Towards a Palestine Without Palestinians
Israel’s ethnic cleansing continues with no end in sight
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • DECEMBER 7, 2023
On Friday December 1st active Israeli combat operations resumed directed against Gaza after a one week “pause” to exchange hostages and prisoners. It should surprise no one to learn that Israel’s ultimate objective in its sustained war crime directed against Gaza is to kill and/or drive out its 2.3 million Palestinian inhabitants. The adopted policy, which has been revealed through a top level Israeli intelligence document relating to options for operations in Gaza that was leaked to the media, “…recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. …” to include “the evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.” And Israel should “Make It Clear [to the refugees that] there Is No Hope of Returning [home]” with the final objective being “wiping Gaza off the map.”
Less widely observed or even reported in the western media, however, is the associated campaign to drive out the Palestinians living in the other major Arab enclave the West Bank, where armed settlers and soldiers have been shooting to kill and imprisoning local residents, to include children, to set the stage for forcing the local population across the Jordan River into Jordan itself. Part of the program has been to destroy the livelihoods of the 3 million plus Palestinians who have resisted previous efforts to pressure them into leaving what remains of Palestine. It is the harvest season in Palestine and the major cash crop is olive oil, so settlers and soldiers have been destroying olive trees and closing off roads so that the olives cannot be harvested and brought to market. It is just one measure of the hardships being inflicted on the Palestinians by an Israeli government that clearly believes that the way to treat Arabs is to regularly force them to endure maximum pain and suffering. Many would also argue that it is precisely those policies that produced the armed incursion into Israel by Hamas.
The Israeli intelligence assessment also cites the need to keep “friends” in the US and NATO supportive, or at least not critical, of the ethnic cleansing or genocide of the Palestinians while it is taking place. That would seem to be rather tricky as there have been large demonstrations in most European capitals as well as in American cities calling for a ceasefire and supporting the Palestinians. Against that, European leaders have been reluctant to directly criticize Israel and have repeatedly voiced their delusional view that Israel has a “right to defend itself,” a punchline that one often hears in the halls of the US Congress and coming from the White House.
UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has dismissed the “defense” argument as “Israel cannot claim self-defense from a threat that emanates from a territory that it occupies – from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation.” Beyond that, defending oneself should not necessarily include the targeted killing of thousands of helpless civilians together with the wholesale destruction of infrastructure to include hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, churches and mosques, which never seems to occur to the Nancy Pelosis and Chuck Schumers who unfortunately share our planet with us. Nor to Joe Biden, apparently, as he is dependent on Jewish donations and friendly media to support his next presidential campaign.
To help the ethnic cleansing succeed as smoothly as possible, the Israeli intelligence produced document encourages the Israel government to work through all its friendly media and lobbying groups to develop a publicity campaign in the Western world to promote the transfer plan by obtaining international support “in a way that does not incite or vilify Israel.” This would be done by presenting the expulsion of Gaza’s population in a positive light as a humanitarian necessity, arguing that relocation will lead to “fewer casualties among the civilian population compared to the expected casualties if the population remains.” The document also recommends that the United States should be enlisted in the process to exert pressure on Egypt to absorb the Palestinian residents of Gaza.
No doubt the gutless Mr. Biden will do whatever it takes to help his Zionist friends and it is interesting to note that the Israeli government is already heavily engaged in its propaganda blitz in the United States, where it helps to have a strongly Jewish Hollywood as an ally. A notorious video of a choir of Jewish children singing angelic praise for mass murder is being circulated both by the Israeli government and by Jewish Lobby groups. The production, entitled in Hebrew translated into English as “The Friendship Song 2023,” was produced by Israel’s Rosenbaum Communications and it could quite possibly represent a new low in manipulative war propaganda, even low for Israel. The video was so objectionable that it was removed from its biggest platform “for violating You Tube’s Terms of Service.” The children affirmed in their song that “we will show the world how we destroyed our enemy… within a year we will annihilate everyone.” “Everyone” was intended to mean all the Palestinians.
There is also a film entitled “Bearing Witness,” which was produced by the Israeli army’s so-called Spokespersons Unit, which has been making the rounds on the West Coast and also in private showings before members of congress. The film shows alleged “Hamas atrocities” and has been viewed at select gatherings for the past three weeks, with one showing in New York City hosted by actress Gal Gadot, an Israeli army veteran last seen playing Wonder Woman, causing a riot when protesters showed up. A recent showing to a group of Senators on Capitol Hill concluded with America’s Solons staggering out crying and otherwise expressing both their horror and their emotion as well as their love for Israel. Interestingly, the “evidence” presented in the film has been contradicted by a number of eyewitnesses and Jewish hostage/survivors of the October 7th attack by Hamas, who have stated that they were treated well and that most of the deaths came not from Hamas but from the counter-attack by the Israeli military.
But truly the biggest surprise in where the catastrophe of Gaza might be leading is coming from the Europeans. One would expect maneuvering to avoid too deep involvement in the Gaza conflict, but quite to the contrary some European leaders are eager to help Israel out in its search for a “final solution” for dealing with the Palestinians. Referring to the mass expulsion of millions of people as any kind of “solution” is apparently a polite expression for what has surfaced regarding the EU’s attempted bribery of Egypt and Jordan. Reportedly, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, has recently visited Egypt and Jordan to present them with financial inducements ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the transfer of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip to their territory – effectively to facilitate the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the Strip in line with Israel’s intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
And there should be no doubt that the Netanyahu government has clearly decided to use the Hamas attack as an excuse to finally put an end to what it sees as the Gaza problem. The Israeli view on the proper outcome has been several times outlined by government officials, one of whom is prepared to use his country’s nominally secret nuclear weapons to clear out the Gaza Strip completely. On the day after the Hamas attack, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant notoriously announced that the “human animals” in Gaza would be subjected to a “siege” including being cut off from all food, water, and electricity. Likud Knesset Member Ariel Kallner has elaborated how “the solution… to move the population to Egypt, is a logical and necessary solution.” Former minister Ayalet Shaked’s tweet “After we turn Khan Yunis into a soccer field, we need to tell the countries that each of them take a quota: We need all 2 million to leave.” That’s what Israel’s leadership increasingly sees as its own version of the “solution” for Gaza. And nobody is mentioning how there will, of course, be a payoff in getting rid of the Gazans when the oil and gas fields off the Gaza shoreline fall into Israel’s hands to be exploited.
Another Israeli leadership bright spark is not intimidated by words like “genocide” and is prepared to unleash plague to get rid of the Gazans. Major General Giora Eiland has been arguing that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate enemy terrorist targets and that even a “severe epidemic” in Gaza will only serve a good cause, i.e. to “bring victory closer.” And it does not end there. Government minister in charge of the West Bank Bezalel Smotrich wants to apply the Gaza solution to the remaining Palestinian territory that he oversees as the occupying power. Smotrich, a settler himself, has submitted a plan for Israel to annex the entire West Bank. He claims that Palestinian territories on the West Bank are “home” to two million nazis who will have to be forced to leave.
Is there no end to the carnage in sight? Not really, as even the Israelis are predicting a drawn-out months long campaign amidst the rubble of Gaza to completely destroy Hamas. The key to some kind of admittedly temporary resolution is for the United States to actually use its considerable leverage over Israel due to the money and weapons that it is supplying to keep the war going. A ceasefire driven by Washington would create some space to consider the damage that is being done to all sides involved while seeking a solution that gives Israel security and the Palestinians some kind of real sovereignty where they will not feel trapped and persecuted. Alas, however, such forward thinking is not about to come out of Washington and hopes for a European initiative are likely to be squashed by EU President Ursula von der Leyen and her advisers, all of whom seem intent on vindicating Israel’s actions. And, like the slaughtered Ukrainian soldier-victims in that other senseless and avoidable conflict, the ones who will be paying the biggest price will inevitably be the ordinary defenseless Palestinians who will wind up bereft of their homes, their jobs and, all too often, their very lives.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
What Would Happen If the US Stopped Supporting Ukraine?
By Connor O’Keeffe – Mises Wire – 12/06/2023
Over the weekend, border-policy negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans fell apart. The talks were meant to firm up Republican support for the president’s massive $105 billion military support proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote by including additional funds for border security in the spending package. Now, with no imminent approval of further aid to Ukraine, hawks in government and the media are trying to stoke panic about what will happen if Kyiv is cut off from US support.
In a letter to Congress Monday, White House budget director Shalanda Young told Congress the funds will dry up by the end of the year:
I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks. There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money—and nearly out of time.
Young goes on to forecast disaster for Ukraine if more money isn’t allocated. But is that really accurate? Are the Ukrainian people doomed if Washington stops funding the war?
If we’re going to understand what might happen in the absence of US involvement in Ukraine, we must first understand Washington’s actual effect on the war, the true nature of which has been laid out brilliantly in a series of recent columns by Ted Snider.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began with a bombardment of cruise missiles on February 24, 2022. Later that day, infantry and armored divisions rolled in from Russia, Belarus, and Crimea while paratroopers dropped in around the capital city of Kyiv.
Days later, as the shock and confusion of the initial offensive began to dissipate, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to set up indirect talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Zelensky called then–Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and asked him to contact Putin and to serve as a mediator. Bennett agreed.
Over the next week, Bennett had a series of phone calls with Putin before traveling to Moscow and Berlin to help organize diplomatic communication channels. His effort culminated in a March 10 meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Turkey.
In the series of talks that followed, Bennett described both sides as making “huge concessions” in pursuit of a ceasefire.
But Kyiv’s Western backers were resistant to the truce. At a special summit on March 24, NATO decided not to support or approve the peace negotiations. Still, Zelensky and Putin kept at it. And on March 29, the two sides reached an agreement.
According to a draft unsealed this past June, Russia had agreed to pull its forces back to prewar boundaries. In exchange, Ukraine had agreed it would not seek NATO membership.
So why didn’t it happen? Well, it may have started to. In early April, Russia withdrew its forces from northern Ukraine, around Kyiv—an action Putin later said was related to the Istanbul agreement.
But then, according to Bennett, former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and the leader of the Ukrainian delegation to the talks, David Arakhamia, the West pressured Zelensky to abandon negotiations and fight.
Assuming the best intentions, it’s possible officials in Washington and Brussels believed the Ukrainians could win enough battles to improve their leverage in future negotiations. But that is not what happened.
Instead, Washington bankrolled a horrifying twenty-one-month war of attrition that has cost the people of Ukraine greatly in land, lives, and limbs. After talks broke down, Russia laid permanent claim to tens of thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory that it had earlier agreed to relinquish.
Last summer, Ukrainian forces began attempting to retake this land by force in the so-called counteroffensive. But they have since lost more territory than they have gained. Ukraine keeps its casualty count classified, but by the end of August US estimates had put it north of two hundred thousand. And it has likely climbed substantially with the ongoing struggle to break through heavy Russian minefields.
As their supply of military-aged men has dwindled, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier has climbed to forty-three. And now there is a push within the Ukrainian government to lower the draft age to begin conscripting those who have so far been too young to be eligible.
The Ukrainian people are being put through hell. And now even senior Ukrainian military officials admit there is no military path out.
If the purpose of stifling the Istanbul agreement was to help the Ukrainians gain more leverage, the West must admit failure before Ukraine loses even more.
And if Washington’s intentions were more nefarious—as comments from officials like Mitch McConnell, who have framed the war as an easy way to burden Russia without spilling American blood, suggest—that’s all the more reason to call off this horrific project.
That brings us back to the original question. What would happen if the United States stopped supporting Ukraine? We already know. Ukraine and Russia would work toward a deal. It won’t go as well for Ukraine as it did almost two years ago when they were stronger. But it’s not a path to fear. Because the alternative is that the White House gets its way and this brutal, unnecessary war carries on. And that’s so much worse.
Moscow rejects US narrative on aid for Kiev
RT | December 7, 2023
Claims in Washington that Russian President Vladimir Putin may attack NATO, unless Congress allocates tens of billions of dollars in additional Ukraine funding are “bogeyman stories,” Moscow’s ambassador in the US capital Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday.
White House officials, including President Joe Biden, have claimed that by withholding aid from Kiev, American lawmakers were increasing the risk of a direct US-Russia war.
“If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” Biden said in an address on Wednesday, in which he made a last-ditch appeal to lawmakers to appropriate over $110 billion in assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
Touting the scenario of a Russian attack on NATO, Biden stressed that then American troops will have to get involved directly. The Russian leadership has not expressed an intention to “take Ukraine,” let alone invade any NATO member.
