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Can We Debate?

Is It Still Legal?

BY KEVIN BARRETT • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 11, 2024

This week’s False Flag Weekly News begins with the Daily Wire article “Harvard Employee Harasses Jewish Student Suing School For Anti-Semitism – Asks To Debate 9/11 Conspiracies.” The implication is that it is “harassment” to ask someone to “debate 9/11 conspiracies.” Especially if that someone is Jewish. And even more especially if they are suing their school for alleged anti-Semitism.

The Daily Wire hit piece targets Gustavo Espada, the financial and systems coordinator for Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. According to the Wire, Espada “has been active in pushing 9/11 conspiracy theories for 18 years, according to a 2006 piece in The Lowell Sun which reported he spends 10 hours a week ‘handing out literature,’ Web logging and talking with people on the street about his views on 9/11.”

The thrust of the Wire hit piece is that Espada should be fired from his university job because he wants to debate 9/11. Reading the story brought back memories of a my own experience in 2006. While teaching subjects including Folklore, African Studies, and Islamic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had begun doing 9/11 teach-ins on campus in 2004, and then gotten involved in the national and global 9/11 truth movements. In 2006 I became the focus of a concerted pushback campaign sparked by Lynn Cheney’s group ACTA and its acolytes in the Wisconsin Republican Party.

Like Espada, I repeatedly challenged my detractors to meet me in a formal debate. In September 2006, while I was under fire from the State Legislature, the UW-Madison Debate Club sponsored what was supposed to be a debate on 9/11. They arranged for me and Jim Fetzer to argue against the 9/11 Commission’s official story, and told us that a history professor and a political science professor (Donald Downs, as I recall) had agreed to defend it. But at the last minute, the two pro-official-story professors backed out. So Jim Fetzer and I were left “debating” two empty chairs.

I reiterated my debate challenge. The university Provost, Patrick Farrell, told me that he would try to have the university set up some sort of formal panel discussion or debate after the media furor died down. Student newspapers at UW-Madison and UW-Oshkosh published op-eds plaintively begging for some knowledgable professor to debate and refute me. But nobody stepped forward to defend the 9/11 Commission.

Six months of media hoopla (July through December 2006) made me unemployable at the University of Wisconsin. I was denied a tenure-track Islam-Humanities job at U.W.-Whitewater purely due to my views of 9/11, according to whistleblowing then-Dean of Humanities Howard Ross. And I was told by the late Professor Muhammad Umar Memon, then a member of the UW-Madison hiring committee for its Islam classes, that the committee was informed by the University administration that I must not be rehired for my Islam 101 teaching job for the same reason.

Rendered unemployable due to my views of 9/11, but with nobody willing to debate me and explain why my views were wrong (privately most of my colleagues I knew personally thought my views were likely right or at least plausible) I offered a $1000 honorarium to any University of Wisconsin instructor, whether professor or TA, who was willing to defend the 9/11 Commission in a formal debate. There were no takers. Years later, the offer was raised to $2000. Still no takers.

Similar debate challenges were issued at other universities. A 9/11 truth group at the University of Michigan sent letters to every professor in the Engineering department seeking someone to defend the FEMA and NIST positions on the destruction of the World Trade Center in a debate with me and Underwriters Labs whistleblower Kevin Ryan. Most didn’t respond. The few who did told the organizers, off the record, that Ryan and I were right.

Could a 9/11 Debate Have Prevented Genocide?

According to the tenets of liberal democracy, all important matters are supposed to be debated on the basis of logic and evidence, and the truth that emerges becomes the touchstone of public policy. Had a real debate on 9/11 ever transpired, the truth that would have emerged—9/11 was orchestrated not by al-Qaeda, but by the state of Israel and its American neoconservative allies—would have prevented the series of wars that has devastated the Middle East, including the ongoing Israeli genocide of Gaza.

People resist debate when they know that logic and facts are not on their side. When would-be debaters like Espada are smeared, and their livelihoods threatened, it’s obvious that those doing the smearing know that their victims are right.

Can We Debate the Ukraine War?

Another topic that’s off-limits to debate is the US war on Russia through Ukraine. As with 9/11, the neoconservative propaganda talking points—the enemy is pure evil, “they” attacked “us” for no reason, and so on—are inflated to the status of sacred public myths, and anyone who wants to debate them is a damnable heretic. Merely for exposing us to Putin’s point of view, Tucker Carlson has been attacked by the whole mainstream media. As with 9/11, the neocon Establishment’s refusal to debate on logic and evidence, and its preference for shrill vituperation and ad-hominem attacks, suggests that it knows it couldn’t win a real debate with the likes of Putin.

Cancelled Candidates

Elections are a form of public policy debate. When the side with power knows that it can’t win a fair debate—as with the Pakistani military’s stand-off with Imran Khan—it may try to cancel the candidacy…or the candidate. Khan, who was very nearly assassinated by the Pakistani establishment, currently languishes in prison despite his overwhelming popularity among the vast majority of his countrymen. The Pakistani junta’s attempt to rig last week’s elections failed, because it’s impossible to convincingly rig an election when your opponent has such high levels of support. So the man who is the people’s choice and the rightful Prime Minister, targeted by ludicrous legal assaults including an attack on the legitimacy of his marriage, remains in prison… for now.

Imran Khan’s plight, we might imagine, is typical of tinpot third world military dictatorships, but irrelevant to the affairs of advanced Western democracies. But in both the US and Germany, pro-immigration Establishments are working overtime to keep anti-immigration parties and personalities off the ballot. Like the Pakistani Establishment vis-a-vis Imran Khan, the US and German Establishments don’t want to have to debate anti-immigration populist movements. So the Democrats in the US, and the ruling elites in Germany, are using various underhanded means to try to keep Trump and the MAGA movement, and the anti-immigration party AFD, off the two nations’ respective ballots.

Donald Trump, like Imran Khan, might very well end up winning an election from a prison cell. Like Khan, Trump has been targeted by a lawfare campaign expressly designed to torpedo his political chances. And Trump’s party, like Khan’s, views itself as the victim of widespread election fraud, and those who try to raise and debate the issue are deplatformed. Though the two cases aren’t fully comparable—Khan is overwhelmingly popular while Trump is controversial, Khan’s complaints are fully justified while Trump’s are only partly so, and Khan is completely honest and ethical while Trump is not—there are enough similarities to raise questions about whether American “democracy” is any healthier than Pakistan’s.

Undebatable COVID

The notion that the truth emerges through free and fair debate took a huge hit during COVID. We were told to “trust the science” and wear masks everywhere, even though the science suggests that there is no convincing evidence that masks significantly slow the spread of respiratory viruses. The debate about COVID origins was unceremoniously quashed, and people were deplatformed for even mentioning the issue. And arguments about whether highly experimental vaccines should be mass-tested on entire populations were likewise suppressed. Only one position—the Establishment’s—was allowed.

One More Question for Debate

So in light of all the signs that liberal democracy is dead and free and fair debate no longer effectively exists, I propose one last subject for debate: Should debate itself be legal? Or to rephrase that in debate-ese: “Resolved: Debate should be criminalized, and would-be debaters should be imprisoned or executed.”

Especially if they are “anti-Semitic.”

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February 11, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Congress and the President Come Up with Another Week from the Dark Side

Mayorkas evades accountability while Netanyahu ignores Biden

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Washington is a place where a clueless politician like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can, with a straight face and providing no evidence, claim that pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States are working for Russia and/or China. She has asked the FBI to investigate. But in spite of that and for a change there was also some good news coming out of the Federal Capital though it was far outweighed by the bad things that the US government does almost reflexively, clearly with little regard for possible consequences. The good news is that Ukraine and Israel, incorrectly described by the New York Times as America’s “allies,” might not soon be getting their expected fat checks and planeloads of military equipment from Washington, which will no doubt hamper their plans to weaken Russia while also killing Palestinians. The GOP controlled House presented a unilateral standalone bill giving $17.6 billion to Israel but ignoring other alleged national security obligations being advanced by the White House. The bill was submitted “under suspension,” which is a procedural tactic that fast-tracks an item for a vote but requires a two-thirds majority to pass. It failed 250-180 in the voting last Tuesday. The House bill went down when the Democrats were able to muster enough votes to block its passage in support of White House objections, even though a formidable percentage of the House normally votes to support anything and everything related to Israel. The “no” voters argued that the GOP bill was an attempt to “undermine the possibility of a comprehensive bipartisan funding package that addresses America’s national security challenges in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region and throughout the world.”

If the bill had passed and eventually reached Biden’s desk for signature, a possibility that the White House had dismissed as a “cynical political maneuver,” he would have refused to sign it in spite of his often expressed great love for Israel. Over last weekend, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement declaring that “The security of Israel should be sacred, not a political game. We strongly oppose this ploy which does nothing to secure the border, does nothing to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against Putin’s aggression, and denies humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, the majority of them women and children, which the Israelis supported by opening the access route.”

It should be noted that Jean-Pierre is lying. It is the White House, not the GOP bill, which “denies humanitarian assistance” to the Gazans by supporting Israeli total control over the importation of relief supplies and food. According to the UN, 95% of emergency supplies are being blocked or interfered with by Israel, which continues to bomb civilians throughout the strip. In response to that reality, the White House has issued a national security memorandum that will require that countries receiving US military aid not impede the delivery of humanitarian assistance even during wartime, though the Thursday memorandum does not specifically mention it as applying to Israel, only to “allies and partners.” The aid recipients must also confirm in writing that they “will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law.”

