Zionists lead the charge to a more authoritarian Canada
By Yves Engler | February 12, 2024
Israel supporters have become a leading fascist force in Canada. They are pushing to restrict civil liberties, dismantle democratic organizations and increase policing.
Since I wrote about the phenomenon a month ago Zionist groups and journalists have deepened their ties to fascist groups and escalated their anti-democratic rhetoric in a bid to defend the genocide in Gaza. Israel lobby groups and commentators have repeatedly taken their cues from the former head of the thuggish and racist Jewish Defence League (JDL). They’ve repeatedly circulated long-time JDL head Meir Weinstein’s videos depicting anti-genocidal protesters as a threat and in a sign of this deepening alignment arch-Israeli nationalist reporter Joe Warmington recently quoted Weinstein in a story tarring protesters. In a Toronto Sun article spurred by the former JDL head’s X post headlined “Security threat against Trudeau all of Canada’s concern”, Warmington quotes Weinstein labelling Palestine solidarity protesters a “risk.”
As they deepen their ties to Khanist fascists, Zionist lobby groups have repeatedly called for marches to be banned, individuals to be fired and talks canceled. To suppress criticism of Canada’s contribution to Israel’s genocide Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather, Marco Mendicino and Ya’ara Saks have repeatedly taken up the call to suspend democratic rights. A month ago Saks posted, “As I stated last week, & will repeat again – protests within largely Jewish neighbourhoods like the ones in our riding of #YorkCentre is completely unacceptable. Targeting an overpass in an area that is known to be local Jewish community is a form of intimidation.”
In response to pressure from Saks, Weinstein, B’nai Brith, CIJA and others, the Toronto police barred protests on an overpass of Highway 401. They then arrested three people for asserting their right to assemble. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) condemned the police’s move and CCLA executive director Noa Mendelsohn Aviv pleaded in the Canadian Jewish News against the Zionists’ push to suppress civil liberties. (A B’nai Brith suit to expand the anti-protest zone was rejected.)
As part of this push to supress demonstrations, Israeli nationalist city councillor James Pasternak pushed Toronto representatives to develop a “policy and framework for the management and monitoring of rallies and protests.” In mid-January Pasternak declared, “It does not take much to see the [Palestinian] gatherings taking place downtown are not Charter-protected.”
In a similar bid to shut down basic democratic rights B’nai Brith called for suppressing the public’s rights to ask questions at city council meetings. Reportedly, on December 21 a handful of members of the public showed up at a meeting of the Agglomeration Council of Montreal in response to Hampstead mayor Jeremy Levi telling me he would support Israel even if they killed 100,000 Palestinian children since “good needs to prevail over evil”. Apparently, they asked about Levi’s genocidal apologia and a Hampstead law to send money raised from fines for ripping down posters of hostages to Israel, which led B’nai Brith to file a complaint with the Quebec Municipal Commission (The Commission rejected it). When members of the public asked questions at the January meeting B’nai Brith filed a second complaint (also rejected). The arch Zionist Suburban newspaper/website has published three stories on the matter and a week ago the Montreal Gazette put the Zionists complaints on its front page in a story headlined “Agglomeration council won’t act on antisemitism complaint, Montreal mayor says”.
CIJA and B’nai Brith recently succeeded in pressuring Concordia and Carleton universities to cancel their stops on a national speaking tour with British commentator Sami Hamdi, organized by the Canadian Muslim Political Affairs Council. A recent Zionist sponsored lawsuit also called for the Concordia administration to block students from funding their union. In a similar vein, Conrad Black penned a commentary last week headlined “SHUT CUPE DOWN” due to their Palestine solidarity and in the same National Post newspaper lawyer Howard Levitt called on Zionist members to decertify the Canadian Union Public Employees union.
Fascists have long targeted labour unions. Ditto for books. Montreal’s Jewish Public Library recently pulled the books of Quebec’s most prominent children’s author, Elise Gravel, from their displays because she posted against genocide. A councillor in Côte-St-Luc, Mike Cohen, called for his municipality to do the same.
On X Israel supporters regularly respond to videos of large numbers protesting Canadian complicity in genocide by calling for protesters to be deported. In a similar vein, JSpace board chair Joe Roberts recently called protesters “fifth columnists” whose “real enemy has always been the liberal democracies of the west.”
