom.

The only thing this and the many other ‘peace’ exercises achieved was a deep distrust of any pretense of good intentions by Israel.

David Makovsky, a Fellow of Ross’s Washington Institute, says of Abbas’s move: “Internationalizing the conflict will have only one surefire result: making the prospects of Israelis and Palestinians resolving their own differences ever more distant.” After decades of brutal oppression during which the Palestinians have continued to be dispossessed and murdered, does he not think those prospects are distant enough?

Makovsky adds that the Palestinian Authority “has torpedoed any chances for near-term diplomacy” and “invited US financial countermeasures” merely by opening the ICC door. Once again the policy wonks in Washington are warning defenceless people criminally abused by America’s ally that seeking justice under the law is counter-productive. What a sad, sad world they are creating.

January 9, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment