Gen. Soleimani assassinated to sabotage Iran’s talks with Saudis, UAE following Israeli briefing: NYT
Press TV – February 14, 2020
Washington ordered the assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani to sabotage de-escalation talks between Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates following a report by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, according to the New York Times.
The paper reported on Thursday that General Soleimani had been arranging talks in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in order to de-escalate tensions with Tehran.
The Times wrote that the talks happened after Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are central to the Trump administration’s so-called regional alliance seeking to pressure Iran, began to question the efficiency of Washington’s anti-Iran campaign.
According to the report, one such meeting took place last September in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates where a plane carrying “senior Iranian officials” landed for talks.
News of the meeting, which reached Washington only after it was notified by reports from American spy agencies, “set off alarms inside the White House”, according to the report.
The report added that a similar mediation attempt, also arranged by Gen. Soleimani, was underway between Tehran and Riyadh using Iraqi and Pakistani intermediaries.
The report wrote that the developments had greatly concerned Israel, which had been trying to push the Trump administration to exert more pressure on Tehran.
According to the Times, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Mossad chief Yossi Cohen on October during a trip to Israel where he was briefed on Iran’s attempted de-escalation talks with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Cohen warned Pompeo that Tehran was effectively on the verge of achieving its “primary goal” of breaking up the so-called “anti-Iran” alliance.
A few months later in early January, General Soleimani was assassinated by Washington’s order while on a formal visit to Baghdad.
According to former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, General Soleimani was due to formally meet the Iraqi premier during the trip and was carrying Tehran’s response to a message from Riyadh regarding the de-escalation talks.
Following the attack, the Trump Administration claimed that the assassination had taken place after a reported rocket attack on a US base in Iraq killed a “US civilian contractor” and that Gen. Soleimani was an “imminent threat” to US citizens.
Many US political figures have rejected the claims and have questioned why the Trump administration has failed to provide any evidence backing its actions.
The New York Times’ Thursday report, however, reveals that entirely different considerations, such as Israel’s push to undermine Iran’s attempts at peace with its regional neighbors, were behind the assassination.
‘Months of miscalculations’
According to the report, the assassination marks yet another miscalculation by the Trump administration which has failed to bend Iran through its “maximum pressure” campaign.
Following its unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in 2018, the US imposed unilateral sanctions against Tehran in a bid to goad Tehran to accept new terms dictated by Washington.
The Times, however, reported that a recent analysis conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) shows that the sanctions have had little effect in fulfilling Washington’s goals.
The US has also sought to pressure Iran militarily by deploying troops to the region and creating a regional anti-Iran alliance in the region as part of if its anti-Iran campaign.
Washington called for the formation of a naval coalition in the region following a string of suspicious attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
Iran has vehemently denied the accusations, saying the incidents appear to be false flag operations meant to frame the Islamic Republic and push US interests.
Citing instances such as the major Yemeni attack on Saudi oil facilities last September and Iran’s downing of a US Global Hawk spy craft in June, the New York Times report said stepped-up US military presence also failed to achieve its objectives.
Witnessing the Trump administration’s faltering policy in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were convinced to open direct talks with Tehran, the report noted.
Palestinian Minor Reveals Harrowing Details in Israeli Custody
Palestine Chronicle | February 13, 2020
In a testimony made through his lawyer to the Committee of Prisoners and Former Prisoners Affairs, Palestinian teenage prisoner Mahmoud Thawabteh revealed details about the difficult conditions inside Israeli prisons.
Thawabteh, 17, was arrested from his house in Beit Fajjar in eastern Bethlehem when Israeli occupation soldiers stormed the neighborhood at dawn, the boy’s lawyer told the Committee.
According to the testimony, Thawabteh was harshly interrogated in the street, before army dogs were unleashed at him.
The boy revealed that he was brutally beaten and he had several dog bites on his legs.
“They beat me up on my head and back using their rifles and sticks”, Thawabteh said, as reported in Quds News Network.
After a harrowing journey in an Israeli army jeep, the teenage boy was taken to the notorious Etzion interrogation center, where dozens of Palestinian minors were held and reportedly tortured over the years.
Conveying Thawabteh’s testimony, his lawyer went on to say that the teenager was allowed to see a doctor just before his interrogation commenced. However, the Israeli doctor did little to stop the bleeding or to treat the bruises and bite marks, aside from taking Thawabteh’s blood pressure.
Thawabteh was held in the Etzion facility for three days, during which he was interrogated, assaulted, and beaten repeatedly, before being moved to the Ofer military jail, near Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
On January 13, Thawabteh was one of 34 Palestinian minors who were relocated from the Ofer prison to the Damon prison, inside Israel, without being accompanied by their adult overseers, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS).
Commenting on that experience, Thawabteh told his lawyer that the children were placed in a squalid section of the prison that was infested with insects. They were left largely alone, as the Israeli prison guards refused to provide them with basic services or needs.
The Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network Samidoun had reported earlier that “every year, around 700 Palestinian children are brought before Israeli military courts after being arrested, detained and interrogated.”
“The vast majority report some form of torture and abuse, including kicking and beating in military jeeps as well as psychological torture during interrogation, including threats to arrest family members.”
Israel prosecutes leaders from Golan for opposing wind turbines
MEMO | February 13, 2020
The Israeli Magistrates Court in Nazareth held trial Tuesday evening of well-respected leaders from the occupied Golan, who opposed the Israeli project to install wind turbines to produce energy over large areas, estimated at thousands of dunums of the Golan lands.
Hundreds of people from the villages of the occupied Golan headed to the Israeli Magistrate Court to support the prosecuted leaders.
Sheikh Fouad Qassem Al-Shaer, from Majdal Shams village, said: “There are foul intentions behind the trial of the Sheikhs and leaders, who opposed a project that is going to affect more than 300 farmers in the villages of Golan. The project is going seize about 4,500 dunums of agricultural land.”
Al-Shaer stressed that “countering the project will be possible through raising awareness of the risks of this settlement project, which claims the implementation of green energy production, and its impact on the lives of people.”
In this context, Emil Masoud, coordinator of the solidarity campaign with Sheikh Salman Ahmed Awad and Tawfiq Kinj Abu Saleh, said that they were brought to trial without committing any violation, except for opposing to the wind power project.
Masoud, from Masade village, asserted: “The aim of this trial is to intimidate and scare people, so that the company can implement 25 turbines, to be built on an area of 4,316 dunums as a first stage.”
After hearing the allegations of the parties, the court asked them to sit together to reach a settlement or an agreement.
The Zionist War without End
By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | February 12, 2020
A reiteration of the war on Palestine, on the Arab world, on the Muslim world, on international law and human rights. There is no other way to describe the Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu ‘deal.’
Media comment centers on the last opportunity for the Palestinians. Will they take the scraps they are offered, or will they miss yet another opportunity to have something taken away from them?
This was the line used over decades by the glib Irish-born Zionist ‘foreign minister,’ Aubrey (Abba) Eban. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, he said many times.
In fact, if anyone has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity it is the Zionists. They could have chosen to live with the Palestinians instead. They could have accepted their return after 1948. They could have handed back the land they seized in 1967. They could have honestly engaged with the so-called ‘peace process.’ They could have ended the blockade of Gaza. They could have stopped seizing and settling the land of another people. They could have agreed to share Al Quds. They could have stopped their murders and assassination.
What they could have done they never did. Instead, they headed in the opposite direction, financed, armed, protected and encouraged by the most powerful nation in the world.
A vulgarian property developer who once made ads for Pizza Hut has now told his zionist settler sidekick that he can have Palestine with the lot. Nothing is missed out, not Jerusalem, not the Jordan Valley and not the illegal settlements – the ‘outposts’ – as well as the legal ones, so says Netanyahu. All are completely illegal, of course, as is the presence of every settler on occupied land.
This demented agreement was put together by the plastic-faced Jared Kushner, who said, seriously apparently, that he read all of 25 books to get a handle on the situation. By comparison, Trump is unlikely to have read one so no wonder that he thinks his son-in-law is a genius.
This ‘deal’ – a deal without wheels – is being taken seriously in the mainstream media. In a way, of course, it has to be taken seriously as the Zionists have the weaponry to do whatever they want, no matter how mad, rapacious or destructive of their own interests in the long term.
And this is something the media seems to have missed. For whom, really, is this plan the last opportunity? The assumption is that it is the Palestinians but have Trump and Kushner noticed that while the Palestinians do not have the weapons, they have the numbers, that already the Muslim-Christian population of Palestine between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river is already greater than the Jewish population.
Silly to ask, but have either of these two taken into account the Muslim hinterland, the Muslim population of the Middle East and North Africa (close to 600 million) and the world Muslim population (about 1.8 billion)?
By comparison, the Jewish population of occupied Palestine is less than seven million. Far from trying to settle into the Muslim world, over more than seven decades it has done nothing but antagonize it. Like a spoilt child, it then complains that no one likes it, that the real reason for Muslim loathing of the Zionist state is anti-semitism, and not its racist, murderous and thieving behavior.
This is the game played endlessly by the Zionist lobby around the world. It hides behind the symbols of the religion it has hijacked. The Star of David flies from the pennants of the tanks that shell apartment buildings in Gaza and is inscribed on the wings of the planes that destroy entire families with missiles.
It is scrawled triumphantly on the walls of the West Bank. This is the Israel that the lobbyists and the rabbis defended behind their accusations against Jeremy Corbyn. It is he who wanted to end these horrors and they, behind their lies and false accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn and the entire Labor Party wanted to leave the Zionist state free to continue them. It is they who are the racists and anti-Arab Semites, not Jeremy Corbyn.
Palestine remains part of Arab and Islamic history and identity and remains an Arab and Muslim cause whatever the exasperation felt at Arab governments and the bungled and/or collaborationist policies of the Palestinian leadership.
By themselves, the Palestinians had no hope of resisting the Zionist takeover of their land. Zionism was an imperial project and the Zionist state was sequentially backed by the two mightiest empires on the planet, first Britain and then the United States. No small group of people anywhere would have been able to resist their power.
The greater danger to Israel always lay in the surrounding Arab and Muslim world. George Habash, the founder of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) was writing in the 1950s that the road to the liberation of Palestine ran through the Arab world and this remains as true today as it was then, although the statement has to be qualified by adding “and the Muslim world.”
Israel understood this just as well as George Habash and knew that if it were to survive in the long term, the Arab world had to be fragmented, subverted, dominated and kept off balance permanently. This was the sine qua non of Israel’s existence. The ties that bound states together, that bound the region together and connected it with the wider Islamic world had to be broken.
It was not just armies and states that had to be broken but the Arab national idea and the Arab world as a presence in history and a place on the map. It would have to be what Israel and the US wanted it to be. It would have to be remade.
Towards this end, the zionists were looking for weak links in the chain of Arab states even in the 1930s. They thought they had found the weakest in Lebanon, where they hoped to set up a puppet Christian government. Not only did this not work but since the rise of Hezb0llah, the weakest link in the chain has turned into one of the strongest.
The Yinon Plan of the 1980s set out the strategy in full. All Middle Eastern states were to be subjected to ethnoreligious or tribal division. This broad script was fine-tuned by Netanyahu and the Zionists inside the US administration in the 1990s.
Iraq was the first of seven states targeted for destruction. The destruction through two wars and a decade of sanctions was enormous but the political strategy failed. The Kurdish state-in-being, planned by the US and Israel as a new center for strategic operations in the Middle East, has collapsed. The Shia-dominated government in Baghdad maintains good relations with Iran and following the assassination of Qasim Soleimani the Iraqi parliament demanded the complete withdrawal of US forces. Millions of people marched through the streets of Iraq’s cities as they did in Iran to mourn the murder of this outstanding military commander. Anti-American feeling in Iraq is at an all-time high.
The war in Syria was designed to bring down the axis of resistance (Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah) at its central arch but that has failed, too. Syria, its people, and its military have resisted the most determined attempt ever made to destroy an Arab government.
Always popular, Bashar al Assad is now more popular than ever, as the army, backed by Russian airpower, drives the takfiri terrorists from their last redoubt in Idlib province. Syrian cities have been shattered, perhaps half a million people have been killed but the US-Israeli political strategy in Syria has failed too.
For anyone who has been watching closely enough, the wheel of history, once turning in Israel’s favor, has been slowly turning against it for decades. Israel came close to defeat in the first week of the 1973 war. It drove the PLO out of Lebanon only to awaken a far more powerful enemy, Hezbollah. In every war it has fought or operation it has launched, the remorseless use of airpower has been critical. Nevertheless, even with air cover its foot soldiers were driven out of southern Lebanon in 2000 and, outfought by Hezbollah’s part-time soldiers, humiliated again when they returned in 2006.
Hezbollah and Iran have been working for decades on how to neutralize Israel’s air power. If – or once – they succeed in doing this, Israel is going to be in deep trouble on the battlefield.
Threatened repeatedly with destruction by the US and Israel, Iran has had to develop a new range of missiles capable of causing devastation to US bases, aircraft and warships in the region. The retaliation which followed the murder of Qasim Soleimani was an example. The Americans failed to stop even one of the Iranian missiles directed against two of its bases in Iraq.
Aircraft were destroyed in their hangars and while no soldiers were killed – so the US government says – dozens suffered severe brain injuries, apparently from concussion, with a number being flown to Germany for emergency treatment. Iran says the casualties were far greater than the US is prepared to admit.
Hezbollah has its own stocks of missiles, far greater in number and sophistication than in 2006, and has its targets already worked out for when the next war comes. As Israel’s military commanders are making clear, the next war is a question of ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ They are warning the civilian population to be prepared for the unprecedented scale of the casualties they are going to suffer.
So, for whom is the bell really tolling now, the Palestinians or the Zionists? Gideon Levy writes that the Kushner-Trump deal is likely to trigger a third nakba. This is incorrect, as there has only been one nakba, continuing now for more than seven decades.
David Hearst, writing in Middle East Eye, thinks all the Palestinians have to sit tight, because, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, they are going to win the war of numbers, if they haven’t won it already. By implication, once the war of numbers is won, the war itself is won. The Zionist state will see reason and turn itself into the secular democratic state the Palestinians always wanted, with equal rights for all. Given that they would be the majority, they would have to be the dominant element in any freely-elected government. The Zionist dream-nightmare would be over.
This is not likely to happen. Zionism is an extreme ideology and the politicians running the Zionist state now are the most extreme since its foundation. They are not going to surrender because of demographics. They will simply try harder to overcome the problem. They still want all the Palestinians out of Palestine or at the very least reduced to an inconsequential ethnic remnant. Between the apartheid state and the democratic state, this is their preferred solution.
