Palestine is not occupied, it is colonised
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 5, 2018
June 5 2018 marks the 51st anniversary of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
But, unlike the massive popular mobilisation that preceded the anniversary of the Nakba – the catastrophic destruction of Palestine in 1948 – on 15 May the anniversary of the occupation is hardly generating equal mobilisation.
The unsurprising death of the ‘peace process’ and the inevitable demise of the ‘two-state solution’ has shifted the focus from ending the occupation per se to the larger, and more encompassing, problem of Israel’s colonialism throughout Palestine.
Grassroots mobilisation in Gaza and the West Bank, and among Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Naqab Desert, are, once more, widening the Palestinian people’s sense of national aspirations. Thanks to the limited vision of the Palestinian leadership those aspirations have, for decades, been confined to Gaza and the West Bank.
In some sense the ‘Israeli occupation’ is no longer an occupation as per international standards and definitions. It is merely a phase of the Zionist colonisation of historic Palestine, a process that began over a 100 years ago, and carries on to this day.
“The law of occupation is primarily motivated by humanitarian consideration; it is solely the facts on the ground that determine its application”, states the International Committee of the Red Cross website.
It is for practical purposes that we often utilise the term ‘occupation’ with reference to Israel’s colonisation of Palestinian land, occupied after 5 June 1967. The term allows for the constant emphasis on humanitarian rules that are meant to govern Israel’s behavior as the occupying power.
However, Israel has already, and repeatedly, violated most conditions of what constitute an ‘occupation’ from an international law perspective, as articulated in the 1907 Hague Regulations (articles 42-56) and the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.
According to these definitions, an ‘occupation’ is a provisional phase, a temporary situation that is meant to end with the implementation of international law regarding that particular situation.
‘Military occupation’ is not the sovereignty of the occupier over the occupied; it cannot include the transfer of citizens from the territories of the occupying power to occupied land; it cannot include ethnic cleansing; destruction of properties; collective punishment and annexation.
It is often argued that Israel is an occupier that has violated the rules of occupation as stated in international law.
This would have been the case a year, two or five years after the original occupation had taken place, but not 51 years later. Since then, the occupation has turned into long-term colonisation.
An obvious proof is Israel’s annexation of occupied land, including the Syrian Golan Heights and Palestinian East Jerusalem in 1981. That decision had no regard for international law, humanitarian law or any other law.
Israeli politicians have, for years, openly debated the annexation of the West Bank, especially areas that are populated with illegal Jewish settlements, which are built contrary to international law.
Those hundreds of settlements that Israel has been building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are not meant as temporary structures.
Dividing the West Bank into three zones, areas A, B and C, each governed according to different political diktats and military roles, has little precedent in international law.
Israel argues that, contrary to international law, it is no longer an occupying power in Gaza; however, an Israel land, maritime and aerial siege has been imposed on the Strip for over 11 years. From successive Israeli wars that have killed thousands, to a hermetic blockade that has pushed the Palestinian population to the brink of starvation, Gaza subsists in isolation.
Gaza is an ‘occupied territory’ by name only, without any of the humanitarian rules applied. In the last 10 weeks alone, over 120 unarmed protesters, journalists and medics were killed and 13,000 wounded, yet the international community and law remain inept, unable to face or challenge Israeli leaders or to overpower equally cold-hearted American vetoes.
The Palestinian Occupied Territories have, long ago, crossed the line from being occupied to being colonised. But there are reasons that we are trapped in old definitions, leading amongst them is American political hegemony over the legal and political discourses pertaining to Palestine.
One of the main political and legal achievements of the Israeli war – which was carried out with full US support – on several Arab countries in June 1967 is the redefining of the legal and political language on Palestine.
Prior to that war, the discussion was mostly dominated by such urgent issues as the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian refugees to go back to their homes and properties in historic Palestine.
The June war shifted the balance of power completely, and cemented America’s role as Israel’s main backer on the international stage.
Several UN Security Council resolutions were passed to delegitimise the Israeli occupation: UNSCR 242, UNSCR 338, and the less talked about but equally significant UNSCR 497.
Resolution 242 of 1967 demanded “withdrawal of Israel armed forces” from the territories it occupied in the June war. Resolution 338, which followed the war of 1973, accentuated and clarified that demand. Resolution 497 of 1981 was a response to Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. It rendered such a move “null and void and without international and legal affect”.
The same applied to the annexation of Jerusalem as to any colonial constructions or any Israeli attempts aimed at changing the legal status of the West Bank.
But Israel is operating with an entirely different mindset.
Considering that anywhere between 600,000 to 750,000 Israeli Jews now live in the ‘Occupied Territories’, and that the largest settlement of Modi’in Illit houses more than 64,000 Israeli Jews, one has to wonder what form of military occupation blue-print Israel is implementing, anyway?
Israel is a settler colonial project, which began when the Zionist movement aspired to build an exclusive homeland for Jews in Palestine, at the expense of the native inhabitants of that land in the late 19th century.
Nothing has changed since. Only facades, legal definitions and political discourse. The truth is that Palestinians continue to suffer the consequences of Zionist colonialism and they will continue to carry that burden until that original sin is boldly confronted and justly remedied.
