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Experts warn of consequences of American universities divesting from Israeli companies

MEMO | June 3, 2024

Israeli economic and legal experts have warned that if the administrations of prestigious American universities meet the demands of the students who demonstrated and set up encampments on campuses in protest against the Israeli war on Gaza, this will have consequences on the Israeli economy, and on the high-tech field, in particular, according to quotes by The Globes newspaper on today, Monday.

Prestigious universities, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the University of Minnesota, pledged, during negotiations with the protesting students, to take into account and discuss the students’ demands regarding investments in Israel. A number of universities responded to these demands, although Israeli experts said that implementing this is not easy, according to the newspaper.

Prominent American universities have large investment funds, each containing billions of dollars in employee and retiree funds, in addition to funds accumulated over the years in a manner similar to private capital funds.

Some of this money is invested in shares of foreign companies, and about 20 per cent of it is invested in alternative investments, which include investments in real estate and goods, as well as in private capital funds and venture capital funds, many of which invest in Israel.

Harvard University announced that it does not rule out a discussion on divestment from Israel, “as in the past it divested from fossil fuels and South Africa” according to what some of the university’s leaders wrote in an article published by the New York Times.

Johns Hopkins University said that it will “examine the main questions of the protestors regarding divestment”, while the University of Washington decided to meet with representatives of the protest “on divestment demands”.

Rutgers, Minnesota and Wisconsin universities issued similar decisions, as well Toronto Metropolitan (TMU) and McMaster in Canada. Occidental College in Los Angeles and Brown University, Rhode Island decided to vote on the issue of divesting from Israel.

The newspaper reported that Harvard University invested $200 million directly in Israeli companies in 2020.

Protesting students at the University of Minnesota said that the University invested $2.4 million in Israeli tech companies and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

The newspaper quoted economic expert, Zeev Holtzman, as saying, “since universities not only represent major investment institutions but also aspire to be a moral compass, the decision against Israel would cause severe harm.”

The newspaper believes that the main difficulty that would pose a challenge to divestment is that long-term investments include commitments that cannot be breached. The newspaper mentioned legislation being passed in the US against boycotting Israel.

According to the former Deputy Attorney General of the Israeli government, Roy Schondorf, “Universities that decide to withdraw investments may face sanctions and be considered as violating their duties of loyalty.”

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Columbia Law Review website put offline to censor Palestinian scholar

The Cradle | June 4, 2024

The Columbia Law Review (CLR) board of directors has taken down the publication’s website in response to its editors publishing a lengthy article about the Nakba by a Palestinian legal scholar, The Intercept reported on 4 June.

The CLR publishes scholarly articles, essays, and student notes and is edited by Columbia Law School students.

Five months ago, editors of the CLR  had reached out to Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, asking him to contribute an article establishing the “Nakba” as a formal legal concept. Palestinians use the word, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, to refer to the expulsion and dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians by Zionist militias in 1948.

The Nakba cleansed Palestine of most of its indigenous Muslim and Christian inhabitants, paving the way for the establishment of the state of Israel for Jews from Europe and elsewhere.

Eghbariah is completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School and has tried landmark Palestinian civil rights cases before the Israeli Supreme Court. A previous article he prepared about the Nakba for the Harvard Law Review was also censored at the last minute.

He noted that in its current case charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice, South Africa’s legal team referred to the Palestinian “ongoing Nakba” as the context for the current genocide case.

Eghbariah’s article for the CLR, which is more than 100 pages long, underwent a rigorous editorial process before publication, with input from 30 CLR members.

“Every single piece that we publish goes through an incredibly, incredibly rigorous publication process. We just have high publication standards,” said Jamie Jenkins, one of the main editors. Jenkins noted the piece was given even more scrutiny because of the controversial nature of the subject matter. “So there was some additional work put into it, but in general, it was the same steps of production.”

However, when the article was scheduled to be published in the May edition, members of the CLR board of directors insisted that publication be delayed and made the unusual request that the article be sent to the rest of the law review for additional scrutiny.

Fearing a draft of the article would be leaked, the editors finally published it on 3 June at 2:30 am.

In response, the board of directors contacted the editors again, requesting the entire May edition to be taken down. When the editorial leadership refused the request, the entire CLR website was taken down and remains offline as of 4 June.

Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, pro-Israel lobby groups and business elites in the US have sought to suppress the speech of Palestinians and those opposing Israel’s war on Gaza, including through police suppression of protests at universities, limiting the scope and reach of pro-Palestinian social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and by banning Tik Tok.

Despite this, the horrific images of Israeli bombs killing Palestinian women and children over the past seven months have made it difficult for pro-Israel interests to control the perception of events. Israel’s war on Gaza is now widely viewed as genocide.

The Intercept adds that both Eghbariah and numerous editors at the CLR remain committed to the importance of the legal scholarship concerning the Nakba.

“What we need to do is to acknowledge the Nakba as its own independent framework that intersects and overlaps with genocide and apartheid,” Eghbariah told The Intercept while adding that the Nakba also “stands as a distinct framework that can be understood as its own crime with a distinctive historical analytical foundation structure and purpose.”

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Will the Gaza Genocide be the Beginning of The End of Israel & Zionism? (Miko Peled)

Afshin Rattansi | June 2, 2024

On this episode, we speak to Miko Peled, grandson of one of the signatories of Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence and Founder of the Palestine House of Freedom. He discusses the purpose of Palestine House of Freedom and the goal of shifting the pro-Zionist narratives in Washington, the effect of the mass student protests taking in the US against the genocide in Gaza, the Biden Administration’s continued arming and enabling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, why the conversation must be shifted to ending Israeli apartheid and demanding a Free Palestine, whether the Gaza genocide marks the beginning of the end of Israel and Zionism, why the two-state solution is realistically impossible and morally wrong, the genocidal state of Israeli society and the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu, why the goal of Israel is the extermination of as many Palestinians as possible and not the defeat of the Palestinian resistance, the absurdity of the ICJ giving Israel time to end the genocide, and much more.

FOLLOW US ON ALL PLATFORMS: https://linktr.ee/goingundergroundtv

June 4, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu says he will not halt Gaza war, disputes Biden’s ceasefire proposal

MEMO | June 3, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Monday that he is “not ready to stop” the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, claiming that President Joe Biden’s remarks about a ceasefire proposal were “inaccurate”, Anadolu Agency reports.

“I am not ready to stop the war,” the public broadcaster, KAN, quoted Netanyahu as saying during a secret discussion in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.

He claimed that the details of the ceasefire proposal laid out by Biden were “inaccurate”.

“The outline that Biden presented is partial. The war will be stopped for the purpose of returning hostages and then we will have a discussion,” he said.

“There are other undisclosed details. We could cease fighting for 42 days to facilitate the return of hostages, but we will not give up our goal of complete victory.”

The Israeli premier declined to discuss the number of Palestinian prisoners who would be released as part of a proposed hostage swap deal.

“We will not agree to end the war without achieving its objectives,” Netanyahu said. “The number of hostages to be released in the first phase of the deal has not yet been determined.”

On Friday, Biden said Israel presented a three-phase deal that would end hostilities in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held in the coastal enclave.

Biden called on the Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, to accept the proposal and urged Netanyahu to resist pressure from members of his governing coalition to reject the plan.

However, Netanyahu’s office reiterated on Friday that the government intends to continue its deadly offensive on Gaza until all of Tel Aviv’s war “goals” are met.

Hamas, for its part, said it will “respond positively to any proposal that includes a permanent ceasefire, a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction efforts, the return of the displaced and the completion of a comprehensive hostage exchange deal.”

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza following a 7 October Hamas attack, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.

More than 36,400 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, the vast majority being women and children, and over 82,600 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Nearly eight months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on 6 May.

June 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The Maldives bans Israelis in solidarity with Palestine

Maldives, little island resorts © Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
RT | June 3, 2024

The Maldives announced on Sunday that Israeli passport holders will be banned from visiting the small Muslim-majority island nation due to the war in Gaza. The country is one of the destinations of holidaymakers from the Jewish states.

“President Dr Mohamed Muizzu, following a recommendation from the Cabinet, has resolved to impose a ban on Israeli passports,” the president’s office said in a statement on its website. “The Cabinet decision includes amending necessary laws to prevent Israeli passport holders from entering the Maldives and establishing a Cabinet subcommittee to oversee these efforts.”

Muizzu’s office added that the president has decided to “appoint a special envoy to assess Palestinian needs,” launch a fundraising campaign, and hold a nationwide rally in support for Palestine.

The Indian Ocean archipelago, known for its white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons, and luxury resorts, is a popular destination among Israelis. Nearly 11,000 tourists from Israel visited the islands last year, which amounts to 0.6% of total arrivals. This year, however, the number dropped by more than 80%.

Following the announcement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued an advisory, recommending Israeli citizens to avoid traveling to the Maldives and urging those staying there to depart.

“For Israeli citizens already in the country, it is recommended to consider leaving, because if they find themselves in distress for any reason, it will be difficult for us to assist,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The diplomatic relations between Israel and the Maldives have been suspended since 1974. Israeli tourists were allowed to visit the archipelago after the Maldives lifted the previous travel ban in the 1990s. The two countries moved to restore the diplomatic ties in 2010, but the normalization effort was abandoned two years later, following the toppling of President Mohamed Nasheed.

Several Muslim-majority countries, including Algeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, have banned Israeli travelers since the fighting between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas broke out on October 7. More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s operation in Gaza, which was triggered by a surprise Hamas raid into southern Israeli cities.

June 3, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Hezbollah using Israeli Occupation Forces as testing ground for weapons: Israeli media

Al Mayadeen | June 2, 2024

Israeli media reported today, Sunday, on developments in the ongoing war on the northern front, stating that it is gradually becoming the “main front” at the moment. The reports addressed Hezbollah’s military capabilities and its handling of field developments.

The North is gradually becoming the “main front” as Hezbollah increases the scope and intensity of operations while utilizing only a fraction of its capabilities, Israeli media reported on Sunday.

The Resistance in Lebanon “has used only 5% of its weapons arsenal during these months of battle as a testing ground against the Israeli army, in preparation for a real and extensive battle,” Ynet reported, citing the occupation army.

The news website added that Hezbollah “tries every day to bypass air defense systems and derive lessons,” and that  “this has become evident with the different launch angles [the Resistance] uses, the concentration of launches, and the varying amounts of explosives in each weapon fired, among other factors.”

Thus, despite the “relatively limited volume of fire compared to the quantities” Hezbollah possesses, the Resistance “is registering accurate and successful hits,” the outlet added, pointing out to the operation using the Burkan heavy rockets on Saturday targeting the 769th Brigade HQ, “Camp Gibor,” causing severe damage to the military base.

The report added that “the use of Burkan rockets has proven effective in terms of material and psychological damage,” citing its “impact due to the unusual levels of destruction caused by each of these rockets, which are known as heavy rockets and can carry up to half a ton of explosives.”

The website also noted that “in recent months, similar to updates introduced to the anti-tank Almas missile, Hezbollah has developed a new family of Burkan rockets with warheads that exceed a ton of explosives” compared to earlier versions with a maximum capacity of 500kg of explosives.

‘To be or not to be’

Israeli Reserve Major General Gershon Hacohen warned on Saturday that “Israel” is currently facing an “existential threat” from Hezbollah, with its motto being “to be or not to be,” emphasizing that the occupation entity lacks the military capability to eliminate the threat posed by the Lebanese Resistance group.

Hacohen told the Israeli Channel 14 that “Israel’s” system of concepts and lifestyles must change, warning that “tomorrow we may not be here if we do not prepare ourselves for a situation we have not witnessed before.”

The Israeli Major General explained that the Israeli military does not currently possess “the size of forces capable of decisive action against Hezbollah…”

“Lebanon is a large country and Hezbollah is spread across all its territory, even in the depths of Lebanon,” he added.

“You must understand that the Israeli army is small, and not only Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) but hundreds of thousands of those exempted from service from the age of 20 to 50 must be recruited to build three or four divisions, and then we can talk,” Hacohen told the Israeli Channel 14.

His statements coincide with a new study conducted by Tel Hai Academic College in “Israel” which revealed that around 40% of Israelis who fled from the settlements in northern occupied Palestine are contemplating not returning even after the war ends.

