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Virginia Goes Zionist

Jewish power manifest in the Old Dominion

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • March 31, 2020

Politicians, bureaucrats and media talking heads have long turned a blind eye to legislation and policies that benefit the state of Israel to the detriment of United States’ interests. The U.S. Treasury is plausibly describable as a gift that never stops giving to the people and governments of Jewish state. Since the foundation of Israel in 1948, the federal government in Washington has provided some $142.3 billion in direct aid of various kinds. Currently, Israel receives $3.8 billion per annum guaranteed for ten years, a sum that is supplemented by various giveaways, tax concessions and co-production arrangements from the government. Private “charitable” donations from individuals, businesses and foundations, some of which are fraudulent, considerably augment those numbers, making the total that Israel receives annually from the United States well in excess of $10 billion. A considerable proportion of that money is technically illegal, as it goes in support of the Israeli settlements on Arab land. No other country has received anything even approaching what Israel gets from the American taxpayer in one form or another and the one-way flow of money is also remarkable in that it has been guaranteed well into the future.

Other benefits obtained by Israel from the United States are less easy to quantify, to include the theft of U.S. military technology, which is then copied and sold by the Israeli arms industry, directly eliminating American jobs in one of the few manufacturing sectors that is relatively speaking thriving. There is also the observable transfer of high-tech jobs from the U.S. to Israel, engineered by Jewish billionaires like Paul Singer who are able to influence such decisions in the corporate world.

Israel also benefits enormously from the United States-Israel Free Trade Agreement of 1985, which is, by design, intended to give the Jewish state free access to the huge U.S. market without any real reciprocity for U.S. companies to enter the tiny Israeli market. Israel also is able to bid on U.S. government contracts, including classified defense contracts, a practice that has led to several lawsuits when the Israeli company gets a contract by lowballing the bid but then fails to perform. In some cases, Israeli companies have submitted low bids to obtain contracts at state and federal levels even when they had no relevant experience and no facilities that can actually perform the work. They pocket the subsidies and advance payments they receive from local governments and states and then effectively disappear.

The desire of some American Jews who occupy powerful positions to aid Israel at the expense of the United States is despicable, sustained by the lie that Israel is an ally and that both countries ultimately benefit from the process. Israel’s ability to impose its own priorities at the levels of Congress and the White House has long been observed, but its political manipulation and ability to corrupt U.S. democracy of behalf of a foreign power have lately been extended to the state and local levels. This shift is due in part to the desire on the part of Israel’s promoters to shut down the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. It has proven difficult to pass an unconstitutional national level ban on non-violent criticism of Israel going through Congress, so the Israel firsters have instead concentrated on the states. Twenty-eight states now have some form of legislation that denies state services or jobs to anyone who does not sign an agreement to not boycott Israel. A particularly draconian bill being considered in Florida equates any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, enabling any critic to be sued in courts for hate speech.

A particularly egregious and also unique example of a state’s economic policies being manipulated by a dedicated Israeli fifth column in government is the Virginia Israel Advisory Board. Grant Smith, long a critic of the VIAB, heads the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP). He has written a new book entitled The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise of the Virginia Israel Advisory Board, which documents in considerable detail how the conspiracy by powerful Jews in Virginia to benefit Israel has actually operated, much of it secretly through special arrangements and deals. He has also had a long interview with Scott Horton of Antiwar.com regarding the book which is well worth listening to.

The VIAB is unique because it is actually part of the Virginia state government. It is funded by the Commonwealth of Virginia and is able to access funds from other government agencies to support Israeli businesses. It is staffed by Israelis and American Jews drawn from what has been described as the “Israel advocacy ecosystem” and is self-administered, appointing its own members and officers. While there are many Israel business promotion entities active in the United States, only Virginia has such a group actually sitting within the government itself, ready to make secret preferential agreements, to arrange special concessions on taxes and to establish start-up subsidies for Israeli businesses. Israeli business projects have been, as a result, regularly funded using Virginia state resources with little accountability. Bear in mind that this agency exists not to promote Virginia businesses but rather to give an advantage to Israeli businesses, some of which might even be competing with existing Virginia companies and putting local people out of work.

Virginia already runs an estimated $500 million trade deficit with Israel due to the federal Free Trade Agreement and the promotion of Israeli businesses in the state, which repatriate their profits to Israel, adds considerably to that sum. Smith reports how VIAB is not just an economic mechanism. Its charter states that it was “created to foster closer economic integration between the United States and Israel while supporting the Israeli government’s policy agenda.” Smith also has observed that “VIAB is a pilot for how Israel can quietly obtain taxpayer funding and official status for networked entities that advance Israel from within key state governments.”

Jewish federations and groups active on behalf of Israel were present in Virginia before VIAB was founded in 1996. Its Godfather was Eric Cantor, a state legislator who later entered Congress as the only Jewish Republican, where he was a powerful advocate for Israel. The board grew significantly under governor Terry McAuliffe’s administration (2014-2018). McAuliffe, regarded by many as the Clintons’ “bag man,” received what were regarded as generous out-of-state campaign contributors from actively pro-Israeli billionaires Haim Saban and J.B. Pritzker, who were both affiliated with the Democratic Party. McAuliffe met regularly in off-the-record “no press allowed” sessions with Israel advocacy groups and spoke about “the Virginia Advisory Board and its successes.” That was, of course, a self-serving lie by one of the slimiest of the Clinton unindicted criminals.

And wherever Israel goes there is inevitably going to be the usual hanky-panky. Many of the Israeli companies chowing down on the Virginia feed bag are located on land stolen from Arabs on the West Bank. They are illegal under international law, even if President Donald Trump and company have declared otherwise. And then there are the conflicts of interest. VIAB board member Aviva Frye, whose family mostly resides in Israel and who worked to obtain the government approvals for an Israeli solar and wind energy company called Energix, located on the West Bank, was subsequently rewarded with a company directorship. And one hand inevitably washes the other. Board member Eileen Filler-Corn, a leading advocate for Israel, recently became the first woman to become speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. Grant Smith reports how she benefited greatly in her campaign by virtue of large donations from other board members as well as from Jewish groups and Israeli companies.

The VIAB is little more than a mechanism set up to carry out licensed robbery of Virginia state resources being run by a cabal of local American Jews and Israelis to benefit their co-religionists in Israel. Grant Smith observes how some pushback is finally in evidence, due to fraud in accounting procedures that have been exposed as well as environmental devastation for various projects that were never completed. Some human rights groups have also begun to challenge the illegality of the Israeli West Bank settlement-based companies involved. But it is not enough and it is probably too late as Israel is never held accountable for anything by the American Establishment. For my part, as a Virginia resident I have written and called the governor’s office and the offices of my state Senator and Delegate. No one has returned my calls or responded to my letters. Whose America is it? one might well ask.

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.

March 30, 2020 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 5 Comments

Yemen’s Al-Houthi offers to exchange Saudi pilots for Hamas prisoners

MEMO | March 27, 2020

The leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement, Sayyid Abdulmalik Al-Houthi, has made an offer to release Saudi captives in exchange for members of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, being held in Saudi Arabia.

“We are fully prepared to release one of the captured pilots along with four Saudi officers and soldiers,” Al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Al-Masirah. “This will be in exchange for the release of those from Hamas arrested in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Last September, Saudi detained 81-year-old Dr Muhammad Saleh Al-Khodari, a prominent member of Hamas who has served as the movement’s officially-acknowledged representative in the Kingdom for 20 years. He was also the head of Hamas’s General Shura (Consultative) Council.

Earlier this month it was reported that the Saudis were preparing to prosecute Palestinians held in its prisons. Al-Khodari and his son, Hani, are among the detainees. Their arrests on “terrorism” charges are seen by some to be politically-motivated following Saudi Arabia’s increasing normalisation of relations with Israel under de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.

Last week the Head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, urged King Salman Bin Abdulaziz to release the Palestinian prisoners, citing health concerns given the spread of coronavirus Covid-19.

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar welcomed the proposal by the Houthis: “The initiative of the leader of Ansar Allah has pleased the hearts of all Palestinian resistance fighters,” he was reported as saying by Al Mayadeen.

A statement by Hamas also expressed appreciation for the solidarity and support shown by the Houthis: “We greatly appreciate the spirit of brotherhood and sympathy with the Palestinian people and support for their steadfastness and resistance. We express our thanks for this interest and this self-initiative.”

Speaking on the fifth-anniversary of the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition’s war on Yemen yesterday, Al-Houthi said, “Unfortunately, the regimes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have presented [themselves] as worse than Israel.”

Al-Houthi also said that his movement is “ready for peace and stopping the war if the aggressor is serious about stopping the aggression and siege.” He vowed that the sixth year of the conflict will involve “advanced military capabilities” and will entail new surprises for the coalition. “The general evaluation and studies confirm that the economic losses of the Saudi regime are great and its ambitions have failed,” he added.

March 27, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Its coronavirus response provides more evidence of Israel’s racism

By Motasem A Dalloul | MEMO | March 25, 2020

The coronavirus Covid-19 has spread around the world, with 372,757 confirmed cases and 16,231 deaths according to an updating dashboard run by the World Health Organisation. The Director-General of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that it is “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity” of the virus.

This severity has pushed many countries to put hostilities aside and work together against the virus. Strict measures have been imposed to curb its spread and protect humanity: large gatherings have been banned; schools and universities have been closed; congregational prayers in places of worship have been suspended; and some countries have even released prisoners.

In Israel, however, the response to the virus has simply emphasised its officially-sanctioned racism. For example, on 20 March, the Times of Israel reported that Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan had decided to release 500 Israeli prisoners into house arrest in an effort to reduce the risk of a coronavirus outbreak in the country’s prisons. Erdan apparently accepted the recommendation of acting Israel Prison Service chief Asher Vaknin. Not a single one of the 5,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel — including 180 children, 43 women and 430 detained with neither charge nor trial —is being released, though, not even those with critical health conditions.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC), at least four Palestinian prisoners held by Israel has tested positive for coronavirus. However, the Israeli occupation authorities deny this. The PPC pointed to the restrictions imposed by Israel on reporting news from its prisons, so it is in any case unlikely to make such an admission.

Rights group Addameer noted that the Israel Prison Service has banned visits to Palestinian prisoners by family members and lawyers since the outbreak of the virus instead of providing them with hygiene and cleaning materials essential to curb its spread. No other measures appear to have been implemented to protect the prisoners.

“Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centres constantly suffer from clear medical negligence,” explained Addameer. The situation has not changed since the outbreak of the virus. “Despite the fact that prisons are overcrowded and rooms, cells and sections are small, and lack proper ventilation, the IPS is yet to make clear preventive procedures… The prisons lack sterilisers, cleaning materials, and medications such as antibiotics and necessary nutrition.”

Last Thursday, the Palestinian prisoners threatened to launch a hunger strike if measures to protect them against the virus are not implemented. The occupation authorities did nothing for them, prompting them to begin gradual protest action.

The second evidence of Israel’s inherent racism is the inhumane treatment of a Palestinian worker who was thought by Israelis to have contracted coronavirus when he came down with flu-like symptoms. A video on social media showed him being dumped at Israel’s Sira/Maccabim military checkpoint near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

The man spoke to Palestinian and Israeli journalists about the incident. He explained that he had suffered from fever and his condition developed to into a normal flu. His employer took him to Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where he was tested for the coronavirus, but before the result was known, police officers arrived, handcuffed him and took him to the checkpoint where he was dumped; he then collapsed.

While the occupation authorities ordered Israeli employees to stay at home, they decided to block thousands of Palestinian workers in their work places regardless of the measures being taken against the spread of the coronavirus. When a Palestinian worker was thought to have contracted the virus, the Israelis dealt with him with neither compassion nor mercy. Such words are not in the Israeli vocabulary when it comes to dealing with Palestinians.

Other incidents have occurred over the past few weeks, but these two suffice to illustrate Israeli racism.

To conclude, take note of the words of UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in Palestine, Michael Lynk, who voiced his concerns about Israel’s racism when he observed that the official Israeli publications to increase awareness about the disease were issued “exclusively in Hebrew”.

“This serious imbalance is apparently being addressed after protests, but it highlights the importance of ensuring equality of treatment,” stressed Lynk. “The legal duty, anchored in Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, requires that Israel, the occupying power, must ensure that all the necessary preventive means available to it are utilised to ‘combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics’.”

Yet again, and to the surprise of nobody, least of all the Palestinians, the Israelis are simply ignoring international laws and conventions. And, as usual, the effects could be deadly for the people of occupied Palestine.

March 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 2 Comments

As the world turns its attention to the pandemic, Israel is moving forward with military raids

By Lucas Leiroz | March 25, 2020

The West Bank situation is becoming increasingly complicated amid the coronavirus pandemic and territorial disputes between Palestinians and Israelis. At first, the Palestinian Authority and Israel showed signs of cooperation in combating the pandemic. A few weeks ago, joint measures were announced between both sides to contain the epidemic of the new coronavirus in the region. The measures include distribution of cleaning and personal hygiene materials, in addition to virus testing kits and medical equipment.