To supress the “fifth column”, the establishment Jewish groups are campaigning for increased police funding. On January 18 CIJA instigated a letter writing campaign demanding “Reverse the police cuts” in Toronto. Two weeks later, the advocacy agent for Canada’s Jewish Federations wrote, “We continue to urge Council to take action to prevent any shortfall in funding for the Toronto Police Service, so that our police have the tools they need to enforce the law and safeguard the Jewish community and all Torontonians from the threat of hate-motivated and all other types of crime.”
B’nai Brith recently called for increased funding to Montreal police and a slew of Zionist voices have called for the provincial government to allow security guards at schools to carry guns. City councillor Sonny Moroz, who previously worked for arch Zionist federal MP Anthony Housefather, submitted a motion calling for greater police presence in part of Montreal.
CIJA, B’nai Brith and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center have extensive ties to police forces across the country. Recently it was reported that the RCMP’s controversial Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), which has spied on indigenous and pipeline protests, has been targeting Palestine solidarity protests. In internal budgetary documents C-IRG labelled one protest a “Hamas Day of Action”.
Zionists have long sought to criminalize support for Palestinians. In a bid to promote the slaughter in Gaza, they’ve become cheerleaders for authoritarianism, cancel culture and other forms of intimidation historically associated with fascism.
Israeli Army Exiles A Female Palestinian Journalist To Gaza
IMEMC | FEBRUARY 12, 2024
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) confirmed, Sunday, that the Israeli army exiled a Palestinian female journalist from the occupied West Bank to the devastated and destroyed Gaza Strip, after abducting her earlier this month.
The PPS said the army abducted the journalist, Seeqal Yousef Qaddoum, 51, after stopping her at a military roadblock near Ramallah, in the central West Bank, on February 1st.
While the detained journalist was born in the Gaza Strip, she has been living for many years in the Shiokh Palestinian town, east of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
The PPS added that the army transferred the detained journalist from one of its prisons to the Kerem Shalom Crossing, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, before exiling her to the devastated and destroyed coastal enclave.
Seeqal works for the official, government-run Palestine TV, and was abducted by the soldiers on February 1st after they stopped her at a military roadblock near Ramallah.
She was first taken to HaSharon Israeli prison and then to the Damoun prison, and was interrogated but was never facing charges.
The PPS said the number of female Palestinian detainees in Damoun Israeli prison is more than 45, and added that it doesn’t have any available data on the number of detainees, who were abducted in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, due to Israel’s restrictions on such information, even to international human rights groups, and added that many detainees are subject to “forced disappearances.”
On Sunday morning, the PPS said the number of Palestinian political prisoners has exceeded 6,950 Palestinians, including many elders, women, and children, mostly from their homes, and the dozens who were taken prisoner at military roadblocks, across the occupied West Bank.
Since October 7, the Israeli army began a massive abduction campaign in the West Bank, targeting women, men, and children, and dozens of Palestinians, including laborers from the Gaza Strip who have been living and working in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Detainees’ Committee said the abductions have seriously escalated, and include massive searches and destruction of homes and property across the West Bank, including in and around occupied Jerusalem.
It added that while not all of the abductees remain imprisoned, most are either in interrogation facilities, and various prisons and detention camps and dozens were slapped with arbitrary Administrative Detention orders, held without charges or trial for renewable periods that generally vary between three and six months each time.
On February 5, 2024, the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association said the number of political prisoners held by Israel reached 9,000, including 70 women and 200 children, in addition to 3,484 Palestinians held under Administrative Detention orders.
Euro-Med: Israeli army entertains settlers by allowing them to witness torture of Gazans
Palestinian Information Center – February 12, 2024
GENEVA – Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor announced receiving new shocking testimonies from recently released Palestinian prisoners revealing that the Israeli occupation army brought groups of Jewish settlers to detention centers and prisons to witness how detainees from the Gaza Strip are tortured, allowing many of them to film prisoners using their mobile phones.
The Jewish settlers enjoyed witnessing the torture rounds of Palestinian prisoners with all types of ill and inhumane treatment, the released detainees told Euro-Med Monitor.
The prisoners were detained for varying periods inside a detention center in Zikim military base on the northern border of the Gaza Strip, and another detention center near the Negev prison in the south, after they were rounded up in the Israeli occupation army’s ground incursions into the Strip.
The released detainees told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers deliberately presented them in front of Jewish settlers and claimed they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian factions, and that they participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Gaza Envelope settlements.
The Euro-Med explained that, according to the testimonies it received, groups of Jewish settlers, ranging from 10 to 20 people in each group, were allowed to watch and take photos of Palestinian prisoners who were held naked while being subjected to beating with metal batons and electric sticks by Israeli soldiers who poured hot water over their heads, amid verbal insults and threats in Arabic.
Euro-Med pointed out that this was the first time Israeli illegal practices and torture have been carried out in front of Jewish settlers inside prisons and detention centers, allowing settlers to document the beatings using their personal mobile phones while laughing at and humiliating the Palestinian detainees. This is an added crime to all crimes previously committed by the Israeli army against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, especially against prisoners and detainees who are subjected to arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearance, brutal torture, and denial of fair trial.
Omar Abu Mudallala, a 43 years old Gazan, told the Euro-Med team: “I was arrested at the checkpoint near Al-Kuwait roundabout, which separates Gaza City from Central Gaza, as part of random arrests campaign. I was subjected to torture and abuse at all stages. The arrest lasted for about 52 days,” pointing out that Israeli soldiers “brought civilians to watch our torture while we were naked.”
“The Israeli army brought a number of Jewish settlers into our detention centers while they were beating us, and they started telling them, ‘These are the Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on October 7’. The settlers were filming us on their mobile phones while we were subjected to beating, abuse, and torture. They were making fun of us”, Abu Mudallala added.
“This happened five times during my detention period, once in Zikim and four times in Negev. We were blindfolded, but one of the detainees who knows Hebrew informed us that the soldiers were talking to Israeli civilians, claiming that we were fighters,” he said.
The Euro-Med Monitor wondered why the Palestinian detainees who were claimed to be resistance fighters were released, which obviously indicated that the Israeli story was false and was only used to collectively punish the Palestinian people.
The Euro-Med confirmed that the crimes of torture and inhuman treatment practiced by the Israeli army against Palestinian detainees are war crimes and mounts to crimes against humanity in accordance with the Rome Statute, condemning the behavior of transforming these illegal practices into entertainment tools for Jewish settlers because it constitutes a war crime that involves a serious assault on human dignity through humiliation and degradation of prisoners.
The Euro-Med has warned of the consequences of engaging Israeli settlers in detention centers, stressing that it perpetuates a state of extremism, fuels hatred, and inflames internal Israeli opinion towards committing more crimes and violations against the Palestinians.
The human rights organization reiterated that the vast majority of the detainees of the Gaza Strip are subject to arbitrary detention based on no charges or trials because they have been subjected to enforced disappearance, torture, and inhuman treatment, calling on the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, to expose their fate and the crimes they have been subjected to.
The Euro-Medi affirmed that Israeli practices against Palestinian detainees are clearly violating the international norms and conventions, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.
The World’s Gyre
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 12, 2024
The U.S. is edging closer to war with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces, a state security agency composed of armed groups, some of which are close to Iran, but which for the main are Iraqi nationalists. The U.S. carried out a drone strike in Baghdad, Wednesday that killed three members of the Kataeb Hizbullah forces, including a senior commander. One of the assassinated, al-Saadi, is the most senior figure to have been assassinated in Iraq since the 2020 drone strike that killed senior Iraqi Commander al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani.
The target is puzzling as Kataeb more than a week ago suspended its military operations against the U.S. (at the request of the Iraqi government). The stand down was widely published. So why was this senior figure assassinated?
Tectonic twitches often are sparked by a single egregious action: the one final grain of sand which – on top of the others – triggers the slide, capsizing the sandpile. Iraqis are angry. They feel that the U.S. wantonly violates their sovereignty – showing contempt and disdain for Iraq, a once great civilisation, now brought low in the wake of U.S. wars. Swift and collective retaliation has been promised.
One act, and a gyre can begin. The Iraqi government may not be able to hold the line.
