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Israel’s bloodcurdling ‘poison policy’ to replace Palestinians with Jewish settlers

By Kit Klarenberg | The Cradle | July 4, 2023

A shocking document last September revealed that, during the 1948 Nakba, Zionist militias engaged in a wide-ranging chemical and biological warfare campaign to expel indigenous Palestinian communities from their lands, slow the advance of intervening Arab armies, and poison citizens of neighboring states.

This unconscionable use of biological weapons on civilian targets, which sought to infect the local Palestinian population with typhoid, dysentery, malaria, and other diseases by contaminating local water supplies, was subject to a concerted coverup at the time – one that was maintained by the Zionist state for decades thereafter.

Even after its exposure, the Israeli academics who helped break the story were at pains to diminish its significance, unconvincingly arguing it was a failed strategy promptly jettisoned and forgotten about as a result.

But newly declassified Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) files starkly underline this narrative to be an abject lie. Released by the Jewish Settlements Archival Project, an initiative of New York University’s Taub Center for Israel Studies, they amply show that the Israeli occupiers employed much the same tactics in order to purge Palestinian areas to make way for illegal settlements in the West Bank, and elsewhere.

Facts on the ground

In 1967, Tel Aviv emerged victorious in the Six Day War and effectively annexed significant swaths of surrounding territory from neighboring Arab states.

Israel’s occupation of these areas, and indeed the construction of settlements for Jewish colonists, was and remains absolutely illegal under international law and has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations. Initially, successive Israeli governments claimed the settlements were the work of individual settlers and non-governmental entities such as the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization, and insisted that the state neither approved of nor could prevent their expansion.

Again, the newly-released papers starkly demonstrate this to be a deliberate deception. The trail begins in January 1971, when the cabinet of then-Israeli prime minister Golda Meir met to discuss the forthcoming construction of settlements. The need for unfailing public secrecy about what was about to happen was considered paramount. At the start of the summit, the premier requested:

“Before we move forward with our discussion, there’s something I’d like to ask. It was our habit that for anything that has to do with settlements, outposts, land expropriations, and so on, we simply do and do not talk [about it]… Lately, this … has broken down, and I’m asking ministers for the sake of our homeland to hold back, talk less, and do as much as possible. But the main thing, as much as possible, is to talk less.”

This extended to Meir demanding ministers not attend settlement opening ceremonies, and avoid being seen by the media anywhere near the sites. In April 1972, this oath of silence remained very much in force, with minister without portfolio Yisrael Galili reminding his cabinet confederates at a meeting to “refrain from dealing with the matter in the press, as it could cause damage.”

Around this time, the Israelis began constructing the first illegal Jewish settlement, Gitit, in the West Bank. Kickstarting the criminal enterprise required displacing Palestinians from the nearby village of Aqraba. This was first attempted by brute force, with IDF soldiers demanding they vacate the area to make way for a new military training zone.

The Palestinians ignored them, and continued cultivating the land, prompting Israeli forces to damage their tools. When they still refused to budge, the IDF was ordered to use vehicles to destroy crops, and dispossess the indigenous population. Soldiers struck upon a radical, bloodcurdling solution: a crop duster would rain down toxic chemicals, lethal to animals and dangerous for humans, to precipitate their departure.

Still, Aqraba’s population refused to budge, prompting the IDF to up its devilish campaign’s ante quite considerably. In April 1972, the military’s Central Command met with representatives of the Jewish Agency’s settlements department. They established “responsibility and schedule for the spraying,” at such a density that it would preclude humans from inhabiting the area for several days “for fear of stomach poisoning” and animals for a full week.

The Jewish Agency was given the job of obtaining the plane, which it did from Chemair, a local crop-dusting company. The explicit aim was to “destroy the harvest” of the Palestinians, and forcibly expel them from the area in perpetuity.

The next month, the destruction was so severe that Aqraba’s mayor wrote to Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. They stated the village had 4,000 residents, who until recently had cultivated “145,000 dunams of agricultural land.” Now, after “the authorities” had burned wheat and confiscated land, the Palestinians were left with just 25,000 dunams.

“The damage is unbearable … how will we be able to provide for ourselves?” the mayor despaired.

Israeli occupation forces finally took over the land in May 1973. Tel Aviv was asked for permission to “seize the land for the purpose of establishing a settlement,” which was granted. Three months later, construction commenced.

‘Get cover for it’

While Israeli governments covertly encouraged and facilitated the creation of illegal settlements, it is clear there was some internal dissent on the issue at various times.

In 1974, the head of the Israel Lands Administration began steps to establish another Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Ma’aleh Adumim, before the government had made a formal decision on the matter. Former IDF general turned Knesset representative Meir “Zarro” Zorea actively lobbied the Jewish Agency to allocate an appropriate budget for the effort, suggesting the organization “funnel money to settlement activity and get cover for it after a while, when I request budget approval.”

At a subsequent cabinet meeting however, then-Housing Minister Yehoshua Rabinovitz was dismayed, declaring, “this has no budget, and I don’t know how work is being started without sitting down with us.” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin attempted to calm him, stating, “that’s what we’re meeting about right now.”

“There might be room for clarifying this issue, but I wouldn’t suggest going into it today. I know it may not be following the neatest definitions, but I’m in favor of them starting to carry out this infrastructure work,” he added.

Later on, the aforementioned Yisrael Galili pressed ministers to define Ma’aleh Adumim as “an A-class area,” thereby granting it and its Jewish settler population greater benefits from the government, despite the fact it would lie in illegally occupied territory. The Israeli government officially granting the settlement this classification would, by definition, amount to a de facto endorsement, in contradiction to its official public stance.

“I’m surprised that you don’t understand that this whole subject is one of the ingenious methods to alleviate a process that could be very dangerous internally in Israel,” Galili explained.

These shocking communications remained concealed for half a century before the Jewish Settlements Archival Project released them to the world. It is almost inevitable that a great many more incriminating documents remain sealed in the IDF’s vaults. The project’s archives end in summer of 1977, and as of January 2023, there are 144 illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including 12 in East Jerusalem, housing 450,000 colonizers.

Stealing that much land, and displacing so many people in the process, was a vast undertaking that frequently met bitter local resistance, which continues today. Given the efficacy of chemical and biological warfare in stealing Palestinian land over so many years, there is no reason to think this heinous approach wasn’t employed again and again over the years.

July 4, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s remarks should prompt a major paradigm shift in occupied Palestine

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 4, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is known to be against the establishment of a Palestinian state, but now he has made it clear that he wants to go even further. “We need to eliminate [Palestinian Arab] aspirations for a state,” he told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee as reported in Israeli media on 26 June. The right-wing leader added that his government is “preparing for the day after Abbas,” referring to the 88-year-old head of the Palestinian Authority. “We have an interest in the [Palestinian] Authority continuing to work. In the areas in which it manages to act, it does the work for us.”

Some people, including Palestinian Authority officials, seemed surprised by his words, which is odd, given that Israel’s intentions regarding Palestinian freedom and statehood are known even to political novices.

The official spokesperson for the Palestinian presidency retorted by emphasising that only an independent Palestinian state can achieve “security” and “stability”. This terminology is often used by Palestinian officials to induce sympathy in the US, as such language is borrowed from Washington’s narrative about Palestine and the Middle East. Practically-speaking, “security” is almost always linked to Israel, and “stability” is related to the US agenda and interests in the region.

For Israel, however, such language lacks any urgency, because “security” from Tel Aviv’s perspective is obtained through unconditional US support and “security coordination” between the Israeli military occupation and the PA. Both are already satisfied. That is why Netanyahu told the Knesset committee that the PA “does the work for us” and added, “And we have no interest in it collapsing.” In other words, the Israeli prime minister sees the PA as another line of defence against the very Palestinians whose interests the Authority is supposed to represent and promote.

As for “stability”, this is of little concern to Israel, for in practical terms it defines stability as its own complete dominance over the Palestinians. Actually, make that the whole region.

None of the above assertions are predicated on complex analyses or guesswork; they are extracted from official Israeli statements and actions on the ground.

When Israel’s far-right Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared in March that there was “no such thing as Palestinians because there’s no such thing as the Palestinian people,” he was not giving a history lecture, or merely engaging in hate speech. He was stating circuitously that Israel is neither morally, legally nor politically accountable for its actions against those who do not exist in the twisted Zionist worldview.

His remarks were consistent with the ongoing pogroms carried out by his supporters, the armed and dangerous illegal Jewish settlers across the occupied West Bank, against Palestinians in Huwara in February and, more recently, against Turmus Ayya and other Palestinian towns and villages. Neither the Americans nor the Europeans have imposed any punitive measures against Smotrich or even against the gangs of settlers who torched Palestinian homes and cars, killing and wounding many in the process.

Yet that is only a microcosm of the larger picture, whereby Israel says and does what it wants, while the Americans continue to read from an old political script as if nothing has changed on the ground. There can be no doubt, though, that US foreign policymakers know very well that Israel has zero interest in a just and peaceful settlement to its military occupation of Palestine.

We are entitled to ask, therefore, why the US government insists on following the same tired formula and urges both sides to re-engage in the so-called “peace process” and return to negotiations. This mantra continues to define US foreign policy, as it has done since the early 1990s, when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords. Oslo made a bad situation much worse; the number of illegal settlements and settlers has since tripled, and the Palestinian people are even more vulnerable, not only to Israeli violence but also to the PA’s repression and corruption. It is surely no coincidence that Abbas played a key role in getting the Oslo Accords signed.

Although Oslo was unfair to the Palestinians since it operated largely outside acceptable international paradigms and had no enforcement clauses or deadlines, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders objected to it anyway, because — albeit symbolically — it expected Israel to behave in a certain manner. To be told not to build or expand settlements, for example, has always infuriated Netanyahu, who has lashed out even at his American benefactors many times in the past over this issue, most notably under the administration of President Barack Obama.

Israeli leaders feel that they are above any law or expectations emanating from outside, even if these expectations are quite minimal and made by close allies, such as Washington. With time, of course, Netanyahu prevailed, not only over any supposed “pressure” from the US and the international community, but also over the more “liberal” political forces in his own society.

Now, armed with a stable coalition government and apparently immune from any meaningful criticism, let alone tangible consequences for his actions, the Israeli leader is ready to carry out his right-wing agenda without hesitation.

Hence his recent remarks, which are a more emboldened version of the comments made in October 2004 by top Israeli government advisor Dov Weissglas, who explained the true intentions behind the Israeli military deployment in Gaza in 2005. It was an Israeli tactic aimed at “freezing the peace process,” Weissglas told Haaretz. “And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.”

Even though this “whole package” has, indeed, been long removed from the Israeli agenda, the country’s leaders kept referencing a Palestinian state anyway in order to satisfy the minimal expectations of US policy. Netanyahu has played this game on more than one occasion, including his February interview with CNN, where he argued that a Palestinian state is possible, but only if it has no sovereignty. Now, he is ready to move past that seemingly old language, to new political territories, where even the aspiration for an independent Palestine is not permissible.

While Netanyahu’s disturbing but honest language is likely to invite yet more Israeli violence and Palestinian resistance, it should also bring about greater clarity by shelving, once and for all, the fraudulent discourse of “security”, “stability” and the moribund “peace process”.

July 4, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Responsibility for Israel’s right to exist’ pillar of Germany’s national security strategy

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
The Cradle | July 3, 2023

On 14 June, Germany announced its first National Security Strategy since the end of World War II under the slogan “To promote world peace in a united Europe.”

While the strategy takes aim at several “integrated security” elements, from military and “terrorist” threats to those posed by climate change, healthcare, and “the decline of democracy,” the document also stresses that a central security pillar for Berlin is to “take on responsibility for Israel’s right to exist.”

“We will continue to bear responsibility for Israel’s right to exist … The responsibility for Israel’s right to exist remains a permanent commitment for us,” the executive summary reads.

While Germany’s position is not new, it confirms what many have seen as certain through the years. Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly emphasized that Germany’s support for Israel’s “right to exist” is a national interest and “must never be questioned.”

During the visit of former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid to Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed that Germany “will always stand by Israel and that Germany and Israel. They are the closest allies, strategic partners, and friends.”

Berlin also remains one of the most important trading partners for Tel Aviv, as the volume of trade exchange between the two reached $5.2 billion in 2020. Both nations also partner in several defense projects.

Following the start of the war in Ukraine, Scholz described it as a “turning point” and stressed, “Germany must stand on the right side of history.” However, since making these statements, Berlin has only redoubled its reliance on US diktats, even after the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing cut the EU nation off from vital natural gas supplies.

In an article published by Foreign Affairs, Scholz stressed that today’s priority is “the defense of the rules-based world order,” that is, the defense of US hegemony over the world order, including Israeli supremacy in West Asia.

In this regard, Berlin’s National Security Strategy takes aim at Iran by accusing the Persian nation of “violating the human rights of its own citizens,” “pursuing its nuclear ambitions,” and even of “blocking efforts” to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that was blown up by the US in 2018.

The document also takes aim at Russia, calling it “the most significant threat to peace and security in the Euro-Atlantic area” while calling China “a partner, competitor and systemic rival.”

Moreover, the document highlights that Germany “owes its security, as well as peace at the heart of Europe, to the United States of America.”

It also reaffirms Germany’s commitment to NATO, saying Berlin will increase its military spending to 2 percent of its GDP.

Another security issue for Berlin is the delivery of oil and gas from West Asia and spreading “democracy and protecting human rights” via government-funded NGOs.

July 4, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Thousands displaced from Jenin as Israeli siege enters second day

The Cradle – July 4 2023

Around 3,000 Palestinians were forced to leave the Jenin refugee camp overnight on 4 July, as the Israeli army pushed ahead with the second day of the largest military invasion into the occupied West Bank since 2002.

“There are about 3,000 people who have left the camp so far,” Jenin deputy governor Kamal Abu al-Roub told AFP on Monday night, highlighting that 18,000 people live there.

Palestinians leaving their homes told reporters that Israeli forces had threatened to target them if they refused to leave, while some said the troops fired live shots at their homes.

Several families were tear-gassed as they fled for safety.

According to the mayor of Jenin, Nidal Obeidi, the Israeli army started demolishing homes in the refugee camp after displacing their residents.

“Those being targeted now are not just the resistance fighters, but civilians are being killed and wounded as well,” he told Al Jazeera.

Tel Aviv’s brutal invasion of the flashpoint West Bank city started in the early hours of 3 July and has left at least 10 Palestinians dead. Over 100 others have been wounded.

Shelling and fighting continued overnight. In the early hours of Tuesday, Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes in the Al-Damej neighborhood, while drones could be seen flying over the camp.

The Israeli siege involved drone strikes, Apache helicopters, and ground forces, including army bulldozers that tore up streets across Jenin. The offensive has been widely described as one of the worst Israeli attacks on the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifada.

While reporting on the siege, several journalists reported they were directly targeted by Israeli live fire. Al Araby TV correspondent Ahmed Shehadeh said the army destroyed his camera while he and four other journalists were taking refuge inside one of the homes in the camp before being evacuated by the Red Crescent.

While the Israeli military initially declined to say how long the siege of Jenin would take, army spokesperson Daniel Hagari announced on Tuesday morning that the operation “could end faster than initially expected, even within a matter of days.”

The operation was launched in response to the unprecedented rise of armed resistance in the West Bank, which has become a significant threat to Israeli cities and illegal West Bank settlements.

Confronting the massive invasion are several different resistance factions, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) Jenin Brigade, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and groups linked with Hamas.

The Jenin Brigade claims they have shot down at least four Israeli drones since the start of the siege.

Solidarity with Jenin has been pouring in from across West Asia and North Africa, with dozens of nations condemning the Israeli aggression.

A general strike was announced in the occupied West Bank for Tuesday, while people in Gaza held rallies to express solidarity with the people of Jenin.

Gaza resistance factions on Monday said in a statement, “We call on all our people in cities, villages, and camps, especially around Jenin, to confront the Israeli occupation and support Jenin.”

“We call on the resistance fighters in all arenas to respond to any aggression if the Israeli occupation continues its crimes against our people.”

July 4, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Christianity’s Survival in Israel Is Under Attack

Extremist government headed by Netanyahu promotes de facto ethnic cleansing

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 4, 2023

Israel’s new government is still taking shape, but some of the policy changes being promoted are so Jewish-centric that they will inevitably impact disproportionately on minority disadvantaged communities like the Palestinian Christians and Muslims. The government itself is already being described in the press as the “most extremist or right wing in Israel’s history,” though what exactly that means is left to the perception of the reader. Several government ministers have even at times been excoriated for some of their extreme views inclusive of encouraging homicidal genocide or even the complete removal of all non-Jews by force from the country and occupied territories.

The Joe Biden Administration, in which nearly half of all senior appointments are Jews, as well as nearly everyone who deals with foreign policy, is doing its part to comply with traditional White House submission to Israel’s perceived interests. Israel is in the driving seat, and Biden knows it, declaring himself to be personally a Zionist. Much has been made of the fact that Biden has not invited Netanyahu to the White House to congratulate him on his latest electoral victory over concerns relating to the proposed judiciary changes and increasing settlement expansion, but it is clear that Israel and America’s Jewish Lobby are fully in control of both the White House and Congress.

Israel has certainly morphed into a nice place if one likes to feel racially and morally superior while shooting Arab children. This move of the Israeli government rightwards is reflected in a shift in popular sentiment. A recent poll by Israel Democracy Institute revealed that a record-high 62% of Israeli Jews place themselves on the right wing of the political map. The shift is best appreciated by examining the profiles of several of Netanyahu’s new ministers. The one most often cited is Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Jewish Power party. Ben-Gvir, who calls for deporting Arabs, has been charged with crimes 50 times, and convicted on eight occasions, including once for involvement in a Jewish terrorist group. Ben-Gvir is notorious for his provocations directed against Palestinian Muslims and Christians, which have included marches of armed settlers flaunting Israeli flags through Arab quarters of cities and towns. To cap the irony, though he is a persistent law violator he has been the National Security Minister since November 2022, which gives him authority over the police. He is currently seeking to have the Knesset pass legislation explicitly conferring legal immunity on all Israeli soldiers for any and all killings of Palestinians and also pressed the parliament to institute a formal, judicially administered death penalty for “terrorists”, which would mean any Palestinian who physically resists the Israeli occupation.

Another extremist politician who has obtained a major ministry in the Netanyahu government is Bezalel Yoel Smotrich who has served as the Minister of Finance since 2022. He has recently completed a controversial trip to the United States where he met with American Zionist leaders. Smotrich is the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, and lives in an illegal settlement in a house within the Israeli occupied West Bank that was also built doubly illegally outside the settlement proper. Smotrich supports expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, opposes any form of Palestinian statehood, and even denies the existence of the Palestinian people. He has now been granted authority over settlement development and support on the West Bank.

Though Israel’s internal enemies, such as they are, are frequently characterized as Muslims, the dwindling ancient Christian community in Israel and what remains of Palestine has also been under increasing pressure as Israel becomes less multi-cultural and more a state designed only to accommodate Jews. Increasing illegal settlement growth in largely Christian areas has also threatened the survival of many Christian villages and towns. Nevertheless, Israel remains a home to 185,000 Christian Palestinians, most of whom reside in Nazareth, Haifa and Jerusalem. Tens of thousands of people of partial or full Christian ancestry, some of whom are married to Jews, live in Israel as well. Beyond that, there are many Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, institutions, holy places and cemeteries in Israel.

Several months ago, the head of the Roman Catholic church in Israel, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, said that Christians have faced difficult challenges since the formation of Netanyahu’s far right-wing government last December. According to Pizzaballa, his government has emboldened ultra-nationalist religious activists, many of whom are armed settlers, and some of whom have harassed male and female members of the clergy and vandalized religious property. Pizzaballa observed how “The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new. These people feel they are protected … the cultural and political atmosphere can now justify, or tolerate, actions against Christians.” A colleague, Francesco Patton, the Custodian of the Holy Land, elaborated how “We are horrified and hurt in the wake of the many incidents of violence and hatred that have taken place recently against the Catholic community in Israel.” He described the desecration of a Lutheran cemetery, the vandalizing of a Maronite prayer room, urination on holy sites, destruction of sacred images and the spraying of “death to Christians” on church property, all taking place shortly after the new government was installed. He also noted “the responsibility of the leaders, of those who have power,” adding that the Israeli police routinely failed to investigate such incidents after the churches reported them.

To determine if the claims of increased violence and hate crimes directed against Christians were true, on June 26th the liberal leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz sent one of its journalists dressed as a priest into downtown Jerusalem. Within five minutes, the journalist Yossi Eli “was derided and spat at, including by a child and a soldier… A bit later a man mocked [him] in Hebrew, saying, ‘Forgive me father for I have sinned.’ Then an 8-year-old spat at [him], as did [another] soldier when a group of troops passed by later.”

Given what is going on on-the-ground, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has called for an investigation into the role that Israeli-US dual national settlers are currently playing in the recent wave of violence directed against both Christian and Muslim Palestinian towns and villages. ADC Executive Director Abed Ayoub has said that “We have strong reason to believe that American citizens are among the key perpetrators of the most recent brutal and violent attacks.” Since June 21st, armed Israeli settler mobs have been terrorizing Palestinian villages in the West Bank on a nearly daily basis. They have destroyed homes, burned vehicles, and killed at least one Palestinian. For decades US Citizens have moved to Israeli settlements, which they use as bases for regularly engaging in violence against Palestinians, all with impunity, as the Israeli police and army provide the Arabs with no protection and instead often protect the settlers. Many of these US Citizens also take advantage of American charitable and non-profit tax laws to fund illegal settlements and initiate violence against Palestinians.

In another major incident, five weeks ago dozens of Israeli extremists, primarily Orthodox Jews, disrupted a Christian prayer event for pilgrims near the Western Wall. The deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh King and leading Rabbi Avi Thau led the protesters. Denouncing the Christians as “missionaries” trying to convert Jews, the extremists spat at and cursed the pilgrims, many of whom were ironically normally strongly pro-Israel evangelical Christians from the US. Deputy Mayor King said that Christians should enjoy freedom of worship “only inside their churches.”

According to Protecting Holy Land Christians, an organization established by Christian groups to raise awareness of threats their religion, 2022 was “one of the worst years for Christians in Jerusalem to date.” The organization reported spitting attacks, vandalism, and property theft as mechanisms of erasure. And there are other accounts of how Christians have been subjected to increasing persecution. A recent report details how Palestinians have been targeted by what it calls settler-colonialism, which is a series of measures intended to destroy their communities and drive them from their land. It identifies seven policies that Israel uses against Palestinians throughout the whole of Mandatory Palestine (1948 Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank including East Jerusalem) and also to punish those in exile: “denial of residency; land confiscation and denial of use; discriminatory planning; denial of access to natural resources and services; imposition of a permit regime; fragmentation, segregation and isolation; denial of reparations; and suppression of resistance.” The report concludes “Whether these policies are considered separately or taken together, they amount to forced population transfer, a grave breach of international humanitarian law (IHL).”

To cite only one example of how it works, the venerable Armenian Christian community has been the victim of a controversial land sale in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City Armenian Quarter that is being developed as a luxury resort which will effectively destroy a neighborhood that has existed for seven hundred years. The Australian-Israeli developer who obtained the land apparently did so through a shady deal with a bribed community official that circumvented local zoning and property sale regulations. The religious leadership of the Armenian community, which numbers less than 1,000, fears that the resort will force many families, already suffering under Israel’s rule, to depart.

Recently, these essentially genocidal measures have included the outright theft of their historic buildings and land by the government, and denial of other rights, including refusal to permit gatherings of the faithful at the existing churches on major holidays like Christmas and Easter. There have also been many physical attacks on individual Christians carried out by extremist Jews as well as desecration of Christian religious sites and destruction or defacement of Christian relics and statuary. A conference in Jerusalem held last Friday to address the issue of increased violence against Christians attracted a number of diplomats, scholars and representatives of religious groups, but it was boycotted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The US Embassy also did not send a representative or observer, indicating clearly that it was not interested in the plight of Christians in Israel, or rather that it did not even want to admit that there was a problem.

So there you have it. The new Israeli government is not very interested in human rights for anyone who is not a Conservative or Orthodox Jew. It is, in fact, essentially hostile to all Palestinians and foreigners, be they Muslim, Christian or even irreligious. They denigrate such people as what Germans in the 1930s would have referred to as “untermenschen” meaning subhumans, a word then used to describe Jews, ironically enough. That the United States ignores all of Israel’s war crimes and human rights violations is disgraceful, but par for the course as American Jews who are advocates for Israel have corrupted and taken firm control of the political process. And do not think for a second that Israel’s leaders give one damn about the United States and its people. Recall for a moment how former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referred to Americans in a discussion with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” And more recently Netanyahu said “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.” That is what they really think of us.

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.

July 4, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Heavy Lies the Crown: POTUS Biden Totally Loses the Plot As NATO’s Narrative Implodes

By Declan Hayes | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 3, 2023

First off, hats off to young Hafez Bashar Assad, who recently aced a Master’s degree in Pure Mathematics from Russia’s prestigious Moscow State University which has, in the course of its long and glorious history, produced several Fields Medals winners. May young Hafez go on to similarly great things.

Hafez was, some years back, the subject of oceans of ire when he represented Syria in the Math Olympics, a competition I have some familiarity with, as friends of mine represented Ireland in years gone by. And though those young Irishmen went on to be awarded PhDs from the world’s most prestigious universities and land jobs with mouth-watering salaries from the world’s most prestigious companies, like young Hafez, they got nowhere at the Math Olympics because they lacked the in-depth 24/7 tutoring the United States’ Ivy League Professors give the young (generally Chinese) charges, who compete under the Yankee flag.

So well done, young Hafez and congratulations, too, to your beautiful, urbane, cosmopolitan, multi-lingual, great and gracious mother, Asma Assad, proudly hugging you after you were awarded your degree. I know of no current or former First Lady, who is in her league in terms of elegance, grace, brains or sheer good manners and your father, Syrian President Bashar Assad, certainly hit the jackpot when he landed that Damask Rose. He is a lucky and blessed man.

Moving from Moscow to Kiev, we see that former Irish President and serial grifter Mary Robinson and Swedish propagandist Greta Thunberg are on a jolly there to advise Clown Prince Zelensky on matters concerning the environment. As 20 year old Greta has only recently graduated High School, at an age when most others would be whistling through their undergraduate degrees, one wonders if this slow learner will stay as silent on NATO’s use of depleted uranium as she has been on the Nordstream terrorist attack, the greatest ecological crime of our era.

Not that I care as Greta, and Mary Robinson are, like Clown Prince Zelensky himself, media creations, all tinsel and no substance. NATO’s Zelensky regime must be really scraping the barrel if that is the best they can do.

But the bottom of the barrel is all NATO seems to have left. French dictator Macron spends his time attending Elton John 1970s’ retro concerts as France burns down around him. The best that Britain can do is to ban Nigel Farage from having a bank account and keep POW Julian Assange on ice for their American masters.

Stella Moris, Julian’s wife, was recently in Rome where, appropriately dressed, she met Pope Francis, who has also recently honoured British film-maker Ken Loach, who was recently expelled from the British Labour Party. Say what you like about Julian Assange and, irrespective as to whether the British will murder him or hand him over to the Yanks for further torture sessions, he is blessed to have such a woman standing foursquare beside him.

Although all of these singularities would have been noted in Washington, it is doubtful if they registered with Creepy Joe Biden, the Don Vittorio of the NATO organised crime gang. Don Vittorio, you may recall, is the senile Italian Mafia godfather, who appeared in The Sopranos a few seasons before fellow mafia mobster Junior also succumbed to dementia.

Although, as Biden claims Putin, in some parallel world, may be losing the war in Iraq, in this world Creepy Joe is most definitely losing the 2024 Presidential war to Donald Trump and Bobby Kennedy. Although Oddslotter still has him favourite to be re-elected, Biden’s place is in the dock as a war criminal and then off to an old folks’ home to be heard from no more.

The threats that Trump and Kennedy pose are not so much personal threats to Creepy Joe as they are to the gangster system he presides over. Trump is a threat because he says what others will not say: that the United States is a predatory state that robs and loots at will. And Kennedy is a threat because he points out the threats Big Pharma’s greed pose to all Americans and Big Pharma’s spokespersons like notorious narcissist Dr. Peter Hotez, won’t even debate him on Joe Rogan’s show for over $1 million in cash.

Although neither of these challengers criticise Israel, such criticisms are inconceivable because of the nature of NATO’s gangsterism. Palestinians are little more than plastic ducks at a shooting arcade and heaven help any “anti-Semite” who might argue otherwise.

But even argument itself is now haram in NATOstan. Donald Trump, remember, was banned from social media when he was POTUS, supposedly the world’s most powerful position. Germany’s Greens, perhaps trying to reconnect to their Nazis past, have persecuted their own citizens for not being sufficiently Russophobic and Australia, Canada and Vichy Ireland are, as part of NATO’s plans of world conquest, introducing the most draconian hate speech laws that have drawn the ire of Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk.

And there is the rub. Rogan, Carlson and Musk are forming the backbone of an opposition that believe in such things as free speech and free, open and honest debate and such things present an existential threat to Biden and his fellow-fraudsters.

In my earlier paeon to Asma Assad, I used an abundance of adjectives to try to give Syria’s First Lady her well-earned due. However, at days’ end, she is a wife, a mother and a woman, a wonderful adult female in other words and not a cisgender or a transgender, phrases that Biden’s handlers have shanghaied from the British and Roman Empires where Transjordan and Cisjordan were, still are and will always be divided by the Jordan River and Gaul and Cisgaul were, still are and will always be divided by the mighty Alps. You do not need Hafez Assad’s Master’s Degree in Pure Mathematics to know no such demarcations apply to sovereign womanhood and nor do you even need Greta Thunberg’s hard-earned High School diploma. What you need is a degree of honesty and common sense and, because they are attributes Creepy Joe and his whore-bonking son Hunter cashed in years ago, all of Creepy Joe’s dodgy deals are now coming home to roost.

And, just as the Alps and the Jordan divide for all time the Cis from the rest, so also in our own time do the mountains and rivers of honesty and truth divide the Creepy Joe Bidens and Mary Robinsons from the great and the good, from Stella Moris, Gonzalo Lira, Hafez and Asma Assad, all of whom affirm the words of Irish martyr Terence MacSwiney that “it is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can endure the most, who will prevail”.

And, it is because of good, great and immortal people like Asma Assad that Damascus itself has prevailed against Biden’s Beast of the Apocalypse. Let us, as we conclude, recall Mark Twain’s recollections of that eternal city: “We shall remember… Damascus, the Pearl of the East, the pride of Syria, the fabled garden of Eden, the home of princes and genii of the Arabian Nights, the oldest metropolis on Earth, the one city in all the world that has kept its name and held its place and looked serenely on while the Kingdoms and Empires of four thousand years have risen to life, enjoyed their little season of pride and pomp, and then vanished and been forgotten.”

And, as Eternal Damascus and her eternally gallant allies prepare to consign Biden, NATOstan’s faux Little Caesar, to the trash bin of history, let us salute not only Hafez and Asma Assad on their recent fortune but all of the great and good people of Syria, Palestine, Serbia, China and Russia who, at great cost, defied NATO and carried the banners of humanity not only for the Assange and Lira families but for all of us in the face of the butchers Biden, Macron and Zelensky sent against them. May God bless them and their protectors, the heroic men and women of the Syrian Arab Army, now and forever.

July 3, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Spiraling West Bank violence could spell political doom for both Israeli and Palestinian leadership

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | July 3, 2023

The latest upsurge in violence throughout the occupied West Bank signals the failure of US-led efforts to create calm. Both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli government were faced with domestic pressure to take escalatory measures against the opposing side, resulting in an Israeli military operation against Palestinian armed groups in Jenin.

Beginning with an Israeli raid on the city of Jenin, a string of violent events again ignited tensions between Palestinians and Israelis inside the occupied West Bank. In mid-June, a number of Israeli armored vehicles stormed Jenin to arrest members of the armed group known as the Jenin Brigades, when they were ambushed by local Palestinian fighters. Seven Israeli soldiers were injured by improvised explosive devices that were detonated underneath their military vehicles. This led to the deployment of Apache helicopters and a large number of Israeli ground forces, who ended up killing seven Palestinians and injuring 91.

Just one day later, two Palestinian gunmen carried out an attack near the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Eli, killing four Israeli settlers and injuring four others. The two shooters were identified as having an affiliation with the armed wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades. Both were shot and killed by Israeli forces that same day.

The increase in violence followed the decision of the Israeli government to allow its far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, to assume special powers to develop settlement expansion plans, even without the approval of the Knesset. The move sparked only light condemnation from the US government, which said that it “opposes such unilateral actions that make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve and are an obstacle to peace.”

The following night, radical Israeli settlers decided to attack Palestinian villages, in what they called “revenge” for the shooting attack against settlers earlier that day. In the Palestinian village of Turmasaya alone, around 400 armed settlers torched 30 homes and 60 cars. The attack also resulted in over 100 injuries and 1 death. Israeli settler attacks like these target any Palestinian community that they are able to penetrate, almost always with the protection of the Israeli army. One such attack, earlier this year in the village of Huwara, was even described as a “pogrom” by Israeli general Yehuda Fuchs.

The Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was put in an embarrassing position following the events in both Jenin and the settlement of Eli. Both these situations represented a clear development in the sophistication of the West Bank armed groups, proving them capable of inflicting casualties on both Israeli soldiers and settlers in just over a 24 hour window. Already there had been calls from Israeli settler communities, in the northern West Bank, to launch an all-out military operation in order to crush the armed groups, with the above mentioned incidents only leading to further pressure being placed on the government to act.

In an Israeli security session, held to assess the situation inside the West Bank following the Eli shooting attack, it was reported that both Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, opposed the option of launching a military operation inside the occupied territory at the time. The expectation was raised on the government, at that point, to react disproportionately to such attacks, given that the Israeli coalition is held together by a number of hardliners who seek a complete annexation of the West Bank and currently live inside illegal settlements themselves.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration set up two security summits, aimed at improving cooperation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. The conferences were held in Jordan’s Aqaba and the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh. The goal was to have the PA’s security forces and the Israeli military work together in order to prevent further deterioration in the security situation. One of the components to creating a more stable environment was a plan to utilize a specially trained PA force that would directly confront the West Bank armed groups that have emerged over the past two years. The plan, drawn up by US security coordinator Michael Fenzel, represented political suicide for a PA that is already facing a massive backlash from Palestinians.

According to a recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, roughly 80% of Palestinians want the current PA President Mahmoud Abbas to resign. During the latest string of Israeli settler attacks against defenseless Palestinian villages, locals have also gone viral calling on the PA to deploy its roughly 70,000-strong security force to protect against settler attacks. The PA only has limited areas of jurisdiction inside the West Bank and uses its forces to handle domestic Palestinian crime, in addition to protecting Israeli security interests. Under the current circumstances, a direct confrontation between PA forces and Palestinian armed groups could lead to a revolt against its rule inside the territory.

Mahmoud Abbas is currently 87 years old and there is a fear that when he passes away, there will be a power vacuum, which could result in the PA’s collapse or even a revolutionary anti-Israeli group taking over. Although the PA is currently attempting to sit on the fence, knowing that no conflict resolution dialogue has even been entertained with the Israeli side since 2014. It attempts to pretend as if there aren’t thousands of armed Palestinian fighters who are currently operating outside of the administration’s control and that it cannot do anything about Israel’s actions either. This attitude is mostly born out of a desire to remain in the good graces of their top donors, the United States and European Union. While the PA does not want to assume the role of an active protector against Israeli military and settler attacks, which the Palestinian people call on it to be, neither does it want to commit to being a direct aggressor against the armed militant groups.

Unlike the PA, the Israeli government was in the position to launch a military operation against the West Bank armed groups, so it waited and decided to carry out its attack on Sunday night. In 2002, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, during which they killed around 500 Palestinians and effectively eliminated many of the strongholds for the armed groups that were operating at the time. Israel’s army would seek to replicate the 2002 model in any large-scale operation, however, it has instead chosen to isolate Jenin in order to set back the groups, instead of attempting all out elimination. If it is to launch an all encompassing campaign, it is also likely that it will lose many soldiers and that there will be attacks from other territories, such as Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. Therefore, there will be a political price to pay for launching such an operation, which is something that Netanyahu knows and is perhaps why he ordered a more limited attack.

Instead of declaring war inside the entire West Bank, it seems that the Israeli army has decided to increase the heat on the armed groups, using tactics like drone strikes to assassinate fighters, while this current escalation is an attempt to show strength and cut back the abilities of the groups. The day after the settlers’ “revenge” attack, Israeli forces announced that they had carried out a missile strike on a car, near a checkpoint that is located in Jenin, killing three Palestinian fighters. This airstrike was significant because it was the first assassination by missile strike in the West Bank since 2005. Now, the current invasion of Jenin is the largest since 2002.

If the Palestinian armed groups are allowed to grow stronger and their influence spreads to other cities, it may be politically impossible in the future for the Israeli government not to launch a large-scale military campaign, which is likely why it has opted for the current approach. However, one interesting element to the recent military operation in Jenin, is the lack of care from Palestinians in Ramallah and other cities, only Palestinians from the refugee camps came out in large demonstrations. This reflects a massive victory of Israeli policy over the Palestinians of the West Bank, they have successfully disconnected them from the suffering of their fellow people and it seems as if life can go on as normal for people living in cities like Ramallah.

Due to the US refusal to present any pathways forward, the West Bank is heading towards even greater violence. Its roadmap for the PA is not reasonable, given that it essentially asks the Palestinian Authority to commit suicide, but on the other hand, it won’t actually punish Israel for violating its own red-lines. Washington is frequently expressing its concern over the Israeli government’s constant approval of settlement expansion plans, yet it is unwilling to take a single step toward doing anything about it and supports Israel’s military solution to a problem that Washington failed to solve. The Biden administration has the power to pressure both the PA and Israel to sit down together today, yet it refuses, offering nothing more than platitudes about peace negotiations that have essentially been dead since the late 1990s. Without any viable options for a solution on the table, there will only be more violence, even if tensions calm temporarily.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

July 3, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel, not Arafat, scuppered Clinton-led peace deal

MEMO | July 3, 2023

The 23-year-old mystery over who was responsible for scuppering the so-called peace deal outlined by then US President Bill Clinton has been revealed in newly-released declassified documents from the Israeli state archive. The documents show that it was the Israelis who rejected the “Clinton Parameters” which led ultimately to the breakdown of the “Peace Process”. They were uncovered by Professor Norman Finkelstein.

The US academic is the author of several major books, including Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End. Finkelstein, along with many others, has long disputed the Israeli claim that the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Yasser Arafat was responsible for spoiling the deal.

In fact, casting blame on the Palestinians for failed negotiations has been a stock in trade of Israeli propaganda since the creation of the apartheid state, and it was no different in 2000 when Clinton launched his failed bid to strike a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Finkelstein recollected his own position on the matter before revealing details of the Israeli documents which exposed the intransigence of the occupation state that led to the breakdown of Clinton’s peace deal. He said that he had tried to obtain the documents for decades without any success, while speculating about their content.

The basis of a resolution between Israel and Palestine has been unambiguous since 1967, said the American professor, and are based on various UN Resolutions and international law. “However, on the core issues, the Clinton Parameters amended the international consensus such that all the concessions would have to come from the Palestinian side and none from Israel. Contrary to international law, a portion of the Palestinian West Bank, including much of East Jerusalem, would be forfeited to Israel; a portion of the Israeli settlements inside the Palestinian West Bank would be annexed to Israel; and only a token portion of Palestinian refugees would be permitted to exercise their [legitimate] right of return to Israel.”

According to Finkelstein’s account of the negotiations, the Palestinian team did not reject the Clinton Parameters but, rather, expressed in a detailed, professional memo reservations about them. The Israeli side likewise expressed reservations. In January 2001, Clinton formally announced that both sides had accepted his parameters “with some reservations.” However, when this round of negotiations collapsed at the end of January, both the Americans and Israelis blamed Arafat for the collapse.

“Clinton lied-and so did everyone else,” said Finkelstein, recounting the decade long campaign to pin the blame on Arafat. The documents from the Israeli state archive — “Response of the Government of Israel to the ideas raised by President Clinton regarding the outline of a Framework Agreement on Permanent Status” —show explicitly that Israeli reservations about the Clinton Parameters fell outside the plan that he presented.

The documents expose Israel’s refusal to concede territory to the Palestinians: “The permanent territorial arrangements would have to include annexation that exceeds the numerical territorial scope indicated by the President… The President’s ideas regarding the Old City and Har Habayit [in East Jerusalem] are different from Israel’s position… In the field of security, the Presidential ideas differ from the Israeli ones with regard to the Palestinian police and security force, the mandate of the international force and the monitoring of the non-militarisation of Palestine [etc.].”

Clinton was called upon to remove any ambiguities in his parameters over the “Right of Return of the refugees”; that is, “any entry of refugees to Israel shall be a matter of sole sovereign Israeli discretion.” Every single Israeli demand exceeded not only what the occupation state was entitled to under international law but also what was offered in the Clinton parameters.

Israel’s culpability for the breakdown of the peace process is just one of many revelations that have come to light following the release of documents from its state archives. Last week, details of how Israel poisoned Palestinian land was uncovered and before that state documents exposed massacres carried out by Israeli forces against Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

July 3, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel worried Hezbollah’s air defense systems will ‘limit freedom of action’ over Lebanon

The Cradle | July 1, 2023

Israeli military planners are concerned about what they describe as “a significant change in the concept of air defense by Hezbollah in Lebanon” after the resistance group “doubled” the number of air defense systems in its possession, according to a report by Maariv newspaper published on 30 June.

The report cites unnamed military officials saying the resistance’s air defense systems will “restrict the freedom of action of the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon.”

“[Hezbollah] doubled the amount of air defense systems in its possession during the last five years … these defense systems are based mainly on modern Iranian systems,” the report adds.

Furthermore, Tel Aviv claims Hezbollah is in possession of the SA8 and SA22 Russian air defense systems, which have been previously deployed in Syria.

“The attack by an Israeli drone, in August 2019, on a facility in a building in the heart of the southern suburbs of Beirut … initiated the turning point in Hezbollah’s strategy, leading to the threat by [Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah] … to start shooting down Israeli drones,” the report highlights.

“Hezbollah implemented this threat two months later when it fired an SA8 missile at an Israeli Hermes 450 drone, which was on an intelligence-gathering mission, but the missile missed the target,” it adds.

In recent months, Israeli military planners have been on edge over Hezbollah’s vast military advancements coupled with the growing coordination among resistance factions in the region.

Earlier this week, Israeli media revealed that the US has stepped in to pressure Lebanon into having Hezbollah remove an outpost erected in the occupied Shebaa Farms.

Hezbollah has so far rejected these demands.

“You cannot threaten us with a large-scale war; it is us who are threatening you … Your follies, not ours, might blow up the entire region and lead to the Great War,” Nasrallah told Israeli leaders during a speech in May.

“The resistance is expanding by the day and has witnessed a great [positive] change in its financial and military capability,” he added.

July 1, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel backs down on threats to bomb Iranian nuclear sites

The Cradle | July 1, 2023

Israel is not planning to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser said on 30 June, as indirect talks between Tehran and Washington regarding the nuclear issue have continued in recent weeks.

Asked whether an Israeli decision on a preemptive strike against Iran was any closer, Tzachi Hanegbi said:

“We are not getting closer because the Iranians have stopped, for a while now, they are not enriching uranium to the level that, in our view, is the red line.”

Hanegbi added: “But it can happen. So we are preparing for the moment.”

For several decades, Israel and the US have accused Iran of being “weeks away” from building a nuclear weapon. However, Iran says its nuclear industry is for peaceful purposes, including energy, and has stressed that Islam forbids pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Hanegbi said it was still unclear what would come of the US-Iran talks. Still, he insisted that if an agreement is signed between Israel’s primary sponsor and main enemy during the indirect talks that began in Oman, this will not obligate Israel to abide by it.

Last week, Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting that Israel opposes any interim agreement between the US and Iran regarding the latter’s nuclear program.

Israel opposed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and celebrated when Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018.

The deal limited Iranian uranium enrichment to 3.67 percent. After the US withdrew from the agreement, Iran began enriching to 60 percent, which is still far from the 90 percent needed for use in a nuclear weapon.

“We also tell [the US] that even… ‘mini agreements,’ in our opinion, do not serve our goals, and we oppose those as well,” Netanyahu recently stated.

At the same time, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reportedly accused Israeli officials of leaking information about the indirect US-Iran talks while complaining that the leaked information was inaccurate.

This included claims that the Biden administration seeks to reach an informal deal with Iran limiting its nuclear enrichment to bypass getting approval from Congress.

According to the New York Times, the US seeks an agreement that would include a pledge by Tehran not to enrich uranium beyond 60 percent purity, to better cooperate with UN nuclear inspectors, to stop attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, to avoid providing Russia with ballistic missiles, and to release three American-Iranians held in the Islamic Republic.

In exchange, the US would release billions in seized Iranian funds, commit not to impose additional sanctions, and not take action against Iran in international forums such as the UN and IAEA.

July 1, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian journalist wins wrongful termination appeal against DW

The Cradle | June 29, 2023

Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Farah Maraqa on 28 June announced winning an appeal filed by Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) media network over her unlawful dismissal for alleged “antisemitism.”

The decision comes nine months after the German judiciary ruled that her dismissal by state-owned broadcaster DW on charges of anti-Semitism was “legally unjustified,” which the German broadcaster appealed.

“It is a relief that the judge ruled in Farah’s favor and held Deutsche Welle accountable for this illegal dismissal,” Giovanni Fassina, director of the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), which advocates for the legal rights of Palestinians in Europe, said at the time.

In February 2022, DW fired Maraqa alongside five other Arab journalists – all Palestinian or Lebanese – accusing them of “antisemitism” in social media posts and articles they had written for outside publications.

The charges were based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) controversial extended definition of antisemitism, which includes criticism of Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land and the system of apartheid imposed on Palestinians.

The definition, which Germany adopted, has been criticized as a means of silencing pro-Palestinian support and dissent against Israeli policies.

In May 2021, DW reportedly sent an internal two-page memo to employees banning them from using terminology such as “colonialism” and “apartheid” when describing Israel.

Over the past few years, western outlets have come under fire for firing or suspending Arab journalists over alleged “antisemitism.”

In March, France24 suspended four journalists from their Arabic branch at the behest of the pro-Israel media monitoring organization, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA).

Last October, the New York Times (NYT) fired Palestinian photojournalist Hosam Salam over social media posts supporting Palestinian resistance factions.

The freelance journalist was dismissed after the Israeli lobby organization Honest Reporting alerted the NYT of his posts.

Social media giants like WhatsApp, Facebook, and TikTok have also been accused of silencing or “purging” Palestinian journalists in Gaza and the occupied West Bank who report on Israeli war crimes.

Furthermore, Google employees accused the tech giant of censuring them for protesting against a controversial $1.2 billion contract signed with Israel to provide the country with advanced artificial intelligence (AI), which many fear will worsen human rights abuses in Palestine.

June 29, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

EU to renew Iran sanctions under defunct nuclear deal: Report

The Cradle | June 29, 2023

European officials recently informed Iran that they plan to renew EU ballistic missile sanctions set to expire in October, according to sources in the know that spoke with Reuters.

The renewal will be conducted under the parameters of the defunct Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which officials say Iran “violated” by moving forward with developing its nuclear energy program after the US unilaterally exited the deal in 2018 and reimposed crushing sanctions.

Other reasons the EU is giving for renewing the sanctions are Russia’s use of Iranian drones in Ukraine and “the possibility of Iran transferring ballistic missiles to Moscow.”

“The Iranians have been told quite clearly [of plans to keep the sanctions], and now the question is what, if any, retaliatory steps the Iranians might take and [how] to anticipate that,” a western diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The decision to uphold the sanctions would be the first significant instance of the E3 group of nations — France, Germany, and the UK — not abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal.

EU mediator Enrique Mora, who co-ordinates talks to restore the 2015 deal, raised the issue of keeping the sanctions when he met Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani in Doha on 21 June, but the latter reportedly refused to discuss the matter, according to an unnamed Iranian official who spoke with Reuters.

“Maintaining sanctions, in any capacity and form, will not hinder Iran’s ongoing advancements,” the Iranian official is quoted as saying. “It serves as a reminder that the west cannot be relied upon and trusted.”

Since 2017, the Islamic Republic has significantly advanced with its ballistic missile and satellite launch programs. The country last month made waves by revealing a hypersonic missile with a potential 2,000-km range.

This progress, on top of Tehran’s enrichment of uranium at 60 percent purity and a China-brokered détente with Saudi Arabia, set off alarms in the west and pushed Washington to begin ‘de-escalation talks‘ with Iran.

June 29, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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