In the absence of favourable media coverage, US and Israel seek distortion of facts
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | June 5, 2018
While Israel’s snipers continue to extract Palestinian lives from the Great Return March protests, it has also failed to sell its usual narrative to media outlets, causing US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to lash out at journalists, accusing them of bias against the settler-colonial state: “Just keep your mouths shut until you figure it out.”
According to the Times of Israel, Friedman stated that nine out of 10 articles were critical of Israel and its use of lethal force against Palestinians protesting at the Gaza border. Calling the protests “unprecedented”, Friedman stated: “Without this comparative analysis, all the reporting is completely superficial.”
Bloodshed, however, fits another narrative, and one that has stood the test of comparative analysis since Israel’s inception. The analysis Friedman is after consists of parroting Israel’s propaganda of terrorism and security concerns. Refusal to adhere to Israel’s trajectories is classified as “creating impressions that have no basis in fact”, in Friedman’s words.
Yet the bullets, injuries and deaths speak for themselves, as does Israel’s premeditated decision to execute Palestinians clamouring for their right of return. Israel has not invented snipers on the border – they operate upon direct orders. Neither have Palestinians invented the extrajudicial killings of their comrades by sniper fire. On the other hand, the Israeli army has not hesitated to blame the killings on Hamas which, according to Friedman’s rhetoric, would be justified as expert opinion.
Such expert opinion as desired by Friedman would also classify the Palestinian right of return as “infiltration”. Non-lethal means of crowd dispersal, according to the US ambassador, would have been ineffective at the border.
To take up Friedman’s request of comparative analysis, it is not the protests that should be analysed, but the means used by Israel to entrench its colonial presence and violence.
Israel does not choose lethal means of containment as a last resort. Its penchant for bloodshed is an integral part of its foundation. Hence, for Israel, there is historical justification for violence based upon its fabricated narratives of ownership and expansion. Despite Friedman’s allegations of bias, a significant portion of the current reporting is still tethered to the Israeli narrative due to it being divested from the historical context that rendered Palestinians refugees and therefore within their rights to return to their lands.
It is convenient for Friedman to seek comparisons only within the immediate context in which, he rightly states, there is no precedent. To overcome that intentionally-restrictive impediment, comparing and bringing forth trends of Israeli violence since 1948 would work well in portraying Israel’s dependence upon killing Palestinians to safeguard its existence.
The nature of these protests and Israel’s response has triggered a new wave of awareness internationally. Whereas, in previous years, Gaza’s prominence was tied to the periodic aggressions waged by Israel against the enclave and thus dominated by misattributions of purported war as opposed to colonial violence, the protests have exposed Israel’s ultimate aim of maintaining its policy of killing Palestinians as part of its expansionist plans. The Great Return March protests have exposed the Israeli agenda while setting a precedent with regard to an understanding of the Palestinian right of return. For Friedman to dedicate a considerable portion of his speaking time denouncing a different approach in reporting, it is clear that Palestinians have surpassed a major obstacle in terms of disseminating their anti-colonial struggle, while Israel has remained entrenched in its atrocities, refined to the point of eliciting global revulsion.
Why the Evidence Mueller Has for the Indicting 13 Russian Nationals is Fraudulent
By George Elias | OffGuardian | June 5, 2018
It’s almost a shame that a headline like that won’t spark anything more than casual curiosity when you consider the charges Richard Mueller is looking into. The Russian company Concord Management decided to answer his charges in early May, which threw a wrench into Mueller’s strategy.
I’m more interested in showing what Robert Mueller’s sources are not, than who they are. This opens a much greater conspiracy that’s playing out in a complicit US media today. What do I mean? The flawed source for both investigators and journalists that know anything about the Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg, Russia is Shaltai Boltai. They are supposed to be connected to the GRU (Russian Military Intelligence).
Fancy Bear is also supposedly the GRU hacking team that everyone is actually looking for. Shaltai Boltai is supposed to have those connections. Is it an official Intel operation or was a criminal undertaking to discredit Russia?
Over a year ago, I found evidence of the identity of Crowdstrike’s Fancy Bear, just short of a confession. When I looked into Shaltai Boltai, I found additional information that is even better for identifying Fancy Bear. The next article will detail that clearly.
Once it’s clear that the source of Mueller’s evidence – Russian hackers called Shaltai Boltai (Humpty Dumpty) – did NOT hack Concord Catering or the Russian government, we can cross off a couple of hackers from our list on our way to Fancy Bear. Shaltai Boltai tried unsuccessfully to confess to the DNC hacks.
They aren’t the hackers they make themselves out to be. They are Information Operation (IO) specialists that were paid to build a narrative which became a convenient hook for Mueller to hang his coat on.
Unfortunately, the slam dunk he would have won if they stayed away was taken from his grasp the second real people materialized. You see, Robert Mueller has to prove the Internet Research Company existed in reality and did the things he alleges.
He now has to authenticate the communications from the Troll Farm that his Russian interference investigation is based on and he can’t do it. This was the reason Mueller asked to delay the trial instead of moving forward. His case is built on fraudulent (nonexistent) evidence. Even that is laughable because what he is alleging goes against the grain of some of his foundational documentary evidence.
