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Why do Israeli peacebuilding organisations get six times the money Palestinians receive?

By Alistair Sloan | MEMO | May 28, 2016

Are Israelis six times as likely as Palestinians to be in favour of peace? Are Israeli civil society organisations six times as expensive to run as Palestinian ones? Or is the UK government deranged enough to believe that spending six times as much money on Israeli peacebuilding organisations as Palestinian ones doesn’t speak to an extraordinary bias against the Palestinian people?

Thanks to a question from Labour MP Joan Ryan, the Foreign Office has now confirmed that they will be funding eight Israeli peacebuilding organisations and just one Palestinian equivalent this year. The Israeli organisations will receive £851,000 in funding while the Palestinian organisation, the Jerusalem Community Advocacy Network, will receive £141,000.

This information was not announced to the entire House of Commons, instead the habitually evasive Tobias Ellwood, parliamentary under-secretary at the foreign office, provided the answer in writing. Jaded observers might say that embarrassing figures for the government are often delivered in this way, to avoid too much scrutiny.

To be clear – some of these organisations are brilliant. Yesh Din is receiving nearly £200,000 and documents Israeli human rights abuses persistently, much to the irritation of everyone who supports Israeli human rights abuses. Terrestrial Jerusalem will receive over £50,000 to continue their photography work detailing the occupation of Jerusalem, and have recently called out Netanyahu for “manipulative race baiting and incitement.” Rabbis for Human Rights, who will receive over £100,000, have a title which is broadly self-explanatory; their most compelling projects include challenging land confiscations, re-planting olive trees looted by illegal settler gangs, and advocating for bedouin rights.

Putting aside the enormous funding gap between Israeli organisations who receive money, and the numerous Palestinian organisations that obviously don’t; there are two organisations that deserve deeper scrutiny. Kids Creating Peace will received £40,000. On the face of it – what’s not to like? Kids, peace, a charismatic founder who set up the organisation when she was just sixteen. Oh – Kids for Peace is part of the Kabbalah sect, a selection of barmy pseudo-religious types who have a long-running reputation for selling “cancer curing” water to actual cancer victims, and a history of dodgy accounting practices.

Foreign office figures also show how the Injiaz Centre for Professional Arab Local Governance will be receiving a large cheque from the UK taxpayer. Instead of training Arabs living in the Palestinian Authority controlled territories for their role in a future state of Palestine, Injaz Centre trains Israeli Arabs to participate in Israeli politics, with the organiser admitting “we will almost certainly have to give up on the basic formula of two states for two nations.” The British government, despite their nominal support for a two-state solution, is prepared to pay over £60,000 this year to a small NGO in Israel that does not believe in a two-state solution.

Then we have the Peres Centre for Peace, created by Shimon Peres in 1996. Documents published by the Centre show this is being used for training of Palestinian doctors, who must live and be trained in Israel for five years before returning to territory nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority. They must also learn Hebrew – which while entirely practical, only adds to the impression that this “peacebuilding” activity is merely prolonging and legitimising the occupation. Having lost his family in the Shoah, the Jewish element of the European Holocaust, Peres himself travelled to what would become the state of Israel and was promptly imprisoned by the British, in 1944, after he led an illegal settler expedition into the Negev desert. He spent much of the next few years acquiring that most peaceful of objects – illegal nuclear weapons. He did so by subterfuge, outright deceit and trickery of international nuclear weapons inspectors, in his capacity as a defence minister, triggering a nuclear arms race in the region. He later had the temerity to lecture Iran on her own programme.

Later gaining a reputation as a “dove” over his impressively two-faced approach to the Oslo Accords, Peres also used the invasion of Lebanon in 1996 to simultaneously displace hundreds of thousands of civilians and boost his chances in a general election which, by pure coincidence, was going on back in Tel Aviv. Around 800 Lebanese civilians took shelter in a refugee facility in Qana. Peres and his generals ordered the facility to be bombed, later claiming this was an accident. The Israelis changed their story when footage evidence of air troops carefully surveying the area before the strike hit. Over a hundred unarmed Lebanese civilians died and the same number were injured, as well as a number of United Nations peacekeepers.

That the British government considers a centre for peace named after an alleged war criminal worthy of investment is baffling; that it is prepared to hand over money to cultish religious organisations; that foreign office ministers obstinately claim to favour a two-state solution then fund groups which openly admit to preparing for a one-state solution, and that they are giving six times as much to Israeli groups as to Palestinians, suggests at very best a profoundly concerning imbalance in how it views this conflict. At worst – it is evidence that, in the deepest sanctums of Whitehall’s foreign office, the mandarins know that the two-state solution is dead.

May 29, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s Secret Drug-Running Operations in Colombia

By T.J. Coles | Axis of Logic | May 25, 2016

Since the 1980s, when Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) and Special Boat Service started operating in Colombia, special forces on all sides have been killing rival drug gangs and even counter-narcotics police units. This amounts to a proxy drug-smuggling network, which Britain has aided for decades.

Cocaine is a huge industry, worth some $60 billion per annum. Coke is mainly a middle-class drug, used by politicians, models, film stars, and people in music, media, and other industries. More importantly, coke and other drug monies are untraceable and can be used for military black ops. A great deal is known about the US Central Intelligence Agency’s s role in drug running. Alfred McCoy’s The Politics of Heroin , Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance, and Douglas Valentine’s The Strength of the Wolf are vital exposés. Much less is known about MI6’s role.

NETWORKS UNDER THATCHER

According to Grace Livingstone, throughout the 1980s, drug barons, paramilitaries, and members of the Colombia government began a heavy drug-money laundering campaign via land purchases, acquiring 10% of the country.

The connections between drugs and politics are such that the Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels funded President Ernesto Samper’s 1998 election campaign. Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel attempted to get farmers to cultivate coca, which, initially, the FARC opposed. FARC is the Marxist-turned-terrorist resistance group which calls for more equal land reform. According to Livingstone, Escobar’s money laundering greatly aided the poor (undercutting FARC’s campaign advantage) to the extent that churches praised his urban regeneration initiatives.

Initially, Britain backed Escobar, until, it would seem, his poverty relief efforts got out of hand and ended up undermining big business. The Ford-sponsored Women’s Commission commented on the “narcotrade-financed paramilitary forces,” adding that they “often [work] with the support or acquiescence of [UK trained- and armed] Colombian police and military forces.”

The standard propaganda is that SAS assassins were sent by Prime Minister Thatcher in 1989 at the behest of President Barco, “to fight the drug cartels.” In the real world, they were sent to fight the FARC cartels. By 1985, the wealthy Asociación Campesina de Agricultores y Ganaderos del Magdalena Medio (ACDEGAM) “had powerful new members: drug traffickers who bought land in the Middle Magdalena,” Human Rights Watch reported, adding that, “In 1987 and 1988, the [ACDEGAM] even sponsored training centers with foreign instructors from Israel and Great Britain.”

A 1990 inquiry led by Louis Blom-Cooper QC revealed that “British mercenaries had been training the [Medellin] cartel’s death squads,” and that successive British governments “turned a blind eye to the sale of weapons to the Medellin cartel.” The Financial Times reported that in 1988, ex-SAS mercenaries worked with the former Israeli Colonel Yair Gal Klein’s Spearhead company to arm and train the Medellin cartel, and, again, “the British government ha[d] turned a blind eye.”

Mercenary firms cannot operate without the approval of the Foreign Office.

NETWORKS UNDER BLAIR

Britain’s active support for the drugs trade continues.

“In May 2006 troops of a High Mountain Battalion (whose members receive UK military assistance) were ordered by their commanding officer to ambush and kill ten counter-narcotics police officers near the town of Jamundi in the region of Valle del Cauca,” according to a detailed account by the Justice for Colombia group. “Small teams of SAS specialists rotate routinely through Bogota, and work with General Serrano’s main unit, La Jungla,” reports David Smith. The Independent notes that “Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, a fierce opponent of the drug trade, was assassinated, some Colombian government sources say, by British mercenaries.”

Former SAS mercenary David Tomkins was “due to appear before US District Judge Adalberto Jordan” for his alleged role in the attempted murder of Escobar, whom, as noted, appeared to have fallen out of favour with Britain and America after diverting coke money to the poor. “US officials [say Tomkins] will avoid trial and have time off his sentence,” indicating that he is still a secret ally. Tomkins “planned an attack on the drug lord’s stronghold at the Hacienda Napoles, east of Medellin,” the paper reported, but the “helicopter flew into a mountainside, killing the pilot. Tomkins and his associate Peter McAleese, a former SAS officer, were forced to walk three days to safety through the Colombian jungle.”

More recently, the International Crisis Group noted that Colombian police “seized [a] USB memory stick of a key alleged associate of Daniel Barrera (alias “Loco Barrera”), a drug lord …, that reportedly contained a detailed monthly payroll of over $1.5 million for 890 politicians, military and justice officers and informants,” indicating the levels of politico-drug interconnections throughout the country. In 2003, the late Pedro Juan Moreno, Chief of Staff in Antioquia, was accused of drug-running by US Customs, which seized shipments of potassium permanganate.

The London Progressive Journal writes: “[that] the British government is unconcerned as to who it is working with was [demonstrated] in December 2007,” when then-Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells “was photographed with soldiers of the High Mountain Battalions.” The paper adds that “Howells also posed for the camera alongside General Mario Montoya; a man [who] has a 30 year history of involvement with right wing paramilitaries, death squads and drug traffickers.”

NETWORKS UNDER CAMERON

Colombia’s coke is mainly channelled to Europe via the Caribbean, and to the US through Mexico. In July 2012, a US Congress report into HSBC’s involvement in drug laundering found that “the Mexican affiliate of HSBC transported $7 billion in physical US dollars to HSBUS from 2007 to 2008, outstripping other Mexican banks, even one twice its size, raising red flags that the volume of dollars included proceeds from illegal drug sales in US.” Forbes reports that “HSBC actively circumvented rules designed to “block transactions involving terrorists, drug lords, and rogue regimes”—the latter referring to Iran and Syria.

The Daily Mail reports: “Concerns over the bank’s links to Mexican drug dealers included £1.3 billion stashed in accounts in the Cayman Islands. One HSBC compliance officer admitted the accounts were misused by ‘organised crime’.” The Daily Mail also notes that David Cameron’s Trade Minister, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, “chaired HSBC during the period covered by the allegations.” Labour MP John Mann said of Lord Green: “Someone whose bank has been assisting murdering drug cartels and corrupt regimes across the world should not be in charge of a government portfolio.”

This article is taken from Britain’s Secret Wars (Clairview Books, 2016). The author, T.J. Coles, is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research (www.pipr.co.uk).

May 29, 2016 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Unforgivable’: Majority of Brits can’t absolve Tony Blair of his Iraq war sins

RT | May 26, 2016

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair can never be forgiven for taking the UK into the Iraq war, a majority of Brits said in an opinion poll.

Pollster YouGov carried out the survey ahead of the publication of the long-delayed Chilcot Inquiry report, which examines the legality of Britain’s 2003 Iraq invasion.

It found only eight percent believe Blair did nothing wrong, while 53 percent said they could never forgive him.

Some 15 percent of respondents said it was time to forgive Blair for his misjudgment.

Perhaps the most damning finding was that just 25 percent of Labour Party supporters are in favor of forgiving their former leader.

Blair was once a hero of the party, having entered Downing Street in a landslide election in 1997 and winning three consecutive general elections.

However, today he is remembered most for his decision to join the United States in invading Iraq in 2003.

A YouGov survey last year found just 26 percent of Brits believe it was right to take military action against Iraq in 2003.

The former Labour PM recently admitted he “profoundly” underestimated the complexity of Middle Eastern politics and the consequences that would ensue after the Iraq invasion.

This admission comes before the publication of the Chilcot report, which is said to be “absolutely brutal” in its verdict on the failings of the occupation.

Blair is already well aware of the criticisms in the report because of Britain’s Maxwellisation process, by which the subjects of an inquiry are allowed to respond to allegations before its conclusions are published.

Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped the former PM from intervening in Britain’s current defense policy. Earlier this week, Blair said Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) will not be defeated unless ground forces fight a “proper” war against them.

May 26, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

BREXIT:­ Divorcing Britain from EU Trade with Israel Would Help Ensure Future Security of UK

By Anthony Bellchambers – Global Research – May 25, 2016

The ability of Israel to continue its illegal settlement on Palestinian land is wholly dependent on profits from its bilateral trade with the EU which is the single most important factor that fuels the illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by the Right-­wing Likud government.

Without the extraordinary agreement that allows a non-European state (in the Middle East) to freely exploit the European Single Market, the policy of expropriating Palestinian land would not be possible and the Israeli government would be forced to sue for peace.

It has been long established that the Israel lobby exerts considerable influence over the European Parliament’s decisions to not only offer Israel free access to the single market but also to make research grants of billions of euros to the Israeli defence industries that currently export arms to regimes worldwide.