June 2, 2024 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Accepts ‘Not Good’ Gaza Ceasefire Deal – Netanyahu Advisor

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 02.06.2024

On Friday, the White House called the deal proposed by Israel to Hamas “a road map to an enduring cease-fire and the release of all hostages” that would enable a flood of humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave. Previous ceasefire deals have collapsed.

Israel has accepted the framework new deal to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah’s chief foreign policy advisor said on Sunday.

The plan, revealed on Friday by US President Joe Biden, was “a deal we agreed to — it’s not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them,” Ophir Falk was cited by The Sunday Times as confirming.

He added that, “There are a lot of details to be worked out,” and Israel’s conditions regarding “the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas as a genocidal terrorist organization” remain unchanged.

Falk doubled down on the Israeli prime minister’s stance that “there will not be a permanent ceasefire until all our objectives are met.”

Gaza ceasefire mediators the US, Qatar, and Egypt issued a joint statement that called on both Israel and Hamas to finalize an agreement “embodying the principles outlined by President Biden.”

Hamas on Friday said it provisionally welcomed the proposal of US President Joe Biden on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

“The Hamas Islamic Resistance movement welcomes idea of the speech of US President Joe Biden … in his call for a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of occupying forces from the Gaza Strip, the reconstruction [of the Gaza Strip] and the exchange of prisoners,” the movement said.

“Biden’s speech included positive ideas, but we want this to materialize within the framework of a comprehensive agreement that meets our demands,” senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al Jazeera.

Biden, whose administration has been playing both sides – shipping weapons to its ally Tel Aviv while seemingly engaged in a flurry of mediatory activity – revealed a new comprehensive proposal to wind down the Gaza war.

Israel has offered a “roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages,” the US president stated in his Friday press conference.

The proposal, transmitted by Qatar to Hamas, embodies three phases. The first phase would last for six weeks and include a temporary ceasefire, full withdrawal of Israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza, and the release of a number of hostages by both sides.

A permanent ceasefire to end to all hostilities would be negotiated during the second phase, which could include the release of all remaining hostages and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza if Israel’s security guarantees are satisfied. A major reconstruction plan for Gaza would begin during phase three.

What is seen as a sticking point for realization of the deal is that it implies continued Hamas involvement in the arrangements alongside the mediators. However, at no point has Israel agreed to back down from its goal of eliminating Hamas.

Suffice it to recall the previous ceasefire proposals over the past months, none of which have come to fruition. A February truce mediated to halt fighting by the Islamic holy month of Ramadan that began on March 10 did not materialize.

As for Hamas, it has been insisting that only a permanent ceasefire would ensure the release of all the hostages.

Netanyahu is under pressure from his own coalition government, where both far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionism party and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party have indicated that they will resign if the proposed plan to end hostilities without destroying Hamas and returning all the hostages is agreed to. The two have the power to dismantle the governing coalition. At the same time, Benny Gantz’s centrist National Unity party wants the deal to be considered.

While the bargaining continues, an estimated 36,439 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and 82,627 wounded since October 7, according to the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry. The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that practically no health services remain in Rafah after the al-Helal al-Emirati hospital closed.

June 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

WORLDS APART | Dancing on the grave? – Mohammad Marandi

RT | May 26, 2024

Most cultures have a long-standing prohibition against gloating at an untimely death, even of a sworn enemy, and deep down that prohibition serves a very important function of preserving a sense of shared humanity amidst entrenched hatred and polarizing differences. The catastrophic death of the Iranian president and his team in a helicopter crash elicited solemn condolences from much of the world, except for the West. What values are endorsed by this act of dancing on the grave? To discuss this, Oksana is joined by Mohammad Morandi, a political analyst and professor at the University of Tehran.

June 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Belgium’s Ghent University cuts academic relationship with all Israeli universities

Press TV – June 1, 2024

One of the major universities in Belgium has broken off relationship with all Israeli universities and research institutions which it says no longer align with its human rights policy.

University of Ghent (UGent) said in a statement that an investigation by the public research center highlighted concerns regarding connections between Israeli academic institutions and the Israeli administration, military, or security services.

UGent had 18 ongoing partnerships with Israeli academic institutions, it added.

