Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Israeli Forces Demolish Mosque in Masafer Yatta

Israeli forces Wednesday demolished a mosque in the Bedouin community of Azwadeen. (Photo: via Social Media)
Palestine Chronicle | January 27, 2021

Israeli forces Wednesday demolished a mosque in the Bedouin community of Azwadeen, east of Yatta city, south of Hebron, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Coordinator of the Protection and Steadfastness Committees, Fuad al-‘Amour, told WAFA that Israeli forces escorted bulldozers into Khirbet Umm Qassa in the Bedouin community of Azwadeen, in what is called the Eastern Slope, where the heavy machinery tore down the mosque, reducing it to rubble.

The demolition was carried out less than two weeks after soldiers posted demolition notices against the mosque and a local school, which serves 50 students from three marginalized communities, purportedly for being built without licenses.

Meanwhile, soldiers seized a tin-sheet health unit in Khirbet al-Rakiz hamlet in Masafer Yatta.

Masafer Yatta is a collection of almost 19 hamlets that rely heavily on animal husbandry as the main source of livelihood.

Located in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli administrative and military control, the area has been subjected to repeated Israeli violations by settlers and soldiers targeting their main source of living – livestock.

It has been designated as a closed Israeli military zone for training since the 1980s and accordingly referred to as Firing Zone 918.

Israeli violations against the area include demolition of animal barns, homes and residential structures. Issuance of construction permits by Israel to local Palestinians in the area is non-existent.

January 27, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The US and Israel Playing their Cards in the Middle East

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 26.01.2021

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, now 97 years old and having long lost his sense of the reality of international affairs, recently unleashed a new idea, menacingly declaring that a return to the “spirit” of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal would lead to weapons spread throughout the Middle East. These comments came during an interview with Dennis Ross, who has advised several US presidents on the Middle East, at an online event hosted by the Jewish People Policy Institute.

In this regard, the former US Secretary of State may be reminded, if he has forgotten, that it is not Iran but Israel that has long brought the entire region to the brink of nuclear catastrophe, with the obvious guidance and assistance of the West in possessing nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called Israel the only regime in the region with a secret and undeclared nuclear weapons program that includes an actual nuclear arsenal, and called on Tel Aviv not only to recognize this fact, but also to abandon the deadly weapons that threaten all the peoples of the Middle East.

The possession of nuclear weapons gives the Israelis a phantom sense of military superiority in the Persian Gulf region and the entire Middle East, which allows them to carry out terrorist acts against Arab countries and Iran. Suffice it to recall the brazen assassinations of Iranian scientists and military leaders planned and carried out jointly by the United States and Israel in violation of all international laws.

And they still continue to engage in their filthy terrorist activities, without regard for the interests of other nations. The world has just learned of intense Israeli airstrikes on targets in eastern Syria in the areas of Deir ez-Zor and Albu Kamal. They were the latest in a long series of reports of Israeli attacks aimed at thwarting the Islamic Republic’s attempts to build a war machine in Syria. The airstrikes, however, stood out in light of extraordinary comments made by a senior US intelligence official, who told the Associated Press that the successful raids were due to intelligence provided to Israel by the United States. There seems to be no reason to doubt this version of events, noting the seemingly unusual recognition of the close level of cooperation between US and Israeli defense agencies in combating the Iranian presence in Syria.

The second reason these strikes stand out is an unconfirmed report by the Syrian opposition war monitoring group that at least 57 military personnel were killed, including 14 Syrian regime soldiers, in addition to Iran-backed militias, as well as dozens more wounded. Although this claim is unconfirmed, it represents a much higher number of casualties than those that usually follow such strikes.

The attack is part of an unmistakable increase in airstrikes against Iranian targets throughout Syria, the fourth known such incident in the past three weeks. These incidents include reports of a missile attack on the Syrian Research Center, also known by the French acronym CERS, north of Damascus. This center was also subject to bombing in 2018 and 2019.

In such a complex environment of this highly turbulent region, the question of establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East is increasingly being raised, which is naturally a daunting task, and success will be impossible without the goodwill of all states in the region. Experts note that one of the main obstacles to the establishment of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East is the position of Israel – the country refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, citing threats from Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. Tel Aviv believes that many threats come from a variety of countries in the region, so if it does not possess nuclear weapons, according to Israeli politicians, this would threaten the very existence of the state. Israel has unconditional US support on this issue, and accordingly, their positions will be united. In other words, both of these states will do everything they can to ensure that Tel Aviv, with its nuclear weapons, dominates the military field of the region.

As an example, in the past, Israel has destroyed nuclear facilities in the Middle East with targeted airstrikes, assuming that they would be used for weapons production, such as the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq, destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in 1981. The Israeli military also claims to have destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor in an air raid in 2007. It is the aggressive stance of Israel, which is invariably supported by the United States — quite often to the detriment of its national interests — that makes other countries in the region, such as Iran, unwilling to give up their nuclear programs in order to somehow defend their freedom and independence and their ability to pursue their national course.

In one of his last acts, on the eve of the end of his term, President Donald Trump ordered Israel to be included in CENTCOM, the US military’s central command in the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reported. The expansion of US CENTCOM to include Israel is the latest reorganization initiated by pro-Israel supporters to encourage strategic cooperation against Iran, US officials told the newspaper. For decades, Israel has been part of the European Command of the US Armed Forces, mainly because of historical friction between Israel and Arab countries, which are also American allies in the region covered by CENTCOM.

The move is the latest in a series of policy changes by the Trump administration before Joe Biden took office, which include increasing sanctions against Iran and declaring the Iran-backed rebel forces in Yemen a terrorist organization. A former CENTCOM commander said there is good reason to move Israel into its military command, where it becomes the 21st country in the sphere of activity, along with Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and Egypt.

But the new Joe Biden administration will also, by all appearances, take a strongly pro-Israel stance. There’s rumours that the Biden team is going to consult with Tel-Aviv before any strategy on the Iran nuclear deal is formulated. Israel’s Channel 12 lifted the veil on the fact that the new administration has already begun informal talks with Iran and is keeping Israel informed of these discussions. The new president, this source confirmed, is seeking an agreement that would prevent the Islamic Republic from producing nuclear weapons. But the question is whether it will agree to Iran’s demand to return to the original 2015 agreement, which includes lifting most restrictions on uranium enrichment by 2030.

Thus, it appears that even though Israel will not officially participate in the talks with Iran, it will determine the future agenda and the course of the discussions. On this basis, negotiations will focus entirely on the Iranian position, and Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, on which the future of the Middle East depends, will not even be brought up. This, in turn, means that peace and tranquility is unlikely to return to the region, thanks to the aggressive and selfish policies of the West, and it will be a long time before the turbulence in the countries of the area subsides.

January 26, 2021 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Spanish Court Dismisses Criminal Complaint against BDS Activists

Palestine Chronicle | January 24, 2021

The Provincial Court in Valencia, Spain, has definitively dismissed a criminal complaint against eight Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activists who had questioned the invitation for Jewish American singer Matisyahu to take part in the Rototom Festival in 2015.

The Court’s decision has been praised by the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), an NGO based in Amsterdam that defends and empowers the Palestine solidarity movement in Europe through legal means.

“This is another milestone victory for the right to freedom of expression for those who defend Palestinian rights in Spain,” said a spokesperson for the Centre.

The Court acknowledged in its hearing earlier this month that criticism of the Israeli government’s practices against the Palestinians does not constitute an incitement to hatred.

Objecting to a singer’s participation in a festival that is committed to respecting human rights, when the objections are based on his personal support for the practices of the State of Israel, the Court determined, is not a criminal act. It is, rather, reflective of a legitimate form of activism in support of Palestinian rights.

January 25, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Will Reportedly Issue Seven Demands to President Biden Before Re-Entering Nuclear Deal Talks

By Jason Dunn – Sputnik – 24.01.2021

United States President Joe Biden has expressed his support for reversing the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and officials within the new government are reported to already be holding quiet discussions with Iranian representatives.

Diplomats from Tehran have spoken to officials within the Biden administration over resuming talks on Iran’s nuclear program and have reportedly set out seven preconditions, an unnamed Iranian government source told a Kuwaiti newspaper on Sunday.

Speaking to Kuwait’s al-Jarida newspaper, the anonymous official from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s office said that contacts began prior to President Joe Biden’s ascension to office, and implied that they are continuing but unofficial.

According to the Kuwaiti report, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Rawanji was called to Tehran to arrange contacts with the new administration in Washington before returning to New York with a series of seven conditions for Iran’s involvement in the resumption of talks over its nuclear program.

The first condition is reportedly that Iran will not accept partial sanctions alleviation, as Tehran considers the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to be indivisible. The report says that Iran will reaffirm its demands that the US maintain all aspects of the deal, including the total lifting of sanctions, as an essential precondition to returning to the agreement.

Secondly, any disagreements over the accords must be discussed within the framework of the official negotiating committees. One of these anticipated disagreements is Tehran’s demand for compensation for financial losses it incurred due to the Trump administration’s exit from the deal, notably the financial impact of the sanctions.

The third condition, according to the report, is that Tehran will not approve of using the terms of the nuclear deal to address separate issues, such as its missile program and activities abroad.

As a fourth condition, no new members will be permitted to enter into the deal aside from the existing P5+1, including any Gulf Arab countries.

Fifthly, concerns over other regional states must be discussed as a separate matter, and not included in the negotiations over nuclear enrichment. The next point is said to be that despite not being willing to discuss its missile system, Iran would find it acceptable to talk about arms control on a regional level with United Nations supervision, raising particular concern over Israel’s missiles and illegally-held nuclear stockpile.

Finally, Iran will not allow a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, and instead demands a UN referendum that includes Jewish Israelis and Palestinians over the “land” issue. No further details on the content of the potential referendum were outlined, according to the report.

Rouhani will be issuing these conditions to the Biden administration directly, the report also said.

​Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a Foreign Affairs article on Friday that Iran will not accept any further demands, terms, or state signatories added to the original deal proposed by Washington in 2015. Zarif said that if Washington began by “unconditionally removing, with full effect, all sanctions imposed, re-imposed, or relabeled since Trump took office”, Iran would reverse the steps it has taken since the US withdrew its signature from the deal in 2018.

Channel 12 News reported last week that the Biden administration has already begun largely undisclosed talks with Iranian officials over a return to the agreement and has also updated Israel of their contents.

This comes amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will send Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to Washington next month to issue Israel’s demands before any new version of the Iran nuclear deal is agreed to. According to reports, Cohen will be the first senior Israeli official to meet with President Biden and is also expected to meet with the CIA director.

​Even before his election last year, Biden openly expressed his desire for the US to rejoin the accord, while Israel has said that a return to the deal must include new restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program and alleged support for terror activity internationally.

The JCPOA, which limits Iranian development of uranium in return for sanctions relief, was signed by Tehran as well as six world powers in 2015. In 2018, former President Donald Trump withdrew the US signature from the deal and introduced harsh sanctions against the nation, claiming that Tehran was not in compliance with its terms, despite international observers and the European Union claiming that Tehran was acting in full accordance with the treaty.

January 24, 2021 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu to dispatch Mossad chief to meet Biden & outline Israel’s demands for Iran nuclear deal overhaul

RT | January 24, 2021

Mossad chief Yossi Cohen may become the first top Israeli official to meet new US president Joe Biden amid concerns in Tel Aviv that his administration is set to revive the Obama-era international nuclear pact with Iran.

The head of Israeli secret service and one of PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s most trusted allies, Cohen, is heading to Washington sometime next month to brief the Biden administration on a set of terms regarding any potential nuclear deal with Tehran, Channel 12 reported on Saturday, citing “communications” between Israel and the new US administration.

Cohen is also expected to meet with the CIA chief and once again present an intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, which according to Israelis is secretly aimed at obtaining nukes.

Cohen’s team is reportedly set to demand a “radical overhaul” of the agreement, far more strict for Tehran, including a full halt of uranium enrichment and production of advanced centrifuges. On top of that, Israel wants Iran to stop “supporting terror groups” and “end its military presence in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.”

Iran’s president this week reiterated his country’s willingness to return to the terms of deal, but said it’s up to the Biden administration to make the necessary concessions. Cohen’s team is reportedly set to demand a “radical overhaul” of the agreement, with far more strict commitments from Tehran.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran and the six major global powers in 2015 and put constraints on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions [the Western signatories never honored their commitments since 2015]. Israel lobbied the Obama administration hard against joining the JCPOA, and once Donald Trump took office, continued this effort, this time succeeding in getting Trump to withdraw and reintroduce crippling sanctions against Iran.

Since then, amid ever-escalating tensions with the US while criticizing other JCPOA signatories for their failure to bring Washington to its senses, Tehran chose to gradually renege on their side of the deal too.

In January, Iran began enriching uranium to 20 percent, drifting further away from the parameters of the deal. While higher than the 3.67 percent level agreed in the 2015 pact, the new figure is still below the 90 percent level that is considered weapons-grade.

Iran has also issued a symbolic ultimatum, with an Iranian spokesperson stating that the Biden administration will have one month, until February 21 to reverse sanctions. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is tasked with monitoring Iran’s compliance, warned that time is running out with “only weeks left” to save JCPOA.

January 23, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pakistanis hold massive rally against ties with Israel

Press TV – January 23, 2021

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis have held an anti-Israel march in the country’s major city of Karachi, rejecting the possibility of normalizing ties with the occupying Israeli regime.

The “million-man march” organized by opposition Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) was held with participants donning the colors of the JUI-F and raising tall black and white striped flags.

“Israel is involved in the genocide of Muslims in Palestine and we would never allow the federal government to establish diplomatic relations with it,” JUI-F leader Maulana Saleemullah Alwazi told Pakistani daily The News International.

In recent months, the news of deals signed by a few Arab dictatorships to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel under intense US pressure has sparked widespread anger among Pakistani people, who hold strong feelings for the Palestinian cause.

In December, top Pakistani officials fiercely denied rumors publicized by Israeli news outlets that Islamabad was moving towards a similar deal.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan rejected as “baseless” reports of his government officials visiting Israel, insisting why would any of his ministers visit Tel Aviv when Islamabad does not even recognize Israel.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said later in December that he had informed the UAE — one of the US-backed kingdoms that recently normalized ties with Israel — of Islamabad’s “steadfast” policy towards Tel Aviv, insisting that the country will refuse to recognize it until the issue of Palestine is resolved.

The top Pakistani diplomat said he had explained to his Emirati counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan the “depth of emotions and feelings Pakistanis have about Palestine and Kashmir.”

The normalization trend has drawn widespread condemnation from Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital. They say the deals are “a stab in the back” of the Palestinians.

January 23, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel floods farmlands with rainwater in eastern Gaza

MEMO | January 22, 2021

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture announced on Thursday that Israel had vented its dams for rainwater harvesting, leading to the flooding of farmlands near the Gaza Strip’s eastern borders and the destruction of vast agricultural areas.

Israel has built several dams to collect and use rainwater and vents it without warning when large quantities of water accumulate during the winter, causing damage to the Gaza Strip’s farm and agricultural lands.