The source for Mueller’s indictment are Russian traitors that were hired for the purpose of destroying Russia. That Mueller’s evidence was an Information Operation to discredit both the Kremlin and the current US government changes everything because fabricated evidence is still considered too tainted to use in a court of law, even if the defendant is Russian.
Let’s get down to brass tacks and avoid any confusion. Once you understand that the original source of information for the Internet Research Agency, viz. hackers calling themselves Shaltai Boltai (Humpty Dumpty), fabricated the evidence, you understand the irresolvable problem Mueller stepped into.
Mueller’s problem in this scenario, according to what should be a foundational article by Scott Humor at the Saker, is that the “Internet Research Agency”, which existed only on paper, ceased to exist in 2015. It was liquidated and merged with a construction retail company called TEKA. I found Humor’s article after almost finishing this one. He left little need for any additional research on the matter.
About the troll farm, he notes the results of a court case that an NGO was pushing to get legal recognition of the troll farm as a working business in St Petersburg. It didn’t work out.
One example, a woman with the last name Malcheva filed a lawsuit in court against the companies “Internet Research, LLC” and “TEKA, LLC,” claiming unpaid wages.
The court asked her to produce evidence of her work, and then denied her claim after she produced a photo of a computer with an IP address on its screen as evidence of her employment.
IP Address 109.167.231.85
inetnum: 109.167.231.0 – 109.167.231.255
netname: WESTCALL-NET
descr: S-Peterburg Hotel Corintia Wi-FiAn IP address that was assigned to a luxury hotel in Saint-Petersburg. A hotel that was awarded multiple international awards for excellence. An immensely popular hotel among discriminating travelers. A very expensive hotel located in the center of a historic city. The woman claimed that she was an “online troll” working from this location ten hours a day with hundreds of other virtual trolls. The judge didn’t believe her. Would you? – Scott Humor Saker.is
Secondly, and more importantly, is that although charged with treason by the Russian government, the “hackers” did not serve time for hacking. They served time for conspiring against the Russian government. This is an important point.
First things first, how do I know it is an information operation against the United States? Everything hinges on how carefully and accurately this single question is answered.
If Mueller is alleging that this entity interfered in the 2016 US election, yet all the information about it is faked, it is safe to say the word Information Operation.
The reason is simple. The “Anon” information Mueller uses for his indictment about the Russian Internet Research Agency every MSM news story is based on states quite clearly in the posts that it is an Information Operation. Shaltai Boltai reiterates this fact throughout different posts!
If only this single fact is true, Robert Mueller needs to step down to answer some questions. The first one is why he would knowingly take part in a foreign influence operation to publicly destroy the credibility of the United States Government?
Before getting into some of the fraudulent information, watch how the source purposefully discredits itself. I don’t think the hacker imagined things would bloom this large. The following are a couple of questions the hacker answered for a journalist. Question 2 was asked because this hacker group is anti-Putin and anti-Russian government as it stands.
The answer to question 3 states they are an Information Operation seeking to influence (policy). While it is a surprise that even a highly politicized investigation would claim fabrications as legitimate evidence, it’s more of a surprise that it wasn’t caught by MSM. You’ll see for yourself, the hackers were honest. Mueller, on the other hand, is not.
From the b0ltai.wordpress.com June 5th, 2014 post – These were questions that a Russian journalist asked the Anon group that found the Russian Internet Research Agency(IRA) of St. Petersburg and released the information currently used by Mueller and the MSM including the New York Times.
2. Journo: Many consider you a “wiring”(wire service) for the discharge of Kremlin secrets. What do you say to that?
Shaltai Boltai: How many people, so many opinions. We do not intend to prove or deny it. We will be told for already laid out “stories” and those that we will lay out.
3. Journo: What is your ultimate goal?
Shaltai Boltai: We never concealed it. The goal is published in our blog and twitter – we create realities and give meanings to words. More – trying to change reality, create another reality. To launch certain events according to a certain scenario.
So, there it is. This informative post is a confession by the original source made directly after posting information about the Russian Internet Research Agency for over one month in May 2014.
If the information that Mueller used in his indictment was true, it would still have to be thrown out of a court of law because of the source. In the US, a police officer can’t lie to a judge or grand jury about probable cause to get a search or arrest warrant and expect anything he found to be admissible in court. Special Prosecutor Mueller can’t either. He cannot cite information that :
- Was purported to be hacked and was obtained illegally if that were true
- Cannot use information where the source states the information was manufactured to create new realities, in this case political realities.
- Fake emails do not constitute evidence. None of the MSM stories even provide him with an inch of cover.
- He doesn’t get a free pass today.
Let’s step back and look at how this developed. The second point that deserves special attention from Robert Mueller’s investigative team is the “Russians” shown through the hacked documents don’t seem to speak Russian or English well. It’s kind of like Mr. Bean does James Bond. It’s funny and at the same time absurd because it could never work.
The Russian language mistakes are grammar school stuff like you’d expect from a foreigner. They consist of basic spelling, gender confusion, and other simple grammatical errors that won’t be found in communications from law firms or multimillion dollar businesses.