On the part of Tel Aviv, the total closure of the West Bank was promoted, allowing, however, access for Palestinian workers involved in the construction and agriculture sectors to the Jewish state, which is why the proposal was well accepted by Ramallah. On the part of the Palestinians, the West Bank has also been blocked, but only partially and for two weeks, since last Sunday (March 22), in addition to the implementation of a series of control and quarantine measures.

However, efforts to contain the pandemic have not prevented Israeli incursions into the region, which have increased recently. Ibrahim Melhim, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, acknowledged Israeli efforts to contain the coronavirus in the country and in Palestine, but criticized the unstoppable incursions against the Palestinians. “We have very strong round-the-clock coordination with the Israeli side to prevent the coronavirus from spreading (…) At the same time, Israel continues to operate in the Palestinian Territories as if there is no coronavirus crisis (…) They [Israeli forces] continue their raids across the West Bank, arresting people and confiscating lands, and that harms the existing coordination between the PA and Israel putting an additional burden on the Palestinian Authority,” said the spokesman.

Apparently, Israel pretends to collaborate with Palestine to stop the pandemic, when, in fact, it freely promotes its military maneuvers in the region, which go unnoticed by the mainstream media, strongly focused on covering the viral tragedy. In addition, Tel Aviv’s own collaboration to control COVID-19 in the region seems extremely limited. The blocking measures made it impossible, for example, for doctors from the “Physicians for Human Rights” (an Israeli NGO that serves Palestinians free of charge) to move alongside the West Bank, clearly hampering medical care in the region.

Mention should also be made of the fact that Israel, not Palestine, is the major focus of infections by the new coronavirus in the region. Israel has already more than 1,000 officially reported cases of the disease, in addition to one death, and several suspicions. In contrast, Palestine has around 60 infected people. It is clear from these data that the most stringent containment measures should come exclusively from Ramallah, since the Israeli military presence in the region itself poses a serious risk to Palestinian public health.

According to a survey by the Truman Institute for Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 63% of Israelis say Israel must help Palestinians during the coronavirus crisis. Vered Vinitsky-Serousse, president of the Institute, said that “the majority of Israelis believe that, when necessary, the government should devise preventive measures to help Palestinians during the Covid-19 epidemic.” The big problem, however, is how these joint maneuvers are conducted. Perhaps the first step to be taken in establishing joint measures is the definitive and immediate end to military incursions in the region, which constantly bring insecurity and terror to the Palestinian people.

The situation of tensions in the region must still be read in the context of the so-called “Deal of the Century”, the “peace” proposal for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians announced by American President Donald Trump. The “agreement” was celebrated unilaterally by the Washigton-Tel Aviv axis, with no participation of Palestinians, which is why it was rejected by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League. The document foresaw the annexation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, leaving around 70% of the region under Palestinian rule – a figure much lower than that proposed by all previous attempts to resolve the conflict. Everything indicates that Israel will not stop its attempts to occupy that territory as much as possible.

It is in this context that the “joint” actions between Israelis and Palestinians must be analyzed with skepticism and suspicion. Are these pandemic containment measures really good, even when behind them the Israeli army expands its occupation in the region with increasingly aggressive incursions? Also, to what extent does Palestine benefit from the help of these joint actions when Israel has an absurdly greater number of infected people? Would Israel be able to help the Palestinians? Or would that aid be a mask for such military incursions? All of these are valid questions.

It is also worth remembering that a few weeks ago, at the end of February, Israel announced the construction of more than 2,000 new settlements in Palestinian territories – and on the same occasion, Netanyahu authorized the construction of other 7,000 units in the East Jerusalem region. These data mean that Israel’s aggressiveness against the Palestinians was increasing recently. Did this aggression really disappear from Tel Aviv’s plans in the face of a “commotion” with public health in Palestine (which is much better than the situation in Israel)? Perhaps, the mainstream media and Human Rights observers should divide their attention between the coronavirus and the conflict in Palestine, before more serious clashes erupt.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

March 25, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 4 Comments

Palestinian Worker Dumped at Israeli Checkpoint for Exhibiting Coronavirus Symptoms

PNN | March 24, 2020

Yesterday, Israeli occupation forces threw a worker by the side of the road at the “Beit Sira” checkpoint near the city of Nablus, over suspicion of him being infected with the novel Corona virus.

Locals filmed the man and called the medical crews who rushed to save the worker, who was left at the road, unable to move, for around three hours with high temperature.

He was rushed to the National Hospital of Nablus.

Government spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said in his daily briefing on Tuesday morning that the sample of the worker showed that he was not infected with corona-virus.

Consequently, Melhem warned the Palestinian workers from going to the occupation workshops, where they are subjected to inhuman treatment and living conditions.

In the press conference as well, Melhem also announced that a woman was infected with Corona virus while returning to Ramallah from the United States, bringing the number of infected people to 60, including 16 recovered cases.

Melhem also confirmed that the samples taken for a citizen from Kufur Aqab and those in contact with an infected man have not yet emerged.

He added that the health condition of the patients in Bethlehem is stable and all of them are under health supervision.

March 24, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , | 1 Comment

US airlifts Lebanese-American accused of torture, murder from Lebanon

MEMO | March 20, 2020

Lebanese-American Amer Fakhoury, accused of torturing and murdering prisoners while serving in the Israeli-backed south Lebanon army, has been airlifted from Beirut by the US, Senator Jeanne Shaheen announced yesterday.

A US Marine Osprey was seen landing at the US Embassy in Beirut, hours before Fakhoury’s release was announced.

Shaheen said she had spoken with Fakhoury on the phone soon after his release, adding that “anytime a US citizen is wrongfully detained by a foreign government, we must use every tool at our disposal to free them”.

In a statement later yesterday, US President Donald Trump said that he was “very grateful to the Lebanese government. They worked with [the US]”.

Fakhoury was detained on 12 September when he arrived in the country to visit family after more than two decades.

The former member of the south Lebanon Army has been accused of being the “Butcher of Khiam” over allegations that he oversaw the torture and murder of detainees during his tenure as a prison guard.

Former detainee Abbas Qabalan told local media Naharnet that “not a single person held in Khiam was spared physical and psychological torture”. At least ten people died at the prison while Fakhoury was working there.

The charges against Fakhoury were initially dropped on Monday, when he was acquitted because the alleged offences took place more than ten years ago.

However, a military judge ordered a re-trial after Judge Ghassan Khoury asked the Military Court of Appeals to overturn the acquittal. A court order forbidding Fakhoury from travelling internationally for two months was announced later.