There are many factors that will influence Britain’s decision to leave the EU but the ability to break away from the hold of the Israel lobby on EU trade is of prime importance to both the safety of Europe and to world peace.

The United Kingdom should no longer be associated with a European Union that has already seen the delivery by Germany of a fleet of high­-powered, Dolphin 2-­class AIP submarines to the Israeli navy that were designed for and subsequently retro­fitted with, undeclared cruise missiles (SLCMs) with a minimum range of 1500km and carrying 200kg nuclear warheads.

This astonishing fact has provided Israel with an offshore nuclear second strike capability that has now made it the 3rd most powerful nuclear­-armed entity in the world after the US and Russia. It is not known what Chancellor Merkel was thinking when she made Germany itself, and the entire European community with its 750 million inhabitants, vulnerable to an offshore nuclear threat from the Mediterranean or what pressures were applied to the German government that enabled this extraordinary act of apparent negligence that has irrevocably changed the balance of military power in the region.

BREXIT cannot rectify the failure of the EU to have ensured the safety of the 500m citizens in its 28 member states ­ but it is beyond time that Britain now extricates itself from such a dangerously infiltrated, political union.

Britain needs to make urgent plans for the future defence and security of its own people, which is the primary duty of any government and one that supersedes even that of trade and jobs, for without security there is no future.

May 26, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Is the UK’s Iraq Inquiry Set to “savage” Tony Blair?

Part 1 of a 2 Part Series

By Felicity Arbuthnot | Dissident Voice | May 24, 2016

In spite of all the scepticism regarding the long delayed UK Iraq Inquiry into the illegal invasion of Iraq, with predictions (including by myself) that it would be a “whitewash” of the enormity of the lies which led to the near destruction of Iraq, to the presence of ISIS and to probably over a million deaths, The Sunday Times (May 22nd, 2016) is predicting an “absolutely brutal” verdict on those involved. The paper claims that former Prime Minister Tony Blair, his then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Sir Richard Dearlove, former Head of British Secret Intelligence (MI6) are among those who face “serious damage to their reputations.”

Not before time, many will surely be thinking.

The Inquiry, which sat from November 24th, 2009 until February 2nd, 2011, is finally to be published on July 6th, approaching five and a half years since its conclusion. Speculation is that publication of the findings are being further delayed until after the June 23rd British referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. Tony Blair is campaigning on his pal Prime Minister David Cameron’s “remain in” ticket. Confirmation of his murderous misleadings before the referendum would further discredit all he had to say and seriously damage, if not detonate, the “in” campaign.

Anyone reading The Sunday Times piece might well take the view that with or without the published Report, Blair speaking on either side would be tantamount to inviting total destruction of the cause. For instance: ‘A senior source who has discussed the Report with two of its authors has revealed that Blair “won’t be let off the hook” over claims that he offered British military support to … George W Bush a year before the 2003 invasion.’

Jack Straw as Blair’s Foreign Secretary at the time, and senior Generals, are also said to be subject of “some of the harshest criticism” for the UK’s “disastrous stewardship” of the southern port city of Basra and much of the south, post-invasion. “The Report will say that we really did make a mess of the aftermath.”

Those sent in by Blair’s Foreign Office under Straw were “inexperienced”, did not “quite know what they were doing” and: “All the things the British had been saying about how much better we were at dealing with post-conflict resolution than the American came very badly unstuck.” In fact, misjudgement was such that they “had to be rescued by the Americans.”

The Report, according to a knowledgeable former Minister, will be “Absolutely brutal for Straw … it will damage the reputation … of Richard Dearlove and Tony Blair” amongst others.

General Mike Jackson, former head of the army, named ”Darth Vader” by his men, who vowed to leave Iraq better than he found it, and General Sir Nicholas Houghton, Chief of the Defence Staff and senior officer in Iraq, 2005-2006, are also believed to be in the firing line, with Houghton said to have consulted his lawyers. Houghton’s objections to criticisms of his roles are alleged to have contributed to delays in the Inquiry’s publication.

Houghton became Chief of Joint Operations in 2006. In 2008  “ … the Iraqi military requested US rather than British assistance to retake Iraq’s second city of Basra from the militia, three months after UK forces had withdrawn from the city.” On September 3rd, 2007 the 550 British forces, hunkered down in one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces, had fled the city to the relative safety of Basra airport some miles away.

In recent years, Sir Nicholas has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the UK bombing Syria.

