‘Blood for Blood’: On Jenin and Israel’s Fear of an Armed Palestinian Rebellion
By Ramzy Baroud | MintPress News | August 26, 2021
The killing of four young Palestinians by Israeli occupation soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, on August 16, is a consequential event, the repercussions of which are sure to be felt in the coming weeks and months.
The four Palestinians – Saleh Mohammed Ammar, 19, Raed Ziad Abu Seif, 21, Nour Jarrar, 19, and Amjad Hussainiya, 20 – were either newly born or mere toddlers when the Israeli army invaded Jenin in April 2002. The objective, then, based on statements by Israeli officials and army generals, was to teach Jenin a lesson, one they hoped would be understood by other resisting Palestinian areas throughout the occupied West Bank.
In my book, Searching Jenin, published a few months after what is now known as the ‘Massacre of Jenin’ or the ‘Battle of Jenin’, I tried to convey the revolutionary spirit of this place. Although, in some ways, the camp was a representation of the wider Palestinian struggle, in other aspects it was a unique phenomenon, deserving of a thorough analysis and understanding.
By the end of that battle, Israel seemed to have entirely eliminated the armed resistance of Jenin. Hundreds of fighters and civilians were killed and wounded, hundreds more arrested and numerous homes destroyed. Even voices sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle have underestimated Jenin’s ability to resurrect its resistance under seemingly impossible circumstances.
Writing in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on June 10, 2016, Gideon Levy and Alex Levac described the state of affairs in the small camp. “Jenin, always the most militant of the refugee camps, was battered and destroyed, suppressed and bloodied, by Israel. These days its spirit seems to be broken. Every person is dealing with his own fate, his own private struggle for survival,” they wrote. The title of their article was “Jenin, Once the Most Militant of Palestinian Refugee Camps, Waves a White Flag”.
Being suppressed and shattered by an overwhelming force, however, is entirely different from “raising the white flag”. In fact, this truism does not just apply to Jenin but to the entirety of occupied Palestine, where Palestinians, at times, find themselves fighting on multiple fronts: Israeli occupation, armed illegal Jewish settlers, and the co-opted Palestinian Authority.
However, May 2021 changed so much. The Israeli attempt at ethnically cleansing Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the subsequent war on Gaza and the unprecedented uprising of unity, bringing all Palestinians, everywhere, together, lifted Jenin and other Palestinian areas from their state of despondency. The stiff resistance in Gaza, in particular, has had a direct impact on the various fighting groups in the West Bank, which were either disbanded or marginalized.
An unprecedented scene in Ramallah, on May 17, tells the whole story. Tens of fighters, belonging to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which is affiliated with the Fatah movement – the political party that dominates Mahmoud Abbas’ PA – marched on the streets of Ramallah, where the Authority is situated, in a relatively calm environment. The fighters chanted against the Israeli occupation and their ‘collaborators’ before clashing with Israeli soldiers, who were manning the Qalandiya military checkpoint.
This event was quite unusual, for it ushered in the return of a phenomenon that Israel, with the help of its ‘collaborators’, had crushed during the Second Palestinian Intifada – or uprising – between 2000-2005.
The Israeli military understands that the May war and uprising have triggered an unwelcomed transition in Palestinian society. Long-suppressed, occupied Palestinians are ready to rebel, eager to move on, beyond octogenarian Abbas and his corrupt clique, past the stifling factionalism and self-serving political discourses. The questions are how, where and when.
This is precisely why Israel is back in Jenin, once more trying to teach the nearly 12,000 refugees there a lesson, one that is also meant for Palestinians throughout the West Bank. Israel believes that if the nascent armed resistance in Jenin is suppressed now, the rest of the West Bank will remain ‘quiet’.
According to Palestinian journalist, Atef Daghlas, the Israeli occupation forces killed ten Palestinians during their frequent nightly raids on Jenin. Eight of the victims have been killed since the end of the Gaza war alone. There are two main reasons behind the increased number of casualties among the Palestinians in the last few months: first, the increased number of Israeli raids – where occupation soldiers, often disguising themselves as Palestinians, enter the camp at night and attempt to capture young Palestinian fighters; second, because of the growing number of youth enlisting in various resistance groups. According to Daghlas, the rifles carried by these youth are purchased by the young men themselves, as opposed to being supplied by a group or a faction.
“Blood for blood, bullet for bullet, fire for fire,” were some of the chants that echoed in the Jenin town and its adjacent refugee camp, when the Palestinian residents carried the bodies of two of the four killed youth, before burying them in the ever-crowded martyrs’ graveyard. The fact that Jenin is, once more, openly championing the armed struggle option is sending alarm bells throughout occupied Palestine. Israel is now worried that an armed Intifada is in the making, and Abbas knows very well that any kind of Intifada would spell doom for his Authority.
It is obvious that what is currently taking place in Jenin is indicative of something much larger. Israel knows this, thus the exaggerated violence against the camp. In fact, two of the bodies of killed Palestinians are yet to be returned to their families for proper burial. Israel often resorts to this tactic as a bargaining chip, and to increase the psychological pressure on Palestinian communities, especially those who dare resist.
It might be relevant to note that the Jenin refugee camp was officially formed in 1953, a few years after the Nakba of 1948, the year when historic Palestine was destroyed and the State of Israel was created. Since then, generation after generation, Jenin’s youth continue fighting and dying for their freedom.
It turns out that Jenin never waved the white flag, after all, and that the battle which began in 2002 – in fact in 1948 – was never truly finished.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press).
Always Another War
America and Israel together against Iran
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 31, 2021
Afghanistan is not exactly history quite yet as there still will be a lot final adjustments on the ground as well as the usual Vietnam-syndrome war of words that inevitably follows on yet another American-engineered foreign catastrophe. But the recriminations will go nowhere as there is certainly enough mud to stick on both major political parties that make Washington their home, and neither wants to be embarrassed to such an extent that anyone will actually demand change.
Regarding Afghanistan itself, I often recall hearing from a CIA friend of mine who served as the last Chief of Station in Kabul in the 1970s before the start of the Mujaheddin insurgency against the Marxist-Leninist government that was then in place eventually forced the US Embassy to close. He remarked how liberated the city was, full of smartly dressed attractive women and well-turned-out men going about their business. Though there was considerable repression in rural areas, education was highly prized by the people in the cities while many aspects of fundamental Islam were made illegal.
All of that came to a crashing halt when the United States and Saudi Arabia supported the Mujaheddin and eventually created al-Qaeda in a bid to damage the Soviets, who had intervened in the country and were backers of the Kabul regime headed by Babrak Karmal. Zbigniew Brzezinski was the “brain” behind the plan, in part to do payback for the Soviet role in Vietnam and in part because Zbig apparently had difficultly in separating his attachment for Poland, at the time part of the Soviet empire, from his role as national security adviser for Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America.
To be sure, wars that are unsuccessful, like Vietnam and Afghanistan, do generate a certain blowback. It was regularly observed that the 1990-1 US-led Desert Storm operation followed by a victory parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City helped the United States recover from Vietnam fatigue. That meant that it would not hesitate to again use armed force to enforce its often touted “rules based international order,” best translated as US global hegemony.
Some might suggest that the best thing to do about Afghanistan is to learn from it. Hold senior officials and officers responsible for the egregious errors in judgement that led to disaster. But that will never happen as the top levels of the US government operate like a large social club where everyone protects everyone else. A Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller who has called for accountability at senior levels has already been relieved of his command and is leaving the service, a warning from above to others who might be similarly inclined to be outspoken.
So, with all that in mind, the best was to make Afghanistan go away is to begin preparations for the next war. Since that is so, how lucky is President Joe Biden to have a visit at this very critical moment from Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who presented the president with a “new strategic vision” for the Middle East. In preparation for the visit, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the prime minister’s visit “will strengthen the enduring partnership between the United States and Israel, reflect the deep ties between our governments and our people, and underscore the United States’ unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.” Psaki, who conflates the deep ties between the Democratic Party and its Jewish donors with a “partnership,” predictably said everything demanded of her, only stopping short of turning in her application to join the Israel Defense Force (IDF).
Bennett met on the day before the White House meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and also separately with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It is not known how many standing ovations were given to Bennett by the simpering US officials, but it is presumed that they were necessary as filler for the event because Austin and Milley in particular are notably inarticulate and poorly informed. The lumpish Austin did, however, echo Psaki in coming out with the usual message, telling Bennett that the Pentagon is absolutely “committed” to ensuring Israel can “defend itself” against the Iranians, that “The administration remains committed to Israel’s security and right to self-defense. That is unwavering, it is steadfast and it is ironclad.”
Bennett was engaged in delivering his timely message that the fall of Afghanistan has actually made everything in that part of Asia more dangerous, meaning that the US and Israel should prepare to fight Iran when it seeks to take advantage of the situation. More to the point, Bennett also made time to meet with the omnipotent Israel Lobby as represented by the head of its most powerful component, Executive Director Howard Kohr of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The actual discussion with Biden and who-knows-who else in the room was also predictable, minus only that Biden did not feel compelled to go down on his knees as he did with visiting outgoing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and his chief of staff Rivka Ravitz in early July. Perpetual victim Israel was presented by Bennett as facing hostilities coming from its southern border where Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. Neither Bennett nor Biden mentioned the enormous advantage in military power that Israel already possesses, as was evident in the conflict that took place three months ago, an 11-day war that left 265 dead in Gaza, including many targeted children in apartment blocks, while only 13 died in Israel.
Bennett had two principal objectives. First, he was looking for a commitment from Biden not to re-engage with Iran in the nuclear proliferation treaty Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) unless it is greatly “improved” to include peripheral regional issues as well as eliminating any uranium enrichment. As Iran is prepared to accept the status quo ante and nothing more, Bennett knew perfectly well that his insistence on a broader agreement would be a game-breaker. And second, as a consequence of that expected commitment, he wanted assurances that the US will not withdraw its remaining forces from Iraq and Syria and would support Israel fully if it should choose to attack Iran.
Israel’s Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan has also been pushing the White House to admit Israel to the so-called Visa Waiver Program, which would allow Israelis to travel freely to the United States without having to obtain a visa. The program usually requires reciprocity which would mean that Israel would in turn have to admit all American travelers, but the Jewish state insists on reserving the right to block Arab and Muslim Americans for no reason whatsoever. It is presumed that Bennett discussed the issue with Blinken.
On the other more important issues, Biden appears to have bought into at least some of what Bennett was selling. In comments made after their meeting, with the Israeli standing beside him, the US President said that “We’re putting diplomacy first and see where that takes us. But if diplomacy fails, we’re ready to turn to other options.” Bennett was pleased by what he was hearing, elaborating on it, “I was happy to hear your clear words that Iran will never be able to acquire a nuclear weapon and that you emphasize that you will try the diplomatic route, but there’s other options if that doesn’t work out.” The other “options” include, of course, intensified covert action intelligence operations, assassinations and a hoped-for bombing attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and weapons sites. Attacking Iran will also have the benefit of demonstrating that Biden is a “tough” leader, surely a consideration at this point when his approval ratings are sinking.
The prime minister also surfaced another proposal for all his interlocutors, including Biden. He wants to upgrade his fleet of F-15 fighter bombers to give his military planners more options if there should be a war with Iran. The US produced F-35 is the primary fighter for IDF, but the older F-15 can carry significantly more weaponry and bomb load.
Bennett has asked Washington to provide an advance on its annual $3.8 billion military assistance package to pay for the improvements. In other words, Israel wants to start a war and have the United States pay for it, possibly in addition to actually doing much of the fighting.
Israel has, in fact, been warning that a war is coming for quite some time, a message that was delivered yet again in a timely fashion as Bennett winged his way to Washington for his meetings. As the prime minister was landing in the US, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi held a press conference in which he advised that the Israeli military advancing its “operational plans” against Iran. He observed that the country’s new military budget had funds earmarked specifically to improve IDF capabilities against Iran. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz also warned on the same day that “The State of Israel has the means to act and will not hesitate to do so. I do not rule out the possibility that Israel will have to take action in the future in order to prevent a nuclear Iran.”
So, the new Israeli premier has laid down the gauntlet and, for the moment, Joe Biden has only tentatively moved to pick it up even if he has in a sense pledged total support for Israel no matter what the Jewish state decides to do. The Israel Lobby meanwhile will be working hard to bring Joe totally into line. And to be sure Biden will have to reckon with the fact that there is a new player in town in the form of a bunch of progressive Democrats who are not in love with Israel, backed up by shrinking public support for Israeli actions resulting from the recent slaughter in Gaza. Nevertheless, a weakened and disoriented Biden will have only limited ability to stand up to an increasingly assertive Israel and its powerful lobby.
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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
Dorothy versus Hassan
By Taxi | Plato’s Guns | August 27, 2021
The US ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, thinks she’s smarter than Hassan Nasrallah.
Yet, evidence shows that since Trump appointed her as ambassador to Lebanon back in February 2020, every dastardly trap she has placed before Mr. Nasrallah and his Hezbollah resistance group has failed.
Proof of this failure is that Hezbollah keeps growing stronger and stronger, untouched by all external or internal forces hellbent on destroying the Lebanese resistance group. Failed simply because Dorothy is not as smart as she thinks she is. Most certainly, she is not as intelligent as the nifty leader of Hezbollah.
Having spent some three years working as Deputy Principal Officer at the US Consulate General in Jerusalem immediately prior to her post in Beirut, Dorothy no doubt continues to have a direct hotline to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, if not to his direct cell phone; and no doubt, every morning, her first official word from Beirut is ‘shalom’.
Dorothy does not behave like a diplomat. Instead, she behaves like an eye-patched leader of a sketchy militia: laying aside all diplomatic decorum and behaviorism and charging forth into every single aspect of Lebanese social, economic and political life, with the blatant intent of widening existing societal fissures in Lebanon, as well as adding new ones: aiming for a sectarian war that would cause the wholesale mass murder of innocents. One could say that she behaves as the Jews do in DC. A Puss in Boots, but utterly charmless and physically unattractive. Puss in Boots with mouth bigger than boots. So much so that last year, a Lebanese judge banned Lebanese media from interviewing Dorothy for her atrocious and blatant attempts at creating sectarian warfare in Lebanon. Needless to say, Dorothy the ‘ambassador’ gave the proverbial middle finger to this native judge while hiding behind the skirts of her diplomatic immunity. She continues to pollute Lebanese media and its political landscape with daily feces propelled out of all her orifices. Yes, she literally defecates on Lebanon every day, while feigning love and affection for the Lebanese people. Because the Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah, defeated Israel twice already on the battlefield, Dorothy’s instruction since taking the ambassadorship has been to starve the Lebanese population as punishment for these victories. Tel Aviv must love her for her Zionist activism and zeal. The Mossad must be sending her monthly boxes of Cuban cigars.
And I’ll remind American taxpayers here that their hard-earned taxes are being spent on starving populations in the middle east, when bombing them to smithereens is not feasible. Starving millions of people who have done absolutely no harm to the American people. I’ll remind taxpayers that they are paying Dorothy’s wages while she is spreading anti-Americanism with her bolshie, toxic behaviorism overseas. I’ll remind them that since 2005, no less than $30 billion have been spent on destroying the Lebanon as a means of demoting Hezbollah – all for the benefit of Israel and Israel alone. And although Lebanon’s society is currently teetering on total collapse due to Dorothy’s malicious and malignant schemes, yet Hezbollah itself appears untouched by this exuberant, negative expenditure. And I will add here that Lebanon has suffered from corrupt governments for some thirty years, yet all this while, the Lebanese collective enjoyed a decent lifestyle and were never in need. They became needy when Dorothy came to town.
Perhaps when she lived in Israel, Dorothy got everything she wanted. But in Lebanon, what Dorothy wants, Dorothy doesn’t get. Hassan has insured this. Time and time again, he has outsmarted all her plans to create civil war in Lebanon. All straight and curve-balls that Dorothy has daily thrown at Hassan have missed and landed either way off mark, or, unfortunately, on innocent, civilian bystanders.
Let us be clear here that the traditional role of an ambassador is to work the trade and Intel files, as well as to assist expats in a variety of bureaucratic and legal matters. It is never the job of a diplomat to act politically or to make inciteful, political statements concerning the host nation. Never! It is abnormal behavior for a diplomat to be an in-your-face politico whose name and incendiary words are headlines in local media on a daily basis. Yet, Dorothy Shea swans about the Lebanon like a privileged colonialist: doing exactly that and doing it with shameless gusto.
She is proud that she has turbo-charged the destruction of Lebanon. But she is very angry that the Hezbollah remains untouched. Livid that Hassan remains leagues ahead of her diabolical plans. How dare Hassan challenge her, the mighty Queen Sheba herself?! She Who Must Be Obeyed, must be obeyed or else!
Yet, she is not obeyed by Hassan. Currently, the genocidal-minded Dorothy is reeling from the latest punch in the teeth that Hassan metaphorically gave her last week, when he defied US sanctions on Lebanon and announced that Iranian fuel ships are now headed to fuel-starved Lebanon: a miserable and existential shortage that Dorothy herself had engineered for the Lebanese people through her incessant, corrupt interference in absolutely all internal Lebanese affairs bar none. (She has even interfered in local, district elections, personally rejecting and approving candidates!). Her destructive meddling is compounded by the Caesar Act sanctions that her chowderhead boss, Trump, had imposed on the Lebanon at the behest of Tel Aviv. Because Israelis dare not kill Lebanese people with their missiles for fear of an equal Hezbollah retaliation, starving the Lebanese people en mass was to be their path to mass murder of said Lebanese; and thus Dorothy has been assigned the task of insuring that all trade and energy doors were closed to the Lebanese, and all paths to a much-needed new government blocked and blocked some more, ad infinitum. Dorothy has forbidden the Lebanon from trading with any country in the world, and simultaneously forbidden friendly nations from delivering any aid to Lebanon’s starving population. She has appeared more than happy this past year and a half to just watch the very fabric of Lebanon disintegrate under her ‘ambassadorship’ – doing absolutely nothing to help the long-suffering, collective Lebanese people whatsoever. Au contraire, the more Lebanon’s system broke down, the more the people suffered, and the more Dorothy jumped with joy and stirred the sectarian embers further.
It appears that not only are Hezbollah and the Lebanese population as a whole a target for destruction by Dorothy, but so is the Lebanese government itself. She does not even want a government for the Lebanon to exist. She wants for Lebanon what Israel wants: wiping Lebanon and its flag right off the map and turning it into many-flagged, sectarian enclaves and warring Bantustans instead. Simply, everyone and everything Lebanese is her target for destruction.
Of course, Dorothy gets much help from powerful Lebanese persons and political entities who are opposed to Hezbollah. Fortunately for the Lebanon, these people do not represent the majority of the Lebanese. Known Lebanese members of Dorothy’s team are handsomely paid in mega dollars to destroy their own country, just so that they can boost their Swiss bank accounts and augment their seats of power by getting rid of the most popular party in the Lebanon: the Hezbollah. These unsavory, treasonous Lebanese are ideologically aligned with fascism and predatory globalism, and they are also known for being supporters of the Israeli enemy and its religio-colonialist project in the Levant. Their names and professional titles are known all over the Lebanon, and they are as follows:
- Riyad Salame is a Maronite Christian who heads the Lebanese Central Bank (Banque Du Liban). He is the very man who colluded with Dorothy to collapse the local Lebanese currency in order to initiate the ‘starvation plan’ of his own people. He is also behind the financial pyramid scheme that suddenly, and by his design, collapsed a year ago. He is also behind the ‘Capital Control’ system that has been imposed on all bank account holders since the collapse of the Lebanese Lira. This system limits monthly withdrawals of all account holders, be they rich or poor, to a pitiful $400 per month: thus consigning both rich and poor to the same poverty pot. This system is currently holding hostage all of the people’s earnings and life-savings. Salame continues to shamelessly collude with the haters of Lebanon, while hiding some twenty billion dollars that suddenly went missing out of the country a year and a half ago. He claims no knowledge of where this vast amount went. He has not been held accountable by Lebanese law, nor has he lost his highest banking office in the nation, all because he has Dorothy’s full political protection.
- Samir Gaegae, is a Maronite Christian who is a convicted war criminal who colluded with Israel during its 18 years of occupation of Lebanon back in the ’80’s and 90’s, causing thus the torture, the disappearance, and the mass murder of tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians. And Ironically, it was Hezbollah’s hands, after the eviction of Israeli forces from Lebanon, who worked for his clemency, thus sparing him an execution. The ingrate Gaegae is now also best friends with both Saudi Arabia and Israel: tasked by them too to destroy Hezbollah, even at the cost of destroying Lebanon itself.
- Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rah, who holds the highest seat in the Lebanese Maronite church, is also known for regularly inciting sectarianism during his speeches and sermons. He became infamous for breaking a Lebanese law that forbids the cooperation or promotion of the Israeli enemy when he illegally visited Israel several years ago with the excuse of “I want to pray in Jerusalem.” No doubt he dined at Jewish Masonic Lodges there too. He adamantly refuses to separate ‘church from state’. He is a regular visitor to the US embassy in Beirut and all his political statements read like memos issued by Tel Aviv. He supports normalization with Israel that continues to occupy the Lebanese Shebaa Farms. For a religious Christian leader, he appears to devote his time to spreading the message of the Synagogue of Satan instead of the message of Jesus.
- NGO’s. The Lebanese population is some 4.6 million natives currently residing in Lebanon, yet Lebanon has over an astounding 10.000 NGO groups, with 92% of them being funded by foreign governments and other dubious Western and oil-Arab institutions. These shady NGOs are tasked with ‘inflaming’ the masses and creating a Color Revolution in the Lebanon. They have proved that they can successfully gather the protesting masses with matching banners and baseball hats, but they have failed to achieve their anarchic objective after several attempts. They are well-paid agents of chaos who swarm the Lebanon like biblical locust: receiving all their instruction from Dorothy’s office at the American embassy in Beirut; and eating all that great, green leaf we call ‘dollars’ right off Dorothy’s hand.
One can clearly discern that the American embassy in Beirut is more of a war theater against the Lebanese themselves, than it is a peaceful salon of diplomacy and trade activity.
Dorothy also enjoys the occasional support from other powerful Lebanese who may not share her ideology, but assist her when called upon because they are beholden to the US via their investment projects in the US, and also via their children and grandchildren who reside and study in the US. Yes, just like mafias threaten people with harm done to their businesses and families, so does Dorothy threaten her second tier of helpers, thus they always oblige. Saad Hariri (a Sunni leader), Walid Jumblatt (a Druze leader), and Nabih Berri (a Shia leader) are examples of second-tier helpers of the US embassy in Beirut.
Here I would add that although Dorothy’s Lebanese inner circle leaders are all Christian Maronites, between them, they actually represent the minority of Maronites in Lebanon. The majority of Maronites belong to the Maronite President Aoun’s party, who are allies and supporters of Hezbollah. And it appears that the Maronites who are anti Hezbollah are fundamentally Islamophobic, all due to an aftertaste that the brutal, Sunni Ottoman Empire left in their mouths back in 1922, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed and its soldiers finally exited Lebanon after some 500 years of miserable colonization.
Aside from creating the total collapse of the Lebanon, financially, socially and politically, it is germane here to give a summary of what the enemies of Hezbollah and Lebanon itself hoped to achieve with their treachery and sedition:
1- IMF enslavement of Lebanon’s financial life.
2- Disarming Hezbollah and the dismantlement of the Lebanese army, to be replaced with UN or NATO troops that answer to Tel Aviv and DC.
3- Destroying the current governmental system and the insertion of a new, federalized political theater where only enemies of the Hezbollah are in positions of power.
4- Naturalization into Lebanese citizenship of captive Sunni-Syrian refugees who are forbidden by the West to return to Syria, thus changing the voting demographic of Lebanon to favor Saudi-sponsored blocks (means Israeli-centric). This plan even has the temerity to favor Syrian naturalization over Palestinian one, even though Palestinian refugees have been stuck in Lebanon since 1948.
5- Allow Israel to annex gas field ‘Block 9’ that sits in the southern Lebanese maritime waters and is considered to be the richest field in the Lebanon waters.
6- Allow Israel to annex the Lebanese Litani River that’s some 23.6 miles from the Israeli border.
7- Through educational and cultural projects, unleashing insidious social-engineering programs such as ‘woke’, opioid and porn addiction, religious irreverence, cultural Marxism, and what I like to call the ‘gender bandito’ culture. In other words, social-engineering programs that shred the very fabric of traditional Lebanese life and culture. And sanity.
8- The looting and destruction of Lebanon’s museums and ancient artifacts so as to wipe out the ancient identity of the Lebanon.
9- Bantustaning and turning rural landscapes into militarized zones, and turning cities and towns into police states overseen by Israel-friendly UN or NATO forces.
10- Normalization with Israel through forced trade with Tel Aviv – the only entity Lebanon would be allowed to trade with.
And last but not least:
11- Empty Lebanon of its Christian population who are mainly concentrated in the Mount Lebanon area, but also scattered wide in villages and towns all over the Lebanon.
This is a project that analysts say has been handed to the current Lebanese Maronite Patriarch, Bechara Boutros al-Rahi. His consistent sectarian incitement is intended to promote a religious civil war that will find the majority of Lebanese Christians fleeing the Lebanon as political refugees to mainly Canada and France, where they already have immigration programs that are specifically preferential and lucrative to Lebanese Christian applicants. Yes, France and Canada are partners with the US in the destruction of Lebanon. In fact, all other Western nations and some Arab ones too are also conspirators and abettors in this diabolical, mass-murderous plan.
The Patriarch’s other vital mission is to turn Maronite Aounist voters against President Aoun’s party – driving them to the arms of Saudi-sponsored Samir Gaegae, who is a Maronite himself too and an infamous friend of Israel – not forgetting here his close friendship with Dorothy the Destroyer.
Because Lebanon is the only Christian-Arab country, and Christian Lebanese are fundamental to Lebanese history, heritage and identity, removing them from the Lebanon facilitates the Jewish plan of turning Lebanon into a zombie without a national, rooted identity, all in preparation for future Judeofication of the Lebanon, as per the Yinon Plan.
Of course, Dorothy here is a mere soldier for Tel Aviv. But still, all responsibility of Lebanon’s current destruction lays at her feet for her absolute devotion and willingness to participate and manage this grand and evil project for the Lebanon. She is responsible for the current starvation and the misery of millions of Lebanese, Christian and Muslim alike, because she is the most powerful mover and shaker in the Lebanon: moving and shaking it towards its mass grave.
Even though this ‘starvation plan’ has been well conceived and executed with the help of internal traitors, yet Hezbollah and its Lebanese allies continue to stand like firm walls in its path. Hassan and his patriotism continue to outsmart Dorothy. In fact, so much so that now Hezbollah has unexpectedly taken up the new mantle of ‘economic resistance’, as opposed to only a military one. Only two weeks go, Dorothy’s breathless destruction literally forced the Hezbollah to actively enter the economic war against the Lebanon, after a year and a half of passivity. They are economically-resisting now by defying the Caesar’s Act and all other members of Dorothy’s inner circle. This defiance comes in the shape of organizing Iranian fuel ships to arrive to Lebanon as aid for the utterly desperate people of the Lebanon.
The first Iranian fuel ship is due to imminently arrive to Lebanese shores. Many more Iranian ships are slated thereafter, carrying much needed life-saving medicine and food to the needy Lebanese.
Hassan has botched all nefarious plans and checkmated Dorothy with this move. He has promised that any harm done to these Iranian aid ships will result in instant, open warfare against Israel. The man always means what he says. And he always delivers on his word. The Israelis know this only too well. They will be red-faced and watching through their north-pointing binoculars, a long stream of Iranian ships docking a mere hop away from Haifa port. This was never part of their plan. Their plan was to starve the Lebanon en mass so as to bring it to its knees and take from it what they want; as well as to get rid of Iran-friendly Hezbollah. Instead, they’re ending up with a stronger Hezbollah bringing in Iranian aid ships that will feed the Lebanese people and provide them with desperately needed medicine and fuel. Iranian ships that will be seen by most Lebanese as ‘savior ships’, while Hezbollah will be crowned as ‘savior of Lebanon’ for resisting and breaking the illegal, US economic siege on the Lebanon.
Begs the question here, therefore: will the Mossad continue to send Dorothy her boxes of Cuban cigars?
We will work with the Congress to provide $1bn to Iron Dome, US official says
MEMO | August 26, 2021
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin yesterday pledged to work with Congress to provide $1 billion to Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, the Times of Israel reported.
“We are working closely with Congress to provide all the necessary information to respond positively to your request to provide $1 billion in emergency funding. And it’s going to save more innocent lives,” Austin told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Austin said: “The Department of Defense is also committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, and to ensur[ing] that Israel can defend itself against threats from Iran, its proxies, and terrorist groups.”
“Iran must be held accountable for acts of aggression in the Middle East and on international waters,” referring to the attack on Mercer Street tanker off the Omani coast.
“US is committed to strengthening its strategic relationship with Israel,” he said, “the administration is committed to Israel’s security and its right to self-defense.”
When asked about the ten-year memorandum of understanding worth $3.8 billion in defence aid annually that was signed during the Obama administration, he said: “That is unwavering. It is steadfast.”
Withdrawal from Afghanistan to benefit Israel, says US official
MEMO | August 26, 2021
A US official has defended the withdrawal from Afghanistan by claiming that it will benefit Israel. Speaking at a briefing ahead of a meeting between the far-right Israeli Prime Minster Naftali Bennett and US President Joe Biden, the unnamed official said that Washington will be in a better position to direct resources and attention to its allies such as Israel, the Times of Israel has reported.
The newspaper claimed that Biden will use the meeting with Bennett to reinforce his commitment to the occupation state and other US allies in the region.
Washington is redirecting its resources towards the threat posed by China and Russia. However, US officials rejected a frequently reported claim by analysts that the Middle East is no longer a key priority for the US.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said a senior official. “If anything, in the Biden administration, we are not pursuing… unachievable goals.” This is believed to mean that Biden will not make demands on Israel.
“We’re not trying to transform the Middle East. We’re not trying to overthrow regimes. We are pursuing a very steady course, centred on achievable aims; alignment of ends and means; and, first and foremost, support for our partners and, of course, Israel being second to none,” the official added.
Despite early cautious optimism on the back of the Biden administration reversing some of the more controversial policies of former US President Donald Trump — Biden has reopened the Palestine Embassy in Washington, for example, and restored humanitarian aid to the Palestinians — there is a new realism within America over what is achievable. No new peace plan is expected to be unveiled, nor is there an expectation on Israel to return to the negotiation table with a view to ending its brutal military occupation of Palestine.
Bennett goes into today’s meeting having made a renewed pledge that there will be no independent Palestinian state under his watch. As a former settler leader who opposes the creation of such a state, Bennett said that there would be no resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians for the foreseeable future.
US relations with Iran and the so-called Abraham Accords, which saw four Arab countries (the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan) normalise relations with the occupation state last year, are expected to be discussed during the Biden-Bennett meeting. Apparently, the US president will be looking to see how Israel feels about the US entering into a nuclear deal with Iran, and to find ways to expand the list of countries signed up to the accords.
Israeli forces shoot, kill 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Nablus
Imad Khaled Saleh Hashash, 15, was shot dead by Israeli forces during a raid on Balata refugee camp near Nablus on August 24, 2021. (Photo courtesy of the Hashash family)
Defense For Children International | August 24, 2021
Ramallah – Israeli forces shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy today in the northern occupied West Bank.
Imad Khaled Saleh Hashash, 15, was shot and killed by Israeli forces around 4 a.m. this morning as he stood on the roof of his home watching as Israeli forces conducted a raid in the Balata refugee camp located southeast of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to information collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine. Imad sustained a gunshot wound to the head and was taken to Rafidia hospital in Nablus where he was pronounced dead.
“Israeli forces continue to kill Palestinian children with impunity,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director at DCIP. “Systemic impunity means Israeli forces can kill Palestinian children in their homes without fear of any consequences.”
Israeli forces raided Balata refugee camp to conduct search and arrest operations around 3 a.m., an eyewitness told DCIP. After being awakened by gunshots, Imad and his brother went to the roof of their home to observe the raid, according to information gathered by DCIP. Imad had taken out his cell phone and was attempting to photograph or film the raid, when he was shot in the head.
Imad’s brothers were initially unable to evacuate him from the home due to tear gas fired by Israeli forces, according to information gathered by DCIP. Imad was transported to Rafidia hospital in Nablus in a neighbor’s taxi, where he was pronounced dead.
Israeli forces shot and killed 15-year-old Imad Khaled Saleh Hashash during a raid on Balata refugee camp near Nablus on August 24, 2021. (Photo courtesy of the Hashash family)
Imad is the 12th Palestinian child shot and killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2021. Israeli forces shot Mohammad Mo’ayyad Bahjat Abu Sara on July 28, while he was a passenger in his father’s car. Israeli forces fired 13 bullets at the vehicle as it retreated from the area in which they were deployed.
Israeli forces shot Mohammad Munir Mohammad Tamimi, 17, in the back on July 24. Mohammad underwent surgery at Salfit governmental hospital but succumbed to his wounds later that evening.
In June, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teens from the occupied West Bank village of Beita located southeast of Nablus. Israeli forces shot and killed 15-year-old Ahmad Bani-Shamsa in the head with live ammunition around 5:30 p.m. on June 16 in Beita, DCIP reported. Ahmad did not present any threat to Israeli forces at the time he was shot. On June 11, Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year-old Mohammad Hamayel in the chest with live ammunition around 4:30 p.m. during a protest, DCIP reported.
Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or of serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings.
Israel’s airstrikes in Syria aren’t newsworthy for Western media, as a consequence civilians continue to suffer
By Eva Bartlett | RT | August 22, 2021
Israel again illegally bombed Syria last week, violating Lebanese airspace to do so and putting at risk the lives of untold numbers of civilians. And following this, crickets in the media, again.
On Thursday, just after 11pm, Israeli missiles targeted the vicinities of Damascus and Homs, according to a statement from the Syrian army. Russia’s Reconciliation Center for Syria said Israel did so via six planes which fired 24 guided missiles at Syria.
In its attack on Syria, Israeli missiles put two passenger airplanes in Syrian and in Lebanese airspace at risk, particularly the 130 civilians and flight crew on a Middle East Airlines flight coming from Abu Dhabi to Beirut. Flight trackers show the plane abruptly changed course to avoid being targeted.
Flashback to 2018, when Israel attacked Syria using the cover of a Russian plane – whose presence was legal in Syria, having been invited by the Syrian government, contrary to the invading Israeli plane. Syrian air defense missiles responded to the threat, downing the Russian plane.
Just last month, Israel attacked Syria on multiple occasions, including during Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest times for Muslims.
The reality is that Israel’s bombings of Syria are so routine that this latest attack is hardly ‘news’ and it is hard to make it newsworthy to write about. I’ve written about such attacks before, including noting (February 2021): “Israel’s military chief of staff boasted earlier about hitting over 500 targets in just 2020 alone.”
But each attack is, in my opinion, newsworthy, because each of them affects, if not kills, civilians.
Surely, it would be newsworthy if the routine bombings of a neighboring sovereign country were committed by, say, Russia or China. The entirety of Western media and all of the internet would be livid and demanding accountability.
Israel’s pretext when bombing Syria is usually that it is, “targeting Iranian-backed fighters,” a charge gleefully reprinted in media and by sources supporting the fall of the Syrian government.
In reality, reports claim, Thursday’s bombings killed four Syrian civilians, including at least one youth.
The psychological terror
British journalist Vanessa Beeley, who lives in a heavily populated suburb on the outskirts of Damascus, tweeted of feeling the impacts of the bombings.
Now imagine all of the people in the vicinity feeling that impact, not knowing if that night they would finally be struck. That’s the thing we don’t hear much of if these attacks even make any media coverage: how they impact on civilians, even those not directly injured but terrorized by them.
I know very well of the terror of being near a site Israel has just bombed. And although I have many anecdotes from my three years of living in Gaza, one rather poignant incident involved me sleeplessly musing on the rooftop of the simple central Gazan home I lived in on a hot August 2011 night. I wrote:
“I am watching sporadic shooting stars when the first F-16 appeared from the direction of the sea. Three more follow. The roar is normal, F-16s are normal, and reading in the news the next day that some part of Gaza was bombed is normal. They continue eastward and a bombing seems imminent. It is. A thick cloud of black smoke blots the dim lights of houses in eastern Deir al Balah where the F-16s have struck.”
I went on to write about the planes attacking the city of Khan Younis to the south, and suddenly, bombing close to me.
“Two massive blasts, the house shakes. They’ve bombed somewhere near the sea, which is only a few hundred meters away. Concrete dust flutters down upon us. There is a sustained honking in Gaza that everyone recognizes as make way, we’ve got another victim here.”
And, if I may dwell on this one simple anecdote, I remarked on how the men in the house tried to appear calm and cool but, while we were all accustomed to such random bombings and either put on a brave face or genuinely stop flinching, they do still affect you deeply.
“Every time one of those f***ing F-16s flies over us, it’s a reminder of the last war, or of previous attacks, or of random bombings, or of friends and family martyred in their sleep, cars, homes… Every time those F-16s intentionally break the sound barrier to create a bomb-like sonic boom, everyone within range instinctively remembers their own personal horror at whichever Israeli war or attacks.”
I have more terrifying, all night long bombing memories, with massive bombs landing nearby, including just tens of meters away. Those were during the 2008/9 war on Gaza. With the above account, I want to emphasize how these terrors occur on any random day, but will never be heard of in the media.
But it isn’t just the already bad enough bombings. The psychological terror aspect includes the near-continuous presence of drones overhead.
After Israel’s latest bombing of Syria, I spoke with Lebanese journalist Marwa Osman. She emphasized how Israel’s violation of Lebanese airspace is an almost daily occurrence.
“All day, you can hear them [Israeli drones]. It causes a nervous breakdown for any human to keep listening to this all day. I can’t even imagine what they feel in Gaza when they have them all the time overhead.”
If you haven’t ever been under one, much less tens, of military drones, you won’t know how deeply disturbing hearing them is. It is hard to concentrate with such an ominous cacophony constantly overhead.
When in early August, in what the Israel army claimed was a “retaliation” attack, Israel fired artillery shells at the Khiam region of southern Lebanon, Osman was at her home less than one kilometer from the bombings. She spoke of the terror of her children. “I found one of them hiding under the sink, I found two of them hiding in my bedroom near the closet because they thought this was the safest place to be.”
Limited condemnations, but continued status quo?
Lebanon’s minister of defense condemned Israel’s recent attack and has, “called on the UN to deter Israel from carrying out airstrikes on Syria using Lebanese airspace.” Russia and Iran have on more than one occasion condemned the attacks, rightly noting they violate international law and Syria’s sovereignty. And of course the Syrian government condemns such attacks every time they occur.
But in spite of this, the condemnations get limited notice and the status quo continues. In a day or two, or a week or month, there will be another such Israeli attack that will, again, be deemed not newsworthy.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
Palestinian organizer and former prisoner Ghassan Zawahreh seized by Israeli occupation forces
Ghassan Zawahreh
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | August 20, 2021
Ghassan Zawahreh, Palestinian former prisoner and longtime struggler for justice, was seized from his home in Dheisheh refugee camp by Israeli occupation forces in the pre-dawn hours of 19 August 2021. Zawahreh has been repeatedly detained since 2002, when he was only 14 years old. He was last released from Israeli occupation prisons on 4 March 2021 after 28 months jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. Almost every time he is released, he may spend only a few months with his family and community before being ripped away once again for arbitrary imprisonment with no charge or trial.
During his last detention, Zawahreh highlighted the injustice of administrative detention, announcing his boycott of the military courts: “Administrative detention is a heinous crime for the ages. What is even more criminal is the occupation’s attempts to mislead through mock courts and charades where the executioner and the ruler, dressed up in military suits, represent the Occupation and its crimes.”
He has spent nearly 16 years in total in Israeli prisons; his brother Moataz Zawahreh was murdered by Israeli occupation forces as he participated in a popular protest in Bethlehem in 2015. Moataz had actually returned home to Palestine from where he was studying in France to support Ghassan, who was engaged in a long-term hunger strike against his imprisonment without charge or trial. He won his release in December 2015, only to be seized again by occupation forces seven months later.
Ghassan Zawahreh mourns his brother after his release in 2015
He was in his last year of studies in social work at the Open University of Jerusalem when he was arrested in 2008, and has been prevented from completing his studies through multiple arrests.
He is well-known in the camp as a community activist and volunteer in popular programs that provide social services to people in the camp. He worked as a taxi driver in order to support his family, on the Bethlehem-Ramallah road.
Administrative detention was first used in Palestine by the British colonial mandate and then adopted by the Zionist regime; it is now used routinely to target Palestinians, especially community leaders, activists, and influential people in their towns, camps and villages.
There are currently approximately 550 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, out of 4,750 Palestinian political prisoners. These orders are issued by the military and approved by military courts on the basis of “secret evidence”, denied to both Palestinian detainees and their attorneys. Issued for up to six months at a time, they are indefinitely renewable, and Palestinians — including minor children — can spend years jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. There are currently nine Palestinians on hunger strike to end administrative detention without charge or trial.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Ghassan Zawahreh, dedicated struggler for Palestine and leading political prisoner repeatedly attacked by Israeli occupation forces, and all of his fellow Palestinian political prisoners. We are committed to organize, struggle and work to achieve the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.
Israel’s Secret Arsenal: It’s Not So Secret Anymore
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 19, 2021
Few Americans are aware of the fact that no U.S. government official, to include congressmen, can in any way mention or discuss Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which is estimated by some observers to consist of as many as 200 tactical nuclear weapons which can be delivered on target by air, land or sea. The prohibition is spelled out in a Department of Energy “classification bulletin” graded Secret, which was issued on September 6, 2012 and bears the file number WPN-136. The subject line reads “Guidance on Release of information Relating to the Potential for an Israeli Nuclear Capability.” It would be interesting to learn exactly how the text of the memo reads, but in spite of repeated attempts to obtain a copy under the Freedom of Information Act, the entire body of the document is completely blacked out.
What is known in that the memo is basically a gag order, presumably issued by the Barack Obama Administration to block any official from making a comment that might be interpreted to mean that the federal government recognizes that Israel has nuclear weapons. The silence over the Israeli arsenal dates back to an agreement made by President Richard Nixon with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. In its most recent manifestation, President Barack Obama, when asked if he knew of “any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons,” responded “I don’t want to speculate.” He was, of course, lying.
The bulletin’s first known victim was Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear policy specialist James Doyle who in 2013 wrote a sentence suggesting that Israel had a nuclear arsenal. It appeared in an article entitled “Why Eliminate Nuclear Weapons?” which had been security cleared by Los Alamos and appeared in the journal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. An unknown congressional staffer demanded a review and Doyle had his home computer searched before being fired.
Israel, as is so often the case, gets a free pass on what is for others criminal behavior. Its nuclear program was created by stealing American uranium and weapons technology. Preventing nuclear proliferation was in fact a major objective of the U.S. government when in the early 1960s President John F. Kennedy learned that Tel Aviv was developing a nuclear weapon from a CIA report. He told the Israelis to terminate their program or risk losing American political and economic support but was killed before any steps were taken to end the project.
Israel accelerated its nuclear program after the death of President Kennedy. By 1965, it had obtained the raw material for a bomb consisting of U.S. government owned highly enriched weapons grade uranium obtained from a company in Pennsylvania called NUMEC, which was founded in 1956 and owned by Zalman Mordecai Shapiro, head of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Zionist Organization of America. NUMEC was a supplier of enriched uranium for government projects but it was also from the start a front for the Israeli nuclear program, with its chief funder David Lowenthal, a leading Zionist, traveling to Israel at least once a month where he would meet with an old friend Meir Amit, who headed Israeli intelligence. NUMEC covered the shipment of enriched uranium to Israel by claiming the metal was “lost,” losses that totaled nearly six hundred pounds, enough to produce dozens of weapons. Such was the importance of the operation that in 1968 NUMEC even received a private incognito visit from a top Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan who later ran the spy Jonathan Pollard.
Also there was physical evidence relating to the diversion of the uranium. Refined uranium has a technical signature that permit identification of its source. Traces of uranium from NUMEC were identified by Department of Energy inspectors in Israel in 1978. The Central Intelligence Agency has also looked into the diversion of enriched uranium from the NUMEC plant and concluded that it was part of a broader program to obtain the technology and raw materials for a nuclear device for Israel.
With the uranium in hand, the stealing of the advanced technology needed to make a nuclear weapon, which is where Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan comes into the story. Milchan was born in Israel but moved to the United States and eventually wound up as the founder-owner of New Regency Films. In a November 25, 2013 interview on Israeli television Milchan admitted that he had spent his many years in Hollywood as an agent for Israeli intelligence, helping obtain embargoed technologies and materials that enabled Israel to develop a nuclear weapon. He worked for Israel’s Bureau of Science and Liaison acquisition division of Mossad, referred to as the LAKAM spy agency.
Milchan admitted in the interview that “I did it for my country and I’m proud of it.” He was not referring to the United States. He also said that “other big Hollywood names were connected to [his] covert affairs.” Among other successes, he obtained through his company Heli Trading 800 krytons, the sophisticated triggers for nuclear weapons. The devices were acquired from the California top secret defense contractor MILCO International. Milchan personally recruited MILCO’s president Richard Kelly Smyth as an agent before turning him over to another Heli Trading employee, future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for handling. Smyth was eventually arrested in 1985 but insofar as is known neither Milchan nor Netanyahu has ever been questioned by the FBI regarding the thefts.
Israel’s nukes are now in the news because of an Op-Ed that surprisingly appeared in the New York Times on August 11th written by Peter Beinart entitled “America Needs to Start Telling the Truth About Israel’s Nukes.” Beinart wrote that “Israel already has nuclear weapons. You’d just never know it from America’s leaders, who have spent the last half-century feigning ignorance. This deceit undercuts America’s supposed commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and it distorts the American debate over Iran. It’s time for the Biden administration to tell the truth.”
Beinart points out that the American public can hardly make an informed judgement regarding what should be done in the Middle East if it is uncertain whether Israel is a nuclear power or not, but one issue he does not discuss is the issue of money. IRMEP’s Grant Smith, who has been challenging the secrecy surrounding the Israeli arsenal, recently observed that “The Symington & Glenn provisions of the Arms Export Control Act (22 USC §2799aa-1: Nuclear reprocessing transfers, illegal exports for nuclear explosive devices, transfers of nuclear explosive devices, and nuclear detonations) forbid U.S. foreign aid to countries with nuclear weapons programs that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, absent required special procedures… But no member of Congress has taken up this issue — or even mentioned Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal.”
Smith is frustrated by the reluctance of progressives in Congress, who have opposed recent additional $735 million in military aid to Israel permitting it to rearm after its assault on the Gazans, to ignore the gag order and raise the issue of the nuclear arsenal. He writes “It seems as though even these members of Congress, as well as the rest of the U.S. government, are abiding by this secret gag order when they could take action which would challenge the administration’s refusal to acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons and possibly stop $3.8 billion in taxpayer money from going to Israel.”
That the Energy Department document exists at all is recognition of the astonishing power of the Israeli Lobby over the U.S. government at all levels, particularly as it is intended to ignore or even negate other legislation passed by congress to combat nuclear proliferation. And the denial of what everyone knows to be true, i.e. that Israel has a nuclear arsenal, appears to all come down to the ability of the United States government to continue to reward a wealthy Israel with billions of dollars of taxpayer money every year. To suggest that the arrangement is nefarious would be to put it mildly, but it is more that that. It is criminal. Israel has been allowed to get away with massive espionage directed against the United States and the theft of material and technology while also since the 1970s being engaged in a conspiracy with the U.S. government that distorts America’s foreign policy, largely done to keep getting the billions of dollars that it is not entitled to receive under existing American law. It is shameful. Beyond that, it might be construed as treason.
Israel’s Lawyer Speaks Up
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 17, 2021
America’s foreign policy is a funny thing, except for the fact that it is no laughing matter. Given the recent sentencing of whistleblower Daniel Hale for revealing to the media that the US military’s drone program kills innocent civilians including many children 90% of the time, one has to wonder what the “humanitarian” Joe Biden Administration is up to. Hale will presumably serve 45 months in a federal prison though the actual time in the slammer might be closer to 18 months if he behaves and submits to counseling.
Biden’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama was equally a plague on whistleblowers while also attacking a non-threatening Libya and Syria and overthrowing an elected government in Ukraine, so one has to suspect that there must be something in the Democratic Party’s DNA that induces megalomania. Or maybe there is a hallucinogenic chemical additive in the White House’s water supply, secretly placed by those damned Russians, which produces delusions of grandeur.
The central problem is that for the federal government in Washington, just killing people is not per se a crime as long as it is “bad” people being killed. As long as some government approved procedure is adhered to, it is apparently an intrinsic right of the United States to go to some faraway country that does not threaten America and with which the US is not at war and kill someone in response to some vaguely stated policy. That is what the Global War on Terror backed up by the Authorization to Use Military Force is all about. No one in the government is ever punished for killing people, even including Obama’s offing of American citizens like the Awlaki father and son, droned to death in Yemen. Indeed, within recent memory the only two soldiers who were imprisoned for war crimes in Afghanistan were pardoned subsequently by Donald Trump.
Joe Biden certainly is doing the long overdue right thing by virtue of his withdrawal from Afghanistan and through his agreement to bring home all American combat troops from Iraq by the end of the year. But what about Syria, a continuing US presence for which there is no justification at all in the form of any threat to American interests beyond a contrived argument that President Bashar al-Assad must go to make way for “democracy”?
Indeed, one might argue that the belligerent impulse that has prevailed driven by the so-called neocons and neoliberals persists in the Biden Administration. The top three officers in the State Department are Zionists, one of whom, Victoria Nuland, was the architect of the overthrow of the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovich in 2013. The shift by the neocons to the Democratic Party could have been foreseen as many leading figures in the movement did not trust Donald Trump to be belligerent enough and rallied against him behind the #NeverTrump banner. And one should recall that the neocon movement’s founders were hardline and pro-Israel Democrats, several, including the notorious Richard Perle, serving on the staff of Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington back in the 1970s.
The transition to a neoconnish foreign policy has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, largely due to “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. Given their mutual intense hostility to Trump, the doors to previously shunned liberal media outlets have also now opened wide to the stream of neocon-ish self-proclaimed foreign policy “experts” who want to “restore a sense of the heroic” to US national security policy. Eliot A. Cohen and David Frum are favored contributors to the Atlantic while Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss were together at the New York Times prior to Weiss’s resignation last November. Jennifer Rubin, who wrote in 2016 that “It is time for some moral straight talk: Trump is evil incarnate,” is a regular columnist for The Washington Post together with Max Boot, while both she and William Kristol appear regularly on MSNBC.
The fundamental unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. As a result, the leitmotif of the neocon movement has consisted of its repeated calls for the United States to attack Iran. Every major Jewish foundation that expresses foreign policy views sees Iran as the enemy and that viewpoint has also prevailed among both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who have been corrupted by Israel Lobby money.
One never sees in the mainstream media any analysis of why and how the Iranians actually threaten the United States or a vital American interest, unless one defines protecting Israel as such. And on that issue, there has been no one more assiduous in “protecting Israel” within the US government that Dennis Ross, who is currently a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a spin-off of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ross was a fixture in senior national security positions relating to the Middle East under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. As an ardent Israel firster, Ross was dubbed “Israel’s lawyer” by colleagues and was once admonished in a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who interrupted him when he was arguing in extenso on behalf of Israel. She said that in the future when she wanted the Israel-Likud position from him she would ask for it. Ross is inevitably co-author of an Israel puff piece book “Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel’s Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny.”
Ross has recently written an article for Bloomberg Opinion that demonstrates just how demented some high level Israel promoters are while also showing that there are no limits when it comes to advancing the perceived interests of the Jewish state. It is entitled “To Deter Iran, Give Israel a Big Bomb” with the subtitle that “The best way to ensure Tehran doesn’t gain the capability to make a nuclear weapon is for the US to empower its ally.”
Ross is not optimistic about the chances that the US will rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015, which Donald Trump, in a major pander to Israel, withdrew from in 2018. Indeed, Ross has been against the agreement since the git-go, parroting the Israeli argument that it was a diversion whereby Iran would be able to secretly develop a weapon. The Biden Administration, led by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his deputy Wendy Sherman, have persisted in in their drive to add new restrictions to expand the agreement, including restraining Iran’s alleged threatening behavior in the region and its ballistic missile program.
Ross’s article was written before the recent drone attack on an Israeli-managed tanker in international waters off Oman. Both Washington and Jerusalem have attributed the incident to Iran with little in the way of evidence and coordinated their response, demanding that the United Nations take action. Biden has sent the CIA Director William Burns to Israel for “discussions” and both he and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett have also independently promised an appropriate harsh response, so Ross is almost certainly right that there remains little common ground for a renewal of the JCPOA. That should please the Israeli government and its powerful domestic lobby in the US. It also suggests that the attack itself might have been an Israeli “false flag” to bring about that result and possibly trigger an American attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
But Ross goes well beyond tit-for-tat responses to presumed Iranian actions and wants to see something more decisive. He argues that “With negotiations paused until a new hardline administration takes office in Tehran, the chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal anytime soon are not bright. Moreover, even successful talks might not stop Iran’s leaders from pursuing nuclear weapons. The Biden administration needs to find a better way to deter them.”
Ross concludes that “If the US cannot persuade Iran to temper such ambitions using carrots… the Biden administration… must make the costs of pursuing a threshold capability far clearer [by] providing Israel the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound mountain-buster, as some in Congress have advocated. Such a weapon could be used to destroy Fordow, the underground Iranian enrichment facility, as well as other hardened nuclear sites… Being prepared to provide Israel with such a fearsome weapon and leasing the B-2 bomber to deliver it would send a powerful message. The Iranians may doubt whether the US would follow through on its threats; they won’t have any trouble believing the Israelis will.”
Such a move would be seen by Ross and others in the administration as an inducement for Iran to surrender on all issues at the current negotiations to restore JCPOA taking place to in Geneva. It would send a signal that the US is “serious.” On the contrary, however, one might argue that providing the Israelis with such a devastating weapon and also the means of delivering it is a green light for the new Israeli government to do something completely reckless to establish its own bona fides on national defense without any regard for existing American interests.
The Ross proposal is yet another indication that both Democrats and Washington in general have become completely unprincipled and even unhinged players on the world stage, prepared to lash out in all directions with threats and bombs and unprepared to deal with other nations with even a modicum of respect. Dedicated Israel firster Dennis Ross is one of the worst of these denizens of the dark side of Washington, but he is far from alone. His desire to “protect Israel” by giving it the means to start a major regional war that would likely escalate to include direct US involvement is insane to say the least but one has to believe that his suggestion for what to do about Iran is being read in the White House and State Department and taken seriously. That such an option could be considered at all is a measure of just how “rogue” our nation has become.
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 https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
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The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent. … continue
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