In the wake of Fakhoury’s release, the head of the Military Tribunal Brigadier General Hussein Abdallah announced his resignation from the post this morning, the Daily Star reported.

Abdallah said he resigned “out of respect for my oath and military honour” adding the military tribunal had become a place where “the application of the law equals to the release of an agent of pain”.

Tensions between the US and Lebanon have risen dramatically as a result of Fakhoury’s detention, with Senators Shaheen and Cruz tabling legislation in February which would invoke sanctions against Lebanese officials and associates which are deemed to have been involved in the illegal detention of a US citizen.

The Trump administration have threatened to withhold aid to the country and sanction the Lebanese military.

March 20, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Pompeo and Netanyahu paved a path to war with Iran, and they’re pushing Trump again

By Gareth Porter | The Grayzone | March 20, 2020

Though it narrowly averted war with Iran this January, the Trump administration is still pushing for all-out military conflict. The architects of the drive to war, Mike Pompeo and Benjamin Netanyahu, have relied on a series of cynical provocations to force Trump’s hand.

The US may escape the most recent conflict with Iran without war, however, a dangerous escalation is just over the horizon.  And as before, the key factors driving the belligerence are not outraged Iraqi militia leaders or their allies in Iran, but Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long sought to draw the US into a military confrontation with Iran.

Throughout the fall of 2019, Netanyahu ordered a series of Israeli strikes against Iranian allies in Iraq and against Lebanese Hezbollah units. He and Pompeo hoped the attacks would provoke a reaction from their targets that could provide a tripwire to outright war with Iran. As could have been expected, corporate US media missed the story, perhaps because it failed to reinforce the universally accepted narrative of a hyper-aggressive Iran emboldened by Trump’s failure to “deter” it following Iran’s shoot-down of a U.S. drone in June, and an alleged Iranian attack on Saudi oil facility in September.

Pompeo and John Bolton set the stage for the tripwire strategy in May 2019 with a statement by national security adviser John Bolton citing “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” implying an Iranian threat without providing concrete details. That vague language echoed a previous vow by Bolton that “any attack” by Iran or “proxy” forces “on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.”

Then came a campaign of leaks to major news outlet suggesting that Iran was planning attacks on U.S. military personnel. The day after Bolton’s statement, the Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed U.S. officials cited “U.S. intelligence” showing that Iran “drew up plans to target U.S. forces in Iraq and possibly Syria, to orchestrate attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb strait near Yemen through proxies and in the Persian Gulf with its own armed drones…”

The immediate aim of this campaign was to gain Trump’s approval for contingency plans for a possible war with Iran that included the option of sending as many as 120,000 U.S. troops into region.  Trump balked at such war-planning, however, complaining privately that Bolton and Pompeo were pushing him into a war with Iran. Following Iran’s shoot-down of the U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz on June 20, Pompeo and Bolton suggested the option of killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in retaliation. But Trump refused to sign off on the assassination of Iran’s top general unless Iran killed an American first, according to current and former officials.

From that point on, the provocation strategy was focused on trying to trigger an Iranian reaction that would involve a U.S. casualty.  That’s when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interjected himself and his military as a central player in the drama. From July 19 through August 20, the Israeli army carried out five strikes against Iraqi militias allied with Iran, blowing up four weapons depots and killing as many Shiite militiamen and Iranian offcers, according to press accounts.

The Israeli bombing escalated on August 25, when two strikes on the brigade headquarters of a pro-Iranian militia and on a militia convoy killed the brigade commander and six other militiamen, and a drone strike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in south Beirut blew the windows out of one of Hezbollah’s media offices.

Netanyahu and Pompeo sabotage Trump and Macron’s attempt at diplomacy

Behind those strikes was Netanyahu’s sense of alarm over Trump toying with the idea of seeking negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu had likely learned about Trump’s moves toward detente from Pompeo, who had long been his primary contact in the administration. On August 26, French President Emanuel Macron revealed that he was working to broker a Trump-Rouhani meeting. Netanyahu grumbled about the prospect of U.S.-Iranian talks “several times” with his security cabinet the day before launching the strikes.

Two retired senior Israeli generals, Gen. Amos Yadlin and Gen. Assaf Oron, criticized those strikes for increasing the likelihood of harsh retaliation by Iran or one of its regional partners. The generals complained that Netanyahu’s attacks were “designed to prod [Iran] into a hasty response” and thus end Trump’s flirtation with talking to Iran. That much was obviously true, but Pompeo and Netanyahu also knew that provoking an attack by Iran or one of its allies might cause one or more of the American casualties they sought. And once American blood was spilled, Trump would have no means to resist authorizing a major escalation.

Kataib Hezbollah and other pro-Iran Iraqi militias blamed the United States for the wave of lethal Israeli attacks on their fighters. These militias responded in September by launching a series of rocket attacks on Iraqi government bases where U.S. troops were present. They also struck targets in the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy.

The problem for Netanyahu and Pompeo, however, was that none of those strikes killed an American. What’s more, U.S. intelligence officials knew from NSA monitoring of communications between the IRGC and the militias that Iran had explicitly forbidden direct attacks on US personnel.

Netanyahu was growing impatient. For several days in late October and early November, he met with his national security cabinet to discuss a new Israeli attack to precipitate a possible war with Iran, according to reports by former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. Oren hinted at how a war with Iran might start. ‘[P]erhaps Israel miscalculates,” he suggested, “hitting a particularly sensitive target,” which, in his view, could spark “a big war between Israel and Iran.”

But on December 27, before Netanyahu could put such a strategy into action, the situation changed dramatically. A barrage of rockets slammed into an Iraqi base near Kirkuk where U.S. military personnel were stationed, killing a U.S military contractor. Suddenly, Pompeo had the opening he needed. At a meeting the following day, Pompeo led Trump to believe that Iranian “proxies” had attacked the base, and pressed him to “reestablish deterrence” with Iran by carrying out a military response.

In fact, U.S. and Iraqi officials on the spot had reached no such conclusion, and the investigation led by the head of intelligence for the Iraqi federal police at the base was just beginning that same day. But Pompeo and his allies, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark A Milley, were not interested in waiting for its conclusion.

A deception brings the US and Iran to the brink of war

The results of a subsequent Iraqi investigation revealed that the rocket barrage had been launched from a Sunni area of Kirkuk with a strong Islamic State presence, and that IS fighters had carried out three attacks not far from the base on Iraqi forces stationed there in the previous ten days. US signals intercepts found no evidence that Iraqi militias had shifted from their policy of avoiding American casualties at all cost.

Kept in the dark by Pompeo about these crucial facts, Trump agreed to launch five airstrikes against Kataib Hezbollah and another pro-Iran militia at five locations in Iraq and Syria that killed 25 militiamen and wounded 51. He may have also agreed in principle to the killing of Soleimani when the opportunity presented itself.

Iran responded to the attacks on its Iraqi militia allies by approving a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad January 31. The demonstrators did not penetrate the embassy building itself and were abruptly halted the same day. But Pompeo managed to persuade Trump to authorize the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s second most powerful figure, presumably by hammering on the theme of “reestablishing deterrence” with Iran.

Soleimani was not only the second most powerful man in Iran and the main figure in its foreign policy; he was idolized by millions of the most strongly nationalist citizens of the country. Killing him in a drone strike was an open invitation to the military confrontation Netanyahu and Pompeo so desperately sought.

During the crucial week from December 28 through January 4, while Pompeo was pressing Trump to retaliate against Iran not just once but twice, it was clear that he was coordinating closely with Netanyahu.  During that single week, he spoke by phone with Netanyahu on three separate occasions.

What Pompeo and Netanyahu could not have anticipated was that Iran’s missile attack on the U.S. sector of Iraq’s sprawling al-Asad airbase in retaliation would be so precise that it scored direct hits on six U.S. targets without killing a single American. (The US service members were saved in part because the rockets were fired after the Iraqi government had passed on a warning from Iran to prepare for it). Because no American was killed in the strike, Trump again decided against further retaliation.

Towards another provocation

Although Pompeo and Netanyahu failed to ignite a military conflict with Iran, there is good reason to believe that they will try again before both are forced to leave their positions or power.

In an article for the Atlantic last November, former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, channeled Netanyahu when he declared it would be “better for conflict [with Iran] to occur during the current [Trump] administration, which can be counted on to provide Israel with the three sources of American assistance it traditionally receives in wartime,” than to “wait until later.”

Oren was not the only Israeli official to suggest that Israeli is likely to go even further in strikes against Iranian and Iranian allies targets in 2020. After listening to Israeli army Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speak in late December, Haaretz military correspondent Amos Harel reported that the Israeli army chief conveyed the clear impression that a “more serious confrontation with Iran in the coming year as an almost unquestionable necessity.” His interviews with Israeli military and political figures further indicated that Israel would “intensity its efforts to hit Iran in the northern area.”

Shockingly, Pompeo has exploited the Coronavirus pandemic to impose even harsher sanctions on Iran while intimidating foreign businesses to prevent urgently needed medical supplies from entering the country. The approaching presidential election gives both Pompeo and Netanyahu a powerful reason to plot another strike, or a series of strikes aimed at drawing the US into a potential Israeli confrontation with Iran.

Activists and members of Congress concerned about keeping the US out of war with Iran must be acutely aware of the danger and ready to respond decisively when the provocation occurs.

March 20, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

9/11 Truth, Coronavirus Truth: Zionist Hysteria, MSM Lockdown

War on the Horizon?

By Kevin Barrett • Unz Review • March 18, 2020

“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor.”… “And advanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” The Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses (September 2000)

I spent most of 2004 through 2006 blaming Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for 9/11. As you can imagine, I got plenty of pushback. Strangely, the loudest, most hysterical shrieks came not from red-white-and-blue Republican patriots, but from seemingly insane Zionists screaming: “Why do you hate the Jews so much, you anti-Semite?”[1]

At first, I could not for the life of me figure out why blaming two non-Jews, Cheney and Rumsfeld, elicited that kind of reaction. It also seemed odd that anyone talking about the explosive demolitions of World Trade Center Towers 1, 2, and 7 was reviled as a Jew-hater.[2] Questioning what happened to the Pentagon, whether there were really any hijackers or cell phone calls, who really sent the anthrax, who bought the put options, who exhibited foreknowledge, and so on elicited the same hysterical reaction from Israel-firsters. It was only after I looked into the ethnic and foreign-loyalist backgrounds of PNAC, Larry Silverstein, and other 9/11 suspects that it began to dawn on me that “the Zionist doth protest too much.”

We are now experiencing 911-2B, the coronavirus black swan. Just as 9/11 terrorized, shocked, and shut down the USA for a few days, it seems that Covid-19 will do the same, only more so. Instead of a few days, we may be shut down for a few months, maybe even a few years. And once again, Zionists are hysterically pushing back against those of us questioning the official story. The Israel-lobby propaganda site The Algemeiner recently published a hit piece headlined Islamists Call Coronavirus a Zionist-American Conspiracy. It featured the following attack on yours truly:

Press TV, meanwhile, published an article by American conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett to back the claim that the coronavirus is a US-Israeli conspiracy using biological warfare to hurt Iran. “US, Israel waging biological warfare on massive scale,” was the March 7 story’s headline.

Barrett, a “9/11 truther,” got crazier in the story:

“The United States waged biological warfare against its own Congress in 2001 with the anthrax component of the 9/11 anthrax false flag operation, which terrorized Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, the leaders of the movement that blocked the Patriot Act, into giving up and allowing the Patriot Act.

“So the United States is run by lunatics, by psychopaths who are entirely capable of launching World War 3 by way of a biological warfare attack on China and Iran, with the Iran component presumably led by Israel. That’s the most likely explanation for what we’re seeing.”

This is the kind of rot Press TV publishes.

The Algemeiner also vilified Muslims reacting negatively to Israel’s announcement that it would have a coronavirus vaccine ready “in a few weeks.” It cited British, Iranian, and Algerian Muslims balking at the prospect of buying vaccines from Israel, and/or questioning how Israel could possibly develop a vaccine for a new rogue virus in such short order, assuming it hadn’t simultaneously developed both the virus and the vaccine.

Might Israel profit from a disastrous black swan that it helped create? It already happened once. Prior to 9/11, the Jewish population of Israel was fleeing, with net emigration outpacing net immigration, while the dotcom bust and suicide bombings collapsed the Jewish State’s economy. The global Islamic movement was picking up steam; it seemed likely that Muslims might soon win back custody of their holy places. (Muslims have administered the holy sites in and around Jerusalem/al-Quds virtually ever since Islam existed, minus a couple of brief and bloody crusader interludes, until the current Zionist genocide began less than a century ago.)

During the run-up to 9/11, as Naomi Klein explains in The Shock Doctrine,[3] Israel put all its chips into anti-terror start-ups—and hit the jackpot on 9/11/2001. An anti-Islam propaganda tidal wave swept the globe, washing away the Islamic Awakening surge and leaving in its place the 27-million-Muslim holocaust that continues today.

The 9/11 black swan was in essence a propaganda operation designed to demonize Islam and Muslims in general, and anti-Zionists ones in particular, in service to changing the arc of history to benefit Israel. But it was sold by PNAC crypto-Zionists to people like Cheney and Rumsfeld as a recipe for prolonging US empire for a New American Century by way of a “New Pearl Harbor.”

Today’s coronavirus black swan, like 9/11, has all the characteristics of a trauma-based mass-mind-control op. It has already been used to demonize China in the same way 9/11 was used to demonize Islam: Just as we were supposed to hate the crazy suicidal Muslims yearning for harems of afterlife virgins, we are now supposed to feel disgust for Chinese slurpers of bat soup. And just as we were supposed to loathe the brutal and incompetent governments of Muslim-majority nations, now we are told to revile the oppressive censorship-addicted regime in Beijing. It may be purely coincidental that this wholesale demonization of the world’s two greatest classical civilizations, based on two fear-inciting black swan events of suspicious origin, just happened to arrive in the wake of the Bernard Lewis-Samuel Huntington pronouncement that the 21st century would be the era of the “clash of civilizations.” After all, even the craziest coincidence theories sometimes turn out to be true.

It also may be a coincidence that the primary US bioweapons lab, Ft. Detrick, was shut down in summer 2019 over fears that weaponized pathogens might escape. It may be a coincidence that absurdly under-performing US military athletes came to Wuhan for the World Military Games in October and have since been accused by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs of being the source of the Covid-19 pandemic. It may be a coincidence that at the same time those “athletes” were in Wuhan, the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, and other Establishment titans were hosting a pandemic simulation called Event 201. It may be purely coincidental that the virus appeared in Wuhan, home of China’s biggest biodefense laboratory, and China’s biggest transportation hub, just in time for the Chinese New Year, when most Chinese travel to visit relatives. Likewise, it could be coincidental that the real-life Covid-19 pandemic almost perfectly mimics Lockstep, the Rockefeller Foundation’s recipe for a global police state emerging on the back of a coronavirus-style pandemic.

Then again, it could be that the Chinese government’s suspicions about the US, or others’ suspicions about Israel (especially regarding the coronavirus catastrophe in Iran) are justified. But such possibilities are far outside of the mainstream media’s Overton Window. The whole topic of bioweapons in relation to coronavirus is an MSM no-go zone, just as the evidence and arguments refuting the official story was a no-go zone after 9/11. The very fact that such things are unspeakable in the Mockingbird media suggests that yet another nefarious propaganda operation is underway.

Just as I came to reject the official story of 9/11 by comparing the arguments and evidence cited by proponents and opponents of that thesis, I am currently leaning toward the “Anglo-Zionist bioweapon” interpretation of coronavirus based on what I’ve seen so far by opponents as well as proponents. I recently listened to Peter Myers’ arguments that Covid-19 was made in a lab—”most likely from Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).” (Read his sources here.) Myers focuses on a paper trail documenting bat virus research at Wuhan and the University of North Carolina, allegations of Chinese germ warfare espionage, and so forth. While his scenario, an accidental release from WIV, is not impossible, the evidence he cites is also compatible with the deliberate fabrication of a second-level cover story that would be deployed if the first-level legend, “Covid-19 spontaneously jumped from bats to humans,” is conclusively disproven. The same second-level cover story would in the meantime function as a “blame the Chinese” conspiracy theory pushed by Steve Bannon, Tom Cotton, and other neocon and anti-China sources.

The question of whether the virus is naturally evolved or man-made is still open. Mainstream authorities like Nature Magazine are, quite naturally, pushing the “naturally evolved” position as hard as they can… which they would be expected to do whether or not it was true. Other sources claim “The spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV contains a cleavage absent in CoV – showing that it was engineered rather than evolved.” Perhaps readers more familiar with the science than I am can arbitrate such disputes in the comments section.

As with 9/11, the scientific evidence on coronavirus may give rise to a long-running debate. Meanwhile the world moves on. With 2020 hindsight I can now see that I should have interpreted 9/11 as a likely false flag immediately, based on cui bono. Today, asking the same question about coronavirus, “who benefits,” yields only slightly less obvious results.

But if Covid-19 was a biological attack on China, China’s number one European partner Italy, and China’s close Middle Eastern friend (and Anglo-Zionist arch-enemy) Iran, why is it spreading elsewhere? A skeptic on Pepe Escobar’s email list recently responded: “Hi Pepe, I’m convinced the facts do not support your theory. The damage to the West is greater than to China and it would be suicidal for US to engineer this. Why rule out natural causes like the Spanish flu?”

It is true that most military strategists dislike bioweapons due to their massive blowback potential: There is no guarantee that a mutating virus will stick to the race or geographical area you are attacking. Though Covid-19 hit China first, under highly suspicious circumstances, making it “the Chinese virus” in the words of Donald Trump (and, subliminally, in MSM reporting and global public opinion) it is now cratering the US and European economies. Could any US biowar team, however “rogue”—much less the commanding heights of the National Security State—have been crazy enough to risk that kind of blowback?

They were certainly crazy enough in 2001. Covid-19 is the new 9/11, the new “Transformative Event,” the new “watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security… Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and an after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force.”

That sounds, to most of us, like an unpleasant prospect. Yet one of the authors of “Catastrophic Terrorism: Tackling the New Danger,” Philip Zelikow, is a leading suspect in the orchestration of 9/11, which occurred less than three years after that article was published. Cover-up czar Zelikow, essentially the sole author of the risible work of fiction known as The 9/11 Commission Report, might conceivably have viewed the massage damage to the United States—not just the loss of the condemned-for-asbestos Trade Towers and a few thousand replaceable people, but also the hemorrhage of more than $6 trillion dollars alongside the even greater reputational loss in the 9/11-triggered “forever wars”—as being “worth it,” in the same way Madeleine Albright famously said that murdering half a million Iraqi children was “worth it.”

Might the neocon crazies who thought 9/11 was worth it feel the same way about a coronavirus biowar strike? They might. As Pepe Escobar suggested, the Covid-19 Transformative Event is acting as a “global circuit breaker.” His conclusion: “What’s certain is that the whole global economy has been hit by an insidious, literally invisible circuit breaker. This may be just a ‘coincidence.’ Or this may be, as some are boldly arguing, part of a possible, massive psy-op creating the perfect geopolitical and social engineering environment for full-spectrum dominance.”