In a bid to counter the Republican efforts and advance his own agenda, President Joe Biden and whoever pulls his strings came up with their own war funding plan, which came apart and “crumbled” in a close 49 to 50 vote due to lack of sufficient support in the Senate on Wednesday night. The Democrats had the brilliant idea of tying in their offering of $14.1 billion in aid to Israel to the $60 billion to be given to Ukraine to get them through the next year plus $4 billion for Taiwan. Also included was $10 billion in humanitarian aid, but as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency program for Palestine (UNRWA) was predictably blocked from receiving any of it, the $1.4 billion allocated to Gaza would likely not actually have been delivered in any case in spite of Biden’s promotion of the “humanitarian” aspect of the legislation. If the bill had passed, one would not have been surprised to see the bulk of the humanitarian aid winding up in Israel to compensate it for its perpetual victimhood, this time allegedly meted out by Hamas!

The White House’s reasoning behind the initiative was that by wrapping all the commitments together in an omnibus Senate bill, Congress wouldn’t dare withhold money from Israel and the other aid packages could slide through the process without any serious opposition. But the Republicans were able to muster enough “no” votes from congressmen concerned about where the money was coming from to pay for the aid to block the Senate bill. A third “national security” spending bill is nevertheless now in the works, having passed through the Senate on Thursday night by a filibuster proof 67 to 32 vote. It includes the money for Ukraine and Israel as well as for Taiwan and for “humanitarian” programs, but it still has to pass through further tweaking in the Senate to satisfy Republican concerns about immigration and the border, followed by a second vote in the Senate before it then goes on to the House of Representatives for final approval before landing on the presidential desk. So at this point nobody gets anything, which is a perfect solution when one is fighting three or four technically illegal wars, one involving genocide, in which money provided to Israel plausibly involves the United States in supporting a crime against humanity.

On the same previous day as the vote in the House on the Israel aid, the GOP, unfortunately, also failed in its bid to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a vote of 216-214. Four Republicans voted against together with all the Democrats on grounds that impeaching a cabinet secretary over policy disagreements sets a bad precedent. Mayorkas’ record regarding relatively free entry of waves of literally millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico is well known, but the presumption is that he is carrying out policies under instructions from the president. The border has become known as such an easy way to enter the US that charter flights to Mexico from places like India and Africa are regularly being run to bring in the new illegals. Interestingly the failed Senate bill relating to Israel and Ukraine funding also included as a sweetener some guidelines regarding changes regarding border and migrant “security” issues, though Republicans observed that the language was such that Mayorkas would continue to have a free hand in setting policy and enforcement, meaning that there would likely be no change from the current laissez faire. Mayorkas defended himself against attacks in a Senate hearing by Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who was, ironically, challenging the secretary over a pro-Palestinian employee at Homeland Security, by characteristically citing his Jewish ancestry-bestowed victimhood and the so-called holocaust. He said angrily “Perhaps he does not know that I am the child of a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps he does not know that my mother lost almost all her family at the hands of the Nazis. And so I find his adversarial tone to be entirely misplaced. I find it to be disrespectful of me and my heritage. And I do not expect an apology.”

So the utterly incompetent Mayorkas survived, But the worst news of the week has to relate to the continuing warfare going on and also escalating in the Middle East. The region has been simmering ever since Israel launched its devastating attack on the mostly civilian population of Gaza in early October. The bombing and shooting of civilians has continued in spite of a judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel was engaging in actions that could be characterized as genocide. The United States, which is continuing to arm and fund Israel, could be seen, in legal terms, as an accessory to genocide given the terms of the court ruling. Israel, for its part, was warned that it must cease and desist from targeting and killing civilians, blocking food and other relief supplies to encourage both famine and disease, and destroying critical infrastructure like water treatment plants and hospitals.

The United States is responsible for escalating the conflict through its total support of Israel and its attack on the Houthis as well as the current strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq. Hypocritically the White House is at the same time boasting that it is not expanding the war because it has not yet struck Iran, as the Israelis are stridently seeking. To retaliate against a drone attack that killed three US soldiers at a base straddling the Jordan-Syria border, the United States attacked more than 85 targets in Syria, Iraq and Yemen simultaneously, killing at least forty civilians in Syria as well as a high level Iraqi militia commander in Baghdad. The multi-million-dollar cruise missiles and smart bombs being used by the Navy and Air Force are reportedly expensive and already hard to replace. And why is the White House bombing so many targets in Iraq and Syria when only one US base which may have actually been completely illegally in Syria was hit? The one site that launched the device that struck the base was reportedly among the targets, but the effectiveness of the retaliation is unknown, meaning that the US is engaged in collective punishment and killing innocent tribesman living in the deserts in western Iraq and eastern Syria as well as in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. This is itself an escalation and more will surely follow, inevitably creating new enemies who will be motivated to seek revenge against Americans at the remaining bases. The smart policy would be to shut down the illegal bases in both Syria and Iraq, as has been demanded by the local governments and people, but that would mean not being able to steal more Syrian oil. This escalation was not the right response, but no one expects Biden and his crew to be smart.

