Israel jails former Jerusalem minister under administrative detention order
The former Palestinian minister of Jerusalem affairs on 26 September 2011 [Mahfouz Abu Turk/Apaimages]
MEMO | May 9, 2023
The Israeli occupation authorities jailed former Jerusalem Minister Khaled Abu Arafa for four months on Monday under an administrative detention order. The order was imposed a week after he was kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces from his temporary residence in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
Abu Arafa and three other Jerusalemites were stripped of their Israeli identity documents when they won seats in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election. They were all jailed under administration detention orders which were renewed regularly with neither charge nor trial until they were released in May 2010. They were then expelled from Jerusalem after staging a protest in the office of the International Red Cross in the city that lasted until September 2011, and were forbidden from returning to the occupied city.
Since then, they have been living in temporary homes in the occupied West Bank. This has not stopped the occupation authorities from harassing and now detaining them under new administrative detention orders.
Biden unilaterally extends ‘national emergency’ targeting Syria
The Cradle | May 9, 2023
On 8 May, US President Joe Biden signed a new one-year extension for the “national emergency” declared concerning Syria, just one day after the Arab League approved Damascus’ reentry to the bloc despite Washington’s objections.
Initially signed in 2004 by former president George W. Bush, Executive Order 13338 classified Syria, a nation nearly 10,000km away from Washington, as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
“The United States will consider changes in policies and actions of the Government of Syria in determining whether to continue or terminate this national emergency in the future,” Biden’s letter concludes.
On Sunday, White House officials confirmed that crushing US sanctions on Syria would continue to be enforced despite an ongoing push by the Arab world to normalize ties with the war-torn country.
“We do not believe that Syria merits readmission to the Arab League at this time, and it’s a point that we’ve made clear with all of our partners,” US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said on 7 May.
Since 2011, Syria has been the setting of a brutal war sponsored by several members of NATO and regional nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. This includes the ongoing occupation of large swathes of its territory by the US and Turkiye and the plundering of its natural resources and humanitarian aid by anti-government militias.
While the CIA was tasked with arming and training extremist groups in Syria since late 2012, US troops officially entered the fray once Damascus asked for Russia’s help to push back against ISIS in 2015.
Seeing the gains the Syrian and Russian armies made against ISIS and other armed groups, the US partnered with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to create the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), effectively starting a race for control of Syria’s resource-rich Deir Ezzor and Hasakah governorates.
Around 900 US troops are still present in Syria. Their deployment is illegal under international law, as the government in Damascus did not approve it.
Moreover, former US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump deployed the troops without congressional approval, abusing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed in 2001 in the wake of the 11 September attacks.
Chomsky’s Ties to Jeffrey Epstein — and Suspected 9/11 Mastermind Ehud Barak—Exposed
In early summer 1992 I caught the documentary film Manufacturing Consent when it opened in San Francisco’s Castro Theater. That film changed my life. It showcased Noam Chomsky, an accomplished linguistics professor, and his analysis of corporate media propaganda. Manufacturing Consent convinced me that the American academy could tolerate, and indeed celebrate, serious social criticism. If Chomsky, a radical opponent of America’s most powerful institutions, could not only survive but thrive in academia, speaking truth to power and building a huge audience along the way, why couldn’t others do the same?
Before that screening, I had been a profoundly alienated bohemian haunting the margins of academia, so disgusted by all of America’s institutions that I could scarcely have imagined working for them. (Learning the facts about the JFK assassination at age 16 can do that to a person.) But Chomsky’s example inspired me. It made me want to join him and the other academic critics of US empire, convince our colleagues of the truth of our arguments using logic and evidence, and help the USA return to its anti-imperial roots and then some.
So it was largely thanks to Chomsky that I entered a Ph.D. program in 1995. But by then I had noticed two glaring anomalies in his political thought. The first, and most important, was that his analysis of the JFK assassination seemed insane. Chomsky argued that the assassination was obviously a conspiracy, and not the work of a lone nut as the official story has it—but that it didn’t matter who killed JFK, because the assassination didn’t change any policies! Since he felt it was so utterly unimportant that the president was murdered by conspirators powerful enough to force their ludicrous cover story on the world, Chomsky evinced no interest whatsoever in identifying the perpetrators, and discouraged his followers from further interest in the topic.
“Take for example all this frenzy about the JFK assassination. I mean I don’t know who assassinated him and I don’t care, but what difference does it make?” – Noam Chomsky
The other anomaly involved the question of Palestine. Though Chomsky has verbally sympathized with Palestinian suffering, and admitted the justice of the Palestinian cause, he has vociferously obstructed the two most promising strategic efforts that could help Palestine defeat Zionism: The boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) movement, and the campaign to expose Zionist control over US Mideast policy.
Alison Weir once asked Chomsky why he opposed BDS and why he had falsely claimed that it was bad for Palestinians (who almost unanimously support it). “The reason is very simple. It’s so utterly hypocritical that it’s basically a gift to the hardliners. They can say, ‘Look, you’re calling for a boycott of Israel, but you’re not calling for a boycott of the United States which has a much worse record…’”
Would Israeli hardliners ever actually say such a thing? And would it matter even if they did? Of course not. Here again, Chomsky is spouting sheer nonsense, prefaced by the obligatory disclaimer “it’s very simple.” When someone as seemingly intelligent as Chomsky says such things, there are really only two possible interpretations: Either he is suffering from some bizarre mental dysfunction, or he is lying and gaslighting us.
Chomsky’s occasional habit of emitting streams of discombobulated blather repeatedly surfaces when he is asked about Israel’s control of US Mideast policy. As James Petras writes, “Noam Chomsky has long been one of the great obfuscators of AIPAC and the existence of Zionist power over US Middle East policy.” The nonsensical gnome ludicrously argues that US policymakers’ enslavement to Israel actually serves US national and imperial interests. For him, Israel is basically a powerless appendage of US empire. Chomsky’s implicit subtext is that anyone who notices Israel’s death grip on US foreign policy, including Walt and Mearsheimer, Alan Hart, James Petras, J. William Fulbright, James Abourezk, Paul Findley, and indeed every honest and informed analyst who has considered the question, must be “anti-Semitic.”
My issues with Chomsky’s repeated bouts of apparent insanity came to a head after 9/11. In November 2001, Chomsky published a “surprise” bestseller. Entitled 9/11 and republished ten years later as 9/11: Was There an Alternative?, the book basically repeats Chomsky’s vacuous diatribes about the JFK coup d’état—“it doesn’t matter who did it, do NOT look behind the curtain”—and applies them to 9/11.
“If if it were true [9/11 conspiracy theories], which is extremely unlikely, what difference does it make? I mean, it doesn’t have any significance.” –Noam Chomsky, interview with David Barsamian
While I was participating in the rise of the 9/11 truth movement from 2004 onwards, I noticed that Chomsky was growing ever-more-strident in attacking truth-seekers and insisting that it didn’t matter who did 9/11. In 2008 I invited him on my radio show, which led to an exchange of emails culminating in his last-minute refusal to appear. I was flabbergasted by Chomsky’s seemingly insane statements and positions. When he finally started lying outright, I concluded that he must be acting in bad faith. I published the private emails in their entirety because I thought the world needed to know the truth about the evident gross immorality (or, charitably, insanity) of America’s most celebrated (fake) dissident.