Antonov dismissed the narrative, accusing those who repeat it of “myth-making and [the] propagation of dangerous lies” about his nation.
“In an attempt to ‘add fuel’ to the fire of the Ukrainian proxy war, [US] authorities have finally lost touch with reality,” he claimed in remarks posted by the embassy.
“Washington and [the] insatiable US military-industrial complex are direct beneficiaries of the bloodshed in Ukraine,” Antonov added.
In his pitch to Congress, Biden claimed that the Russian leader’s ambition was to “dominate Ukraine” and warned that “the entire world is watching” Washington’s actions. America is “the reason Putin has not totally overrun Ukraine and moved beyond that,” he claimed.
Moscow has cited NATO’s expansion in Europe and the pledge that Ukraine will eventually join the US-led military bloc among the causes of the crisis. It was willing to seal a truce with Kiev in the early phase of the conflict in exchange for Ukrainian neutrality.
However, Russia’s opponent ditched a proposed peace agreement and opted for continued hostilities, after then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the country to “just make war,” according to David Arakhamia, who headed the Ukrainian delegation at the Türkiye-mediated negotiations.
Biden accused Republican opponents of his request of being willing to “literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” and “give Putin the greatest gift he could hope for and abandon our global leadership not just to Ukraine.”
Nevertheless, Republican senators voted unanimously against the aid, which was bundled in a spending package, later in the day. The GOP legislators insisted that the White House and Democratic lawmakers make concessions on immigration reform and border security before they were willing to approve additional tens of billions of aid to Kiev.
Analyst: US Claims to Desire Peace With China ‘Nullified’ by ‘Extraordinarily Belligerent’ Behavior
By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 06.12.2023
The US is pushing the Philippines into adopting a belligerent stance in a small territorial dispute with China as part of longstanding plans to weaken Beijing by starting a war in the South China Sea, an essential sea lane to the Chinese economy, a regional expert told Sputnik.
The monthslong standoff over Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea has continued to simmer as China and the Philippines challenge the other’s claim of sovereignty over the submerged coral reef and the United States inserts itself into the dispute.
On Monday, Beijing said that the American littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords “illegally intruded” in the waters near the shoal, which the US Navy claimed was “conducting routine operations in international waters … consistent with international law.”
Such maneuvers are called “Freedom of Navigation Operations” (FONOPS) and are designed to show US contempt for what it considers the “excessive” maritime claims of other nations according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a treaty the US has never ratified.
“The US deliberately disrupted the situation in the South China Sea, seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined regional peace and stability, and seriously violated international law and basic norms governing international relations, fully demonstrating that the US is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea,” the southern command of the People’s Liberation Army said in a statement on the episode.
KJ Noh, a scholar, educator and journalist focusing on the Asia-Pacific, and a member of Veterans for Peace, told Sputnik on Tuesday that the US had thrown its weight behind Manila in the dispute in the hopes of turning what should be a small, peacefully-resolved territorial dispute into a casus belli with Beijing, allowing it to deal a mortal blow to the Chinese economy.
Noh referred to a recently published article in a Hong Kong-based newspaper highlighting how the US is violating international law in its purported push to “stop China from violating international law.”
“So what Alex Lo in the South China Morning Post is pointing out is that the US always talks the talk that, you know, that it is following the ‘rules-based international order’ – which is essentially US hegemony, it has nothing to do with international law. And at the same time, it is always criticizing and decrying China’s violations of the UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. And what Alex Lo is pointing out is that as the US encircles China with myriad bases and weaponizes them in order to create this massive threat projection platform, it is breaking the law, left, right and center.”
“And so, for example, he points out that in the Cocos Islands, which are possessed by Australia, the understanding is that the caucus islands are not supposed to be militarized. But even as we speak, the Australians are turning it into a platform to launch both submarines and planes. And so this is in direct violation of the understanding that Australia has with the United Nations.”
“And then the other very, very egregious violation is the Chagos Archipelago. Now, once again, you know, the Chagos Islands, the UK forced the Chagos Islanders off – essentially did an ethnic cleansing threatening them with genocide – and then force them off the islands and turned it into a base which it turned over to the United States. And this land, the Chagos Islands, should be given back to the Chagos Islanders. This was the ruling of the legitimate international courts, and the US and the UK have refused to do that.”
“And so all of this goes to show that the United States claims that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea applies to China, but in fact all the rulings and all the agreements that are part of international law the US routinely violates in order to escalate to war against China. So this is just a very, very good example of pointing out the extraordinary hypocrisy of the United States as it prepares for war.”
“The US actions are continually ratcheting up, continual escalation, continually accelerating the material conditions for war. All of this is direct preparation for war. And so whatever the US says in public or in diplomatic venues means nothing. It’s completely nullified by these extraordinarily belligerent – and as Alex Lo points out illegal – actions that the US is currently engaging in.”
“As the US escalates to war with China, the South China Sea, along with Taiwan Island in the East China Sea, and then the Korean Peninsula, will be the three main battlegrounds. The US is preparing these for kinetic war and in order to prepare this for kinetic war, the idea is to choke off the South China Sea. And once thier shooting war starts in the South China Sea, it doesn’t matter if the US wins it or not, just the disruption to trade and traffic will be enough to bring China down. China’s economy will shrink by 25 to 35% because $5.3 trillion worth of goods and most of China’s oil travels through the South China Sea. So this is the game plan.”
“And what they are doing is they’re weaponizing the Philippines as its key provocateur against China. And so inside that larger context, what the Philippines has done is they’ve run aground a rusting ship, the Sierra Madre, on the Second Thomas Shoal, which China claims – and that entire area that China claims, it’s actually contested between four countries, and these contestations would have been resolved peacefully, except for that the United States got involved on the part of the Philippines and then created this fraudulent tribunal by which it now claims that it has legitimate rights.”
“So since the Philippines has run aground a rusting ship on the Second Thomas Shoal in order to squat it, essentially they’re claiming squatter’s rights and they leave a bunch of sailors in there for months at a time. These sailors cannot get off the ship, you know, the reef is not self-sustaining, it’s mostly submerged. And the Chinese want them to leave and they want them to get that junked ship off the Thomas Shoal. It’s like if you were to leave your junked car on my lawn in order to claim it as yours. I mean I think you might be a little bit upset there.”
“So this is the essential contestation that’s happening. The Chinese assert that the Sierra Madre should be removed and the Philippines should not squat in that area, and the US is threatening to use this as a kind of casus belli that, you know, if China does anything against the Philippines, then the US will use the mutual defense treaty to get involved. So it’s a very delicate situation and essentially the US is trying to provoke war in the South China Sea.”
“We have to understand geostrategic and global war in terms of choke points: who controls the choke points determines who has strategic advantage. And in this case, the US is trying to gain or leverage strategic advantage by initiating a shooting war in the South China Sea. The US doesn’t have to win it, all you need is the congestion, that congestion will damage China. That’s the game plan that’s mapped out by Rand in their 2015 war document.”
Venezuela Rejects Statements by the President of Guyana
teleSUR | December 6, 2023
On Wednesday, the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the statements made by Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali regarding the Essequibo region. The text of the Venezuelan response is presented below:
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela condemns the recent statements made by President Irfaan Ali, who, in a reckless manner, has given the green light to the presence of the United States Southern Command in the territory of the Guayana Esequiba region, over which Guyana maintains a de facto occupation and a territorial dispute with Venezuela.
This dispute is meant to be resolved through the 1966 Geneva Agreement, the only valid legal instrument between the parties.
Venezuela denounces, before the international community, and especially before the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the imprudent attitude of Guyana.
Acting under the mandate of the U.S. transnational Exxon Mobil, Guyana is opening the possibility of establishing military bases for an imperial power, thereby threatening the Zone of Peace outlined in this region.
The Cooperative Republic of Guyana recklessly violates international law, taking actions that exacerbate the territorial dispute and add to its illegal conduct of granting oil exploitation rights to Exxon Mobil over a sea area pending delimitation with Venezuela.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, true to its doctrine of Bolivarian Diplomacy for Peace, urges the Government of Guyana to abandon its erratic, threatening, and risky behavior and to resume the path of direct dialogue through the Geneva Agreement.”
Hamas: Biden’s sexual violence claims “cheap Zionist propaganda”
Palestine Information Center – December 6, 2023
GAZA – The Hamas Movement has strongly denounced US president Joe Biden for adopting the Israeli narrative that accuses Palestinian resistance fighters of committing sexual assaults on October 7.
In a statement on Tuesday, Hamas said Biden’s sexual violence claims against its fighters reflected his moral decline and his adoption of Israeli propaganda.
Hamas said that Biden was “supposed to have a minimum level of objectivity and avoid repeating empty and baseless accusations and adopting cheap Zionist propaganda.”
“Repeating such a blatant lie is a Zionist behavior aimed at covering up the ethnic cleansing and genocidal crimes that are being committed by the criminal Nazi occupied army against our people, with American cover and weapons,” Hamas underscored.
Hamas also described Biden’s remarks as “an attempt to mislead the public opinion after the world has seen the good treatment the detainees received from the resistance.”
The Movement called on the international media outlets to side with the truth and debunk the new Zio-American claims against the Palestinian resistance, as they did before when they exposed the lies of beheading children and using Al-Shifa Hospital as a command and control center.
Expert: Washington is Zionist-Controlled Territory
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 06.12.2023
Speaking to Sputnik’s Political Misfits on Tuesday, scientist, author and activist for Palestinian Human Rights, Mazin Qumsiyeh said Israel’s actions in Gaza are a genocide that has been ignored by the world, and that Zionists in Israel want to dominate the Middle East and potentially beyond.
Asked what comes next in the conflict, Qumsiyeh said that soon disease, malnutrition and a lack of water and medicine will lead to a civilian death toll that will “quickly overtake the number of civilians killed by bombings.”
He then moved onto discussing what he believes to be Israel’s plans after Gaza.
“That is the long-term plan of Israel, a newly dominated Middle East, in which Israel holds hegemony. But I don’t think they will stop with the Middle East, they will continue because that is what colonialist powers do,” Qumsiyeh warned. “I think China and Russia and other countries need to pay attention very closely to what Israeli plans have been.”
Israel started heavily bombing Gaza days after a surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, which killed around 1,200 Israelis according to official numbers. It has since launched a ground campaign in Gaza, promising to eliminate Hamas. More than 16,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, including over 7,000 children.
Multiple human rights organizations have described Israel’s actions as genocidal. Israel has targeted UN schools, refugee camps and hospitals, claiming that Hamas militants are hiding in those areas or using them as a base of operation.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why so many countries are silent on this, on an ongoing holocaust, an ongoing genocide,” Qumsiyeh said, adding that he believes it is “not [just] a Palestinian problem, it’s a global problem.”
“The State Department now basically works 95% of its time for Israel,” Qumsiyeh said, pointing to a recent resignation by State Department official Josh Paul, who said in media interviews that there “has been no space allowed for debate” on the transfer of arms to Israel.
“… since Washington is a superpower, with the tails of Washington being the UK and many other countries like Canada and Australia follow suit. So we have a major global problem that could lead to world war,” Qumsiyeh said. “It also already led to the destruction of international law and order and already the UN has become a totally useless organization.”
Political Misfits co-host John Kiriakou asked Qumsiyeh if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could lose his position and if it would matter if he did.
“They need to be stopped as a collective, not as Netanyahu, let’s not make it personal about Netanyahu,” he added.
Israel has maintained that it is doing all that it can to protect civilians in Gaza while attempting to eliminate Hamas. It has repeatedly dismissed claims that has committed war crimes in Gaza.
Top Defense Official: US Can Handle Middle East, Russia and China All at Once
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 5, 2023
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said the Pentagon was prepared to fight a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, aid the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, and arm Taiwan for a potential war with China. The Admiral argued all the military efforts could be completed simultaneously and the Navy was not stretched thin.
At an Atlantic Council event, Grady said, “You look at what is required to support Ukraine, look at what might be required to support our partner in Israel, and then, of course, you put Taiwan on top of that—we have the construct that we do with combatant commanders and the rest that should allow us to command and control those three things all at one time.” He continued, “It’s part of our campaigning process, which is central to the national defense strategy. Is it challenging? Sure.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Biden administration pledged to give Ukraine the weapons needed to win the war. Over the past 19 months, Washington has sent Kiev tens of billions in arms.