This is important because according to Mueller the IRA (Internet Research Agency) is supposed to be composed of handpicked professional journalists, information war specialists, attorneys, and business people. These are supposed to be educated people. After all, they got past 19 Intel agencies right?
The hackers material almost conclusively shows that the Concord communications shown below were from people that use Russian as a 2nd language. I will post a link and show you how to search the blog easily. If they take the blog down, I saved it on the Wayback machine. It is entirely searchable and it is saved for posterity.
Next up, looking at the basic technical information. The proofs were posted by the hacker before anyone was looking for them, so that’s pretty bad. They seem very juvenile.
According to Paul Craig Roberts, “Mueller claims to have emails from some of the 13 Russians. If the emails are genuine, they sound like a few kids pretending to friends that they are doing big things. One of the emails brags that the FBI got after them so they got busy covering up their tracks.”
And Rollingstone Magazine wrote “All 13 individuals are named in the indictment, including Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch who is the man behind the Internet Research Agency, the so-called “troll factory” located in St. Petersburg, Russia… Prigozhin, who is otherwise known as “Vladimir Putin’s chef,” operates a catering company and a related consulting firm, Concord Catering and Concord Management and Consulting LLC, both of which participated in the 2016 U.S. election conspiracy and both of which were also indicted by Mueller.
Prigozhin is supposed to be at the center of this. If you know anything about well-heeled Slavic Oligarchs, or just fat cats in general, regardless of who they are, they take a lot of pride in the look of their organizations.
This is where the source information gets interesting.
The email is supposed to address Roman Kovalev at Prigozhin’s Concord Catering and Concord Management and Consulting LLC. Do you see the problem?
All the pieces of correspondence share the same traits. Either Ole’Yevgeniv (Prigozhin) is the cheapest Oligarch on the planet and uses gmail and yandex for company correspondence – or it is a fake email. If the emails are faked, what need is there to go on trying to convince you further? We’ve already crossed the endzone and scored.
The image below shows what real authenticated Concord Catering and Concord Management and Consulting LLC contact information looks like. Can you see the difference right away? If you were spending $1 Million + on a project every month, wouldn’t you give your project management something a little more secure than gmail and maybe just a touch snazzier?
There are no gmail addresses here. If we look at another image we can get down to how elite these trolls were very quickly.
I clicked on the image at the hackers blog and if you look at the link on top, the name of the image appears – “troll.jpg”. By itself it means nothing. But we’ve already found out what’s going on. When you look at the communication, it is poorly formed instructions to post videos and comment.
How good is the supposed Information Operation unit of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg?
According to Mueller’s hackers, they were bad. No, beyond bad, they were barely literate in English, bad. They probably had a hard time getting directions to Starbucks, bad. Yes, I mean bad.
From the hackers in June, 2014: “Igor Osadchy is the head of the “external department” of the AII (Internet Research Agency, also known as the “trolley factory in Olgino”), that is, the very Prigozhin trolls working in bad English on foreign sites and flooding their “sincere” opinion forums and comments foreign media.”
If this is the source Mueller is using, it’s not just tainted information, it’s information that is tainting you. Look at how this foreign information operation is playing out across American media and dividing society. The following shows these posts are from the hackers.
According to the Washington Post, the other staff mentioned are merely incidental. I mean, it seems like they put down all the names they could get. Some were people that worked there in 2014, but most of these guys didn’t work for the troll factory for a long time. They didn’t even work for the troll factory during the elections.
Wikipedia also tells us that “The extent to which these Russians tried to influence public opinion using social media became widely known after a June 2014 BuzzFeed article greatly expanded on government documents published by hackers earlier that year.”
Adrian Chen’s non-article at the New York Times identifies the above as the source that Robert Mueller would eventually use. The hacking group using the Anonymous name isn’t even part of Anonymous.
At this point I can sit and list every article, publication, and journalist that has been taken in by this information operation, but what would be the point.
Israel intelligence minister proposes ‘military coalition’ against Iran
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Press TV – June 5, 2018
Israel has proposed that “a military coalition” be formed against Iran in case Tehran pursues “military-grade” uranium enrichment, suggesting that the military force would comprise of the Israeli regime, the US, the Western states and their Arab allies.
Speaking to media on Tuesday, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz claimed that Iran had once been running an “unsupervised” enrichment scheme with the potential of arming the country with nuclear weapons.
The allies will need to issue a statement against the Islamic Republic “if the Iranians don’t surrender now, and try to return,” he said, adding that the statement would be threatening Iranians that “a military coalition will be formed against them.”
“There should be a clear statement by the president of the United States and all of the Western coalition” if Iran returns to enriching “military-grade” uranium, the minister said. “The Arabs and Israel surely would be there too,” he added.
Washington and Tel Aviv, and to a lesser extent their Western and Arab partners, have claimed that Tehran’s nuclear energy program harbors military aspects.
Iran has strictly and in all circumstances denied pursuing any military ambitions through its nuclear work.
The country asserts that under a fatwa (religious decree) issued by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, its long-established policy is to oppose the acquisition, production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons.
In December 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governing board voted overwhelmingly in favor of a draft resolution, which closed the so-called possible military dimensions (PMD) case in Iran’s nuclear program.
The vote brought an end to a 12-year investigation into the “past and present issues” regarding Iran’s nuclear activities, which the United Nations nuclear watchdog had been probing under pressure from the Israeli regime, the US and their allies.
The vote came after Iran and the P5+1 group of countries signed a nuclear agreement in 2015.
The US, however, withdrew from the accord last month, emboldening Israel in its efforts to try to kill the deal and rally more support for its anti-Iran campaign.
Despite Tel Aviv and Washington’s hostile endeavors, European states have vowed to keep respecting the deal and try their utmost to preserve it.
The Israeli minister’s comments come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has embarked on a tour of Europe to persuade European leaders to follow the US and ditch the Iran deal.
This is while Iran is currently in talks with the other signatories on the future of the deal. Tehran has said it will stay in the JCPOA if the Europeans give guarantees that a deal without the US would still protect the Iranian interests.
Senate Democrats threaten to block Trump-North Korea deal
Press TV – June 5, 2018
US Democrats have warned President Donald Trump that they will block any deal with North Korea that does not guarantee a “verifiable” dismantlement of the country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
In a letter to Trump on Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Bob Menendez said their party was not going to support a deal to ease sanctions on North Korea if the White House failed to meet their conditions.
“Sanctions relief by the US and our allies should be dependent on dismantlement and removal of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs,” the two Democrats wrote. “Any deal that explicitly or implicitly gives North Korea sanctions relief for anything other than the verifiable performance of its obligations to dismantle its nuclear and missile arsenal is a bad deal.”
An acceptable deal in Schumer and Menendez’s view had to ensure a “complete and verifiable denuclearization of North Korea,” an end to Pyongyang’s ballistic missile tests, and “robust compliance inspections.”
Pointing to the important role that Congress had in enacting a sanctions relief, the opposition leaders warned that they would opt for “tougher sanctions and oversight” if they thought the Republican head of state was moving in the wrong direction.
“If we think the president is veering off course, we won’t hesitate to move, but let’s see where he’s headed,” Schumer told reporters later in the day.
The letter came days ahead of a highly-anticipated summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12.
Trump called of the meeting a short while back, after a brief war of words broke out between the two countries over the terms of a possible deal.
“Now that the meeting will proceed as planned, we want to make sure the president’s desire for a deal with North Korea doesn’t saddle us… with a bad deal,” Schumer said. “The president needs to be willing to walk away from the table if there isn’t a good deal to be had.”
Two-state solution is dead, Palestinian courage should spur international action
Palestinians attend the funeral of paramedic Razan Al-Najjar, 21, shot dead by Israeli forces while healing the wounded during ‘Great March of Return’ [Mustafa Hassona – Anadolu Agency]
By Rick Sterling | RT | June 4, 2018
After 70 years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still unresolved. The conflict simmers for a few years, then erupts again with new massacres and violence.
After the failure of the two-state solution, recent events have again highlighted the need for a different approach. In the past couple months, Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers have killed 118 Palestinian protesters and seriously wounded many thousands more. The protesters were unarmed and no threat to the soldiers. Gaza hospitals overflowed with victims.
Human rights groups filed a legal petition to make it unlawful for Israeli soldiers to fire on unarmed protesters. Last week the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the petition.
Israeli violence is usually portrayed as a “response” to Palestinian violence, but the reality is the opposite. The sequence of recent events is as follows:
– From the end of March till May 25, Palestinians in Gaza protested against their oppression as close as they could get to the border fences. About 118 were killed and many thousands seriously injured by Israeli snipers. They were all shot inside Gaza.
– On May 27 – 28, the Israeli military launched tank mortars at Palestinian military outposts inside Gaza, killing at least three.
– Next day, on May 29, Palestinian militants launched unguided mortars into nearby Israel. Most of them fell harmlessly and there were no Israeli casualties.
– Then, on May 30, Israeli jets and helicopters launched guided missiles and bombs on 65 different locations within Gaza.
Clearly, the violence started with Israelis killing protesters and then militants inside Gaza, but it’s not portrayed that way. Time magazine began its article with, “Palestinian militants bombarded southern Israel….”
Pro-Israel advocates wish to prevent people from seeing what is really happening. They know the potential damage if people see video such as Israeli snipers celebrating the shooting of unarmed protesters. To prevent this, a proposed law will make it illegal to photograph or video record Israeli soldiers. Palestinian journalists have condemned this attempt to criminalize journalism.
Reality of Israeli occupation
Israel calls itself the “Startup Nation” because of the economic and technological achievements. But in Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli policies and actions strangle the economies and worsen living conditions.
Palestinians in Gaza are kept separate from Palestinians in the West Bank. There is no trade, travel or inter-family visitation. This is in violation of international agreements including the Oslo Accords.
The claim that Israel “departed” Gaza is false. Israel controls the borders, sky and waters around Gaza, a coastal strip just 5 miles wide by 25 miles in length. Unemployment in Gaza is approaching 50 percent, the highest unemployment in the world. Fishermen are prevented from going out into deeper waters and shot at when they go beyond Israel’s imposed zone. Gazan farmers cannot export independently. Israel frequently blocks the import and export of crops and products. It is almost impossible to leave Gaza. Even outstanding students winning international scholarships may have their exit denied. The electrical and water treatment facilities have been bombed and destroyed by Israel. Nearly all the drinking water is contaminated. Israel restricts the amount of food permitted to enter Gaza so there is continual shortage leading to nutritional deprivation, stunted growth and anemia.
This situation is not new. Eighteen years ago, Israeli journalist Amira Hass described the history, the facts and statistics as well as her personal experience living in Gaza in the profound book “Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege”. The situation was extremely grim then but keeps getting worse.
At the northern Gaza border, Israel is now building a “sea barrier” extending far out into the Mediterranean. It will be above and below the water line. A major reason for this expensive project is to block sewage and pollution from the waters in front of Gaza. Because of Israeli attacks on sewage treatment and electrical infrastructure, sewage flows into the sea. Last summer, Zikim Beach in southern Israel had to be closed due to the inflow of sewage from Gaza. The ‘sea barrier’ now in construction will block the sea currents. This will keep the Israeli beach clean and greatly compound the problem in Gaza.
The strangulation, impoverishment and oppression are not confined to Gaza. In the West Bank, Israeli settlements continue to expand. This increases the number of checkpoints, restrictions and repression. Travel from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is impossible for most Palestinians. The majority of West Bank water from the aquifers is transferred to Israel or provided cheaply to settlers while Palestinians must buy water and store it in tanks on their rooftops. In the last few years, Israel has made it increasingly difficult or impossible for humanitarian groups to provide medical support including breast cancer screening. A compelling new book titled “The Other Side of the Wall” describes the daily struggle in the West Bank where Palestinians and international allies protest against the theft of land, abuses, random killings and imprisonments.
Defiant Courage
There seems to be a trend towards greater Palestinian unity and strategic agreement. The tens of thousands of Palestinians protesting in Gaza were unarmed and united behind the Palestinian flag rather than separate party or movement flags of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, or DFLP.
The Palestinian protesters in Gaza show remarkable courage. Beginning on Friday March 30, they have returned week after week despite seeing thousands of their fellows shot and wounded or killed.
In an article titled “The Gaza Fence that Separates the Brave from the Cowardly”, Amira Hass wrote, “The desperate courage demonstrated by tens of thousands of citizens of Gaza over the past few weeks in general and on Monday in particular hints at the energies, the talents, the dreams, the creativity and the vitality of the inhabitants of this strip of land – who have been subjected to a 27 year policy of closure and siege aimed at suffocating and crushing them.”
Steadfast and persistent
Palestinian resistance continues despite Israeli violence and bloodshed. Seven years ago Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon held “March of Return” protests at the northern borders. Israeli soldiers killed 13 and wounded many more.
In recent days, Gazans have again challenged the Israeli port blockade which prevents ships from departing or arriving. International solidarity with the Palestinian cause is also persistent. Three ships (two Swedish and one Norwegian) recently departed Scandinavia heading for the Mediterranean Sea and Gaza. Named the 2018 Freedom Flotilla, the ships are carrying dozens of international citizens to again demand that Israel stop its blockade of Gaza.
Despite the huge imbalance today, time may be on the side of the Palestinian cause. Systemic apartheid in South Africa existed for a long time and seemed strong. But ultimately it collapsed quickly. The same may unfold in Israel / Palestine.
Today, South Africa is an important supporter of the Palestinian cause. South Africa was the first nation to recall its ambassador to protest the “indiscriminate and grave Israeli attack” in Gaza.
Israel has the military might but Palestinian resistance and courage persists. The Palestinian population is steadfast and growing. They have increasing number of allies who support their cause. Young American Jews are unlike their parents and increasingly critical of Israeli policies. Some courageous Israelis, such as Miko Peled, speak out unequivocally that Israeli apartheid must end and be replaced by one state with democracy and equality for all. A million registered Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon and Syria, patiently waiting. They have not forgotten their legal claim and right to return.
The recent bloodshed and massacres underscore the fact that there is no solution on the current path. It only leads to increasingly unlivable conditions in Gaza plus more illegal settlements and oppression in the West Bank. The so-called “two-state solution” has been dead for many years and should be forgotten. As happened in South Africa, the international community can and should help. It is time to increase international pressure and expand BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel to help bring a peaceful end to this conflict with its constant oppression and recurring massacres.
The alternative is very grim. As described by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, “The truth is that Israel is well prepared to massacre hundreds and thousands, and to expel tens of thousands. Nothing will stop it. This is the end of conscience, the show of morality is over. The last few days’ events have proved it decisively. The tracks have been laid, the infrastructure for the horror has been cast. Dozens of years of brainwashing, demonization and dehumanization have borne fruit. The alliance between the politicians and the media to suppress reality and deny it has succeeded. Israel is set to commit horrors. Nobody will stand in its way any longer. Not from within or from without.”
Palestinian courage should spur international action.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com
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Almost 100 Local Tribes Form Coalition to Expel US Forces From Syria – Reports
Sputnik – June 4, 2018
The presence of US troops in Syria is escalating tensions between government forces and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with some politicians and Syrian Army officers accusing the SDF of serving as “puppets” for the US and other western powers.
In excess of 70 Syrian tribal leaders met in the Aleppo Governorate, specifically the city of Deir Hafer, over the weekend to discuss plans and coordinate with one another to remove US forces from Syria, Al-Masdar News reported on Sunday.
Via a joint statement, the tribes, which are predominately Sunni Muslims, announced the formation of a coalition to oust US and French military personnel from Syria, in addition to liberating territory held by the SDF, provided Damascus is unable to negotiate a reconciliation deal with them.
The tribesmen also reportedly discussed the prospect of fighting Turkish forces in northwestern Syria.
The different tribes hail from various parts of Syria which are currently occupied by US-backed forces, including the oil-rich provinces of Deir ez-Zor and al-Hasakah.
Although there’s been some low-level, sporadic clashes and attacks on SDF bases in northern Syria in recent months, particularly in the Raqqa Governorate, where the Popular Resistance of Raqqa (PRoR) operates, we are yet to see the launch a wide scale, continuous anti-SDF operation, by either the Syrian Army or local militiamen.
However, in a recent interview with RT, President Bashar al-Assad warned that a wide scale anti-SDF offensive would be launched if negotiations fail.
In the meantime, the Syrian Army is mobilizing and deploying forces to southern Syria ahead of a major offensive in the Deraa government, where militants control a large chunk of territory, including parts of the provincial capital.
Last Friday, a military source confirmed to Sputnik reporter Suliman Mulhem that Hezbollah troops and other Iran-backed militiamen won’t be involved in the offensive, likely as part of an acceptable compromise reached with Israel via Russian mediators.
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US mulls expanding military intervention in Yemen: Report
Press TV – June 4, 2018
The United States is considering a request from the UAE to provide direct support for an attack to seize the Houthi-held port of Hudaydah, a major lifeline for Yemen, officials say.
US officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has asked for a prompt assessment of the UAE’s appeal for assistance such as surveillance drone flights to help a Saudi-led coalition capture Hudaydah.
The debate over increasing US support to the UAE and Saudi Arabia comes amid escalating military operations around the Yemeni port despite UN warnings of catastrophic effects on the impoverished country.
Eighty percent of commercial and humanitarian supplies flow through Hudaydah, a central gateway. Since May 27, forces supported by Saudi Arabia have been closing in on the port, claiming that Yemen’s Ansarullah movement uses it for weapons delivery.
American officials say the UAE and Saudi Arabia have assured Washington that they won’t attempt to take the Red Sea port until they get support from the US.
“We continue to have a lot of concerns about a Hudaydah operation,” said one senior US official, quoted by The Wall Street Journal.
“We are not 100% comfortable that, even if the coalition did launch an attack, that they would be able to do it cleanly and avoid a catastrophic incident,” the official added.
Senior Yemen specialists in the US administration were expected to meet on Monday to discuss what to do, the newspaper said.
According to the Journal, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have long sought to get backing from the US.
Last year, the Saudi-led coalition unsuccessfully sought to secure American intelligence, surveillance and direct support from elite US military forces for an attack on Hudaydah, former US administration officials said.
For now, prominent administration officials involved in the debate harbor reservations about expanding the American military role in Yemen, but some back providing assistance to the UAE, officials said.
“We have folks who are frustrated and ready to say: ‘Let’s do this. We’ve been flirting with this for a long time. Something needs to change the dynamic, and if we help the Emiratis do it better, this could be good,’” the senior US official said.
Some administration officials are also increasingly disappointed that both military and diplomatic efforts have bogged down, which is fueling efforts to cut US support for the fighting, the report said.
The US has been lavishing sophisticated weaponry upon Saudi Arabia since March 2015, when the latter attacked Yemen to restore its Riyadh-allied former government. Washington also helps to refuel Saudi and UAE warplanes that conduct airstrikes on Yemen.
According to figures released by the Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights, more than 600,000 people have been killed or injured in the Saudi war since 2015. Yemen has also turned into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The Red Cross and the United Nations have warned against the dangers of the Saudi-led operations in Hudaydah.
“The push for Hudaydah is likely to exacerbate an already catastrophic security situation in Yemen,” said François Moreillon, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen.
United Nations’ new special envoy on Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is to present his proposal for reviving peace talks to the UN Security Council in the next two weeks. He has publicly warned that an assault on Hudaydah “would take peace off the table.”
“We are all very concerned about the possible humanitarian consequences of a battle for Hudaydah,” he said.
Russia pushes back at US on North Korea
By M.K. Bhadrakumar | Asia Times | June 4, 2018
The visit by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Pyongyang on May 31 was a poignant moment for both countries. This was a rare meeting between a senior Russian official and a member of the Kim dynasty. Yet, Russia has been the oldest friend and mentor of the ruling family in Pyongyang.
Kim’s family escaped from Japanese-occupied Korea to the Soviet Union in 1920 when the revered founder of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, was only eight years old. He grew up in Russia, joined the Red Army and fought the Japanese in Manchuria. When World War II ended, Kim returned to his country and with some Soviet backing, went on to lead North Korea’s Communist Party and lay the foundations of the new state north of the 38th parallel.
Make no mistake, it was not a coincidence that Kim received Lavrov on the same day his deputy Vice-Chairman Kim Yong-chol met US President Donald Trump at the White House. Kim told Lavrov in front of TV cameras: “I highly value the fact that Putin’s administration strictly opposes the US’ hegemony. You strictly oppose, and we are always ready to conduct negotiations and a profound exchange of opinions with the Russian side on this issue.” Russia’s Cold War ally is picking up the threads with ease.
Unsurprisingly, Lavrov gave whole-hearted backing for the North Korean stance on the vexatious issue of denuclearization. In Lavrov’s words: “We assume that a complete resolution cannot be achieved until all the sanctions are lifted. It is up to the negotiators to make this happen, but in any case, it would be impossible to achieve this in a single round. The same applies to denuclearization. For this reason, this should be a step-by-step process with reciprocal moves at each of the stages.”
Denuclearization not a stand-alone issue
Lavrov called for a “judicious approach” not to rush things and cautioned against any “rash actions”, bearing in mind the need for “careful consideration and coordination of all elements of a package decision.” The carefully-chosen expression “package decision” implies that denuclearization is not a stand-alone issue.
He underscored: “Russia and North Korea hold a common view… We know that this is an extremely complicated problem and that the goal of denuclearization is inseparably connected with the eventual restoration of peace, stability and a system of interaction, cooperation and equal and indivisible security in Northeast Asia.” Simply put, Lavrov asserted Russia’s role in the current process as a stakeholder in the stability and security of its region. Interestingly, Lavrov flagged the need at some point to revive the format of six-party talks (involving the two Koreas, US, China, Japan and Russia.)
The Russian Foreign Minister also discussed substantive issues of bilateral cooperation in the economic sphere in anticipation of a post-sanctions future. In particular, he brought up the languishing 10-year-old idea of linking the Trans-Siberian and Trans-Korean railway systems to connect Moscow with Seoul via Pyongyang and to build a parallel gas pipeline.
Meeting between Putin and Kim soon?
Meanwhile, the speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, is expected to visit North Korea soon. Most importantly, a meeting between Putin and Kim is on the cards. Reports speculate that the meeting may take place as early as next week during Putin’s state visit to China following the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qingdao (June 9-10).
The Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov who accompanied Lavrov to Pyongyang was in Beijing on May 29 and would have discussed the forthcoming trip with Chinese officials. While in Beijing, Morgulov made some highly critical remarks about US policies in the Asia-Pacific, which reflected the thrust of Lavrov’s mission:
“I am referring… to the idea of the Indo-Pacific region, which the United States and Japan are actively advocating. Essentially, it is designed to divide the regional countries into friends and foes… Both Russia and China hold a diametrically opposite view. They are against creating blocs and believe that an effective and system-wide response to security challenges in the Asia Pacific must include a comprehensive military and political détente and uniform rules of the game… This architecture must be based on the universal principles of indivisible security and the supremacy of international law, as well as non-use of force or threat of force.”
Beijing has welcomed “Russia’s positive role” and said high-level exchanges between Russia and North Korea are “conducive to promoting the political settlement process of Korean Peninsula issue and upholding the peace and stability of the peninsula and Northeast Asia.” Russia is airing opinions supportive of North Korean concerns and vital interests, which Beijing shares but for obvious reasons is not in a position to voice openly.
Process will be a long haul
Clearly, Lavrov’s mission is making it more difficult for Washington to pressure the North Korean leadership or dictate the dynamics of the current process. Moscow is signaling that it will not remain a passive bystander (as in the negotiations over the Iran nuclear issue). And, it has taken a common position with Beijing that the denuclearization of North Korea impacts on the regional security matrix in Northeast Asia. Given this developing situation, the final outcome is almost certainly going to be a long haul.
Simply put, the US’ containment strategy against Russia and China has created a complex regional security environment in Northeast Asia. On one side there is talk of a new US military base in Poland and additional deployment of 30,000 NATO troops to Central Europe on Russia’s western fringe, while on the other side US Secretary of Defence James Mattis promised at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on the weekend to step up military pressure on China in the South China Sea, and Trump is beating the drums of a trade war with Beijing.
However, somewhat incredibly, in this milieu of growing big-power tensions, Washington still expects Moscow and Beijing to remain docile as Trump and his team go about denuclearizing North Korea and reset the regional security calculus. This expectation is plainly unrealistic. Moscow has signaled that as a stakeholder, it will push back and will not allow a replay of what happened over the Iran nuclear deal.
Significantly, Lavrov disclosed that the North Korean leadership is “fully aware” of developments relating to the US’ exit from the Iran nuclear deal, and “will determine its position taking into consideration all these factors.”
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New Book
The Garlic Book — 2026
Lies are Unbekoming | November 5, 2026
What The Garlic Book shows
The book is in four parts.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
Part Four, Garlic in Practice, is the working manual — the kitchen pharmacy, traditional uses by body system, a full chapter on safety and interactions, and a complaint-by-complaint practical guide. The book closes with The Trial That Was Never Run — a one-chapter reading of the whole evidential architecture.
At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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