The Sunday Times also cites the Report’s criticism of the “gloss” with which Blair’s officials adorned “intelligence” regarding Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction and (Blair’s) claim that they could be unleashed “in forty five minutes.” Sir Richard Dearlove and others senior in MI6 “will be criticized for failing to prevent” such fairy stories.

The newspaper’s source also said there will be questions raised: “about the (US-UK) ‘special relationship’ (since) diplomats in Washington, including the then Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer, were ‘not plugged in’ and were ‘bounced along behind the Americans…”

At home, the “Cabinet did not have ‘the full picture’ of what was going on before the invasion (due to) Blair’s informal ‘sofa style’ of government.”

Further, incredibly: “officials were not present to take notes when Blair’s inner circle were making key decision”, leading to predicted criticism of former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull and senior Civil Servants.

Former International Development Secretary, Clare Short, has “told friends she will be attacked.” Ms Short, of course, stated that she had stayed on in her job as she wanted her Department to be involved in rebuilding Iraq after the invasion. No thought of resigning earlier, rather than at the last minute in protest at the whole shameful Blair-Bush intended “supreme international crime”, that of a war of aggression.

The Chairman of the Inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, is said to be personally exercised by the ‘failures of “proper constitutional government.” Indeed.

Whilst Blair and Straw declined to comment to The Sunday Times, “Allies of Blair say it is significant that he has not apologized for lying to the public, because they believe Chilcot will not find that he did.”

Given the mountains of evidence and hard facts already in the public domain, they must surely be the only people on the planet to hold such a view.

As for Chilcot, we await the July 6th with the palest glimmer of hope that at last some justice might be seen to be done and that Blair and all responsible for the ongoing Hiroshima level tragedy that is the whole of battered, bereaved, bleeding, irradiated Iraq might find that there is finally at least the beginning of the basis for legal redress.

As this is finished, it transpires Tony Blair has been speaking today at an event in central London organized by the Centre on Religion and Geopolitics. “He made it clear he would be unapologetic for his role in taking Britain to war in 2003”, reports the BBC. As General Kimmitt stated, of the dead for whom Blair bears such integral responsibility: “They are only Iraqis.”

Charles Anthony Lynton Blair is beyond all shame. However, no matter how widely the guilt is spread, he was Captain of the No 10 Downing Street ship, author of key lies integral to the gargantuan crime and tragedy and thus should shoulder commensurate blame.

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist with special knowledge of Iraq. Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great City series for World Almanac books, she has also been Senior Researcher for two Award winning documentaries on Iraq, John Pilger’s Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and Denis Halliday Returns for RTE (Ireland.)

May 25, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Counter-extremism scheme could turn cops into ‘Thought Police’

RT | May 24, 2016

Draconian plans to target alleged extremists through a controversial anti-radicalization program are at risk of creating a ‘Thought Police’ in the UK, the officer leading the operation has warned.

In a damning critique, Leicestershire Police Chief Constable Simon Cole said the ‘Prevent’ legislation risks making cops judges of “what people can and cannot say.”

The government formally announced a controversial new bill to tackle extremism in the Queen’s Speech to Parliament last week. It is considered to be Prime Minister David Cameron’s flagship policy of the year.

The legislation widens the police fight to include those who are defined as ‘extremists’, but who do not take part in or even advocate terrorism themselves.

“Unless you can define what extremism is very clearly then it’s going to be really challenging to enforce,” Cole told the Guardian.

“We don’t want to be the Thought Police. We absolutely don’t want to be the Thought Police.”

When asked if the Prevent strategy could make this happen, Cole said: “Potentially there is a risk.”

Cole’s intervention will prove damaging for the government, coming from a senior counterterrorism officer.

Cameron already faced several embarrassing defeats last parliamentary year, despite having a slim majority of seats in the House of Commons, and will be keen to avoid another capitulation.

But Cole believes the legislation has triggered serious reservations among British Muslims.

“The police need to be able to safeguard people without being drawn into a hugely contentious potential role about a kind of thought police control of what people can and cannot say.

“And that needs really clearly defining and it needs parliament to lay out what is and isn’t acceptable,” he added.

Despite spending eight months drafting a “legally robust” definition of extremism, government officials are still struggling to complete the task.

Cole said he has concerns about how “enforceable” the legislation would be, adding it is important for police officers to speak out.

While he accepted that society must impose “some limits” on what can and cannot be said, “They [the limits] need to be as broad as they possibly can be.”

May 24, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

‘UK trains armies on its own human rights blacklist’

Press TV – May 23, 2016

The British government is providing military training to the majority of nations it has blacklisted for human rights violations, a new report reveals.

In a report published on Sunday, the Independent revealed that 16 of the 30 countries on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)’s “human rights priority” watchlist are receiving military support from the UK despite being accused by London itself of issues ranging from internal repression to the use of sexual violence in armed conflicts.

According to the UK Ministry of Defense, since 2014, British armed forces have provided “either security or armed forces personnel” to the military forces of Saudi Arabia , Bahrain, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Burundi, China, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Britain is a major provider of weapons and equipment such as cluster bombs and fighter jets to Saudi Arabia in its year-long military aggression against Yemen that has killed nearly 9,400 people, among them over 2,230 children.

Since the conflict began in March 2015, the British government has licensed the sale of nearly $4 billion worth of weaponry to the Saudi kingdom.

British commandos also train Bahraini soldiers in using sniper rifles, despite allegations that the Persian Gulf monarchy uses such specialist forces to suppress a years-long pro-democracy uprising in the country.

Bahraini forces visited the Infantry Battle School in Wales last week, accompanied by troops from Nigeria, the Defense Ministry said.

Nigeria’s top military generals are accused by Amnesty International of committing war crimes by causing the deaths of 8,000 people through murder, starvation, suffocation and torture during security operations against the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists, according to the report.

Andrew Smith, with the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said Britain should not be “colluding” with countries known for being “some of the most authoritarian states in the world.”

May 23, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Prominent British professor turns down Israeli prize

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British Professor Catherine Hall
Press TV – May 22, 2016

A prominent British academic and historian has refused to accept a $330,000 prize by an Israeli university.

Professor Catherine Hall of University College London was slated to receive the Dan David Prize by Tel Aviv University on Sunday, but withdrew her acceptance citing political reasons.

“This was an independent political choice, undertaken after many discussions with those who are deeply involved with the politics of Israel-Palestine, but with differing views as to how best to act,” Hall said in a statement.

The annual academic award includes a series of $1 million prizes which are handed out in three fields.

As a historian, Hall was due to receive the prize for her “impact on social history, as a pioneer in gender history, race and slavery.”

Hall’s work on women’s history in the 1970s has helped her become known as a major feminist.

The British Committee for the Universities of Palestine described Hall’s decision as “a significant endorsement of the campaign to end ties with Israeli institutions.”

Hall’s share of the million dollar prize will now be given to three economists involved in the fight against poverty, three nano-science researchers, and two historians of social history.

The news comes amid tensions between Tel Aviv and London over remarks by several key British political figures who have condemned the Israeli regime’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, was suspended from the Labor Party in late April after bringing up the issue of Israeli war crimes and stating that Adolf Hitler was a supporter of Zionism.

Before him, Naz Shah, a member of the British Parliament resigned as an aide to the party’s shadow chancellor after being forced to apologize for backing calls for Israel to “relocate” to the United States.

In early July 2014, Israel waged a devastating war on the Gaza Strip. The 50-day offensive claimed the lives of nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children.

The British government has banned all public bodies from joining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel which demands the end of Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land particularly through illegal settlement constructions in the occupied territories.

May 22, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Labour to open re-education camps?

By Jonathon Cook | the Blog from Nazareth | May 18, 2016

The manufactured “anti-semitism crisis” in the British Labour party rumbles on into new realms of ideological insanity. The witch-hunt against commentary critical of Israel or Zionism has been in full flow, and now an internal party inquiry led by Jan Royall has reached its conclusions.

Note that in this report by the Guardian newspaper, it appears to be a given both by Royall and the Guardian that Ken Livingstone and the others suspended from the party are guilty of anti-semitism rather than anti-Zionism. I have challenged that assumption in previous posts, such as here and here. I am therefore going to put quotation marks around the word “anti-semitism”, at least as used by Royall, because it is far from clear to me that most of those under investigation have said things that are anti-semitic.

Royall’s first conclusion is that there should be no “statute of limitations” on “anti-semitism.” That’s a green light for every right-winger and Blairite to go trawling through Labour party members’ back catalogue of social media posts in search of anti-Zionist or anti-Israel utterances. Here’s a simple piece of advice to John Mann and the Blairite brigade: if you want to simplify your task, examine postings from winter 2008 and summer 2014, when Israel was killing hundreds of children in Gaza. I suspect you’ll find the “anti-semitism” you’re looking for in those periods.

Royal also suggests that there may be a need for “more rigorous vetting procedures for national and local government candidates.” So the Blairites will be further encouraged to trawl through candidates’ social media postings on Israel in the knowledge that they can thereby ensure only people like themselves get to stand for election.

Another of Royall’s conclusions is that a membership ban for “anti-semitism” should not be for life if there is “demonstrable” change by the offender. Re-education camps, anyone?

So members may be allowed back into the Labour party if they can show that over a sustained period of time they have disavowed their criticisms of Israel. Presumably, to reassure the party that they are not likely to slip back into their former bad ways of thinking, they will need to enthusiastically embrace Zionism and support an ethnic Jewish state that oppresses Palestinians in the occupied territories and systematically discriminates against the fifth of its citizens who are Palestinian.

In other words, these measures will have the practical effect of ensuring that the party is reserved for those of a Blairite persuasion.

There are other disturbing conclusions reached by Royall. She is apparently recommending that an imminent external inquiry she will also sit on consider whether members should qualify for investigation simply because “the victim or any other person” has “perceived” a comment to be anti-semitic. In short, every Netanyahu-loving Zionist may soon be guaranteed the chance to force the suspension of any Labour member who offends them by criticising Israel.

Royall suggests that the coming inquiry consider “swifter action to deal with antisemitism”, which is surprising given that the current suspensions have all been implemented summarily.

And she prefers “a review of how online debate is conducted to make it welcoming and productive.” In other words, Labour members will be expected not to criticise Israel or Zionism in case it puts off hardcore Israel supporters.

It is not hard to see where all this is leading, and was designed to lead by the Blairite faction trying to engineer a coup against leader Jeremy Corbyn. Polls show that Corbyn’s support has actually grown over the past year among ordinary members, despite the endless character assassination against him.

So the Blairites who dominate the Labour parliamentary caucus are simply re-engineering the party more to their liking: terrify into submission a new generation of candidates who have been inspired by Corbyn to enter politics, and through a war of attrition demoralise the hundreds of thousands of new members who joined the party, in the hope they will leave.

This is self-sabotage on a vast scale. The Blairites (and their cheerleaders in liberal media like the Guardian ) would prefer to destroy the party than help Corbyn and his supporters mount a credible challenge to the Conservative government. And that insight tells you all you need to know about the true ideological sympathies of the Blairites, who were so ready to cosy up to the corporations and the Murdoch media.

May 22, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria White Helmets: Humanitarians or “Executioners”?

UK Column News – May 20, 2016

In this UK Column News special, Mike Robinson speaks to Vanessa Beeley about Syria’s “first responder” group, the White Helmets who are being pushed forward for nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize. Do they deserve it?

For more background on this, please see our previous interview from November last year: http://youtu.be/mLa9ztvAGWw

Also see Vanessa’s articles on 21st Century Wire:

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/23…

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/28…

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/02…

May 22, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Gearóid Ó Colmáin on the anti-reform labour protests in France

May 21, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

US ‘leverage in Syria’ thanks to collusion with terrorists

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By Finian Cunningham | RT | May 20, 2016

There is a simple explanation why Washington refuses to proscribe the militant groups Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham as terrorist. Because Washington relies on them for regime change in Syria.

Therefore, Washington and its Western and Middle East allies cannot possibly designate Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham as terrorist; otherwise it would be a self-indicting admission that the war in Syria is a foreign state-sponsored terrorist assault on a sovereign country.

This criminal conspiracy is understood by many observers as an accurate description of the five-year Syrian conflict and how it originated. Syria fits into the mold of US-led regime change wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, Washington and its allies, assisted by the Western corporate news media, have maintained a fictitious alternative narrative on Syria, claiming the war is an insurgency by a pro-democracy rebel movement.

That narrative has strained credulity over the years as the putative “secular rebels” have either vanished or turned out to be indistinguishable from extremist groups like al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and so-called Islamic State (also known as Daesh).

Washington asserts that it only supports “moderate, secular rebels” of the Free Syrian Army. British Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed that there are 70,000 such “moderate rebels” fighting in Syria against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. But no-one can locate these supposed pro-democracy warriors.

All that can be seen is that the fight against the Syrian government is being waged by self-professed extremist jihadists who have no intention of establishing “democracy”. Instead, they explicitly want to carve out an Islamic state dominated by draconian Sharia law.

In addition to Jabhat al-Nusra and Daesh, the two other major militant groups, Jaish al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, are vehemently committed to forming a Caliphate based on Salafi or Wahhabi ideology. That ideology views all other religious faiths, including moderate Sunni Muslims, as well as Shia and Alawites, as “infidels” fit to be persecuted until death.

Leaders of both Jaysh and Ahrar have publicly declared their repudiation of democracy.

Yet these two groups are nominated as the Syrian “opposition” in the Geneva talks, as part of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC). The HNC was cobbled together at a summit held in the Saudi capital Riyadh in December ahead of the anticipated negotiations to find a Syrian political settlement.

The HNC is endorsed by Washington as official representatives of the Syrian opposition. It is supported by Saudi Arabia, or indeed more accurately, orchestrated by the Saudi rulers since the main components of the HNC are Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham. Other major sponsors of the militant groups are Qatar and Turkey.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy to Syria, also plays an important part in the charade of furnishing an opposition composed of extremists who demand the Syrian government must stand down as a precondition for talks. This maximalist position is one of the main reasons why the negotiations have come unstuck, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Another basic reason is that the HNC members have been involved in breaching the cessation of violence the US and Russia brokered on February 27, as a confidence-building measure to assist the talks process in Geneva.

That Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham have not observed the shaky ceasefire is a corollary of the fact that both groups are integrated with al-Qaeda-affiliated terror organizations, al Nusra and Daesh, which are internationally designated terrorist organizations.

The UN excluded al-Qaeda franchises from the ceasefire when it passed Security Council Resolution 2254 in December to mandate the purported Syrian peace talks. In that way, Syria and its foreign allies, Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have been legally entitled to continue offensive operations against the extremists in parallel to the Geneva process.

The offensive on the terror groups should include HNC members Jaysh and Ahrar. Both groups have publicly admitted to fighting alongside both Nusra and Daesh in their campaign against the Syrian army. All of these organizations have been involved at various times in bloody feuds and turf wars. Nevertheless, they are at other times self-declared collaborators.

Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham are also well-documented to having engaged in massacres and barbarities as vile as the other higher profile terror outfits.

Only last week, Ahrar al-Sham was responsible for the massacre of women and children in the village of Al-Zahraa, near Aleppo, according to survivors. The group has carried out countless no-warning car bombings in civilians neighborhoods. It claimed responsibility for a bombing outside the Russian base at Idlib earlier this year, which killed dozens.

Jaysh al-Islam has publicly admitted using chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians in recent weeks, also near Aleppo, Syria’s second city after the capital Damascus, and currently the key battleground in the whole conflict.

The same jihadist militia is allegedly linked to the chemical weapon atrocity in August 2013 in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta, when hundreds of civilians, including children, were apparently killed from exposure to Sarin gas. That attack was initially blamed on Syrian government forces and it nearly prompted the Obama administration to order direct military intervention on the pretext that a “red line” was crossed. Until that is, Moscow steered a ground-breaking deal to decommission chemical weapons held by the Syrian state. It later transpired that the more likely culprit for the East Ghouta atrocity was the Jaysh al-Islam militants.

A former commander of the group, Zahran Alloush, once declared that he would “cleanse” all Shia, Alawites and other infidels from the Levant. Many Syrian civilians later rejoiced when the “terrorist boss” – their words – was killed in a Syrian air force strike on December 25. Notably, Saudi Arabia and Turkey vehemently protested over Alloush’s death.

It is irrefutable from both their actions and self-declarations that Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham are by any definition terrorist groups. Certainly, Russia and Iran have officially listed both as such.

But not so Washington and its allies. Earlier this month, a Russian proposal at the UN Security Council to proscribe Jaysh and Ahrar was blocked by the US, Britain and France. An American spokesperson told the AFP news agency that it rejected the Russian motion because it feared the tentative Syrian ceasefire would collapse entirely. This is an unwitting US admission about who the main fighting forces in the Syrian “rebellion” are.

This week US Secretary of State John Kerry made an extraordinary claim which, as usual, went unnoticed in the Western media. Kerry said the US “still has leverage in Syria” because if the Syrian government does not accept Washington’s demands for political transition then the country would face years of more war.

Kerry’s confidence in threatening a war of attrition on Syria is based on the fact that the main terror groups are directly or indirectly controlled by Washington and its regional allies in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham are essential to the terror front that gives Washington its leverage in Syria. But the charade must be kept covered with the preposterous denial that these groups are not terrorists.

May 21, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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