The investigation also referenced a recent World Court ruling which ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and withdraw from the besieged territory, in a case brought by South Africa saying Israel is committing genocide in the narrow Strip.

The development comes two weeks after UGent announced in a statement that it was severing ties with three Israeli educational and research institutions.

The university’s rector, Rik Van de Walle, said at the time that ties were being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre, which carries out agricultural research.

“We currently assess these three partners as (very) problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test, in contrast to the positive evaluation we gave these partners at the start of our collaboration,” Van de Walle said.

Partnerships with MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre “were no longer desirable” due to their affiliation with Israeli ministries, an investigation by the University of Ghent found, and collaboration with the Holon Institute “was problematic” because it provided material support to the army for actions in Gaza.

A spokesperson for the university said the move would affect four projects.

Pro-Palestinian protesters in Ghent have been demonstrating and occupying parts of the university campus since early May protesting against the Israeli regime’s military onslaught in Gaza killing nearly 36,400 Palestinians so far.

The protesters told Belgian broadcaster VRT they welcomed the decision, but want to see it extended to include the six non-academic Israeli institutions that UGent currently partners with.

Earlier this week, two other Belgian universities announced changes in their partnership with Israeli institutions.

The University of Antwerp said it would continue its ongoing research projects with Israeli educational institutions, but will put new projects on hold.

The Université Libre de Bruxelles announced that it will no longer initiate projects with Israeli partners.

June 1, 2024 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Horror of attrition will drive IOF out of Gaza: Abu Hamza

Al Mayadeen | June 1, 2024

The spokesperson of the al-Quds Brigades, Abu Hamza, confirmed that the military wing of the Resistance movement continues to confront Israeli occupation forces, stressing that the Resistance remains “in great shape,” and vowing that “the horror of attrition will drive the occupation outside of Gaza.”

In a recorded statement released by al-Quds Brigades on the 239th day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, Abu Hamza emphasized that the Palestinian Resistance is engaged in an existential battle in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, asserting that victory for the Resistance is inevitable.

Concerning the Israeli captives held by the Resistance in the Gaza Strip, Abu Hamza stressed that the al-Quds Brigades are “fighting a complex security battle to preserve them,” addressing the occupation settlers by saying, “The only way to return the captives is to withdraw from Gaza, conduct an exchange deal, and end the aggression.”

He added that as the occupation persists in its genocidal campaign against Gaza, the return of settlers to the settlements “will not happen until the war on Gaza ends.”

June 1, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Jabalia?

By Tamer Ajrami | MEMO | May 31, 2024

For 20 days now, the occupation army has been committing massacres that have caught the attention of the entire world in Jabalia and the city’s refugee camp.

Everyone is asking what makes this small spot the subject of this continuous destruction. This narrow area, which does not exceed 1.4 square kilometres, holds the highest population density in the world. It is home to 116,000 people and is the largest refugee camp in Palestine.

At the beginning of the current war, the occupation army poured out its anger on Jabalia camp, carrying out four of the most violent and brutal massacres of this war so far.

It later announced victory over Jabalia and began to head south. So why has it returned?

Due to Jabalia’s steadfastness, the occupation army bombed its neighborhoods with dumb bombs, killing hundreds of people in each strike. It went on to starve Palestinians in the north.

And now, Netanyahu’s army is trying a second entry/invasion, perhaps wanting to destroy the camp.

What is happening is a repeat and intensification of what happened long ago, as my father told me. In 1967, Jabalia camp was the site where the first resistance against the occupation began. The occupation went crazy then, wondering how a freedom fighter dared to shoot at a helicopter.

They sent truckloads of soldiers and carried out field executions and the army dropped napalm bombs.

To this day, no one knows how many were killed in that crime, but in the camp, entire families were erased from the civil registry.

And in 1987, the spark of the First Intifada was ignited from Jabalia. After that, everyone started calling it “the revolution camp.”

Among its brave freedom fighters was Hatem Al-Sisi who was the first martyr of the intifada, which extended from 1987 until the Oslo Accords in 1993. The shedding of his blood was the catalyst to the spread of the intifada across the West Bank and Gaza. This inspired my father to name my brother Hatem in his honor. The martyr fell in our neighborhood, near my grandfather’s house.