The U.S. tries to separate and compartmentalise issues: AnsarAllah’s Red Sea blockade is ‘one thing’; attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, an unrelated ‘another’. But all know that such separateness is artificial – the ‘red’ thread woven through all these ‘issues’ is Gaza. The White House (and Israel) however, insists the connecting thread instead to be Iran.
Did the White House think this through properly, or was its latest assassination viewed as a ‘sacrifice’ to appease the ‘gods of war’ in the Beltway, clamouring to bomb Iran?
Whatever the motive, the Gyre turns. Other dynamics are running that will be fuelled by the attack.
The Cradle highlights one significant shift:
“by successfully obstructing Israeli vessels from traversing the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has emerged as a powerful symbol of resistance in defence of the Palestinian people – a cause deeply popular across Yemen’s many demographics. Sanaa’s position stands in stark contrast to that of the Saudi and Emirati-backed government in Aden, which, to the horror of Yemenis, welcomed attacks by U.S. and British forces on 12 January”.
“The U.S.–UK airstrikes have prompted some heavyweight internal defections … a number of Yemeni militias previously aligned with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, consequently switched allegiance to Ansarallah … Disillusionment with the coalition will have profound political and military implications for Yemen, reshaping alliances, and casting the UAE and Saudi Arabia as national adversaries. Palestine continues to serve as a revealing litmus test throughout West Asia – and now in Yemen too – exposing those who only-rhetorically claim the mantle of justice and Arab solidarity”.
Yemen military defections – How does this matter?
Well, the Houthis and AnsarAllah have become heroes across the Islamic World. Look at social media. The Houthis are now the ‘stuff of myth’: Standing up for Palestinians whilst others don’t. A following is taking hold. AnsarAllah’s ‘heroic’ stance may lead to the ousting of western proxies, and so to dominate that ‘rest of Yemen’ they presently do not control. It seizes too, the Islamic world’s imagination (to the concern of the Arab Establishment).
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of al-Saadi, Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad chanting: “God is Great, America is the Great Satan”.
Do not imagine this ‘turn’ is lost on others – on the Iraqi Hashd al-Sha’abi, for example; or on the (Palestinians) of Jordan; or on the mass foot-soldiers of the Egyptian army; or indeed in the Gulf. There are 5 billion smartphones extant today. The ruling class do watch the Arabic channels, and view (nervously) social media. They worry that anger against the western flouting of international law may boil over, and they will be unable to contain it: What price the ‘Rules Order’ now since the International Court of Justice upended the notion of a moral content to western culture?
The wrongheadedness of U.S. policy is astonishing – and now has claimed the most central tenet in the ‘Biden strategy’ for resolving the crisis in Gaza. The ‘dangle’ of Saudi normalisation with Israel was viewed in the West as the pivot – around which Netanyahu would either be forced to give up on his maximalist security control from the River to the Sea mantra, or see himself pushed aside by a rival for whom the ‘normalisation bait’ held the allure of likely victory in the next Israeli elections.
Biden’s spokesperson was flagrant in this respect:
“[We] … are having discussions with Israel and Saudi Arabia … about trying to move forward with a normalization arrangement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So those discussions are ongoing as well. We certainly received positive feedback from both sides that they’re willing to continue to have those discussions”.
The Saudi Government – possibly angry at the U.S. recourse to such deceptive language – duly kicked the plank out from beneath the Biden platform: It issued a written statement confirming unequivocally that: “there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops – and all Israeli occupation forces are withdraw from the Gaza Strip”. The Kingdom stands by the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in other words.
Of course, no Israeli could campaign on that platform in Israeli elections!
Recall how Tom Friedman set out how the ‘Biden Doctrine’ was supposed to fit together as a interlinked whole: First, through taking a “strong and resolute stand on Iran” the U.S. would signal to “our Arab and Muslim allies, that it needs to take on Iran in a more aggressive manner … that we can no longer allow Iran to try to drive us out of the region; Israel into extinction and our Arab allies into intimidation by acting through proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq — while Tehran blithely sits back and pays no price”.
The second strand was the Saudi dangle that would inevitably pave the path into the (third) element which was the “building of a credible legitimate Palestinian Authority as … a good neighbour to Israel …”. This “bold U.S. commitment to a Palestinian state would give us [Team Biden] legitimacy to act against Iran”, Friedman foresaw.
Let us be plain: this trifecta of policies, rather than gel into a single doctrine, are falling like dominoes. Their collapse owes to one thing: The original decision to back Israel’s use of overwhelming violence across Gaza’s civil society – ostensibly to defeat Hamas. It has turned the region and much of the World against the U.S. and Europe.
How did this happen? Because nothing changed by way of U.S. policies. It was the same old western bromides from decades ago: financial threats, bombing and violence. And the insistence on one mandatory ‘stand with Israel’ narrative (with no discussion).
The rest of the world has grown tired of it; even defiant towards it.
So to put it bluntly: Israel has now come face-to-face with the (self-destructive) inconsistency within Zionism: How to maintain special rights for Jews on territory in which there is an approximately equal number of non-Jews? The old answer has been discredited.
The Israeli Right argues that Israel then must go for broke: All or nothing. Take the risk of wider war (in which Israel, may or may not, be ‘victorious’); tell Arabs to move elsewhere; or abandon Zionism and themselves move on.
The Biden Administration, rather than help Israel look truth in the eye, has discarded the task of obliging Israel to face up to the contradictions in Zionism, in favour of restoring the broken status quo ante. Some 75 years after the founding of the Israeli state, as former Israeli negotiator, Daniel Levy, has. noted:
‘[We are back to] “the “banal debate” between the U.S. and Israel over “whether the bantustan shall be repackaged and marketed as a ‘state’”.
Could it have been different? Probably not. The reaction comes from deep in Biden’s nature.
The trifecta of U.S. failed responses paradoxically has nonetheless facilitated Israel’s slide to the Right (as evidenced by all recent polling). And has – absent a hostage deal; absent a Saudi credible ‘dangle’; or any credible path to a Palestinian State – precisely opened the path for the Netanyahu government to pursue his maximalist exit from collapsed deterrence through securing a ‘grand victory’ over the Palestinian resistance, Hizbullah, and even – he hopes – Iran.
None of these objectives can be achieved without U.S. help. Yet, where is Biden’s limit: Support for Israel in a Hizbullah war? And were it to widen, support for Israel in an Iran war too? Where is the limit?
The incongruity, coming as it does, at a moment when the West’s Ukraine Project is imploding, suggests that Biden may see himself needing some ‘grand victory’, as much as does Netanyahu.
Here’s why you shouldn’t trust the ‘declining’ Gaza death toll narrative
By Robert Inlakesh | RT | February 11, 2024
Shortly before the International Court of Justice’s highly anticipated decision to pursue South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide, the New York Times released a report titled ‘The Decline of Death in Gaza’.
The article attributed this alleged decline to a change in Israel’s battle strategy in Gaza, yet the piece omitted key data that contradicted its claims. Then, in the aftermath of the ICJ preliminary ruling, the NYT became the first news outlet to receive and publish information from an Israeli dossier that accused UNRWA staff of complicity in the armed activities of Hamas.
Since the beginning of the war between Israel and Gaza, which began with the Hamas-led attack on October 7, Western corporate media have shown what can only be described as pro-Israeli double standards. On January 9, The Intercept published a quantitative analysis of over 1,000 articles in US mainstream media, including by the NYT, proving the undeniable bias demonstrated in favor of Israeli life and underreporting on Palestinian suffering.
An even more targeted analysis was published by researchers Jan Lietava and Dana Najjar, who specifically looked at the BBC’s coverage of the conflict between October 17 to December 2. The study documented that words like murder(ed), massacre(d) and slaughter(ed) were used by the BBC to describe Israelis 144 times, while Palestinians had only been described as having been murdered or massacred one time each; the word slaughter had never been used to describe the killing of Palestinians. The study clearly shows the disparity in humanizing language used and the number of stories on Palestinian deaths, despite the Palestinian death toll being far higher than the Israeli one.
The Israeli death toll throughout the war officially stands around 700 civilians and 600 combatants, while for Palestinians it is roughly 27,600, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The estimates are that between 61% to 75% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children. Ranging estimates as to how many Palestinian combatants have been killed are not trustworthy. Israeli spokespeople claim between 7,000 to 10,000 Hamas fighters, depending on the time of day, but provide no estimate for the number of fighters killed who are members of the dozen or so other armed groups in Gaza.
While the NYT report attempts to make the point that deaths in Gaza are steadily declining as the Israeli operation goes on, statistics released by the authorities in Gaza, from January 17 (when the NYT data chart ends) until January 24, clearly show the opposite trend. For reference the daily death tolls read: 163, 172, 142, 165, 178, 190, 195, 210.
The piece also lacks any evidence showing a correlation between the Israeli announcement of what it calls “phase 3” of its battle plan and the death toll charts that showed a downward arc in the daily fatality rate. Israel began announcing its intention to implement its new phase at the beginning of January, yet the argument presented in the article attempted to draw the conclusion that pressure from the US government had contributed to a lowering of fatalities between early December and January 17.
There was a decline in the daily reported death toll, but this occurred prior to any stated change in the military strategy. Also observable is that during the week that the report was released, the daily Gaza death toll actually jumped to 188. Monday through to Sunday of that week there were some 1,317 Palestinians killed by Israel. The week prior, a total of 1,110 were killed.
The NYT also pointed to the Israeli withdrawal of forces from northern Gaza, attempting to use this as evidence of a change in tactics in January that had been brought about due to efforts from the Biden administration. Israel actually reinvaded the north, briefly, after the article was published.
Furthermore, Israel didn’t start withdrawing from northern Gaza in January – it began this process around December 21, when it withdrew the elite Golani Brigades. In late December, five brigades were withdrawn and the reservists amongst them were released for economic reasons. Then, earlier last month, a further four brigades were withdrawn as the Israeli army implemented a retreat from most of the built-up areas in northern Gaza.
Israeli authorities claim that the reason for the change in the war strategy, shifting from the high-pressure tactics of the first two phases, was due to their desire to continue the fight for the whole of 2024. If Israel is planning to fight a year-long war, it makes sense for it to use fewer munitions and soldiers, as munitions are finite and the cost of the initial battle strategy would have been a significant economic burden.
Another crucial point is that the report completely left aside all other considerations as to what could explain a decline in death tolls across certain periods of time. A major issue that is faced today is a lack of a properly functioning health sector in Gaza altogether; according to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 16 hospitals out of 36 remain operational and all are “minimally or partially functioning.”
One of the last remaining professional journalists in northern Gaza, Anas al-Sharif, reported to Al Jazeera Arabic, on January 16, of the intensifying bombardments in the area and the underreporting of casualties there. A resident named Akram based in the Jabalia Refugee Camp told RT that “the bombing over those few days returned to how it was at the start of the war, it was terrifying and it seemed like it didn’t stop at all for over a day.”
With a health sector that has all but collapsed, properly accounting for the dead is a tough challenge, which is why the Gaza Health Ministry routinely includes the caveat to its daily death tolls that there are others under the rubble who are unaccounted for. To demonstrate how big of a difference the death toll is, when those missing under the rubble are factored in, take the statistics released by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which stated that 31,497 Palestinians had been killed by January 14.
Aside from us not having a full picture of the true daily death toll, Israel is also being accused of using starvation as a weapon of war, and the statistics that are being cited do not include those who are now dying due to disease and starvation. Some 400,000 people living in northern Gaza are without aid altogether, as efforts by international organizations to transport medical, food and fuel aid to the north have repeatedly been blocked. On December 9, Save The Children warned that the primary cause of death in Gaza could soon be starvation and disease, instead of bombs, with the humanitarian situation having severely deteriorated since then.
When the Israeli government later released its allegations that 12 UNRWA employees – out of 13,000 working in Gaza – had participated in the Hamas-led attack of October 7, the New York Times was the first to get its hands on the Israeli dossier that detailed its allegations. The newspaper failed to report that most of the allegations were based on interrogations conducted by the Shin Bet (Israeli secret police), which is renowned for extracting confessions through torture. The article that the NYT published on the issue made the dossier’s information seem somewhat credible, yet, when the UK’s Channel 4 obtained it and quoted it directly to the public, it concluded that “no evidence” was contained within the dossier.
The NYT’s reporting on Israeli allegations that Hamas conducted a premeditated mass rape campaign have come under fire also. In one case family members of an Israeli woman killed on October 7 had to take to social media to denounce the NYT’s attempts to suggest she had been raped, which the newspaper allegedly failed to tell the family it was planning to include in its article.
At every turn, Western corporate media has used distortions, linguistic manipulation, and outright lies to mislead its audiences on the truth about what is occurring in Gaza. It does not get lower than playing with statistics in order to downplay what the highest judicial body on earth has overwhelmingly ruled is plausibly a genocide, or what UN aid chief Martin Griffiths has called “the worst ever” humanitarian crisis.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News.
Max Planck Institute Fires Professor Over Criticizing Israel
Pro-Palestine Ghassan Hage was a visiting professor of anthropology at the Max Planck Society in Germany
Press TV | February 11, 2024
A German research institute has terminated the contract of a pro-Palestine professor of anthropology after criticizing the Israeli regime’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
The Max Planck Society said they had severed their relationship with “highly acclaimed” academic Ghassan Hage over a set of social media posts that they said were “incompatible” with the society’s values, media reported this week.
The leading German research institution added that “racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, discrimination, hatred, and agitation have no place in the Max Planck Society.”
The Lebanese-Australian Melbourne University professor, who had posted a series of pro-Palestine posts on social media condemning the Israeli regime forces’ months-long genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza, criticized the Max Planck Institute for its decision to sever its ties with him over his support for peace.
He said he could live with being characterized as having “incompatible values” with the German institution; however, “implying that I am a racist, I cannot accept.”
Since the Israeli regime launched the genocidal war on Gaza in early October, Germany has seen an escalating crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy, with rallies and Palestinian flags banned in many parts of the country.
Events and rallies where pro-Palestinian speeches were held have been banned in schools, and the traditional keffiyeh scarfs are also barred.
Samidoun, a group that advocates for Palestinian prisoners, was banned in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October attack.
Pro-Palestinian voices have also been widely silenced with cultural institutions reporting pressure to cancel events featuring groups critical of Israel.
The Frankfurt Book Fair canceled a planned award ceremony for the Palestinian author Adania Shibli in October.
Oyoun Cultural Institution’s state funding was cut in November after hosting an event for a Jewish-led organization that supported the BDS movement against Israel, a movement that Germany’s Bundestag classified as anti-Semitic in 2019.
Also, pro-Palestine British playwright, Caryl Churchill, was stripped on October 31 of the European Drama Prize she had received in April in recognition of her life’s work, over her support for Palestine.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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Book Review
The Genetic Deception — now in paperback (Second Edition)
Lies are Unbekoming | October 2, 2026
The genes the field promised were never there.
The genetic story of disease is a cover story.
The twenty-first century runs on it. Paediatric clinics. Cancer centres. Forensic laboratories. Family-planning counsel. It is used to explain illness, to assign blame, to foreclose questions. It protects the industries whose products and practices are what actually caused the harm.
It isn’t true.
In 2010, Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson looked at over seven hundred genome-wide association studies covering some eighty common diseases. The genes the field had promised were not there. The field invented a term, “missing heritability”, to explain the absence, and has quietly worked to bury the finding ever since.
The Genetic Deception is a book about what Latham and Wilson found. What the field did with it. And what the public was told instead. … continue
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- Iran’s NPT debate moves beyond parliament
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- Fatuous False Flags
- Are Europe’s Smallest Nations Dragging the Continent into War?
- EU draws up contingency plans for possible Merz exit
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- Reporting of the RAF Fairford arrests blows the idea of a ‘free press’ out of the water
- If Americans Knew
- The Israeli Right Portrays Islam as Murderous. It Serves a Political Purpose
- Jordan Has Had Enough: King Abdullah’s Scathing Warning to Israel
- Israeli Colonizers (i.e. Settlers) Kill Palestinian Man Near Salfit
- New Google Maps images reveal massive scale of devastation in Gaza
- Jewish supremacy, anti-Palestinian bigotry on display in Israel – Daily Update
- Israeli Soldiers Abduct At Least 22 Across Occupied West Bank
- Eight Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks on Gaza
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- Israel map in LA Times ad includes all land from the river to the sea
- Inside Lebanon’s 200-page dossier on Israeli war crimes
- No Tricks Zone
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