In fact, the local militia fighters wasted no time and struck back immediately, killing six US-supported Kurdish fighters by way of a drone strike on a US base in eastern Syria. The men were killed in an attack on the US facility located at al-Omar oilfield in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province. A further 18 militiamen were wounded. Additional attacks on US bases in Syria and Iraq are likely to increase, not decrease in the coming weeks, with no end in sight. If anyone can explain why the United States continues to shoot itself in the foot both worldwide and at home it would certainly be interesting to hear a whole new series of lies to justify bad policies and performance. In 2015 distinguished journalist Robert Fisk asked what is “The difference between America and Israel?” He answered “There isn’t one. Netanyahu knows he can get away with anything in America – with the same confidence that he can support his army when they slaughter hundreds of children in Gaza.” He has now observed that the 2016 election was between a “Liberal American Zionist fascist,” and a “Conservative American Zionist fascist,” with the latter winning in 2016, and the former in 2020. And now we’re likely back to the latter in 2024.

Joe Biden is clearly getting nervous. In an impromptu speech on Thursday responding to disparaging comments made by the special counsel investigating his mishandling of classified documents, he denied suffering from memory problems. Unfortunately, in his comments he described Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi as the leader of Mexico. But he also delivered a scathing comment on Netanyahu that has resonated, saying “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top. I’ve been pushing really hard, really hard, to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving. There are a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. And it’s got to stop.” Israel is currently bombing the Rafah area in Gaza, which is packed with refugees as Israel had previously declared it to be a “safe” zone. During Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent visit to Israel, he reportedly told Netanyahu that Washington wouldn’t support any “unplanned” ground operation in Rafah. The Israeli Prime Minister angrily rejected the advice and Israel escalated attacks anyway.

One has to wonder if Joe Biden is up to improving his re-electoral prospects in the nine months remaining until the election by abandoning his hitherto sordid defense of Israel’s crimes. And, if he does so, what will he do when Bibi and the Israel Lobby begin pushing back real hard on him, as they inevitably will?

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.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel targets Red Crescent headquarters in Gaza

MEMO | February 9, 2024

The headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the Gaza Strip have been damaged due to incessant bombings by the Israeli army.

Major damage was caused to the society’s headquarters in the Tal Al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City and the Al-Amal neighbourhood in the city of Khan Younis, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.

The Israeli army also targeted vehicles belonging to the humanitarian aid group, an Anadolu correspondent reported.

The Society’s Al-Quds Hospital in Tal Al-Hawa was also subjected to significant damage as a result of being targeted by Israeli tanks.

“The Israeli army deliberately targeted the society’s headquarters and vehicles to put them out of service,” Red Crescent spokesman Raed Al-Nims said.

“The most severe Israeli attacks against the society were those in northern Gaza, which caused a health and humanitarian crisis, especially after hospitals and medical centres went out of service there,” he added.

Nims said only one medical centre affiliated with the society is now operating in northern Gaza to provide first aid services.

He added that Israel has cut off medical, relief and food supplies to the northern Gaza Strip, which has exacerbated the humanitarian situation for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there.

“The Israeli army is still besieging the society’s Al-Amal Hospital, west of Khan Younis, from all sides, depriving Palestinians sheltering there of food, water, medical supplies, basic needs, and oxygen.”

“The hospital houses more than 200 patients, medical and administrative staff,” the spokesman added.

On 7 February, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported an alarming spread of diseases due to the lack of sanitation and clean water.

Recent results of malnutrition screenings conducted by partner organisations indicate a significant increase in the overall acute malnutrition rate among children.

Overall acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip reached 16.2 per cent, a rate that exceeds the critical threshold set by the World Health Organisation set at 15 per cent.

Despite the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling, Israel continues its onslaught on the Gaza Strip where at least 27,947 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 67,459 injured since 7 October, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The Israeli offensive has left 85 per cent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu orders ‘evacuation’ of over one million Gazans from Rafah

Displaced Palestinians who fled Khan Younis set up camp in Rafah further south near the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, on 6 December 2023. (Photo credit: Getty)
The Cradle | February 9, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on 9 February that the over one million Palestinian civilians who have taken refuge in the southern Gaza city of Rafah will be able to evacuate before the Israeli army begins a ground operation there.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that he had instructed the army to prepare plans for both the evacuation of the Palestinian civilian population from the southern Gaza Strip and the dismantlement of any battalions of Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, in the Rafah area.