During the era of the war criminal Ariel Sharon, known as “the bulldozer of Israel”, the occupation’s tanks and planes destroyed Jabalia camp in 2003. The same criminal repeated the attack in 2004. Despite all his attempts, he failed to diminish the resistance, which forced him to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, defeated in 2005.

And today, after 20 years, his successor Netanyahu returns to attack Jabalia camp in multiple assaults. It seems that the desperate Netanyahu has not learned anything from history.

The policy of the “parents die and children forget” will not succeed with Palestinians. In Palestine, parents are martyred and children grow up and do not forget. Rather, they follow the same path as their parents. They call upon the world in all languages, wanting a dignified life and a future for their children.

But the occupation practices genocide against them.

The leaders of the occupation army discuss openly and secretly, shouting and holding conferences all the time; in their minds there is only one question: How do we erase Jabalia camp from the map? Should we drop a nuclear bomb on it, as if 40,000 tonnes of explosives have not quenched their thirst for death.

As if they are asking: “How many tonnes of bombs do we need to drop on them to make them die?”

In 1998, Jabalia camp was visited by then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. No other place could make the official understand our cause better.

I was 13 years old then, and I remember participating in the campaign to clean the school that he was visiting and the main street from the market to the school gate. I was a member of my school’s health committee, which Annan visited. I was the diligent student who greeted him in English, proudly saying, “Welcome to Jabalia camp.”

Yes, I am the son of Jabaliya and I am proud to have been born in that crowded spot. And I am saddened by what I am witnessing today.

For seven months, the occupation starved the people of northern Gaza, focusing on Jabalia camp. Perhaps they hoped the people would die of hunger or flee, making it easier to accomplish their mission of destroying the area completely, levelling it as they did to Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Khan Yunis.

But Jabalia camp remained unbreakable; many were killed, but it stood firm and tall.

Yes, I know that those who remain in the camp are starving, tired and exhausted, but they are steadfast.

As if this steadfastness is a curse, the Israeli occupation’s tanks return to Jabalia as if the war has begun anew. Bombs drop from the sky. 1000lb, 2000lb bombs fall from warplanes aiming to kill more innocent civilians inside homes. Their only fault is that they said: “We will not leave our homes, we will not flee.”

It pains me to hear that the rabid army has now destroyed about 70 per cent of the camp’s landmarks. Its most prominent locations have disappeared.

Today, the news tells us that tanks are besieging the street which has four UNRWA schools; two primary and two elementary. This is the same street that Kofi Annan visited.

Those who remain in Jabalia know what displacement is. They lived as displaced people. They know it means permanent exile. They know another displacement means leaving Palestine and moving to Sinai, which would mean the end of our cause forever. They understand the occupation’s lies.

We see and hear them on television, dying of hunger and thirst, eating grass and animal feed, but they will not leave their land. Among them was my uncle, Abu Taysir Al-Ajrami, the father of three martyrs from the resistance who were martyred at the beginning of the Second Intifada between 2002 and 2003. He appeared on Al Jazeera saying: “We eat animal feed, but we will not leave our land. We die but do not leave.”

Everyone knows that if it weren’t for the steadfastness of Jabalia Camp and the patience of its people and the people of Gaza, Netanyahu’s goals of displacing them to Sinai would have been achieved.

Perhaps this is the reason for Netanyahu and his army’s anger towards Jabalia and its residents.

But, as they rebuilt Jabalia Camp after the first massacre in 1967 and the First Intifada in 1987, the second massacre in 2003, and the third massacre in 2004, Palestinians will rebuild the camp once again after the current massacres.

May 31, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

What Has Israel Done for Americans in the Past Week?