Then in 2016 I gave a talk at the Left Forum on “Why Chomsky Is Wrong About 9/11.” Though my criticisms of Chomsky were quite restrained in tone, given his appalling betrayals, I was banned from the Left Forum the following year. Apparently going to the Left Forum to criticize Chomsky is like going to the Vatican to criticize the Pope.
Read the full text of “Why Chomsky Is Wrong About 9/11”
Over the years, it dawned on me that if Chomsky were deliberately leading people astray, there would have to be some sort of method in his apparent madness. Why would he herd the critical thinkers and idealists of the left away from the truth about the JFK assassination, 9/11, Zionist control of US policy, and the best strategy for saving Palestine? Whose interests would be served by those four acts of deception?
The question, of course, answers itself. As Michael Collins Piper, Laurent Guyénot, Ron Unz, Alan Hart, and so many others have suggested, the leading suspect in both the JFK and 9/11 coups is the state of Israel and its “American” acolytes. Chomsky has been consistently, systematically gaslighting his followers on the four issues most crucial to the preservation and expansion of Zionist power. As Jeffrey Blankfort writes:
“At the end of the day, it is evident that Chomsky’s affection for Israel, his sojourn on a kibbutz, his Jewish identity, and his early experiences with anti-Semitism to which he occasionally refers have colored his approach to every aspect of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and explain his defense of Israel. That is his right, of course, but not to pretend at the same that he is an advocate for justice in Palestine.”
Since our ill-starred 2008 email exchange I have leaned towards acknowledging the likelihood that Chomsky is a lying, gaslighting Zionist scumbag. But I wasn’t sure until a few days ago, when the news broke that Chomsky had repeatedly hobnobbed with then-convicted-sex-criminal Jeffrey Epstein, including meeting Epstein together with pervert and 9/11 suspect Ehud Barak, apparently even flying on Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express. Characteristically, Chomsky dissembled: “If there was a flight (with Epstein), which I doubt…” If Chomsky hadn’t flown with Epstein, of course, he would just say so. His mealymouthed evasions of the truth, whether of JFK, 9/11, Israeli occupation of America, or his relations with Epstein and Barak, have a vacuously passive-aggressive tone that is inimitably Chomsky-esque, but jarringly incommensurate with his reputation as one of the world’s greatest linguists.
Chomsky’s response to journalists’ questions about his relationship with Epstein began: “First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s.” That is, of course, exactly what many people would say when questioned about their sexual activities with consenting adults. So why is Chomsky proffering a stock “don’t ask me about my sex life” response when questioned about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his stable of underage prostitutes?
Methinks the gnome doth protest too much.
More troubling than whether Chomsky (statutorily) raped young girls is the question of why he was meeting with Israel’s top blackmailer of American leaders, Jeffrey Epstein, alongside the likely mastermind of 9/11, Ehud Barak. Barak resigned as Prime Minister of Israel in May of 2001 and disappeared from public view, presumably spending June through early September working on plans to demolish the World Trade Center, attack the Pentagon, and blame the carnage on Israel’s enemies. Barak’s work on the lead-up to 9/11 recalls Ben Gurion’s resignation as Israeli Prime Minister and disappearance from public view in June, 1963, after which he went underground and presumably orchestrated the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November. The moral: When Israeli PMs resign in the spring, get ready for something big come fall.
Ehud Barak was conveniently pre-placed in BBC’s London studios so he could go live an hour after 9/11, where he recited what would become the official story:
Barak’s coercion was aimed at the masses, who were traumatized by the horrific images they had just seen on TV and open to hypnotic suggestion—which Barak obligingly provided, implanting the pre-scripted official version deep in their subconscious minds. Chomsky, by contrast, was deployed a few months later against leftists and intellectuals, who were understandably suspicious and predisposed to mistrust the Bush Administration and its rush to war against Israel’s enemies. (That Chomsky’s coverup-propaganda broadside 9/11 shot up the bestseller lists in November 2001 was hardly surprising, given the realities of power in America’s media, book publishing and distribution industries.)
Many languages have one or more proverbs that roughly translate as “A man is known by the company he keeps.” By simultaneously meeting Epstein and Barak, Noam Chomsky has unmasked himself as a top-level Zionist sheepdog tasked with keeping the dumb American goyim cattle blind, ignorant, and cooped up in their pens, bleating out the platitudes they are taught by their Zionist betters. To say that the scandal will tarnish Chomsky’s legacy is inaccurate, because there is no legacy to tarnish. Chomsky is a charlatan and a fraud. He stands revealed as an agent of the world’s most genocidal and most systematically terrorist state—a state that has attacked the United States of America repeatedly since 1954, assassinating its best leaders, murdering its sailors and civilians, looting its nuclear arsenal and its treasury, and generally assuming much of the responsibility for its impending destruction.
So what did Chomsky talk about with Israel’s top blackmailer Epstein and 9/11 perp Barak? Did the conversation sound like Netanyahu’s talk with his cronies at Fink’s Bar in Jerusalem in 1990?
At the head of the table was Netanyahu. The group at the table had just stolen 5 American KG 84 cryptographic devices with the help of Canadians serving with the UNTSO on the Golan Heights, giving this Israeli-led cabal real-time access to all US State Department, Naval and NATO communications. This is a transcribed quote taken from an audio recording of Netanyahu at that meeting:
“If we get caught they will just replace us with persons of the same cloth. So it does not matter what you do, America is a golden calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left but the world’s biggest welfare state that we will create and control. Why? Because it is the will of God, and America is big enough to take the hit so we can do it again and again and again. This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves.”
Chomsky’s contempt for Americans, and for the intelligence of his American audience, is every bit as palpable as Netanyahu’s. And Epstein’s. And Barak’s.
Maybe it’s time for him to make aliyah… and thank Yahweh that Israel won’t sign extradition treaties.
Thoughts on Tucker
By Kevin MacDonald | Occidental Observor | May 4, 2023
I think Tucker was cancelled because of what he was emphasizing on his show (see also TOO writer Karl Haemer’s Substack piece). To wit:
- condemning the Ukraine war as not in U.S. interests; Ukraine is not a democracy, etc.;
- how the war feeds into the emerging alliance among Russia and China, along with Brazil, India, Iran, Arab countries and likely Africa—and what that will mean for the dollar as the world’s reserve currency as well as U.S. prosperity and power;
- making what are considered White nationalist talking points by the rest of the media and never mentioned by vast majority of conservatives (the Great Replacement, immigration diluting White votes, Democrats’ desire to have a permanent government of the left by importing a dependent, low-IQ, easily controllable non-White population that requires government financial assistance and affirmative action, and can easily see the benefits of blaming all their problems on White racism, whereas mainstream conservatives emphasize migrant suffering and death trying to get to the U.S.; his sympathetic interview with Hungarian nationalist Viktor Orban);
- talking about George Soros’s influence, particularly in electing far-left activist prosecutors, despite the ADL pushing the idea that any mention of him is anti-Semitic;
- condemning the World Economic Forum and globalism generally—likely related to his opposition to the Ukraine war;
- opposing the woke ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) agenda of corporate giants like Blackrock able to use shareholder muscle to force companies to conform to their woke policy preferences; Blackrock is a major investor in Fox;
- angering the ADL and the powers-that-be in general with all of the above; and he often condemns globalist, pro-immigration Republicans like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell who support those same issues;
- opposing climate extremism, like cutbacks in Netherlands’ agricultural sector and his recent “Let Them Eat Bugs” special on Fox Nation;
- being a vaccine skeptic and having people like Alex Berenson on to criticize the vaccines, lockdowns, effects on schoolchildren, etc.;
- repeatedly dissenting on the J6 narrative—showing the video indicating that it was far less violent than depicted and that Merrick Garland’s DOJ is hellbent on outrageous prosecutions, infringing on free speech and civil rights (locking citizens for long periods without trial;
- condemning social media censorship (as revealed in the Twitter files) and the outrageous Garland DOJ, FBI, etc.;
- going off on transgenderism (sterilizing children is civilizational suicide and “evil”)—and wokeness generally
- talking about big media bias in the 2020 election, including Google searches and Twitter shadow banning.
The Ukraine War Is a Globalist Crusade
Tucker also presented standard conservative talking points, like illegal immigration, guns, crime in the cities, Biden’s corruption and senility, etc. But my impression is that he was all alone on many of the above issues among Fox personalities, or he phrased his comments on them in an edgier way. And in general, his commentary was much more incisive and intellectually appealing. All of this terrified the globalist, multicultural establishment throughout the West.
The ADL was thrilled that Fox cancelled his show:
To the Anti-Defamation League, the firing was long overdue. The group’s leader called for Fox to fire Carlson in 2021, after the host first promoted the white-supremacist Great Replacement theory on air.
“It’s about time,” tweeted the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, on Monday. “For far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic & anti-LGBTQ hate to millions.”
At the time, Fox rebuffed the ADL’s petition weeks later. The network said that Carlson had actually been talking about voting rights when he outlined the Great Replacement theory, a far-right belief that attributes a diversifying electorate to a shadowy conspiracy, typically engineered by Jews, to replace white voters with immigrants and minority groups.
“A full review of the guest interview indicates that Mr. Carlson decried and rejected replacement theory,” Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of the Fox Corporation, said at the time.
The ADL’s public stance on Carlson’s employment led to criticism from the right, with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz calling the group “racist.” Carlson also went after them on his program by parroting other white supremacist-adjacent beliefs about Israel. Last year, he gave an extended interview to Kanye West after the rapper donned a “White Lives Matter” shirt at Paris Fashion Week, but before West’s many public antisemitic rants; producers reportedly edited out antisemitic comments West had made during the interview.
The reference to “parroting other white supremacist-adjacent beliefs about Israel” refers to Tucker’s publicizing the ADL’s stance on immigration to Israel in an item that was soon expunged from their website.
The ADL recently condemned Tucker Carlson, an American media personality, because he mentioned that American voters were being replaced by immigrants, terming it “a White supremacist tenet that the White race is in danger by a rising tide of non-Whites. It is antisemitic, racist and toxic.” In response, Carlson highlighted the different attitudes of the ADL regarding demographic displacement of the native European-derived population of the U.S. with their attitudes on a one-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Regarding Israel, the ADL has quite reasonably stated that a one-state solution is unworkable given current realities and historic animosities. With historically high birth rates among the Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants now living around the world, Jews would quickly be a minority within a binational state, thus likely ending any semblance of equal representation and protections. In this situation, the Jewish population would be increasingly politically – and potentially physically – vulnerable. It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.
Regarding the ADL statement that concern with demographic changes in the U.S. is “antisemitic, racist and toxic,” given the long history of racial conflict in America, the recent upsurge in race-based violence, and the contemporary prominence of movements, such as Critical Race Theory that essentially pathologize White Americans in the media and educational system, it is reasonable to suppose that the White population would also be increasingly vulnerable if they become a minority.
This New York Times article indicates Fox’s concerns about his ideas, starting with a text in which he claimed that “It’s Not How White Men Fight,” which was part of his reaction to a group of White men ganging up on an antifa protester, which of course the Times interpreted as yet another indication that Tucker was a “White supremacist.”
Though Mr. Carlson’s show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” was only a small factor in the Dominion suit, his personal texts were drawing outsize scrutiny.
The text about the fight came on top of a damaging chain of messages that had been revealed publicly ahead of trial, and that were shocking in their own right. Writing to one of his producers after the assault on the Capitol, Mr. Carlson describes the president he championed on his show as a “demonic force” and a “destroyer.”
A recurring theme of his show during the six years that it ran in prime time on Fox News was the displacement of white Americans by people of color. Mr. Carlson often framed topics in the news as part of a larger struggle between “us” and “them,” with immigrants and other marginalized groups steadily and surely taking from whites what had long been theirs: political and cultural power in the United States.
He attacked Black social justice activists and portrayed immigrants from Central America as a blight on the nation. He said in 2018 that immigrants make the country “dirtier.”
In the aftermath of a mass shooting in El Paso at the hands of a gunman who cited white supremacist beliefs in his manifesto, Mr. Carlson declared on his show that white supremacy was “not a real problem,” likening it to a conspiracy theory.
So there was plenty of reason to get rid of him. Recently, Megyn Kelly has claimed that Fox is leaking videos of Tucker that would produce negative impressions in many views in order to render him so toxic that he wouldn’t be employable. (The above-cited article from the NYTimes was apparently leaked by people connected to Fox.) Kelly also claims that Carlson’s exit is still to be negotiated and he can’t start another show because he is still under contract. Breitbart claims that Fox will prevent him from getting a new show until the 2024 elections are safely in the rear view mirror. Looks like it’s devolved into an all-out war.
The other plausible thing mentioned by some is that getting rid of Carlson and generally moving toward a blander, more traditional type of conservatism like that of Paul Ryan (who is on the Fox Board of Directors) would attract the big-name advertisers back to Fox’s prime time lineup. The boycotts initiated by the left in recent years have left his show with direct marketing advertisers like Mike Lindell, the Pillow Guy. And as mentioned above, Tucker has vigorously opposed the ESG agenda of major Fox investors such as the left-activist Blackrock headed by Larry Fink.
So there’s likely a number of factors that influenced the decision.
What can we expect if Tucker reincarnates somewhere in the media universe? It’s quite possible that he will become even edgier if he is not tied to a corporate giant mainly concerned about the bottom line and eager to stay within the currently allowable boundaries of public debate. As someone who is intimately acquainted with how politics works in Washington, he is undoubtedly aware of Jewish influence, but I rather doubt that he will say anything to suggest Jews are responsible in any way for any of the issues he is concerned about. He will often mention Jewish villains like Victoria Nuland, Alejandro Mayorkas, Merrick Garland, or George Soros without saying they are Jewish. And he will likely continue to invite Jews on his show—Jews such as Michael Shellenberger on the left’s destruction of San Francisco, Darren Beattie of Revolver News on J6, or vaccine skeptic Alex Berenson. And if the ADL calls him out again, I’m sure he will respond as he has previously.