How could a circuit-breaker foster full-spectrum dominance? First, the neocons recognize that China’s inexorable rise to #1 world power status,[4] and the concomitant collapse of the Anglo-Zionist Empire, is pretty much a done deal absent some circuit-breaking black swan event. Just as the Zionists needed the 9/11 black swan to get their “Clean Break” with a historical trajectory leading towards the end of the apartheid Jewish State, so too the Anglo-Zionists might realize that something equally “transformative” would be required to forestall the rise of China.

The US cannot win a trade war with China. It cannot win a nuclear war. It cannot win a conventional land war. Yet from the neocon perspective it needs some kind of war ASAP before China grows too strong. So if you were a hardline neocon strategist dedicated to stymieing China at all costs, you might opt for a stealth 5G warfare approach featuring deniable biowar strikes among other tactics. You might be stupid or crazy enough not to consider the possibility of blowback. But more likely you would welcome the blowback as an opportunity to tear down the current US economy, which is totally dependent on Chinese imports, and rebuild a new, more Spartan system geared for a long 5G war on China (and Russia and Iran and Venezuela and anybody else who won’t follow your orders).

Strategic analysts agree that the necessary prelude to ramped up US-vs.-China warfare would be a decoupling of the US and Chinese economies. That decoupling is happening now, thanks to coronavirus. Once it has passed the point of no return, war becomes far more likely.

Hunkering down for a serious war on China and its allies would also require a momentous psychological and cultural shift on the part of the American people. Until now, they have been lazy, undisciplined, addicted to consumption without much production, and unwilling to sacrifice themselves (though quite willing to murder foreigners from the safe distance of a drone base). Only a profound psychic shock, and some serious deprivation, could retool them as potential soldiers and total war participants in a deadly and dangerous struggle to maintain their rulers’ global dominance privileges. Or so the neocons might imagine.[5]

Will the panicked American sheeple, stampeded toward the toilet paper aisles by Coronavirus 911-2B, be redirected into a hyper-militarized mode of life befitting a long war for full spectrum dominance? Will the Great Coronavirus Depression end in World War III just as the first Great Depression ended in World War II, with military Keynesianism once again “rescuing” a dead-in-the-water economy? Will 9/11 and the 9/11 wars seem like small potatoes once we’ve seen the Coronavirus Wars?

Notes

[1] From 2006 through around 2011 my 9/11 truth focused Wikipedia page was defaced by false accusations, sourced to an anonymous blog, that I was a “supporter of Holocaust deniers.” At the time I knew almost nothing about Holocaust revisionism, and did not even recognize the name of the “Holocaust denier” I was accused of supporting. Over a period of several years, countless attempts to correct the dozens of false statements about me on Wikipedia were made, but the false information would immediately reappear within hours, sometimes within minutes.

[2] When I brought Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth to Madison, Wisconsin, the WORT “alternative” radio interviewer’s first question was “why do you hate the Jews?” Gage was nonplussed. He and his organization focus on scientific evidence of controlled demolition, not the question of who did it.

[3] “A slew of new start-ups were launched, specializing in everything from ‘search and nail’ data mining, to surveillance cameras, to terrorist profiling. When the market for these services and devices exploded in the years after September 11, the Israeli state openly embraced a new national economic vision: the growth provided by the dot-com bubble would be replaced with a homeland security boom.” (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, p.435)

[4] Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is poised to end Western dominance of world trade in the same way the European sea route to Asia ended Muslim dominance via the Silk Road 500 years ago. For historical perspective, read Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World.

[5] “On this perverse (neocon) view of the world, if America fails to achieve her national destiny, and is mired in perpetual war, then all is well. Man’s humanity, defined in terms of struggle to the death, is rescued from extinction… To my mind, this fascistic glorification of death and violence springs from a profound inability to celebrate life, joy, and the sheer thrill of existence.” – Shadia Drury

March 19, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Wars for Israel | | 2 Comments

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine delegation meets with Russian foreign minister

MEMO | March 18, 2020

On Tuesday a delegation from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) met with Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and special presidential representative for the Middle East and Africa and deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, in the Russian capital of Moscow.

According to a statement issued by the DFLP, the two sides discussed the general situation in the Middle East, specifically the Palestinian issue and the Palestinian people’s national rights. This came in light of the repercussions of US President Donald Trump’s endeavour to liquidate the cause of the Palestinians and confine the Palestinian state to a series of isolated patches of land ghettos, under the hegemony of the occupation state and its apartheid laws.

The DFLP stated that the two parties agreed that Trump’s vision violates international standards to solve the Palestinian issue, and constitutes a complete disregard for international legitimacy resolutions, as well as a threat to the stability of the region, in addition to paving the way for the emergence of more conflicts.

The two sides described the Israeli policies in the occupied areas as violations of international legitimacy resolutions, rising to the level of war crimes.

The two parties agreed that the United Nations, the International Council for Human Rights Policy (ICHRP) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) are required to assume their political, legal and moral responsibilities towards the Palestinian people.

The two sides stressed the necessity to end the division among Palestinian political actors, and reunite the Palestinian front in the face of the occupation and settlement, as well as Trump’s plan.

The two parties reaffirmed the Palestinian people’s right to fight for a fully sovereign independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to resolve the refugee issue in accordance with Resolution 194, which grants them the right of return.

March 18, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Forced displacement and the US-Israel special relationship

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 18, 2020

Democrats in the US House of Representatives have sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asking the government to ensure that Israel is not using military equipment supplied or financed by America to perpetuate the forced displacement of Palestinian civilians.

“As supporters of the US-Israel special relationship and in light of the longstanding use of US-origin and supplied equipment by Israeli security forces,” they wrote, “we specifically request an examination of Israeli compliance with the requirements.” This was a reference to the US Arms Export Control Act which does not permit recipient countries to use such equipment unless for “legitimate self-defence” purposes.

The US said the Representatives, “should work to prevent unlawful home demolitions and the forcible transfer of civilians everywhere in the world and prevent the use of US-origin equipment in this destructive practice.”

Politically, though, the US-Israel relationship will take precedence over any human rights concerns. A letter by supporters of this relationship is already compromised in terms of upholding the colonial narrative and separating the recent statistics regarding home demolitions from the historical ethnic cleansing of Palestine which paved the way for colonial Israel’s establishment.

In light of the US “deal of the century” and the impending annexation of more Palestinian land, there is an inherent futility in this exercise of demanding answers from the government. It might satisfy some uneasy consciences but it will not contribute anything to the Palestinian people in terms of safeguarding their legitimate rights.