Ahmed Fatayer, director of the ministry’s branch in Gaza, disclosed that Israel: “Has opened the rainwater dams east of the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood in the east of the Gaza Strip, which led to flooding hundreds of dunams of agricultural land.”

In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Fatayer indicated that Palestinian farmers have suffered “great losses and direct and indirect damage” due to the sudden venting of dams.

He pointed out that Israel has been venting the dams and flooding agricultural land belonging to Palestinian citizens in recent years.

Salem Quta, one of the affected farmers, conveyed that the Palestinian landowners have suffered significant losses due to the flooding of their agricultural areas.

“About 400 dunams (one dunam equals 1,000 metres) were directly flooded with water, while 150 dunams were indirectly damaged by the flow of rainwater,” Quta told Anadolu Agency.

The farmer explained that the flooding of agricultural lands occurred when the crops he was growing during recent months were about to ripen.

Quta confirmed that in addition to flooding agricultural areas, Israel also: “Sprays chemical pesticides on the crops, which ends up destroying them, in addition to clearing the land.”

He called on human rights organisations and institutions to stand with the Palestinian farmers and support them to resist these violations.

January 21, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Why has Israel banned Jenin, Jenin? It fears the Palestinian narrative

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO |  January 19, 2021

On 11 January, Israel’s Lod District Court ruled against Palestinian film-maker Mahmoud Bakri, and ordered him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who was accused, along with the Israeli military, of carrying out war crimes in April 2002 in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

As reported by Israeli and other media, the case seemed to be a relatively simple matter of defamation of character and so on. To those familiar with the massive clash of narratives which emanated from the singular event known to Palestinians as the “Jenin Massacre”, the court’s verdict not only has political undertones, but also historical and intellectual implications.

Bakri is a Palestinian born in the village of Bi’ina, near the Palestinian city of Akka, now located in Israel. He has been paraded repeatedly through Israeli courts and censured heavily in the local mainstream media simply because he dared to challenge the official discourse about the violence in the Jenin refugee camp nearly two decades ago.

The director’s documentary Jenin, Jenin is now officially banned in Israel. The film, which was produced only months after the conclusion of this particular episode of Israeli state violence, did not make many claims of its own. It largely opened up a rare space for Palestinians to convey, in their own words, what had befallen their refugee camp when units of the Israel Defence Forces, with air cover provided by fighter jets and attack helicopters, pulverised much of the camp, killing scores of people and wounding hundreds more.

Israel claims to be a democracy, remember. For it to ban a film, regardless of how unacceptable its content is to the authorities, is wholly inconsistent with any definition of freedom of speech. To ban Jenin, Jenin, indict the Palestinian filmmaker who made it, and then compensate those accused of carrying out war crimes is outrageous.

The background of the Israeli decision can be understood within two contexts: one, Israel’s regime of censorship aimed at silencing any criticism of its occupation and apartheid; and two, Israel’s fear of a truly independent Palestinian narrative.

Israeli censorship dates back to the inception of the State of Israel atop the ruins of the Palestinian homeland in 1948. The country’s founding fathers painstakingly constructed a convenient story regarding the birth of the state, erasing Palestine and the Palestinians almost entirely from their narrative. The late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said had this to say in his essay “Permission to Narrate“: “The Palestinian narrative has never been officially admitted to Israeli history, except as that of ‘non-Jews,’ whose inert presence in Palestine was a nuisance to be ignored or expelled.”

To ensure the erasure of the Palestinians from Israel’s official discourse, the state’s censorship has evolved to become one of the most elaborate and well-guarded programmes of its kind in the world. Its sophistication and brutality has reached the extent that poets and artists can be put on trial and sentenced to terms in prison for merely challenging Israel’s founding ideology, Zionism, or penning poems deemed offensive to Israeli sensibilities. While Palestinians have borne the brunt of Israel’s ever-vigilant censorship machine, some Israeli Jews, including human rights organisations, have also suffered.