It’s interesting that unlike so many conservatives, he is not slavishly pro-Israel (as is, e.g., Sean Hannity). Anyone with the faintest knowledge of how things work in Washington understands the power of the Israel Lobby, but he just ignores the issue. I can’t recall him even discussing Israel or the Israel Lobby. Haaretz mentions his “lack of enthusiasm for the Jewish state” — likely another reason why ADL hates him.
Tucker’s approach to Jewish issues is not what people on this site would like, but I think he has woke up a lot of people and will continue to do so if and when he reemerges. That’s why he has a huge audience. And it’s entirely plausible that he understands Jewish involvement but believes (reasonably) that it cannot be a good strategy to win political power any time soon. That’s for writers at TOO and like-minded venues playing the long game—putting ideas out there so that intelligent observers who are now in the mainstream understand what is going on, even if they don’t say anything publicly.
Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They’re brain-dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone’s life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, and so it won’t.
The people in charge know this, that’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive. They’re afraid. They’ve given up persuasion – they’re resorting to force. But it won’t work. When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who’ve been trying to silence them shrink – and they become weaker. That’s the iron-law of the universe; true things prevail.”
“Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some – and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.
One killed by Israeli missile strike – Syria
The Cradle | May 2, 2023
Israel launched fresh airstrikes on Syria’s Aleppo in the late hours of 1 May, killing one soldier and once again putting Aleppo International Airport out of service.
“At about 11:35 PM, Israel carried out an aerial aggression using waves of missiles from the direction of southeast Aleppo, targeting its airport and several sites in its vicinity,” a military source told SANA.
“The Israeli aggression claimed the life of a military personnel and caused the injury of seven others [including two civilians],” the source added.
This is the second time in less than two months that Aleppo International Airport has been crippled as a result of Israeli airstrikes.
On 7 March, Israeli jets bombarded Aleppo airport, damaging its runway and forcing aid deliveries for quake-struck Syria to be redirected to Latakia and Damascus airports.
A few days later, the UN issued a statement condemning the strikes and saying that such attacks “impede humanitarian access and could have drastic humanitarian consequences for millions of people who have been affected by the earthquake.”
“Attacks must never be directed against civilians or civilian objects. The humanitarian community has been responding to one of the worst crises that hit Syria since 6 February against the background of 12 years of conflict, economic decline, and a desperate humanitarian situation,” the UN statement said at the time, adding that Aleppo is “one of the worst earthquake-impacted governorates in Syria.”
Both Damascus and Aleppo airports have been regular targets for the Israeli air force. At the start of this year, Israeli strikes left Damascus International Airport crippled and out of commission.
This is the eleventh Israeli attack against Syria since the devastating earthquake ravaged much of the country in February. Just two days ago, Israeli strikes in Homs left several injured.
Israel’s airstrikes on Syria are illegal under international law but frequently happen under the pretext of targeting Iranian and Hezbollah targets. More often than not, however, the strikes target the Syrian army.
As a result, Tehran has expressed its willingness to bolster Syria’s air defenses to counter the continuous Israeli attacks better.
An open letter to Madame Ursula Von Der Leyen, President of the European Commission
By Dr Salman Abu Sitta | MEMO
On 29 April 2023
Your Excellency,
You made a speech this week praising the establishment of Israel on its 75th anniversary.
For someone in your position, it is surprising that it had so many errors of fact, misguided judgment, violation of international law, and deviation from basic norms of justice.
You congratulated Israel on 75 years of existence on a land area of 20,500 km2, which is 78% of Palestine. Not one square kilometer of this area is obtained by any legal or just means. Six percent was obtained through the treacherous British collusion and 72% by military conquest. How could you congratulate a regime which obtained this land by spilling the blood of the innocent?
Israel has no boundaries, neither by international law nor by its own admission. The Armistice Agreement of 1949 confers no legal title on any boundary. Which Israel are you congratulating? Is it in the land occupied by Israel in 1948, or in 1967?
There is not a single line in UN resolutions that supports you in either.
You congratulate Israel on its “dynamism ingenuity and groundbreaking innovations”.
I ask you if you gather the best German scientists and locate them on Madagascar Island, where they killed the people of the island and set up the best laboratory. Would you consider that a scientific achievement?
Einstein did not discover the Theory of Relativity because he was a Jew or a Swiss; he discovered it because he was a brilliant scientist. To his credit, he refused the idea of Israel and condemned the Jewish massacre of Deir Yassin.
Your European government poured billions of Euros into Israel for “scientific research” under the EU-Israel Association. The agreement contained a clause requiring Israel to abide by Human Rights in the conduct of research. But you, in particular Germany and Holland, waived this clause on demand by Israel.
Your Israel did not waste time. Its arms industry company Elbit sold weapons of mass destruction to many countries, spreading death and destruction in many parts of the world.
The prime victim is our people in Gaza. In four Israel wars against Gaza in the last six years, not only Elbit products were used to kill women and children, but its operators were in the field to guide the Israeli soldiers.
People of good conscience in the UK protested against that and demonstrated against the Elbit factory in England. Similar people in Germany protested against Elbit but your government jailed them.
Is this the Israeli science you celebrate?
You say also “Israel made the desert bloom”. You fell into the trap of Israeli propaganda. With your government capabilities, you could have done a better job.
The area of the southern district is 12,500 km2. Israel irrigated at best 800 km2. The remaining 94% was and is still desert. The irony is that the irrigation water is stolen water from the West Bank and Golan Heights. All the stolen water used in agriculture produces only 1.5% of Israel GDP.
Making “the desert bloom” is a myth. How can this escape you?
You paid for your guilt about atrocities against your Jewish citizens with Palestinian blood. Your leaders flocked to Yad Vashim, erected in Palestine not in Germany, to shed tears and ask for forgiveness. But none of your leaders had the moral courage to look at the opposite hill, 3 km away, at Deir Yassin and confront your hosts, the criminals who committed the massacre there.
You paid no notice or care about the Israeli-run concentration camps and forced labour camps for captured Palestinian civilians in 1948, set up by your citizens who fled to Palestine, only three years after those camps were closed in Germany, even though they were reported by ICRC.
The major defect in your speech is that you did not see the elephant in the room. You did not see or recognize Al Nakba, the worst disaster in Palestine’s 4000 years of history.
You did not mention the Zionist invasion by 120,000 European soldiers in 9 brigades carrying out 31 military operations. This invasion depopulated 560 towns and villages through massacres, making refugees of two-thirds of the Palestinian people.
How can you escape this calamity? Do you not know Palestine?
Go back to maps in the mid-19th century by your geographers Kiepert and Van de Velde. They tell you about 1200 localities in Palestine. You are a fluent French speaker. Go to seven volumes of Victor Guerin describing every village in Palestine.
If you miss all that, you cannot miss the historical visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to Palestinian Jerusalem on 31st October 1898. You cannot miss the voluminous scholarly work of Gustav Dalman about Palestine’s people.
With this knowledge, it is very sad, and indicative of the Western racism, that you voted frequently against Palestinian Inalienable rights in the United Nations, invoking the sordid European history of colonialism.
But it is not too late. You can retract your words and actions and come back to the true path, peace, and justice for Palestinians. They are the true heirs of Jesus Christ, after whom your political party was named.