The deal of the century has demonstrated that what Israel has been doing all along — imposing unilateral measures to expand its colonial project — has given the Zionist state perpetual impunity. Israel, now aided by the US overtly, is ahead of the international community and its stagnant practices when it comes to human rights violations and international law. The US, like other countries, should be working towards eradicating forced displacement. Instead, it has chosen to support Israel’s expansion and penned a deal which will increase the number of people displaced.

Asking for clarification as a means to preserve US support for Israel defeats the purpose of trying to ensure that the end use of US aid is lawful. This contradictory approach must not be construed as a step forward in protecting Palestinians’ rights. It is a perfunctory exercise that detracts from the international law violation at hand, which is America’s political support for Israel’s annexation plans.

The letter shows how human rights concerns are being subjected to political allegiances. It does not call for a suspension of the “special relationship” between the US and Israel, but rather selectively targets a sliver of cooperation which facilitates Israel’s colonial expansion. It is well known that Israel manipulates its self-declared “exceptionalism” to prolong its violations against the Palestinian people and that the US is happy to play along with this.

“My hope is that Israel will stop the home demolitions and will see that there are many supporters of the US-Israel relationship on this letter,” explained US Representative Rohit Khanna. Such emphasis clarifies the underlying intent; the signatories may oppose forced displacement, but the political relationship will continue to take precedence, rather than make Israel reflect upon the consequences of what the International Criminal Court has clearly defined as war crimes.

March 18, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | 1 Comment

Sheldon Adelson keeps casinos open despite coronavirus danger

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | March 17, 2020

Bloomberg news reports that while other major Las Vegas casinos have closed to protect employees and the public from the coronavirus pandemic, Sheldon Adelson is keeping his casinos open.

According to Casino.org : “From the Strip to New England to the Midwest to California, commercial and tribal operators announced over the weekend they’d either voluntarily close casinos or do so to comply with state government orders barring large gatherings.”

On Monday President Trump called for Americans to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people, and the Nevada governor ordered schools and state offices to close.

Unlike governors elsewhere, the order did not include casinos, a powerful force in Nevada. However, the governor asked local governments to enforce a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guideline that all events with attendance above 50 be canceled or postponed.

Adelson’s billions used on behalf of Israel

Adelson is known for using his casino profits to obtain US policies beneficial for Israel by donating to American candidates for office. Adelson’s net worth is in the range of $37 billion.

In recent years, Adelson and his wife Miriam, an Israeli citizen, gave $205.83 million to Republican campaign efforts.

The Adelsons are credited with Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem (after both Republican and Democratic  presidents had long kept it in Tel Aviv), Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and the recent Trump-Kushner “peace plan.”

Adelson is a fervent advocate for Israel despite its long record of human rights violations and violations of U.S. laws, documented by Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross, Foreign Service Journal, and others.

He once infamously announced that he regretted serving in the U.S. army rather than the Israeli military.

Similarly, Miriam Adelson has said that her heart has always remained in Israel, but she got “stuck” in America after meeting Adelson.

In 2018 Trump bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the couple for their “philanthropic work.”

While the Adelsons have donated to medical research and programs addressing drug addiction (but apparently not gambling addiction, disastrous for many Americans), it appears that the bulk of their philanthropy involves Israel. Inside Philanthropy reports:

“The Adelson Family Foundation, one of Adelson’s philanthropic vehicles, is concerned with Jewish causes around the world. Adelson takes a decidedly pro-Israel stance, which is reflected in his and his wife Miriam’s philanthropy. The foundation supports charitable organizations located primarily in Israel and the United States, with funds going to Israel Advocacy and Defense, Israel Studies, Holocaust and Anti-Semitism Awareness, among others.

“Birthright Israel is a major grantee. The couple via their foundation have given tens of millions to the organization. Another youth outfit that the Adelsons have funded is B’nai B’rith Youth Organization. The Adelsons founded the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas, “the only school in Nevada built on the Jewish ethos of community, service, innovation and discourse.” The school offers classes for students aged 18 months through 12th grade. Other education grantees include a mix of Israel and U.S. outfits, including American Friends of Ariel University, which supports Ariel University in Israel, and Rashi School in the Boston Area. Adelson funds a number of agencies that aim to shift policy and attitudes around Israel and the Jewish people, including Christians United for Israel, “an American pro-Israel Christian organization that defines itself as “a national grassroots movement focused on the support of Israel.” Sheldon and Miriam have also given millions to SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit founded by three young engineers at the end of 2010, answering the Google Lunar XPRIZE challenge.”

Trump had been scheduled to attend a fundraiser at the Adelsons’ Las Vegas mansion on Thursday, but called this off due to the pandemic. He had also been planning to address the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership meeting at Adelsons’ Sands’ Venetian casino resort.

Scheduled for Adelson’s Venetian and Palazzo resorts, the three-day meeting was expected to include numerous conservative politicians and leaders. Tickets began at $1,00 and were only available for current members of the RJC National Leadership. Adelson is on the RJC board.

The RJC announces that it “stands with Israel.” While the RJC states, “Hamas has sent hundreds of missiles from Gaza against Israeli civilians in recent days,” it fails to report that these mostly homemade rockets came after massive Israeli violence. Rockets from Gaza have killed about 29 Israelis in total, while Israeli airstrikes have killed over 3,500 Gazans.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

March 18, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | 4 Comments

Israel settlers attack Palestinian farmers in Jordan Valley

MEMO | March 16, 2020

While Palestinians are busy fighting the outbreak of the coronavirus, Israeli occupation settlers have increased their attacks in the occupied Jordan Valley, Al Mugtama Magazine reported yesterday.

The armed settlers carried out a wide-scale campaign of attacks on the Palestinian herders and farmers. They stole scores of animals and damaged wide swathes of farmlands.

“The situation in the Jordan Valley is very difficult,” Mahmoud Bsharat, who has received an expropriation order for his farm, told the magazine.

He said that the “gangs of settlers” cut trees and steal cattle, as well as opening fire at the Palestinian shepherds. They also steal tractors from Palestinian farmers and damage their farms.

Activist Aref Daraghmeh told the magazine that Jewish settlers carried out 45 attacks over the past few days in the Jordan Valley, noting that they stole farming equipment in addition to damaging farms and homes.

He also said that the occupation imposed high fines on Palestinians and has been carrying out military drills that damage their crops.

This, Daraghmeh explained, was part of the settlers’ efforts to force Palestinians out of the area in preparation for its annexation by Israel.

The Palestinian Authority warned that Israel may use the state of emergency brought on by the COVID-19 to carry out its “colonial” plans in the occupied West Bank based on what was announced in the US ‘deal of the century’.

March 16, 2020 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 8 Comments

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