They’ve taken our money & weapons and made us complicit as war criminals

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 30, 2024

The Jewish Virtual Library asserts that “The US-Israel relationship is based on the twin pillars of shared values and shared interests. Given this commonality of interests and beliefs, it should not be surprising that support for Israel is one of the most pronounced and consistent foreign policy values of the American people.” That is, of course, the big lie among the many that constitute the tie that binds the two countries together. The back-up lies, regularly spouted in Congress, are that Israel is a democracy and an ally. It is, of course neither, as it is a Jews-only apartheid regime that has no fixed borders and no reciprocal security arrangements with the US. Israel and its promoters never tell the truth, particularly when they are conning the United States government into providing more money and more weapons, as has been occurring both openly and secretly over the past eight months during the horrific ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

So how does it happen, particularly as Israel is manifestly evil in terms of its treatment of the Palestinians as well reckless in its aggression directed against neighbors like Lebanon and Syria? That it is not also bombing Egypt and Jordan is largely attributable to the billions of dollars in aid that the US gives to those countries conditional on their maintaining a wobbly modus vivendi with the aggressive and nuclear armed Zionists.

Given the wonderful comfort zone that Israel has established largely due to US protection in international bodies like the United Nations and the UN Security Council as well as vis-à-vis the several international courts and humanitarian aid agencies, Israel has been regularly attacking and otherwise killing its neighbors without ever being held accountable for anything. It is a pattern that is particularly visible now as the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza approaches the 50,000 mark, consisting mostly of women and children. The recent outrageous assault on the Tal al Sultan neighborhood refugee camp near Rafah, which killed at least 45 and included graphic photography of a burning child’s body without a head as well as other still flaming and smoking corpses, was directed against homeless Gazans living in tents who had previously been driven from their destroyed homes in the northern part of the country. And to the eternal shame of Biden and company, the slaughter used US-made and supplied weapons.

Add to the carnage the famine that is now threatening to kill tens of thousands more Palestinians due to the Israeli government and its extremist settlers blocking the entry of food supplies and the scale of Israel’s chosen genocidal actions can be appreciated. Netanyahu’s claim that the army only used small munitions in Rafah and was targeting two Hamas officials hiding among the civilians was as usual a lie and the camp otherwise had no significance as a military target. Israel has followed up on the attack with another bombing run on nearby al-Mawasi the following night which killed more than twenty and the Jewish state’s tanks are now penetrating deep into the city no doubt preceding an infantry assault that could kill tens of thousands more. They have also cut off access to the entry point from Egypt to the south of Rafah. One senior Israeli government official is now predicting that the war will continue until the end of the year, another seven months, success apparently being measured by arriving at a point when Hamas and all other hostile Palestinians will be either killed or deported.

Following the Rafah slaughter, there no doubt occurred the mandatory phone call exchange between a sneering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the grinning mental giant President Joe Biden, no doubt including Bibi’s expressing thanks for the American weaponry reportedly used in the killing. It’s really great when you don’t even have to pay for the weapons used to murder someone. To show his appreciation of the Israeli gratitude Biden no doubt muttered a phrase engraved on his prefrontal lobes, i.e. “Israel has a right to defend itself!” The transnational interaction presumably also produced the typical flatulence that emerges from the White House propaganda machine. Biden, in a bid to make it look like he was actually pressuring Israel to reduce civilian casualties, had previously warned that a full-scale invasion of Rafah would be hard to support and would be considered a “red line” issue, but it was a political stunt that he never intended to carry out apart from one delayed arrival of a shipment of the super heavy 2000 pound bombs. Many Americans, indeed a majority, are rightly deeply upset about the support of the US military and government for Israel’s latest war and an addled Biden is now counting votes while pretending to have humanitarian concerns.

Even so, the White House did not go so far as to blame the Israelis for their overreach. At a press conference, Biden’s National Security communications officer John Kirby, who reportedly was an Admiral once upon a time, possibly on the Good Ship Lollypop, articulated how “You’ve all seen the images, they’re heartbreaking, they’re horrific. There should be no innocent life lost here as a result of this conflict. Israel, of course, has a right to go after Hamas… As a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to. It just happened. The Israelis are going to investigate it. We’re going to be taking great interest in what they find in that investigation.” Sure you are John, and it will be a great and thorough investigation by Israel just like it was in the cases of the dead Americans on board the USS Liberty, peace activist Rachel Corrie, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and, most recently, the 80 year old American citizen Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad who was beaten to death by elements in Israel’s “most moral army in the world” after being detained for the crime of having been walking in his West Bank village.

Why are Joe and company such dedicated dissimulators of the truth when it comes to Israel and all its malignant works? It is because of an entity known euphemistically as the Israel Lobby but which I much prefer to describe more accurately as the Jewish Money In Politics Entity (AIPAC, ADL and others) supported by the Scofield Bible Zio-Christian Crowd headed by clowns like House Speaker Mike Johnson. I know it’s a mouthful but that is what it is. Israel does not obtain US uncritical and overwhelming support because its behavior deserves it or because it serves American interests but rather because of all that money judiciously applied to corrupt the government at all levels and to buy and control the message of the media and entertainment industries. Professor John Mearsheimer, co-author of 2007’s The Israel Lobbyhas long claimed that “Israel’s backers will go to silence anyone who challenges their narrative.” But according to Mearsheimer, something changed because of October 7th: “The big difference is that the lobby’s activities are completely out in the open today. I think few people knew much about the lobby back then. And very few people knew much about the lobby’s influence on American foreign policy, especially as it applies to the Middle East. And I think that we helped to expose that and now more people understand what’s going on. The lobby is now forced to operate much more out in the open.”

Pari passu, all that corruption judiciously applied is serving to strip Americans of their fundamental rights, particularly freedom of speech, as it will soon be illegal to criticize either Jews or Israel. And don’t expect any relief coming from the national election in November if there is a GOP victory in the form of Donald Trump and possibly Nikki Haley or some creature like that as a Ziocon replacement part. Trump sold out on every conceivable issue for Israel back in 2016-20 and would do it again. The Republicans have been striving to become the new party of “Israel First” as they want to steal away all that cash and media support from the Democrats. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has been calling for nuking Gaza while Nikki has been in Israel signing bombs to be dropped on the Pals with a purple marker: “Finish Them! America [Loves] Israel.” Her urging of a foreign military funded and armed by the US government to kill refugees living in tents after the destruction of their homes might be considered the cruelest way to endorse mass murder, but hey, Israel always comes first in the thinking of most Congressmen and those who are unfortunately sitting in the White House.

There is also legislation in the pipeline being pushed by the Republicans opposing any attempts by the White House to try to condition behavior by suspending weapons shipments to good friend and ally Israel, not that Biden would really go that route. The Congress has also been putting intense pressure on universities to clamp down on Pro-Palestinian groups on campus by claiming they are antisemites while not doing the same vis-a-vis the sometimes violent supporters of Israel, and the universities are obliging, canceling the graduation of protesters or even expelling them. Donald Trump has recently told a largely Jewish audience that he will deport any anti-Israel protesters if he becomes president, an interesting proposal as most of those demonstrating are native born American citizens and many of them are Jewish. He has also called on Israel to “finish” what it is doing to the Palestinians, clearly meaning that they should be exterminated or forced to emigrate, and has also told Jewish donors that today’s atmosphere in the US is very much like “before the holocaust.” No longer the loudmouth who called for an end to foolish wars, Trump has now in addition said that if he had been president when the Russian intervention into Ukraine had taken place, he would have bombed them. Likewise for China if it were to attack Taiwan. Either move would almost certainly start World War 3 even though neither Ukraine nor Taiwan is a vital security interest of the US but Trump is too stupid to know that. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is, for his part, urging that the US release for deployment in Ukraine advanced missile systems that would be able to strike deep into Russia. As dumb ideas go that it about as dumb as it gets, as the Russians have already indicated that they would respond with everything they have, meaning US military targets worldwide would be considered fair game for retaliation possibly using nuclear weapons.

We have truly been entering into something that might be entitled the Psycho Zone if it were to be made into a movie. War is being treated by the sociopaths in Washington, Israel and parts of Europe as though it were something to be casually entered into in one’s spare time. There is even talk in both the US and UK as well as in some other European capitals about initiating active conscription at a close to war level so we freedom lovers can sock it to those Russkies and Chinks good and proper. And as for the Palestinian trash, the Biden pontoon bridge that cost $320 million appears to be broken but it can still be used to carry out Netanyahu’s plan to push a bunch of screaming Ay-rabs into the Mediterranean Sea to get rid of them for once and for all. Hopefully they can’t swim and the Chosen ones will again be able to take possession of what was given to them by Yahweh. Or something like that.

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.

May 30, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment