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PA New Government Does Not Represent the Palestinian People

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | April 18, 2019

The new Palestinian Authority government has been welcomed by the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov, who reiterated the rhetoric reserved for occasions on which the international organisation pledges to work closely with governments in line with their agenda. “At a time of significant financial and political changes to the Palestinian national project,” Mladenov stated, “all must support the government’s efforts and work to overcome internal divisions.”

There is nothing, though, to suggest that the new PA government under recently appointed Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh is working towards reconciliation. Fatah’s insistence that Hamas must relinquish its political control of Gaza has not abated, implying that the PA agenda, as well as that of the UN, has not altered. Last year, there was an increase in the number of international statements, from UN envoys in particular, calling for a return to PA rule in Gaza. The PA, according to them, makes it easier for the UN to carry out its plans.

Mladenov’s statement referenced the previous PA government led by Rami Hamdallah, who had also advanced the call for Hamas to step aside. What followed afterwards is well documented, not least the punitive measures imposed by the PA upon the Palestinian people in Gaza in order to force civilians and politicians alike to surrender. From a PA perspective, ending the Palestinian schism means eliminating and suppressing political alternatives and challengers.

The recent news from Cairo indicates as much, with the Fatah delegation at reconciliation talks placing ultimatums upon Hamas and issuing ambiguous statements regarding the PA’s views on unity and the issue of the weapons in the hands of the armed wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement. In the event of reconciliation, asks Fatah, “What is the need for arms?”

There is thus little divergence from the previous government’s agenda, which is one of the reasons why Mladenov’s rhetoric about the previous and current PA governments overlaps in terms of content. As PA leader Mahmoud Abbas becomes even more irrelevant — due in part to the US efforts to ostracise any form of Palestinian representation and push through its own so-called “deal of the century” — international actors are increasingly taking over and determining the fate of Palestine’s remaining and cruelly fragmented territory.

Having a new PA government that adheres to the same definitions of reconciliation will provide the UN with a further opportunity to alter what remains of Palestine. Despite Mladenov’s praise for Hamdallah’s government keeping in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example, it is clear that the ongoing colonisation of Palestine, along with the international complicity to ensure that Israel continues to expand its presence, have impeded Palestinians from experiencing any benefits.

A little less “commitment to working with the Palestinian leadership” and more effort towards listening to what the Palestinian people demand and need would go a long way. The UN is not working to “end the occupation”, much less end Israel’s colonisation. The PA has, since its inception, followed suit. A new government that is void of different political strategies, yet has the audacity to speak about Palestinian reconciliation, does not represent the Palestinian people. Mladenov’s comments are another indication of how the new government and the UN intend to work, by persisting in the creation of a diplomatic network that isolates the Palestinian people from the politics determining their fate.

May 16, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The UN is a mouthpiece for Israeli propaganda, not a threat to the colonial state

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | May 14, 2019

Only a few days before the Palestinian commemoration of the 1948 Nakba, in which the indigenous people of Palestine were massacred, displaced and ethnically cleansed to pave the way for the European Zionist colonial project, Germany issued a statement declaring its intention to oppose “any unfair treatment” allegedly exhibited at the UN towards Israel. “Germany’s historic responsibility for the Jewish and democratic State of Israel and its security is part of our raison d’être,” the German government declared. “Germany will always work, including in the UN, to ensure that Israel’s right to exist is never called into question.”

Germany deliberately chose to issue its statement on the 70th anniversary of Israel becoming a full UN member state. On this day, despite purportedly championing human rights, the UN abdicated its responsibilities in order to embrace a new colonial power and celebrate its own role in the process of normalising colonialism. The UN has also conveniently and consistently overlooked the fact that Israel’s membership of the organisation was conditional upon it allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their land.

At the UN, Israel faces no threats whatsoever. Its recent bombing of Gaza and official statements from the international community testify to this fact. Yet Germany has jumped on the bandwagon, claiming that Israel is treated unfairly in the international arena and citing its allegiance to the settler-colonial state as a “historic responsibility”. Does Germany also extend the same sentiment and diplomatic commitment to other minorities murdered during the Holocaust?

Israel was a planned political project mooted in the late nineteenth century, as historical documents and research show very clearly. The Holocaust facilitated its implementation but did not create the demand for a “Jewish State”. However, historic responsibility and Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid state are incompatible. Furthermore, such responsibility which Germany has towards all of the minorities murdered in the Nazi era does not cancel out the collective historic responsibility towards Palestinians, from which the entire world has absconded.

Meanwhile, Germany has also attributed its stance to the “firm belief that the UN lies at the heart of the multilateral, rules-based order” for achieving peace and security. It is a fact that the UN has excelled in neither, not least in terms of the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act. The German government, therefore, is merely affirming its commitment to the propagation of ongoing human rights violations which, of course, suits Israel’s interests.

At a time when the least that the international community can do is shift its attention to the Nakba commemoration, Germany is determined to score diplomatic points for Israel which have more to do with the ongoing colonisation of Palestine than Nazi horrors during the Second World War.

“Israeli interests” constitute nothing more than wanting an international commitment against the decolonisation of Palestine. In its statement, Germany is refusing the possibility of questioning Israel’s right to exist, in line with Israel’s purported security and “self-defence” narrative and justification for its violence against Palestinians.

Why not turn the narrative around? Surely, just as Israel demands unconditional support for its existence, Palestinians have a greater claim and legitimacy in asking why the people and their land were ethnically cleansed. If justice truly existed, the UN — and Germany — would not hesitate to call Israel’s creation and existence in such a manner into question. As things stand, however, the UN continues to be a mouthpiece for Israel and its allies, while Palestinians are butchered by the colonial entity that does not hesitate to profit from terms such as “historic responsibility”.

May 14, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UN Targets the Sand People

Control sand to limit concrete to control housing to limit human reproduction and achieve eugenics

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | May 8, 2019

On Monday in Paris, four UN bodies released a summary of an 1,800-page report about threats to biodiversity. It declares that “fundamental structural change is called for…for the broader public good.”

On Tuesday in Geneva, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released another report. Its press release tells us that sand needs to be planned, regulated, and managed by the UN. Yes, really. Sand.