The case of Jenin, Jenin is not one of routine censorship, though. It is a statement, a message, to those who dare give voice to oppressed Palestinians and allow them to speak directly to the world. These Palestinians, in the eyes of Israel, are certainly the most dangerous, as they demolish the layered, elaborate yet fallacious official Israeli discourse, regardless of the nature, place or timing of any contested event, starting with the Nakba (“Catastrophe”) of 1948.

My first book, Searching Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion, was published almost simultaneously with the release of Jenin, Jenin. The book, like the documentary, aimed to counterbalance official Israeli propaganda through honest, heart-rending accounts from the survivors of the violence brought down upon the refugee camp. While Israel had no jurisdiction to ban the book, pro-Israel media and mainstream academics either ignored it completely or attacked it ferociously.

Admittedly, the Palestinian counter-narrative to the dominant Israeli version, whether on the “Jenin Massacre” or the Second Intifada which was still underway at the time, was humble, and largely championed through individual efforts. Still, even such modest attempts at narrating a Palestinian version were considered dangerous, and rejected vehemently as irresponsible, sacrilegious or anti-Semitic.

Israel’s true power — but also its Achilles heel — is its ability to design, construct and shield its own version of history, despite the fact that the narrative is hardly consistent with any reasonable definition of the truth. Within this modus operandi, even meagre and unassuming counter-narratives are threatening, for they poke holes in an already baseless intellectual construct.

Bakri’s story of Jenin was not attacked relentlessly and eventually banned simply as the outcome of Israel’s censorship, but because it dared to blemish Israel’s diligently fabricated historical sequence, starting with a persecuted “people with no land” arriving in the alleged “land with no people”, where they “made the desert bloom”. These are two of Israel’s most potent founding myths.

Jenin, Jenin is a microcosm of a people’s narrative that successfully shattered Israel’s well-funded propaganda. It sent (and still sends) a message to Palestinians everywhere that even Israel’s falsification of history can be challenged and defeated.

In her seminal book, Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Linda Tuhiwai Smith brilliantly examines the relationship between history and power. She asserts that, “History is mostly about power… It is the story of the powerful and how they became powerful, and then how they use their power to keep them in positions in which they can continue to dominate others.” It is precisely because Israel needs to maintain the current power structure that Jenin, Jenin and other Palestinian attempts at reclaiming history have to be censored, banned and punished.

Israel’s targeting of the Palestinian narrative is not simply official contestation of the accuracy of facts or of some kind of fear that the “truth” could lead to legal accountability. The colonial state cares nothing at all about facts and, thanks to Western support, it remains immune from international prosecution. Rather, it is about erasure; erasure of history, of a homeland, of a people: the people of Palestine.

Nevertheless, a Palestinian people with a coherent, collective narrative will always exist, no matter the geography, the physical hardship and the political circumstances. This is what Israel fears above all else.

January 19, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Film Review, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

UK Labour leader Starmer hired former Israeli spy for social media team

MEMO | January 19, 2021

Britain’s Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer hired a former Israel spy to work in his social media team, The Electronic Intifada has revealed. Assaf Kaplan was hired as a “social media listener”, and worked formerly for the infamous 8200 cyber unit of the Israeli intelligence services. In a profile of Kaplan on an ex-employer’s website, he is described as a “Unit 8200 veteran”.

Unit 8200 specialises in cyber intelligence, and is known for its role in blackmailing and assassinating Palestinians, as revealed in a shocking Guardian report in 2014. Another former Unit 8200 officer revealed anonymously the extent of the activities undertaken by the unit, some of which resulted in the killing of an innocent child in the Gaza Strip. Operatives also used sexual preferences to blackmail Palestinians into becoming collaborators with the Israeli occupation authorities.

“Once when I was the unit representative, there was someone suspicious next to a weapons warehouse in Gaza and we thought he was our target,” explained the anonymous source. “It had taken us a long time to find him. Judging by his location, the time and similar data, we concluded it was him. After we assassinated him it turned out that he was a kid… I remember an image on the screen of him in an orchard, and the explosion on the screen, the smoke clearing and his mother running to him, at which point we could see he was a child. The body was small. We realised we had screwed up.”