What they need is another war enabling them to strike down their external enemies and simultaneously solve the ‘Palestine problem’ once and for all. If (or rather when) such a war does break out, Hezbollah will swamp the Zionist state with missiles in such numbers as to overwhelm its defense systems.
The Palestinians will be determined to stay put but in the fog of war, while the world is looking elsewhere, at missile attacks on US bases and soaring oil prices following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, perhaps they can again be terrorized into leaving. Even the most steadfast Palestinians have families to protect and if they won’t go then the level of terror only has to be increased until they do. This is the evil calculus applied before and likely to be applied again once the opportunity arises or, more accurately, can be created.
Who wants such a war? Not the Palestinians, and not Hezbollah or Iran although they have had no option but to prepare for it. Who has set up the conditions for such a war, decade after decade to the point where it has to be regarded as inevitable unless ‘the Arabs’ and the Muslims really are the useless orientals of the western imagination, there to be kicked around endlessly? Israel has, by its disgraceful behavior.
So has the US and so has the ‘west’ in general, its governments, its media and its institutions (where has the UN Secretary-General, the moral guardian of peace in the world, been during the eight atrocious years of war on Syria? Hiding in a cupboard?). It is ‘the west’ generically which created Israel, and has allowed it to get away with wars, ethnic cleansing, massacres, assassination and occupation generation after generation.
Perhaps a shattering setback is all that will bring this utterly dangerous state to its senses. Of course, there is always the possibility that it will go completely off the edge and use its nuclear weapons, turning the central lands of the Middle East into a wasteland but at least taking its enemies down with it in the most pyrrhic of victories. These are grim possibilities but they have to be taken seriously.
– Jeremy Salt taught at the University of Melbourne, at Bosporus University in Istanbul and Bilkent University in Ankara for many years, specializing in the modern history of the Middle East. Among his recent publications is his 2008 book, The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press).
In ‘victory for international law’, UN releases list of firms linked to Israeli settlements
Press TV – February 12, 2020
The United Nations human rights office has released a report identifying companies with business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move hailed by Palestinians as a victory for international law.
The office said in a statement on Wednesday that it had named 112 business entities, including 94 based in Israel and 18 others in six different countries. It said it had reasonable grounds to conclude that the firms have ties with Israeli settlements.
“I am conscious this issue has been, and will continue to be, highly contentious,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Wednesday.
The office said, “While the settlements as such are regarded as illegal under international law, this report does not provide a legal characterization of the activities in question, or of business enterprises’ involvement in them.”
The move was hailed by the Palestinian foreign minister, who described it as a victory.
“The publication of the list of companies and parties operating in settlements is a victory for international law,” Riyad al-Maliki’s office said in a statement.
The minister also called on UN member states and the UN Human Rights council to “issue recommendations and instructions to these companies to end their work immediately with the settlements.”
The newly released report drew condemnation from Tel Aviv, with Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying in a statement, “The announcement by the UN Human Rights Office of the publication of a ‘blacklist’ of businesses is shameful capitulation to pressure from countries and organizations that are interested in hurting Israel.”
More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.
Below is the full list of companies that do business in illegal Jewish settlements, as indicated in the OHCHR report:
Afikim Public Transportation Ltd.
Airbnb Inc.
American Israeli Gas Corporation Ltd.
Amir Marketing and Investments in Agriculture Ltd.
Amos Hadar Properties and Investments Ltd.
Angel Bakeries
Archivists Ltd.
Ariel Properties Group
Ashtrom Industries Ltd.
Ashtrom Properties Ltd.
Avgol Industries 1953 Ltd.
Bank Hapoalim B.M.
Bank Leumi Le-Israel B.M.
Bank of Jerusalem Ltd.
Beit Haarchiv Ltd.
Bezeq, the Israel Telecommunication
Corp Ltd.
Booking.com B.V.
C Mer Industries Ltd.
Café Café Israel Ltd.
Caliber 3
Cellcom Israel Ltd.
Cherriessa Ltd.
Chish Nofei Israel Ltd.
Citadis Israel Ltd.
Comasco Ltd.
Darban Investments Ltd.
Delek Group Ltd.
Delta Israel
Dor Alon Energy in Israel 1988 Ltd.
Egis Rail
Egged, Israel Transportation Cooperative Society Ltd.
Energix Renewable Energies Ltd.
EPR Systems Ltd.
Extal Ltd.
Expedia Group Inc.
Field Produce Ltd.
Field Produce Marketing Ltd.
First International Bank of Israel Ltd.
Galshan Shvakim Ltd.
General Mills Israel Ltd.
Hadiklaim Israel Date Growers Cooperative Ltd.
Hot Mobile Ltd.
Hot Telecommunications Systems Ltd.
Industrial Buildings Corporation Ltd.
Israel Discount Bank Ltd.
Israel Railways Corporation Ltd.
Italek Ltd.
JC Bamford Excavators Ltd.
Jerusalem Economy Ltd.
Kavim Public Transportation Ltd.
Lipski Installation and Sanitation Ltd.
Matrix IT Ltd.
Mayer Davidov Garages Ltd.
Mekorot Water Company Ltd.
Mercantile Discount Bank Ltd.
Merkavim Transportation Technologies Ltd.
Mizrahi Tefahot Bank Ltd.
Modi’in Ezrachi Group Ltd.
Mordechai Aviv Taasiot Beniyah 1973 Ltd.
Motorola Solutions Israel Ltd.
Municipal Bank Ltd.
Naaman Group Ltd.
Nof Yam Security Ltd.
Ofertex Industries 1997 Ltd.
Opodo Ltd.
Bank Otsar Ha-Hayal Ltd.
Partner Communications Company Ltd.
Paz Oil Company Ltd.
Pelegas Ltd.
Pelephone Communications Ltd.
Proffimat S.R. Ltd.
Rami Levy Chain Stores Hashikma Marketing 2006 Ltd.
Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing Communication Ltd.
Re/Max Israel
Shalgal Food Ltd.
Shapir Engineering and Industry Ltd.
Shufersal Ltd.
Sonol Israel Ltd.
Superbus Ltd.
Tahal Group International B.V.
TripAdvisor Inc.
Twitoplast Ltd.
Unikowsky Maoz Ltd.
YES
Zakai Agricultural Know-how and inputs Ltd.
ZF Development and Construction
ZMH Hammermand Ltd.
Zorganika Ltd.
Zriha Hlavin Industries Ltd.
Alon Blue Square Israel Ltd.
Alstom S.A.
Altice Europe N.V.
Amnon Mesilot Ltd.
Ashtrom Group Ltd.
Booking Holdings Inc.
Brand Industries Ltd.
Delta Galil Industries Ltd.
eDreams ODIGEO S.A.
Egis S.A.
Electra Ltd.
Export Investment Company Ltd.
General Mills Inc.
Hadar Group
Hamat Group Ltd.
Indorama Ventures P.C.L.
Kardan N.V.
Mayer’s Cars and Trucks Co. Ltd.
Motorola Solutions Inc.
Natoon Group
Villar International Ltd.
Greenkote P.L.C.
Yet Another Israeli Provocation in the Middle Eastern Skies
By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 11.02.2020
While using a civilian airliner as cover, four Israeli F-16 fighters approached the outskirts of Damascus and launched an attack on local residential areas late night on February 6. There’s no disputing that by adopting such tactics the Israeli Air Force endangered the civilian aircraft – an Airbus A320 owned by the private Syrian Cham Wings Airlines, arriving at Damascus from Najaf International Airport (NJF) in Iraq with 172 passengers on board. This Syrian airliner was running late and it’s clear from data provided by FlightrRadar24, that Israeli military aircraft were clearly expecting the arrival of yet another A320, owned by SyrianAir due to arrive from Tehran, hoping to provoke local air defence units into destroying the liner by mistake.
If it weren’t for the prompt actions of the flight dispatchers of Damascus International Airport and its efficient automated air traffic control system, this civilian airliner would have been in peril, but thankfully it managed to escape the kill zone, landing safely at the nearest available airfield, the Russia’s Hmeimim air base.
The situation is painfully similar to September of 2018, when 4 Israeli F-16s launched missile strikes against unknown targets in Syria’s Latakia province, using Russia’s Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft with 15 crew members aboard as cover. Predictably enough, the Israeli jets provoked a response from Syrian anti-aircraft units resulting in the destruction of the Russian aircraft. All people on board were killed.
On December 26, 2018, another Syrian airline Cham Wings Airlines plane was bound to land at Damascus International Airport, but in a bid to escape a similar provocation staged by the Israeli Ari Force, it detoured and landed at Russia’s Hmeimim airbase. On that day a total of two civilian airliners had to change their flight routes as a result of the Israeli Air Force, which threatened innocent civilians in what that can only be described as a provocation. In both cases near Damascus, the jets were operating from the airspace of a third country – Lebanon, justifying their actions by alleging to attack Iranian warehouses and convoys that were said to be used for military operations against Israel.
In both cases, passengers aboard civilian airliners were at risk as local air defense units were bound to open fire to repel the Israeli missile attacks, risking civilian aircraft approaching Damascus International. In other words, on more than on one occasion a situation similar to the tragic incident with the Iranian downing of the UIA Boeing 737, traveling from Tehran to Kiev was deliberately staged by the Israeli Air Force. As for the downed Boeing the Iranian authorities officially recognized that it was mistakenly shot down by air defence units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which resulted in the untimely demise of 167 passengers and nine crew members – citizens of Iran, Ukraine, Canada, the UK, Sweden and Afghanistan. This tragedy inflicted significant political, economic and PR damage on Iran. In this regard, the clearly distinguishable similarities of the provocative attacks in Iran and Syria are obvious, which raises reasonable questions regarding the strategic command that must be planning such attacks.
It is also noteworthy that the Israeli Air Force chose the SyrianAir flight arriving from Tehran as its target, with Israel explaining all of its recent aggressive actions in Syria and the Middle East through the prism of countering the rising influence of Iran.
Thus, the Israeli General Staff conducting military operations in Syrian airspace using civilian aircraft carrying passengers as a cover is now something of a trademark of the Israeli Air Force, which isn’t afraid of putting the lives of hundreds of innocent people in harm’s way to achieve its ends.
Acting in this way, striking from cover, like highway robbers, the Israeli Air Force seeks to avoid getting caught violating Syrian airspace or even being hit by Syrian anti-aircraft missile systems. They strike Syrian territory, appearing in the sky, for example, over Lebanon, leaving Damascus’ hands tied. If Syrian air defenses shoot down an Israeli plane over Lebanon failing to officially invade Syrian airspace, then Damascus will be framed by Israel, the United States and its allies as an aggressor attempting to provoke war in the Middle East. In addition, geographical features surrounding Damascus play a huge role here. Israeli military jets would typically launch strikes against targets within Syrian territory from the Bekaa Valley, covered from all sides by mountains. They seem to appear from nowhere from behind the mountains and disappear just as rapidly, while still managing to hit various targets.
For these reasons, there can be no objective assessment regarding the efficiency of the Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems delivered to Syria to allow Damascus to defend its air space.
At the same time, looking at the provocative and frankly aggressive actions of Israel who has repeatedly launched missile attacks against civilian targets inside Syria, it can be confidently said that it has already crossed the “red line” and Damascus may at any time retaliate against these aggressors, which will add one more conflict to the long list of the existing armed conflicts within the region.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry has raised the issue of Israeli air strikes on Damascus via official UN statements, while pointing out that such attacks are only possible due to US support and the UN Security Council remaining silent about them. As indicated in one of the most recent messages of the Syrian Foreign Ministry, such treacherous actions fit within the framework of Israel’s attempts to prolong the crisis and derail Damascus’ anti-terror efforts and to raise the morale of the remnants of terrorist groups. Thus Israel is acting as their supporter. In addition, this is yet another attempt made by the Israeli government to avoid discussing the most pressing regional problems including the peaceful settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which only leads to an increase in anti-Israeli sentiments across the region and the world.
At the same time, the stubborn silence of the international community and the United Nations regarding such Israeli actions is truly surprising, when civilians, including foreign citizens, passengers of civilian aircraft arriving in Syria every day, may perish in similarly provocative attacks carried out by the Israeli Air Force in the future.
US Ambassador sends strong message to Netanyahu: patience, young grasshopper, you’ll annex the West Bank soon
By Sarah Abed | February 11, 2020
On January 28th, United States President Donald Trump accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top advisor/son-in-law Jared Kushner unveiled the much anticipated so-called “Deal of the Century” also referred to as the “Mideast Peace Plan”. The deal greenlighted the annexation of Palestinian land, subjugation of Palestinians, and apartheid in Israel. Israeli politicians couldn’t wait to pounce on the opportunity to steal vast areas of occupied land along the Jordan valley. They did little to hide their enthusiasm as they announced that a vote on annexation would take place a few days later.
What became clear even before the ink had dried is that behind the scam of the century was the normalization of Israel’s apartheid in Palestine. The deal was praised by Israel as the opportunity of a lifetime and outright rejected by Palestinian politicians including President Mahmoud Abbas.
Just days after the deal was announced, plans were made to vote on annexing parts of the West Bank, which are sites of Israeli settlements, and seen by a number of countries as illegal Israeli occupation that defies international law and United Nations Charters, but then that vote was postponed. Almost two weeks later as word spread that another vote might be on the horizon ahead of the March 2nd election, Washington decided to halt Netanyahu’s progress just temporarily causing him to backtrack on his plan for immediate annexation of the West bank. Netanyahu mentioned on Saturday that mapping of the region was underway.
David Friedman, the Trump administration’s Ambassador to Israel is not only one of the masterminds behind the annexation plan but has historically supported illegal colonial settlements. On Sunday, he tweeted warning Israeli politicians against taking any unilateral steps which could endanger the Plan and American recognition. Of course, Israeli Prime Minister took the cue very seriously and knowing that the US’s blessing is of utmost importance stressed to both his fans and critics that they have waited for this opportunity since 1967 and won’t jeopardize things by being impatient.
Friedman tweeted the following on Sunday February 9th, “President Trump’s Vision for Peace is the product of more than three years of close consultations among the President, PM Netanyahu and their respective senior staff. As we have stated, the application of Israeli law to the territory which the Plan provides to be part of Israel is subject to the completion of a mapping process by a joint Israeli-American committee.” He added “Any unilateral action in advance of the completion of the committee process endangers the Plan & American recognition.”
As if it wasn’t already crystal-clear that the steal of the century was never ever a legitimate deal between Israeli’s and Palestinians nor a deal that Palestinians would ever be able to consider let alone agree to, Friedman’s tweet drives home the message loud and clear. Palestinians were neither consulted, nor will they be part of the mapping process.
Amidst widespread condemnation and what many countries consider a violation of international law, steps are being taken to pave the way for the annexation of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land captured during the 1967 war. Netanyahu’s focus right now is on winning a fourth consecutive term in office and taking drastic measures could help win him the election. It’s probably also a good distraction from the series of corruption charges he is facing.
Palestinian authorities have adamantly rejected Washington’s supposed peace plan and are against any unilateral steps being taken whether it’s now or after the election that violate the 1967 Palestinian map borders. Israel tries to appeal to the masses by citing security, biblical, and historic ties to the land on which their settlements are built and Palestinians refuse to accept the theft of more of their ancestral lands.
Many Israeli’s on Twitter didn’t appreciate Friedman’s tweets; some were saying that the United States shouldn’t interfere in Israel’s internal affairs. The irony of how Israel has hijacked US Middle Eastern policies seems to go over their heads. They certainly appreciate how Trump and Kushner’s biased pro-Israeli “Deal of the Century” greenlights the subjugation of Palestinians and the illegal annexation of Palestinian-claimed land but they don’t want Washington involved in implementation or to set any guidelines on how quickly they can expand their reign of terror over Palestinians and their land.
The only reason why Israel is able to continue to override international law and make unilateral declarations of statehood and persist with its terror campaigns at the hands of its Jewish militias, all while ethnically cleansing and massacring countless Palestinians is because of its relationship with Washington and many nations around the world turning a blind eye. Due to a lack of defined borders and the absence of accountability, Israel plans to annex East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights of Syria, and soon swathes of land in the West Bank.
The bottom line is peace cannot be achieved without justice and the recognition of Palestinian human and political rights, solely by Israeli authorities and political figures. Mutual recognition, Palestinian freedom of movement and Palestinian right of return, borders, security, water rights, control of Jerusalem are all part of the decades long conflict. A democratic state can only exist in historical Palestine if Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc. live in harmony with equal rights.
Canada celebrates agents of Palestinian misery
Ambassador Deborah Lyons with Canadians fighting in IDF Yaakov Herman, Robbie Kohos and Ayala Rotenberg
By Yves Engler · February 10, 2020
Canada is celebrating the agents of Palestinian misery.
Last month the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv held an event to celebrate Canadians fighting in the Israeli military. They invited all 78 Canadians in the IDF to the ambassador’s residence to demonstrate their appreciation. Referring to non-Israelis who join the IDF, ambassador Deborah Lyons told the Jerusalem Post, “Canadian lone soldiers are a particularly special group … This is something we want to do on a yearly basis to show our support.” At the event Canada’s ambassador said, “we both share a love of Canada and a love of Israel. We at the embassy are very proud of what you’re doing.”
A top diplomat organizing an event to celebrate Canadians fighting for another country’s military ought to generate criticism. Doing so while that force humiliates Palestinians at checkpoints in the West Bank, fires on protesters in Gaza and bombs Syria in violation of international law is an outrage that must be condemned.
The government has legislation designed to deter Canadians from joining other countries’ militaries. The Foreign Enlistment Act is supposed to prohibit Canadians from recruiting for a foreign army. It notes, “any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offence.”
Similarly, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) restricts registered charities from supporting other countries militaries. CRA guidelines note, “increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s armed forces is charitable, but supporting the armed forces of another country is not.”
Despite these rules, ambassador Lyons celebrated Canadians fighting for the IDF. The event promoting the IDF was a nod to a network of Canadian organizations backing the Israeli military. In November 1100 people attended an Association for the Soldiers of Israel–Canada and Canadian Zionist Cultural Association event in Toronto. The Canadian Jewish News reported, “the evening featured heartfelt and captivating speeches from IDF commanders, as well as a performance by the IDF Ensemble.”
Two months ago, Herut Canada brought Israeli military reservists to a number of Ontario universities. At York their event sparked a high-profile confrontation.
A number of Jewish day schools promote the Israeli military. At Toronto’s Leo Baeck an Israeli emissary spends a year at the school and when they return, notes the Canadian Jewish News, “engages with students by way of live video chat from their Israel Defence Forces barracks dressed in their military uniforms.” Students also pay “tribute to Israel’s fallen heroes” and fundraise for Beit Halochem Canada/Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel, which supports injured IDF soldiers.
At the other end of the age spectrum a group of 80-something Torontonians gather regularly to make hand-knitted tuques for IDF soldiers. They are part of the Hats for Israeli Soldiers initiative. Another organization that supports the IDF is Israel Defence Forces Widows & Orphans-Canada. Sar-El offers more concrete support to the IDF. Some 150 Canadians volunteer on Israeli army supply bases each year with an organization founded by an IDF general.
For its part, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (Canada) has sponsored “fun activities” for “lone soldiers.” Established by billionaire power couple Gerry Schwartz and Heather Reisman, the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers also supports non-Israelis in the IDF.
At its Toronto office, the Friends of Israeli Scouts’ Garin Tzabar program provides Hebrew lessons and support services, as well as help with transport and accommodation in Israel, for Canadian “lone soldiers”. Nefesh B’Nefesh’s also helps non-Israelis join the IDF.
In November the Israeli consulate in Toronto announced a military recruiting effort. According to their announcement, “an IDF representative will conduct personal interviews at the Consulate on November 11-14. Young people who wish to enlist in the IDF or anyone who has not fulfilled their obligations according to the Israeli Defense Service Law are invited to meet with him.”
Sar-El, Nefesh B’Nefesh, Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, Israel Defence Forces Widows & Orphans-Canada and Association for the Soldiers of Israel–Canada (through the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association) offer tax receipts for donations. In January of last year the Beth Oloth Charitable Organization, which had $60 million in revenue in 2017, had its charitable status revoked for supporting the Israeli military. Not particularly well known, the organization appears to have been a conduit for donations to different Israeli charities.
In response to a formal complaint submitted by four Palestine solidarity activists and Independent Jewish Voices Canada in fall 2017, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) began an audit of the Jewish National Fund for contravening Canadian charitable law. The JNF financed multiple projects for the Israeli military in direct contravention of CRA rules for registered charities. Despite the JNF openly supporting the Israeli military, the audit of its operations has gone on for two years. The CRA is undoubtedly facing significant behind-the-scenes pressure to let the JNF off with little more than a slap on the wrist. In 2013 Justin Trudeau attended a JNF gala and other Liberal cabinet ministers participated in more recent events put on by an explicitly racist organization that Liberal MP Michael Leavitt once oversaw. Ambassador Lyons attended a JNF event in Jerusalem in 2016 and another one in October.
Canadian charitable guidelines and the Foreign Enlistment Act are designed to deter Canadians from supporting other countries’ militaries. Yet Canada’s ambassador in Israel is celebrating Canadians fighting in that military.
How many Canadians consider that appropriate?
Is Pete Buttigieg the Israel Lobby Choice?
Cyberwarfare began in Iowa
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • February 11, 2020
Many Americans might consider it decidedly odd that the recent impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump also featured constant vilification of President Vladimir Putin, to such an extent that one might have thought that the Russian leader was also in the dock awaiting sentencing. The irony is, of course, that while “Russian interference” has virtually become a cliché, its actual impact on the 2016 election outcome was less than negligible.
Russia was cited seemingly incessantly by House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, to include the always useful assertion that “if we don’t fight them over there [in Ukraine] we’ll have to fight them over here.” Even more ridiculous, Schiff suggested that if Trump were to lose the presidential election later this year, he might well refuse to accept the result and could be supported by an invading Russian army.
Senator Charles Schumer of New York delivered one of the more astonishing pre-impeachment vote diatribes, tying Trump to foreign interests. He said “No greater subversion of our democracy than for foreign powers to determine our elections… My fellow Americans, asking for foreign interference in our elections is a high crime. Our Nation was founded on the idea of truth.” Yet the same Schumer brazenly claims that he is the “protector” of Israel in the U.S. Senate, that his surname is derived from the Hebrew “shomer” which means “guardian.”
Strangely, the country that, acting directly and through proxies like Schumer, does regularly and openly interfere in American politics and elections is Israel, but it was not mentioned at all in the hours of testimony in spite of the fact that Trump’s partiality towards the Jewish state has done more actual damage to genuine U.S. interests than the Kremlin was ever able to do. One would have thought Israel and its kleptocratic leader Benjamin Netanyahu would have deserved at least a nod from Congress.
Indeed, Israel has been involved in American politics before, even if it is predictably never held accountable, and it has been suggested that Russiagate was really Israelgate based on what actually took place when shortly after the 2016 election, when Trump National Security Adviser designate Michael Flynn called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The call was made at the direction of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who, in turn, had been approached by Netanyahu, who not coincidentally is a family friend of the Kushners.
Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included the call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23rd.
What exactly did Kushner seek from Flynn? He asked the soon-to-be National Security Adviser to get the Russians to undermine and subvert what was being done by the still-in-power American government in Washington headed by President Barack Obama. In legal terms this does not quite equate to the Constitution’s definition of treason since Israel is not technically an enemy, but it most certainly could be construed as covered by the “conspiracy against the United States” statute that Special Counsel Robert Mueller exploited in his investigations.
Currently, Israel may just turn out to be part of last week’s story of the astonishingly inept Democratic Party caucus in the state of Iowa. Award winning investigative journalist Max Blumenthal has provided the back story relating to the app that was developed to expedite Iowa’s voting but which instead delayed the reporting of the results for nearly a week. It now appears that the app might be part of an operation being funded by Jewish billionaires with close ties to right wing Israeli settler groups who are opposed to Senator Bernie Sanders and supporting Mayor Peter Buttigieg. The failed app that caused the problem was developed by a company called Shadow Inc., which was staffed by former Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters and funded by billionaire Seth Klarman, who also is a major contributor to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign and also has been linked to former and current senior members of the intelligence community. The Iowa Democratic Committee reported that the software that included the app was paid for by the Buttigieg campaign, “Pete for America Inc.”
Klarman is a deeply committed hard line Zionist. Blumenthal described in a separate article how “Klarman has been a top funder for major Israel lobby outfits, including those that support the expansion of illegal settlements and Islamophobic campaigns. Klarman was the principal financier of The Israel Project, the recently disbanded Israeli government-linked propaganda organization that lobbied against the Iran nuclear deal and backed the Israeli settlement enterprise. Klarman has heaped hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and the American Jewish Committee. And he funded The David Project, which was established to suppress Palestine solidarity organizing on college campuses across the U.S. and battled to block the establishment of a Muslim community center in Boston.”
Klarman also financially supports major Israeli lobbying and disinformation organizations to include AIPAC-founded Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the anti-Iranian neocon think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD. Blumenthal also reports that Klarman owns the Times of Israel, which once called for Palestinian genocide.
The delay in the Iowa results just might have been deliberate, possibly caused by the Shadow app. The New York Times review of the caucus results concluded that they were “riddled with errors and inconsistencies,” with tallies that are “internally inconsistent, that were missing data or that were not possible under the complex rules of the Iowa caucuses. In some cases, vote tallies do not add up. In others, precincts are shown allotting the wrong number of delegates to certain candidates. And in at least a few cases, the Iowa Democratic Party’s reported results do not match those reported by the precincts.”
Apart from possible fraud or even a hack, Senator Bernie Sanders, who appeared to be heading for a win, found that the inconclusive and even disputed result denied him momentum and a victory speech heading towards this week’s primary in New Hampshire. It also allowed Buttigieg to preemptively declare a predicted win on twitter even before any votes had been counted: “By all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious. #IowaCaucuses.” And it is possible that worse is to come as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) head Tom Perez is tweeting his intention to “recanvass,” which would mean a complete review of all work sheets and might even require new voting. It could conceivably cost Bernie a win. Sounds a bit like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?
It is, in fact, remarkable the extent to which Buttigieg has hardened his line supporting Israel. He has abandoned his commitment made last June that he would withhold aid from Israel if it were to seek to annex more of the West Bank, saying then that “If Prime Minister Netanyahu makes good on his threat to annex West Bank settlements, he should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill.”
Buttigieg also is on record as having said in October “I think that the aid is leverage to guide Israel in the right direction… that our policy goal will be to do what you do when a friend is moving in a way that you’re worried about, which is to put your arm around them and guide them somewhere better.”
Presidential aspirant Pete Buttigieg is not saying that any more. Mondoweiss reports an exchange he had in a speaking engagement in Iowa on January 29th with IfNotNow organizer Elias Newman:
Newman: … recently I was happy to see that you said if annexation happens that you’ll make sure the U.S. doesn’t foot the bill. So, I wanted to know… now that annexation is happening in full force, are you ready to commit? Are you ready to commit, to make sure the U.S. doesn’t send a blank check to Israel?
Buttigieg: The U.S. cannot be promoting annexation, like it is under this president. By the way, I am not talking about withdrawing aid or withdrawing our support from Israel–
Newman: You’re not willing to make good on your commitment–
Buttigieg: Well, if you’re asking me to commit to withdrawing American support for Israel, the answer is no.
Newman: I asked you a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question…. are you committed ‘yes’ or ‘no’, to withdrawing aid for the occupation
Buttigieg: I stand by what I said about this.
Newman: What, just now or a couple months ago?
Buttigieg: So, if you’re asking me in light of the president’s proposal, I would withdraw aid from Israel? The answer is no.
In short, Buttigieg is a manufactured corporate candidate who is little more than an empty suit, having no core values whatsoever apart from seeking to become the first gay president. The Establishment is comfortable with him and he is good-looking, seemingly affable and articulate, though he suffers from an unpronounceable surname. He has now checked the box making him acceptable to the Israeli government and its powerful domestic lobby, which have always been suspicious of Trump even as he gives them gift after gift. Being Israel-friendly is also a must with the mainstream media.
But perhaps the more important question must be related to the actual extent of Buttigieg’s possible involvement in another DNC/Clinton inspired and Israel-supporter financed scheme to stop Bernie Sanders. There are indications that Zionist attack ads directed against Sanders have already been and will continue to be surfacing. No one is seemingly asking, for example, whether the Shadow Inc. app, which was vulnerable to hacking, might have actually been able to change the vote totals without leaving an electronic footprint? Or was it designed to fail, casting doubts on the caucus result, which would most hurt a surging Sanders? Someone should ask Pete if we “have seen the last of anything like the app that he and his apparent paymasters unleashed in Iowa to subvert the electoral process?” Stay tuned.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Exposed: The “Con of The Century” Will Not Bring Peace
State of Palestine, PLO Negotiations Affairs Department | February 9, 2020
Everything you need to know about Trump’s “apartheid” deal :
1. Does the plan, presented by U.S. President Trump, support an independent and sovereign State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, or a Greater Israel between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean?
The plan outrageously dismisses the right of Palestine to exist as an independent, sovereign, and contiguous State. By sponsoring the legalization of Israeli illegal settlements and dictating that none will be dismantled, the plan simply represents the annexation of territory, rendering a free Palestine impossible. Under this plan, Israel would retain its overriding security control over vast areas of occupied Palestine, including its capital East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. It suggests a fictional State of Palestine, whereby it substitutes territorial contiguity with “transportation contiguity” thus undermining the very viability of Palestinian statehood. This fictional state will be divided into a series of enclaves, scattered around like an archipelago to be connected by tunnels and bridges, allowing Israel to maintain security control over Palestinian terrestrial and maritime borders, airspace, and natural resources. As such, the plan cancels all possibilities for the State of Palestine to exercise any meaningful sovereignty and the very security of the state. On the other hand, the plan outlines total support for a Greater Israel between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean.
While fully serving the interests of the State of Israel alone, the plan constitutes a continuation of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and Israel’s Jewish-Nation State law of 2018. It aims to formalize the Greater Israel colonial project over the land of historic Palestine, which denies the national rights of the Palestinian people and only allows them to live in self-governing Bantustans with barely a handful of civil and religious rights. It relieves Israel of the burden of paying the cost of its occupation and assuming its responsibilities as an occupying power.
2. Does the plan constitute a “peace” plan or an “apartheid” plan?
By legalizing the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory to the Israeli state, and limiting Palestinians to dis-contiguous enclaves on their own land, the plan consolidates an already existing system where two sets of laws apply in the occupied Palestinian territory: one for Israeli settlers and another one for the occupied Palestinian people. While Israeli law is applicable to illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank of Palestine, Palestinians are subject to Israeli military laws and courts. Not only does the plan propose a Palestinian state with no sovereignty, but it spells out a one-state reality with two systems, whereby Palestinians continue to be denied the political, economic, cultural and social rights that are enjoyed by Israeli Jews. Indeed, with the number of Palestinians, in the State of Palestine and Palestinian citizens of Israel already surpassing the number of Israeli Jews in the land between the river Jordan and Mediterranean, Israel is one step away of becoming a full-fledged apartheid state. In all, this plan demands that the Palestinian leadership and people submit to total subjugation in Israel’s apartheid state.
3. Is the plan in line with the two-state solution on the 1967 border?
At the outset of this plan, its authors introduce the conflict as one between “the State of Israel and the Palestinians,” effectively destroying the two-state solution and deceptively erases the 1967 border, known as the Green Line. The defined borders of the internationally recognized State of Palestine by 139 nations worldwide in accordance with UN resolution 67/19 of 2012 are located within the 1967 borders, comprising the West Bank, including the capital East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, Israel has not yet defined its borders. Not only does the map endorsed by President Trump eliminate the 1967 border, but it also recognizes Israel’s illegal facts on the ground and its de-facto ‘one state with two systems’. Unmistakably, the plan supports the realization of a Greater Israel that erodes the concept of the internationally endorsed two-state solution and replaces it with apartheid.
4. Does the plan respect international law and United Nations resolutions?
The plan brazenly violates international law and consensus, and all United Nations Resolutions concerning the question of Palestine. This includes resolutions endorsing the two-state solution, others considering Israeli settlements as illegal, resolutions recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of the State Palestine, and deeming any alterations to Jerusalem by Israel as null and void, and resolutions recognizing the rights of Palestine refugees to return and compensation. The plan normalizes (i) the colonization of Palestine, in violation of international law and UN resolutions (ii) annexation of occupied Palestinian territory, manifestly illegal under international law and deemed a crime of aggression under Rome Statute and (iii) apartheid, recognized as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.
Both the US and Israel are thus defying and threatening international law and order to replace them with a racist, hegemonic and exploitative new world order. As stated by Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967: “This plan would turn the rules-based international order on its head and would permanently entrench the tragic subjugation of the Palestinians that is already existing on the ground,”. He added that: “The abandonment of these legal principles threatens to unravel the long-standing international consensus on the conflict, favouring realpolitik over rights, power over justice and conflict management over conflict resolution.”
5. Which party is rejecting the internationally-endorsed references to achieve peace?
Based on international law and relevant UN resolutions, the Palestinian Peace Initiative of 1988 marked a historic and painful compromise by accepting Israel’s right to exist on 78 percent of the land of historic Palestine, with the State of Palestine on the remaining 22 percent, comprised of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Unlike Israel, which continues to create illegal facts on the ground and to violate both international law and signed agreements, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) continues to honor all its international obligations, including under signed agreements with Israel, and to seize every opportunity to achieve peace and the right of the people of Palestine to self-determination. During the past thirty-two years, the PLO has been genuinely engaged in the peace process that started with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and concluded with the last round of negotiations led by the former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014, which failed as a result of Israel’s continued use of negotiations as a smokescreen to violate Palestinian rights and international law.
On the other hand, since the signing of the Oslo Interim Agreement in 1993, Israel has been heavily engaged in a colonial process of settlement building on Palestinian territory, while continuing to violate nearly all Palestinian rights, at the expense of the peace process. Israel has been systematically destroying the very foundations of the peace process as it continues to appropriate Palestinian land and transfer of its own civilian population into the occupied Palestinian territory, in clear violation of international law.
According to the Israeli NGO Peace Now, until 1994, there was over 280,000 Jewish Israeli settlers living in occupied Palestine. In contrast, the current available statistics show that this number has almost tripled to more than 640,000 settlers living in over 200 settlements, including 42 in and around occupied Jerusalem. In fact, during the past decade alone, according to a recently published report by an Israeli settler organization, the number of Israeli settlers increased by 48 percent. In 2019 alone, there was an increase of 3.4%, which is more than double the rate of population growth in Israel proper that reached 1.9% at the beginning of 2020.
6. How does the plan prejudge core issues reserved for permanent status negotiations?
Through a series of unilateral decisions, and since its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017, the Trump administration has methodically been undermining the permanent status negotiations mainly concerning the core issues: borders, Jerusalem, and the question of Palestine refugees. A careful reading of the Trump plan shows how all its details embody the racist vision of the most ideologically extreme Israeli settlers, who have been gradually empowered since the assassination of the former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and in fact have been leading the State of Israel for over a decade now.
Overall, the plan denies Palestinians’ sovereign statehood, recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, violates the historic status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, by imposing time and location divisions inside the compound for different faiths, legalizes the annexation of all Israeli settlements, and categorically dismisses the rights of Palestine refugees. By allowing Israel to expand and perpetuate its colonial-settlement enterprise, the plan negates the Palestinian right to self-determination and proposes an alternative to the international terms of reference for negotiations between Israel and Palestine, all in violation of international law, UN resolutions, international consensus, and previously signed agreements. Engaging with this plan means a legitimization of Israel’s acquisition of territory by force and a perpetuation of its superiority and domination over the land and lives of the people of Palestine. In other words, it legitimizes “might over right.”
7. Can the economic part of the plan be a substitute or an alternative to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace?
The State of Palestine has the right to exercise its sovereignty with independent financial and monetary plans, control over its imports and export policies, as well as with access to its borders and natural resources, including water, minerals, natural gas, and oil resources. It is only through a just and lasting peace that Palestine can ensure the independence, prosperity, and sustainability of its economy, beginning with an end to Israel’s occupation and the fulfillment of Palestinian statehood and inalienable rights. According to various economic studies, Palestine has great economic potential and the number one obstacle to achieving that potential is the Israeli occupation. For example, in 2013, a World Bank report estimated that if Israeli restrictions on Area C of the West Bank were lifted it “could bring about significant expansion of many sectors of the Palestinian economy,” which will be able to generate $2.2 billion a year in value added terms. According to the report: “The bulk of this would come from agriculture and Dead Sea minerals exploitation.” The Dead Sea, a strategic area for Palestine, is promised to Israel in the Trump plan.
In all, the economic portion of the plan is a failed attempt to cover up for the prolongation of Israel’s belligerent occupation and the theft of Palestinian land and resources.
8. What is the position of the State of Palestine?
The State of Palestine considers the U.S. apartheid plan as blatant aggression against the inalienable rights of the people of Palestine, which were endorsed by the United Nations to enable our nation to exercise its right to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and the right of our refugees to return. The plan undermines international law and the role United Nations, and hence constitutes a direct threat to the people of Palestine and their just cause, and on the entire international rules-based system as we know it. It considers all Israeli settlements as legal, including those in East Jerusalem – Palestine’s internationally recognized capital, which is comprised of the Old City and the surrounding area of 6 km2.
The State of Palestine has endorsed all relevant UN resolutions and international law as the basis of any solution towards the achievement of peace. It considers the Arab Peace Initiative (API) as the foundation formula that can achieve the diplomatic and economic integration of Israel into the region in exchange for ending its occupation of all Arab territories, including the Lebanese Shebaa Farms, Arab Syrian Golan and the occupied State of Palestine, as well as achieving a just and agreed-upon solution to the question of Palestine refugees.
9. What are the positions of the international community and the Arab world?
While a number of countries “welcomed” the U.S announcement, none have endorsed the plan. But the majority of the responses were positive in insisting on the importance of the two-state solution, international law, and relevant UN resolutions as the way forward to achieve peace. This includes the European Union, through a statement issued by the High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell, which affirmed the EU’s position that “does not recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied since 1967”, and considered that “Steps towards annexation, if implemented, could not pass unchallenged.” Also, the Arab League decided “to reject the American – Israeli ‘Deal of the Century’, which does not meet the minimum of the Palestinian people’s aspirations and rights, and violates all of the references of the peace process that are based on international law and the pertinent international resolutions.” Additionally, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) reaffirmed “its rejection of any plan, deal, or initiative submitted by any party whatsoever, which is inconsistent with the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in agreed international legitimacy resolutions, or not in conformity with internationally recognized terms of reference of the Middle East peace process, foremost of which is international law, UN resolutions, and the Arab Peace Initiative.”
10. What is the way forward to achieve peace?
Our vision to achieve peace is fundamentally based on the end of Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine. An independent and viable State of Palestine can only be based on complete sovereignty over our territory and our resources; control over our borders, airspace, and maritime boundaries; and, most importantly, self-determination: the ability to freely determine the shape of our political, civil, economic, cultural and social lives. Henceforth, the way forward should be in line with international law, and the system of justice and accountability that the international legal order is designed to preserve. Any plan that flouts international law and United Nations resolutions, and instead legitimizes illegal land theft and annexation is no peace plan at all. This is why, the recent Palestinian Peace Initiative of 2018, as proposed by President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations Security Council, can achieve such an objective.
The Palestinian Peace Initiative calls for the implementation of the principle of the two-state solution on the 1967 borders. While proposing the convening of an international peace conference that is firmly based on international law, the plan specifies that unilateral actions that may undermine final status negotiations should not be taken. The overall vision of this plan is clear: it is based on the respect of international legitimacy and relevant UN resolutions, including with the fulfillment of a just and agreed-upon solution for Palestine refugees based on UN resolution 194 that stipulates their right to return to their homes and to just compensation. The plan calls for “East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine and an open city for the faithful of the three monotheistic religions.” It as well demands ensuring the security of both Palestine and Israel “without undermining the independence and sovereignty of either of them.” Ultimately, our vision for peace requires justice and an ability to exercise our rights freely in our homeland. We remain confident that with the support of peace-loving nations that seek to preserve the threatened international order, we will succeed in our pursuit of this just and long-lasting peace.
Israel hands Sheikh Raed Salah 28-month jail term
MEMO | February 10, 2020
An Israeli court today sentenced Palestinian resistance icon Sheikh Raed Salah to 28 months in prison, stoking strong condemnation of the country’s legal system and the suppression of free speech.
Salah received a 28-month prison sentence from the Haifa Magistrate’s Court for remarks he had made at a funeral in 2017. The 61-year-old has already served 11 months in detention as part of his sentence and is therefore expected to remain in prison for 17 months.
Israeli police arrested Salah nearly three years ago, accusing the former mayor of Umm Al-Fahm of praising three Arab Israelis who shot dead two police officers in a July 2017 attack. In November, he was convicted of “incitement” and engaging in “anti-Israel activities” for remarks he had made during the funeral of the three assailants.
According to the indictment, Salah praised the attackers saying: “At these moments [we need to stand together] as one house, as one family. We take leave of our martyrs … and express the wish that they join the prophets, the righteous ones and the martyrs. At these moments, may we pray that God increases their value in the heavens in paradise.”
In his defence Salah argued that his views were religious opinions rooted in the Quran, and did not constitute a direct call to violence. Salah’s lawyer also explained that the remarks were made within the context of a religious sermon and urged Israel “to not prosecute him for his faith and beliefs”.
Haifa Magistrate’s Court Judge Shlomo Benjo conceded that some of Salah’s remarks at the funeral had been mistranslated but still ruled that the translation errors did not alter the general meaning of his comments.
“Despite the attempts to give the defendant’s statements a religious character, the conclusion is that the accused expressed praise, sympathy and support for the attacks,” the judge said in delivering his verdict.
Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen criticised the decision by pointing to the normalisation of incitement to hate and violence in Israeli society.
“In a country where the prime minister, senior ministers and main religious figures incite against the Arab public and its leaders from morning till night, Raed Salah’s conviction marks another step in the political persecution of the Arab,” Jabareen wrote on Twitter. He explained that the verdict marked “a dangerous erosion of freedom of expression for the leadership and delegitimisation of political and religious activity”.
Muhammad Baraka, the head of the Higher Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, also dismissed the verdict. The “ruling was prepared in advance, and was based on racist foundations and incitement against Arabs,” Baraka was quoted as saying in a Turkish news source.
In an interview, Salah’s lawyer, Khaled Zabarqa, said that Israel’s endless efforts to silence the Palestinian leader was intended to pave the way for the controversial peace plan known as the “deal of the century”.
According to Zabarqa, Israel has been planning for the past two years to ban any appearance by Sheikh Salah due to his ability to mobilise Palestinians to reject any Israeli plan intending to terminate Palestinian rights in Jerusalem.
See also:
Palestinians in Israel are the next target for the deal of the century
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The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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