Yours respectfully,
Dr Salman Abu Sitta
Israel lobby piles pressure on Twitter, Facebook to ban Press TV
Press TV – April 27, 2023
Social media groups Facebook and Twitter have come under pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups to remove accounts of Iran’s leading broadcaster Press TV from their platforms.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCHD) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have demanded that Press TV be blocked for publishing content in Britain, The Telegraph reported Thursday.
ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt said it was “inexcusable” to offer Press TV a platform.
“We urge Meta [the owner of Facebook] and Twitter to immediately launch an investigation and to take action to prevent Press TV and the Iranian other media outlets from misusing these social platforms.”
“Facebook and Twitter profit by providing Iranian state propagandists with the reach and amplification they need to evade domestic broadcast bans, and influence millions of new viewers in the West,” Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the CCHD, said.
Their concern is particularly focused around Press TV’s “Palestine Declassified” program, formerly hosted by former UK MP Chris Williamson and former Bristol University professor David Miller.
Williamson was suspended from the Labour Party after dismissing concerns about anti-Semitism in the party as “smears” and “bulls—.” And Miller was dismissed from Bristol University after he revealed Jewish students critical of his views were “directed by Israel.”
The groups cite an episode of the Press TV program devoted to unpacking the “witch hunt” in Labour and the way the party was “captured by key Israel lobby groups.”
Another episode dealt with a network of “Zionist” individuals and organizations which exerted a disproportionate influence over global affairs, including the West’s intervention in the Ukraine war and a “campaign to improve King Charles III’s image in the UK Muslim community.”
The groups are rattled by videos on Press TV’s program that exposes Jewish influence over global affairs and the entertainment industry.
In July 2013, Press TV was forced off the air in the UK after the media regulator Ofcom revoked its license for allegedly breaching the Communications Act.
In the same year, it was taken off the air in North America after the US Treasury Department announced sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
Press TV was dropped from the Galaxy 19 satellite platform that allowed it to broadcast in the United States and Canada, without saying when it was dropped.
The network has denounced the measures as “media terrorism.”
The broadcaster has a large number of viewers across Western countries and a considerable number of followers on social media.
In December 2022, Firas al-Najim, a Canadian human rights advocate, said Press TV is the voice of the oppressed, a news network working to expose the crimes and double standards of the West against free nations.
Weeks after the European Union imposed sanctions on the leading broadcaster, French satellite operator Eutelsat notified Press TV of its plan to take the network off the air. Najim said then that the move unmasked the conspiracy of the Western governments.
Alarms Are Sounding as Mideast Nations Begin to Put Distance From US Influence
Sputnik – 28.04.2023
WASHINGTON – US partners in the Middle East are beginning to distance themselves from American influence amid efforts to stabilize the region, which may be a concern to Washington, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman told Sputnik.
Saudi Arabia recently took diplomatic action to thaw relations with Iran, Syria, and Hamas, while Bahrain and Qatar agreed to resume diplomatic ties. In mid-April, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad traveled to Saudi Arabia, marking his first visit to the country since 2011, to discuss efforts to reach a possible political solution to the crisis.
At the UN on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the world must boost efforts to reach political settlements and stabilize conflict zones in the Middle East now more than ever as the region undergoes deep transformation.
Lavrov also said a multilateral approach is required to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, instead of what he called the “destructive” one-sided actions of the US and EU that have harmed the Mideast peace process.
“The countries of West Asia are coming to see themselves as members of what [Russian political scientist] Sergei Karaganov has called ‘the world majority’ and distancing themselves from the United States,” Freeman said. “All this represents a diminution of American influence that is naturally of concern to Washington.”
The Eastern part of the Arab world, Freeman added, has long been subjected by external powers, but it is now in the midst of a self-driven rearrangement of regional relationships.
“Its major actors have seized control of their own destiny for the first time since Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt and are seeking their own answers to their region’s problems,” Freeman said.
According to Freeman, the Middle East is now led by assertively independent leaders with their own determination about how their national interests will be best served, and they do not respond well to outside efforts to dictate policy in the region.
“These leaders have learned the hard way that the use of force and covert action not only solves few problems but is often costly and counterproductive,” Freeman said. “The result is a search for peace and stability between the countries of the region without regard to the views of the United States and the former colonial powers.”
Mideast nations, Freeman said, are expanding their outreach to rising and resurgent powers like China, India, Brazil, and Russia and by identification with post-Cold War institutions like the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, entailing the adoption of a nonaligned stance on matters between external great powers like the contention between the United States, Russia, and China.
Freeman is an American retired diplomat and writer who served in the US Foreign Service, and in the departments of State and Defense, in many different capacities over 30 years.
“Freedom of Religion” and Other Lies
Christian and Muslim persecution in Israel ignored by the White House
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • APRIL 25, 2023
The United States government, in its incessant bullying of foreign nations to get them to see the world the way that the cabal that runs Washington sees it, ironically often cites such fictions as the “rule of law” that guarantees such “rights” as “free speech” and “freedom of religion” to justify its illegal actions. Right at the moment, the United States maintains garrisons illegally in both Iraq, where the country’s parliament has asked it to depart, and also in neighboring Syria where the government is fighting an insurgency that seeks regime change and is supported by both the US and Israel. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 is analogous to what Russia has done in Ukraine though Moscow certainly had stronger compelling national security reasons for doing what it did while the United States had to construct a series of lies to provide as an excuse to topple Saddam Hussein, an objective strongly supported by Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who added his own fabrications to the exchanges.
One has to look to the media to discern the reasons why some developments are wrapped in “religious freedom” or “democracy promotion” while other actions are ignored or even covered-up. Currently the right-wing Jewish extremists who have gained control of Israel’s government are engaging in something like genocide directed against the Palestinian population, many of whom are actually Israeli citizens though possessing second class rights when they are enforced at all. Israel regards itself legally as a Jewish state, so what is the “rule of law” for those who are not Jews and how does it perceive “religious freedom?” Considerable government pressure is being exerted to force the “terrorists,” as the Arab residents are frequently called, to emigrate or face the consequences if they choose not to. It is directed most particularly against those Palestinians who are leaders in their community and it has therefore focused on the major Arab religious groups, both the Christians and the Muslims.
Ironically, though one can read in the US media almost daily accounts of alleged surging anti-semitism and the myth of perpetual Jewish victimhood, the ongoing brutality against the Palestinians, including their religious foundations and practices, is hardly noticed. That is the fundamental problem as the silence or perhaps the willful connivance of the American media and entertainment industry, firmly in the grip of the Jewish community and its “standards,” has shaped the narrative and limited any propagation of contrary opinion. It is a process that is similar to what has taken place with any discussion of the Ukraine war in the mainstream media, where there is also a heavy Jewish footprint.
There have been two major incidents involving Jewish assertion of its occupation of and control over all of Jerusalem that have recently impacted on the country’s religious minorities during their holy seasons, Easter and Ramadan. The first consisted of two consecutive middle-of- the-night attacks by Israeli police and soldiers in full riot gear armed with stun grenades and clubs on Palestinians spending the night at the al-Aqsa mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims. The Palestinian men were there in part to protect the building from Jewish settlers who have been threatening to destroy it. The Palestinians inside were beaten by police, who had broken into the mosque, and as many as 350 mostly young men were later arrested for resisting.
The second incident was an order by Israeli police limiting the regular Christian gathering on Holy Saturday, referred to as the “Holy Fire” celebration, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which normally attracts 10,000 worshippers, to no more than 1,800 attendees. On the day of the ceremony, Israeli police reacted with heavy-handed tactics to block hundreds of Orthodox Christians from gathering at the church, which is at the center of the old Christian quarter of the city. Several Coptic Orthodox priests were particularly targeted in front of the church and beaten with batons. Israeli forces closed off access to the site with roadblocks and barriers at the gates of the Old City, permitting only small numbers of Christians and those with government permits to enter.
Both steps restricting freedom of religion were taken without any consultation with the respective communities and without any evidence that there would be disorder or violence without the police interventions. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Israeli action as a “blatant attack on the freedom of worship” and a “flagrant attack on the existing political, historical and legal status quo in occupied Jerusalem and on Israel’s obligations as an occupying regime in Jerusalem” that
“violate international law, international humanitarian law and signed agreements.” The Christian churches’ leadership also separately objected to no avail and responded to the threat by observing that Palestinian Christians are themselves under increasing pressure from the Israeli government to force them to emigrate. Christians constituted 20% of the Israeli population in 1947 but now are fewer than 2%.
Indeed, since the rise this year of Israel’s most far-right government in history, Palestinian Christians frequently experience Jewish Israeli discrimination at all levels. They directly observe how their 2,000-year-old community in the Holy Land has come under increasing attack. In March, two Israeli men assaulted and beat a priest in the church sited at the Tomb of the Virgin Mary. In February, a statue of Jesus was vandalized by an American Jewish tourist at the Church of the Condemnation, where Jesus was flogged and sentenced to death while a month earlier, dozens of Christian graves were desecrated by two Jewish teenagers at the Anglican cemetery on Mount Zion, where Jesus’s Last Supper took place. In November, two soldiers from the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade spit at the Armenian archbishop and other pilgrims during a procession in the Old City. Christian clerics living in Jerusalem claim that they are frequently physically assaulted and spat on by settlers and other Jewish Israelis when they are walking in the streets. The Israeli government has also been increasingly confiscating church properties for various projects that benefit only the Jewish community. When Christians seek redress from the Israeli courts they are almost always denied justice.
Now one would think that the United States, with its dedication to “rule of law” and religious freedom would at a minimum condemn the Israeli actions, particularly the unprovoked violent attack on peaceful Muslims during their high holy days at al-Aqsa. But no, and this is how a State Department spokesman Vedant Patel described it: “We are concerned by the scenes out of Jerusalem. And it is our viewpoint that it is absolutely vital that the sanctity of holy sites be preserved. We emphasize the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the holy sites in Jerusalem and any unilateral action that jeopardizes the status quo to us is unacceptable. We call for restraint, coordination and calm during the holiday season.”
So the State Department believes that Israel did not initiate the violence, which is, of course, false. And Patel felt compelled to add an additional comment on recent home-made rocket attacks coming from Lebanon in the wake of the police and army actions: “We condemn the launch of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza at Israel. Our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and we recognize that Israel has the legitimate right to defend itself against all forms of aggression.” Don’t you love the frequent assertion of the claim that Israel has a “right to defend itself?” Patel was in fact wrong about Gaza firing missiles – that was a fiction invented by the Israeli government to explain why it had responded with a bombardment of its own directed against the long-suffering Gazans. The hostile rockets, which did little damage and injured no one, actually came from a Palestinian group in Lebanon. Apparently, the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors do not have the right to defend themselves or to respond to Jewish violence. Rule of law and religious freedom appear to depend on who is attempting to exercise those rights and under what circumstances.
Interestingly, the New York Times had its own bizarre description of what took place at al-Aqsa. Their correspondent wrote how the crisis started when Palestinians “barricaded themselves” overnight inside the building before being “cleared” by police from the mosque in the middle of the night, to “protect Jewish worshippers” who were reportedly observing the Passover holiday in the vicinity. In other words, the violence was initiated by the Israelis but it was to prevent any threat against Jews, even though there is no evidence that anything like that was intended and why Jews were present at close quarters to a Muslim holy site is not clear. By one report, extremist Jews may have been preparing to sacrifice a goat.
On April 14th, to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Joe Biden demonstrated the he is not as brain dead as is often claimed. He knows exactly who owns him and knows how to pile it on. His proclamation reads: “During Yom Hashoah and throughout these days of remembrance, we mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the horror of the Holocaust—as well as the millions of Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQI+ individuals, and political dissidents who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Together with courageous survivors, descendants of victims and people around the world, we renew our solemn vow: ‘never again.’”
Clearly Joe had not gotten the message that in America every day is de facto holocaust remembrance day as measured by the frequent appearance of that expression in the media. But he makes sure of the trans gay vote by including the LGBTQI+ folks as victims of the Nazis. Perhaps Joe should pay some attention to the Americans murdered by the Israelis, to include the 34 crewmen of the USS Liberty killed by the Israeli military in 1967, activist Rachel Corrie crushed by a bulldozer in 2003 and most recently Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed by the Israeli army last May. Israel has not been held accountable for any of those deaths and it knows it can get away with anything, including targeting and killing US citizens.
Next week, the GOP will be doubling down on the message as Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy leads a delegation of twenty bipartisan fawning congress critters to Israel. He has carefully billed it as his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining what an important ally Israel is. He will address the Knesset on May 1st and there will no doubt be a lot of kissing and hugging with Bibi and many pledges of undying commitment to the Jewish state. The Israeli government is already describing it as “Speaker McCarthy’s speech in the Knesset will be a sign for the strong and unbreakable bond between Israel and the US.” And no doubt lots of money will appear in the pipeline so Israel can defend itself. Just don’t mention Israel’s recent premeditated murder of Shireen Abu Akleh back or “religious freedom.” And to hell with the Palestinian Christians. They have been hanging around for 2,000 years but are on their way out.
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.
How the Israeli regime covered up failed military mission in Jenin
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | April 23, 2023
Israeli regime forces covered up a failed mission to penetrate the Jenin refugee camp and arrest or kill a resistance fighter, sources in contact with the Jenin Brigades in the northern occupied West Bank revealed to the Press TV Website.
If true, this marks a significant failure that matches up with various other cases of botched Israeli military operations across the occupied territories.
On April 18, the Israeli occupation army hatched a plan to target two “most wanted” West Bank resistance fighters, connected to the Jenin Brigades armed group, inside the Jenin refugee camp.
The plot choreographed to apprehend them was significant as this was the first raid in months that sought to penetrate the refugee camp itself, an area that has become a fortress since late last year.
The Jenin Brigades was officially formed in September of 2021, after having operated unofficially as early as May of that year under the command of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Jamil al-Amoudi.
Since its formation, the group has significantly grown in numbers and strength inside the Jenin refugee camp, referred to locally as the “Hornet’s Nest”, emerging initially with around a dozen fighters and now operating in the hundreds.
Since 2022, the Jenin Brigades fighters have set up effective roadblocks at the entrances to the camp, using what is known as Chechen hedgehogs to block the passage of Israeli military vehicles.
The roadblocks force Israeli occupation soldiers to exit their vehicles in order to remove the blockages, exposing them to the fire of resistance fighters.
Several other security precautions have been taken, like covering certain areas with tarps in order to prevent enemy drones from locating resistance fighters.
These tactics have also been extended to other areas in the Jenin governorate, and have proven successful in deterring the Israeli regime’s incursions into the hub of the resistance for some time.
On January 26, a massacre was committed against Palestinians from the Jenin refugee camp. Ten Palestinians were murdered by the occupying forces in cold blood, including an elderly woman.
However, this Israeli raid was not carried out inside the refugee camp itself but happened on the periphery. The reason for the avoidance of entering deep inside the camp is that an armed battle on that terrain poses an extreme risk of the loss of forces for Zionists.
Zionist forces botch Jenin raid
The first attempt was made this year to enter the camp itself, on Tuesday the 18th of April, but seemingly only sought to penetrate a perimeter close to the entrance of the camp.
The official narrative in the Zionist Hebrew press is that three Palestinians were arrested within minutes of the mission’s initiation after Israeli forces stationed themselves there for around an hour.
According to Tal Lev Ram, the chief military correspondent for the Zionist media outlet called Maariv, three Palestinians arrested were part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement and were planning to carry out an explosive attack.
Tal Lev Ram is a former spokesperson for the Zionist military’s Southern Command. He also formerly worked as a military correspondent for the official Israeli army radio station.
This context to the Zionist reporter is important because he peddles the line of the Zionist armed forces.
Two informed sources — one who is on the ground in Jenin and another who has direct contact with a resistance fighter from the Jenin Brigades inside the camp — disputed the Israeli narrative and claimed that the Zionist narrative is a cover-up.
The first source, who was in Jenin camp when the raid occurred, explained that key facts had been distorted or completely invented by Israelis.
The source said that an undercover Israeli unit stationed itself at the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp, traveling in a truck used for plumbing services.
Gunfire was heard, and they heard from camp residents that someone wanted by the Israelis had fled from al-Tawalbeh Mosque.
The source emphasized the claims that the occupation forces had actually penetrated the camp were wrong and that this would have resulted in a massive clash, asserting that they only operated at the entrance area, analyzing that this was likely a strategic decision.
Furthermore, the source spoke about the use of a woman as a human shield by one of the Israeli units, who used her in order to prevent Palestinian resistance fighters from shooting at them.
The second source, who had directly contacted a fighter in the Jenin Brigades to understand their take, gave details at length.
According to this source, only one of the three Palestinians arrested was a target for the Israelis and none of them was in the possession of any weapons.
The first two men arrested were Amjad and Ahmad Jaradat. While Ahmad was wanted by the Israelis and had an affiliation with PIJ, his brother Amjad was taken after being briefly interrogated inside a house at the camp’s entrance.
Amjad was not actually a target and it seemed as if Israeli forces had taken him out of anger.
The third Palestinian arrested was Abdul Kareem Abu Nasseh. He was also not wanted by Israeli forces and was allegedly picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He is not part of the PIJ movement. Instead, he is part of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an unofficial Fatah party-affiliated armed group.
This fact was carefully omitted from Zionist media reports that claimed that those arrested were all part of PIJ. Abu Nasseh has been detained by the Palestinian Authority security forces before, meaning that the Israelis knew he is not part of PIJ, as the PA shares intelligence and security information with the occupation army.
The source also claimed that a Palestinian fighter named Hamed Naaseh was the main target, but he had fled the scene of the al-Tawalbeh mosque and evaded capture. He is well known to the Zionist military, which seeks to capture or kill him.
If this account is to be believed, it means that out of three fighters who were kidnapped, only one was actually a target, with the main target getting away.
The source also stated that Israeli forces had positioned themselves in two vehicles, one at the entrance to the camp and another just outside the camp.
The Jenin Brigades had been monitoring one of the vehicles, identified as a minivan, that was stationary for around 50 minutes, opening fire at it as soon as Israeli soldiers exited the vehicle.
The occupation forces then called in reinforcements, deploying military bulldozers and a truck, after gunfire erupted.
The source revealed that the reinforcements sent had indicated that Israeli forces sought to set up a checkpoint and apply the pressure cooker tactic.
The pressure cooker tactic is to besiege resistance fighters inside a building from all angles and fire shoulder-mounted missiles at the structure, before eventually raiding it with special forces.
Despite bringing in the vehicles and troops necessary, the Israelis were unable to pull this off as their target had already fled.
Both sources agreed that if there was an imminent threat of a bombing attack emanating from Jenin camp, as suggested by the Israeli military, they would have surely seized explosives or weapons, yet they did not recover any weapons from those arrested.
Israelis oblivious to the truth
The old tactic of hiding military failures, along with the loss of troops, has become a well-documented feature of the Zionist entity, as noted by all close observers.
This has even cost Israeli rulers politically in the past, the most prominent case being when the Salah al-Deen brigades released a video showing a military operation they had conducted in February of 2018, months later in November of that year.
An Israeli undercover unit that had penetrated the Gaza Strip in 2018 was uncovered by the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, thwarting a plot to kidnap one of its commanders, Nour Baraka.
The video released on Al-Mayadeen TV at the time showed a group of Israeli soldiers approaching the Gaza separation fence to pull down a Palestinian flag pole, which then exploded and killed a number of them.
The Israeli military had not revealed to its public that such a military operation had occurred back in February. The situation was so embarrassing that the then-Israeli minister of war, Avigdor Lieberman, was forced to resign from his position.
The Zionist armed forces also frequently claim to hit high-value Hamas resistance movement targets in Gaza, which frequently turn out to be open agricultural areas and empty training sites.
In the latest escalation between the resistance forces and the Israeli regime during Ramadan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have hit targets belonging to Hezbollah and Hamas in southern Lebanon.
The reality was that the strikes only caused material damage and hit banana trees, provoking satirical reactions inside Lebanon, with some locals referring to the Israeli strikes as “Operation Banana Split”.
It is likely that the Israeli regime conceals its failures and military losses for fear of backlash from the Israeli public who interpret such failures as political weakness on the part of ruling coalitions.
A recent poll conducted by the Zionist ‘Channel 13 News channel indicated that 71 percent of Israeli respondents indicated that Netanyahu’s performance as prime minister was “not good”.
Taking into account his poll, the ruling far-right coalition led by Netanyahu, which is already facing an unprecedented existential crisis amid raging anti-regime protests, may be cautious in what information it lets surface about the failures of its military.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu: US should interfere more in the Middle East
MEMO | April 20, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Saudi Arabia could regret its rapprochement with Tehran as Iran is the reason for most of the problems in the Middle East, which he believes the US should be more involved in.
In statements made on Wednesday night to CNBC, Netanyahu said that 95 per cent of the Middle East’s problems emanate from Iran.
He added that the proof of the “misery” that Saudi Arabia may experience due to its rapprochement with Iran is evident in “Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq”. He also explained that he views the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, agreed on 10 March when Saudi Arabia and Iran announced the restoration of their diplomatic relations and reopening of embassies, as having more to do with the war in Yemen.
“I think that Saudi Arabia, the leadership there, has no illusions about who are their adversaries, and who are their friends,” he said.
“We’d like very much to have peace with Saudi Arabia. Because I think it would be another huge quantum leap for peace. In many ways it would end the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Netanyahu, adding: “I think the sky’s the limit. And even the sky’s not the limit, because there are many opportunities in space as well.”
Asked about China’s manoeuvres in the Middle East, Netanyahu said that he had no knowledge of a Chinese proposal to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but said: “We respect China, we deal with China a great deal. But we also know we have an indispensable alliance with our great friend the United States.”
He called for increased US involvement in the Middle East, and said: “I think that not only Israel but I think in many ways most of the … countries in the Middle East would welcome an American, not merely the American involvement in the Middle East which has been ongoing, but a greater engagement of America in the Middle East.”
“I think it’s very important for the United States to be very clear about its commitment and engagement in the Middle East.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts that his country was ready to help facilitate peace talks between the two sides, the latest mediation effort in the region, in separate phone conversations on Monday.
Gang expressed China’s concern over the escalating tensions between the two sides and its support for the resumption of peace talks.
The restoration of diplomatic relations, which were severed between Tehran and Riyadh in 2016, was a major turning point for China’s diplomacy and acted as evidence of its ability to play a role in changing the Middle East.
Scotland’s new First Minister refuses to call Israel an apartheid state even though he has family in Gaza
First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf on April 17, 2023 at Caird Hall in Dundee, Scotland [Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images]
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | April 18, 2023
Scotland is one of the smallest countries in the world but you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that last month Humza Yousaf became the first Muslim to be elected as a leader in Western Europe.
You’d also have to live somewhere very remote to be unaware his political party, the Scottish National Party (SNP), was plunged into chaos within hours of his appointment as Police Scotland conducted a raid on the home of his predecessor, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as the party’s headquarters in Edinburgh.
Her unexpected resignation as the leader of the Scottish Government was widely reported around the world but the speculation over her departure gave way to euphoria in large parts of Scotland’s vibrant Muslim community who support the country’s independence movement.
However, one of the most powerful Muslim political pressure groups in the UK reckons his appointment is not a cause for celebration. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, MPACUK has accused Yousaf of wanting “to break Scotland away from England’s chains, yet denies the same right for Palestine”.
In a damning article on its website, MPACUK wrote: “As the new leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, he is supposed to embody their mission objective, ‘a fair society where no-one is left behind’. But if Yousaf is not willing to call out an unjust society when he sees one, it calls into question either his integrity or his intelligence; whichever is found to be deficient, it spells poor leadership from the new First Minister.”
The unjust society referred to by the group is Israel which has also been called an “apartheid state” by US President Jimmy Carter as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and Israeli-run B’Tselem .
Researchers in the group unearthed media claims going back to May 2014 in which Yousaf publicly stated “Israel is not an apartheid state.” Two months later Israel massacred over 2,100 Palestinians in one of its many wars in the Gaza Strip. Thanks to the silent complicity of politicians like Humza Yousaf the story barely made headlines in Western media.
I should declare an interest at this stage as I was a member of the SNP back then and shared platforms with Yousaf and Sturgeon to promote the case for independence. Back in 2021 I left, disillusioned, to join the ALBA Party formed by another former First Minister Alex Salmond whose Palestinian supporting credentials have been well documented by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC).
And so, returning to Yousaf’s unseemly support for Israel, he is quoted as saying: “I can give you the Scottish Government’s vow that it is our policy not to boycott Israel…” and he went on to admit the SNP’s position on the Middle East “doesn’t vary much from the UK Government.”
I did write to him at the time and warned him that Palestinian supporters in the SPSC would never forgive or forget what they saw as a betrayal of the Palestinian people.
I do wonder if he has changed his position since then, and, if so, then he must tell us. The change could’ve been influenced by his second wife, Nadia El-Nakla, who is also an SNP politician and a local councillor, who just happens to be Palestinian. She is undoubtedly proud of her Palestinian roots and her family still resides in Gaza.
Humza certainly found his voice when the Zionist State launched a brutal bombardment on Palestinians in Ramadan of 2021. In newspaper articles he was critical of the violence which threatened the lives of his in-laws in Gaza and said he would “pray and hope they are alive in the morning” – that hope specifically being that “the international community intervenes and actually tackles the root of this conflict.”
This statement incurred the wrath of MPACUK which demanded: “Intervenes how, Yousaf? Tackle what root of the conflict? You have already indicated you will not hold Israel accountable. You refuse to stand for Palestine – can you really be trusted to stand for Scotland?”
Mick Napier, co-founder of SPSC, said: “As a first step, we urge the new First Minister to reaffirm the 2014 call from the Scottish Government, repeated in 2015, for an arms embargo on Israel.”
“He also needs to recognise that all major human rights groups have created a situation where sticking to his denial that Israel is an apartheid state will cut him off from progressive currents in Scotland. He will find that he can never placate the pro-Israel lobby except by praising Israeli crimes and condemning those who resist its barbarism against the Palestinian people. He can easily find out the depth of depravity of Israeli crimes but if he’s too busy he can just call his family in Gaza and get them to point their phones at the drones above, grey warships patrolling the shore, or the wall with robot machine guns keeping them under constant surveillance.”
Napier’s and MPACUK’s cutting observations will pile on more pressure on the under-fire First Minister who stands accused of supporting the oppressive state and, even worse, to the detriment of his own family. He won the leadership contest in a closely fought battle with female politicians Kate Forbes and Ash Regan under the ticket of being the “continuity candidate”.
But as critics have already pointed out, as long as Humza Yousaf is viewed as an ally to Israel, he cannot be a champion of independence.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Seyed M. Marandi: Trump Lost the Iran War – Must Sell It as a Victory
- Iran, Saudi FMs hold phone talks as Persian Gulf states rethink US ties
- The Illusions of Western Virtue: Ursula von der Leyen and Europe’s Moral Bankruptcy
- AIPAC-backed candidates lose New York primaries as voters reject pro-genocide lobby
- The West’s Post-Soviet ‘Democracy’ Playbook
- UK suppressed intel on Sudan genocide to protect UAE ties: Report
- Starmer’s exit exposes dirty secret: UK can’t afford Ukraine War
- Putin Warns the West: Russia Is Ready
- BEN-GVIR: “ALL OF LEBANON MUST BURN” — w/ Mouin Rabbani
- There Are No Budget Constraints In New York City: “Coastal Resiliency” Edition
- If Americans Knew
- Israel’s Attacks on Gaza’s Children (Photos)
- ‘His only crime is that he is a Palestinian doctor’
- ‘Killed pursuing her dream’: Gaza girl on her way to school dies in Israeli drone strike
- Unbelievable pressure on Gaza from Israel, “Board of Peace” – Daily Update
- UN: Israel Continues to Commit Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes by Deliberately Targeting Palestinian Children
- Bari Weiss, Free-Speech Fraud & Zionism Promoter, Would Rather Deport Than Debate
- ‘Doctor of the Poor’: Israeli Occupation Arrests Prominent Palestinian Physician
- Search for Your Church (and see if it has been targeted by the Israeli gov’t)
- Mark Levin Flying to Israel as Netanyahu Reportedly Seeks to ‘Leverage’ Levin to Trash Trump’s Iran Deal
- Watch: Zionist Brags about Israel’s Power to Get the World to Do What Israel Wants
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
Aletho News 