According to an AP report from 20 September, a group of US nationals won a case against Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
In the ruling, Judge Steven L. Tiscione awarded the plaintiffs $111 million in compensation for alleged “physical and emotional injuries” sustained by Hezbollah’s rocket attacks in Israel in 2006.
“Only by exacting a heavy price from those who engage in the business of terrorism can we prevent the suffering and loss of additional victims to their violence,” said Darshan-Leitner, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.
The court found Hezbollah’s actions, which were defending Lebanon from Israeli aggressions during the ‘Second Lebanon War,’ to be in violation of the US Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA).
The ATA, better known as the Patriot Act, was established by the US in a bid to deter terrorist acts on US soil in addition to enhancing law enforcement tools against the perpetrators of such crimes.
Nonetheless, the plaintiff’s lawyers acknowledge that this was a psychological win, considering it unlikely for Hezbollah to give much thought to the court’s rulings.
Hezbollah’s media unit refused to comment on the ruling when contacted by AP.
The Israeli aggressions on Lebanon in 2006 resulted in the death of at least 1,191 Lebanese and the injury of 4,409 others.
Additionally, the Israeli attacks killed at least 56 foreign nationals, including 5 UN soldiers, while wounding at least 37 others.
Israel has not paid any compensations for the war, and neither has the US, which played an instrumental role in resupplying the Israeli army with weapons during the war.
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in November 2021 in favor of a resolution demanding that Israel pay Lebanon $856.4 million as compensation for an oil spill caused by their attacks.
In July 2006, the Israeli air force destroyed the storage tanks at the thermal power station in Jiyeh, causing a 10 km wide oil spill covering half of Lebanon’s coastline.
Over 25,000 tons of heavy fuel oil were released into the eastern Mediterranean sea, causing the “worst ecological disaster in the oceans and the first time an oil spill happens outside the open sea,” according to the Lebanese Ministry of Environment.
“Israel bears the responsibility to pay immediate compensation to the government of Lebanon and to other countries that were directly affected by the oil spill, such as Syria, whose beaches were partially polluted,” the resolution indicated.
The resolution has not been acknowledged by Israel and has been continuously rejected by US representatives at the UN.
The US has voted against all UN resolutions that were intended to condemn Israel for its crimes during the 34-day war in Lebanon, despite the general consensus around the war’s aggressive nature.
September 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Patriot Act, United States, Zionism |
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Joe Biden ran for president in 2020 with a pledge to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, which Donald Trump had withdrawn from in May 2018 under pressure from Republican Party Jewish donors, most notably underwritten by an estimated $100 million coming from now deceased Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas casino fortune. The JCPOA might plausibly be regarded as the only major diplomatic success for the Barack Obama Administration, which featured Biden as Vice President, and it was good for the US due to its curb on proliferation, as well as being a benefit for the entire Middle East region as it made less likely a “weapons of mass destruction” arms race involving the Egyptians and Saudis.
Predictably, however, the pledge did not please the state of Israel. For three decades, Israel has been urging the United States to use force to eliminate what it refers to as the Iranian nuclear weapons program, a program that does not exist and might never have existed. The nuclear weapons threat raised by Israel might be seen as a disinformational wedge issue to bring about the complete destruction of the Iranian military capability by the United States. Israel seeks to exploit its influence over the US government and media to bring that about.
To be sure, weakening Iran and possibly even replacing its government is the most compelling issue for Israel and its powerful US domestic lobby, but the Israeli plan is much broader than that, to make the United States the junior partner providing the money and weapons in an effort to militarily dominate the Middle East. Knowing that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden were willing to concede actual US national interests in response to Israeli pressure, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his replacement Yair Lapid have sent waves of top-level officials to cajole both Congress and the White House into giving Jerusalem whatever it wants.
This flow of “experts” arriving with their maps and charts in hand has increased as the realization that a politically weak and clueless Joe Biden will cave under even the slightest pressure has grown. Biden has demonstrated particular gutlessness in his recent failure to seek a full investigation and consequences for the Israeli Army murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, deferring to Israel’s complete unwillingness to establish some form of accountability and Prime Minister Lapid’s declaration that the current level of his army’s use of force against the Palestinians will continue. Biden has also backed down on rejoining the JCPOA, declaring that the issue is now “off the table.” Secretary of State Tony Blinken has confirmed that decision, declaring that any new arrangement with Iran is “unlikely.”
Preceding the Administration’s decision to ignore American interests in deference to Israeli concerns, there were frequent visits to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and also by other senior officials who arrived in DC to sell a product. The latest pitch involves the Iranian threat and the continuation of a free hand to attack neighboring Syria but there also has been a bizarre drive to have the US State Department declare that the Palestinian civic and human rights organizations that Israel has been shutting down are “terrorist organizations.” Even though a US intelligence and law enforcement agency review has declared that not to be the case, the Biden team is predictably waffling under Israeli pressure. This is how State Department spokesman Ned “Pencil Neck” Price responded to a question regarding the Israeli claims: “Our Israeli partners have in recent days provided us with additional information. They provided this information not only to the department but also to a range of our interagency partners. We are continuing to review this and that process is ongoing.” Price added that he didn’t want to “prejudge” the information. Pretty gutless Ned, huh? Even for you, who also excused the killing of Abu Akleh, saying “it was a horrific tragedy, but not one that should be prosecuted. This was not an intentional, targeted killing. This was the tragic result of a gunfight in the context of an Israeli raid in the West Bank.” Interestingly, Ned surely knew that there was no gunfight anywhere near where she was killed, which makes him a liar as well as a man bereft of any morality. And I love the fact that Ned declares we Americans are “partners” with Israel. Junior partners, clearly.
Israel has never provided any actual hard intelligence to back up its claims, though it has several times been caught fabricating evidence. Senator Bernie Sanders’ Foreign Policy Advisor Matt Duss tweeted after the latest round of pressure to call the Palestinians “terrorists” that “This isn’t about intel sharing or security. It’s political pressure to justify political repression. The admin knows, as our allies do, that the designations are false. The question is whether [the Biden Administration is] willing to do anything about it.”
One should consider that for Israel, the United States, Russia, Ukraine and nearly everyone else what is passed off as intelligence is anything but. It is instead more often than not a tightly woven argument to convince other countries, the public and the media that something that is supportive of one’s policies is true and should be considered corroborative. This is how we the people have now come to see global events through the prism of an official lie factory. Another recent ploy by Israel to enable its continued bombardment of neighboring Syria is a tale of how Israeli intelligence has developed information that Iran is using Syria to construct technically sophisticated weapons that will be used against the Israelis. Defense Minister Benny Gantz, speaking in New York City last Monday, claimed that Iran has used “10 military facilities in Syria to produce advanced missiles and weapons for its proxies.”
One might observe that Gantz’s use of a map to show where the alleged facilities are located was convincing of nothing as it was a graphic produced by the Israeli government, somewhat like the dreck that is flowing out of Ukraine at the moment. And there is a bit of logical inconsistency in the tale in that Iran has its own arms industry and does not need to build weapons in Syria. There is also the question of why is Gantz speaking in New York? The answer is obvious. Israel is speaking to a gullible American audience about the alleged Iranian threat and Syrian culpability. Predictably, nothing was said about Israel’s recent war crime bombing of the international airport in Aleppo.
And there’s more, as there always is with Israel. The Israeli government is also running full speed with brand new claims about an alleged secret Iranian nuclear weapons program. The information was presented to the US and German governments by Prime Minister Yair Lapid with the claim that it “proves the Iranians are cheating as we speak.” Lapid told the Germans that the Biden Administration had hardened its stance against Iran vis-à-vis the JCPOA negotiations in response to the new information. What the new intelligence consists of might lead to some speculation, but Israel’s claims along those lines have been frequent for the past twenty years and also regularly found to be both malicious and fabricated.
Finally, who says that the Israelis and their rabid Jewish supporters in the United States don’t have a sense of humor? A story making the rounds in the Jewish media in the US and featured in the Jewish News Syndicate asks the question “[Why] 21 years later, [the] US still doesn’t recognize Iran’s role in 9/11.?” The discussion features Caroline Glick and David Wurmser, two noted neocons and Israel-firsters. Wurmser is of course described as “an expert on Middle East affairs” rather than as a Zionist extremist while Glick, who lives in Israel, is among the most rabid journalists calling for “deterrence and containment” of Iran, with the US military doing the heavy lifting. Glick also recalls 9/11, stating that “America’s willful blindness to Iran’s role in global terrorism, including in the September 11 attacks, is part of the collective amnesia about the events of September 11.” When I stopped laughing, I continued reading to see if the two honorable Zionists would also mention the Israeli art students who were all over the place spying on the US and the five Israeli dancing Shlomo “movers” who clearly had prior knowledge of what was about to take place and were seen celebrating the sight of the burning twin towers. And then there was the quote by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning 9/11 that “We [Israelis] are benefitting from one thing, and that is the attack on the twin towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.” So, Israel actually had a motive. Makes you wonder… Who really did 9/11?
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.
September 21, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Sanctions against Iran, United States, Zionism |
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The truth does not serve to bolster their position, so they just lean hard on lies.
Check out Rep. Brad Sherman here, trying to justify a law censoring the word “apartheid” from curriculum in Palestinian schools funded by the US or UN:
“I believe this amendment is accurate… There might be some who would say– or at least I have met a few people who would claim– that Israel is an apartheid state, and I want to rebut that extreme conclusion. We want a two state solution. That means that there will be one state for one people apart from another state for another people. That is not apartheid. Apartheid was a vicious system in Southern Africa that the entire world worked to destroy. So to call Israel an apartheid state is to call for a worldwide effort to destroy Israel. The fact is that there is a border between Israel and Egypt. So the Egyptian people are separated from Israel by a border. They live apart from Israel in Egypt.
That is no different from what we see in Europe. Nobody has called the Netherlands an apartheid state because it has a border with Germany. And the Dutch live predominantly on one side of the border and Germans tend to live on the other side of the border, and they both have different states for different people. And of course there are some Germans living in the Netherlands and some Dutch living in Germany and their rights are protected. So to say those who want a Jewish state living side by side with a Palestinian state are embracing the evils of apartheid is to say that virtually every international border constitutes a separateness, an apartheid, because it divides people into different countries. And I think that’s an extreme and ridiculous conclusion. We do want a two state solution. That is a majority sentiment in Israel and is the official position of the Israeli government. It’s almost the position of the Palestinian Authority. So to condemn Israel because it wants to be a Jewish state should be done right after we condemn the Netherlands because for wanting to be a predominantly Dutch state.”
As Phil Weiss comments, “There are many reasons I think this argument is nonsense. There is today only one state in the land, Israel, and the U.S. does all in its power to prevent Palestine’s efforts to be recognized as a state. The “borders” established by the international community in 1947 and again in 1949 are mere wishes; they have not been respected; Israel has occupied the land assigned to Palestine and moved 750,000 Jewish Israelis into that territory. Jews there are under a separate set of laws than the Palestinians, with separate roads and walls that cut through Palestinian villages, and the Palestinians are under military law.”
As Benjamin Netanyahu has said, there will only ever be one state between the river and the see, but it will most assuredly not be free:
“I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
Right. Apartheid.
September 21, 2022
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Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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An advisor to the Iranian negotiating team has described the US government and the three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal as “untrustworthy”, stating that Tehran pursues an agreement that best secures its national interests.
During an interview on Saturday night, Mohammad Marandi said Iran was not the party that withdrew from the 2015 deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), emphasizing that the three European countries (France, Britain, and Germany) obediently follow the policies of whoever is in the White House.
He added that Iran knows that any possible accord will fail unless the Western countries put an end to their false accusations against Tehran.
Marandi noted that the European troika and Washington are aware of the peacefulness of the Iranian nuclear program, stressing that Iran wants to reach an agreement that would secure its rights.
During the interview with the Lebanese Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network, he continued, “We cannot trust the Americans and Europeans,” highlighting that “the three European countries are all allies of the United States. They are not neutral, and we should not be deceived by their propaganda.”
Marandi also took a swipe at Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi, stating that he “stands with Europeans and Americans, and is submissive to them.”
The advisor to the Iranian negotiating team went on to say that a European official once confirmed during the course of JCPOA revival negotiations in the Austrian capital of Vienna that Iran’s demands are rightful, but “the Americans are the ones who are delaying and procrastinating” the talks.
Marandi stressed that Iran is “ready to sign the agreement,” noting that “the Europeans need the agreement more than Iran, because of their need for gas.”
On the issue of Iranian natural gas, he told al-Mayadeen that “Iran sells its gas and oil, and is able to obtain financial revenues,” adding that “the longer the agreement is delayed, the bigger the problem for Europe would be because it wants gas as the winter is approaching.”
The European energy crisis comes as tensions persist between Russia and the West over Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. Natural gas prices have soared in Europe to all-time highs since the West began unleashing waves of sanctions against Moscow.
Ever since, Russia’s Gazprom has drastically reduced its gas deliveries to Europe, saying that the anti-Russia sanctions have blocked the delivery of a turbine needed to stream gas to Europe via pipeline.
‘A weak Biden’
As for the United States, Marandi said, “US President Joe Biden is weak, and suffers from internal and economic problems before the midterm elections.”
Marandi added that “the Europeans have no problem in reaching an agreement, but rather the problem lies with weak Biden [administration].”
On Saturday, Iran slammed the latest “unconstructive and ill-considered” statement issued by the three European signatories to the JCPOA, saying they must accept the consequences if it continues to follow Israel’s lead.
“It is regrettable that by [issuing] such an ill-considered statement, the three European countries have followed in the footsteps of the Zionist regime down a path that will lead to the failure of negotiations,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said.
‘US’s support for terrorists’
Marandi also condemned Washington over its support for the terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) that has been hosted by Albania since 2016, stating that its members have been carrying out attacks against Iran.
On Wednesday, Albania, which has for years hosted the anti-Iran MKO terrorists in collusion with the US, severed diplomatic ties with Tehran, accusing it of orchestrating a July “cyberattack” against Tirana.
Kan’ani identified the United States, the Israeli regime, and the MKO as the “third parties” that have propelled Tirana into taking the decision.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, described the latest statement issued by three major European powers about Iran as “very untimely”.
“Very untimely indeed. Right at a critical moment at the #ViennaTalks and on the eve of the session of the #IAEA Board of Governors,” Ulyanov, who also leads the Russian delegation at the Vienna talks on Iran nuclear deal, wrote in a tweet.
In a press release on Saturday, France, Britain, and Germany raised serious doubts as to Iran’s intentions and commitment to a successful outcome on the JCPOA, claiming that Tehran’s position contradicts its legally binding obligations and jeopardizes prospects of restoring the nuclear deal.
The European trio said they have “negotiated with Iran, in good faith, since April 2021, to restore and fully implement” the JCPOA, along with other participants to the deal and the United States.
The United States, under former president Donald Trump, abandoned the agreement in May 2018 and reinstated unilateral sanctions that the agreement had lifted.
The talks to salvage the agreement kicked off in the Austrian capital city of Vienna in April last year, months after Joe Biden succeeded Trump, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.
Despite notable progress, the US indecisiveness and procrastination caused multiple interruptions in the marathon talks.
September 11, 2022
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Wars for Israel | France, Iran, Israel, Sanctions against Iran, UK, United States, Zionism |
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Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. At 1 pm New York time on the day of the attacks, George Friedman (“born in Budapest, Hungary, to Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust,” Wikipedia informs us) wrote gleefully on his geopolitical website STRATFOR:
It’s pretty simple: 9/11 is best understood as a case of “triangulation”, by which two parties are drawn into conflict with each other by the invisible hand of a third party. In this case, the desired “clash of civilization” between the West and the Muslim world was triggered by Israel, 9/11 being only one operation in this ongoing strategy. Triangulation is the favored tactic of the Mossad, described by the U.S. Army School for Advanced Military Studies, on the eve of 9/11, as having “capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.” Triangulation is also used to create civil strife within a nation (intra-national clashes of civilization, so to speak) for various purposes. In most cases, Israel’s hand is invisible only to the extent of the authorities’ and the people’s voluntary blindness (the proverbial elephant in the room).
If, instead of comparing 9/11 to Operation Northwoods that never happened, the most widely watched early 9/11 conspiracy film (Loose Change) had reminded Americans of the attack on the USS Liberty, the 9/11 Truth movement would have moved in a totally different direction than the one it took under the leadership of Alex Jones. No one would think of calling the USS Liberty attack an “inside job” or “a self-inflicted wound.”
Filling the background with other documented Israeli false flag operations (the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, the Lavon Affair in 1954, Israel bombing its own embassies in Argentina in 1992 and in London in 1994, etc.) could have turned such a movement into a tsunami. The “inside job” theory, on the other hand, can never reach a critical mass, for a simple reason: the idea that the U.S. government would, by itself, deceive and terrorize its own citizens by killing thousands of them to justify wars in the Middle East that are not even in the nation’s interest is just too hard to believe for the vast majority of Americans — harder to believe than the official narrative with its material impossibilities. By comparison, Israel attacking America under the false flag of Islamic terrorists to win American support against their Arab enemies makes plain common sense. It is only with the hypnotic power of Zion-controlled corporate medias, and with the complicity of a well-organized “controlled opposition” that such a natural idea was suppressed from the minds of average Americans.
Nevertheless, the belief that “9/11 was an Israeli job” is gaining ground all over the world. Sooner or later, the tsunami will come. And the sooner the better. I am hoping that my film, “9/11 and Israel’s Great Game,” now in English, will help bring it about. Pass it around if you judge it useful:
This film, unfortunately, was shunned from all 9/11 Truth festivals this month. The organizers, I have been told, “decided not to muddy the waters with a film about Israel’s involvement in 9/11.” This must be ironic, for evidence of Israel’s involvement brings clarity, while muddy waters are what Israel needs. However, the film will be streamed on noliesradio.org on October 9th, followed by a debate between Alan Sabrosky, Kevin Barrett, and myself. …
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September 8, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video, Wars for Israel | Middle East, United States, Zionism |
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Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
A US Senator has dismissed an Israeli military investigation that claims there is a “high possibility” that veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was “accidentally hit” by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank four months ago.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen for Maryland posted a tweet on Wednesday, saying the existing evidence did not support the claim that a soldier accidentally killed Abu Akleh in the midst of a gun battle in Jenin.
Van Hollen said the United Nations and reconstructions by major news outlets had found the female journalist was not in the immediate vicinity of fighting with the Palestinian resistance fighters and could not have been caught in the crossfire.
“The crux of the ‘defense’ in this military report is that a soldier was ‘returning fire’ from armed Palestinians” when Abu Akleh was struck, Van Hollen said. “But investigations … found no such firing at the time. This underscores need for independent US inquiry into this American journalist’s death.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists has labeled the Israeli report “late and incomplete.”
“They provided no name for Shireen Abu [Akleh’s] killer and no other information than his or her own testimony that the killing was a mistake.”
Palestinian officials, rights advocates, and family of the slain journalist have already denounced the findings of the Israeli inquiry.
The journalist’s niece, Lina Abu Akleh, said the family had no confidence in the report. “We could never expect any type of accountability or legitimate investigation from the very entity responsible for gunning down an unarmed and clearly identifiable journalist.”
The family said an independent American investigation was “the bare minimum the US government should do for one of their own citizens.” The family also said Abu Akleh’s killing was a “war crime.”
On Monday, the Israeli military admitted that the journalist was “accidentally” killed by the regime’s gunfire on May 11, saying, however, that it will open no criminal investigation into the assassination.
The acknowledgement came after a final Israeli investigation concluded there was a “high possibility” the journalist had been shot dead by an Israeli soldier who mistook her for an armed Palestinian.
The report claimed she could have been shot by Palestinian gunfire even though all independent investigations on the shooting have totally dispelled the allegation.
Wearing press attire, the 51-year-old journalist was murdered in cold blood while covering an Israeli military raid. Later, her funeral was also attacked by the regime forces.
Israel’s account shifted several times over the four months. However, eyewitness accounts and videos of Abu Akleh and the area around her at the time of her killing do not show a gun battle.
A United Nations investigation earlier found Israeli soldiers fired “several single, seemingly well-aimed bullets” at Abu Akleh and other journalists.
Investigations by the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have questioned the official Israeli version of the episode.
Abu Akleh’s tragic death sent shock waves across the region, drawing global condemnation. Critics say the Israeli military has a long history of dissembling and making false claims over the killings of civilians.
September 7, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip and occupied East Jerusalem say social media giants like WhatsApp, Facebook, and TikTok have closed the accounts of those reporting on Israeli war crimes.
“WhatsApp is now the latest app owned by Meta to conduct a purge of accounts owned by Palestinian journalists, activists, public figures, official spokespersons, and other Palestinian voices,” journalist Jalal Abukhater tweeted on 5 September.
Speaking to Lebanese organization SKeyes, freelance journalist Omar Abu Nada said that the social media platforms “accused me of breaching their publishing standards [for posting pictures] detailing the civilians killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.”
In the wake of Israel’s most recent aerial blitz of Gaza, dozens of accounts belonging to Palestinian activists, journalists, and media institutions were restricted and deleted.
The accounts targeted last month had published pictures of Israel’s victims and praised the resistance operations and targeting of Israeli cities.
Earlier in August, social media giant Meta launched a censoring campaign on posts referencing the killing of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a senior commander of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
Meta also censored videos of Al-Nabulsi’s mother speaking to crowds and carrying her son’s body during his funeral.
Meta owns Facebook, as well as Instagram and WhatsApp.
According to Sada Social Centre (SSC) – a “non-profit Palestinian youth initiative” that monitors the suspension of Palestinian content – within 24 hours of Al-Nabulsi’s death, at least 75 activist and journalist accounts were restricted or deleted on various social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
In December of 2020, SSC revealed that as many as 80 percent of Palestinian social media posts had been suppressed by social media companies.
A follow-up investigation revealed that the platforms had been only publishing content in Arabic that highlighted the normalization agreements between a handful of Arab states and Israel.
Last week, employees from tech giant Google accused the company of censoring them for protesting against a controversial $1.2 billion contract that provides Tel Aviv with advanced artificial intelligence (AI), which many fear will worsen human rights abuses in occupied Palestine.
September 6, 2022
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Samizdat | September 4, 2022
According to new guidelines coming into force on Monday, foreigners will be required to inform the Israeli Defense Ministry if their romantic relationship with a resident of the West Bank gets serious – including plans to live together, get engaged or marry – to receive or extend an entry permit. The restrictions do not apply to those visiting Israeli settlements.
The new set of rules was originally drafted by the Defense Ministry’s agency for Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, back in February, but its implementation faced several delays due to legal challenges. The lengthy 97-page document stipulates the procedure for entry and residence of foreign nationals in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian territories.
Foreign citizens, even those of Palestinian descent living abroad and officially married to a West Bank resident, will no longer be able to obtain a visa on arrival in Israel, and will have to file an application for an entry permit at least 45 days in advance, the Times of Israel reports. Additional requirements are also introduced for those who fall in love and “form a couple” after the arrival.
“If the relationship starts after the foreigner arrived at the Area, then the authorized COGAT official must be informed in writing… within 30 days of the relationship’s start,” the rules state. The “starting date” of the relationship is defined as the day of the engagement ceremony, wedding, or the start of cohabitation – “whichever occurs first.”
The couple must also “formalize” their status with the Palestinian Authority, and a failure to do so within 90 days will result in “immediate” expulsion. But even if the relationship status is formalized, the Israeli permit cannot be extended for more than 27 months, after which a foreigner will have to leave the country for at least 6 months.
COGAT officials said this “two-year pilot” program, which does not apply to those visiting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, is intended to make the entry process “more efficient and more suited to the dynamic conditions of the times,” according to AFP.
September 3, 2022
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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GAZA – During the past two days, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have escalated their attacks against the Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza shores.
The IOF chased and opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within the allowed fishing area in separate incidents. As a result, four boats were confiscated, and another was sunk, while a fifth was burned.
According to the Palestinian fishermen syndicate, the occupation forces burned a boat belonging to the fisherman Haitham Farwana after opening fire at it off Khan Yunis shores on Thursday.
The Israeli forces also confiscated on the same day the boat of the fisherman Abdel Moati Al-Habil.
Earlier on Wednesday, IOF confiscated a fishing boat where Ahmad Adel Mohammad Al-Bardawil was on board sailing within 3 nautical miles off western Rafah shore, southern Gaza Strip. There were also 2 generators and 30 searchlights on the boat.
The IOF also confiscated 2 fishing boats belonging to Muhannad Ra’fat Radwan Baker, and Tayseer Mohammad Abdulnouri, who are both residents of al-Shati refugee camp. They were sailing within 3 nautical miles off al-Waha shore, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
In a separate incident, a fisherman named Omar Mohammad Ism’ail Al-Bardawil said that IOF’s gunboats stationed off the Fishermen Seaport, western Rafah, pumped water at a fishing boat he owns and sank it. The boat was sailing within 6 nautical miles and had a generator and searchlights on board.
So far in 2022, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) documented the injury of 19 fishermen and the arrest of 44 others, including 6 children; 2 fishermen remain in IOF detention. Also, the Israeli authorities continue to keep 18 fishing boats and dozens of fishing tools and equipment in their custody.
In this regard, PCHR reiterated its call upon the international community, including the States Party to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, to compel the Israeli authorities to cease their attacks and pursuit of Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza waters, and to allow them to fish freely.
September 2, 2022
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Yemeni media reported on 2 September that a delegation of Israeli military experts has been deployed to the UAE-controlled Yemeni island of Socotra, located in the Gulf of Aden.
According to the report, the Israeli team has been on the island for the past few days, and is accompanied by several Emirati intelligence officers.
The report adds that the delegation, who belong to Tel Aviv’s navy, have been carrying out search operations and excavations across Socotra Island.
The island, inhabited by around 60,000 people, overlooks the Strait of Bab Al-Mandab, a major shipping corridor that links the Red Sea to both the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Over the past year, Israel has reportedly been working with its Gulf partner to establish a presence on Socotra.
According to a Yemeni media report from March, the UAE is involved in the development of a construction project to build facilities on the island for the purpose of hosting Israeli soldiers, officers, and other military experts and personnel.
This is allegedly part of a plan to turn the Yemeni island into a center for regional espionage, as well as to increase military control over maritime routes.
Last year, Israel signed an agreement with the UAE, allowing it to establish an intelligence center at the island’s Hadibu Airport.
Israel is also interested in the strategic Yemeni island because it serves as a potential flashpoint for a confrontation with Iran. In 2020, the Washington Institute published an analysis examining how Israeli submarines could potentially strike the Islamic Republic from positions near Yemen.
In January of this year, Socotra Island made headlines due to controversial photos of Israeli tourists who had visited the island under a UAE-issued visa.
In June of 2020, the UAE established control of the island by bribing its tribal authorities.
Former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi described the UAE’s takeover of the island as “a full-fledged coup,” however.
Since the start of the war on Yemen in 2015, the UAE has been an integral part of the Saudi-led coalition, backing mercenary groups across the country and taking part in indiscriminate bombing campaigns.
The Saudi-led coalition, which continues to violate the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement, receives logistical and military support from the US, the UK, France, and most notably Israel.
September 2, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation | Israel, UAE, Yemen, Zionism |
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Samizdat | September 2, 2022
Wednesday evening’s missile attack temporarily disabled the Aleppo international airport but also caused damage to the one in Damascus, the Syrian government said on Thursday. The attack, which Syria blamed on Israel, is the first known instance of targeting both civilian airports on the same day.
Israeli F-16s launched a total of 16 projectiles from outside Syrian airspace, said Major General Oleg Egorov, deputy chief of the Russian peacemaking mission in Damascus. Syrian air defenses shot down three of the incoming missiles, but the others struck the facilities in Aleppo and Damascus, he added.
According to the Syrian transportation ministry, the Aleppo runway was damaged but repairs are ongoing and the airport is expected to reopen for traffic by noon local time on Friday. As for the Damascus airport, the damage inflicted “did not affect” operations, the ministry said.
“Syria retains its full rights to hold the Israeli occupation authorities accountable and bear all legal, moral, political and financial responsibilities for deliberately targeting the international airports of Damascus and Aleppo and for endangering civilian facilities and lives,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a letter to the UN secretary-general and the Security Council, according to the state news agency SANA.
Back in June, a series of Israeli strikes took the Damascus airport out of service for several weeks, with traffic being rerouted to Aleppo – which had only reopened in February 2020, after being damaged in the decade-long civil war. Wednesday’s strike is the first known instance of Israel attacking both of Syria’s active international airports.
The international airport in Latakia is adjacent to the Khmeimim airbase used by the Russian expeditionary force, and has so far not been a target of Israeli attacks.
Israel has repeatedly targeted Syria with missiles, usually fired from Lebanese airspace or the occupied Golan Heights, wary of air defense systems provided by Russia to Damascus. On the rare occasions Jerusalem has acknowledged the attacks, the Israeli government said it was exercising preemptive self-defense against Iran. Tehran has offered military aid to Damascus in recent years against both Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists and other radical militants.
The London-based Iran International claimed that Wednesday’s strike was aimed at preventing an Iranian cargo plane from landing, first in Aleppo and then in Damascus. The plane reportedly belongs to an airline the US has designated as affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and placed under sanctions.
September 1, 2022
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Militarism, War Crimes | Israel, Middle East, Syria, Zionism |
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On 23 August, Iran’s top UN Envoy Majid Takht Ravanchi decried the lack of progress over efforts to denuclearize West Asia, and called on Israel – the region’s only nuclear armed state – to eliminate its stockpile of weapons.
Tehran’s ambassador made these remarks during the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) held at the UN’s headquarters in New York.
Takht-Ravanchi charged the US with exercising double standards, and demanded that Israel’s accession to the NPT “without precondition and further delay” and the placement of all of its nuclear activities and facilities under the comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards are essential in “realizing the goal the of establishing of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.”
The Iranian envoy said delays in 2012, 2013 and 2014 in convening the Conference – which is meant to advance the goal of eliminating weapons of mass destruction from the region – had caused serious setbacks for participating states.
“We are firmly convinced that the Conference was postponed indefinitely because of the US opposition, and this has been the persistent policy of the US to turn a blind eye to the nuclear arsenals of the Israeli regime while not supporting the convening of the Conference,” he declared.
Israel reportedly possesses 200 to 400 nuclear warheads, making it the sole possessor of non-conventional arms in West Asia, yet Tel Aviv as yet to sign the NPT and refuses to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Signatories from 191 countries have signed the NPT, including the US, UK, France, China, and Russia, making it the most highly ratified armaments agreement in history.
Experts suggest that the US and EU support for Israel has emboldened the country to increase its nuclear activities, despite essential oversight by the IAEA.
Over the years, Israelis are believed to have assassinated at least seven Iranian nuclear scientists and conducted a series of sabotage operations against Iran’s IAEA-monitored nuclear facilities.
Last week, Israeli officials called on western nations to “walk away” from the negotiating table with Iran, fearful that the US is on the cusp of returning to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that would freeze Tehran’s enrichment program.
During a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on 18 August, Israel’s interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid demanded that Europe send a “clear and unequivocal message that there will be no more concessions to Iran,” according to Israeli media.
Lapid also met with the US ambassador to Israel and the chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s ‘Middle East’ Subcommittee, telling them: “In the current situation, the time has come to walk away from the table. Anything else sends a message of weakness to Iran.”
This comes after several Israeli assassination and sabotage operations inside Iran, in efforts to set back Iran’s advancements and scuttle JCPOA revival talks.
August 23, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | Iran, Israel, Sanctions against Iran, Zionism |
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