Apparently, those who currently trade in sand and gravel sometimes do so in an unsustainable manner. “[R]ules, practices and ethics” apparently differ worldwide. Imagine that. Moreover, “irresponsible and illegal extraction” needs to be curbed. In other words: the UN has now set its sights on this industry.

In the foreword to the 56-page Sand and Sustainability: Finding new solutions for environmental governance of global sand resources, Joyce Msuya, UNEP’s executive director, declares that humanity is “spending our sand ‘budget’ faster than we can produce it responsibly.”

While this report says it merely wants to spark a conversation, that it doesn’t intend to be “prescriptive,” Msuya’s remarks belie that. She advocates “improved governance of global sand resources,” talks about implementing global standards, and looks forward to the creation of brand new “institutions that sustainably and equitably manage extraction.” What’s another level of red tape, after all?

UN bureaucrats see only one conceivable solution to every problem: meddling from above. This woman wants to “cut consumption of sand and gravel” by “reducing over-building and over-design.” In her view, keeping her nose out of other people’s business isn’t an option. She doesn’t trust poor nations to become more environmentally responsible on their own schedule. It doesn’t occur to her that people struggling to drag themselves out of poverty don’t need UN busybodies second-guessing the trade-offs they’re compelled to make.  

How did this report come about? Last October, UNEP invited 19 ‘experts’ to gather in Geneva. Three were UN employees. Activist organizations were also well-represented: the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Awaaz Foundation, SandStories.org, and the World Economic Forum.

Also in attendance were a lobbyist, a sustainable energy expert, a researcher from the Responsible Mining Foundation, a journalist who’s written a book about sand, and a representative of Switzerland’s federal environment ministry. As far as I can tell, only two people had any connection to entities that do things with sand in the real world.

Based on the conversation that took place at this one-day event, a report got written which was then reviewed by 11 other people – including, once again, representatives of the WWF and the IUCN.

So it’s no surprise that the final version relies heavily on activist-produced ‘evidence’ – such as a WWF report titled Impacts of Sand Mining on Ecosystem Structure, Process & Biodiversity in Rivers.

You see what’s going on here. The wholly activist WWF writes a report which then gets cited repeatedly by the UN. Like money-laundering, the questionable nature of the original source becomes obscured. The public will now get told that illegal sand mining threatens fish, birds, turtles and dolphins. After all, the UN says so.

The public is unlikely to be advised that the UN’s only source for this claim is an activist document. Because activists never indulge in hyperbole. They never ever exaggerate.

Oh, wait. Didn’t Greenpeace argue in court recently that it is “well-known for advancing…opinions, not hard news”? When accused of using phony photos and phony videos, didn’t Greenpeace tell the court that ordinary people “clearly understand” its accusations aren’t factual but are merely an “interpretation”?

The bottom line is that there’s an octopus of aligned/interconnected interests out there. UN bureaucrats. Activists. Academics. These people work hand in glove, pushing certain ideas into the public square in an orchestrated manner.

It’s no accident that the UN press release and the WWF’s press release yesterday had the same headline – Rising demand for sand calls for resource governance – and shared nine paragraphs of identical content.

How the UNEP press release began:

How the WWF press release began:

May 8, 2019 Posted by | Environmentalism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

IPCC Clone Predicts Doom

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | May 6, 2019

Here we ago again. For some time, I’ve warned that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a template, that the United Nations is up to the same tricks elsewhere.

Today, in Paris, an IPCC clone known as the IPBES – the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – will announce the completion of an 1,800-page report.

Jonathan Watts, the UK Guardian‘s global environment editor, has already told us everything we need to know about this ‘IPCC for Nature.’

Under the headline Biodiversity crisis is about to put humanity at risk, UN scientists to warn, he insists this report was written by “The world’s leading scientists.” Funny, that’s how compliant, gullible journalists described IPCC personnel. For years and years. Until I began to notice that some of those involved were graduate students in their 20s.

Watts further tells us that:

The final wording of the summary for policymakers is being finalised in Paris by a gathering of experts and government representatives before the launch on Monday, but the overall message is already clear… [bold added by me]

In other words, as happens at the IPCC, scientists are recruited to write a report. Afterward, they draft a summary known as the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Then politicians and bureaucrats representing national governments attend a plenary meeting where the summary gets examined line-by-line and rewritten.

Fairy tales tell of turning straw into gold. The UN takes scientific summaries and transforms them into politically acceptable straw. The resulting document, which will be solemnly released today, is what a roomful of political operatives have all agreed to say out loud.

But it gets worse. Over the next few weeks, the text being summarized – the underlying, ostensibly scientific document – will also get changed.

That’s not how things normally work, of course. Summaries are supposed to be accurate reflections of longer documents. At the UN, they represent an opportunity to alter those documents, to make them fall into line.

No need to take my word for it. This is standard IPCC operating procedure, and is openly admitted in a 56-page guide to how the IPBES operates.

see page 39 of this guide to the IPBES’ internal workings

Imagine, for a moment, executives at a television station examining the script of an investigative news show line-by-line. Imagine them re-writing that text at the behest of major advertisers, and in accordance with various political sensitivities. Would the end result be trustworthy?

Robert Watson, who chaired the IPCC from 1997 to 2002, now leads the IPBES. His online biography, over at the University of East Anglia, tell us he is a ‘UN Champion of the World for Science and Innovation.’

When the IPBES was established in 2010, we were informed point blank that its purpose was “to spearhead the battle against the destruction of the natural world.”

In other words, there’s all sorts of deception here. This is no sober scientific body, which examines multiple perspectives, and considers alternative hypotheses. The job of the IPBES is to muster only one kind of evidence, the kind that promotes UN environmental treaties.

That’s how the United Nations works, folks. Machinations in the shadows. Camouflaging its political aspirations by dressing them up in 1,800 pages of scientific clothing.

May 6, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Environmentalism, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Russian and US Positions on Venezuelan Crisis are Incompatible – Lavrov

Sputnik – 02.05.2019

On Wednesday, the Russian foreign minister spoke to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, telling the top US diplomat that Washington’s interference in Venezuela’s affairs was a destructive approach fraught with “the most serious consequences.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the United States to refrain from returning to the imperious ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in its relations with Venezuela, and indicated that while the Russian and US positions on the crisis in the Latin American country remain incompatible, dialogue must continue.

“We agreed to maintain contacts, including on Venezuela, but I don’t see a way to reconcile our positions — ours, on the one hand, which is based on the UN Charter and the principles and norms of international law, and that of the United States, on the other, in which Washington assigns the acting president of another country,” Lavrov said, speaking to reporters in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Thursday.

“Our positions are incompatible, but we are ready to talk,” Lavrov stressed.

According to the foreign minister, during their conversation Wednesday, he told Pompeo that the return of the Monroe Doctrine approach to US foreign policy was a sign of disrespect to the people of Venezuela and Latin America as a whole.

Commenting on the possibility of a US military intervention of Venezuela, Lavrov said that Russia plans to create a bloc of countries to counter such plans. This group is already being formed at the UN, he indicated. “I hope that it will receive serious support from the organisation, because we’re talking about a very simple issue — one that’s hard to distort: the defence of the fundamental norms and principles of international law as they are defined in the UN Charter.”

Maduro Never Had Plans to ‘Flee’ Venezuela

Lavrov noted that earlier claims by Secretary of State Pompeo about Maduro’s supposed plans to escape the country and Russia’s efforts to dissuade him from doing so were simply not true. “If one were to review everything that officials in the US administration say about Venezuela, an endless series of questions would arise. And all of these questions, as a rule, have one and the same answer. Putting it diplomatically: this is not true,” Lavrov said.

Asked why Secretary of State Pompeo may have called him in the first place, Lavrov said that as he understood it, “he called so that he could later say publicly that he called me and urged Russia not to interfere. Well, he did so.” At the same time, Lavrov indicated that Russia does not interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, calling Pompeo’s allegations to that effect “rather surreal.”

“I told him that based on our principled position, we never interfere in the affairs of others, and urge others to do the same,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov and Pompeo spoke by telephone by Wednesday, a day after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido announced the beginning of the “final phase” in the opposition’s bid to seize power in the Latin American country. Before the talks, Pompeo told US media that the US could still use military force against the country “if that’s what’s required.”

Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela’s interim president on January 23, two weeks after Maduro’s inauguration for a second term following elections in May 2018. The opposition leader was immediately recognised by the US and its Latin American and European allies, as well as Canada, while Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and other countries around the world voiced their support for the elected government, or urged non-interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs.

May 2, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Extinction Rebellion – The Facts

Windows on the World | April 21, 2019

The corporate backed “protest” group Extinction Rebellion fully explained. The main protagonists in this organisation and their links to Agenda 2030, the UN Global Action Plan and template NGO’S are all explained in this fact filled show.

Do listen and look at the information presented in in these two WOTW shows about the ER cult. Listen and check out the info here

The full spectrum dominance of controlled opposition is explained in the show:

Extinction Rebellion – The Facts

Below are the emails between a member of the public who asked the inner core of Extinction Rebellion a few questions and the sinister responses and threats from their “Dragons”

The Dragons of Extinction Rebellion

The same type of “Dragons” were used in the Occupy power structure once it was under the control of George Soros they can be seen in The Puppet Masters of Occupy

Our previous shows on the ER cult gave a lot of information  and context to this  show. They are linked above, “Fake Protest Extinction Rebellion” and “Globalist Fake Revolution”. The articles on the website contain internal ER documents and screenshots.

Here is an informative article From OYE News

The structure of ER mirrors the George Soros backed takeover of Occupy with its command structure including “Dragons”who threaten and intimidate anyone who asks questions.

We also have e mail threats from the sinister so called “Dragons” who protect the inner core of ER personnel. This all mirrors previous globalist backed protests.

We also look at the organizations linked to ER and how there are hundreds and globally thousands of these NGO template organizations all using the same narratives, all backed by the big financial interests which are pushing the climate change agenda for profit and ultimately control of the world population and all natural resources. The change agents, social entrepreneurs, psychological nudging, Saul Alinsky rules which all appeared as part of David Cameron’s Big Society.

Gail Bradbrook is one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion along with Roger Hallam and George Barda. Their Company is Compassionate Revolution Ltd and the ER protests came through Rising Up an organisation linked to other template type NGO’s which claim to be “grassroots”.

Gail Bradbrook is a consultant at Citizens Online, her profile was removed from the company’s website before the London “protests” Here it is before it was removed.

On the subject of fake protest groups: Demos the Think Tank which influences all media in the UK and is connected to the security services and MI5 stated:

“The New Democracy will work with a combination of government open infiltration and citizen groups taking Direct Action.”

The show looks at the template NGO’s linked to this “protest” and how they are in line with aims of the UN Agenda 2030, its taxation, restrictions and Smart Cities agenda and everything Globalist.

The use of the world “grassroots” has been hijacked to mean “state controlled and agents of  the UN, IMF and World Bank.”

Unlike the Fake Protests we receive no funding!

April 29, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Word to the Wise: Beware the Green New Deal!

By Geraldine Perry | Dissident Voice | April 4, 2019

Seemingly overnight, the Green New Deal has arrived. Given the sorry state of our environment, what possible objections could there be? In this case, plenty – and they all trace back to the Green New Deal’s deeply complex and surreptitious ties to UN Agenda 21.

Those who claim that Agenda 21 amounts to little more than a right-wing rant or is somehow anti-Semitic are at best seriously misinformed. Those who buy into the carefully crafted jargon of Sustainable Development, Smart Growth, Redevelopment and the Green New Deal are similarly misinformed and need to know that the environmental movement has in fact been highjacked by the Agenda 21 plan.

First, Some Background

Journalist Thomas L. Friedman is sometimes credited with being the original source for the term “Green New Deal” because in two 2007 articles, in the New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, Friedman connected FDR’s “New Deal” to a new “green” economy, suggesting that this might provide an economic stimulus program that could address economic inequality and climate change at the same time. Almost prophetically, Friedman also argued in earlier writings that an “iron fist inside a velvet glove” would be needed to maintain the coming new world order.

The same year the Friedman articles came out the Green New Deal Group was formed. By July of 2008 this group came out with its Green New Deal Report which was originally published by the New Economics Foundation. A few months later, in October of 2008, Adam Steiner, who was Executive Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNEP), unveiled the Global Green New Deal Initiative, the objective of which was to rescue the failing global economy by creating jobs in “green” industries, “funded” of course by the big banks.

Then, following the example set by the European Greens in 2006, the United States Green Party adopted a Green New Deal platform in 2010. To its everlasting credit, the U.S. Green Party has also placed monetary reform as one of its core planks, ending the banking system’s privilege of creating the nation’s money (as credit or debt) and returning the monetary privilege to the government where it belongs, without which reform no other reforms are possible. Other political parties would do well to adopt this most important objective, since this is the true heart of “populism” historically. However, the vast bulk of the Green Party’s Green New Deal platform bears a marked (and troubling) resemblance to the Green New Deal as set out through the United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development program.

Most recently, a twenty-nine-year-old freshman Congresswoman from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has overnight managed to not only make national headlines but garner the full attention of Congress, a feat never before accomplished by one so young and so soon in office. It was her promotion of the Green New Deal that seems to have garnered her such sudden fame. But the so-called legislation she has been promoting is in reality a “draft text” that calls for a proposed addendum for House Rules: it changes the rules and creates a new process for the allocation of power, all while echoing almost verbatim United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As a recent article in Technocracy News says, with a complete version of AOC’s “bill” included: “Its scope and mandate for legislative authority amounts to a radical grant of power to Washington over Americans’ lives, homes, businesses, travel, banking, and more.” Dr. Naomi Wolf confirms by going over the document point by point.

The Green New Deal is in fact a part of a global sustainable development program that was officially rolled out at the “Earth Summit” held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. Out of that summit came Agenda 21 Earth Summit: The United Nations Program of Action from Rio, a 354-page document that can be purchased at online book retailers or downloaded in pdf format from the UN website.

Agenda 21 has been updated to include Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and its offshoot the Global Green New Deal which is a program that was commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program or UNEP for short, mentioned above. A map and outline of “partners” reveals just how deeply embedded in global thinking this program has become. Effectively, Agenda 21 provides the template while Agenda 2030 gives the goals for achieving “sustainable development”.

Inasmuch as Sustainable Goal 13 is about Climate Action, it is worth noting that in 2009 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) set up an unelected international climate regime with authority to dictate land use, relocate “human settlements” and directly intervene in the financial, economic, health care, education, tax and environmental affairs of all nations signing the treaty. One must wonder why upwards of $100 billion has been spent on promotion of the current global warming model yet next to no discussion is devoted to natural forcing agents such as solar and cosmic radiation, volcanoes, clouds, water vapor, and grand solar minimums – even though these have been well documented in the scientific literature to have significant impact on climate. Nor have funds been committed to disseminating information about military weather warfare or other long standing geoengineering projects and their effect on climate. Yet at least five geoengineering Solar Radiation advocates co-authored the section covering contrails in the 2007 IPCC report.

As uncovered by prominent activist Rosa Koire, Sustainable Development was originally created and defined by the United Nations in 1987. President George Herbert Walker Bush, along with leaders from 178 other nations, signed the “Action Plan” unveiled at Rio in 1992.

This plan is anchored by the political philosophy of Communitarianism which effectively establishes a new legal system used by regional and local governments affiliated with the emerging global government, circumventing national law via a program of “balancing.” Implemented by a relatively small self-appointed group of decision-makers and influencers who achieve “consensus” among themselves rather than through the public voting process, this philosophy holds that the individual’s rights are a threat to the global community. In practice, the consistent rallying cry “for the greater good” is defined any way that suits those in power.

Within six months of his election in 1992, former President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order #12852 thus creating the President’s Council on Sustainable Development or PCSD. This Council ran for six years, 1993-1999. Its members included Cabinet Secretaries for Transportation, Agriculture, Education, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, Energy, Interior, and Defense. CEO’s of various businesses, such as Enron, Pacific Gas & Electric, BP Amoco, Dow Chemical and others also were included, as were environmental organizations, including the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund among others.

To further facilitate the transition, Clinton awarded the American Planning Association a multi-million dollar grant to write a land use legislative blueprint for every municipality in the U.S. Completed in 2002, this blueprint is entitled Growing Smart Legislative Guidebook with Model Statutes for Planning and the Management of Change. As Koire tells us, this guidebook is being used in every university, college and government planning office in the nation. And as part of the Common Core program for the younger set, former Vice President Al Gore helped write Rescue Mission Planet Earth: A Children’s Edition of Agenda 21.

In 2012 “H Concurrent Resolution 353” was discussed by the U.S. Congress. A short, 8 minute video clip shows various members, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rising in support of H CON Res 353, which “expressed the sense of the Congress that the U.S. should take a strong leadership role in implementing the decisions made at the Rio Earth Summit by developing a national strategy to install Agenda 21 and other Earth Summit agreements through domestic and foreign policy.”

As Koire relates, the clear goal of these initiatives was, and is, to change public policy to bring it into alignment with the Agenda 21 plan.

Implementation and Implications

Agenda 21 is a global plan that is to be implemented locally via “soft law”. Despite the fact that this agenda would have far reaching material impact on each and every one of us, the U.S. citizenry has not been given the opportunity to study or vote on any of the various facets of Agenda 21. Moreover, the vast majority, out of deep concern for the planet, are effectively neutralized by the jargon, buzz words and slogans with purposely obscure definitions, all of which are dreamt up by the best PR firms money can buy. Perhaps even worse, as Rosa Koire, who has experienced negative ramifications in her Santa Rosa community, writes in Behind the Green Mask :

The irony is that UN Agenda 21 mandates ‘more’ citizen involvement but does it by creating so many boards, commissions, regional agencies, non-profits, meetings and programs that it is impossible to stay on top of what is happening. We’re too burned out to fight more than one issue at a time. So we become, necessarily, more fragmented, less of a neighborhood, exhausted and isolated because we can’t keep up. The so-called citizen involvement is dictated by phony neighborhood groups with paid lobbyists and facilitators running them. The boards and commissions are chosen based on ‘team players’ or shills selected to push through an end game by running over the few actual unconnected citizens. These groups are the ‘prescreening groups’ for candidates for public office. THEY are the ones who get donations at election time. It’s doubtful that anyone will get on the ballot who doesn’t play ball.

There were 17 official sustainable development goals (or SDGs) for the new 2030 Agenda that was universally adopted by nations around the world at the United Nations plenary meeting in New York on September 25, 2015. These SDGs do not replace Agenda 21. The 2030 Agenda clearly states, “We reaffirm all the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, including, inter alia, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.”

A short article, titled “Agenda 2030 Translator: How to Read the UN’s New Sustainable Development Goals,” unveils some of the actual consequences of the Agenda. To start you off, Goal 1 as stated: End Poverty in all its forms everywhere. Goal 1 as translated: Centralized banks, IMF, World Bank, Fed to control all finances. Goal 2 as stated: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Goal 2 as translated: GMO. And so on.

Another article titled simply Agenda 21 shows how big “S” Sustainable Development will affect the farmer:

If you own livestock and they can drink from a creek, then they want you to permanently fence off your own land to prevent any upset of potential fish habitat… Agenda 21 focuses on the goal of eliminating meat consumption and using pastures to grow wheat, corn and soy for human consumption. To get us to comply, we’re told in endless propaganda campaigns that meat is dangerous and the vegan lifestyle is the only healthy alternative… “Grazing livestock” is listed as “unsustainable” in the UN’s Global Biodiversity Assessment Report. In the same document, agriculture and private property are listed as “unsustainable.” All the private property and water rights infringements we have been seeing come directly out of the Sustainable Development programs. They come in a wide variety of names to throw people off, such as Comprehensive Planning, Growth Management, Smart Growth, and so forth.

The local government implementation of Agenda 21 was prepared by ICLEI (which stands for International Council for Local Environment Initiatives) for the Earth Council’s Rio+5 Forum held April 13–19, 1997 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; for the 5th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development; and for the UN General Assembly’s “Earth Summit+5” Special Session. Out of this came The Local Agenda 21 Planning Guide put out by ICLEI and the United Nations.

Resilient Cities are part of ICLEI. According to its website the organization was founded in 2010 by ICLEI (now known as Local Governments for Sustainability), the affiliated World Mayors Council on Climate Change and the similarly affiliated City of Bonn, Germany. Resilient Cities is billed as the first forum on cities and adaptation to climate change. In 2012 Resilient Cities was renamed as Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation.

Smart Growth, Smart Cities and 5G

Smart Growth and Smart Cities are also part of the “sustainability” plan as evidenced by their lofty sounding goals which somehow fail to look at “new” energy or even non-industrial hemp as a soil-rebuilding, environment-friendly way to provide a sizable portion of the nation’s energy needs; which fail to understand the crucial importance of restoring carbon-rich humus to the soil via holistic livestock management and other forms of regenerative agriculture; which somehow rely on the big banks and a flotilla of “investors” rather than doing the obvious by reforming the nation’s monetary system; and which, as Koire and others correctly assert, can only lead to totalitarianism in the end.

The explosive, worldwide rollout of 5G networks “makes Smart Cities a reality” despite recognized and significant associated health risks. By September of 2018, thanks to an FCC ruling and carrier lobbying, twenty states, seemingly under cover of night, had already passed legislation to strip their cities of the power to regulate 5G rollouts. The FCC ruling in particular has sparked considerable push back, because not only will the FCC’s move force taxpayers to subsidize industry access to publicly owned infrastructure but, as chief information officer for New York City Samir Saini declared: “the FCC is threatening the public’s right to control public property, and dozens of cities, states, and towns from New York City to Lincoln, Nebraska to Anchorage, Alaska are ready to defend that right on behalf of our residents and taxpayers.”

On top of all this we now find that the “tsunami” of data collection enabled by 5G could consume one fifth of global electricity by 2025. As most know, wind and solar (both of which also have significant environmental and land use problems) just won’t cut it, and especially so with 5G.

An Endless Web of Carefully Branded Commissions, Boards, Agencies and Programs

Other groups and organizations tied to Agenda 21 continue to proliferate. These organizations include those that formulate “Climate Action Plans” now being adopted by local communities worldwide. The Center for Climate Solutions is one such organization and the California based Institute for local Government is another. You can google your state, city or county plus “Climate Action Plan and Resilient Plan” to learn more about how this is taking place in your own community. You can bet that none of them include alternative forms of “new” energy (including soil building non-industrial hemp) or regenerative (carbon-sequestering) agriculture which can only be properly practiced by small producers.

An offshoot of the Regional Planning Association is America 2050 whose focus is on planning for the emergence of mega-regions, or high density urban areas, along with infrastructure development, with the aim of “shaping the infrastructure investment plan” and “providing leadership on a broad range of transportation, sustainability, and economic-development issues impacting America’s growth in the 21st century.” FEMA feeds into the development of megaregions through its Hazard Mitigation Program through which it, as well as HUD, provide grants to assist, at taxpayer expense, state and local communities with the purchase of properties located in high fire risk, high flood risk, high erosion risk, high mudslide risk areas.

“Redevelopment” is another important and mis-leading buzzword, as it in truth represents an unknown government which among other things uses eminent domain for private gain, not the “greater good” despite claims to the contrary. As Koire writes in her book Behind the Green Mask :

A little 40 page book titled Redevelopment: The Unknown Government put out by the California Municipal Officials for Redevelopment Reform lays out the ugly truth with charts, cartoons and hard data … Supported by powerful lobbyist groups fronting bond brokers, lawyers, and debt consultants, the trend of designating more and more redevelopment areas is also supported by government agency staff members and private businesses that profit from redevelopment. Diverting property taxes to these bloodsuckers is big business: by 2006 redevelopment agencies statewide (in California) had amassed $81 billion in bonded indebtedness, a figure that is doubling every 10 years. And don’t think that this is only in California – it’s in nearly every city and county in the United States. Because the agencies can sell bonded debt without voter approval (unlike school boards) and the city’s general fund is responsible for any over-extended debt, these are cash cows for bond brokerage firms.

Other organizations tasked with promoting “sustainable development” and its corollary the “Green New Deal” include the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD, and the World Resources Institute.

Food Production and Food Choice

The World Resource Institute recently published Creating a Sustainable Food Future which was produced “in partnership with the World Bank, UN Environment (UNEP), UN Development Programme and the French agricultural research agencies CIRAD and INRA.” On its publication announcement page, it asks whether we will be able to produce enough food sustainably to feed the estimated 10 billion people that will exist on the planet by 2015.

As explained in fair detail in my book Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy the answer is a resounding yes! Contrary to Agenda 21 fears, we will be able to sustainably feed, conservatively, 20 to 30 billion people worldwide if we change the way we do agriculture, which MUST include holistically managed livestock. In so doing we will dramatically reduce the amount of land now devoted to industrial agricultural systems and the amount of pollution generated by such systems – all while putting carbon back in the soil where it is needed to sustain life on this planet.

At first glance the above-mentioned World Resource report also seems to agree, as indicated by this 2018 headline in a San Francisco Chronicle article titled “New Report Urges Drastic Changes in Food Production and Consumption”. The article goes on to summarize the report’s version of “sustainability”:

The core recommendations of the 96-page report line up with many of the innovations that are already happening, sometimes at a small scale, at many Bay Area farms, food companies and tech startups. That includes the development of plant-based meat substitutes, companies and local governments that focus on reducing food waste, and farms that are making changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions… The report calls on governments to fund research and development and to provide “flexible regulations” for new technology such as plant-based meat substitutes and innovations in plant breeding like genetic editing… Individuals should make changes to their diets, too, the authors say, especially in wealthy countries like the United States where the majority of animal-based foods are eaten … A lot of the technological advances the report urges are happening in the Bay Area. The region has become a global hub for the creation of plant-based meat substitutions, including those made by Impossible Foods of Redwood City… A new batch of companies is developing lab-grown or “cultured” meat that will be made of chicken, beef or fish tissue from cells but won’t require raising or killing animals.

Green Grabbing, The Best Way to Save Nature Is to Sell It

The 1992 Rio Earth Summit spawned a series of world summits on sustainable development sponsored by the UN. In 2012 the 20th anniversary of the Rio summit was dubbed Rio + 20. Its focus was the Green Economy with the specific purpose of ushering in global economic growth by putting market values on environmental services and environmentally-friendly production and consumption. This plan led to the term “green grabbing” which refers to the appropriation of land and resources – purportedly for environmental ends. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that, as this article in Bloomberg Online suggests, Wall Street Is More Than Willing to Fund the Green New Deal.

Some illustrative excerpts which were taken from a 2012 article titled Green Grabbing Our Future at Rio + 20, appeared in my book Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy. The article was originally posted on the Food First website, and was written by Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director of Food First. Some excerpts:

The Rio process itself has been steadily privatized under the weight of 20 years of neoliberal globalization. As the global contradictions between economy and environment have intensified, nature itself is becoming a source of profit… What was once a state-oriented, regulatory framework has morphed into a market-based, corporate initiative.

The corporate trend to privatize and commercialize ecosystem services and resources in the name of environmental protection is known as “green grabbing” as these schemes can result in local communities losing resource rights… It is the favored approach of the big conservation organizations like World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Conservation International (CI) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), who have thus guaranteed their place at the Rio+20 negotiating table alongside neoliberal governments and powerful multinational business interests.

The Green Economy concept that determines the content of all submissions [for the Zero draft report] was itself created by a group led by Pavan Sukhdev a former senior banker from Deutsche Bank and head of UNEP’s Green Economy Initiative. This is a reflection of a long trend in partnering between the CBD, big environmental organizations and corporate representatives i.e. the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, the International Chamber of Commerce, CI, WWF, IUCN etc.

The dubious justification for bringing nature to Wall Street—where credits and shares of ecosystem services, biodiversity derivatives, avoided emissions and even wildlife species banking can be chopped up, repackaged and resold along with debt, mortgages, hedge funds and the like—is that the best way to save nature is to sell it. In doing so, we are told, we will grow the economy and this in turn will benefit the poor, thus ending poverty and hunger.”

Summing It Up

In practical terms, Agenda 21 is a global plan implemented locally through ICLEI (and other bodies and organs) using “soft law”. The following excerpts from an article titled “UN’s Agenda 21Targets Your Mayor” provide a useful example of how local implementation occurs:

From June 1 through 5, 2005, the city of San Francisco was the site of an international conference called “World Environment Day.” But the agenda of this conference was much bigger than just another hippy dance in the park. This meeting of the global elite had a specific target and an agenda with teeth. The goal was the full implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 policy called Sustainable Development, a ruling principle for top-down control of every aspect of our lives – from food, to health care, to community development, and beyond. This time, the target audience is our nation’s mayors. The UN’s new tactic, on full display at this conference, is to ignore federal and state governments and go straight to the roots of American society. Think globally – act locally.

Here’s a quick look at a few of the 21 agenda actions called for. Under the topic of energy, action item number one calls for mayors to implement a policy to increase the use of “renewable” energy by 10% within seven years. Renewable energy includes solar and wind power.

Not stated in the UN documents is the fact that in order to meet the goal, a community would have to reserve thousands of acres of land to set up expensive solar panels or even more land for wind mills. Consider that it takes a current 50-megawatt gas-fired generating plant about 2-5 acres of land to produce its power. Yet to create that same amount of power through the use of solar panels would require at least 1,000 acres. Using wind mills to generate 50 megawatts would require over 4,000 acres of land, while chopping up birds and creating a deafening roar. The cost of such “alternative” energy to the community would be vastly prohibitive. Yet, such unworkable ideas are the environmentally-correct orders of the day that the mayors are being urged to follow.”

Rosa Koire, mentioned earlier, sums up the end game on her website Democrats Against Agenda 21:

The problem that almost no one sees is that UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all information, all energy, and all human beings in the world. Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is about Inventory and Control!

Beware Agenda 21 and its Green New Deal!

Geraldine Perry is the co-author of The Two Faces of Money and author of Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy: The New Trifecta.

April 6, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

US denies visa to ICC chief prosecutor, unhappy with her probing American war crimes in Afghanistan

RT | April 5, 2019

Washington has annulled the entry visa of Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, after the State Department vowed to shield Americans from “unjust prosecutions” of possible war crimes in Afghanistan.

“We can confirm that the US authorities have revoked the prosecutor’s visa for entry into the US,” Bensouda’s office told Reuters in an email. However, the move should not restrict her travels to the UN headquarters in New York City.

Less than a month ago, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear that the US would not allow Americans to live in “fear of unjust prosecutions” just because thousands of citizens were sent to “defend” their country on the other side of the globe, some 7,000 miles away.

“If you’re responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of US personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, you should not assume that you still have, or will get, a visa or that you will be permitted to enter the United States,” he warned in mid-March.

Over the last two years, the Gambian lawyer has been probing US-led war crimes in Afghanistan but has not yet opened a formal investigation into alleged atrocities conducted over the last 18 years. For now, the preliminary inquiry remains in Pre-Trial Chamber, even though Bensouda found a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan.”

Only the American military system can judge the servicemen, Pompeo said, warning the ICC to drop their inquiry. “We are prepared to take additional steps, including economic sanctions, if the ICC does not change course,” Pompeo warned.

The ICC is investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by various parties in the protracted conflict, including US forces, as detailed in a 2016 report. The part concerning unidentified members of the US military and intelligence relates to dozens of cases in 2003-2004, and alleged crimes like torture, cruel treatment, and sexual assault.

The ICC says those crimes may have been committed in furtherance of US policy in the freshly occupied country, rather than a set of individual unrelated atrocities. In light of this, Washington’s resistance to the probe may be more than a sign of principled rejection of any international authority over US nationals.

US courts have not been very forthcoming in prosecuting Americans for such crimes. A notable exception is the case of retired US Army Ranger turned CIA civilian contractor David Passaro. Over two nights in 2003, he tortured to death an Afghan man named Abdul Wali, who turned himself in after being accused of taking part in a rocket attack on a US base.

Passaro was sentenced to serve eight years and four months in prison, and later said he was a scapegoat for the US government, which wanted to show the public that it was holding the CIA accountable in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Read more:

International court judge resigns, citing ‘shocking’ interference from ‘above the law’ US

 

April 5, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN body demands Israel address discrimination against non-Jewish citizens

MEMO | April 2, 2019

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) “released late last week a list of key issues relating to Bedouin citizens of Israel in the Negev/Naqab region and discrimination against non-Jewish citizens” to which Israel is obliged to respond.

According to Adalah, the Committee asked Israel to provide information on a variety of issues pertaining to institutionalised discrimination, including “steps taken to fully respect rights of the Arab-Bedouin people to their traditional and ancestral lands”.

The Committee is also concerned to find out what “assessments, if any, which Israel carried out on impact of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People on the non-Jewish population and on their enjoyment of the Covenant rights, particularly the right to self-determination, right to non-discrimination and cultural rights.”

The UN Committee is also demanding answers from Israeli authorities regarding “concerns raised regarding the Law that it may exacerbate the existing ethnic segregation and lead to policies and budget allocation that may further disadvantage the non-Jewish population.”

Adalah Attorney Myssana Morany stated: “We are happy to have convinced the Committee to focus on the forced displacement of the Bedouin community as one of the key concerns requiring further clarification from Israel.”

“Although the Prawer Plan for mass displacement of the Bedouin was frozen in 2013, Israel is now using other mechanisms to forcefully displace Bedouin communities. The past two years, for example, have seen a huge increase in Israeli demolitions of Bedouin homes”, she added.

“Israel has also just revealed a plan to forcefully displace 36,000 Bedouin citizens to make way for massive ‘development’ projects to be built on top of their homes and villages. All these practices are expected to receive backing from the Jewish Nation-State Law.”

April 2, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN and EU statements reveal their overt support for Israel

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 26, 2019

Predictably, the UN’s first remarks about Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip focused more on a single rocket reaching north of Tel Aviv than the Zionist state’s ongoing colonial violence against Palestinian civilians and its destruction of what remains of the enclave. Likewise, the Palestinian people themselves will be of no concern to the international body unless there is a rising death toll and images of severely wounded people splashed across social media.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, we are told, is “gravely concerned” and, again predictably, has asked for maximum restraint from “both sides”. However, his “concern” was framed thus: “Today’s firing of a rocket from Gaza towards Israel is a serious and unacceptable violation.”

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, echoed the statement from Guterres in a tweet which deplored the firing of a rocket as “absolutely unacceptable”. So far, Mladenov has not updated his concerns to describe the shelling of Gaza by Israel in the same terms, despite its bombs inflicting infinitely more damage. The EU has followed suit, emphasising its “fundamental commitment to the security of Israel.” The lives and property of Palestinians mean nothing to such people.

Even as a ceasefire was purportedly reached, Israel continued targeting the densely-populated enclave and the Gaza border was declared to be a closed military zone. It is more than likely that international institutions are waiting for further violations before they order pointless inquiries and studies, and issue conclusions and recommendations, all the while forcing Palestinians into diplomatic irrelevance by allowing Israel to exacerbate the humanitarian situation which has conveniently erased the political obligation to end colonisation.

Since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel has targeted Gaza repeatedly to the point that it has now normalised air strikes and the international community has accommodated its violence and rights violations by refusing to respond and react accordingly. Both Israel and international institutions, however, need a point of reference to justify such impunity. A rocket, despite its relative insignificance, when compared with Israeli air strikes and shelling, is enough to prompt official statements that start off with concern and end with declaring the priority of Israel’s security over Palestinian lives.

An unnamed diplomatic source referred to by Israel National News has dismissed the possibility of a large-scale operation and described the reinforcements along Gaza’s nominal border as “deterrents”. Air strikes, however, are set to continue.

In line with the current General Election frenzy in Israel, several ministers and candidates, including former Israel Defence Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, have requested further action. Gantz described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who also holds the defence portfolio — as having “lost his grip on security”, while Economy Minister Eli Cohen called for targeted assassinations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. All this in retaliation for a rocket, as Israel would have the rest of the world believe.

As an aggressive occupier, though, Israel cannot define its actions as “retaliation” and “self-defence”. It is an instigator and has committed war crimes ever since its creation on Palestinian land in 1948.

Why, we must ask, are the UN and the EU intent on removing the distinction between possible war crimes and security when it comes to Israel? Both are trying to frame their political intent as a response to the rocket which landed north of Tel Aviv, yet the UN and the EU have clearly planned strategically for the moments when they can declare their allegiance and support for Israel without having to maintain an illusion of concern for human rights. Yet another opportunity for them to reveal their overt support for the colonial-occupation state arrived on Monday.

 

March 26, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UN Votes To Adopt Gaza HRC Report

IMEMC News & Agencies – March 23, 2019

The United Nations Human Rights Council has voted to adopt a report accusing Israel of War Crimes committed against civilians during Gaza demonstrations.

The report was adopted with 23 votes in favor, 8 against and 15 abstentions. Despite the statements of UK foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, the UK abstained from voting against the adoption of the report.

The UN report investigated the killings of 189 demonstrators, including 35 children, in Gaza, between the 30th of March and the 31st of December, 2018. The report concluded that Israel had committed serious violations of international law.

The report was instantly denounced as “biased” and “anti-Semitic” by Israel and its closest allies, according to Days of Palestine.

However, despite the slanderous comments against the UN by Israel, the report may now be taken to the International Criminal Court. The report calls for international arrest warrants to be handed out to the Israeli soldiers responsible, as well as individual sanctions to be applied to those guilty, for the illegal use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators.

March 22, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Once Again, the UN has failed to Name Firms that Profit from Israel’s Illegal Settlements

By Jonathan Cook – The National – March 11, 2019

The United Nations postponed last week for the third time the publication of a blacklist of Israeli and international firms that profit directly from Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

The international body had come under enormous pressure to keep the database under wraps after lobbying behind the scenes from Israel, the United States and many of the 200-plus companies that were about to be named.

UN officials have suggested they may go public with the list in a few months.

But with no progress since the UN’s Human Rights Council requested the database back in early 2016, Palestinian leaders are increasingly fearful that it has been permanently shelved.

That was exactly what Israel hoped for. When efforts were first made to publish the list in 2017, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, warned: “We will do everything we can to ensure that this list does not see the light of day.”

He added that penalising the settlements was “an expression of modern antisemitism”.

Both Israel and the US pulled out of the Human Rights Council last year, claiming that Israel was being singled out.

Israel has good reason to fear greater transparency. Bad publicity would most likely drive many of these firms, a few of them household names, out of the settlements under threat of a consumer backlash and a withdrawal of investments by religious organisations and pension funds.

The UN has reportedly already warned Coca-Cola, Teva Pharmaceuticals, the defence electronics company Elbit Systems and Africa Israel Investments of their likely inclusion. Israeli telecoms and utility companies are particularly exposed because grids serving the settlements are integrated with those in Israel.

There is an added danger that the firms might be vulnerable to prosecutions, should the International Criminal Court at The Hague eventually open an investigation into whether the settlements constitute a war crime, as the Palestinian leadership has demanded.

The exodus of these firms from the West Bank would, in turn, make it much harder for Israel to sustain its colonies on stolen Palestinian land. As a result, efforts to advance a Palestinian state would be strengthened.

Many of the settlements – contrary to widely held impressions of them – have grown into large towns. Their inhabitants expect all the comforts of modern life, from local bank branches to fast-food restaurants and high-street clothing chains.

Nowadays, a significant proportion of Israel’s 750,000 settlers barely understand that their communities violate international law.

The settlements are also gradually being integrated into the global economy, as was highlighted by a row late last year when Airbnb, an accommodation-bookings website, announced a plan to de-list properties in West Bank settlements.

The company was possibly seeking to avoid inclusion on the database, but instead it faced a severe backlash from Israel’s supporters.

This month the US state of Texas approved a ban on all contracts with Airbnb, arguing that the online company’s action was “antisemitic”.

As both sides understand, a lot hangs on the blacklist being made public.

If Israel and the US succeed, and western corporations are left free to ignore the Palestinians’ dispossession and suffering, the settlements will sink their roots even deeper into the West Bank. Israel’s occupation will become ever more irreversible, and the prospect of a Palestinian state ever more distant.

A 2013 report on the ties between big business and the settlements noted the impact on the rights of Palestinians was “pervasive and devastating”.

Sadly, the UN leadership’s cowardice on what should be a straightforward matter – the settlements violate international law, and firms should not assist in such criminal enterprises – is part of a pattern.

Repeatedly, Israel has exerted great pressure on the UN to keep its army off a “shame list” of serious violators of children’s rights. Israel even avoided a listing in 2015 following its 50-day attack on Gaza the previous year, which left more than 500 Palestinian children dead. Dozens of armies and militias are named each year.

The Hague court has also been dragging its feet for years over whether to open a proper war crimes investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, as well as the settlements.

The battle to hold Israel to account is likely to rage again this year, after the publication last month of a damning report by UN legal experts into the killing of Palestinian protesters at Gaza’s perimeter fence by Israeli snipers.

Conditions for Gaza’s two million Palestinians have grown dire since Israel imposed a blockade, preventing movement of goods and people, more than a decade ago.

The UN report found that nearly all of those killed by the snipers – 154 out of 183 – were unarmed. Some 35 Palestinian children were among the dead, and of the 6,000 wounded more than 900 were minors. Other casualties included journalists, medical personnel and people with disabilities.

The legal experts concluded that there was evidence of war crimes. Any identifiable commanders and snipers, it added, should face arrest if they visited UN member states.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, dismissed the report as “lies” born out of “an obsessive hatred of Israel”.

Certainly, it has caused few ripples in western capitals. Britain’s opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn was a lone voice in calling for an arms embargo on Israel in response.

It is this Israeli exceptionalism that is so striking. The more violent Israel becomes towards the Palestinians and the more intransigent in rejecting peace, the less pressure is exerted upon it.

Not only does Israel continue to enjoy generous financial, military and diplomatic support from the US and Europe, both are working ever harder to silence criticisms of its actions by their own citizens.

As the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement grows larger, western capitals have casually thrown aside commitments to free speech in a bid to crush it.

France has already criminalised support for a boycott of Israel, and its president Emmanuel Macron recently proposed making it illegal to criticise Zionism, the ideology that underpins Israel’s rule over Palestinians.

More than two dozen US states have passed anti-BDS legislation, denying companies and individual contractors dealing with the government of that particular state the right to boycott Israel. In every case, Israel is the only country protected by these laws. Last month, the US Senate passed a bill that adds federal weight to this state-level campaign of intimidation.

The hypocrisy of these states – urging peace in the region while doing their best to subvert it – is clear. Now the danger is that UN leaders will join them.

March 11, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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