Over the past two months, Washington has sent Tel Aviv 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells. Israel has targeted civilian homes with American-made bombs. However, the White House has refused to place any conditions on the aid it sends to Tel Aviv.
The transfers have stretched American weapons depots to their redline levels. The shortage has led the White House to send cluster variants of artillery shells to both Ukraine and Israel.
In addition to arms transfers, the US has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to Eastern Europe to train Ukrainian troops and facilitate weapons shipments to Kiev. In the Middle East region, the White House deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups.
Grady’s belief that the US could fight a three-front war is White House policy. President Joe Biden is pushing Congress to pass a $106 billion funding package to fund arming Ukraine, Israel, and a military buildup in the Asia-Pacific.
The Admiral also indicated that military-to-military talks between the US and China may start soon. “So we’re ready when they are and I suspect we’ll see that shortly, “he said.
During a meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month, the two leaders agreed to resume military-to-military communications. However, the US has engaged in a pair of provocative naval maneuvers in the South China Sea to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims.
US House Speaker issues Ukraine ultimatum to Biden
RT | December 5, 2023
Getting the Republican-majority House of Representatives to approve additional funding for Ukraine would require first securing the US border with Mexico, Speaker Mike Johnson told the White House on Tuesday.
The Louisiana Republican was responding to Monday’s public letter from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young, who warned that the US was “out of money—and nearly out of time” in terms of aid to Ukraine and Israel. Young argued that cutting off US aid would “kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield” and increase the “likelihood of Russian military victories.”
Johnson first addressed Israel, noting that the House approved the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act (HR 6126) on November 2, but that Democrats who control the Senate “voted to block consideration of the bill.”
As for Ukraine, Johnson wrote, the Republican position has remained unchanged since his meeting with Young and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on October 26, when he laid out “two essential prerequisites: security at our border, and critical answers regarding the funds requested.”
Six days prior, President Joe Biden had announced the proposal to bundle the funding for Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan and immigration and border enforcement in a $106 billion package, of which about $60 billion would go to Kiev.
Additional funding for Ukraine is “dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” Johnson wrote on Tuesday. The House passed the Secure the Border Act of 2023 (HR 2), “more than six months ago,” he noted, but the Senate Democrats have “refused to act” on it.
Pointing to over 6.5 million “illegal alien encounters” along the southern US border since Biden took office, of which 294 involved people “on the terrorist watchlist,” Johnson called the situation “an unconscionable and unsustainable catastrophe.”
In addition to “madness” on the border, Johnson noted that the White House still owed Congress “a full accounting of how prior US military and humanitarian aid” to Ukraine was spent “and an explanation of the president’s strategy to ensure an accelerated path to victory.” He accused Biden of “failure thus far to present clearly defined objectives,” and to provide Kiev the weapons it needed on time.
“Rather than engaging with Congressional Republicans to discuss logical reforms, the Biden Administration has ignored reality, choosing instead to engage in political posturing,” the House speaker said.
Talks on a border security bill in the Senate collapsed earlier in the day, as Democrats denounced the Republican proposal as “extreme,” claiming it would “end asylum as we know it.”
Peace Talks With Russia? UK & US Seeking Quick Face-Saving Exit From Ukraine Debacle – CIA Vet
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 05.12.2023
There is a rumor in British diplomatic circles about forcing Ukraine to negotiate a way out of the conflict with Russia, per the UK podcast Politics at Jack and Sam’s. Could the reported chatter be real, and if so, what’s behind it?
The Western press is citing Ukrainian politicians expressing criticism with regard to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive, with British observers suggesting that the Kiev regime could soon be forced to sit down with Russia and hold talks. As it recently turned out, it was then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who encouraged Zelensky to tear up the preliminary peace agreement with Moscow in 2022. Is London’s position on Ukraine changing?
“Well, their opinion is going to have to change, because the events on the ground are going to dictate it, with Ukraine losing militarily and neither the US nor the UK being in a position to supply any kind of significant weaponry,” retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik. “And even if they did, who’s going to use it? That’s Ukraine’s fundamental problem right now – it’s a lack of manpower. And over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen more and more stories, more independent evidence that Ukraine has just suffered massive losses, both killed and wounded, that are incapable of returning to the fight. So, I think this flood of information will keep pouring out. And each day it’s going to add to the problems that Zelensky faces in trying to hang on to power.”
This is not the first time the rumor of potential Russo-Ukrainian negotiations has made its way to the press. In late November, the German newspaper Bild alleged a plot between Washington and Berlin to twist Zelensky’s arm into holding talks with Russia by substantially diminishing military aid to Kiev. According to the German publication, there is also a plan B envisaging a frozen conflict that would solidify a new “quasi-border” between Ukraine and Russia along the contact line.
Per Johnson, even if the West is ready for negotiations over Ukraine, they should bear in mind that nobody in Russia would allow them to fool Moscow after the derailed Istanbul talks of March 2022 and the Bucha hoax widely circulated by the Western press. However, it’s still unclear what the US and its NATO allies really want: a sustainable peace, or merely a frozen conflict.
“Well, again, this is the problem,” the former CIA analyst pointed out. “There has been no negotiation of any substance between the United States and Russia for now more than two years. The last time Putin entered into negotiations to negotiate a peace – that was a year ago, in April. And the West, Biden, Boris Johnson, they sabotaged it. They destroyed it. They made sure that the Ukrainians knew that they were not to agree to any deal. And that’s how they treat it. My own perception is that the Russians are still smarting over that betrayal, because they legitimately thought they had an agreement in place. And then within days, as they’re pulling back their forces from north of Kiev, the tank forces, the United States and the United Kingdom launched this propaganda campaign, accusing Russia of war crimes in Bucha. It was a blatant lie, it wasn’t true. But again, the truth didn’t matter anymore.”
Meanwhile, The Economist, a British magazine, has drawn attention to the fact that Zelensky’s approval rating is in free fall after the botched counteroffensive attempt, while Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny commands 70% support. Per the media, the two are at odds, as Zelensky apparently fears that Zaluzhny may be picked as his successor.
“Well, the Americans are trying to figure out how to get rid of Zelensky,” Johnson said. “And I think this is just a natural outgrowth of the various plotting and scheming. I think part of it is wishful thinking on the part of Americans. They launched this war as a proxy war against Russia, fully expecting Ukraine to defeat Russia. It was going to cause the collapse of Vladimir Putin and could ultimately lead to the breakup of Russia. And instead, it’s not turned out that way at all. It has completely backfired.”
“So what you’re getting now are these, let’s call them crazy ideas. People keep thinking that, ‘Okay, we can engineer this in such a way that maybe we will replace Zelensky with Zaluzhny.’ [… ] But these are the kinds of rumors that are circulating. What’s clear is that Zelensky does not have a secure hold on the presidency in Ukraine. And right now, there is a meeting underway in Washington with, I guess, the next in line for the presidency, probably because Zelensky himself didn’t feel secure leaving Ukraine right now to go beg for more money. And so he’s sticking close to home in order to just, I think, try to preserve his position.”
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US murdering 1 million Iraqis is democracy, Iran giving yogurt to Iraq is “domination”
By Ali Salaam | American Herald Tribune | July 31, 2017
The New York Times, owned by the Zionist Jewish supremacist Ochs-Sulzberger family, has no problem with Iraqi suffering as long as Iran is not the one behind it.
The Iraq War was a genocide of the Iraqi people by Zionist supremacists in the Bush administration. Over 1 million innocent people were killed based on a lie. American soldiers died in an Israeli war and now an average of 22 soldiers commit suicide every day because their consciences cannot cope with the fact they committed crimes in an illegal war that served no purpose other than to benefit Israel, not America.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the Zionist regime, once said “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.”
Paul Wolfowitz had his sights on Iraq since his time in the first Bush administration. Former Israeli official and Bush administration official Richard Perle had his eyes on Iraq since at least his authorship of the Clean Break white paper. The Zionist regime had their eyes on Iraq since the 1980s when strategist Oded Yinon wrote his white paper in support of dividing the Arab-Muslim world along ethnic and sectarian lines. The global Zionist lobby has had their eyes on Iraq since Theodor Herzl stated that Eretz Israel’s true borders go from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. … continue
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