“It is impossible to achieve the war goal of eliminating Hamas and leave four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” the statement said.

“On the other hand, it is clear that a massive operation in Rafah requires the evacuation of the civilian population from the combat zones,” it added.

But such a plan to evacuate over 1 million people is likely impossible. UN chief Antonio Guterres says half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population “is now crammed into Rafah with nowhere to go,” warning the displaced “have no homes” and “no hope.”

Israel’s previous warnings to Palestinians to flee northern Gaza and take refuge in the south did not provide safety to civilians, as Israel bombed the proposed evacuation routes and alleged safe zones.

Expressions of concern for civilians in Gaza by Prime Minister Netanyahu have come amid other calls he has made to exterminate the millions of Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible — we do remember,” Netanyahu has said on several occasions. According to the New York Times he was referring to the “ancient enemy of the Israelites, in scripture interpreted by scholars as a call to exterminate their ‘men and women, children and infants.’”

Last month, the UK aid group Oxfam said that the Israeli military is killing 250 Palestinians per day, with many more lives at risk from hunger, disease, and cold.

Any plan to evacuate civilians is also likely to be superficial, given that as of Sunday, no such plan was being prepared. CNN reported that Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss, who oversees the army’s 98th Division, said that he would work on such a plan “if and when” he receives the order to send his forces into the area and that as of Sunday, the order had not been issued yet.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Irish team refuses handshake with Israeli opponents

RT | February 9, 2024

The Irish women’s basketball team have refused to shake hands with their Israeli opponents at a game in Latvia, after Israeli player Dor Saar accused their counterparts of being “quite anti-Semitic.”

Ireland met Israel at a EuroBasket 2025 qualifying game in Riga on Thursday. In a break with normal protocol, Basketball Ireland announced before the match that its team would not participate in the “exchanging of gifts, [or] formal handshakes before or after the game, while our players will line up for the Irish national anthem by our bench, rather than the center court.”

The statement came after the Israeli Basketball Association published an interview with Saar on Tuesday, during which the player accused her Irish counterparts of anti-Semitism.

“It’s known that they are quite anti-Semitic and it’s no secret, and maybe that’s why a strong game is expected,” Saar said. “We talk about it among ourselves, we know they don’t like us and we will always leave everything on the field and in this game especially.”

Basketball Ireland reported Saar’s comments to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), calling them “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate.”

Prior to the game with Israel, Basketball Ireland put out a statement saying it was “very concerned about the events unfolding in Gaza and… extremely sympathetic to the dreadful situation that people are having to deal with.” The organization revealed it had approached FIBA to discuss pulling out of two scheduled clashes with Israel, but was warned that the Irish team would be fined up to €180,000 ($195,000) and barred from EuroBasket 2025 and 2027.

“Basketball Ireland remains obliged to fulfill the fixture on February 8th,” the statement concluded.

Public support for the Palestinian cause runs high in Ireland, particularly among supporters of the Sinn Fein party, whose leaders maintained cordial relations with Hamas even after ceasing their armed struggle against Britain. A poll taken last month found that 71% of the Irish public view Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as “apartheid,” while 62% supported sanctioning the Jewish state over its ongoing war in Gaza.

Israel won the game 87-57, with the Israeli Basketball Association stating that the victory came “despite the lack of sportsmanship of the visiting team.”

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

South Africa FM says Israel trying to ‘intimidate’ her over ICJ case

Press TV – February 9, 2024

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor denounced the Israeli intelligence agency’s attempts to “intimidate” her over the Israeli genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and reaffirmed Pretoria’s support for the Palestinians.

Speaking on the sidelines of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address on Thursday night, Pandor said she was concerned for the safety of her family after having been targeted on social media.

Pandor said she had spoken to Police Minister Bheki Cele about beefing up her security after she received threatening messages.

“I felt that [it would] be better if we had extra security. But what I’m more concerned about is my family, because in some of the social media messages my children are mentioned and so on, but this is par for the course.

“The Israeli agents, the intelligence services, [this] is how they behave, and they seek to intimidate you, so we must not be intimidated. There is a cause that is under way,” the top South African diplomat said.

She said the government was determined to see the ICJ case through, much like the people of Palestine had been in fighting South Africa’s apartheid system.

“We can’t stand back now. We must be with them. And I think one of the things we must not allow is a failure of courage. It’s extremely important that we continue with this. We talked to the South African people; they understand why it is we have taken up this moral course,” Pandor noted.

The ICJ, also called the World Court, issued an interim ruling last month, ordering Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts that could amount to genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Hague-based court, however, stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.

Israel waged the bloody war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas launched Operation al-Aqsa Storm in the occupied territories in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s incessant crimes against Palestinians.

Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 27,947 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the territory.

The campaign has devastated large swathes of Gaza, destroyed hospitals and displaced most of its population of 2.4 million.

Israel has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water as human rights bodies have warned of a major humanitarian crisis.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Lawmakers Move To Punish ‘Denying’ Or ‘Downplaying’ October 7th With 5 Years In Prison

BY CHRIS MENAHAN | INFORMATION LIBERATION | FEBRUARY 6, 2024

Israeli lawmakers are moving forward with a bill to punish those accused of “denying” or “downplaying” Israel’s narrative of October 7th with five years in prison.

“Israel’s Knesset approves a bill, which punishes the denial or ‘downplaying’ of the Israeli narrative of Oct 7 by up to 5 years in prison,” the Palestinian Quds News Network reported.

“The approved bill is one out of three bills that included the expulsion of families of Palestinians who resist, imprisonment for those who deny Israel’s narrative on October 7, and compensation for notorious ZAKA organization.”

The ZAKA unit is notable for pushing some of the most ridiculous atrocity propaganda about Hamas beheading babies and cutting the baby out of a pregnant woman’s womb.

From The Jerusalem Post, “Israeli Ministerial Committee approves imprisonment for denying Oct. 7, ZAKA compensation”:

The bill approved by Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer prohibits the denial of the October 7 massacre. According to the proposal, anyone who publishes, in writing or orally, things that deny the massacre or downplays it or publishes praise, sympathy, or identification with the actions committed by Hamas in the events of that day – will be sentenced to five years in prison.

The explanation for the bill reads: “The denial of the massacre constitutes an attempt to rewrite history already at this stage, in an attempt to hide, minimize, and facilitate the crimes committed against the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”

The proposal by Likud MK Moshe Passal gives financial compensation to ZAKA volunteers who volunteered for endeavors carried out by the organization during Operation Swords of Iron.

“There is no doubt that the volunteers took a significant part and did hard work, both physically and mentally. They were a significant part of the holy work for the people of Israel and worked together with the IDF, so they deserve to be rewarded for their important work,” Passal said.

No doubt they want to use this law to jail journalists from Haaretz and other Israeli news organizations which debunked much of the atrocity propaganda Israel put out after Oct 7.

The Times of Israel last week ran a piece arguing that questioning Israel’s narratives on Oct 7 is a form of “Holocaust denial” and insisting that Big Tech should do more to censor such “unacceptable” speech.

Zionists have pushed for similar speech restrictions in America. University of Pennsylvania law professor Claire Finkelstein wrote a column in the Washington Post last month demanding America scrap the First Amendment to protect the feelings of pampered Jewish Ivy League college students.

With Israel’s atrocity propaganda getting debunked in real-time and their excuses for genocide being rejected by the overwhelming majority of the world, they’re now demanding overt censorship and moving to jail whoever they can for exposing their lies.

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February 8, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Troops to Attack Rafah as the UN Warns of ‘Large-Scale Loss of Civilian Life’

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 8, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would order his troops to attack Rafah, a city in Gaza sheltering over one million internally displaced civilians. The situation in the Gazan city is already dire. The UN warns the attack could cause a massive loss of civilian life.

Netanyahu declared Israeli troops would soon attack Rafah. The statement follows the Israeli leader rejecting a ceasefire deal and hostage exchange, saying he would settle for nothing less than “total victory.”

Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said attacking the city that is sheltering over 1.5 million Palestinians  “may constitute war crimes.“ “To be clear, intensified hostilities in Rafah in this situation could lead to large-scale loss of civilian lives, and we must do everything possible within our power to avoid that,” he warned.

Palestinians living in Rafah are sheltering in tents. The people lack food and clean drinking water. Disease and starvation are spreading in the city. Gazans feel the coming assault has them “waiting to be martyred.”

Omar Shaki, the Israel-Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, expressed that Israeli attacks on the densely populated city will add to the 11,500 children Israel has killed in Gaza over four months. “Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and Rafah is now the most densely populated place in Gaza. Any sort of military campaign or air strike would amplify risks of disproportionate attacks,” he stated.

It is unclear where the Palestinians will go after Rafah is destroyed by the Israeli military. Tel Aviv has placed two-thirds of the Strip under execution order. Outside of Rafah, other places in Gaza deemed “safe zones” lack infrastructure to support the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the small enclave. Egypt has threatened to go to war if the Israeli military attempted to drive the Palestinians across the border.

Bob Kitchen of the International Rescue Committee explained there was nowhere safe for the Palestinians to go. “If they aren’t killed in the fighting, Palestinian children, women and men will be at risk of dying by starvation or disease,” he said. “There will no longer be a single ‘safe’ area for Palestinians to go to.”

Rafah is the last city in Gaza not devastated by the Israeli military operations in the Strip. However, Israel has conducted scores of strikes in the city. On Wednesday, Israeli strikes in Gaza killed 13 people, including two women and five children.

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Red Crescent calls for pressure on Israel over fate of missing staff, child

Press TV – February 8, 2024

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in the Gaza Strip has called on the international community to exert pressure on the Israeli regime to reveal the fate of two of its staff and a six-year-old Palestinian girl who have been missing for a week.

PRCS made the appeal in a social media post on Thursday, 122 hours after the disappearance of their staff members Youssef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoon as well as Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City.

“We urgently appeal to the international community to exert pressure on Israeli occupation authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Hind and the PRCS team,” the group said.

On January 29, Hind was traveling in a car with her uncle Bahsar Hamada, his wife and their four children, fleeing the brutal bombardment by the Israeli regime.

On their way, Hamada’s car was stopped by the Israeli military. The stoppage was followed by a shower of bullets at Hamada’s car, which killed him, his wife and three of their children on the spot.

Layan Hamada, 15, survived with her cousin Hind. Layan was shot dead as she was speaking on the phone with the PRCS crew while Hind was still trapped inside the vehicle.

Around 6 pm local time, the PRCS team reached the area to rescue Hind who as per the last update remained trapped alone in a car with the dead bodies of her uncle, aunt and cousins scattered around her.

The PRCS team had informed and coordinated with the Israeli authorities before dispatching an ambulance to the location but the NGO lost all contact with its crew after the team went to retrieve the girl.

Since then, demands for answers have been mounting over the fate of Hind and the PRCS medical workers.

Hind’s mother, Wisam, has also issued appeals to international rights organizations for help in finding out what happened to her daughter.

Israel waged its brutal war on besieged Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out an unprecedented operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 27,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 67,000 others.

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

German frigate sets sail to join EU mission in support of Israel

The Cradle | February 8, 2024

The German government on 8 February dispatched the frigate Hesse from its North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven to the Red Sea, where it will join an EU naval mission in support of Israeli commercial interests.

“Free sea trade routes are the basis of our industry and of our capability to defend ourselves,” the chief of the German navy, Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack, told reporters in Berlin.

The Hesse air defense frigate is equipped with radars that can detect targets at a range of up to 400 km and missiles capable of countering ballistic missiles and drones at a range of more than 160 km.

EU foreign ministers are expected to approve the mission officially, codenamed “Aspides,” in mid-February.

In addition to Germany, France, Italy, and Greece have also expressed interest in joining the planned EU mission. According to the plans established by Brussels, the mission is expected to repel attacks but not attack Yemeni targets on land.

Brussels’ entry into the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) became a significant point of contention among several EU states last year, particularly Spain, which vetoed the participation of EU naval forces in the coalition in December.

The Yemeni armed forces have conducted dozens of attacks on US, UK, and Israeli-linked vessels trying to transit the Bab al-Mandab Strait since mid-November. Sanaa maintains that the operations seek to pressure the west into stopping the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and have repeatedly pledged to stop the attacks once the siege of Gaza is lifted.

The US and the UK have launched over a dozen air raids across Yemen since mid-January in an attempt to deter Sanaa’s pro-Palestine actions. However, Yemeni authorities say they have no intent to scale back the campaign.

On Sunday, Ansarallah spokesman Muhammad Abdul Salam stressed that the western strategy will “not achieve any goal … but rather increase their dilemmas” in the region.

“Yemen’s decision to support Gaza is firm and honorable and will not be affected by any attack. [Our military capabilities] are not easy to destroy and have been rebuilt during years of harsh war,” the official said via social media, adding that Washington and London “should submit to international public opinion, which demands an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression [in Gaza].”

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Albanese: Israel is still practicing ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Jerusalem

Palestinian Information Center – February 8, 2024

GAZA – The United Nations Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said on Wednesday that Israel has never respected the international law and has been allowed to violate it since 1967. It is still carrying out acts of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The famine suffered by the residents of the Gaza Strip is unparalleled in the whole world, she said, stressing the necessity of taking all required measures to prevent genocide in Gaza.

Albanese said, in a press statement, “the more aid and ceasefire are delayed, the greater the number of casualties in the Gaza Strip will be.”

She accused Israel of ignoring the International Court of Justice’s ruling by killing more civilians everyday in Gaza, calling on world countries to put pressure on Israel by halting mutual commercial trades.

Albanese said she was shocked to know that member states of the International Court have recently attacked UNRWA, noting that the international community is capable of stopping the ongoing massacres carried out by Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli occupation’s ongoing aggression on the blockaded Gaza Strip has so far led to the martyrdom of 27,708 people and the injury of 67,147 others, in addition to the enforced displacement of more than 85 percent (about 1.9 million people) of the Strip’s population, according to official authorities and international bodies and organizations.

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington inching closer to a war with Iran

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 08.02.2024 

An Iran-US war would be an ideal scenario for Israel. On the one hand, Israel is systematically killing and driving the Palestinians out of their homes, which is allowing it to impose the so-called one-state solution. In this context, if the US plunges into a war with Iran and can inflict a lot of military and economic damage on Israel’s biggest enemy state in the region, that is the best possible scenario for Israel’s future standing in this region. On the one hand, US military engagement in the ongoing war will increase, and on the other hand, a US war on Iran might limit the extent to which Tehran can provide support to Hamas against Israel. This war is no longer a distant possibility, especially after the recent strike in Jordan that killed three US soldiers and wounded at least 34 others. Biden, who immediately accused the Iran-backed militia known as The Islamic Resistance based in Syria and Iraq, has vowed to retaliate. The target is Iran, even though Iran has officially denied supporting this group for striking the US. Nonetheless, US counterstrikes are going to happen, especially because Washington is already striking the Houthis in Yemen to control the Red Sea.

With these upcoming strikes, the US will be involved in at least three fronts, i.e., against Hamas, against the Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance. (This is in addition to the US involvement in Ukraine against Russia.) With deepening US involvement in the Middle East and against Iran, Washington is directly stepping into a sort of quagmire that it took 20 years to get out of in Afghanistan.

A war in the Middle East will not be too much different from the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although a direct war with Iran would also mean going against a force that is much more organized, better equipped, and bigger than Saddam Hussain’s Iraqi army or the Taliban in Afghanistan. There are more than 45,000 US troops on the ground throughout the Middle East. There are another 15,000 personnel on board two aircraft carrier groups. If the US starts a war, Iran does have the capability to hit these targets, or the so-called Iran-backed groups can do the same.

The recent attack in Jordan has after all shown that the US air defense is far from impenetrable. This war, in this sense, could inflict a lot more damage to the US military forces than did the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Still, many people in the US want Washington to tackle not just the so-called Iran-backed militias, but Iran itself. A report in the NATO-backed Atlantic Council says,

“In recent weeks, Iran has waged a shadow war against the United States and its interests in the Middle East, and now three US service personnel are dead and dozens more injured … Washington could sink the Iranian navy, like then-President Ronald Reagan did in the 1980s. It could strike Iranian naval bases. It could target the Iranian leadership, following in the footsteps of then President Donald Trump’s killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. It could seize this opportunity to degrade Iran’s nuclear and missile program—which must be addressed soon regardless”.

Wesley Clark, a retired general who was once NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, wrote on X that “The US should stop saying, ‘We don’t want to escalate.’ This invites them to attack us. Stop calling our strikes ‘retaliation’. This is reactive. Take out their capabilities and strike hard at the source: Iran.” From within the US political class, Senator Tom Cotton (Republican), known for his staunch criticism of the Biden administration’s Iran policy, insisted that the deaths of the three US troops warranted a “devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East”.

With the Biden administration also fanning such ideas out, it means that targeting Iran will become an issue that may have bi-partisan support in the US. Within the US political system, if an issue has bi-partisan support, it tends to minimize the political risk for the given President. In other words, if the Republicans want Biden to retaliate against Iran, it means that they will not be able to criticize him for starting another war. It was the Trump administration that targeted Iran much more directly when it killed Sulemani in Iraq than the Biden administration has done in the past three years.

This is on top of the fact that a growing political opinion in the US points to the inability, or unwillingness, of Washington to hit Iran directly, i.e., inside Iran. This, some hawks have argued, encourages Iran to adopt an aggressive policy vis-à-vis the US, although it does not explain at all why Iran, a much smaller political and economic power than the US, would create such situations that might throw its country into a long turmoil.

Although the Biden administration is more likely to hit the so-called Iran-backed groups in the first round of counterstrikes, there is little gainsaying that this will add to the difficulty of managing the Middle East in a way that minimizes the possibility of war. It will only make a direct war much more possible.

The only geopolitical deterrent the US might consider seriously is whether or not it will have the support of the Middle Eastern states themselves against Iran, for a wider war in the region would jeopardize these states too in the sense that it will cause the conflict to spread and major middle eastern states, such as Saudi Arabia, are in the middle of massive modernization projects. A wider war in the region would disrupt this process, which is why they are more likely to oppose a US bid to wage a direct war. At the same time, given Israel’s position, it is likely to continue to push for, or create conditions, for a war against Iran to accomplish its key objectives, i.e., developing a Greater Israel and eliminating the main regional opposition to it.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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