Another pointed out that “any Palestinian” may be targeted and may suffer from sanctions such as the denial of permits, harassment, extortion or even direct physical injury. “Such instances might occur if the individual is of any interest to the system for any reason. Be it indirect relations with hostile individuals, physical proximity to intelligence targets, or connections to topics that interest 8200 as a technological unit.” Any information that might enable “extortion” of an individual is considered relevant information by the 8200 team. “Whether said individual is of a certain sexual orientation, cheating on his wife or in need of treatment in Israel or the West Bank, he is a target for blackmail.”

Kaplan was also involved in the latest General Election in Israel, working for Israeli Labor as deputy head of campaigns. The party suffered a catastrophic collapse in its share of the vote, and there are now rumours that it will be wiped out completely in the upcoming election in March.

Although some Twitter users have pointed out that Israeli citizens are subject to mandatory conscription into the Israeli army, the duration of national service is only two and a half years. Kaplan apparently served in Israeli intelligence for nearly five years, twice the normal conscription period. Other Twitter users have said that Kaplan is being singled out simply because he is an Israeli citizen, and that if it was any other intelligence service there wouldn’t be any problem.

January 19, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US-based nonprofit sues Apple to REMOVE Telegram over failure to censor ‘hate speech,’ cites Parler crackdown

RT | January 18, 2021

Coalition for a Safer Web, a non-profit founded by a former US ambassador, has sued Apple, demanding it delete Telegram from its store, arguing that the app is being used to “incite extreme violence” ahead of the inauguration.

The Washington-based nonprofit and its president Marc Ginsberg, who served as US ambassador to Morocco from 1994 to 1998 and was Deputy Senior Adviser to the US President  on Middle East Policy (1978–1981), argue in the newly-filed federal lawsuit that Apple fails to hold Telegram accountable for violating its terms of service.

The complaint, filed on Sunday with the US District Court for Northern California, accuses Telegram of allowing anti-Semites, white supremacists and other extremists to thrive on its platform, with Apple purportedly turning a blind eye on the fact.

The suit posits that if Apple fails to remove the app, it may give rise to street violence, arguing that the app “is currently being used to coordinate and incite extreme violence before the inauguration of President [-elect] Joe Biden.”

“Telegram currently serves as the preferred Neo-Nazi/white nationalist communications channel, fanning anti-Semitic and anti-black incitement during the current wave of protests across America,” the lawsuit argues. It alleges that the privacy-focused messaging app is poised to become an even bigger breeding ground for extremist content as users “migrate to Telegram” after Big Tech’s crackdown on Parler, booted from Apple and Google stores for giving a platform to some of the pro-Trump supporters that stormed the US Capitol.

Ginsberg, who is a co-plaintiff in the suit, notes that in a letter to Apple in July he already asked the tech behemoth to pull Telegram to hold its “financial feet to the fire,” but has received no reply. The former US official, who is Jewish, argues that Apple’s inaction has caused him “emotional distress” through the use of his iPhone. Ginsberg estimated damages he allegedly suffered as a result of Apple’s perceived leniency towards the messaging app at over $75,000.

“By continuing to host Telegram on the Apple App Store, Defendant facilitates religious threats against him and his family that has caused Ambassador Ginsberg to fear for his life,” the complaint charges.

The nonprofit told the Washington Post on Sunday that it plans to mount a similar lawsuit against Google.

Arguing that Apple should banish Telegram from its store without delay, the suit draws on Parler’s case as a precedent, noting that: “Apple has not taken any action against Telegram comparable to the action it has taken against Parler to compel Telegram to improve its content moderation policies.”

Telegram has seen an explosive growth in its user base after established social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube blocked US President Donald Trump and launched a crackdown on his supporters.

The messaging platform, which prides itself for its end-to-end encryption for messages, reported over 500 million monthly users in the first week of January, with CEO Pavel Durov saying that it added 25 million new users in just 72 hours. However, while some portion of the newcomers might have indeed been conservatives fleeing the wide-ranging social media purge, Durov said that almost two in five new clients came from Asia, 27 percent from Europe, and 21 percent from Latin America.

While facing constant criticism for its lax moderation policies, Telegram has recently made headlines for banning“dozens of public channels” for inciting violence.

January 17, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

‘Sanctions guru’ involved in creating Russiagate saga to return as CIA’s deputy director under Biden

David Cohen in 2014. ©REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque
RT | January 15, 2021

Joe Biden’s transition team has picked David Cohen, the former deputy director of the CIA, to reprise his role and help smooth things out for his future boss, career diplomat and intelligence outsider William Burns.

Cohen was considered a frontrunner to become CIA director himself, but Biden chose Burns instead. Cohen’s return to the office he held between 2015 and 2017 was announced on Friday, and since his candidacy does not require a Senate confirmation, he will be able to start on inauguration day.

As deputy for then-CIA Director John Brennan, Cohen was involved in creating the infamous US intelligence assessment of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The document was widely touted as a consensus opinion of 17 agencies, but later turned out to be a product of officials from only three of them – the CIA, FBI, and NSA – “hand-picked” for the task by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (technically, his office is an agency of its own and could be counted as the fourth one vouching for the document).

The assessment, which was released in the final days of the Obama administration, claimed that Russia ran a sophisticated interference and influence campaign to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. It primed the US public for the sequel theory that accused the Trump campaign of “colluding” with the Kremlin, setting the tone for the entire presidency of the Republican winner. Russia denied any involvement in the election and said it was used as a scapegoat in US partisan fights.

In 2017, Cohen famously rebuked then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, when he claimed the US intelligence community believed the outcome of the election was not affected by the purported Russian campaign. In fact, the scope of the report was not wide enough to make such an assessment.

Interestingly, after going private, Cohen worked at WilmerHale, a law firm that also employs Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and special counsel who investigated the Russiagate allegations and found no evidence of collusion. He also spent time as a national security contributor at NBC News, rubbing shoulders then with his ex-boss, Brennan.

Cohen is said to be respected and loved in the intelligence community. Brennan called him “a great listener” and “an ardent supporter and defender of the agency.”

Before becoming the second most senior official in the CIA, Cohen worked in the US Treasury, specializing in tracing financial streams and enforcing US economic sanctions, which won him the nickname “sanctions guru.” Early in his government career under George W. Bush, he was credited for his contribution to writing the section of the Patriot Act that deals with money laundering and financing of terrorism.

January 16, 2021 Posted by | Deception | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Israel lobby’s power over Congress: Both parties obey

If Americans Knew | January 15, 2021

Pro-Israel organizations and individuals have acquired major power in Congress among both parties, driving many US policies. A number of books have described this situation, including “The Israel Lobby” by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, “They Dare to speak Out” by former Congressman Paul Findley, “The Lobby” by Edward Tivnan, “Big Israel” by Grant Smith, and “Against Our Better Judgment” by Alison Weir. Below are resources and citations for information on the Israel-Palestine issue:

• US tax money to Israel: https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/cost… and https://ifamericansknew.org/stat/usai…

• The history of the issue: https://ifamericansknew.org/history/ and http://iakn.us/AOBJ-book

• A list of the Israel lobby: https://israelpalestinenews.org/the-i…

• The situation for Palestinians: https://israelpalestinenews.org/human… and https://youtu.be/o22x81SCBiU and https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

• A list of Israelis and Palestinians killed since 2000: https://israelpalestinetimeline.org/

• Daily news and analysis: https://israelpalestinenews.org/

• Statistics and overall information: https://ifamericansknew.org/

January 16, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment